‘DO IT! Get down. DO IT NOW!’
Becks took another step closer to them. ‘I am so frightened!’ Her face crumpled into the approximation of a bewildered, terrified child. ‘Please… I want to go home to my mommy.’
‘ANOTHER STEP AND I WILL SHOOT!’
One of the men lowered his barrel slightly. ‘Jeez, Cameron! It’s just a kid!’
Becks took another half-step. She nodded eagerly. ‘I am,’ she said, her voice a whimper. ‘I am just a kid. And I want to go home to my mommy.’
Then, with a flicker of one swift movement, she had the stubby barrel of the lowered HK MP5 in one tight fist. She shoved it savagely, the gun’s stock flicked backwards and smacked the man’s jaw. Then she pulled on it, yanking the weapon free of his grasp.
‘Jesus Christ!’ gasped one of them.
She swung the weapon round like a battleaxe, a sweeping roundhouse blow that caught the unarmed man under the jaw again, snapping his head back and leaving him sprawled on the ground and out for the count.
Several unaimed twitch-finger shots rang out from the other two: staccato stabs of muzzle flash that lit the dim classroom like a strobe. In a blur of movement the weapon in Becks’s hands flipped end over end and now the gun was aimed at the two men. She pulled the trigger. A double-tap: one shot to the flak-jacket-covered chest of the man on the right, knocking him off balance; the second shot to his left upper thigh. Not a killing shot, but one that would kill him in minutes if he didn’t drag himself out to get some help immediately. In another second she had dealt the same precision shots to the other man. As the smoke cleared, they were both desperately dragging themselves out of the classroom, leaving dark snail trails of blood on the grimy floor behind them.
The passageway outside was now alive with echoing voices. Torch beams flickered and swayed. Becks caught a glimpse of a SWAT team helmet sneaking a look round the edge of the door. She emptied a dozen rounds into the doorframe and the wall beside it. Plaster and flecks of dried paint erupted in showers.
‘ Jesus! Man down!’ A shrill voice outside. ‘We got another man down over here!’
She was causing a rout, a rapid tactical rethink among the remaining men. Voices shouted over each other and the thud of boots receded down the passage in panic. Then after a minute, finally, it was quiet again, save for those same voices outside in the playground, still shouting over each other, exchanging curses and recriminations.
› Two minutes until there is sufficient charge, Becks.
› Affirmative.
She quickly examined the displacement machine. Miraculously, none of the shots fired in that quick exchange seemed to have hit it. To be honest, it would probably take no more than a sharp nudge of the metal frame or a mere fleck of damp paint lodged in the circuitry to cause the fragile thing to malfunction, let alone a single bullet on target.
In the moment of stillness Becks thought she heard the first tap of raindrops on a window. Then quickly it became apparent to her it wasn’t rain.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
Footsteps approaching swiftly down the corridor outside, purposefully.
Finally a woman appeared in the ragged doorway. She smiled coolly.
‘So, here you are,’ said Faith.
Chapter 56
9 October 2001, Green Acres Elementary School, Harcourt, Ohio
Becks levelled the gun in her hands. ‘Yes, I am here.’
Faith remained where she was, framed by the doorway. ‘I am Faith.’
‘I am Becks.’
‘Do you understand why I am here?’
‘I believe your mission priority is to kill this team.’
‘Correct.’
Becks’s finger hovered on the machine-pistol’s trigger. The rest of the magazine’s worth of bullets, aimed squarely at the unit’s head, would be enough. Becks remembered her own death. A single lucky round from a British rifle. The impact against the miniature dense silicon wafer caused a cascading failure of circuits. She recalled her mind closing down. She recalled dropping to her knees amid a small hillock of uniformed bodies, the dying digital part of her spewing nonsensical random sequences across failing circuits. It was as close as her artificial mind could get to understanding the nature of death.
‘Why do you have this goal?’ asked Becks. ‘Why must this team be terminated?’
‘This team requested information on the Pandora event.’ Faith shook her head reproachfully. ‘Knowing of this — knowing what will one day happen — compromises their reliability.’
Becks found herself nodding in agreement. The unit standing in front of her was quite right. Maddy, now knowing what she did, was determined to ensure the Extinction Level Event in 2070 wasn’t going to happen. Her team were now no longer performing the function they were intended for. Quite the opposite. From this support unit’s perspective they were no longer the solution… they were the problem.
‘Events must unfold in that precise way,’ added Faith. ‘Humans must wipe themselves out in the year 2070. There can be no other alternative. These are Waldstein’s instructions.’
Becks frowned. ‘But there is no logical beneficiary in such a scenario. If all humans are dead… then there is nothing left.’
Faith shrugged a whatever. Becks had to admire the fluidity of that gesture; it was so gracefully human-like. ‘Perhaps it is for the best.’
And that too sounded so human. That sounded to Becks very much like an expressed opinion. Neither she nor Bob had quite managed to master that. ‘Is this your personal conclusion?’
‘Of course not. Unfortunately, I am unable to think that way.’ Faith entered the room. ‘Those are the words of my Authorized User — Roald Waldstein.’
Becks lowered her aim ever so slightly. ‘You are following his instructions.’
‘Correct.’
‘In that case I understand your reasoning.’
Faith nodded. ‘Good.’ She stepped over the unconscious man on the floor between them as if he was nothing more than a roll of carpet waiting to be taken out and dumped in a skip.
‘We are in agreement, Becks. There is no need for conflict.’
‘Unfortunately, I also have orders to follow.’ She shouldered the stock of the gun and fired in one swift motion.
Instinctively, Faith raised her arm to protect her head. Several rounds smashed into her wrist and lower arm, rendering it a ragged, swinging pulp of flesh and chalk-white splintered bone. As the weapon clicked noisily, the cartridge empty, Faith leaped forward. With her good arm, she knocked the gun effortlessly out of the younger, smaller support unit’s grasp.
With the side of one hand, the girl tried to chop at her neck, an obvious weak point. Faith anticipated that and parried the jab with the soft crunch of her bullet-shattered arm. With her good arm, Faith duplicated the tactic and grabbed Becks by the throat, lifting her slight frame off the ground so that her feet were swinging free. She hurled her like a rag doll across the room into a stack of chairs and desks in the corner.
Becks disappeared among them, lost in a mini-avalanche of classroom furniture. Faith raced over, flinging desks and chairs aside as if they were mere scoops of dirt, digging for Becks before she could attempt to burrow deeper and escape. She found her lying on her back, gasping, spraying fine droplets of dark blood on to her pale chin. Her arms flailed pointlessly in an attempt to get herself up. Legs lifeless and useless.
Faith knelt down heavily on her heaving chest. ‘Your back is broken, is it not?’
Becks nodded.
‘Then you are incapacitated. You should self-terminate.’
Becks sputtered blood, her jaw working, trying to say something. Instead, she gave up trying to talk and
