uncertainly, not sure if he was improving the situation. 'I'm sure with your help we can prevent this happening again.'
The gorgon spoke in a silky yet slightly rasping voice. 'Yess, of course, but you have to get me to that meeting with your king's advisors. I was told to speak only to them.'
'Right, you were flying there when you were shot down.'
'Probably the SIS Matthew thought. 'Odd, but if that's what she says…' The idea that the demon might be lying was somehow unthinkable. They'd arrived at the van; the sounds of the fire teams and circling aircraft louder than ever but the thick ashen haze rendered them invisible.
'Where did you say the rendezvous was?'
'A small village, a dozen miles to the north of here. I cannot remember the name…' Lakheenahuknaasi tried her best to look sympathetic.
'Poor thing, probably scared out of its wits.' 'Barnsley perhaps? No, that's a decent size town…'
'Grimethorpe?' Special Constable Amstead volunteered. He had an aunt who still lived in that run-down sink- hole.
'Yes, that's it, Grim-thorpe!' Lakheenahuknaasi was desperate to escape this awful place, anywhere would do. She climbed into the yawning interior of the iron chariot, shuddering at the feeling of the cursed metal all around her.
“Huh, lucky guess John.”
'How can she be cold in this heat?' Matthew thought. 'There's some space blankets and a thermos of tea in the back there.' The gorgon blinked at him. 'Shout if you need anything else. We'd best be off then.' The two police officers shut the rear doors and climbed into the cab. Moments later, the van pulled away and headed north.
DIMO(N) Special Devices Assembly Facility (formerly Payne Whitney Gymnasium Complex), Yale, Connecticut
The raised track formed a convenient balcony for viewing the main assembly area, one which Dr Kuroneko had taken to spending his breaks in. The repurposed space was packed with tools, workbenches, stacked components and half-finished subassemblies. Many would not be out of place in any light engineering shop, but some were thoroughly exotic and quite a few had been requisitioned directly from high-energy physics labs. The place was crowded with engineers and technicians of diverse specialties; DIMO(N) drafted whoever they needed (not that coercion was required often) and left no stone unturned in building their tiger team. The work went on 24/7, watched by the heavily armed guards that stood at every entrance.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it.”
The flat voice again. Kuroneko tried not to look startled as he turned to face the newcomer.
“You’ve been approved for deployment over Sheffield.” the man continued “Your project plan implies that you’ll be ready to ship the first device in five more days, correct?”
“If everyone continues to work day and night and there are no more component problems, then yes. But remember that this is just a prototype…”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear, we won’t string you up if it’s a dud. Not the first time anway.” The man smiled. Kuroneko tried to smile back.
“You’ve got a third prototype under production now?” he continued.
“Yes, but we’re holding further components for the weaponised version. The engineers tell me those HT superconductors are hell to work with, we’ve trimmed another three hundred kilos off but I’m not sure how much more we can take out.”
“These aviation types don’t look hard enough. I’ll see if I can get you some ICBM RV designers. There’s no one better at shaving ounces.”
Kuroneko didn’t know how this mysterious civilian was going to rustle up nuclear missile builders and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Both men stared out at the work in progress.
“In any case, you’ve been assigned a designation. EBU-5(V)1, prototypes will be mod 0, first production run will be mod 1. McAlester is turning out the casings for you now, based on the GBU-43 supersize design study. C-17s will be providing emergency capability until we can dedicate B-1s for the role, crews are about to start training in Nevada. Just as soon as we can spray paint some weather balloons black to serve as the targets.”
Kuroneko wished he could tell when this guy was joking. Best to change the subject, the thought.
“What about early warning? Would you believe, the cellphone companies told us to quit bothering them! Told us to go through the FCC, and they’re a bunch of…”
He was cut off again. “Not a problem. I have it on good authority that they’ll be a presidential order going out in the morning. You’ll have full access to network diagnostics and freedom to reprogram the base stations as needed.”
“Right. Well, that’s great. Thank you.” Kuroneko stammered. “Of course that’s just, ahh, how do you say, ‘emergency capability’, until the production line for the dedicated sensors is running.”
“Of course.” The man looked at his watch. “Keep up the good work, Doctor.” He walked briskly away, leaving Kuroneko alone.
‘Damn’, the scientist thought, ‘now my coffee’s gone cold’.
Lady Wood, near Grimthorpe, United Kingdom
The big police Transit rolled to a halt on the loose gravel, stopping under the canopy of trees at the end of the disused lane. Two police officers got out and opened the rear doors. An unearthly humanoid form emerged, trailing oversized bat-wings and gleaming bronze and silver in the fading afternoon light. The silver came from the mylar blanket that the creature had wrapped around itself like a shroud.
'Are you ok?' Constable Matthew Hillier looked at the demon dubiously.
'Well enough, human.' She flashed a fanged grin. “Your assistance is appreciated.”
'You're sure this is it? There's no sign of anyone else here.'
'I was to meet them at a farmhouse, in that direction I believe.' The demon pointed into the trees, seemingly at random. 'You will escort me of course.'
'Of course.' Matthew echoed. He was feeling increasingly uneasy about this. There was something wrong here… had someone tricked the demon perhaps? To what end? In any case they couldn't abandon her. He unslung his MP5 and moved forward.
'That was a close call back at the checkpoint.' his partner remarked, after a few minutes walking. “If those yobs hadn't been making a scene, they probably would've searched us.”
“Yeah, then we'd have had some fast talking to do.” Matthew couldn't shake the feeling something was horribly wrong here. The more he thought about it – and for some reason he hadn't until now – this scenario made no sense. Why where they here? Why had they taken that creature at its word? Suddenly he realized that the demon was no longer beside them. Clarity came a moment too late. The spray of paralyzing darts pierced his back and for the second time his limbs went rigid before he could draw a bead on the demon. For a moment he stood like a statue, before falling to the ground stiffly. As he fell he saw that John had suffered the same fate.
Lakheenahuknaasi limped up to the paralyzed humans. They always looked so pitiful, frozen in horror like that. And to think that they'd been trying to show her pity.
“It's almost a shame, after you've been so helpful.” Clinically, she reached down with a clawed hand and ripped out the first man's throat. “But I'm afraid you've become more trouble than you're worth”. The second man was staring at her in terror; he mumbled something, but it was too slurred for the gorgon to tell whether it was begging or defiance. No matter. She grabbed his throat and squeezed the life out of him. Finally giving in to her instincts, Lakheenahuknaasi dropped to her knees and began to feast.
After half an hour she'd had her fill. The demoness dragged what was left of the bodies into a nearby ditch, concealed them as best she could and slipped away into the woods.
Underground Caverns, City of Dis, Hell
Despite the oppressiveness of being cooped up underground, Richard Dawkins was fully recovered and had been for some time. The professor of biology part of him was only half conscious of his surroundings, the rest of his mind was riveted on the world around him. As the trauma of his days of torment had slowly died, long after no trace of the hideous burns remained, he'd begun to take note of hell, his scientific training taking over.
Even here, inside this labyrinth of granite caves, he'd examined his environment. The floor was coated with mud, brown, but flecked with what looked a bit like duckweed, or algae of some sort. It was the consistency of cake batter. There were tufts of thick grass growing out of it here and there, but it wasn't like any grass he'd ever seen –
