Will stepped into the middle of the tunnel, one leg brushing the cold metal of the maglev rail. He swept his Thrummer back and forth like a spotlight, looking for a target, but all he could see were shadows, haunting the empty alcoves between the stanchions and the end of the tunnel, where it joined the shuttlenet.
‘Where are you, you wee-’
Something snatched at his ankle and pulled.
The floor disappeared beneath Will’s feet and he tumbled backwards, hitting the concrete hard. The Thrummer roared in his hands, filling the dark tunnel with blue light that danced in an expanding ball of dust as a chunk of ceiling evaporated. His head cracked against the tunnel wall and the weapon jumped out of his hands, skittering away down the passageway. It clattered to a halt, the lightsight pointing back up the tunnel, casting grotesque shadow puppets across the concrete as Peitai leapt on him. Teeth flashing in the green glow.
A hand grabbed Will’s face and he sank his teeth into it-not caring if there was glass in the palm or not.
Ken screamed, a bellow of animal pain with nothing human in it.
Will scrabbled away from the reaching hands. Not fast enough. Something slashed across his cheek and he felt the hot sting of flesh parting beneath multiple tiny blades of glass.
Bastard! He drove his knee into Ken’s groin, hard enough to jack-knife him three feet into the air. Peitai collapsed, vomiting, clutching his groin.
Will scrubbed at the cuts on his face with the sleeve of his jump suit. The little bastard had infected him!
‘Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!’
There had to be something in the jumpsuit’s med-kit he could use. He fell to his knees and fought the pouch free from its clips, spilling the contents across the floor.
‘Blockers, skinpaint, dressing,’ His hands fumbled through the pieces, spreading them far and wide. ‘Skinglue…Where the fuck’s the Biolene?’ His fingers wrapped around a tube of sterilizing paste. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all that he had. He ripped the top off with his teeth and mashed the sticky gloop into the cuts on his cheek. Then did the same with his torn eyebrow, just in case whatever it was could be transmitted through Ken’s infected saliva.
He looked up, suddenly aware that he’d taken his eyes off the evil little bastard for far too long. Peitai wasn’t rolling around on the concrete holding his ruptured testicles any more-he was on his feet, limping, knock-kneed down the tunnel towards the fallen Thrummer. Will scrabbled after him, but it was too late. Ken had made it out of the branchline and into the main tunnel, snatching the assault weapon up off the deck.
Peitai screamed at him, the words making no sense, jumbling into one another like meat in a grinder as the Thrummer’s lightsight caught Will in its green gaze.
A soft whisper of air stirred the dust cloud of evaporated ceiling. Will looked about for somewhere to hide, but all he could see was empty tunnel. His eyes darted back to Ken-the little man seemed to be lit up from within, a soft nimbus of white light sparkling around him, getting brighter with every heartbeat…
The shuttle hit him hard enough to spread him all over the inside of the tunnel like pâté.
30
She follows the old man as he hurries through the facility, making for the hidden exit to Monstrosity Square-the one they used to sneak her through for their little Twenty Questions torture sessions. He knows the value of discretion when the Network comes a-rampaging armed to the teeth. She lets him get all the way to the doorlock before she stops him.
‘Hold it right there!’ She bathes him in the Bull Thrummer’s targeting beam.
He doesn’t flinch, she admires that. Instead he pulls himself up to his full height and turns on her. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to do here,’ he says, all clipped and educated, not moving a muscle. ‘But I can assure you I am not someone you want to interfere with.’
She swings the Bull Thrummer up and evaporates a chunk of roof above his head. Concrete particles drift down over his tall, black-cloated shoulders like microscopic dandruff.
He coughs and splutters as the dust settles. ‘You have no idea who you’re dealing with. Your Network friends aren’t going to save you. I can make you disappear, just like that!’ He snaps his long, surgeon’s fingers and she laughs.
‘I’ve already disappeared.’ She pulls a pebbled disk from her jumpsuit pocket, then twists the Palm Zapper’s power dial down to ‘LIGHT STUN’, keeping the Thrummer on him at the same time. ‘Now it’s your turn.’
He sticks his chest out like a fighting cock. ‘Do you have any idea who I am?’
‘You,’ she says, pointing the Palm Zapper at his face, ‘are Tomuku Kikan. You stole my research, you stole my face, you stole my life.’ She smiles: a cold, sharp, hard-edged thing. Broken glass. ‘Did you really think you’d get away with it Tomuku? Did you?’ Her finger caresses the trigger gently and little sparks dance around the disk’s rim. ‘You should have known better than that.’
‘Who…’ There’s uncertainty in his eyes now. ‘Who are you?’
She just smiles and shoots him.
The shuttle didn’t even slow down. It sped away down the main line, the stanchion lights fading out behind it. Will stood in the growing darkness with chunks of Ken Peitai congealing on his jumpsuit.
The sound of small arms fire filtered down the tunnel behind him, punctuated by the unmistakable clatter of Whompers and Thrummers. Will turned and staggered back towards the shuttle platform and the orange flashing emergency lighting.
When he’d got as far as the crashed shuttle he slumped back against the twisted metal. The wreckage groaned in sympathy.
‘Where’s the wee shite?’ Brian swung his Whomper across the tunnel behind Will.
Will looked down at his splattered and stained jumpsuit. ‘I think that’s his ear.’
‘Don’t be a bamheid.’ Brian peered at him. ‘That’s a kidney.’
Will peeled it off the front of his chest and dropped it to the floor. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’
A soft ‘thump’ sounded from further up the tunnel and what was left of the platform doors exploded in a whirlwind of glass and plastic. Two figures, just visible through the thick pall of dust, picked themselves out of the debris. They tried to return fire, but something large roared, turning them both into a fine red mist.
‘Jesus!’ said Brian. ‘Emily’s no’ takin’ any prisoners.’
Someone stalked out of the ruined doorway onto the platform, a Bull Thrummer growling in their hands.
‘Cat!’ Will clambered to his feet and jogged back up the tunnel towards the murky figure.
‘Hold it right there!’ It wasn’t Cat; it didn’t even sound human.
‘Dickson? That you?’ Will had to squint, the siege weapon’s targeting beam had turned the foamcrete and human dust into solid green soup.
‘On your knees, hands where I can see them!’
Will sank to the floor and did as he was told. Something alien emerged from the mist, all lumpy and misshapen. The figure flipped up its visor and pulled the breather off its face.
‘Lieutenant,’ Dickson said into her throat-mike, ‘I’ve found him.’ She gave Will a small smile and clipped the mask back over her mouth. ‘You can get up now, sir.’
‘Agent Alexander and DS Cameron are back there, near the shuttle wreck. We need to get Jo to a hospital ASAP.’ He pointed at the Bull Thrummer in her hands. ‘There’s another member of my team, a Bluecoat, carrying one of those. She’s still in the facility.’
‘I’ve not seen anyone, but I can ask.’ Dickson put out the call and another strange, alien figure emerged out of the mist. Two gold pips painted on the chitin’s shoulder plates, a glowing digital readout with ‘BRAND’ on the chest. Emily.
The three of them walked back towards the flickering orange hazard lights in uncomfortable silence.