of pain as it ripped free. He gulped down air.
“Please,” he panted. “Please don’t torture me. I’ll surrender, okay. Just fucking don’t.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Quinn said. “I want you to help me.”
“I’m yours. Hundred per cent! Anything.”
“How old are you Jack?”
“Hu . . . uh, twenty-eight.”
“I’d have put you older, myself. But that’s fine. And you’re about the right height.”
“What for?”
“Well, see, Jack, you got lucky. We’re gonna smarten you up a bit, give you a makeover. You’re gonna be a whole new man by the time we’re finished. And I won’t even charge you for it. How about that?”
“You mean different clothes and stuff?” Jack asked cautiously.
“Not exactly. You see, I found out that Greta here is a fully qualified nurse. Course, some assholes would call that synchronicity. But you and I know that’s total bullshit, don’t we Jack.”
Jack grinned round wildly. “Yeah! Absolutely. No fucking way.”
“Right. It’s all part of His plan. God’s Brother makes sure everything comes together for me. I am the chosen one, after all. Both of you are His gifts to me.”
“You tell him, Quinn,” Courtney said.
Jack’s grin had been frozen into place by the aching realization of how deep into their shared insanity he’d fallen. “A nurse?”
“Yep.” Quinn signalled Greta forwards.
Jack saw she held a medical nanonic package. “Oh Jesus fuck, what are you going to do?”
“Hey, asshole, Jesus is dead,” Courtney shouted. “Don’t you go calling his name around us, he can’t help you. He’s the false lord. Quinn is Earth’s new messiah.”
“Help me!” Jack yelled. “Somebody help.”
“Mouthy little turd, ain’t he,” Billy-Joe said. “Ain’t no body gonna hear you, boy. They didn’t hear any of the others, and Quinn hurt them a fuck of a lot more.”
“Look, I said I’d help you,” Jack said desperately. “I will. Really. I’m not bullshitting. But you gotta keep your end of the bargain. You said no torture.”
Quinn walked back to the door, putting as much distance as he could between himself and Jack in the small room. “Is it working now?” he asked Greta.
She looked at the small display on her processor block. “Yes.”
“Okay. Start by getting rid of his vocal cords. Billy-Joe’s right, he talks too much. And I need him to be quiet when I use him. That’s important.”
“No!” Jack yelled. He started to squirm round on the floor.
Billy-Joe laughed and sat down hard on his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs. It fluted weakly as it escaped through his nostril.
“The package can’t remove his vocal cords,” Greta said in a disinterested monotone. “I’ll have to disengage the nerves.”
“Fine,” Quinn said. “Whatever.”
Jack stared right at her as she leaned over and applied the glossy green package to his throat. Direct eye to eye contact, the most personal human communication there was. Pleading, imploring.
Silencing him was just the beginning. He was left alone as the package did its work, then the four of them returned. This time Greta was carrying a different type of nanonic package, a face-mask with several sac-like blisters on the outer surface, inflated by some glutinous fluid. There were no slits for him to see out through when she placed it over his face.
That was when the routine started. Every few hours they would return and remove the mask. Greta would refill the sacs. His face would be examined, and Quinn would issue a few instructions before the mask was replaced. Occasionally they’d give him cold soup and a cup of water.
He was left alone in a darkness that was frightening in its totality. His face was numbed by the package, and whatever it was doing prevented even the red blotches that usually appeared behind closed eyelids. That just left him with hearing. He learned how to tell the difference between night and day. The half-moon window let in a variety of sounds, mostly traffic flowing along the big elevated motorway running down the middle of the Thames. There was also the sound of boats, swans and ducks squabbling. He began to get a feel for the building, too. Big and old, he was sure of that; the floorboards and pipes conducted faint vibrations. In the day there was some activity. Whirring sounds that must be lifts, clumping as heavy objects were moved around. None of it close to his room.
At night there was screaming. A woman, starting with a pitiful wail which was eventually reduced to miserable sobbing. Each time the same, and not far away. It took a while for him to realize it was Greta. Obviously, there were worse things than having your features modified by a nanonics package. The knowledge didn’t act as much of a comfort.
The ghosts knew the Orgathe were approaching Valisk’s northern endcap, their new awareness perceiving black knots of menacing hunger sliding through the air. It was enough to overcome their apprehension towards the humans that hated them, sending them fleeing into the caverns harbouring their ex-hosts.
Their presence was one more complication for the defenders. Although the personality could watch the Orgathe flying along the habitat, it certainly didn’t know where they’d land. That left Erentz and her relatives with the entire circumference to guard. They’d already decided that it would be impossible to move the thousands of sick and emaciated humans from the front line of the outer caverns. Flight time down the length of the habitat was barely fifteen minutes, and the Orgathe emerging from the southern endcap were joined by several new arrivals who had just entered through the starscrapers. There simply wasn’t time to prepare, all they could do was snatch up their weapons and assemble in teams ready to respond to the nearest incursion; even the way they were spaced round the endcap was less than ideal.
Wait until they get inside,the personality said. If you fire while they’re still in the air, they’ll just swoop away. Once they’re in the caverns they can’t escape.
The Orgathe hesitated as they glided down towards the scrub desert, in turn sensing the hatred and fear of the entities below. For several minutes they circled above the cavern entrances as the last ghosts fled inside, then the flock descended.
Thirty-eight of the buggers. Stand by.
Tolton shifted his grip on the incendiary torpedo launcher as Erentz told him to get ready. His sweat was making its casing slippery. He was standing behind Dariat, who in turn was at the tail end of a group of his relatives waiting in a passage at the back of one of the hospital caverns. What he thought of as his special status hadn’t exempted him from this brand of lethal madness.
He heard a lot of groaning start up in the cavern. It quickly degenerated into weak screams and shouted curses. The ghosts were flooding in, ignoring the bedridden humans to plunge deeper into the cavern network. They started to run past him, mouths open to yell silent warnings. Their movements sketched short-lived smears of washed-out colour through the air.
Then one of the Orgathe hit the entrance outside. Its body elongated, the front section pressing forward eagerly through the curving passageway, while the bulbous rear quarter squirmed violently, adding to its impetus. Those ghosts that had only just made it inside were engulfed by writhing appendages as the huge creature surged along. Their savage cries of suffering penetrated the entire endcap as their life-energy was torn away from them. The other ghosts and Dariat could actually hear them, while the humans experienced their torment as a wave of profound unease. Tolton looked down at the launcher for reassurance, only to find his hands were trembling badly.
