A teenage boy was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, completely naked apart from a silver necklace with a ruby-encrusted pendant that was a nest for nark pads. He was a golden youth whose striking features were even more eye-catching than Lolo’s. Following him up the stairs, all Ollie could think was how this kid was barely older than Bik.
‘Nikolaj has a suite on the first floor,’ Kohei had said. ‘We’ve never seen her leave it. So if they try taking you somewhere else, it’s a trap.’
They reached the landing. A couple of the family’s soldiers stood at the top of the stairs. One was even bulkier than Lars, though the musculature looked a lot sleeker – the difference between a gorilla and a panther. Trying to ignore the silent intimidation as they fell in on either side of him, Ollie walked along with head held high. The kid knocked on a dark oak-panelled door at the far end of the landing, then waited.
Tye told him he was being deep scanned, which would expose all the systems left over from his Legion days that he’d shifted into his jacket. Nikolaj would expect something like that. But this was where he’d find out just how good Lim’s new peripherals were.
The door opened. Ollie went inside while Tye assessed the door. It was what it seemed to be – ordinary oak without any modern reinforcement mesh. Even the locks were basic. That was a worry. After he killed Nikolaj, he’d need to hold off the family soldiers until Kohei’s paramilitaries stormed in to rescue him. And he wasn’t sure that door would last against the weapons and muscles he’d already seen.
It was a pleasant enough lounge: a big antique desk, leather couches, a high-quality stage, the curtains drawn shut and a chandelier blazing bright as if it was still drawing power from a solarwell. Nikolaj was standing in front of the desk, head tilted to one side as she appraised him. Icons splashed across his tarsus lens. Her altme was connected to the house’s network, but the encryption was high level. Tye couldn’t break it.
Planning, always planning, even now. If I use the desk to barricade the door, it might hold them a little longer. All he needed to do was work out how the hell to shift the monstrosity across five metres of thick pile carpet.
Tye scanned the room, searching for hidden weaponry. If there was any, his passive sensors couldn’t locate it. Ollie tried to think where he would emplace it while Tye continued to scan; it wouldn’t hurt to verify the synth bugs were watching over him.
‘You’ve got some balls, showing up here,’ Nikolaj said.
Ollie faced her, target graphics locking onto her head. She was taller than Jade – leaner, too, as the blouse and red trousers revealed. Hair cut short, styled badly in Ollie’s opinion, making her head seem oddly long, especially with that thin nose and rounded chin.
Do it. Just do it now. Come on.
But there was a score to settle first. He owed the Legion that much. She had to know. And it was what Kohei demanded for his flesh. So he said: ‘The Paynor family owes me. It owes me a lot for Croydon.’
‘Oh, Ollie, I’m very disappointed.’
‘I don’t give a fuck. I don’t even care about the money.’
‘Then what do you care about?’
‘Do you know what Jade said to me, just before the police raided Lichfield Road? Before the last of my friends died in the fight?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yeah, it matters. It’s the only thing in the world that matters.’
‘Somehow I doubt that, but tell me anyway. I can see how it’s eating you up.’
Ollie’s tarsus lens remained focused unerringly on Nikolaj, with Tye analysing her skin’s infrared emissions, searching for a temperature fluctuation – any anomaly that would show a peripheral going active. But there was nothing. That wasn’t right. ‘She said: Olyix forever.’
He waited, watching for the alarm in her eyes – the realization that he knew she was a traitor. But instead she pursed her lips. ‘No.’
‘What?’
‘That is not what Kou-Jade said to you. You’re lying. Why?’
‘Who the fuck is Kou—’ It was very strange. Ollie heard the loud bang at the same time as the world seemed to freeze and he went completely numb. Then his view shifted as he toppled over.
Every sense returned, shrieking into his brain. He hit the floor amid an agony so intense he thought it would burst his brain apart. Eyes looked along his body, past his waist to . . . Ollie screamed in terror. His legs were gone, shredded into a puddle of gore that glistened across the carpet. Behind him, there was a five-centimetre hole in the door.
‘Analysis indicates you have been hit by a wyst bullet,’ Tye said; its voice seemed to throb in time to the red medical alerts splashed across his vision. The world was retreating, cold seeping along his spine and making him shudder.
Then Jade was there in front of him, kneeling down to frown gently at him. ‘You’re bleeding out,’ she said. ‘But I can save you.’ She beckoned.
The door opened, and the naked boy came in. He was holding a large pistol in one hand and a medical case in the other.
‘I’m going to apply Kcell patches on your wounds, Ollie. No one has to die, not any more. We will save all of you. We love you.’
Ollie tried to talk, but annoyingly his mouth had trouble working.
Jade leant in closer. ‘What?’
‘Everybody dies,’ Ollie told her happily. ‘So let’s you and me go meet the Legion together.’ And he ordered Tye to fire the new weapons peripherals. All of them.
*
Kohei ran up the stairs, close behind the paramilitaries and just ahead of the paramedics. Gunfire resonated through the house as the last of the Paynor family lieutenants were taken out. They weren’t being given the
