“Are there many?”
“Fewer than I had supposed, but enough. I feel their presence everywhere.” He closed his eyes and leant out a little further,
sniffing the air. His hands gripped the top of the parapet. “There is a gathering. I feel them. Their thoughts are quietened,
deliberately so. They wait for something.”
“Waiting?” Ivanov asked quickly. “How do you know?”
“There is an aura of anticipation about them. And unease. They are troubled, yet unable to walk away from their predicament.”
“It’s him! It has to be. No one else could make a whole bunch of possessed do as they’re told. Where are they?”
Fletcher took one of his hands off the parapet, leaving behind a dark sweat-stain print. He pointed along the Holloway Road.
“Over yonder. I am uncertain as to how many leagues. Though they remain inside the dome. On that I would wager my hat.”
Ivanov moved over to stand behind Fletcher, squinting along the direction he was pointing. “You’re sure?”
“I am, sir. There.”
“Okay. I’ve got a fix. We just need to triangulate.”
“A splendid notion.”
“I’ll take you over to Crouch Hill. That ought to be far enough. Then once we get a rough idea where the bastard’s hiding
out, we can work out a route to get you close.”
“If I may suggest, I simply walk. No man would accost me in this guise, and fewer will suspect my intent.”
“Walk off into the goddamn sunset,” Brent said. “No fucking way.”
“We can talk about it,” Ivanov said. “Fletcher, you got any idea how many there are in this group?”
“I would suggest several hundred. Possibly even a thousand.”
“What the hell does he want with that many in one place?”
“I can advance no rationale to elucidate Quinn Dexter’s behaviour. He is, sir, quite mad.”
“All right.” Ivanov took a final look across the city, fixing the line Fletcher had indicated. “Let’s move out.”
They had just got into the lift when the AI reported an electronics glitch close to the Archway Tower. It immediately datavised
a search update to Charlie. The glitch was occurring beside the electricity substation which distributed power to the Archway
Tower among other consumers. A security camera revealed two people approaching the substation along a dark corridor.
Trouble,
he warned Ivanov.
The substation door crumpled from a blast of white fire. Three more glitches appeared around the base of the Archway Tower.
Sensors showed possessed moving purposefully through the subway, freight tunnel, and utilities passageway. The substation
transformers exploded as a barrage of white fire pummelled into their casings.
Ivanov saw the lights in the lift flicker as the Tower’s emergency power cells took over. They were just passing the nineteenth
floor.
Down in the basement, the possessed were smashing every communications conduit they could find, tearing the cables out of
the wall. The AI watched the Tower’s net connections fail one after the other. Independent power cells kept the internal processors
running, but it could now only access them through the communications blocks carried by the GSDI field agents, cutting down
on the bandwidth available for surveillance and initiating possible counter-moves.
Security sensors on the ground floor showed fifteen possessed running up the stairs into the lobby. They immediately started
slinging small bolts of white fire at the sensors and any other electronic system. Just before the last camera failed, Charlie
saw a lift door being broken down with considerable force.
Out,
he ordered.
Get out of the lift.
The AI had already established a link to the lift’s controlling processor. It applied the failsafe brakes and slammed it to
a halt on the thirteenth floor.
Louise yelped in shock as the lift floor abruptly tried to shunt its way upwards, accompanied by a strident alarm siren. She
grasped at the handrail as she lurched against the wall.
The doors flashed open. Charlie was datavising orders to her as Ivanov was shouting: “Move it! The possessed are coming.”
Everyone charged out into the corridor. Black apartment doors lined both walls. Smoked-glass windows at either end let in
a murky glow from the setting sun. Emergency lights shone brightly above both of the stairwell doors.
Charlie told one of the GSDI agents to leave his communication block in the corridor, tucking it away unobtrusively in a doorway,
enabling the AI to maintain contact with the tower’s net. “The possessed are now heading up both stairwells,” Charlie datavised.
“Five in one, four in the other. The remainder are waiting downstairs. You’ll have to shoot your way through them. I suggest
you use the anti-memory where possible.”
“Gets my vote,” Ivanov said. He drew the small weapon, holding it in his left hand. His right held a compact automatic pistol.
Fletcher and Louise drew their own weapons. The agents and Brent were checking their machine guns.
Ivanov opened the stairwell door cautiously. Concrete steps with metal rails wound down the shaft in a rectangular corkscrew.
The sound of running boots echoed upwards.
“They know we’re here,” Fletcher said curtly.
The AI tracked glitches rising up the stairwell and computed the approximate distance. Both GISD field agents entered the
time into the trigger mechanism on their grenades and dropped them down the shaft.
Louise hunched down next to the wall, her hands pressed against her ears. Explosions roared below as the chemical shrapnel
grenades detonated. Then the agents tossed their gas incendiaries over the rail. Billows of flame scoured the battered stairs,
searing against the groggy possessed. Screams trilled along the length of the stairwell.
“Let’s go,” Ivanov said. He took off down the stairs.
Louise was third in line, behind one of the agents, with Brent pounding along behind her. She’d put a host of programs in
primary mode, an auto-locomotion so she could tear round the stairwell corners without slipping, adrenaline suppresser working
through the medical nanonic to keep her calm, weapons control so she’d be able to aim the antimemory tube properly, peripheral
motion analysis, heartrate control as a counter to the adrenaline suppresser, making sure her straining muscles received enough
blood, tactical analysis, which was synchronized with the AI. It informed her that possessed from the lobby were starting
to invade the bottom of the stairwell in support of their injured comrades. After descending another two floors, the agents
would drop more grenades, and they’d all switch stairwells.
A thick streamer of white fire plunged up the centre of the stairwell, its tip swelling rapidly.
Louise flung herself back from the rail. Brent and one of the agents stuck their machine guns over the edge, shooting off
a suppressing deluge of static bullets.
The plume of white fire burst open, spitting out a shower of incandescent sparks. Several of them landed on Louise’s legs,
stinging hard as they burnt their way through her leggings. She batted at them with her free hand, putting an axon block in
primary to dull the pain. Her tactical program was urging her up. Neuroiconic icons began to flash warnings about capacity
reduction in her neural nanonics.
A bolt of white fire flashed like lightning. It hit the GSDI field agent who was covering the rear of the group, penetrating
straight through the back of his skull to char the brain. He crumpled instantly.
Ivanov and the remaining agent whirled round, their weapons trying to find a target.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Brent yelled.
Charlie knew there was only one answer. Instinctively, his affinity bond made Ivanov turn to face Fletcher. “Well?” the detective
demanded.
“He is here,” Fletcher said with trepidation. “I feel him even though he hides beyond sight.”
The possessed were clattering up the stairwell again. Neural nanonics and blocks were beginning to glitch.
Charlie tightened Ivanov’s grip around the anti-memory weapon. “Through here,” he ordered. Ivanov went through the door to
the tenth floor, arm swinging in wide arcs to cover the corridor. It was deserted, a copy of the thirteenth floor. Louise
and Brent followed him while the last agent dropped a couple of grenades over the rail. They all started to run for the second
stairwell. The grenades didn’t go off.
“Is he still here?” Ivanov asked.
“Close,” Fletcher said. Fury and frustration boiled into his voice. “I cannot see him. The devil!”
“Shoot it where you think he is. It might work anyway.”
Fletcher stopped running and lifted the anti-memory weapon, his thumb pushing the trigger button forwards. He glanced about
the sombre corridor as though trying to make his mind up. The trigger was suddenly pressed, sending a cone of bright ruby
laser light stabbing out.
“It is useless,” Fletcher cried. “Useless.”
The energistic glitch had crashed just about all of Ivanov’s neural nanonics. He certainly couldn’t receive any datavises.
That meant the possessed were very close now.
The AI has lost all contact with the communication blocks,
Charlie said.
I can’t track the possessed for you any more.
Up is no good,
Ivanov said. He looked round wildly.
We’ll have to make a stand.
Very well. There’s a chance Dexter will become visible during the fight. If that happens, you must fire the anti-memory no
matter what the cost.
You won’t even have to compel me. Finishing the shit will be my pleasure.
Fletcher had put his arm protectively around a trembling Louise. He suddenly fired the anti-memory again, sending the beam
over Brent’s head.
“Careful with that thing,” Brent shouted.
Fletcher ignored him. “The others are almost here.”
Three machine guns lined up on the stairwell door.
“Get away,” Ivanov told Louise, waving her towards the window at the end of the corridor. Then he saw what was behind her,
and let out a fast yell of delight. “Yes! Oldest trick in the book. Fletcher, cover for me. We can get her out.”
You should have thought of this,
he accused Charlie.
There was a fire evacuation chute beside the window, a big doughnut of composite on thick swivel pinions. Ivanov grabbed Louise
and hurried her along. He pulled the release lever at the side of the chute, shoving it through a hundred and eighty degrees.
The window fell out, an alarm sounded, and water rained down out of the ceiling sprinklers all along the corridor. The doughnut
swung round to lock into place in front of the open window. A fabric stocking concertinaed out, the pressure it had been stored
under making it pour outwards like a liquid. It fluttered away from the side of the tower as it kept on expanding, the free
end sinking towards the black ground far below.
It’s a manual system,
Charlie protested.
The AI has no control over it.
Louise was staring at the top of the chute in bewilderment as the cold water soaked her to the skin.
“In you go,” Ivanov shouted above the alarm. “Feet first.” His laugh was manic.
“No,” Louise stammered. She took a frightened step backward.
A twin of the stairwell door materialized in the wall next to the original. Brent fired his machine gun straight at it. Skeletal
hands with long red nails slithered up through the solid floor at his feet and clamped around his ankles. He got out one panicked
shout before they tugged him down. Then all he could manage was a grunt of disbelief as his shins sank into the carpeting
as though it was nothing more than quicksand.
Fletcher grabbed hold of the flailing Halo detective and exerted his own energistic power to counter the destabilising floor.
Two possessed walked out of the stairwell at the far end of the corridor. They were dressed as Roman legionaries, but armed
with stainless steel crossbows. The GISD agent crouched down and opened fire with his machine gun. Bursts of lightning followed
the bullets through the downpour of water. The legionaries stumbled as the bullets struck them, twanging against their bronze
breastplates. But they managed to stay upright, limbs moving in jerking motions. One raised his crossbow and fired. The bolt
struck the agent on his knee, severing his lower leg. Blood foamed out of the severed limb, and he topped to one side, stunned
into stupor by the pain.
Ivanov turned to Louise.
“Go!”
he bellowed. “Get out of here.” He shoved her roughly with one hand, and pointed the antimemory weapon down the corridor
with the other. The beam flared brightly at the advancing legionaries.
Louise gripped the rim of the doughnut, looking directly at the funnel of slippery fabric around its throat. The whole idea
of jumping into it was terrifying. Another scream rang out behind her. She took hold of the handle at the top of the doughnut,
and swung her legs up, pushing them through the gap. And let go.
Fletcher had got one of Brent’s legs free when three possessed rushed him out of the duplicate stairwell door. He instinctively
flung his arms towards them, white fire streaming from his fingertips. They thrashed about in the slithering flame, focusing
their own power to send it skidding harmlessly over their own skin.
A streamer coiled round Fletcher’s torso. He had to drop his own attack to counter it. The red slash of the anti-memory beam
fluoresced the water droplets barely an inch from his nose as Ivanov tried to provide covering fire. One of the possessed
collapsed.
Ivanov was switching targets when a crossbow bolt ripped into his forearm, tearing out a chillingly long strip of flesh, exposing
the bone. Without muscles or tendons, the elbow joint flopped uselessly, hand opening to drop his compact machine gun. Blood
gushed down to splatter the weapon’s dull metal.
When he glanced upwards, shaking the water and pain out of his eyes, he saw Fletcher writhing at the centre of five lightning
forks being hurled at him by several possessed. At his feet, a badly scorched Brent heaved down a painful breath and raised
his machine gun, firing round wildly, heedless of who the bullets struck. There was no sign of Dexter. None.