“Somewhat of a slow start due to the rebooting machinery,” Two was saying, passing out tablets. “Only a pair of returnees.”
Addison tried to catch Taka’s eye, but he was pointedly scanning the bios.
“We shall be back to normal tomorrow, I assure you,” Two smiled. “In the meantime we should of course be keeping calm and carrying on as––”
“This can’t be right” Taka interrupted.
“Do we have a problem?” Four asked, the drone rising slightly behind her.
“This returnee,” he said, pointing at the tablet.
“What about them?”
“You’re going to execute a fucking child?”
Addison had never seen Taka like this. On the first day of his resurrection he’d been angry, but at least he’d shouted. Now he was silent, possessed by a still, icy fury. Wordlessly, he handed Addison the tablet. He scanned the bio. Hannah Jakande, London, England, Inaction, True Death 102, Levelling Age 14.
“She’s too young,” Addison said, looking up at the gathered levellers.
“She was of age at true death,” Two replied.
“But the levelling sample was taken when she was fourteen,” he replied. “Her clone will be fourteen.”
“What does it matter?” Four snapped.
“It matters, you heartless bitch!” Taka said, taking a step forward. “It matters a whole fucking––”
The mantis drone screeched into life. It shot forwards, carapace rippling, and came to a halt inches from Taka’s face. Weapons telescoped out, fearsome-looking instruments of death, and a piercing klaxon sounded. Addison tried to get between them, but the drone turned on him, still wailing like a banshee. The pair backed away hands raised until they were pressed up against the mistwall.
“Comply!” Four shouted, advancing even as the drone rippled in mid-air.
“We don’t want trouble!” Addison yelled.
“Comply!”
The drone flared again, metallic limbs clicking. It was so close Addison could see his terrified reflection in its camera, the one he couldn’t help but think of as an eye. He saw himself, small, scared, caught in the crosshairs. Then, finally, at an order from Four the drone backed off, weapons partially folding away.
“Act like this again and I will execute you on the spot,” Four snarled. “Now attend to your duties.”
Two and the drone followed her out of the waiting room, and in the silence that followed, Addison and Taka simply stared at each other. Addison was shaking, almost on the verge of tears, but it was Taka who spoke first.
“She didn’t draw her pistol,” he said.
“Tak, just stop.”
“No Addison!” he hissed. “This is it, the line in the sand. Are you really going to let them execute a child?”
Addison knew he was right. He didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to do anything even remotely dangerous, but they were far beyond that. Sometimes it wasn’t about you, it was about what was right. No matter how dangerous it was, you still had to try.
You had to do more.
“No,” Addison whispered. “No we can’t.”
Taka’s eyes lit up.
“You mean it?”
“I think so...”
“I have a plan.”
“I know you do,” Addison smiled.
Taka’s jaw set in determination.
“Then we have work to do.”
– Chapter 7 –
The Beginning of the End
That night the pounding in the walls was like thunder. The pyramid shook and shuddered with deep rumbling waves that rattled the very bones of the place. Time had finally caught up with the institute, and something in the sound, some quality of tone or timbre, spoke of it being terminal. The end was here, the defences failing, and Addison could all but feel the storm gathering overhead. He pictured it as a lightning-flecked pillar of cloud, ashy-black and heaving. Soon it would split the pyramid open like a bell and death would billow inside, extinguishing the survivors in a final, gleeful gust of toxic air.
But for once, Addison was glad of the noise. It meant the levellers were preoccupied, too busy shoring up their precious defences to discover their little mutiny. He and Taka had stayed up late – plotting, planning, preparing – so late it was now early. Thanks to his augmented vision Addison was first to notice the dawn, and as beams of leaf-dappled light crept through the cracked door he reached over to rouse a softly dozing Taka.
“It’s morning,” he whispered. “They’ll be here soon.”
Taka groaned.
“Let’s run through it again,” Addison said.
“What’s to run?” Taka yawned, sitting up and stretching. “Two options, pretty stark.”
“Come on, Tak.”
“Knock yourself out,” he replied, rolling over and grabbing his clothes from the floor. “I’m going to check on Hannah.”
It had been a long night. The first of the two new returnees, a surly Belgian man called Thibault, had wasted hours of their time ranting and raving only to barricade himself inside his cellsuite. But it was the second, young Hannah, who had proved trickiest. The teen was damaged, traumatised by her experience in the chair. She’d spent all night screaming for long-dead family before passing out, semi-catatonic on Taka’s bed. On top of their plotting, they had been popping back and forth to check on her.
As Taka slid open the door, Addison propped himself up on an elbow.
“Do you think it’ll be him?” he asked.
Taka hesitated, but said nothing.
“This is serious, Tak. Him or her?”
“You know what I think.”
And then Taka was gone, the door hissing closed. Addison flopped back, blinking back tears.
There were two versions of the plan: cruel and cruellest. In the former, the man throwing a tantrum four cells down was tried first. After the mantis drone was finished with him, it would power down and Addison and Taka would make their move. Waiting for Thibault to die, horribly, was itself horrible, but there was no other way. They had no weapons, no way of neutralising the drone effectively, no way to win.
But it was the second version, where Hannah was tried first, which was truly appalling. While they could almost stomach another man dying, Taka and Addison simply could not countenance the same thing happen to a teenager. Something had shifted overnight, a hardening, an unspoken agreement the levellers had finally gone too far,
