“Hannah, Thibault!” Taka shouted, looking to the witness stand. “For god’s sake help me!”
The pair looked momentarily stunned, then both hopped down just in time to help wrestle the judge to the floor. Addison wheeled around, sensing victory. Two was unconscious, sprawled across his table, and Four was out cold, possibly dead, in the aisle. The drone was a smoking mess of machine parts and Judge One was getting a good kicking. Only Five remained upright, sat at his table with a palm pressed into his gut. He caught Addison’s eye and smiled grimly, as if he’d been expecting all of this.
“Is that it?” Taka shouted, limping down the aisle. “Have we won?”
“They’re all down,” Addison replied, still not quite believing it. “Is that it?”
Taka was a mess of cuts and slices, blood and scorch marks all over his face and arms, but he was still moving.
“I think so,” he growled, limping past. “You get Two and Five to the waiting room. I’ll deal with One and Four.”
“How?”
“I’m going to see if the guillotine headholes lock.”
But before Addison could move, the courtroom doors suddenly burst inwards. In a flurry of motion, another figure sprinted inside.
“They’re here!” a woman’s voice shouted, “They’re coming! They’re going to–––”
The figure, another leveller, slid to a halt, taking in the carnage. She looked like Four’s identical twin.
Taka didn’t even stop moving.
“Three, I presume?” he said, smiling through red teeth. “So good we could finally meet. As you can see, there’s been something of a regime change.”
“Wait–” the woman began, backing off.
“What was that?” Taka said, clambering over the abandoned guillotine and smearing his bloody knuckles on its grey surface. “Sorry, I can’t understand you very well. The others were much better at English. I’m going to imagine you said something whiny and wheedling.”
“She said ‘wait,’” Addison explained, interpreting even at the end.
“‘Wait,’” Taka repeated. “Of course. Well sorry Three, I am very much done with waiting.”
The leveller stopped, steadying herself.
“Don’t test me,” Taka growled. “I’m not in the mood.”
Then Three smiled. It was a dark, terrible grin that spread slowly across her face. Too late, Addison realised without an interpreter Taka wouldn’t be able to see the change in expression. He was still walking towards her, unaware she had something up her sleeve.
“Taka, stop,” Addison began. “Something’s not ri––”
The courtroom doors banged open again and the bottom fell out of Addison’s world.
Hovering in the doorway was another mantis drone. Pristine, undamaged and with its weapons fully extended, it floated calmly into the courtroom and came to a halt directly behind Three.
“No…” Taka breathed.
“I think you’ll find you are not in control,” Three smiled. “And you never have been.”
Taka was stunned. He looked around, catching Addison’s eyes. His expression was heartbreaking: defeat, realisation and resignation all at once. He knew it was over. They had lost.
“For this treason,” the leveller continued, advancing down the aisle. “You will be punished. Oh yes, you will be punished most severely.”
Addison stumbled back, tripping over Four’s prone form and ending up sat on one of the gallery benches.
“One?” Three called, craning her neck.
“I am here,” the judge coughed, pushing a shocked Thibault away and rising to his feet. “Damaged, but here. Report!”
“As we suspected. Ingress imminent.”
“Are you certain?”
“Would I be here if not?”
“Then there is no time to waste,” the judge said, brushing himself off. “Now the second paladin is here, we can end this.”
Addison didn’t understand. How could they have had a second drone the whole time? What could it possibly have been doing? It wasn’t fair. It felt like the levellers had kept it hidden on purpose, letting the returnees get a taste of victory only to snatch it away to teach them a lesson.
“You planned this,” the judge snarled, limping down the aisle towards Addison. “From the moment you re-resurrected Mr. Everett, you had this all planned. You are the ringleader. Your punishment will be the most severe of all.”
“I didn’t––” Addison stammered, backing away down the bench.
“Yes, you did,” the judge snarled. “So you will be the first to experience our new guillotine, the first to––”
He stopped suddenly, cocking his head. At first Addison didn’t know why, then he realised something was missing. The pounding in the walls had stopped. The noise was gone, and the courtroom had fallen silent.
It was eerie, the sound had become so ever-present he’d got used to it, but now it was gone Addison suddenly felt afraid. The judge whirled around, his eyes once again finding Addison’s. This time there was no mistaking the look, no flickering, no uncertainty in his features. The judge’s face was a mask of terror. Whatever Addison was feeling, he was feeling it too.
“I thought we’d have more time,” One said, lip trembling. “I thought we’d––”
There was a sudden gust of wind.
Addison screamed.
One second he was staring at the judge, the next he was in a whirlwind. The wall running the length of the courtroom was just gone, and in its place was a howling void of yellow-brown nothingness.
Dust and grit whipped into his face, burning rain lashed at his skin, and through tears he saw quick-moving shadows swarming the courtroom, blurry wraiths too fast for the eye to follow. The judge’s face had changed too. It had gone slack, replaced by a sallow shrunken mess. Addison’s interpreter had finally failed.
That was when he knew he had made a mistake.
Addison had assumed that no death could be worse than the drone, that the end of the institute would be swift and sudden, but he had forgotten the vision chair, forgotten about all the terrible things humanity had unleashed as it turned on itself. Now the defences had fallen, those things were in here with them.
As the wind raged, Addison had just enough time to wonder what these wraiths were, what psychotic mind had put the finishing touches to the shadows that were about to finish him, before he collapsed to the
