‘Easy,’ said Saul, spreading his hands wide, and licking his lips. His Cobra lay just out of reach. ‘You’re the reason my uplink isn’t working, right?’
‘Some things are better without witnesses,’ Hanover replied, his nostrils dilating. He stepped slightly to the side and kicked Saul’s rifle back inside the blazing office. Shouts and more gunfire echoed through the compound outside.
‘Maybe you should tell me just what’s going on,’ Saul replied, keeping his voice even.
‘I already explained myself.’
‘And I don’t know what you were talking about. You said you were a scapegoat, but a scapegoat for what?’
Hanover regarded him with obvious disbelief. ‘You really don’t have any idea what’s going on, do you?’
‘I’m guessing you’re the reason that whoever we came looking for had enough advance warning to clear out before we arrived. If that hijacked shipment was ever here, it’s long gone by now, am I right?’
‘Let me give you some idea of how things really stand, Mr Dumont,’ said Hanover, the muscles in his neck rigid with anger. ‘We’re all dead men now. I’ve seen the world covered in ashes and, sometime very soon, the colonies – Kepler, Newton, all of them – are going to be on their own. They’re going to need strong leadership if they’re going to have any chance of surviving.’
Even from a few metres away, the heat was appalling. Smoke billowed along the ceiling of the corridor, until Hanover ducked in order to avoid it.
‘You’re talking about the separatists, right?’ Saul guessed.
Hanover laughed again, louder. ‘No.’ He swallowed, and for a moment Saul thought the man was about to start crying. He watched the barrel of the Agnessa wobble just centimetres away from his face.
‘No,’ Hanover repeated, regaining some of his composure. ‘Now listen to me carefully. Local government forces are storming tund. They’re going to take us into custody. Your job is to go back home with your tail between your legs, and deliver my message. Is that clear?’
He’s crazy, thought Saul, realizing in that moment that he might very well be about to die. He watched with numb fascination as Hanover took a firmer, two-handed grip on his weapon.
‘Sir?’
Hanover twisted around sharply to see Helena Bryant standing at the far end of the corridor, her face smudged and dirty, one hand clutching a wound in her shoulder. From the expression on her face, Saul guessed she’d been standing there long enough to hear most of what Hanover had said.
Hanover brought his pistol around and fired; the bullet caught her in the jaw, ripping bone and flesh away and exiting through the back of her skull. Helena staggered back against the side of the corridor, her body jerking once before slumping lifeless to the floor, like a discarded rag doll.
Hanover quickly brought the Agnessa round to bear on Saul again, motioning him to move back towards the stairwell. Saul complied, crouching to keep his face beneath the billowing smoke and almost stumbling over Helena’s corpse.
‘What’s going to happen to the rest of your people?’ asked Saul, as they entered the stairwell.
‘They’ll die honourably,’ said Hanover. ‘And if you don’t keep moving, you’ll be joining them.’
Saul looked through the window across the stairwell, and spotted yet more flares tumbling down, staining the buildings and surrounding jungle orange. He heard voices calling to each other in Mandarin, then realized the gunfire had ceased.
‘Go on,’ said Hanover, waggling his pistol towards the stairs. ‘Head on down.’
Saul didn’t move.
‘Didn’t you hear me? Get the hell down there,’ Hanover snapped. ‘And when – if – you get back home, take my advice: pack a bag, head for Florida, pick a colony and go there. Any damn one.’
‘I can’t leave until I get some real answers,’ Saul replied.
‘Don’t try me, son,’ Hanover grated. ‘I’ll shoot you, too, if I have to.’
‘But then who’ll deliver your message for you?’ Saul asked, noting there was now barely a metre separating him from the other man. ‘And what exactly is it that you think is going to happen?’
‘I said don’t try my—’
Saul pushed off with his right foot, slamming the heel of one hand into Hanover’s jaw. He saw the other man’s knuckles whiten as they squeezed the trigger, and twisted his body out of the way as the bullets slammed into the floor and the walls.
Hanover grunted and fought back, but Saul had the advantage now. He hit Hanover hard in the belly, and the Agnessa spun out of his hand. Saul dived for it, landing on the floor and twisting around to aim it up at Hanover – only to find him staring back down at him with an expression of infinite contempt.
In that same moment, Saul heard the sound of the safety being taken off several rifles.
He twisted around to see half a dozen Taiwanese soldiers in fatigues, their weapons levelled at him, the red dots from their laser sights dancing across his chest.
‘If I were you,’ Hanover wheezed from behind him, ‘I’d think really hard before moving so much as a fucking muscle.’
TEN
Secure Military Facility (location unknown), 29 January 2235
‘When I said I didn’t have the time to fuck around any more,’ said Albright, his voice flat and emotionless, ‘I meant I really didn’t have the time to fuck around any more.’
Mitchell spat out a mouthful of blood and used his tongue to feel for the gap where one of his teeth had been until a few moments ago. He leaned forward, grunting as he tested the leather straps securing him to the chair, but there was very little give.
Albright paced in front of him, taking short drags on a cigarette. The stink of the tobacco made Mitchell want to sneeze. The third man in the room – Albright had called him Scott – stepped back, massaging the knuckles of one bruised fist while studying Mitchell with a malevolent expression.
They had come for him that morning, using a gun loaded with tranquillizer darts to knock him out before dragging him down to the garage located in the building’s basement. A truck sat on a raised platform towards the rear of the space, tools mounted on racks lining the nearby walls. Mitchell had also noted a work desk littered with drills and hand-held plasma torches, and fervently hoped Albright wasn’t intending to use any of those on him.
The concrete drain in the centre of the floor was still dark from the freezing water they’d hosed him down with after strapping him into the chair. Not that they’d been able to get him into it without a struggle, given that Mitchell had come to just as they’d hustled him down the steps leading to the garage. He had managed to wriggle out of the grasp of the two guards escorting him, but Scott had slammed him face-first on to a workbench, before delivering a roundhouse kick that dropped him to the ground. The guards had then strapped him in while he was still dazed and half-conscious.
‘There has to be some reason why you survived,’ said Albright, his voice thick with impatience. ‘What kept you alive while the rest of the human race died en masse?’
‘I don’t know.’
Scott glanced over his shoulder at Albright, but Albright merely shook his head. The glowing tip of his cigarette painted patterns of light in the dimly lit space, as he took a draw.
‘You want one?’ Albright asked, raising the cigarette when he noticed Mitchell was looking at it. ‘It’s the healthy kind. Lots of antioxidants and anti-cancer agents. My doctor swears by it.’
‘No thanks,’ Mitchell swallowed, tasting his own blood.
Albright came closer, kneeling before Mitchell and regarding him from just a few centimetres away. ‘Here’s what I don’t get,’ he said. ‘Why aren’t you rushing to help us find some way to try and stop this whole terrible tragedy from ever happening?’