‘Yeah, it was hard—a hot hard metal cylinder. But the liquid shell was cold—freezing, in fact.’
‘Inside, you touched the Warhead’s brain.’
Carter shivered. ‘I feel like I’ve just invaded it.’
Constanza smiled, and the smile was far from nice. ‘Maybe you did. How much do you think the Warhead weighs?’
Mongrel shrugged. ‘We loaded up many a missile look like this. I probably lift it all on my own.’
‘Why don’t you try and pick it up?’
Mongrel nodded eagerly. ‘You make it go hard again? I not fancy slush all over my clean pants.’
‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ chuckled Constanza. Then she hit a key on her pad and the flowing surface of the ECW solidified into a dull gold colour.
Mongrel reddened. He coughed, stepped forward, put both his bear like paws around the narrow cylinder—and strained. Heaved. His face went through shades of red, purple, and finally, panting and wearing a sheen of sweat, he stepped away in defeat. ‘I concede. Very heavy.’
‘A thousand tonnes heavy,’ said Constanza. ‘A hundred of you couldn’t lift the ECW.’ Both men looked shocked, and Mongrel stared down at his hands, then went and picked up his brew, slurping his tea down his jumper.
‘Where does all the weight come from?’
‘It’s the chassis. But in flight it weighs exactly zero pounds.’
‘How is that possible?’ asked Carter.
Constanza shrugged. ‘I’m a programmer, not a chassis developer. But I am assured that it does. Something about reverse physics, or something. Anyway, I need to be left alone for a while to start priming the ignition sequences. And then I will need your target data.’
Carter and Mongrel looked at one another, and then both pulled out their ECubes. The tiny devices unfolded in their hands, like small black alloy roses opening petals towards the sun. There came two faint clicks.
Mongrel frowned. ‘Mine gone dead.’
‘Mine too,’ said Carter.
‘That not good.’
‘There’s the fucking understatement of the century. Can you get anything on yours? Scripts? Log-ons? Any form of power?’
‘Not a donkey.’
‘It might be this chamber,’ said Constanza, her eyes narrowed. ‘This is a very special place; maybe you should ...’ But suddenly lights flowed across a bank of computers and ten huge screens filled with colour—or more precisely, with white. They displayed the landscape surrounding the base, a vision of the vast undulating ice plains of Antarctica.
‘What is it?’ snapped Carter.
‘Company.’
‘Company?’
Constanza glanced over to him. ‘The Nex are here.’
‘So fucking soon?’ growled Mongrel, shaking his ECube frantically. ‘I thought we left those bastards back in Tibet; I sure they not following us, I sure they not able to track us.’
‘They either tracked us, or they already knew our designation,’ said Carter grimly. He dropped his ECube into his pocket, and wincing as he moved, drew his Browning. ‘I think we need to have a little chat, me and the Nex.’
‘You’ll need more than that little pea-shooter,’ said Constanza.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Look.’ The screens showed swathes of white, devoid of any activity except the occasional gust of wind. The snowstorms had died. Constanza pointed towards a different scanner. ‘We do not have visual contact yet, but this shows the advance.’
‘Advance?’ rumbled Mongrel. ‘You make it sound like an army.’
‘You see all the tiny amber dots?’
‘Y’har?’
‘Each one is a cluster of infantry. Moving in on foot.’
‘What those grey dots?’
‘Tanks.’
‘That many tanks?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t see signs of air support,’ said Carter. ‘I assume the surrounding air defences have kicked in?’
Constanza typed at the keyboard. ‘Yes, there have been fifteen attempts at aerial infiltration; all fifteen craft have been utterly destroyed.’
‘Come on,’ said Carter. ‘Let’s get up to the roof. See if we can get some life pumped into these ECubes. How long for you to initiate the Warhead?’
Constanza took a deep breath. ‘I can have it primed and base-fuelled in twenty minutes. But the target data which needs uploading—well, depends on how much of it there is. I could have done it remotely but—’ She glanced at the screens, which still showed a beautiful unsullied crystalline white landscape. An Antarctic paradise. ‘Looks like we’re not going to be on our own for much longer. I would say about thirty minutes, as an estimate.’
‘What’s the sighting distance on visual—on the screens?’
‘Probably around two klicks. The plateau is pretty flat.’
‘And the ice will happily support their tanks?’
‘Yes. As long as they spread machinery out—which, looking at the scanners, is a tactic they’ve already employed. They know the terrain, Carter, they know this place; and that confuses me.’
‘Why?’
‘If they know this place, why haven’t they already taken the Warhead?’
Carter scratched his stubbled face. ‘A problem for another decade. Come on, Mongrel, let’s get up to the roof. Is there ammo for the MGs up there?’
‘Alloy floor panels. You’ll see it. You planning to fight?’
‘We’ve got to hold them off. Can you program the Warhead once it’s in the air?’
‘No. That would be too open to abuse. Once the targets are loaded, you can make suggestions, sure. But the Warhead has its own brain. Its own intelligence. Its own
sentience.’
‘The fucker.’
Carter and Mongrel sprinted from the chamber, grabbed clothing and heavy jackets from lockers, and pounded towards the steep metal stairs leading to the roof. As they ran, Mongrel panting and red in the face, Carter merely gleaming with the sweat of effort, Mongrel shouted, ‘We can’t hold off the Nex, Carter. There are thousands of the cunts.’
‘We have no choice.’
‘They have
tanks.’
‘We have no fucking choice. Now get your fat arse up those stairs, soldier. Let’s see some fucking effort—and I hope to God that Jam and The Priest have sent the data, because ... Jesus, if they haven’t then everything is fucked. And I mean
everything.’
The roof of the Castle was coated in layers of ice and snow. Carter climbed out onto it, the portal rotating below him until it blocked off the building’s interior. The cold slammed him in the face, biting his skin. He and Mongrel glanced at the vast expanse of roof around them. Small machine-gun turrets sat, attached to some form of rail system along the crenellated wall’s base—which meant that each gun could effectively cover the whole length of the wall. There were six massive guns spaced along each barricade.
‘Those walls way too large for us to cover alone,’ said Mongrel, staring in disbelief at the expanse before them.
‘They’re going to try and infiltrate the base by the front door,’ said Carter.
‘How you know?’
‘It’s the only entrance, according to Constanza.’
He pulled out his ECube, and it flickered once more into life. Carter sighed in relief, then checked for messages.
‘Jam?’
‘No,’ said Carter bitterly. ‘Nothing. What the fuck are they doing? We’re here, primed, ready to fucking launch and we haven’t got the targets. For Christ’s sake!’
‘Jam will come through.’
Carter shook his head. ‘Come on, let’s check these guns.’
They crunched across the ice, eyes constantly scanning the bleak horizon. Coming to the first gun turret, Carter leapt into the chassis and immediately mechanisms hummed into place. A scope dropped to cover his eyes; alloy panels sprang up from the floor behind the gun, cracking ice and sending powdered snow drifting into the air. Huge coils of bullets gleamed as the gun clicked and whirred, like a living, breathing thing all around Carter. He felt suddenly cocooned, enclosed—entombed.
‘That not gun,’ said Mongrel. ‘That fucking exoskeleton.’
Carter squinted through the scope. ‘Still can’t see them. Maybe Constanza was wrong.’
‘No, Carter, no. That false hope talking.’
Suddenly Mongrel started dancing around in the snow and whooping. Carter was just about to make some scathing comment when the other man dragged free his ECube and held it up triumphantly, like a trophy. Then he huddled over the tiny device.
‘We got message!’
‘And?’
‘It from The Priest!’
‘
And
?’
‘It contain data ... scrolling now. Wow, WarFacs, Dreadnoughts, NEP plants, armoured divisions ... fuck, Carter, those Spiral boys and REB girlies sure been busy!’
‘And they’re all confirmed coordinates?’
‘Yeah, Carter! We got data! All confirmed! We got it!’
Carter smiled, relief flooding through him. ‘Good stuff. Get it down to Constanza, then let’s get this fucking Warhead launched and get the absolute fuck out of this place. I can do without my own private dogfight right now.’
Mongrel turned, and started to sprint across the ice towards the roof portal.
‘Wait! Mongrel?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did it have the EDEN depots?’
‘Let Mongrel check.’
Mongrel stooped over his ECube once more. His intensity was complete, mind focused, eyes scanning through the digits. Carter heard the click of a reset and, cursing, climbed from the gun emplacement and ran over to Mongrel, who glanced up, frowning, heavy creases lining his battered brow.
‘No EDEN depots?’
‘No.’
‘What does it say?’ Carter stood, hands on his hips, breath steaming. The expression in his eyes was cold and glazed.
‘It give reference for a further follow-up. That mean Jam gone after the EDEN depots but his tech not yet come in. We got everything we need to bring down Durell’s empire, but without that info from Jam then EDEN still be launched—and every man, woman and child on planet be wiped out!’
‘So we’ve only got
half
of the Holy Grail? Shit.’
‘What fucking game Jam playing?’
‘I don’t know, my friend. I just don’t know. Get that data down to Constanza. At least she can begin her job and start the upload.’
Mongrel moved away, and Carter turned back towards the black silhouette of the gun.
‘And Mongrel?’
‘Yeah, boss?’
Carter pointed towards the distant horizon and with a voice as cold as a frozen lake of blood he said, ‘Don’t be too long. The Nex are here.’
The distant black sweep of an army had appeared far off—but not far enough—in the snow.
It seemed to fill the icescape. It seemed to fill the
world.
Without a word, Mongrel disappeared into The Castle. Shivering, Carter surveyed the entirety of the Nex army alone.
¬ systems initiating >>>
code 5; procedures 5, 15, 432, 23, 1, 2, 765, 3
power sources uploading
power routes reconnected
¬ battle data online; scanning ...
¬ ok
¬ battle data initiated
¬ ok
897897689745
934578489578947
4357894754758974598749875-044
547598748579847509437598743985705=
45874987598437594305
000
¬ ok
¬ ready for war
C
arter ran to the modest battlements and his gaze swept the horizon. The Nex were advancing in small tactical groups. They carried machine guns, sub-machine guns and rocket launchers, and numbered in the thousands. And there were tanks—old-style Spiral-built SP57s and SP60s with triple heavy-calibre machine guns and twin 135mm M512 smooth-bore cannons firing HEAT-X2 combat rounds. There were original Nex-built TK79s, with 105mm guns and triple 7.62mm MGs—but, horrifyingly, there were also the new model TK90s used for urban crowd control. Carter had seen them in action in London and New York City: they had side-mounted flame-throwers. They were devastating in action, especially when unleashed against peaceful protesters bearing nothing more threatening than banners and placards. Carter counted at least a hundred of the heavily armoured tracked vehicles, and mixed in with them were HTanks, uncloaked, matt black and menacing.
How long can we hold them? Carter laughed to himself.
Hold them? Hold a fucking
army
?
Carter leapt into a rail-mounted MG turret and activated the power. A small black flat-screen display popped up, and Carter frowned at the options presented to him. He pulled a helmet onto his head and rested his hands against the twin grips of the huge gun. On the floor there were pedals and he tested one experimentally. There were instant
whirrs
and motors slammed the gun along the rails to the right. Carter nodded to himself, looked into the sight and saw the Nex—black-clad, copper-eyed, menacing—leap into view. He watched their rhythmic marching steps matched perfectly as the black-clad scourge poured across the ice fields.