Her news hound program alerted her to the situation developing in Edmonton. She went through Time Universe to access a sensevise of the fight. And there she was, crouched behind one of the abandoned buses, peering cautiously round the front at the crazy army marching along the street. Dazzling white fireballs were pumping up from a dozen upstretched hands, smacking into the skyscraper. Flames were roaring out of windows and missile craters all the way up the first eight or nine stories.
Heavy-calibre guns were firing down in retaliation, pummelling the carbon-concrete sidewalk with small intense topaz explosions. Several bodies were scattered along the street, clothes still smouldering from beam weapon scorches.
Figures began to race past the bus. Police in dark-grey armour suits, hauling even larger automatic guns than those in use up ahead. Their movements were arachnid, scuttling from cover to cover. They began to fire; the discharge from their weapons a continuous howl ripping into the delicate tissue of her inner ear. She started, hands halfway to her ears before the reporter’s audio limiter program cut in. Then she was ducking down as multiple explosions ploughed up the street. White fireballs flew directly overhead.
Louise reduced the sensevise to monitor function, bundling it away until it became a vivid real-time memory. She looked at Ivanov. “Now what?” she asked. “They won’t let this train into Edmonton now, will they? Surely?”
“They ought to. Access the overview commentary. The possessed are concentrated in one area, and the police have them contained. They’ve got enough firepower concentrated on them to exterminate ten times as many as there are on the ground. Besides, if we were being diverted, the train company would have told us immediately.”
Louise accessed the carriage’s processor, and requested a schedule update. It reported that they were going to arrive in Edmonton in forty-one minutes. “That doesn’t make any sense. The authorities were paranoid about outbreaks before.”
“It’s politics. Edmonton is trying to prove they don’t have a problem with the possessed; that they’re on top of the situation.”
“But—”
“I know. They should have waited until after this fight is over before any grand announcements. Being premature with the good news is hardly new for Govcentral. As soon as the Edmonton isolation was announced, a lot of highly connected lobbyists will have been called in to pressure the president’s office and sympathetic senators to have the vac-train lines re-opened. If Edmonton is taken out of the global economic loop, all the companies in the arcology will start to fall behind their competitors; and an entire arcology is a huge market for outside companies to sell into; that’s a factor, too.”
“They’re endangering people because of money?” Louise asked in astonishment. “That’s awful.”
“Welcome to Earth.”
“Don’t they understand what’ll happen if the possessed get into other arcologies?”
“Of course they do. Now the possessed have been exposed in Edmonton, there’ll be an equal amount of pressure applied to close the vac-trains down again. Action and reaction, Louise.”
“You mean we might not get out after we arrive?”
“We will. There’ll be enough time. I promised you: back home again in five hours. Remember?”
She glanced over at Gen, who was sleeping, curled up in the seat, her small face scowling even as she dreamed. “I remember.” Not that there was much she could do about her worries now. The train was going to stop in the arcology. She hadn’t felt this out of control since that first mad horse ride away from Cricklade the day Quinn Dexter appeared.
That the fight around the skyscraper would be uneven was never in doubt.
Even so, the effectiveness of the police tactical team was impressive.
Heavy-calibre portable weapons deployed by the front line were backed up by X-ray lasers from the rear support groups, far enough back to resist glitching by the possessed. As a consequence, very few possessed actually made it in to the skyscraper; and judging by the amount of gunfire coming from inside, the sect members weren’t exactly a pushover. That was where the commercial sensevise coverage ended. B7 immediately switched to the surviving sensors in the headquarters, watching nervous, indistinct figures creeping along dark smoke-filled corridors. One of them walked over a grid with twenty thousand volts running through it. The body ignited into a pillar of flame hot enough to melt the concrete corridor around it.
“Well, that’s a neat trick,” Northern Europe said. “What kind of energy level is that, do you think?”
“Could be total chemical conversion,” Central America suggested. “It can’t be a direct mass energy reaction. That would eliminate the entire arcology.”
“Hardly relevant,” South Pacific said.
“On the contrary,” Central America said. “The more we learn of their ability, the closer we come to defeating them.”
“You can hardly classify their death throes as part of their ability.”
“All information is useful,” Western Europe said, deliberately bleeding a note of snobbery in to his representation’s voice. “We wouldn’t have had this kind of success without it.”
“Success?” South Pacific pointed at the image above the conference table.
The possessed had burnt out, leaving a human sculpture of ash standing amid the drizzle of molten carbon-concrete. It pitched over, disintegrating into a slush of grey flakes. “That’s a success; Edmonton under siege from the possessed? May we please be preserved from your failures.”
“By studying the data on Dexter we determined his likely course of action. I told you he’d betray the remaining possessed to us. This merely proves I was right all along.”
“And Edmonton is not under siege,” North America said. “The police tactical teams have the possessed surrounded.”
“Wrong,” South Pacific said. “That friend of Carter McBride won’t be among this group. You haven’t got him surrounded.”
“He is not a threat to anyone other than Dexter,” Western Europe said.
“Only in your book. As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed. One invisible possessed and one elusive possessed are running round loose. Your territories remain embargoed.”
“Thank heavens for that. We all know what would happen to Edmonton if you had any say in events over here.”
“At least with my way only one arcology suffers. I can’t believe you’re willing to expose another to Dexter.”
“You can’t win at this level without taking risks. And I do intend to win. Dexter is the epitome of all we have fought against these last five hundred years. He is the yobbish anarchy that B7 has successfully banished from this world. I’ll not have him return. The investment in blood and money it has cost us must be honoured.”
“You sound like a third-rate Shakespearean king the night before battle. Damn, and you accuse me of arrogance.”
Banneth walked back into her sanctum as the police tactical team searched through the rest of the sect headquarters for any possessed that might have survived the assault. She knew none had, but it wasn’t her place to interfere. The North American supervisor had given the police commissioner instructions that she was to be left alone, along with her suite of rooms. Senior officers had taken up position outside the doors to enforce the order in case any of the tactical team turned bolshie.
People hyped high on adrenaline after a fight were liable to have a healthy disregard for authority, especially where the possessed were concerned.
The rest of the sect, those that had survived, weren’t so fortunate.
Police officers, while sympathetic to their erstwhile allies, were disarming and cuffing them. The temple was proving a popular viewing point for awed, angry officers. Quinn’s last two victims were still in there on show. And when the forensic crew got to work they’d find an awful lot of DNA samples around the altar and in the drains. It was going to be a busy night down at Edmonton’s justice hall.
The sanctum was a wreck. A couple of light
s had survived when the ceiling cracked open, hanging on their cables, spinning slowly round and round.
Clear fluid from the life support canisters sloshed over Banneth’s shoes, several centimetres deep and tinged with blood. Most of the canisters had been smashed, spilling their bizarre occupants on to the floor. Their tubules had invariably torn out, depriving them of the vital chemicals she was feeding into them, leaving the poor creatures to flop their limbs (those that had any) feebly until death overcame them. The organs and appendages that were simply being suspended until she found a use for them were ruined.
Banneth picked up the oil painting of Mary Shelley and tipped the broken glass out of its frame. Life-support fluid had discoloured the canvas quite badly. She stared at the author’s drawn face for a moment, then sighed and cast the painting aside. “How poetic,” she said quietly. Her suspicions about the sanctum were strengthening. There was an awful lot of damage considering it hadn’t taken a direct hit. If the structural quakes and blastwaves from the explosions had been this powerful they ought to have brought down the entire skyscraper.
<
<
<
Banneth hesitated. Her legs quivered, a pointed reminder of what this particular affinity bond was capable of. If she refused, they would simply take her over and puppet her body.
<
<
<
<
“Quinn? Is that you, my little darling? Are you here at last?” Banneth put out a hand and stroked the central table, fingers lingering on the straps. “Have you come home to me? You’re not afraid are you, my darling? I made you better than that. Remember that beautiful pain that birthed you. I cleansed you of fear amid that pain so you could serve God’s Brother properly. And you have, haven’t you. How you’ve grown since I banished you. The very messiah of darkness, now. That’s what you claim, isn’t it. But can you do what you claim, or have you become flawed? I can correct that, Quinn, I can make you whole again. Submit to me. Return to me, and I’ll love you in that very special way. Our way. Just like before.” She held up the strap invitingly.
Quinn trembled in fury. He wanted to take her there and then. Every word she spoke, each mocking syllable teased out the memories of what she’d done to him. This room had been the place where the real violations had been performed. His screaming and her silken laughter mingling long into the nights. The urge to reverse those acts made his serpent beast howl in torment as he denied himself. She should be the one bound by those straps. He should be the one standing over the table.
His hands reached out to her, ready to caress and crush.
An annoyed frown creased her face, verging on petulance. “It’s no good,” she muttered. “The little prick can’t hear me.”
Quinn leaned closer, puzzled. It was as though she was talking to someone.
Banneth came to a decision, and strode out of the door, anger evident in every tense muscle and furious grimace. Her mind-tone was sullen and extremely fearful. It was similar to those Quinn had perceived in his sacrificial victims. He followed her as she stomped through the headquarters. Two police officers fell in beside her, escorting her down the stairs. More proof of the treachery she had indulged in at the expense of God’s Brother. As if he needed more.
They came to an office below the headquarters edifice itself. The place belonged to an alcohol wholesaler, one of the sect’s commercial fronts.
And Quinn received the biggest shock of all since he’d returned to Earth.
The Kavanagh sisters were there, waiting for Banneth.
Louise was amazed to find they’d arrived at the skyscraper featured on the news sensevise. It did make her wonder about Ivanov Robson, though.
For a start, there was something very odd about the way he was always right about things. And then there was this “contact” he had inside the Edmonton police division. She could believe that he’d worked with police departments before, and no doubt a few favours were owed on both sides.
But to pass so effortlessly through the cordon of armed police around the skyscraper was hard to credit.
Nonetheless, the major in charge of the tactical squad had been waiting to greet them when their taxi pulled up fifty metres short from the rear of the buzzing crowd. Now it was safe, thousands of Edmonton’s ordinary citizens had flocked in to soak up whatever was left of the drama. Rover reporters and several district councillors formed the inner wall, pressing against the barriers, shouting and datavising the line of implacable police for snatches of information, or pleading to be allowed just that fraction closer than their rivals.
Six tactical team officers fell in around Louise’s party and cleared their way through the tightly packed crowd. Inside the barriers, the fire department was doing most of the work. Hoses snaked away from large tenders, trailing down from mechanoids that were scampering across the vertical walls of the skyscraper, extinguishing the last of the fires.
The police were concerned only in bundling the surviving combatants from both sides into secure trucks so they could be driven away to the justice hall. One of them, a girl younger than Louise, was sobbing hysterically, kicking and bucking violently as four officers carried her to a waiting truck. She screamed: “The messiah lives! His Night will claim you all!” as they flung her unceremoniously inside.
Just as they were going in through the main entrance, three fully grown pigs rampaged out, squealing and grunting as they raced down the broken stairs towards the street. Sweating, angry officers chased after them.
Louise simply stood aside and let them go past; it was one of today’s milder insanities.
The major led them inside. Fire and explosions had wrecked the lobby.
Water and foam from the fire mechanoids was pooling underfoot. Lighting came from temporary rigs set up at strategic corners. None of the lifts or escalators were working. They went up four flights of stairs before being shown into some kind of office that had escaped any serious damage.
Despite the fires, Louise felt chilly. The major left them, and a strange-looking woman walked in.
At first Louise wasn’t entirely sure she was a woman. Her jaw was strong enough to be male, although her feminine figure countered the argument.
And the way she walked, straightforward easy strides, that was masculine, too. The oddest feature was her eyes with their pink irises. When she looked at Louise, there was no hint of what she was thinking.
“I don’t know who you people are,” Banneth said. “But you must have a lot of clout to get in here right now.” She stared at Genevieve. For the first time her face betrayed an emotion. “Very strange,” she muttered in puzzlement.
“I have contacts,” Ivanov said modestly.
“I’m sure you do.”
“My name is Louise Kavanag
h. I called you earlier, about Quinn Dexter. Do you remember?”
“Yes. I remember.”
“I think he may have done all this; or at least sent people to do it. He told me he was coming back to Earth to get you. I did try and warn you.”
Banneth’s gaze remained on Genevieve, who was fingering her pendant. “So you did. My mistake for not listening. Although as you can imagine, I have good reason to be sceptical. Quinn was deported. I didn’t expect to see him again.”
“He really hated you. What did you do to him?”
“We had several disagreements. As you might have guessed, my occupation is outside the mainstream. I earn a living by supplying certain items to people, which cannot be bought through normal commercial channels. It’s an activity which has brought me into conflict with the police on several occasions. Dear Quinn was one of my couriers. And he rather stupidly got caught. That was the reason he was deported, in fact. I expect he blames me for his sentence. I didn’t contribute to his defence; at the time I was using my contacts to protect myself. His incompetence landed me in a very difficult legal situation. So you see, the antipathy is mutual.”
“I’m sure it is,” Louise said. “But he’s a possessed now, one of the strongest. That makes him very dangerous, especially to you.”
Banneth gestured round. “I’m beginning to appreciate that. Though I’m curious, why are you, someone I’ve never met before, interested in saving me? I guarantee, I really am someone a nice girl like you wouldn’t want to meet.”
Louise was beginning to ask herself the same thing. Banneth was nothing like the image in her mind; she’d been expecting a slightly older version of herself: innocent and bewildered. Not this cold, criminal woman, whose every gesture and syllable was rich with disdain. “He was obsessed with you, and people need to be warned what he’s capable of. I’m frightened that once he’s murdered you, he’ll do to Earth what he did to Norfolk. That was my home planet, you see.”
“How very noble and unselfish of you, Louise. Behaviour no one on this planet is remotely accustomed to. Not in this day and age.” She arched an eyebrow at Ivanov. “So what do you suggest I do now?”
The Naked God Page 73