A knock at the door makes me turn.It opens a little and Leona sticks her head through the gap. ‘Think you should take a look out the window, sir.’
The street below is filling with soldiers.
An armoured car locks off one end. A troop of militia guard the other. On the steps of the hotel a man harangues the crowd. We’re too high to hear what he says but we can hear their responses. As the man finishes, he throws his arms to heaven and soldiers channel the crowd towards the doors of the hotel.
They can’t know about Morgan’s control room, that’s my first thought. My second concerns us. ‘Leona,’ I say. ‘How do they know we’re here?’
‘Someone must have told them, sir . . .’ She glances apologetically at Colonel Vijay. ‘We left some people alive on our way up.’
Little bitch.
‘Had to happen,’ the colonel says, picking up his rifle. ‘Suppose we might as well go meet them.’
Leona shoots me a glance.
‘Sir,’ I say.
‘Sven?’
‘Leona and I will go. You need to gut those, sir.’
My gesture takes in a bank of semi AIs, plus some dumb slabs and a couple of stacks I don’t recognize. ‘We’ll need their contents . . .’
‘In God’s name, why, Sven?’
‘Give us something to negotiate with, sir.’
Vijay Jaxx looks at me. Something hardens behind his eyes, and he nods to himself. Putting down his rifle, he reaches for a memory crystal. Then he puts down the crystal and walks over to where Morgan lies on the carpet.
Hooking the toe of his boot under Morgan’s side, Vijay Jaxx rolls the man over and kneels beside his body.
MilCrypt keys, three of them.
Ever eaten an octopod? Eight legs, good grilled. To kill it, you turn it inside out and bite out its brains.
That’s what MilCrypt does to raw data. The crystal slivers twist info on the way in; then twist it back on the way out. One can be broken, supposedly. You can buy failsafe milhackers in every market. They don’t work, but it doesn’t stop idiots buying them. Two keys, everyone knows two keys can’t be broken.
As for three . . . Makes me wonder exactly what Morgan wants hidden.
‘Buy me time,’ Colonel Vijay says. ‘Then get out of here.’
‘Sir . . .’
‘That’s an order, Sven.’
‘Yes, sir.’
On her way out, Leona turns. ‘Sir,’ she says to the colonel. ‘Permission to speak freely.’
He looks surprised.
‘Destroy the cores, sir. When you’re done.’
‘The cores?’
She walks back, stopping by the frame that supports the semi AIs. Flipping down a keyboard, she signals a sequence of hot keys. ‘Starts a Guzzman Swab, sixty-seven overwrites.’
‘Sergeant.’
‘Take you about ten minutes . . . sir.’
Not yet sure how I feel about OctoV being a fourteen-year-old girl.
Except that she’s not, of course. Any more than Gareisis is really a multi-braided metalhead with eyes that glow and a pump station’s worth of pulsing glass hoses going into his gut. They’re manifestations.
Even I get that.
Not even manifestations of the whole. I’ve talked to OctoV, a mind bigger than anything I can imagine. With a breadth of knowledge wider than the gaps between the stars. Leona is OctoV’s manifestation.
An interface.
Won’t stop those soldiers below our fire escape from hanging her, though.
The grin she gives me is borderline insane. On the wrong side of that border too. Startling blue eyes catch my gaze and she grins again and shows a mouthful of white teeth. I wonder how I ever mistook her for a militia sergeant.
‘Easy mistake to make.’
‘Can you be killed?’
‘Planning to try?’
‘Some of the shit I’ve been through, you deserve it.’
Leona scowls, climbs in the window after me, and grins again. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I can be killed.’
‘I probably owe you that.’
‘Owe me what?’ she says, sounding puzzled.
‘A clean death . . . If we get trapped, and we’re going to die or be captured, I’ll kill you myself rather than let them do it.’
Leona looks at me. ‘Sven,’ she says. ‘You have no idea how reassuring that sounds.’
Now I know she’s mocking me.
Flicking a lever on the hunting rifle I took from the merchant’s house, I drop out the clip to check it’s full, tighten the suppressor slightly from habit and snap the clip into place. Franc’s throwing knife is at my hip, a Colt tucked in the back of my belt.
Checking the list makes me wonder something.
‘Banned inside the city limits,’ Leona tells me, before I can ask why we’ve seen so few pulse rifles. The general’s two guards carried them, that’s all.
‘And those were illegal,’ she says.
One floor down, and we see no one in the half light that filters through the stairwell windows. Two floors down, and we can hear the crowd inside the hotel, but they’re still way below us.
We meet, when we meet, at the top of a wide set of marble stairs five floors below the fire escape we used to reach the penthouse. The ballroom at the foot of the stairs is full of rioters. Not a militia officer, NCO or trooper to be seen.
Leona winces when a shot flicks past her ear. Not sure why. The bullets you hear are the ones that don’t kill you. They’re already gone.
‘Put down that rifle,’ someone shouts.
Most people hit the floor when I shoot over their heads. A few roll out of sight. They’re the ones I need to deal with.
‘You missed,’ says Leona, sounding shocked.
‘That was strategy.’
Leona snorts.
One of the rollers raises her head. A second later she fires. She’s not Death’s Head but her K19 is, right down to its black barrel and the silvered D-ring on its sling. Looted from Jaxx’s house, most likely. Centring her in the cross-hairs, I put a round through her skull and watch slivers of bone blind the man behind.
Two for one.
‘You’re grinning.’
I don’t deny it.
Another couple of rollers die just as fast.
Showing myself briefly gives the wall behind us battle acne. Someone down there owns an anti-tank rifle, because it punches a round into the wall hard enough to drill marble, destroy both skins of brick, puncture a steel plate and reveal air behind.
Now that’s the kind of gun I like.
‘Eight o’clock,’ Leona says.
Tell her I know that.
For his first shot our target stands, resting his rifle on the carved fluting of a marble pillar. For his second, which blasts a bigger hole through the wall behind us, he kneels. The next time he looks round the pillar, he’s at ground level and I slick his brains all over the floor behind him.
‘Shouldn’t be that predictable,’ Leona says.
After that we get silence. So Leona stays down on my orders and I stay silent and it takes longer than it should to occur to the crowd that we’ve stopped firing back.
Ten minutes since we left Colonel Vijay, and Leona reckons he’ll need twenty to extract the information, run the Guzzman Swab and destroy the data cores. The information bit I get. But running sixty-something overwrites? A couple of rounds a core sounds quicker to me.
Leona smiles when I say this.
A voice we haven’t heard before asks questions. Someone answers and the crowd mutter their agreement. Seems the military have arrived.
‘They won’t like that,’ Leona says.
‘Like what?’
‘Having to involve the militia. Vijay Jaxx should have been killed by the mob before the authorities had time to prevent it.’
‘And now the authorities are here?’
‘You’ve got it.’
After more muttering and quiet orders, we hear steps on the ballroom stairs. Gesturing Leona back, I position myself flat to the corridor wall.
A corporal turns into the corridor and I grab his throat, thumb one side and forefinger the other, closing them on his windpipe. It’s a bad way to die. So I jab my blade under his ribs and lower him to the floor.
A finger to my lips tells Leona to keep silent.
She nods, looks from me to the corporal. Occurs to me that for all the planets taken and planets lost, maybe OctoV hasn’t seen death this close for a while. And yes, I know she’s not OctoV. She’s a manifestation.
She’s real to me.
When their corporal doesn’t answer a shouted question, his commanding officer shouts again. I expect him to send a sergeant next. Because I’m imagining he’ll work his way up the food chain until we reach someone I’ll enjoy killing . . . Like some spoilt little militia major with a chest full of medals he hasn’t earned.
But their CO has more sense than that.
‘What’s your price?’ he shouts.
Has to be talking to us.
‘Sir?’ Leona says.
Make him wait or answer now? A quick check of my watch says Colonel Vijay needs another five minutes, which means we need a diversion.
It comes from somewhere unexpected.
A stamp of boots says others are joining the fun. Voices rise in the ballroom, then die abruptly as someone fires a side arm. Into the ceiling, from the sound of falling plaster and screams from the crowd.
‘Wow,’ says a voice. ‘Vulgar paintings, cheap marble, mirrors to disgrace a brothel. No wonder Sven feels at home.’
‘That’s enough.’
‘Enough nothing. You should have used incendiary.’
‘And destroy this place before we reach the boss?’
‘Serve him right.’ That gun’s got all the personality of a hung-over bouncer who’s been dumped by his girl, had the bailiffs repossess his apartment and is having a really bad attack of piles, but I’m still delighted it’s here. If only because I know the voice of the sergeant holding it.
Although I still want to know what took him so long.
‘Neen,’ I say. ‘Get your arse up here.’
‘Right you are, sir.’
‘And hurry it up.’
‘What about this lot, sir? Kill them?’
Voices rise and weapons cock. Seems we’re going to have to go to them after all. When Leona and I make the turn in the stairs, our hunting rifle and light machine gun turn a two-way stand-off into something more interesting.
The first thing I notice about my team, apart from the fact they’re in Death’s Head black, minus their shoulder patches, is that they wear ferox-skull armbands. The second thing is they’re splattered with blood.
Other people’s . . .
Guess that answers the question about what took them so long. Been fighting their way through Farlight and stealing armbands from the look of it. The final thing is that Rachel and Emil are missing.
So is Anton, but I’ll get to that later.
The militia have clocked their uniforms and armbands. Although it doesn’t impress their CO enough to have him make his troopers lower their weapons. They do, however, part to let Leona and me through.
‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Reporting for duty, sir.’
He snaps the words out and the Aux stiffen. They’d stand to attention but then they wouldn’t be able to cover the militia with their rifles.
‘Good to see you, Sergeant.’
Neen looks at me, trying to work out if I’m mocking him.
He’s clutching my SIG-37, and has a Kemzin 19 slung over his back. His sister stands beside him, with a scowl on her face. That’s fine. The day Shil turns up not looking sour is the day I start worrying. Obviously, I don’t need to start yet. Shil takes one look at Leona and scowls harder.
Standing behind her is a blond boy with broad shoulders and a wide smile. When he sees Leona, his smile gets wider. Ajac is the newest official member of the Aux. A survivor from the death of Hekati. Beside him stands Carl, with staples holding shut a gash in his skull.
‘You stole my coat,’ he says. ‘Want it back.’
It’s the girl on Neen’s other side who really raises my eyebrows. Curves overflowing in all the right places, sweet smile, puzzled eyes. Iona isn’t a member of the Aux at all, which explains why she’s not in uniform.
She is, however, Ajac’s cousin and Neen’s lover, much to Shil’s disgust. That’s nothing new, because pretty much everything is to Shil’s disgust. So we’ve got Iona who I don’t expect, but we’re still missing-
Neen nods upwards.
A strange little balcony overlooks us, fed from different stairs. It has a low balustrade with fat pillars. Between two of these I see a flash of red hair. And peeking from behind a pillar’s base is the muzzle of an 8.59 calibre Z93z long-range sniper rifle. The new model, the one with the adjustable cheek piece, ?3-?12-?50 spotting scope, laser sights and floating barrel.
No idea how Rachel managed to get up there.
But I’m impressed she did. Not going to tell her that, obviously. Rachel’s our sniper. As the saying goes, a good sniper is worth ten troopers. In Rachel’s case you can make that a hundred. Snipers are high-maintenance and so are redheads. Put them together . . .
Rachel’s as high-rent as all fuck.
The militia are watching us. Uncertain which side we’re really on. After all, we’re wearing official armbands. The crowd is watching the militia. Mobs need simplicity. Kill these people, sack that house, burn this building. Too much complexity muddles them.
‘Sven,’ Leona mutters. ‘You’re being cynical.’
‘No. It’s the truth.’
At the rear, someone mutters Colonel Vijay’s name and we’re back in business. Voices take up the mutter. And the voices get louder until they become a shout. The crowd has re-found its focus.
‘Give us Jaxx,’ someone shouts. ‘We know he’s up there.’
‘Death to Jaxx.’
They’re back in a place they understand.
‘Boss?’ says Neen.
It’s my call. Obviously it’s my call. We’re outnumbered, which means nothing. In battle experience this lot don’t come close. And we’re better armed. Although Neen still holds the SIG-37. He must realize that, because he holds it out.
‘About fucking time,’ the gun says loudly.
The militia and the crowd go suddenly quiet.
‘Aptitude OK?’ I ask.
‘You think I’d be here if she wasn’t?’ It scans the ballroom, doing a little dance with its diodes. ‘Fifteen Kemzins, three side arms, a shotgun (unloaded), assorted kitchenware, pry bars and bits of scaffolding . . .’
My gun sounds disappointed.
‘Hell,’ it says. ‘Hardly worth getting out of bed.’
‘Behave.’
‘Aptitude didn’t even let me kill rabbits.’
Carl’s grinning. ‘Debro sent it back. Think she thought it was a bad influence. Lent me her copter.’
Wondered how he got here so fast.
‘Jaxx,’ a voice says clearly.
A small man at the back, dressed in a filthy shirt and wearing a campesino hat. Doubt he’s ever lived in a favela, or would recognize a barrio if he got knifed in one. His skin is too fresh and he looks well fed.
He scowls when he sees I’ve spotted him.
I consider shooting the man with the campesino hat. But then we’d have a battle on our hands. So I weigh my other options. The thought stops me dead. This must be strategy. My old lieutenant used to talk about that.
Strategy is working out how high to bet on each hand.
‘You,’ I say. ‘Come here.’
The man looks behind him. Realizes I mean him and considers losing himself in the crowd. Only it’s not big enough. And Rachel’s already targeting him. I see it in the way the suppressor of her Z93z shifts. Those around him see it too. In the little red dot that blossoms right in the middle of his forehead.
‘Shit,’ someone says. ‘Sniper.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Juan . . .’
‘Bullshit,’ my gun says. ‘Try again.’
The man looks at the SIG. He wants to say that’s illegal technology and he’s right. Only how would a man in a campesino hat, who comes from the favelas, know what’s on the banned weapons list?
Unless he’s not from the favelas.
‘Well?’ I say.
He gives me a name.
Since the gun remains silent I guess it’s real.
‘So,’ I say. ‘You’re leading this group, right?’
The man’s not happy to be the centre of attention like this. And some of those around us, mostly militia, are scowling at him. They’re the ones who didn’t realize they were being led.
‘We’re all together,’ he says. ‘We want the same thing.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘Vijay Jaxx . . .’
‘Why?’
He looks at me, eyes opening wider. Wondering whether to appeal to the militia CO, he glances from the officer’s face to us, and decides it’s a bad idea. So he answers my question instead.
‘He’s the general’s son.’
Indigo Jaxx is dead, his house burnt and his city in ruins. But his enemies still call him the general and stand a little bit straighter as they say it. Weird fucking place, Farlight.
Think I’ve said that before.
Leona tries to catch my gaze. Who knows what those insane blue eyes are meant to be saying? Not me.
‘Sir,’ she says.
Neen’s wondering if he’s got a rival. Those chevrons on her flak jacket have him worried. And I don’t imagine he’s missed the casually competent way she holds her light machine gun.
‘Sergeant?’
‘Perhaps we should . . .’
‘Perhaps we should what?’
‘Negotiate, sir.’ She flicks her gaze towards the stairs. A smile crosses her face and she nods. Something’s going on inside that head. It would be good if she let me know what.
‘Neen,’ I say. ‘Anyone moves, kill them.’
He snaps me a salute.
Grabbing Leona by the arm, I march her out of the others’ hearing.
‘You’re hurting me.’
‘I’ll hurt you a fuck of a lot more if you don’t tell me what’s going on.’
She really shouldn’t grin at a threat like that. ‘I believe you would,’ she says, sounding impressed.
‘Count on it,’ the gun tells her.
She files that for later. ‘Colonel Vijay’s done. I felt the cores die. He’s making for a different fire ladder. I imagine he’s trying to reach the roof next door.’
‘You can sense that stuff?’
‘Jacked a couple of lenz.’
I’ll take her word for it.
We reach a simple deal with the militia CO. His troopers and the crowd will part to let us leave. And we let them live and make their way upstairs unhindered. It’s going to take them a while to reach the penthouse.
When they do, Colonel Jaxx will be gone.
The little man with the campesino hat grins. He thinks we’re cutting our losses rather than fight. From the look on Neen’s face, he thinks the same. Although he’s not grinning about it.