The Departure

‘Too easy,’ Saul remarked to the soldier. ‘They were ready for us.’

Malden turned. ‘They were lax. They were—’

All at once he seemed to lose the ability to speak, just mouthing words but nothing coming out. He slapped one hand to his face, digging in his fingers before letting it drop, then screamed loudly and began to slump. Keeping his machine pistol trained on them, Braddock moved towards Malden, as the man finally collapsed to his knees, his head bowed.

‘Your revolution served the purpose of the people down below.’ Malden said in a voice not his own. ‘But it serves no purpose up here.’ His head snapped upright and he turned it towards Hannah and Saul. ‘But I’m so glad you brought me these two traitors to the State.’

Weapons fire erupted, a stuttering mechanical sound like faulty diesel engines starting up. Numerous sources began laying down a withering fire. Up above, a figure flew backwards to slam into a scaffold pole, shattered bullets and fragments of his suit spraying out all around, and a mist of blood behind him. He grabbed the pole, trying to reorient himself, but the harsh slapping impact of bullets just continued, till eventually his grip slackened and he tumbled slowly away. The firing continued amid shouting transmitted over com. As Saul turned away, dragging Hannah after him, something exploded over to their right, where he glimpsed a splash of blood up one wall.

Braddock hurled himself aside as impacts tracked across the floor, throwing fragments of blue plastic in every direction. Their path terminated at Malden, who began to shudder convulsively as shots tracked up his back, the rounds shattering inside him but failing to penetrate all the way through. He vomited blood as the force of the shots threw him forward. Elsewhere someone began shrieking as he gyrated downwards, a bullet hole in his airpack acting like a jet motor. He slammed against the side of a transformer, next into the floor, then spun round and started to rise again. A short burst of fire tore his airpack apart, and most of his chest.

They were now under the steps, where Saul pulled open a circular hatch only half a metre in diameter and pushed Hannah down towards it. Bullets rattled against the stairway above, peppering more blue plastic through the air. Braddock, over to his left now, stepped out briefly and fired upwards, but the intensity of return fire forced him back under cover. He was shouting, the words resonating in Saul’s ears, asking for a response but receiving none. Saul felt that if he who had spoken through Malden’s mouth really wanted them all dead, dead they would be by now. But the speaker wanted Hannah, and also wanted Saul.

They crawled through the maintenance tunnel as fast as they could. Firing echoed behind them, and he turned back to see Braddock entering the tunnel, shooting behind him from the cover of its mouth. No firing in return this time; none at all. Then out into a long low room lined with gas cylinders, illuminated by their helmet lights only.

‘What happened to Malden?’ Hannah asked breathlessly, but he could sense she had already guessed.

‘The comlife got him.’

‘Got him?’

‘Went straight into his skull and spoke through him, which it could do easily enough since it is comlife with a human component.’

‘The way he spoke . . .’ she began, but didn’t want to say out loud what she was thinking.

‘You mean with Interrogator Smith’s voice?’

She bowed her head. ‘We’re dead, aren’t we?’

‘Either that or we may want to be,’ he replied.

Just then the EM came back on, whining in his head.

‘Who is this Smith, then?’ Braddock gazed at them intently.

Hannah sat herself upright in the confined space, and looked across at the man. Braddock was resting against one wall, with his machine pistol in his lap; he could turn it on them in an instant.

‘He’s the political director up here on Argus,’ said Hannah, a slight catch in her voice.

‘I know that,’ Braddock snapped, now focusing his gaze on Saul. ‘But there’s something else. How the hell did he do that to Malden?’

‘Hannah?’ Saul enquired, looking across at her for an answer.

She dipped her head and stared at the floor, trying to dispel her doom-laden thoughts so that she could restore her mind to its analytical best. She now looked up at Saul. ‘He was our political director, so he must have taken whatever he wanted of my research and applied it to himself – whether with government permission or not, I don’t know.’ To Braddock she now continued, ‘He’s the same type as Malden, but managed to outmanoeuvre Malden because he was well prepared, and because he’s been running the hardware in his skull longer and knows better how to use it.’

‘What about him?’ Braddock indicated Saul with a tilt of his chin.

What about him? Hannah wondered. Saul had obviously expected to come up here and snatch control of the station as easily as he had taken control of the cell complex, and if there had only been normal humans and computers for him to overcome, he would have had every chance of succeeding. But, first, Malden had stood in his way, and now a comlife poisonous spider lurked at the heart of things. And, just to add to their woes, station security officers were now searching for them, so this little hideaway would not remain safe for much longer. Could Saul triumph over such odds? Was he strong enough yet? Gazing at him, she had to wonder just what was going on behind those unreadable red eyes. She now spoke to try and boost her own confidence:

‘The hardware and software inside his skull is far in advance of that used by both Malden and Smith – his intelligence, too,’ she explained. ‘He just hasn’t had a chance to use it yet.’

‘What, my intelligence?’ Saul joked.

Hannah did not respond to this attempt at humour. It was dry and disconnected anyway, since Saul was somewhere else, his gaze directed overhead and his face expressionless. It almost seemed as if an empty mannikin sat in his place.

‘What do we do now?’ she asked.

‘I am considering our options,’ he replied.