oblivious, unaware of the dark spider that crouched on their dark wall.
Ecko watched them as they passed him and then strolled, ignorant, round the angle of the stairway.
After a moment, their booted feet paused.
“Stairwell clear; time 01:14, moving onto floor three.” A door opened and closed.
Then silence.
Over his head, the camera whirred softly as it changed angle. He lifted his chin and pulled a face at it.
Timing his movement carefully, he landed silently behind its arc and flitted, ghostlike, up the stairs.
Straight to Grey’s nerve centre.
At the top of the stairs, the door to Grey’s lab. Beside it, a small security alcove with a mirrored back wall. The briefing had said it would be occupied.
Sitting in a swivel chair: another goon – weapon, shades and earpiece.
Standing, arms crossed: a small, blonde female, Slavic cheekbones and hard eyes – Salva, goon commander.
The third was tall, skinny and long haired. There were flesh tunnels in his earlobes and knotwork tats down one side of his neck. Over a black tee and jeans he wore a lab coat that looked like he’d slept in it. Half a reefer was firmly stuck between his fingers as he pointed at one of the flatscreens.
Brilliant, radical, total fucking sell-out: Doctor Slater Grey.
It was just too tempting. Coaxed by the apparent simplicity of Grey’s security, Ecko gathered his concentration and focused on the mirror.
He began to breathe.
Slowly, softly.
He breathed through the back of his throat and nose: a heavy, wet noise that was half Darth Vader and half rotting-liquid-corpse. It was a dank sound, a sound of absolute darkness.
And, like the rising miasma of something dead on a hot day, it was getting worse.
The goon was closest, he shivered and rubbed his shoulders.
“What the hell was that?”
Ecko had practised this as kid, sending his clamouring, spoiled sisters screaming for Mommy. He focused again, staring intently.
Raised the volume.
It was desolate, empty breathing, spectre cold and carrying a hollow note of laughter. The goon shoved his chair backwards, bringing his carbine up to cover the mirror.
Ecko gave him a flash of red eyes.
As dumb as you fucking like, he fired.
The mirror frosted, opaqued with cracks. Grey swore.
No fool, Salva had spun to cover the landing. She barked commands, clipped and cold. The goon just stood up and turned, wide-eyed at his own stupidity.
A moment later, the heavy boots of the patrol were pounding back up the stairs.
* * *
On the roof, the minigun suppressed again, heavy calibre rounds detonating further along the wall – it was shooting blind. Ecko snuck a second glance upwards, but the only light was the rotating LED that topped the Tate Leisure...
No cops. No ’copters, no aircars, no drones.
So – what? Grey could just let off suppression bursts with miniguns whenever he liked?
The firing stopped. Through the howling weather, Ecko heard the whirring of the barrels wind down, then cease.
Their impasse was unchanged: the ’bot couldn’t see him, he couldn’t get past it. Without Lugan to run a distraction, Ecko was going to be stuck here when Salva and her goons reached the top of the stairwell...
Where the hell had that biker bastard got to?
Ecko wondered if Collator knew that Grey’d got a fucking
So what was this one – on fucking vacation?
The vertical red slice of the scanner swept again. The rain glistened like falling blood.
It knew where he was, huddled in the shredded remains of the roof garden – it was just gonna keep scanning ’til it got him. Salva couldn’t be far behind... Lugan was
Where was Collator when you needed it? With its percentages and fucking scenario analysis? Ecko held down a sense of panic, he didn’t want to know the odds on what he was about to do.
The wall behind him had been shattered, pieces of rubble were still tumbling to the sidewalk far below. No security defended the roof’s edge. Not thinking about the drop, not thinking about it, he let his outrage at his own stupidity focus into white determination.
Swallowing a mouthful of insanity, he slid backwards over the edge.
There was no fucking way he was letting some experimental tin can get the better of the Bogeyman.
* * *
The goons burst, breathless, onto the top of the stairs – and they’d found only Salva. If she’d heard their confusion she ignored it, she was scanning, slit-eyed and unfooled.
The landing was the size of a food-cube; if there was something here, she appeared intent on finding it.
She glared round the walls, studying every millimetre. When she found nothing, she looked up, raising the muzzle of her rifle.
Still nothing.
Her expression narrowed.
Her gaze went straight over him.
He didn’t dare move, she’d feel the air. He stayed as still as stone – even when she squeezed her trigger and loosed a short, sharp burst of ammunition directly upwards.
He stilled his breath. Dust and plaster scattered.
“Sal!” Grey stubbed his reefer out on the security desk. “Don’t trash the place. You lot, get a grip. Maynard, stay here and watch those readouts. You two, keep an eye on the stairs. Anything comes near you – shoot it.”
“Doc, if the building’s compromised, shouldn’t we –”
“If you patrol, it’ll take you out one by one. Stay put – and stay together.” He shrugged off the lab coat, revealing pale arms and more tattoos, blue with age. Old needle marks decorated his forearms. “Sal, time to hit the panic room.”
Ecko stayed still as the chemist moved to open his sanctuary door. Beside him, a hatchet-faced Salva still watched the ceiling.
As the goons settled down to squabbling about who’d seen what, the door into Grey’s lab swung open, then slowly closed.
