projections they made back at the start – and I did – the AB-virus took out 93% of the world's population. That's fifty-nine billion people, for the record, bent-double with the pain, spitting mangled clusters of alveoli out of their lungs and into their mouths, bleeding from eyes and ears and arse, dying by fractions.
You hear that?
Fifty. Nine. Billion.
It's a bigger number than I can imagine – and that wasn't even the end of it.
There was a time – perhaps a month or two – when the governments and networks and lines of communication were still nominally functional. Stripped down, understaffed, kept afloat by the efforts of men and women who'd watched nine out of ten of their colleagues drop dead, who'd been left blinking in the glare of responsibility with no clue, no hope and no idea.
I guess it was inevitable some stupid fuckwit would start throwing accusations.
The AB-virus was manufactured, they said.
Biological weaponry, they said.
State-sponsored terrorism hiding behind pandemic disaster, they said, and they pointed fingers and found 'proof', and let the tension escalate. The news was all but dead by the time the missiles dusted off, but we heard about it. Even in London.
I like to think nobody targeted Britain because our diplomatic status was untarnished, our potential involvement in any biological assault was laughable, and our impartiality prevented any accusations being aimed at us.
Yeah. And pork-chops come with wings.
No, we were spared because there were no wankers left in Whitehall to stick their heads over the parapet and join the row. No one left to contribute to the growing worldwide squabble. No one left to press Big Red Buttons.
After the Cull, any poor fucker left in charge was either lynched by the mob or ran and hid. It was a very British way of dealing with disaster.
It was also, now, half a world away.
I drew myself painfully through the interior of the destroyed plane and tried to anticipate. From the heat and glare ebbing through the largest of the ragged rents in the fuselage it looked like a pleasant day, which was something of a novelty after five years of acid rain and London skies.
I threw a last look back at Bella – hating myself for not having the energy to lift her off that spike; for not pausing a moment longer to at least close her eyes. But no… that same feeling of being bottled-up; trapped in a cage. Waiting for something to come and get me.
It's a cliche, but you don't get any good at what I used to do without letting your instincts guide you. That and the fact that, in my line of work, there was always something coming to get me.
Logic suggested the Neo-Clergy would be nearby. This was, after all, their plane. It was also their route, plotted ahead of time into their autopilot, landing us (for want of a better word) at their chosen destination. They could be relied upon to take exception to the way I'd treated their property.
I probed a hand into the pocket of my coat, seeking reassurance.
Still there.
Good.
But what else to expect? A nuclear desert? A radioactive wasteland haunted by the insane and the dying? Cancerous wildlife staggering on tumourous legs, lurching up to feast on the new arrival?
I'd been to New York once before. It didn't sound all that different.
I'd stowed the supplies pack in a luggage locker near the cockpit. Working my way forwards, past twisted seats and dangling airmasks, it was easy enough to retrieve. But as I tried to heft it onto my shoulders, grunting under my breath, it occurred to me exactly how weak I was. My head rushed for a split second – the legacy of the Bliss – and I staggered, overbalancing awkwardly.
'Bollocks!' I hissed, falling onto my arse.
It saved my life.
A stuttering burst of semi-auto rang out from somewhere behind me, clawing a neat geyser of shattered plastic and fibrous insulation from the ceiling/wall above my head.
Exactly where I would have been.
I dropped and rolled, textbook fast, before my brain even caught up. A chatter of gunfire followed – I guessed from the same source – shaking the air like a giant fan and tugging on my raggedy coat as it ripped a hole in the trailing edge. I swatted out the singed fabric before it caught light, finding myself hidden by the padded shield of a sideways seat, and let the adrenaline take over.
Identify the enemy.
'Where the fuck,' a voice shouted, NY accent thicker than a sergeant's skull, 'are the kids?'
Ah.
The kids.
'I can explain!' I shouted, keeping the terror thick in my voice. 'Just… just don't shoot me! Oh god oh god. It wasn't me! They sent me to tell you!'
'Who sent you?'
'T-the…' Think fast. 'The Bishop! There was a problem! W-with the kids, I mean. They wanted me to explain, s-so they…'
'What problem? Where the fuck are they?'
Get a direction. Zero-in.
'Answer me! Where are they?'
Further along the cabin. Standing in the aisle. Must have climbed in through the missing tail.
Alone?
'Please, I… I just… oh god…' I knocked out my best sob. I hammed it up like a true thesp. I poured every false fear into that gurgling pitiful little voice, and when the figure appeared slowly on the edge of my vision, creeping forwards with his lips pursed, it was set in a posture of laughable unwariness. His gun was lowered.
He rolled his eyes when he saw me, cowering and shivering in bloody rags with snot pouring off my nose.
And the Oscar goes to…
'Pull yourself together,' he said, a fraction softer. 'Now tell me who the fuck you are or it's…'
I moved faster than my own senses could register. Mental conditioning. Third year training. Biological reactions: without thought or judgement. Zen disciplines with chemical catalysts: reaching down into the subconscious, switching off your abstractions and distractions, becoming something less and more than rational.
Letting the body take over.
'Hng.' he said.
I took out his jugular and carotid with a single sweep of the hunting knife I'd been carrying since Heathrow. More blood, soaking through my coat.
Doesn't matter.
I pirouetted downwards whilst the poor bastard was still wondering where I'd gone, wondering why his voice had stopped working, wondering why only gurgles arrived in his mouth where there should be angry, demanding words.
Three stabs to the ribs. Two directly between intercostals, the third glancing sideways off the breastbone, snapping something with a greasy pop, then sliding in as soft as you like.
Stepped back.
Considered a fourth stab upwards from solar plexus, decided it wasn't needed.
Retreated to my cover behind the chair and waited with animal patience for the human parts of my brain to come back on line.
Start to finish, it took about six seconds.
The man stayed upright for another five as his body worked out it was already dead.
He hit the puddle of his own blood like a belly-flopping pig, jerked once or twice, and went still.
I wiped the knife clean on a sleeve and cleared my throat.
