‘It’ll take about a minute for the charge to dissipate,’ Malden explained.
The fizzing from Saul’s modem waned to nothingness, and he already began to feel the computer network establishing itself around him; radio and microwave channels beginning to open up. Malden was now checking the positioning of all his soldiers throughout the chamber, so Saul launched his own penetration of the network, began putting all of himself online. It opened up around him a multidimensional reality into which he could slot himself. He began tracking and interpreting the information, starting to feel the shape of the codes and their purpose, and quickly managed to seize an updated schematic of the entire space station. Then Malden was in there with him doing precisely the same: becoming a node within that network and extruding informational tentacles. Saul glanced towards him, but Malden still wasn’t even looking at him; in fact seemed unaware of any other presence in the network.
With more of the network opening to him, other links began to open, too, and one piece of traffic in particular called for Saul’s attention. He remained wary of it until he recognized it as something instituted by Janus before their integration: the results of the search for his sister. Something tightened inside him and he wanted to inspect this data at once, but time ran out. Suddenly, looming on a horizon of pure information, there appeared a great black shape like a clenched fist, or a thundercloud expanding. It was the comlife that had been hounding him from the first moment he had opened his mind to the net.
‘Malden,’ he conveyed a warning, in some manner beyond normal speech.
Malden sensed him at once, at last focusing on him within that virtual world. In the real world he turned and raised his machine pistol, aiming it straight at Saul’s face.
‘Withdraw,’ he instructed brusquely, ‘or die.’
Saul hesitated for just a moment, and Malden shifted his aim slightly, firing a burst just past him, ricochets zinging around behind. Saul began pulling himself out, shutting down his connection, but he kept his mind working at its optimum – all of his mind.
‘There’s something else here,’ he declared. ‘Comlife.’
‘Withdraw,’ Malden repeated,
Saul pulled out completely, and Malden lowered his weapon.
‘Reality wins every time,’ he said, and smiled.
Yes, it did, and in his enhanced state Saul saw the reality here with a painful clarity. The station schematic in his head revealed massive reconstruction inside, huge additions outside, but specifically it showed all points of access to this particular place. They would use low-velocity, soft-plastic slugs capable of penetrating spacesuits and human flesh, but less likely to damage the equipment located in here. A maintenance tunnel lay below those ridiculous steps, and that was one access point they wouldn’t be using. For why use such a narrow approach when those above it enabled such a much wider field of fire? Already every soldier present here would have been located precisely by the monitoring system.
He stepped back beside Hannah and tightened a hand around her upper arm, leaning in close. ‘Get ready to run,’ he urged her.
Braddock was gazing at them suspiciously, swinging his machine pistol back towards them. But soon enough he would find other distractions.
‘Too easy,’ Saul remarked to the soldier. ‘They were ready for us.’
Malden turned. ‘They were lax. They were—’
All at once he seemed to lose the ability to speak, just mouthing words but nothing coming out. He slapped one hand to his face, digging in his fingers before letting it drop, then screamed loudly and began to slump. Keeping his machine pistol trained on them, Braddock moved towards Malden, as the man finally collapsed to his knees, his head bowed.
‘Your revolution served the purpose of the people down below.’ Malden said in a voice not his own. ‘But it serves no purpose up here.’ His head snapped upright and he turned it towards Hannah and Saul. ‘But I’m so glad you brought me these two traitors to the State.’
Weapons fire erupted, a stuttering mechanical sound like faulty diesel engines starting up. Numerous sources began laying down a withering fire. Up above, a figure flew backwards to slam into a scaffold pole, shattered bullets and fragments of his suit spraying out all around, and a mist of blood behind him. He grabbed the pole, trying to reorient himself, but the harsh slapping impact of bullets just continued, till eventually his grip slackened and he tumbled slowly away. The firing continued amid shouting transmitted over com. As Saul turned away, dragging Hannah after him, something exploded over to their right, where he glimpsed a splash of blood up one wall.
Braddock hurled himself aside as impacts tracked across the floor, throwing fragments of blue plastic in every direction. Their path terminated at Malden, who began to shudder convulsively as shots tracked up his back, the rounds shattering inside him but failing to penetrate all the way through. He vomited blood as the force of the shots threw him forward. Elsewhere someone began shrieking as he gyrated downwards, a bullet hole in his airpack acting like a jet motor. He slammed against the side of a transformer, next into the floor, then spun round and started to rise again. A short burst of fire tore his airpack apart, and most of his chest.
They were now under the steps, where Saul pulled open a circular hatch only half a metre in diameter and pushed Hannah down towards it. Bullets rattled against the stairway above, peppering more blue plastic through the air. Braddock, over to his left now, stepped out briefly and fired upwards, but the intensity of return fire forced him back under cover. He was shouting, the words resonating in Saul’s ears, asking for a response but receiving none. Saul felt that if he who had spoken through Malden’s mouth really wanted them all dead, dead they would be by now. But the speaker wanted Hannah, and also wanted Saul.
They crawled through the maintenance tunnel as fast as they could. Firing echoed behind them, and he turned back to see Braddock entering the tunnel, shooting behind him from the cover of its mouth. No firing in return this time; none at all. Then out into a long low room lined with gas cylinders, illuminated by their helmet lights only.
‘What happened to Malden?’ Hannah asked breathlessly, but he could sense she had already guessed.
‘The comlife got him.’
‘Got him?’
‘Went straight into his skull and spoke through him, which it could do easily enough since it is comlife with a human component.’
‘The way he spoke . . .’ she began, but didn’t want to say out loud what she was thinking.
‘You mean with Interrogator Smith’s voice?’
She bowed her head. ‘We’re dead, aren’t we?’
‘Either that or we may want to be,’ he replied.
Just then the EM came back on, whining in his head.
‘Who is this Smith, then?’ Braddock gazed at them intently.
Hannah sat herself upright in the confined space, and looked across at the man. Braddock was resting against one wall, with his machine pistol in his lap; he could turn it on them in an instant.
‘He’s the political director up here on Argus,’ said Hannah, a slight catch in her voice.
‘I know that,’ Braddock snapped, now focusing his gaze on Saul. ‘But there’s something else. How the hell did he do that to Malden?’
‘Hannah?’ Saul enquired, looking across at her for an answer.
She dipped her head and stared at the floor, trying to dispel her doom-laden thoughts so that she could restore her mind to its analytical best. She now looked up at Saul. ‘He was our political director, so he must have taken whatever he wanted of my research and applied it to himself – whether with government permission or not, I don’t know.’ To Braddock she now continued, ‘He’s the same type as Malden, but managed to outmanoeuvre Malden because he was well prepared, and because he’s been running the hardware in his skull longer and knows better how to use it.’