the litter. She kept her eyes on the infected crewman in case he made a move. He remained still, lit by intermittent, flickering light.
Jane thought about the infected crewmen she encountered in the upper levels of the complex. They wouldn’t have the intelligence or dexterity to improvise a suicide vest. Something was manipulating them, using them as a defence perimeter. Nikki? Had she got them trained like dogs? Sit, heel, beg.
Jane quietly backed out of the room. The rotted sentinel watched her leave but made no move to follow.
Something was aware Jane had entered the lowest levels of the bunker and was content to let her walk deeper into the subterranean complex.
Nikki wandered around the ops centre, hands in her pockets, casual confidence, like she ran the place. No sign of infection.
‘What’s the deal, Nikki?’ demanded Ghost. ‘Are we lunch, or what?’
Nikki turned to face him. Mild surprise, like she had forgotten he was there.
‘Believe it or not,’ she said, ‘I’m doing my best to help you.’
She was mild, good-humoured, utterly insane.
‘That’s nice.’
‘Jane will be here any minute,’ said Nikki, glancing at a Hyperion officer as if she expected him to provide confirmation. ‘I’m anxious to speak to her.’
‘We blew the anchor cables, Nikki. Rampart is floating free. It’s caught in the current. It’s heading south. We can all go home. You can come too. But we have to leave right now. We don’t have time to fuck around. It’s drifting out of range.’
Nikki shook her head and smiled.
‘They bombed the cities. Nuked them. I saw it myself, when I sailed south. I saw the sky lit up. I saw the world on fire. There’s nothing beyond the horizon, Rajesh. Europe has been wiped clean. America too, as far as I know. We are the last people on earth, and this is our home.’
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘Embrace it. It’s evolution. We are the next stage, the next level. Open your eyes. We are on the cusp of something wonderful.’
Nikki took gloves from her pocket and pulled them on. She stood over the dead cosmonaut. She reached inside the helmet and snapped a rivulet of metal. She examined it.
‘So who do you think he was? What happened up there?’
She stood in front of Ghost.
‘What do you think it is?’ she asked, holding the sliver in front of Ghost’s face.
He shied away from the gleaming splinter.
‘Where does it come from? Is it man-made? Nanobots run wild? Maybe it’s not from earth at all. Maybe it came from somewhere else.’ She gestured to Hyperion passengers fused to the wall. ‘Do you think they finally understand? Once you surrender to it, once the transformation takes hold, do you think it all becomes clear? What it’s like on the other side? Aren’t you curious to find out?’
‘No.’
‘How can you not want to know? This is the dominant life form on the planet now.’
‘Doesn’t mean shit. It’s a virus. Bacteria. It can kill, but I don’t hold it in high esteem.’
‘This is very different.’
‘These Hyperion guys. They follow you like a puppy dog. How does that work?’
Nikki took a radio from her pocket. A Rampart walkie-talkie. She switched it on. A strange, tocking signal. Nikki held the radio to the dead cosmonaut’s helmet. The signal got louder, more insistent, then dissolved to feedback.
‘They sing to each other. Some kind of high-frequency chatter. They merge their thoughts.’
‘I don’t see much thought going on.’
Nikki stood behind Nail. She slapped a hand on his bald scalp and pulled back his head. He yelped in pain. She dropped the sliver of metal into his mouth then clamped his jaw closed. He gnashed his teeth. He bucked and thrashed in his chair. He arched his back. She held him a full minute, then released her grip. He spat the metal shard on to the floor.
‘You fuck,’ he sobbed. ‘You fucking fuck.’ He retched. He spat. Pathetic attempt to purge infection from his mouth.
Nikki grabbed a swivel chair and positioned it in front of Ghost.
‘His name isn’t Nail Harper, you know that, right? He’s David Tuddenham. A fuck-up. Petty thief. Petty everything. But now all that hurt, all that damage, will evaporate. A lifetime of failure will just melt away.’
‘You’re nuts,’ said Ghost. ‘You are one hundred per cent, grade-A batshit.’
‘Think,’ said Nikki. She got up, and paced up and down like she was lecturing a class. ‘Just take a moment and think. This situation, this new state of being, it’s weird, but is it necessarily bad? This could be a wonderful opportunity to become something new. That’s good, right? Most people spend their whole lives wishing they could be different.’
‘You were a student in Brighton, is that right? Brighton University?’
‘Sure.’
‘What did you study?’
‘Biogeography,’ said Nikki. ‘Ocean science. Ecosystems.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Of course. That’s why I did it.’
‘Think back. Remember. What did you enjoy?’
‘Nightlife. Alan and I had a flat on the seafront. It was heaven.’
‘Do you remember your first day at university? The day you first arrived. Do you remember how you felt?’
‘My parents dropped me with suitcases. I was excited to leave home. Nervous I wouldn’t make friends.’
‘That girl. The person you used to be. Can you remember her? Can you bring her back just for a moment? What would she say if she saw you now?’
Nikki snapped another nugget of metal from inside the cosmonaut’s enamel helmet. She looked at it a long while.
‘I’m so sick of being me.’
‘I can help you, Nikki. There’s a way back from all this.’ ‘The burden of selfhood,’ she sighed. ‘Life-long anguish. Straining to support an elaborate artifice every waking moment. Trying to maintain our bullshit personas. Haircuts, clothes. Making our big fucking statements to an indifferent world. We drink, we smoke, we squander fortunes on DVDs, anything to escape ourselves for a few blessed minutes.’
‘You don’t have to turn Martian just to feel better. That’s like shooting yourself in the brain to cure a headache.’
Nikki closed her eyes, placed the globule of metal on her tongue and swallowed. She smiled.
She stood over Nail. She bent and kissed him.
She resumed her seat in front of Ghost.
‘I’m so sorry, Nikki.’
‘I wanted to kill you. I was going to kill you all. I hated you so damn much. I don’t know why. But I want you to join us. I’m not going to force you. Nail? He’s a child. I had to decide on his behalf. But I want you folks to volunteer.’
Jane walked through a series of plant rooms. Most of the ceiling lights were smashed. She wanted to save her flashlight batteries. She struck a flare. It burned fierce purple.
Ventilation flues. Dehumidification filters.
The air conditioning was shot. The plenum fans that should have pushed air through the complex were rusted and still. Yet, when she took off a glove and put a hand to the wall-vent, she could feel a breath of wind.
She found the canteen. Metal tables and chairs. A communist mural of heroic agricultural workers holding sickles and scythes, gazing towards a golden dawn. She got tired of searching.
