More shots followed, and Saul grabbed hold of the steering wheel as it emerged from the dashboard. Donohue scrabbled at him with claw-like fingers, attempting to wrest the wheel from his grasp.
Somewhere amid the din and fury, Saul realized the terrible mistake he had made in not forcing Donohue to remove his contacts. The whole time they’d been talking, rescue had already been on the way.
Troopers scattered as the car hurtled towards them, their outlines shimmering. Donohue wrenched at the wheel and the car side-swiped a Black Dog, ripping the passenger-side door away. Donohue screamed and held on tight, as Saul managed to accelerate away again. Saul let go of the wheel just long enough to raise one leg and boot Donohue hard enough to send him tumbling out of the car.
He then grabbed hold of the wheel again, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see Donohue rolling to a halt behind him. Saul nailed the accelerator to the floor, gunning the vehicle for a ramp down which daylight filtered from above. He twisted the wheel wildly, skirting another Black Dog making its way down the same ramp, and cursing as troopers darted out of his way with only centimetres to spare.
Suddenly, miraculously, he was outside, the early morning sun pale and wan behind clouds. A cordon of tanks and Dogs surrounded the Array directly ahead of him. He kept his fot on the accelerator, swerving past several vehicles heading towards the ramp from the direction of a hopper, then past the armoured cordon and on into the no man’s land separating it from the crowds. The car ploughed through a dense tangle of barbed wire before jarring to a sudden halt.
He stumbled out of the vehicle and saw that spiked steel balls, scattered all around, had blown the tires. The crowds of refugees were just metres away, hidden behind a cordon of cars that had been pushed over on to their sides, mirroring the ASI’s own defences.
Shots came from there, aimed at the cordon of tanks. Hunching over, Saul ran forward, hoping to lose himself in the mass of people surrounding the Array. The sonar tanks let out an ear-splitting blast and he dropped to his knees, hands clasped to his ears.
Somehow he managed to get up again and keep running, half blinded with pain and unable to hear a damn thing. He squeezed between two torched cars, and seconds later was caught up in a great mob of people desperate to get away from the tanks.
Another sonar blast rolled over him, and he collapsed on to churned black mud and vomited noisily. Barely avoiding getting trampled, he balled himself up, his breath emerging in shuddering gasps as people thronged past him.
It had started to rain, a gentle pattering of it cool against his skin and washing away the blood and sweat. Saul stood up and staggered away, the world so silent in his deafness that it felt as if he were in a dream, yet pushing and stumbling past an endless mass of humanity. Passing a burned-out shopping mall, its windows shattered and its shelves stripped bare, he kept moving until the muted sound of fighting faded with distance.
The rain became torrential, thunder booming out across the Array and its surroundings, so he sought shelter under the corner of a vast tarpaulin that roofed an impromptu chapel, where several hundred worshippers kneeled on the grass to listen to a preacher deliver a sermon from the rear of a flat-bed truck. As he slumped down to the ground, the air was filled with hosannahs, at which point he realized he could hear again.
He waited until he’d recovered his breath, then put in a call to Olivia.
TWENTY-FOUR
Florida Array, 8 February 2235
‘Saul? What the hell happened to you? Are you okay?’
‘I’m still alive, if that’s what you mean,’ Saul replied over the link. He had to clamp his hands over his ears to be able to hear Olivia’s voice. ‘Can’t say it wasn’t a close call a couple of times.’
‘Jesus, Saul, I really thought . . .’
The preacher’s voice grew to a roar, full of the promise of damnation. Saul ducked back outside from under the tarpaulin, deciding he’d rather take his chances with the rain, after all.
‘I know what you thought. Listen, those files I found at Jeff’s cabin? I cracked them. I know what they are now.’
‘Saul . . . I’m in Arizona, with Jeff.’ She paused. ‘And Mitchell.’
He stopped dead in his progress. ‘You’re fucking kidding me? Do you have any idea what he was hiding round the back of that damn cabin?’
Her words came in a nervous rush. ‘Yes, he told me everything. About the growths, Mitchell, the Founders – all that, and a million and one other things. But he doesn’t have a copy of the files himself. He’s going to need them. We all are.’
Saul started moving again. ‘I’ve seen classified videos,’ he said, aware of the hysteria lurking at the bottom of his throat, ‘and I’ve read documents all telling me how the world is coming to an end. I’m even scared to let myself think about it too much, in case I go crazy.’
‘Are you
‘I don’t know, Olivia. How the hell
‘I don’t know either,’ she replied, her voice choking on tears. ‘I wish I did.’
‘Look, I can send a copy of the files over to you right now.’
‘No,
Saul groaned, remembering that Donohue had told him much the same thing. ‘I sent them to you,’ Saul reminded her, ‘when they were still encrypted.’
‘Then it’s a good thing I didn’t stay at home, where I could be found.’
‘Fine, so what exactly does Jeff want to do with the files?’
