Tooth and Nail

by Chris Bonnello

  ‘I should be done by the end of the morning,’ she answered. ‘I’m just waiting for Nathaniel’s company. He should join me to observe the Acceleration experiment.’

  ‘I’ll tell the vehicle port operatives you’ll be joining them at lunchtime then,’ said Grant. ‘You should make it to the transport mid-afternoon, preparation should be ready by the evening, and you’ll be there before midnight. Enjoy New Oxford, both of you. It’s strikingly similar to New London, except the staff are less interesting.’

  ‘In my experience,’ finished Crossland, ‘it’s the “interesting” people who are the most problematic. Nathaniel?’

  She walked away with Nathaniel Pearce in tow, leaving Roth on his own with Nicholas Grant.

  ‘Why are they going to New Oxford?’ asked Roth.

  ‘They’re going to engineer the greatest one-day bloodbath in human history,’ answered Grant. ‘I’ll fill you in later. In the meantime, you’ve got a bloodbath of your own to organise.’

  Grant leaned forward, placing his elbows on his desk and interlocking his fingers. The expression on his face turned bitter.

  ‘It’s not often I admit to making mistakes, Oliver. But the biggest mistake I ever made was underestimating Joseph McCormick. He and his band of countryside wildlife were able to reach our upper floors and stop us from becoming invincible, all because I didn’t think they were worth paying attention to.’

  Stop making excuses, you old fart. You’ve been paying attention to them ever since your daughter started helping them. I mean bloody hell, you even made their old school the main AME test centre.

  ‘So it’s time to deal with them once and for all,’ Grant continued. ‘And I know you’ve focused a lot of effort on them since the Takeover. You’ve dispatched six of them personally, haven’t you?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Even better. Now last time I checked the list, only nine names on it belonged to people who are still alive. Ten, if you include my backstabbing daughter. I need you to make it zero. And from now on, we’re not waiting for them to come to us.’

  Oliver Roth went over Grant’s sentences word by word in his mind, just to double and triple-check he had interpreted them right. But whatever way he looked at it, the message was the same: he no longer wanted Shannon alive. After losing Keith Tylor to her, and then the clone factory and AME shield presumably because of intelligence she had shared, evidently enough was enough. The death of his daughter was now a vital part of his vision for success.

  ‘They still think you’re dead, don’t they?’ asked Grant.

  Roth nodded, and tried to ignore the memory of why. Ewan West had beaten him in that duel in the burning experiment chamber, shooting him four times in his invisible Kevlar and leaving him to burn. His enemies had every reason to believe he had died that night, especially since the only Underdog who had seen him after the duel had died before he could speak to his allies.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘That countryside hideout they have… Spitfire’s Rise, I think they call it.’

  Surely he’s not asking…

  ‘Sir, there must be a million square miles of—’

  ‘I’m going to give you until the end of the day,’ Grant interrupted, ‘and then you’re leaving New London. Take as many soldiers as you see fit, and whatever resources you feel you need. And do not return to this Citadel until you have found Spitfire’s Rise and destroyed it.’

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