‘Let me guess,’ said Dutch. ‘You told her you needed me alive long enough to get you to the Rift.’
‘Yes. Can I please have the first-aid kit?’
‘No.’ The temptation to just kill him then and there was nearly overwhelming. ‘So how does Elektron fit into all this?’
‘He doesn’t. Finding out he’d been hired by Muto took me by surprise just as much as you. I thought she’d agreed to hold off until after we located the missing expedition.’
It was all starting to make sense now the more she thought it through. ‘Here’s what I think happened,’ Dutch snarled. ‘Muto didn’t agree to call off the dogs, she offered to pay you to kill me instead as soon as I stopped being useful. Except that she didn’t trust you, so she also paid Elektron to kill both of us. She figured one of you would stay alive long enough to grab the superconductors and bring them back. But no way was she going to let either Wu or Strugatsky get hold of them.’
Nat stared at her. He looked paler now, his breaths more laboured. ‘You’re saying—?’
‘If I know Muto,’ said Dutch, ‘she was out to steal those superconductors for herself the moment she found out they existed.’ She peered at him. ‘The only thing I can’t figure out is how you were going to double-cross Wu if Harry had been my navigator.’
‘I knew I’d have to find a way to make sure I took Harry’s place,’ said Nat. ‘You fixed that for me just fine.’ He nodded at the gun in Dutch’s hand, his expression feverish. ‘So are you going to let me back up or not?’
Dutch fought back a rush of sour phlegm. ‘Damn you to hell.’ How long did you mean to wait before you killed me? She wondered. Until we were almost in sight of the Security Zone? Or before that?
Dutch pictured Nat dropping the death notice on her corpse and snapping a picture of it with the Polaroid as evidence for Muto, and felt her finger tighten on the trigger.
Then she saw Nat’s eyes grow wide, as if he’d caught sight of something behind her. A shadow fell across them, and Dutch turned to see a monstrous shape had risen from out of the Rift. The highway she’d glimpsed was gone, replaced by a hellish vision of unfamiliar stars above a barren and lifeless landscape.
The sun raced across the sky, day to night and back again in seconds, and by the time the sky had stopped strobing the Kaiju had crossed over. It reared up to its full height, the ground shaking as it took its first, tentative step into its new home.
She remembered about Nat too late. He threw himself on her, one arm tight under her chin and his free hand reaching for her eyes. She tried to twist away, panicking because she knew he meant to blind her.
The Kaiju let out a roar like a thousand years of thunder and death all compressed into one terrible moment. Rocks and gravel came tumbling down the slope of the hill above the road, almost hitting them and spraying them with gravel.
Dutch took the chance to twist free. Nat ran towards the Coupé, stumbling from side to side as he did so and leaving a crimson trail.
The Kaiju took another lumbering step towards them. Dutch chased after Nat, knowing she had at best moments before the beast killed them both.
She beat him to the Coupé, but he yanked the door open before she could reach for the ignition. She punched him hard, then slammed the door against him, sending him reeling like a drunkard. He took a faltering step backwards and collapsed.
Dutch pumped the gas hard with one foot until the ignition caught. She could see the Kaiju reaching down towards her, flame flickering deep within its gaping jaws…
The tyres span and caught the tarmac. She drove past the Kaiju, the night turning bright as flames came bursting from between its jaws. She urged the Coupé to go faster, leaning over the wheel like a jockey urging a horse towards its final hurdle.
From far behind, she thought she heard the sound of screaming.
The beast faded into the distance, but she didn’t slow down, taking hairpin turns at speeds that would have terrified her if she’d let herself think about it. She kept going until she saw the first glimmer of the sea off to the East, then pulled over onto the side of the road to lean her head against the wheel, deep sobs racking her until she felt drained of all fear. Then she reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out the navigator’s maps.
* * *
From there the road wound down towards the coast like a black tar snake, looping over hills and around small mountains until the terrain became more level. The d-field began to assert itself again, but not so much she couldn’t still navigate.
At one point she saw Nat standing beneath the shade of a banyan tree, lurching towards her with pain in his eyes and blood pouring from his shoulder wound. She floored the gas and caught a glimpse of the shapeshifter’s outline flowing and changing in the rearview mirror. Then she came to the coast and parked in the shade of some trees, watching from a safe distance as a Spine-back lumbered through lush jungle, trees shaking and splintering as it brushed past them.
To her astonishment, she was the first to arrive at the second rendezvous. The supply crates were still tangled up in parachutes that billowed across a yellow sandy beach.
Right then, Dutch realised she could win the race. She stared out to sea for a minute, watching the waves roll up to the shore and letting the thought wash through her. Then she hunted around until she found a crowbar duct-taped to a crate, and before long she had spare
