Her lover – they never found out either of their names – had died within hours of arriving in the lower levels from the sudden and explosive growth of his augmentations.
There were other incidents, equally as gruesome and equally depressing.
And then there were the other stories.
One told of the figure glowing with light, lightning spitting from its fingertips as it ran laughing through the most distant corridors, somehow passing through the great shield doors that penned the prisoners in as if it could walk through walls. To Kendrick this meant only that people were losing their sanity as starvation and sensory deprivation pushed them to the brink.
But then the voices came.
Kendrick had seen speakers slung up high along the corridors at irregular intervals. One day they started crackling with the sound of a familiar voice.
Sieracki?
Kendrick listened with a dawning sense of horror. The worst was yet to come.
'Enter the corridor marked Level 9, South-West,' Sieracki ordered them. 'The door will open. There is food there, but only for those who survive.' Kendrick listened to the shouts of dismay around him in the darkness. 'You will have to fight for the right to live. We wish now to test the survival skills of subjects from our different experimental groups.'
'I get it.' Kendrick turned to McCowan, who stood behind his shoulder. There was a sadness in his voice. 'They never intended any of us to get out of here alive.'
'It's fucking insane!' Buddy shouted. 'I mean, it doesn't make any sense.'
'No,' said Kendrick. 'It makes perfect sense. They made us what we are, and they aren't going to set us loose. Instead of just killing us themselves, they throw us in a hole in the ground and leave us to kill each other. That way they get rid of us, but they also figure out which experimental group has produced the best results. The ones who can survive, that is.'
'Maybe it makes sense,' McCowan agreed. 'But it doesn't mean that's how it's going to work out. People don't need to fight each other when they know they're going to die anyway.'
'I don't know.' Kendrick shook his head. 'If you've been hungry and desperate long enough, I'm not sure what any of us would do. Long as people think there's even the slimmest chance, the faintest hope, they'll fight tooth and claw if given the chance.'
'I won't,' said Buddy decisively. 'I can refuse.'
'You can refuse.' Kendrick nodded wearily, thinking: And that way you'll die. And the ones who won't refuse will fight, and Sieracki still gets what he wants.
22 October 2096 Edinburgh
Getting out of the country turned out to be less of a problem than Kendrick had initially suspected. Not long after his conversation with Todd he got another call from Buddy. Kendrick filled him in.
'I'm on my way to the States myself. Listen, head for California, okay? That's where we're meeting,' said Buddy.
'I need to find Caroline first, Buddy.'
'But do you even have any idea where they might have taken her?'
'New York. I know Hardenbrooke is on his way there, and may be he's got Caroline with him. It's not like I have any other options.'
'You know this has to be a trap, right?'
'It doesn't matter.'
Kendrick could hear Buddy sigh on the other end of the line. 'I guess I'd do the same. Good luck, but maybe you should tie your wand into mine.'
'I don't know if that's such a good idea. Every time I use this thing it gives someone a chance to track me down over the grid.'
'So what? They can probably find you anyway. This way at least your friends will know where you are, right?'
Kendrick thought about it. 'Yeah, okay then. Listen, about the… this whole thing with the Archimedes.''
'Yeah?'
'How long before you go there?'
'Three days, Kendrick. Three days. Remember that.'
Kendrick closed the connection and thought for a moment. Then he called up Roy Whitman's grid address.
'Long time, no hear,' Roy chuckled when he realized who he was talking to. 'What's it been, a couple of years? Anything from Buddy recently? Haven't heard from him in a good long while myself.'
'Buddy's doing fine, Roy. Listen, I need a favour.'
'Uh-huh,' said Roy. 'What kind of favour?'
'A special kind of favour.'
'Right, hang on a minute.'
The sound of Roy's breathing disappeared abruptly for a few seconds. 'Okay, we're on a secure line now,' he said when he returned. 'Can you talk freely where you are?'
Kendrick looked around him. He was standing in a narrow alley near the city centre but a furtive glance around assured him that no one was paying attention to him. 'Yeah, I'm alone.'
'Is there something else I should know?' Roy asked, his voice guarded. 'You sound, er, tense.'
'Nothing you'd want to know,' Kendrick replied. 'I'm just worried about being tracked via this wand. Is there any way you can make my line permanently secure from tracking?'
'Not really, no. Only way to be sure is get rid of the thing.'
'I don't want to do that,' Kendrick replied. 'I want Buddy to know where I am.'
'Then so will whoever's looking for you.'
'I know, Roy. It's a long story. I need you to help me because-'
'No,' Roy said quickly. 'By the sound of things, maybe you shouldn't even tell me. Keep it all on a need-to-know basis, yeah? Besides, I owe both you guys one.'
Kendrick found it almost frightening how easily Roy created a new fake identity for him. As instructed, Kendrick used public transport to get himself to Edinburgh airport, heading for a public fax unit on his arrival. He tapped in the q-crypt key that Roy had supplied and a few seconds later the fax spat out a cream-coloured plastic card with his picture on it, along with fake retina and DNA details coded into a hologram strip, together with yet another assumed identity, also supplied by Roy. A small matt-black data-chip followed the card a few moments later.
Kendrick studied the plastic card, memorizing the name printed there, and wondered if he could really pull this off. He'd learned how to behave on passing through Customs. The secret was not to act too sure of yourself. People who behaved too smoothly were often those who raised suspicions.
The datachip contained his flight information and payment details. As far as the flight company was concerned, Roy was Kendrick's legal employer. Probably the datachip would also contain encrypted financial information to do with Roy's business. This would give Kendrick's trip some purpose: many businesses were now too paranoid to trust their most sensitive information to the public grid, as even private grid networks had their flaws. Nanodust transmitters were only one of many technologies available to the modern corporate spy, and as a result there was still a call for human couriers to carry information physically from one place to another.
To all appearances, therefore, Kendrick was just another courier. Okay.
Kendrick stared past the endless food concessions and identikit bars, which had always infested airport terminals, towards the check-in desks beyond. He took a step forward, then another, wondering just how self- conscious he looked.
