“Till the foundation gets washed out from under it,” Franklin said.
Stephanie couldn’t honestly see any difference in the mud where he was pointing. “All right, we’ll go for it.”
“How far?” Tina demanded querulously. “And how long will it take to get there?”
“Depends where you’re heading, babe,” Cochrane said.
“Well I don’t know, do I? I wouldn’t ask if I did.”
“Any kind of building will do,” Stephanie said. “We can reinforce it against the weather ourselves. I just want us out of
this. We can think what to do next when we’re rested up. Come on.” Stephanie gripped Moyo’s hand and began to walk in the
direction the road was supposed to be. Fish tails slapped pitifully at her wellingtons.
“Oh man, it don’t make no difference what we decide. We know what’s like gonna happen.”
“Then stay here and let it,” Rana told the miserable hippie. She started off after Stephanie.
“I didn’t say I was in a rush.” The edge of the invisible shield moved towards Cochrane, and he scrambled after them.
“There was a village called Ketton on this road,” McPhee said. “I remember going through it before we turned off up to the
farm.”
“How far?” Tina asked, her voice rising in hope.
Cochrane smiled happily. “Miles and miles, it’ll probably take us like about ten—twenty days.”
______
A ferocious jet of white fire squirted into the wall two metres above Sinon’s head. He flattened himself into the mud below
as paint ignited and carbon-concrete blistered.
Coming from the shops, seventy metres right.
It was hard to see with all the smoke mingling with the rain, but his retinas had a long purple after image scorched across
them.
Got it,
Kerrial answered.
The white fire expanded into a thin circular sheet, rivulets trickled down, their tips wriggling purposefully towards Sinon.
“Shit.” If he stayed the fire would get him, if he moved he’d lose the cover which the wall provided. And there must be several
of them in the shops; two other serjeants were under attack as well.
Eayres was a nothing village in the guidance block’s memory. A cluster of houses clumped round a road junction, its population
mostly employed by the local marble quarry. Who would expect the possessed to make a stand here? Expect the unexpected, Choma
had chanted happily when the white fireballs burst open amid the squad.
Sinon saw Kerrial swing himself into position, bringing his machine gun to bear on the shops in the middle of the village.
Bullet craters slammed across the brickwork in front of him. Then his body was being flung back, nerve channels shutting down.
Blackness. Kerrial’s memories arose from his neural array to be absorbed by an orbiting voidhawk.
They’ve got guns!
Sinon broadcast.
Yes,
Choma said.
I saw.
Where did they get them from?
This is the countryside, hunting is a sport here. Besides, did you think we had a monopoly?
The white fire rivulets had reached the ground. Steam roared up as they floated sinuously along the top of the mud towards
Sinon. He scrambled to his feet, and jumped forward. The white fire behind him vanished. Another, brighter, spear lanced out
of a shop’s fractured window. He hit the mud, rolling desperately as he brought his grenade launcher to bear.
You’ll kill them,
Choma warned. Sinon’s right leg went dead as the white fire engulfed it. He slamfired the launcher, hand pumping the mechanism
with cyborg intent.
Grenades thudded into the upper floor of the shop, detonating instantly. The ceiling split open, hurling down a torrent of
rubble as the roof caved in. Three radiant lines of machine gun fire poured through the ground floor windows and into the
tumult inside. The white fire evaporated into tiny violet wisps, splattering off Sinon’s leg. He scrambled up, and pushed
himself hard for the buildings dead ahead, dragging his useless leg along. Crashing through the first door to land in a deserted
bar.
Clever,
Choma said.
I think that’s got them cold.
The white fire had gone out everywhere. Serjeants converged on the little row of prim shops, walking forwards steadily, firing
their machine guns continually. The squad had responded to the possessed like antibodies reacting to an incursive virus. Flowing
in towards the village from both sides, the reserve squad racing forward. A miniature version of the noose contracting around
Mortonridge. They had it encircled within minutes. Then began their advance.
Seventeen of them walked through the smoke that whirled along Main Street, impervious to the flames roaring out of the buildings
all around. Their gunfire was concentrated on the shops, aiming their vivid bullets through any gap they could find. Weird
lights flickered inside, as if someone had activated a nightclub hologram rig. Steam fountained out through windows and cracks
in the wall.
“All right. Enough.
Enough
, God damn it. We’re through.”
The ring of serjeants held their places ten metres from the central shop, feet apart, juddering in time to the roaring guns.
“ENOUGH. We surrender.” The machine guns fell silent.
Lumps of stone stirred on the mound of rubble which had been the shop’s upper floor, spinning down to splash into the ubiquitous
mire. Limbs began to emerge amid a welter of coughing. Six possessed squirmed free, holding up their hands and blinking uncomfortably.
More serjeants moved forwards to clamp their necks with holding sticks.
______
Elana Duncan reached Eayres two hours later. The fires were out by then, extinguished by the rain. She whistled appreciatively
as she climbed out of the truck, a sound violent enough to make the marines wince. “Must have been a hell of a fight,” she
said in envy. The trucks had halted in the village’s main street. Over half of the buildings around her had been flattened
into small hillocks of debris; of those that remained, few were left with roofs. Naked, heat-twisted girders skewered up into
the gloomy sky. Black soot stains smeared over entire walls were already dissolving under the rain to reveal deep bullet pocks.
Marines began jumping down from the other trucks in the convoy. It was a familiar routine by now. Urban zones, whatever the
size, were occupied by a garrison. They served as emergency reserves and staging post; also a transitory field hospital a
lot of the time. The possessed weren’t giving up without a fight. The marine lieutenant in charge started shouting orders,
and the troops fanned out to secure the perimeter. Elana and the other mercs began unloading their truck with the help of
five mud-caked mechanoids.
First off was a programmable multipurpose silicon hall. An oval twenty-five metres long, with open archways along the sides.
It was a standard Kulu Royal Marine corps issue, designed for tropical climates, with an overhang in anticipation of heavy
showers, and allowing a constant breeze to filter through. Ordinarily ideal for a place like Mortonridge. Now, they were having
to direct the mechanoids to bulldoze up a base from soil and stone which they then sealed over with fast-set polymer. It was
the only way to keep the hall’s floor above mud level.
Once that was up, they started moving the zero-tau pods in. A double file of serjeants marched down the main street, escorting
three possessed. Elana splashed out to greet them. She enjoyed this part of her duty.
One of the possessed had given up, a man in his late sixties. She’d seen that before. Filthy, torn clothes. Not bothering
to heal his wounds. Even the rain was allowed to soak him. The other two were more typical. Dignity intact. Clothes immaculate,
not a scratch on them. The rain bounced off as if they had a frictionless coating. Elana gave one of them a long look. A woman
in a prim antique blue suit, white blouse with a lace collar, and pearl necklace. Her hair was a solid bottle blonde coiffure
that could have been carved from rock for all the wind affected it. She gave Elana a single distasteful glance, defiantly
arrogant.
Elana nodded affably at the serjeant guarding her, whose leg was wrapped in a medical package tube. “Humm, she’s the third
one of these today. And I thought that woman was unique.”
“Excuse me?” the serjeant asked.
“They enjoy historical figures. I’ve been accessing my encylopaedia’s history files ever since this campaign started, trying
to place them. Hitlers are quite popular, so’s Napoleon and Richard Saldana, then there’s Cleopatra. Somebody called Ellen
Ripley is a big favourite with the women, too; but none of my search programs have managed to track her down yet.”
The blue-suited woman looked dead ahead, and smiled a secret smile.
“Okay,” Elana said. “Bring them in.”
The mercenaries were hooking the zero-tau pods up to their power cells, datavising diagnostics through the management processors.
Elana’s ELINT block gave a warning bleep. She rounded on the three prisoners, pulling a high-voltage shockrod from her belt.
Her voice boomed out from her facial grille, echoing round the hall.
“Cut that out, shitbrains. You lost, and this is the end of the line. Too late to argue about it now. The serjeants might
be too honourable and decent to fry your bodies, but I’m not. And this is my part of the operation. Got that?” The ELINT block
quietened. “Good. Then we’ll get along just fine in your final minutes in this universe. Any last minute cigarettes, you can
indulge yourselves. Otherwise just keep quiet.”
“I see you have found an occupation which obviously suits you.”
“Huh?” She glanced down at serjeant with the injured leg.
“We met at Fort Forward, just after arriving. I am Sinon.”
Her three claws snapped together with a loud
click
. “Oh yes, the cannon fodder guy. Sorry, you all look alike to me.”
“We are identical.”
“Glad to see you survived. Though God knows how you managed it. Trying to storm ashore through that weather was the dumbest
military decision since the Trojans took a shine to that horse.”
“I think you’re being unduly cynical.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You must have a decent dose of it too, if you’ve survived this long. Remember the oldest military
rule, my friend.”
“Never volunteer for anything?”
“Generals always fuck up bad.”
The first zero-tau pod opened. Elana pointed her shockrod at the blue-suited woman. “Okay, Prime Minister, you first.” Sinon
kept the holding stick round her neck as she backed in. Metal manacles closed round her limbs, and Elana switched on a mild
current. The woman glared out, her face drawn back with the effort of fighting the electricity.
“Just in case,” Elana told Sinon. “We had a few try to break free once they finally realize their number’s up. You can take
the holding stick off now.” The clamp sprang open, and Sinon stood clear. “You going to leave all nice and voluntarily?” Elana
asked. The front of the zero-tau pod was already swinging shut. The woman spat weakly. “Didn’t think so. Not you.”
The zero-tau pod turned midnight black. Elana heard a hiss of breath from one of the waiting possessed, but didn’t say anything.
“How long do you leave them in there?” Sinon asked.
“Cook them for about fifteen minutes. Then we open up to see if they’re done. If not, it’s just back in for progressively
longer periods. I’ve had one hold out for about ten hours before, but that was the limit.”
“That sounds suspiciously like enjoyment to me.”
Elana waved the next possessed into his pod. “Nothing suspicious about it. General Hiltch, God fuck him, says I’m not allowed
in the front line. So this is the second best duty as far as I’m concerned. I don’t take marine discipline too good. Sitting
with a bunch of those pansy-asses in a place like this counting raindrops would have me thrown off-planet inside of a day.
So as I’m technologically competent, me and my friends requested this placement. It works out fine. Army’s short of skilled
techs who can also handle the noise if the possessed start to panic: we fit the bill. And this way I get to see the bastards
booted out of their bodies. I
know
it’s happening.”
The second possessed was put in a zero-tau pod. He didn’t resist. Then the third zero-tau pod was activated. Elana aimed the
shock rod at the last possessed, the apathetic one. “Hey, cheer up. This is your lucky day, looks like the reserves got called
out. You’re on, kid.” He gave her a broken look and grimaced. His features melted, shrinking back to reveal a wizened face
with anaemically pale skin.
“Catch him,” Elana yelled. The man’s legs buckled. He pitched forward into her arms. “Thought that one might quit,” she said
in satisfaction.
Choma removed the holding stick’s clamp from around his neck. Elana eased him down onto the floor, calling for blankets and
some pillows. “Damn it, we haven’t had time to unpack the medical gear yet,” she said. “And we’re going to need it. Those
bastards.”
“What’s the matter?” Sinon asked.
Elana’s claw sliced through the man’s raggedy shirt, exposing his chest. There were strange ridges swelling out of his skin,
mimicking the lines of muscle a healthy twenty-year-old mesomorph might have. When she prodded one with the tip of a claw,
it sagged like a sack of jelly.
“They always go for perfection,” she explained to Sinon and Choma. “Assholes. I don’t know what that energistic power is,
but it screws up their flesh real bad under the illusion. Sometimes you get fat deposits building up, that’s pretty harmless;
but nine times out of ten, it’s tumours.”
“All of them?” Sinon asked.
“Yep. Never satisfied with what they’ve got. I’m sure it’s a metaphor for something, but I’m buggered if I can figure out
what. We’re having to ship everyone who gets de-possessed back to Xingu and into one of the major hospitals. They’re overflowing
already, and they don’t have enough nanonic packages to go around. Another week of this, and the entire Ombey system is going
to go into medical meltdown. And that’s not taking you guys into account; you’re not exactly emerging unscathed from the Liberation.”