Deathstalker

contact with thousands of minds through his worms, and he knows what all of them are thinking at any given moment. Just another reason why no one has ever escaped from Wormboy Hell.'

'This gets better all the time,' said Finlay. He hefted the gun and sword in his hands, but the familiar weights had lost all power to comfort him. He glared at the long featureless steel wall before him, and it stared back, giving nothing away. 'Anything will die if you hit it hard enough and long enough. How do we get to him? Is there a door somewhere?'

'No doors,' said Evangeline. 'No windows. Wormboy isn't going anywhere. They built the hall around him and then sealed it shut. We'll have to break in.'

'Great. Got any more grenades up your sleeve?'

'You don't need a grenade,' said Stevie One. 'You've got us.'

'Never met a wall that could keep us out,' said Stevie Two.

'Right,' said Stevie Three.

They moved forward to stand before the great steel wall and stared at it thoughtfully. The temperature in the corridor rose sharply, and Finlay and the others backed away to a safe distance. The wall before the three espers glowed a cheerful cherry red and began to steam. It got hotter and hotter in the corridor, and slender rivulets of melting metal ran down the wall. The heat before the Stevie Blues had to be unbearable, but they stood their ground. They held each other's hands as sweat ran down their faces, and more molten metal ran down the wall. Finally the metal collapsed inward like sticky toffee, and a hole appeared. A terrible stench entered the corridor, of rotting flesh and waste products. The Stevie Blues pulled the same disgusted face and scowled even harder. The hole grew bigger, the metal running away like water, and everyone got their first glimpse of Wormboy.

Finlay edged forward, one arm raised to protect his face from the heat, and stared in sick fascination at the endless stretch of luminous flesh, pierced here and there by pipes as thick as a normal man's arm. The wounds had healed around the pipes in tucks of crumpled flesh, encrusted by trickles of escaped waste. By peering up through the widening hole, now the size of a door, Finlay could just make out one side of a vast, inhuman face. The skin was stretched inhumanly taut, so that normal expressions were impossible, but even as Finlay watched, a slow smile spread across the lower face. The lips were almost black from the pressure of engorged blood, and the huge teeth were a dirty gray. The eyes were hidden in shadow, but Finlay had no doubt that Wormboy could see them.

The Stevie Blues howled suddenly with pain and staggered back from the hole they'd made, gripping at their heads with both hands. It hit Finlay and the others a moment later, and he cried out as the flesh rotted on his bones. The pain was horrendous, swamping his thoughts. His skin grew discolored and cracked apart, revealing maggots writhing in the decaying muscles. Pus and rotting tissue fell from his arms and legs. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this wasn't real, but his body believed it. Wormboy was playing his mindgames again.

Finlay squeezed his rotting hands around his sword and gun, though he could no longer feel them. How could Wormboy be doing this? There was no worm in his head, no access for the beast. He doesn't need one, Pindar's voice whispered in his ear. He's drawing on the collective power of all the espers he controls. Our power is nothing compared to his now. Some of the prisoners are trying to hold back, they know why we're here, but he's too strong, too strong. You're our only chance, Finlay. It's harder for him to reach you, because you're not an esper. Kill him. Kill the beast. Before our bodies really believe what they're being told and rot for real. He's winning, Finlay. He's killing us.

Finlay could dimly hear distant screams from the surrounding espers in their cells, goaded to action by the spur in their brains. They were killing their only hope, and they knew it. He almost lost track of himself in the vast sea of minds, but slowly, bit by bit, he curled in upon himself, shutting out everything else, drawing upon the ingrained disciplines of a fighter in the Arena, where to lose concentration even for a moment could mean your death. He pulled back from the brink, but still he was helpless in the grip of such power. They were all helpless, alone in the dark with Wormboy.

And then something wonderful happened. One of those minds exploded in a searing blast of light that threw back the darkness. One mind, pure and potent, reached out and gathered all the captive minds into its fold, and pulled them together in a single vast cry of outrage. Once Jenny Psycho, now fully Mater Mundi, she gave them hope and strength and bound them in a single gestalt mind, fully the equal of the Empire's greatest esper creation. But only the equal. Thousands of minds swept this way and that in the gestalt, torn between Mater Mundi's sheer power and the controlling worms hotwired directly into their brains. The prisoners were literally fighting themselves.

Finlay was there, too, snatched up into the gestalt by the sheer power of what was happening. He could feel Evangeline there beside him, somehow always just out of reach. Wormboy's power beat around him like the thunder of huge wings, grasping for him but unable to make contact. He had no worm in his brain, and more importantly he was not one man, one mind, but two. Even as Wormboy's thoughts curled around Finlay, pulling him in, the Masked Gladiator remained free, unnoticed, waiting. Finlay plunged deep into Wormboy's mind, seemingly just another small victory over Mater Mundi, another spark guttering in the darkness, but the moment Wormboy clamped down on Finlay Campbell, the Masked Gladiator was released. He sprang free, arrayed as always in his familiar armor and featureless steel helm, his sword Morgana in his hands. Wormboy sensed something was wrong, and tried to recoil, but he had already brought his killer deep into his own mind. The Masked Gladiator saw the single shining light in the middle of everything that was Wormboy's private self, his inner being, his soul, and it seemed a very small thing indeed. It was the easiest thing in the world for the Masked Gladiator to step forward, take off his helm and blow it out like a candle.

Darkness slammed down as Wormboy died, and his last fading scream was drowned out by the roar of triumph as the prisoners of Silo Nine burst out of his grasp, free at last. Finlay Campbell, complete again, watched them go, waited to be sure no one was left behind, and then strolled casually out into the light to take his bows.

* * *

Only when he dropped back into his own head, opened his eyes and looked around, he found himself in the middle of utter chaos. People were running everywhere, shouting and screaming, and the lights were flashing on and off. Evangeline was clinging to his arm, shouting in his ear, and Pindar was staring wildly about him. Finlay shook his head and made himself concentrate on what Evangeline was trying to tell him.

'Finlay, we have to get out of here! The prisoners have all broken free, and Mater Mundi is blasting a way out of the prison. The authorities have panicked and called in the Imperial Guards. Thousands of them are fighting it out with thousands of espers and clones. The guards are getting their ass kicked, but there's so many of them. They're everywhere! They'll be here soon. We have to get out of here, Finlay, while we still can.'

'All right,' said Finlay. 'I'm back. How many of us are there?'

'Just us three. The others are off fighting. The Stevie Blues are in their element. Half of Silo Nine must be burning by now.'

'So what's the problem? We'll just go back the way we came and get out under cover of the fighting.'

'You don't understand,' said Pindar. 'They're bringing in esp-blockers. Hundreds of them. Our people will be helpless. Unarmed. The guards will slaughter them.'

Finlay raised a hand to interrupt him and thought hard. They couldn't have come this far, achieved so much, just to fail now.

'I've got an idea,' he said finally. 'I have an implant, a very tricky piece of quality tech, that enables me to sneak past security systems without being noticed. We'll patch it into the prison's systems via my comm implant, knock out the surveillance, and then everyone makes a run for it. A lot of people won't make it, but most should. It's not much of a plan, but it's the best chance we've got.'

'Do it,' said Pindar. 'I'll pass the word to the others.'

He turned away, and both of them concentrated in their separate ways.

Finlay and Evangeline made it out. Pindar didn't. Gut shot by a guard he never saw. Finlay killed the guard, but it didn't make any difference. They carried Pindar as far as they could and left him where he died. They never did find Evangeline's friend, the one she'd gone in specially to look for. The Stevie Blues got out, riding a wall of flame. More than half the prisoners managed to escape in the end, streaming out under the unseeing eyes of the security cameras, before the esp-blockers could be deployed. But hundreds of espers and clones died anyway, and