Metal Fatigue (46 page)

Curving down and to either side were the massive, carbon-fibre suspension cables of the bridge, each wider than his thigh. He considered making his escape along one of them, but decided against it. Even with the killer's greater mass taken into account, Cati's agility far exceeded his own; he'd have to proceed at a near run just to keep ahead. His sense of balance wasn't up to the task.

It was time to make a stand. Taking a position at the head of the ladder, with the rusty bar gripped in both hands, he waited for Cati to arrive. Height was his one advantage, and this his only chance.

Then a noise from behind him made him turn. Cati's massive head appeared on the other side of the platform, followed by his arms and shoulders. Roads backed away from the ladder's summit, realising that he had been tricked. Cati had obviously anticipated the ambush and taken the last few metres by another route. For someone who had proved his climbing ability on the roofs of Kennedy Polis, the detour wouldn't have been too difficult.

Yet ... Roads frowned, momentarily puzzled. The sound of someone climbing the second-to-last ladder came clearly from below. If that wasn't Cati, then it could only have been Katiya — or the Mole.

But as Cati swung himself up onto the platform, another Cati appeared at the top of the ladder.

Backing away from both of them, unsure which was the illusion, he cursed O'Dell and his damned machine.

When the second Cati had climbed completely out of the ladderwell, the first suddenly vanished, sending five small dimples scattering into the darkness.

Roads and the real Cati squared off and circled each other warily. Roads kept the iron bar poised between them, ready for the slightest move. Cati seemed content to wait for the moment, however, balanced between caution and the need to obey orders.

Caution ... or reluctance? Roads didn't want to hurt Cati, but could the reverse really be true?

When the attack came, it almost took Roads by surprise. Cati stepped back onto one leg and lashed out with his other foot to knock the bar aside. Roads ducked as the giant's right hand chopped at his neck. He drove his shoulder upward into Cati's stomach and heard a slight grunt.

Then Cati's elbow hammered down into his back, and he rolled aside, riding the blow. A fist followed, connected glancingly with his shoulder and sent him spinning. Both blows had been slower than he had expected, perhaps indicative of Cati's unwillingness to obey the orders of his controller — but they were still powerful.

Another kick pushed Roads toward the edge of the platform, and he scrambled for grip on the shreds of cloth. Cati followed, reaching down to grab Roads' outflung arm and tear it free.

Then an invisible force knocked the killer aside, giving Roads barely enough time to regain his footing. Cati staggered, enveloped by the Mole's whirling field-effects, confounded by something he could hardly get a grip on, let alone fight.

While he was busy, Roads scrambled hastily to his feet and ran for the ladder.

Before he could reach it, however, the Mole disengaged from Cati. Roads felt a tentacle of force wrap itself around his waist, tug him irresistibly back to meet Cati, then let go.

The biomodified killer's face displayed open confusion as they faced each other again, back where they had started.

Roads circled to his left, to where the iron bar had fallen. Cati moved to cut him off, but too late. Roads snatched the bar in one hand before Cati arrived, and swung it upward to strike the killer in the stomach. Knocked off balance, Cati staggered backward. Driving home the minor advantage, Roads delivered a double kick to the killer's stomach and knee.

Instead of falling as he was supposed to, Cati jack-knifed down and forward, reaching out and across as he did so to sweep Roads off his feet. The metal bar glanced off Cati's hairless skull as Roads fell, making the killer wince but doing little to ease his grip.

Caught in an ungainly tangle, they struck the platform together. With blood beginning to trickle down his face, Cati wrapped an arm around Roads' throat and squeezed.

The platform immediately below them, weakened by the weight pounding at it, abruptly gave way. The buckled metal plate groaned, tipped, then dropped with a loud crash into the superstructure of the bridge.

Roads experienced a moment of terrifying giddiness as both he and Cati scrambled for a hand-hold, the fight temporarily forgotten.

Cati grasped a stanchion with one hand as it went past, arresting his fall with a jerk. Roads' fingers slipped on bird-droppings and lost their grip. The iron bar dropped with a clatter into the blackness below. He too fell unchecked — until something wrapped itself around his hand and yanked him upward.

He rose rapidly through the air, was wrenched sideways, then landed awkwardly on an intact section of the platform. Winded, he clambered onto his hands and knees.

A swirl of energy darted away and disappeared into the background.

"Martin," he gasped into the cyberlink. "Are you catching this?"

"Yes," came back the voice of the RUSAMC captain. "I'm not sure I believe it, but — "

"It's trying to protect me, but at the same time protecting
Cati
because it wants him to kill me?"

"That's what I thought might be happening. It can't kill you itself, so it has to use someone else. But it can't stand by and let you be killed, which is why it keeps saving you at the last moment. But it can't let you escape, either — or Cati." O'Dell whistled. "The conflict must be incredible; it's a wonder the AI is still functioning at all."

"Yeah, wonderful. And it's only a matter of time before Cati takes us both by surprise and gets past the Mole's guard. Then I'll be dead, and Cati won't last much longer. Once he outlives his usefulness, the Mole will be able to return to the last orders you gave it, which were to dispose of him." Roads grunted as Cati's hands appeared at the lip of the hole, dragging his enormous body back into the night air. The bandage had fallen off his injured arm, and blood flowed freely again. "There has to be something we can do."

"I'm sorry, Phil. I'm out of ideas."

Cati climbed slowly to his feet. Blood trickled in a hot, steady stream from his temple and down his chest. A ragged gash down his right thigh testified to the narrowness of his escape when the platform gave away. Skirting the wide hole between them, he came with arms outstretched while Roads, unarmed, kept well out of reach.

1:20 a.m.

Warning pains trembled in the muscles of his left thigh and right arm, but he ignored them. More serious was the sensation of weakness spreading outward from his gut. The energy-expenditure of his body was enormous; he needed solid food and water soon, or his performance would begin to deteriorate. His breathing was already twice its normal rate, echoing his heartbeat — but oxygen alone wasn't enough.

The damage to his tissues could wait. There would be plenty of time to repair and recuperate once his orders were fulfilled.

His orders —

Roads is a traitor

— compelled him to attack, even though his mind screamed caution. The traitor had demonstrated evasive abilities he had never seen before: sometimes duplicating himself or vanishing entirely. The traitor could deflect his blows as though made of a material stronger than steel, yet at other times injured more easily than he did. Inconsistencies like this were dangerous. He was being toyed with, used.

The traitor circled to his left, hunting for a weapon. Before it could complete the curve, he shifted position, cutting it off. The traitor feinted, and he responded with a stabbing kick to the rib cage. Ordinarily, he would have followed the move with a hail of blows, but he didn't on this occasion. Something held him back, something that he had no cause to be considering when his orders were at stake. He focused his mind on the task at hand —

a threat to the security of the United States

— and struck again. This time, the blow missed completely, and he was appalled by his clumsiness. What was happening to him? Why was he so slow, so uncoordinated?

The traitor took advantage of his disorientation and lashed out at his throat. He knocked the fist aside, ducked under another blow. Reaching over his head, he grabbed the swinging arm and twisted the traitor off his feet. Something indefinable, only half-visible, swirled at the corner of his eye as the traitor crashed heavily to the platform, but this time it made no threatening moves.

He was gratified to hear the distinct
crack
of snapping bone when the traitor landed. Regaining his footing, he skirted the hole in the platform to find a better position from which to attack. Not long now. The traitor was seriously wounded. One opportunity to press home the advantage was all he needed to finish him off, after which he could turn his attention to the rest of his orders.

The unidentifiable distortion threatened to take shape as he approached the traitor he had been ordered to kill. He ignored it. The fallen ...
man
, he forced himself to think, although it defied his programming ... tried to crawl away, scrambling crab-like for a safety that didn't exist. He followed it, every muscle in his body tensed for the final blow.

Behind him, the sound of feet climbing the ladder suddenly ceased. Suspecting that the traitor's allies had finally arrived from below, he raised his fists and prepared to leap.

But all he saw was a lone woman — the second traitor — struggling upright to face him, her mouth open and saying something he couldn't understand.

Sanctuary?

Then the distortion moved, stretched out a limb to prod him forward. He stumbled toward the first traitor, his mind screaming rebellion but his orders —

kill them both

— forcing the rest of him to obey.

The traitor had ceased trying to escape. He approached within an arm's-length and looked down at his intended victim. One blow would be enough — one kick downward too fast too dodge, and the traitor would be no more. It was almost too easy, at the end. And yet —

Roads first and then the girl

— so difficult.

He shifted his balance, ready to strike.

Then the second traitor was between him and the first, beating at his chest, crying at him. He flinched, raised his hands to ward off the attack, but only succeeded in making her protests louder. The conflict in his mind made it difficult to think. The woman's voice cut deeply into him; he could hear her pain, her suffering, even though her words eluded him. He didn't want to hurt her, but the incessant echoes of his orders almost drowned her out completely. He winced, raised his hands to his ears, desperate for a respite, for release from his torment.

The traitor was on his feet again, beyond the woman. His orders howled at him to move before the traitor could escape —

a threat to the security of the United States

— and suddenly he couldn't hear the woman at all. Something in his mind had given way under the pressure. He finally knew what he had to do to relieve the tension. The pain peaked in resonance with the controller's final orders —

kill them both

— as he reached with both hands for the woman's throat.

1:25 a.m.

Roads, hampered by his broken left arm, could do nothing to help Katiya. Cati's hands wrenched, and the woman flinched as though struck. There was a tiny snap, almost inaudible over Katiya's gasp of fear, and Cati's hands fell away.

Then the killer shoved the woman aside. The object in his hands flashed at Roads, glinting in the starlight as it flew toward him. More by reflex than conscious intent, Roads clutched with his one good hand and snatched it out of the air.

Trapped in his fingers was a necklace, from which hung Katiya's pendant. He could feel the edges of the solid, rectangular block of silver as he opened his hand and stared at it in confusion.

Cati moved silently away, his deep eyes watching him, begging him to do something. But what? Of what conceivable use was the pendant — the only present, Katiya had said, that Cati had ever given her? What he needed more than anything else was a
weapon
...

Then he turned the necklace over. Engraved in the silver was an identity code and three short words:

I AM LUCIFER

"Officer Roads!"

He looked up in time to see Cati draw back a clenched fist, and ducked clumsily aside. He lost his footing on the platform and fell onto his broken arm. The darkness lit up as pain flashed through him. Hissing through clenched teeth, he forced himself to concentrate. With Cati's dog-tag clutched tight between his fingers, he thrust his good hand deep into his pocket.

Cati loomed over him. One giant hand reached down for his face, blotting out the stars as it came.

For the first time in his life, the thought of blood didn't make him hesitate as he brought DeKurzak's portable transmitter to his lips.

"I am Lucifer," he gasped. "Cati — listen to me!
I am Lucifer! You don't have to kill us!
"

The hand froze, but didn't withdraw. Uncertainty flashed across Cati's face.

Roads slithered aside. Katiya helped him regain his footing, glancing between him and her lover.

"Phil!" O'Dell's voice burst into Roads' implants. "Phil, your feed is breaking up. Can you hear me?"

"Yes," he transmitted back. "What's going on?"

"We lost visual for a second, then audio as well, and now we've picked up another transmission on the CATI frequency — "

"Yes, I know," Roads interrupted. As he stepped away from the killer, Cati's upper torso turned to follow him. The wide-spaced eyes with their pinprick pupils didn't once look away. "Just wait a second, Martin. I'm onto something here."

"But — " The line went dead with a crackle.

"He's querying the order," said Keith Morrow, the artificial voice gliding smoothly into the silence.

"He's what?" Roads asked. "I thought I put it clearly enough. Don't tell me I need a specialised language as well — ?"

"No, but you have to phrase the order correctly. You must reassure him that 'Roads' is no longer a threat to the United States of America and that he can be allowed to live. You have to follow the protocol built into him."