Peering down a stairwell, Kendrick saw flickering light somewhere far below.
'You're in my head,' he whispered to himself. 'You're not real.' real am real am real
Kendrick cried out at the pain that had just exploded inside his skull. The words sounded deafening, overwhelming: but they did not echo.
In my head. He pushed himself down the steps towards the burning figure, the light around it flickering like silent lightning. Again he perceived lines of energy flowing through the walls and ceiling, but they were now far more evident than before. It was as if he could deduce the layout of the Maze in its entirety, reduced to a schematic displaying the flow of electrons throughout its structure.
He looked closer and realized that the burning figure was Robert Vincenzo, Caroline's brother. But transformed – no longer human. Kendrick halted, frozen to the spot. Then Robert was gone, turning and fleeing into the depths.
Eventually Kendrick found the will to put one foot in front of the other, continuing his descent.
Even from far away, Robert's words still filled Kendrick's head. the bright began it
'Began what?' everything came the reply, they woke on the archimedes and waited such a long time now they know we are here
'You're going to have to explain that more clearly, Robert.' they see themselves in us
The voice faded suddenly, interrupted by a series of high-pitched giggles that sounded near – very near.
Kendrick wasn't even looking for Ryan now. He just wanted to understand what had become of Robert, the only one yet to escape the Wards. He wanted to see if the flaming creature with Robert's face had objective reality, or if he was simply losing his mind.
A shadow flickered in the distance, accompanied by the clatter of feet on metal. Kendrick hurried towards it, finding himself on the threshold of a vast chamber filled with towering piles of metal crates.
He hesitated. It would be too easy for Ryan to creep up on him in there. Overhead, light glinted from a lens.
Kendrick wrapped his fingers tightly around the haft of his knife and stepped slowly forward into the chamber, listening, watching. Several low-bodied trucks sat on rails next to an industrial-size elevator.
Hearing the faintest scuff of a heel directly behind him, he turned, moving faster than he could ever imagine possible. A blade arced past his ear, missing his head by millimetres.
That should have killed me. Kendrick marvelled at the lightning speed of his own responses. Ryan stepped nimbly away from him, an animal sound emerging from his throat as he prepared to lunge again.
Sudden light flickering from high above distracted them both. Kendrick caught sight of Robert standing on top of a crate nearby. Robert's flesh was flickering with a ghostly brilliance: thousands of cilia-like extrusions from his skin waved softly in the air around him.
His eyes full of horror, Ryan stood gaping up at him. Robert alighted from the crate, moving so dizzyingly fast that to Kendrick it seemed that he had been there but was now here within the same second, standing almost nose to nose with Ryan. A hand flashed forward, touching Ryan on the cheek. Ryan's eyes dimmed – and he slumped lifeless to the ground.
Kendrick stared, numb, wondering if it was his turn next. But Robert merely gazed back at him, eyes blank and full of flickering energy. he was not like us you and I are like the bright but not him
Kendrick licked his lips. 'I don't understand.' some of us are more like the bright than others so they speak only to us to you to me to buddy to all from our ward but to no others
Seeing the threads emerging from all over Robert's body, like fine black wires, reminded Kendrick of how Torrance had died.
Robert reached out a hand to him. Kendrick screamed, imagining the chilly and terrible brush of those delicate cilia against his cheek. He lashed out and drove his blade deep into Robert's chest, somehow finding the strength to yank it out and stab again. As Robert crumpled, the light faded instantly from all around him, his flesh immediately turning soft and pliant as putty.
Kendrick staggered to one side and retched violently. Just for a second, he could have sworn that he saw some of the black threads emerging from Robert's flesh reaching out to the bare concrete beneath him, and push their way into it.
He thought suddenly of Caroline, and felt deep, dreadful shame.
But something was different now. The long hunt through the corridors had triggered something deep within him; something dormant in his augments.
24 October 2096 Los Muertos-controlled military base, Texas
Buddy leant down while Kendrick lifted Caroline towards him, holding her around the waist like a ballet dancer raising his partner above his shoulders. Buddy grasped hold and started to haul her on board.
Kendrick leapt up onto one of the helicopter's landing struts, dust whipped up by the rotors stinging his eyes and nostrils.
Some instinct made Kendrick look up just before he pulled himself in after Caroline. He saw three fighter jets tear through the sky with an almighty roar, followed by explosions somewhere far off across the base. The aircraft were too far away for him to be able to recognize their markings.
He watched in awe as fire blossomed in the distance and orange blooms stitched across the landscape towards the two remaining shuttles. The first shuttle was already lost in the night sky, its passage now visible only by an arc of flaming light.
The second shuttle's engines were already rumbling. It began to lift on its own pillar of fire.
The helicopter lurched as Buddy took it up fast. Kendrick slammed down the back of the co-pilot's seat and managed to drag Caroline's unconscious body into the rear of the aircraft.
'Buddy, thank God,' he gasped. 'Listen, I-'
'Under attack,' Buddy interrupted tersely. Kendrick looked ahead and spotted tracer fire streaking towards them through the dark, coming from the darkened window of a nearby building. Buddy yanked on the stick so that the 'copter weaved from side to side.
'How the hell did you know where I was?' Kendrick yelled. 'I don't have my wand.'
'Roy Whitman sent someone to New York to meet you, saw you go off with the woman, then had to use guesswork. She's well known in Los Muertos. One of their top operatives.'
'So why didn't you call me in New York and warn me?'
'Tried. But you didn't pick up. So I figured they'd locked your wand off remotely with a software worm. Now we know for sure that Los Muertos are trying to beat us to the Archimedes.' Buddy shook his head. 'Idiots don't stand a chance.'
The second shuttle was already streaking through the upper levels of the atmosphere and would soon be lost from sight. The third was still sitting on its launch pad, but now a blazing inferno jetted from its engines. Kendrick and Buddy could hear the rattle of automatic weapons even over the din of the helicopter engine.
'Hold tight,' Kendrick heard Buddy say. 'We're still being shot at.'
Most of the base was now invisible under great swathes of dust and smoke. Buddy veered the aircraft sharply to one side, keeping dangerously close to the ground. Kendrick felt his stomach lurch in about seven different directions as his companion flew like a maniac. He caught a glimpse of the third shuttle. They were close enough to it to get incinerated if it chose that moment to launch.
Then he understood what Buddy was doing. The shuttle was now positioned between them and the main base, effectively shielding them from any gunfire coming from that direction.
Once they were past it they accelerated hard. Then a roar filled the air, sounding like God falling out of Heaven, and Kendrick knew that the last shuttle had begun to lift. Their aircraft shook so hard around them that he couldn't believe it wouldn't simply fall apart.
