‘Surprise.’ Jam grinned wildly, slamming the edge of the tray into the Nex’s throat. Choking, the Nex dropped to one knee and Jam stepped in close, stabbing his new hand-folded bronze dagger through the Nex’s eye. Blood poured out, staining Jam’s hands, but he held the crude home-made dagger there tight in his fist as the Nex twitched and fought, kicking feebly. Jam drove the dagger in deeper, one hand cradling the back of the Nex’s head until finally the legs ceased their kicking and he gently rolled the cooling corpse to the ground. He dragged the body into the cell and, after pulling his blood-smeared dagger free, he yanked off the Nex’s trousers, thin cotton jumper and boots and squeezed into them, pulling them on with choked-back yelps and groans of agony over his broken limbs and his many cuts and bruises. The clothes smelt strange - metallic - but Jam was beyond caring. The boots were incredibly tight and they crushed his broken feet, but he did not care as he lifted the JK49, checked the full magazine, closed the door and stood in the corridor, nose lifted to the scent of a gentle breeze.
He felt empowered.
Jam grinned a crooked, blood-crusted grin.
‘I’ll show you, fuckers,’ he muttered.
He reached down and activated his ThumbNail_Map. The ThumbNail_Map was a device, a tiny scanner which replaced an agent’s actual nail; to any security equipment it scanned as organic - human tissue - and yet with the right mental augmentation it would illuminate and scan the surroundings, giving an operative an immediate indication of his or her whereabouts. The ThumbNail_Map was still a prototype, but Jam was thankful for it now as the tiny image spun across his nail and located him in the centre of wherever he was imprisoned - a maze of corridors stretching off all around him as he found true north.
Jam moved stealthily, eyes and ears alert.
It was night, although he’d had no way of knowing this while he’d been in his cell. He moved down a long corridor and came to an intersection. Following the ThumbNail_Map, and climbing up a long sloping ramp at a fast limp, Jam halted, blood drying on his fist and finger poised on the JK49’s trigger. He listened carefully, listened past the pounding of the pain in his skull.
He moved swiftly, hiding in the shadows as boots trod the stone and four Nex glided past bearing JK49 submachine guns. They seemed alert - too alert, and Jam wondered if his escape had already been discovered. He had to assume that it had.
He limped on at speed, pain jolting through him, navigating, thoughts whirling through his now rapidly functioning brain. Priorities: escape, warn Spiral of possible security breach and apparent Nex hive - and Nex mission - kill a few Nex into the bargain and get the fuck away from whatever shit-hole they had dumped him in ...
Which desert country? Africa? Iran? Australia?
The ramps flowed past. He could hear more activity, distant but coming closer. He forced himself on to greater efforts, pain pounding him from his broken bones and grinding ribcage. He came to steps and groaned inwardly, body jolting with each step, the agony making him want to howl and vomit at the same time.
‘Where do you think you are going?’
Jam halted, JK49 trained on a dark figure up ahead, his broken fingers and constant pain making the gun’s barrel waver a little. Light gleamed behind Mace, casting his frame in shadows that stretched down the ramp. Jam blinked, pain his master, and he could feel himself swaying and he wanted to scream, ‘No! Not now, don’t fucking let me down now!’ but he was so weak and had lost too much blood and suffered so much pain that he thought, Fuck it! - and opened fire, bullets striking a spray of sparks from the stone by Mace’s head—
Something smashed into Jam’s back, forcing him down onto one knee. Bullets flashed across the space in spark showers, and then the shooting stopped. Cordite filled die air and the silence was deafening, reverberating from metal-scarred stone. Again, a heavy blow crashed into the back of Jam’s skull and his nose slammed against the stone ramp and broke with a terrible crack. He heard himself whimper in the voice of another man, a weaker man, a destroyed man. Got to reach freedom, he thought. Got to warn Spiral ... he tried to lift the JK49, to whirl and take out the Nex that had crept up behind him in terrible silence - but his body would not work, his fingers would not obey his mental instructions. His vision was hazy and blood had flooded his eyes, filled his mouth and he gagged, drooling crimson to the stone floor. He tried to focus on Mace but a heavy boot stomped on his hand, and he heard his remaining working fingers snap.
Jam’s vision swam.
And Mace was there. He held a hypodermic filled with bright silver.
‘No!’
‘What a shame you wish to leave behind our hospitality,’ drawled Mace. ‘I do, of course, humbly apologise in advance for the agony that is to come.’
‘No ... more ...’ said Jam through mangled lips, stare fixed on the hypodermic.
Mace bent and thrust in the needle. Jam arched his back, screaming ...
A large dark-robed figure moved into view. Burnt hands came up and threw back the hood and Jam was transfixed by the horror within. The slitted copper eyes stared down at him with true malevolence.
‘I did not introduce myself before,’ came the voice. Shoulders moved with a crackling of twisted flesh and tendon.
Jam, panting, head spinning, tried to push himself away from the monstrosity looming over him. With a curious movement, the heavy robed figure leapt at him and Jam writhed, trying to get away—
The unearthly eyes came close.
Their faces were mere inches apart.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Durell,’ hissed cold breath.
‘But you’re dead.’
The head shook, and with his evil eyes gleaming like metal Durell whispered, ‘No. Carter shot me, the ship was destroyed ... but I was never
killed
... oh Jam, our delicate nemesis - you have so much to learn.’
Jam’s mind was reeling. The hot mercury screeched through his veins. He was crying tears of blood as his gaze passed from the Nex to Mace and finally back with a shudder to Durell.
‘I will show you,’ said Durell soothingly, ‘I want you to know what it is to be a Nex. I want you to understand, my friend.’
Durell reached slowly, teasingly, towards the broken Spiral agent with the tentative care of a lover ... reached towards the helpless body of Jam with long, curved, bloodstained claws.
And Jam closed his eyes.
T
he small copper eyes stared at Carter and the creature’s twisted fangs drooled a little saliva. One claw dipped to touch its own body and it glanced down at its blood. Then it smiled nastily. ‘I think you suffer much pain, little man.’
The wind from the black helicopter increased behind him and realisation suddenly struck Carter. Natasha had lifted the chopper into the air and she was dipping the nose, the rotors tilting to form a vertical wall of flashing blades. Carter dropped to the ground and rolled under the flashing tips of the armoured rotors as Nats guided the machine forward a touch. The blades hissed and skimmed the snow.
The creature tried to leap forward, but was beaten back by the violent wind and the promise of instant flashing titanium death. Carter stared from behind this thrumming wall of lethal blades. Natasha held the helicopter steady with a hum of cold matrix engines, wavering only a little, and Carter smiled at the entity as if from behind a shimmering screen of liquid metal.
‘Next time, fucker,’ he snarled.
‘My name is Dake, and I’ll be waiting for all eternity,’ snapped the huge creature, blood pumping from the holes in its body - which it ignored.
‘Carter, I can’t fucking hold it!’ came Natasha’s panicked scream.
He moved fast, climbing into the chopper as the armoured creature turned and walked leisurely to one side. The Nex opened fire; JK49s thundered across the snow and Natasha urged the helicopter into the air, bullets leaving trails of tracer all around and striking a triple thump across one alloy flank.
‘Quick thinking.’
‘We’re not out of this shit yet.’
They climbed steeply, engines howling and bullets screaming past them as the world of snow opened up like a huge white veil. The sky was a deep cool blue and Carter calmed his breathing, staring straight ahead, ignoring the whiz and hiss of bullets until the chopper finally sped out of range ...
‘
Well done,’
came the corpse-cold voice of Kade.
‘Yeah, you want something?’
Carter could feel Kade smile - could sense the smirk as Kade mocked him.
‘You should have killed it.
I
would have killed it. You are showing your weakness, Carter, showing your fucking age ...
’ Kade spat the word like a bullet. ‘
You’re getting old, slow, weak, spineless, and it won’t be long now, my friend, before some big Nex fucker cuts you in half and leaves your bleeding twin carcasses twitching on the pavement
—’
‘I thought you were here to help,’ whispered Carter.
‘Just trying to make you strong, brother. Just trying to warn you against the ravages of age, the natural slowing of the body, the terminal illness of the perpetually decaying mind...
’
‘There’s only one decaying mind here, and that’s yours,’ snapped Carter. He forced Kade away.
Carter realised that his eyes were closed, and he opened them, peering out across the spectacular snow-clad mountains of Switzerland and the villages and towns tucked neatly away in the Earth’s folds.
He released a deep, pent-up breath.
‘We lose them?’
‘They’re not taking up the chase.’
‘We scared them away?’ laughed Carter, an edge of disbelief to his voice.
Natasha looked at Carter and grinned. ‘No, I think the dumb bastards shot up the other two helicopters! Jesus, give the Nex soldiers an IQ, somebody.’
‘Better we don’t make them too intelligent,’ said Carter, rubbing at his eyes. Exhaustion hit him with a right hook. The recent quakes, the events at the hotel, witnessing the destruction of Zermatt, the chase through the snow, the destruction of the Comanche and the final escape from the massive deformed and twisted killer they had met in the snow - all combined to bleed him of energy. ‘God, I’m fucking tired.’
‘Get some sleep,’ said Natasha. ‘I’m OK with this thing.’
‘You only got your pilot’s licence recently ...’ He sounded a little worried.
‘I’m fine, Carter. Get your head down, and then we’ll switch in a couple of hours when we hit the bad weather.’
Carter’s hand reached out and touched Natasha’s thigh; then he dragged free his heavy quilted jacket and rolled it into a ball, resting it against the cockpit glass. The heavy thrumming of the rotors merged with his thoughts and the vibrations of the machine around him. He dropped into sleep and fell through darkness. His dreams were like night.
The creature watched as the black helicopter soared high into the blue heavens, small copper eyes focused and intent. ‘I know you,’ it grated between horribly deformed jaws, and flexed its bloodstained talons. The sounds of gunfire echoed, chasing the fleeing Spiral agents and the being turned, looking at Kattenheim - who stood with arms folded, a slight smile across his brutally scarred face.
‘You smile? They escape! You want we pursue?’
‘No ... Carter! He doesn’t remember me,’ said Kattenheim softly. ‘Mr Carter does not remember me -which is a good thing, I think. But I surely remember him ... although, in all fairness, I was less attractive then.’ He laughed softly, fingers gently caressing his disfigured visage.
The ScorpNex chuckled too, a deep rumbling sound and a distorted mimicry of its master. It lifted a claw and made a reverberating cracking noise, like hollow bones snapping, like the cracking open of a human skull. The nearby Nex immediately ceased their machine-gun fire and turned to file back into the low concrete buildings, guns hot in smooth gloved hands, eyes emotionless and fixed on the next task ahead.
‘You sure we not chase? We kill good, Kat.’
Kattenheim shook his head, and led the massive creature into one of the buildings. Inside, a soft orange light flowed around them, and there was incredible heat. They moved to a low-ceilinged chamber and seated themselves on the bare earth floor. The light bathed them both, glowing against skin and armour, gleaming from their glistening eyes.
‘Kattenheim?’ came a deep, rumbling voice.
‘Durell. It is good to hear your voice.’
‘You have an intruder?’
‘A certain Mr Carter, I believe.’
‘That fucker ... an unhealthy coincidence that he found you, I hope - although I doubt it. Did you allow the ScorpNex to taste his blood?’
‘Carter ... escaped,’ said Kattenheim, with a wry gentle smile. ‘He is a very, very resourceful man. Once he was discovered he did not flee the area. He brought the fight to us.’
‘It is extremely unfortunate that you did not secure his death,’ said Durell coldly.
‘The ScorpNex retained his scent. It got within inches of taking him out ...’
‘And yet, not close enough. Carter is too fucking resourceful.’ Durell laughed, a cold, unlovely sound. ‘It’s almost as if he is one of us.’
‘Yes.’