“I don’t think so. It just hurts.”
He went onto his hands and knees and crawled over to her. “Show me where.”
She pointed, and he laid his hand on. With his mind he could see the smooth glowing pattern of living flesh distorted and broken below his fingers, the fissures extending deep inside her. He willed the pattern to return to its unblemished state.
Tatiana hissed in relief. “I don’t know what you did, but it’s better than a medical nanonic.”
The lift stopped at the fiftieth floor.
Now what?dariat asked.
Rubra showed him.
You are one evil bastard.
Why, thank you, boy.
Stanyon was leading the possessed down through the starscraper in pursuit of Dariat. He’d started off with thirty-five under his command, and that number was rapidly swelling as Bonney directed more and more from neighbouring starscrapers to assist him. She’d announced she was on her way herself. Stanyon was going balls- out to find Dariat before she arrived. He got hot just thinking about the praise (and other things) Kiera would direct at the champion who erased her bкte noire from the habitat.
Eight different teams of possessed were searching, assigned a floor each. They were working their way steadily downwards, demolishing every mechanical and electrical device as they went.
He strode out of the stairwell onto the thirty-eighth-floor vestibule. For whatever reason, Rubra was no longer putting up any resistance. Muscle-membrane doors opened obediently, the lighting remained on, there wasn’t a servitor in sight. He looked around, happy with what he found. The floor’s mechanical utilities office had been broken open, and the machinery inside reduced to slag, preventing the sprinklers from being used. Doors into the apartments and bars and commercial offices were smashed apart, furniture and fittings inside were blazing with unnatural ferocity. Big circles of polyp flooring were cracking under the intense heat, grainy white marble surface blackening. Wisps of dirty steam fizzed up from the crannies.
“Die,” Stanyon snarled. “Die a little bit at a time. Die hurting big.”
He was walking towards the stairwell door when his walkie-talkie squawked: “We got him! He’s down here.”
Stanyon snatched the unit from his belt. “Where? Who is this? Which floor are you on?”
“This is Talthorn the Greenfoot; I’m on floor forty-nine. He’s just below us. We can all sense him.”
“Everybody hear that?” Stanyon yelled gleefully. “Fiftieth floor. Get your arses down there.” He sprinted for the stairwell.
“They’re coming,” Dariat said.
Tatiana flashed him a worried-but-brave grin, and finished tying the last cord around her pillow. They were in a long-disused residential apartment; its polyp furniture of horseshoe tables and oversized scoop armchairs dominating the living room. The chairs had been turned into cushion nests to add a dash of comfort. The foam used to fill the cushions was a lightweight plastic that was ninety-five per cent nitrogen bubbles.
They were, Rubra swore, perfect buoyancy aids.
Dariat tried on his harness one last time. The cords which he’d torn from the gaudy cushion fabric held a pillow to his chest and another against his back. Seldom had he felt so ridiculous.
His doubt must have leaked onto his face.
If it works, don’t try to fix it,rubra said.
Ripe, from someone who’s devoted his existence to meddling.
Game set and match, I won’t even appeal. Would you like to get ready?
Dariat used the starscraper’s observation routines to check on the possessed. There were twelve of them on the floor above. A rock-skinned troll was leading the pack; followed by a pair of cyber-ninjas in black flak jackets; a xenoc humanoid that was all shiny amber exoskeleton and looked like it could rip metal apart with its talons; a faerie prince wearing his forest hunting tunic and carrying a longbow in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other; three or four excessively hairy Neanderthals; and regular soldiers in the uniforms of assorted eras.
“The loonies are on the warpath tonight,” Dariat muttered under his breath. “Finished?” he asked Tatiana.
She shifted her front pillow around and tightened the last strap to hold it in place. “I’m ready.”
The bathroom’s muscle-membrane door parted silently. Inside was an emerald-green suite: a circular bath, vaguely Egyptian in design, matched by the basin, bidet, and toilet. They were still all in perfect condition. It was the plumbing which had degraded. Water was dripping from the brass shower head above the bath; over the years it had produced a big orange stain on the bottom. Slimy blue-green algae was growing out of the plug. The sink was piled high with bars of soap; so old and dry now that they’d started to crumble, snowing flecks over the rim.
Dariat stood in the doorway, with Tatiana pressed against him, looking eagerly over his shoulder. “What’s supposed to be happening?” she asked.
“Watch.”
A bass crunching sound was coming from the toilet. Cracks appeared around its base, expanding rapidly outwards. Then the whole bowl lurched upwards, spinning around precariously before toppling over. A two-metre circle of floor around it was rising up like a miniature volcanic eruption. Polyp splintered with a continual brassy crackling. A fine jet of water sprayed out of the fractured flush pipe.
“Lord Tarrug, what are you doing?” Tatiana asked.
“That’s not Tarrug, that’s Rubra,” Dariat told her. “No dark arts involved.”
Affinity with the local sub-routines allowed him to feel the toilet’s sphincter muscle straining as it contorted in directions it was never intended, rupturing the thin shell of polyp floor. It halted, fully expended. The cone which it had produced quivered slightly, then stilled. Dariat hurried over. There was a crater at the centre, leading down to an impenetrable darkness. The muscle tissue which made up the sides was a tough dark red flesh, now badly lacerated. Pale yellow fluid was oozing out of the splits, running down to disappear in the unseen space below.
“Our escape route,” Dariat said, echoing Rubra’s pride.
“A toilet?” she asked incredulously.
“Sure. Don’t go squeamish on me now, please.” He sat on the edge of the sphincter and swung his legs over the crater. It was a three-metre slither down into the sewer tubule below. When his feet touched the bottom he knelt down and held a hand out. His skin began to glow with a strong pink light. It revealed the tubule stretching on ahead of him, a circular shaft just over a metre in diameter, and angled slightly downwards.
“Throw the pillows down,” he said.
Tatiana dropped them, peering over the edge of the crater with a highly dubious expression. Dariat shoved the two harnesses into the tubule, and started to worm his way in after them. “When I’m in, you follow me, okay?” He didn’t give her the chance to answer. It was awkward going, pushing the pillows ahead of him as he crawled along. The grey polyp was slippery with water and fecal sludge. Dariat could hear Tatiana grunting and muttering behind him as she discovered the residue smearing the sides.
There were ridges encircling the tubule every four metres, peristaltic muscle bands that assisted the usual water flow. Despite Rubra expanding them wide, they formed awkward constrictions which Dariat had to pull himself through. He had just squeezed past the third when Rubra said: They’ve reached the fiftieth floor. Can you sense them?
Not a chance. So in theory they won’t be able to find me.
They know the general direction, and they’re heading towards the apartment.
Dariat was too intent on inching himself along to review the images. What about the rest?
On their way down. The stairwells are absolutely packed. It’s like a freak-show stampede out there.
He elbowed his way through another muscle band. The light from his hand showed the tubule walls ending two metres ahead. A thick ring of muscle membrane surrounded the rim. Beyond that was a clear empty space.
