cell, slid into place ahead of them.
Hunter took point as doors further along the corridor opened slowly. Reid was one of the first to emerge, but behind him Hunter could just make out the shadowy figures of Government officials, the Cabinet, senior advisors who had once been the captains of industry, the aristocrats, the financial sector’s biggest players.
‘Open the doors,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re here to protect you.’
Reid stood before them, carefully surveying Mallory, Caitlin and Sophie before moving his attention to Hunter. ‘Still only four of you?’
‘Reid, time is running out.’ Hunter attempted to moderate his voice against the urgency that was straining every fibre of his being. ‘The thing that’s behind the invasion is already here. We need to find it — destroy it — before it wipes everything out.’
‘I know exactly where it is.’
Hunter was struck dumb by the quiet confidence in Reid’s voice.
Reid motioned further down the corridor. On the edge of the crepuscular zone, Hunter saw the frozen door that he had noticed when freeing Mallory. ‘It’s been here for a long time, Mister Hunter.’
Realisation crept up on Hunter, but not comprehension or acceptance.
Mallory, a man who mistrusted all authority, grasped the situation instantly. ‘You’re working for it.’ His eyes blazed as brightly as his sword.
‘In a way.’
‘It’s controlling you,’ Caitlin ventured. ‘It’s a very seductive power-’
Reid silenced her with a simple shake of his head. ‘People who deal with power on a daily basis are pragmatic. That is the most vital quality for any political leader-’
‘What about honour?’ Mallory interrupted, his voice cold and hard. ‘Integrity, ethics?’
‘Unnecessary,’ Reid replied. ‘Oh, lovely, lovely qualities, of course. No one would disagree with that. But completely useless for the job of leadership. The traits you mentioned are useful for winning one great battle. But then you have to retire. Politics is about winning battles every day, little ones, mundane ones. You need to be pragmatic to retain power so that you can continue to do that.’
‘Politics,’ Mallory sneered. Behind him, Caitlin was checking the security door for a way out.
‘Oh, politics is the most important thing of all, because it’s about the way we live our lives. Every decision is a political decision. Most of us who work to keep things running can’t afford the luxury of fighting for a cause, like you, however worthy that cause might be. We need to make sure that we stay in power so that we continue to live our lives the right way.’
‘Which implies that your way is the right way.’ Hunter was trying to buy the others time to find a way to break free; it was a clumsy attempt, but Reid didn’t appear to mind.
‘It is the right way. It’s been proven by time. It’s been accepted by the majority of the people, and consequently it is, by definition, normal. Any opposing view is therefore aberrant, and something to be resisted.’ The most chilling aspect about Reid was his calm expression of his views. There was no hatred there, no contempt or anger, not even any superiority. He was like someone patiently explaining a scientific fact to the uneducated.
In a display of impotent anger, Mallory crashed his sword against the bars. The flames surged at the impact, but the blade left no mark. ‘You’re thinking you can use the Void to maintain power?’ he raged. ‘You’re insane! It’s Anti-Life. You can’t control it. It wants to wipe out us, the world, the universe!’
‘Not in the way you suggest.’ Reid summoned two guards and motioned for them to train their guns on Caitlin, who was clearly considering throwing one of her axes through the bars. She reluctantly lowered her weapon. ‘The Anti-Life it represents is not an absence of life. It’s more abstract than that. I suppose I could wallow in the depths of philosophy, but to put it simply, you have to consider what life actually means. As a concept. This is all profoundly pretentious, is it not?’ He gave a small laugh.
‘You’ve communicated with it?’ Hunter said incredulously.
‘I wouldn’t say we exactly sat down over beer and sandwiches, but yes, after it sent its advance guard to prepare the way, we found it a place to wait. And then we entered into negotiations.’ He shook his head. ‘If you knew what we went through, you would find that almost laughable. Negotiations. The Void, as you call it, is not a thing. It’s not a life form. It doesn’t exist in any physical way you or I could comprehend. But even so, it connected with us, and we with it. And… ’ He held out his hands and gave a small shrug that made Mallory even angrier.
‘So you gave in to it?’ Caitlin said.
‘You have to understand, we couldn’t win. That was never on the agenda. It’s too powerful. It’s like trying…’ He searched for the words to describe the magnitude of what he was attempting to say. ‘Like trying to punch the universe. No point even beginning to fight. So… pragmatism, you see. We found out that what it wanted wasn’t actually very far from what we wanted. Certainly it was something we could live with. And that’s when we decided on the most beneficial course of action. If you can’t win everything, you should at least try to win something.’
Hunter looked past Reid to the shadowy figures hovering in the background. ‘You betrayed the whole of humanity just to save yourselves?’
‘You’re missing the point,’ Reid said. ‘Our aims are the aims of society. What’s best for us is best for you. It’s the same. We did the right thing.’
Hunter could see that Reid completely believed what he was saying, and that all those waiting behind him believed it, too. Flickers of dread rose in his heart. They’d lost the fight the minute they started; the seeds of that defeat were buried in the heart of what they were fighting to save. The enemy — the true enemy — was all around them. But they didn’t look like the enemy, and didn’t believe they were the enemy. How could anyone fight that?
‘We went to the PM with our plan,’ Reid continued, ‘but he refused to reach an accommodation. He had to be… removed.’ He saw the looks on Hunter and Mallory’s faces and added with annoyance, ‘If he’d been allowed to do what he wanted, the human race would have been extinct. How could that be right?’ He loosened his tie, took a deep breath. ‘You were the only real threat to everything. You Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’
‘There’s no logic in what you’re saying,’ Hunter stated. ‘If we defeat the Void, you won’t have to reach any accommodation.’
‘We weighed up that option, and for a while it was certainly a possibility. But in the end we decided that the risks were too great. The chances of outright victory seemed extremely thin, and anything less would likely result in complete eradication. So-’
‘So you decided to get us out of the way.’ Hunter tried to ignore Mallory, who was pacing the confines of their prison like a tiger, occasionally rattling the bars or attempting to prise open the security gates with his sword.
‘There was no attempt at violence.’ Reid looked horrified at Hunter’s implication, completely ignoring the irony that he was complicit in the assassination of the country’s leader. ‘Your young friend, Mister Campbell — Hal, wasn’t that his first name? I feel quite sorry for the way we had to use him. He’s a rather naive chap. Not cut out for any of this business.’
Hunter’s temper flared. ‘What have you done with him?’
Reid chewed his lip for a second, and it appeared that he wasn’t going to answer. Then he changed his mind. ‘Once we realised you were a Brother of Dragons, our route to controlling you was easy. Your long friendship with young Hal was obvious. We were able to use him to direct you to where we needed you to be.’
‘Here,’ Hunter said. ‘So you could trap us.’
‘Exactly. We framed him for the assassination in a very clumsy way, knowing that he would realise I had organised the plot. When we allowed him to escape from custody, we knew he’d go directly to your hiding place, and that once he met up with you, he would identify me or someone in the Government as the chief suspect. Then when we let his young female friend accidentally discover information about his impending execution, we knew you’d realise that I would do anything to hide my complicity. Kill him even sooner to silence him. And so you would rush here to save him, even though all sense would tell you to stay away from my base of power and concentrate on the more pressing task of locating the Void. You’re very easy to manipulate, Mister Hunter.’
‘Not as easy as you think.’ Hunter was relieved to discover that Reid still hadn’t found out that Hal was the fifth, the real reason all of them had rushed to Brasenose. ‘Is Hal dead?’
‘The execution was set to take place half an hour ago.’
‘Have you seen the body?’
‘Two men with guns. One young, frightened, bookish man. Do I really need to?’
