Coldbrook (Hammer) (56 page)

‘Holly, we haven’t got a fucking second so we’ve—’

‘I’m not leaving, Vic.’ She was sitting at the desk again, gaze flickering across the screens, back to Vic, screens again.

‘What?’

Holly was crying. Smiling. ‘You came back for me.’

‘To help. Are you done? Come on, let’s get the fuck—’

‘I lied,’ she said. ‘You never did understand the core. I
could
adapt it, but that’s a long process, takes days. So I’ve bypassed a load of shit, rigged the containment to shut down instead. And that’s manual.’

‘No,’ Vic breathed.

‘One code away, Vic. Core exposure. And you know what that means.’

‘It means no one ever comes back,’ he said.

‘Back to what?’ Holly nodded at the screens. She could barely look at him.

‘But the cure,’ he said. ‘Everything we’ve been fighting for.’

‘There are other worlds to save.’

No
, Vic thought.
No, no, this isn’t why I came back, this can’t be—

But when Holly said, ‘You should go back to your family,’ Vic knew that it was. He had come back for a reason, and perhaps there was still time.

He walked to Holly and put his arms around her. She sighed, pressing her face against his. Then he lifted her from the chair and carried her towards the door.

‘Vic!’

He shoved her through, kicking aside her leg as she braced her foot against the frame. She sprawled on the floor, and Vic stood for a moment listening, watching. He could hear them far away, but they weren’t yet in the staircase.

‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ Holly screamed.

Vic lobbed both guns at her as she stood, and as she winced and knocked them aside he stepped back in and closed the door.

Locked it.

Holly was on the other side, crying and raging. ‘You saved your family!’ she shouted. ‘Stupid bastard, saved them and then threw your own life away. What good is that?’

‘But I killed everyone else,’ he said, raising his voice so that she could hear him.

‘Self-fucking-pity?’ Holly looked past him at the screens. Control was still clear.

‘You might still have time!’ he shouted.

‘Let me in.’

‘Not happening, Holly. Tell me what to do.’

She stared at him. She knew he was a stubborn bastard, single-minded. She knew that this door was never opening again.

‘Damn you, Vic.’

‘Too late for that.’

‘Your name.’ Holly stooped out of sight and picked up the pistols. ‘Then press enter.’

‘How did you—’

‘I don’t even know if it’ll work!’ she said, laughing and crying at the same time. Then she backed away towards the staircase.

Vic watched her go, hand on the door handle, heart thumping. As she pressed through the doors into the stairwell her expression did not change at all. But she watched him for every last moment she had.

He turned from the door and sat on the chair. It was still warm from Holly. Vic closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, smelling her.
I love two women
, he thought, but the image that screamed at him was his little girl, shrieking for him to come with her.

Olivia was through the breach now. A whole world away, and in a place he had never seen.

‘Hope you’ve done well, Jonah,’ he said. There was a box on the laptop screen, cursor flashing, and he tapped in his name: Vic Pearson. Holly’s choice of code, the last words she’d thought she would ever see. The name glared at him, bright, accusing.

Two minutes later, on the big wall screens, Holly appeared in Control.
She’ll stop and look at the camera, call me on the satphone, one last
—

But she ran through the breach without once looking back

Vic had never felt so alone.

‘I’ve lost them,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve lost them all.’

A moment later the zombies flooded into Control, pursuing Holly, darkening that place like fluid from a foul, ruptured wound. The first of them was ten steps from the breach as Vic rested his finger on the
enter
key.

He relaxed, pressed down.

And then there was light.

TEN DAYS AFTER
helping to forge a path to an alternate version of her Earth, Holly was there again.

She watched dawn break over eastern hills, and the sunrise was a palette of colour. Dust in the air from the nukes, Drake had told her before, but she viewed it simply for its beauty. And she enjoyed the peace.

They’d camped in the small valley where the breach had been formed. The people that Drake had left guarding his side of the breach had brought tents and blankets, and enough food to make a small but satisfying meal for everyone who had come through. They had
stood guard through the night while the survivors had slept. The tents had been cramped. Many had chosen to sleep beneath the stars, especially the children, who seemed able to accept this far better than the adults could.

Holly had slept away from the others. Lucy hadn’t once looked at her. Olivia had come to her as darkness had settled yesterday and asked, ‘Where’s my daddy?’ Holly hadn’t been able to find it in her heart to tell the truth, so instead she had said nothing. And now the little girl kept glancing at her, and Holly knew that there would be more questions.

Don’t they feel it?
Lucy had asked Marc during the night. He hadn’t been able to sleep, either.
Don’t the rest of them feel the distance?

Several small fires burned as Gaia’s people cooked breakfast for the new arrivals. There were dozens of small fish from the stream flowing nearby, and the roots of the three-stemmed plants smelled gorgeous as they were roasted in seed oil. Olivia was playing with several other kids of her own age, jumping over the stream and sometimes slipping in. They were soaked, but happy.

Holly had yet to see Lucy this morning.

‘He’s dead,’ a voice said. Holly jumped and turned, and Lucy sat down beside her. One of the Gaians stood twenty steps behind them, uphill. None of them were allowed to wander off on their own, but the time would come.

‘He’s . . .’ Holly said.

‘I’m not stupid.’ Still Lucy didn’t meet her gaze.

‘He won’t have felt anything,’ Holly said. She found it difficult to speak.

‘He went back to save you.’

‘He didn’t know what I was doing. He came to help. And when I told him he . . . shut me out. Made it so that . . .’

‘After everything else, I’m not sure that he could have lived with you dying as well,’ Lucy said. Her tone suggested this was the first and only time they’d talk about Vic like this. As she mourned, so she was tolerating Holly’s shameful grief as well.

‘Lucy . . .’ Holly began, but she could think of nothing to say.

‘I’ve lost him,’ Lucy said, and she started to sob. ‘Olivia has lost him. It’s all so final.’

‘It might be a beginning.’

Lucy looked at her at last. Holly held her gaze, determined not to look away. ‘Maybe,’ Lucy muttered, wiping her eyes. She looked towards her daughter. ‘But I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to shake this feeling of distance.’

Holly looked down into the shallow valley at the scar where the breach had been. It was bare stone now, an almost perfect circle of ground where all soil and life had been erased and replaced with a slowly cooling surface of molten rock. A moment after coming through she’d felt
a thump at her back, a nudge, as if someone was urging her on a second before heat blasted out . . . and then nothing. People kept away from it now, partly because of the heat but mostly because they were scared.
Exactly where we are and a trillion light years away
, Holly thought.

‘I hope the sense of distance will fade over time,’ Holly said.

‘I don’t want Olivia to be told. Not until I’m ready. I’ve told her that Daddy saved us all, and he’s trying to find his way back.’

‘It’s all so strange,’ Holly said. ‘Maybe that’s . . .’
That’s right
, she wanted to say. But tears threatened now, and she could say no more. She had no right to cry in front of Lucy, and she tried to hold back.

‘Breakfast is ready.’ Lucy stood and walked downhill towards her child.

The tears came, and Holly watched Vic’s wife blur in her vision as she moved away.

Later, as they were preparing to leave and Drake’s guards came in from where they had been keeping watch on the surrounding hilltops, Marc approached Holly.

‘We need to talk to Drake,’ he said. ‘Just the three of us.’ He was carrying reams of paper in a rucksack that had been given to him by one of the Gaians. He no longer carried a weapon. He was a scientist among warriors, and word had slowly spread about what he
would attempt. Holly could tell that Marc would never be someone comfortable with attention.

They found Drake and took him to one side, walking up towards a ridge from where Holly hoped she would finally get a proper view of Gaia. Moira and another woman kept pace with them twenty steps behind, keeping watch. There was still danger here.

‘There are almost forty of us,’ Marc said to Drake as they walked. ‘Have you thought about that? About how it might impact on your community here?’

Drake was silent for a time. They kicked through grass heavy with dew. Breakfast lay comfortably in Holly’s stomach. She didn’t think she’d tasted anything quite so perfect in years.

‘Things have changed,’ Drake said at last. ‘You’ll have a big impact on us. There’s room, but barely. You don’t know this world and its dangers, the places you can go, and those you can’t. You’ll be sharing sleeping quarters, and all of you will have to contribute. But you brought hope with you.’

‘Jayne,’ Holly said.

‘The girl, yes,’ Drake nodded. ‘But also Jonah.’

‘But how can we ever know?’ she asked.

‘We’ll keep casting,’ Drake said. ‘And over time, if we find Earths that remain uninfected, we’ll know that he released the infection to the Inquisitor’s world. That’s given us something to live for.’

‘Seems to me you have plenty to live for,’ Holly said. They’d reached the ridge now, and looking west she could see where the rising sun was playing across wooded hilltops and casting shadows into hidden valleys. There were furies out there, lying beneath the moss of forest floors and waiting to rise. But this was home to them all, and there was so much beauty here.

Tommy had spoken to Jayne as Sean had dragged her through the breach, reminding her of the years they had been together, good times and bad. She’d laughed and cried with him, raged at him and made love with him, and most of those memories had not involved her churu. Coming through at last, she had been sad to leave Tommy behind, but in a way she never would. He had saved her life and whatever she did from now on was testimony to that.

‘Want me to carry you?’ Sean asked.

‘Want me to carry
you
, old man?’

‘I’m fifty-two!’

‘Yeah? And?’

‘I’m not old.’

‘Look old to me. Bit of a beer gut there. Greying hair, thinning on top.’

‘I am not!’

‘Quiet!’ Moira was a few steps ahead, and she’d turned to scold them. They’d all been warned to walk in silence, and the children seemed to be doing it better than those adults who’d come through. Perhaps it was a game to the kids, but Jayne wasn’t sure. Maybe for those so young, survival and adaptability to change were instinctive.

They walked slowly, mostly as a concession to Jayne. The people from Gaia looked at her with a combination of awe and fear, and she wasn’t certain she’d ever get used to that. Sean had already stopped trying to persuade her to take Drake’s cure.
When Marc is done
, she’d said.
He’s the main man now
. They both knew to expect hard times.

As they topped the first rise and she could see further, a wave of pain washed over her. She gasped, and Sean held her arm.

‘Will you look at that,’ he said softly.

Jayne sighed away her pain, and saw another world that she might call home.

The lines snaked through the Basilica ahead of him and Jonah had finally seen the truth. The Inquisitors and their masters feigned ceremony, ascribing great weight to their pronouncements and speaking with deep solemnity. But this was little more than a processing plant.

As they entered the building, naked people were taken in front of the Holy Fathers and given their blessings. Past them in the darker corners of the building were the operating tables. Cries of pain echoed from the high stone ceilings, and the stench of blood filled the air. Between cries, accompaning the shuffling of feet, Jonah was sure he could hear the liquid gurgle of blood running through drains and into gutters.

Beyond the operating tables a ramp sloped up towards the exits at the rear. Here stumbled the new, naked, blood-streaked Inquisitors he had seen leaving the building perhaps an hour before.

He would never reach the operating tables. He would die unchanged.

Shuffling forward with the others, Jonah prepared himself for what was to come. He was old and had done so much, and yet there would be that instant when he had to bite. The moment between life and death.

It’s for everyone
, he thought.
Everything I know, and the infinities I don’t
. He was witness to genocide on a universal scale, and he carried the means to end it. Perhaps. It made him sad that he would never know whether or not it had worked.

He thought of Wendy, his beautiful wife, and wondered what she would think of him now. And though Jonah was not a spiritual man, he felt closer to her at this moment than he ever had since her death. He had no
expectation of seeing her again when he died, no belief that she existed now anywhere other than in his heart. But he held on to the idea that they were still together in memory. Death would make memories of them both.
The queue moved on, and he drew closer to the Holy Fathers. Members of the Swiss Guard stood in greater numbers here. Each line passed in front of one of the old men, and the people only paused for a few moments before being urged on. He could make out some of what the bishops were saying now, could hear their utter conviction, the strain of repetition, and their weariness.