Salvation Lost

by Peter F. Hamilton

Ollie picked the cryptoken up. Tye told him it was open, waiting to be recoded to him. And there were a shitload of wattdollars loaded in. Enough for Gran and Bik? Maybe if I had both…He stared over at Adnan, who flipped another of the cryptokens like a bank-buster casino win. “Thanks, mate.” In his head, he was trying to do his thing, plotting out the moves ten steps ahead. It wasn’t easy.

  “No problem. Billionaire belt, here we come.”

  “Adnan. About that…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got to check on Bik and Gran first. They both had Kcell treatments a while back.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry, mate.”

  Ollie held up the cryptoken. “The news feeds: Some of them said hospitals were cutting out the Kcell tumors. Do you think this is enough money for the op?”

  “Two ops, Ollie. Then what?”

  “What do you mean? They’re my family!”

  “And if you save them from cocooning, where are you going to go? Even if you manage to buy them into a hospital tonight, you’re talking about major surgery. It ain’t quick. The first Deliverance ships are going to be here within twenty-four hours.”

  “There’ll be enough time,” he said desperately. “There has to be. The bloody universe owes me that.”

  “The universe doesn’t care.”

  Ollie was too scared to ask those four simple words. Will you help me? If the answer was no, he didn’t know what would happen. Did Adnan tool up while I was in the shower?

  Then Adnan gave a start, which made Ollie flinch and spill his coffee. It was painfully hot. “Ow!” He looked around to see what had unsettled Adnan.

  “Hello, boys,” Jade said.

  * * *

  The universe had slowly and peacefully shrunk around Tronde until all that was left was Claudette’s bedroom. He didn’t even mind that anymore. The murky light from outside gave it a soft focus neutrality that helped keep his mood level. Even so, he seemed to be losing chunks of time.

  Ollie had been in, he was sure about that; his friend had said he was leaving. Sometimes Claudette would be absent when he woke. If that happened he didn’t let it bother him, just closed his eyes and dozed again until she returned. He always knew when that was. The hifli would lift him out of the calm and into the right place, where he could see and feel and hear properly, the recipient of pure pleasure. There didn’t even have to be sex anymore to experience it. He couldn’t now anyway. All feeling below his shoulders had gone. Claudette still relished the carnal excess accomplished by the hifli state, impaling herself on the strange protrusion of flesh that had hardened between his legs. Though even that was diminishing now.

  He blinked slowly and looked around. Claudette wasn’t there, though he felt, or imagined, the warmth of her lingering on his bare chest. No matter, she’d be back soon. She always was.

  There were voices downstairs, soft murmurs that slipped through the house, mostly absorbed by the cushions and carpets and curtains. He couldn’t hear what was being said, and anyway it didn’t matter. The room sank into pleasant darkness.

  Claudette was climbing onto the bed with him, naked, with wild hair making her alluringly erotic. The parts of his body that still functioned tingled in anticipation, banishing the cozy lethargy.

  “I was worried about you,” she cooed. “She’s back. I hate her.”

  “Who?”

  “That woman. The corporate cow that was here before. She said you were ill, but you’re not. She’s taking your friends away with her. I heard them talking about it. They’re going to blow stuff up again for money.”

  “They shouldn’t go with her.” Some thoughts from the time before the bedroom and the hifli sneaked into his mind, something about trust. He’d spent several hours worrying about Jade and the Croydon raid she’d sent them on, the one that had ruined the Legion. With everything else that was happening right now, another risk just didn’t seem right.

  “That’s right!” Claudette exclaimed. She started kissing him urgently. “I know that. So I called the police.”

  “What?” Tronde wondered if he was still dosing on the last of Ollie’s zero-nark, so tranquil were his thoughts.

  “The police, babe.” Kisses moved down his neck and around to below his ear where the skin was most sensitive. “They’ll take them all away. Then there’ll just be you and me.” She grinned triumphantly as she pulled the sheet away from his body. “And you can’t go anywhere now, so I’ll have you all to myself. That’s so sexy. So perfect—like you.”

  Tronde looked down at the misshapen bulges of flesh and bone that his legs and abdomen had warped into and grinned. “You got me.” Nyin splashed Ollie’s icon, and it went active. Some part of the house network was still working. You need to leave, he sent to his friend. The police are coming. It made him feel good. The Legion looked after their own, even now when there was nothing left in the world.

  Claudette straddled him, then slowly bent forward. More kisses. Her riotous hair curtained the room and the bed. He breathed it all in, the intoxicating moment allowing it to stretch out…Then she was straightening up again, a hand holding out two white hemispheres.

  “Together,” he told her with the old firmness.

  “Together,” she echoed worshipfully.

  The hifli was as good as ever, attuning his nerves and neurons to the real universe to be found amid the secret folds of the one that imprisoned him so cruelly. Better even, as he knew he would never return to the misery of the life he’d lived. The nark flowed into his blood with the ease of a fine wine, teasing out the delicate harmonies of his body, allowing him to hear his strange modified organs sing with purpose. Up ahead of him the end of the universe was opening like a black flower whorl, sending out tendrils of darkness to embrace him. The sight of the apotheosis was raw pleasure.

  “This is it,” he declared lovingly, raising his hands in salutation.

  The ceiling disintegrated in a breathtaking multicolored fractal pattern that ruptured his skin in gratifying tatters. An angel clad in shining black armor descended from the glowing sky amid a cacophony of exquisite sound. Fabulous celestial supernovas erupted all around, shattering the glorious remnants of the bedroom to liberate Tronde from gravity.

  He fell through air saturated with lethal blast fragments that manifested as an aurora of sensual delight as they sliced open his body. Overloaded nerves penetrated his cerebellum with a climactic orgasm of fire, extinguishing his mind in a rapturous blaze.

  * * *

  “We’re going to hit the East Bedfont relay station,” Jade said as her altme sent files to Ollie and Adnan. “It supplies electricity to the Ollaka biogenetics manufacturing facility a couple of kilometers away. And that is one big facility. It’ll have backup power, but not enough. We have other teams in place who can utilize the brownout.”

  “For what?” Adnan asked.

  Ollie couldn’t quite believe how his friend could stay so calm. Jade had strolled into the kitchen and poured herself a mug from the cafetière as if nothing was wrong, as if this was just another opportunity she was generously handing to the Legion. But that composure didn’t fool him for a second.

  She was wearing a stone-gray one-piece that at first glance made you think was from some Sloane Street fashion house, because of the intricate patterns of gold embroidery. But not him. Best guess, it was a stealth suit similar to the kind the Legion had worn for the Croydon raid, but itself camouflaged. And the stylish cut took the emphasis away from how big she’d become. But sure as Sumiko was hot, Ollie knew Jade was not the kind of person who put on weight, never mind in just a couple of days. Something else she was wearing under the fabric was bulking her up. Crap, how much weaponry does one person need?

  So fear kept him in the kitchen, kept his anger buried below visibility, kept his hatred from being shouted out. And if he knew her, she most likely knew him…

&nbs
p; “I told you,” she said levelly. “Medicines are fetching a high premium now. Actually, a lot higher than we anticipated, given the cocooning issue.”

  “Issue?” Ollie challenged. It was getting harder by the second to restrain himself. “You call that an issue?”

  “Yes. Ollaka makes anti-cancer nanoparticles that golden bullet tumor cells. Which makes their production facility the most valuable piece of real estate in all of London right now. The profit we will make tonight can buy you a habitat.”

  “These nanoparticles,” Adnan asked. “Can they cure Lars and Tronde?”

  “I don’t know. How far has the cocooning progressed?”

  “I reckon it’s run its course with Lars. He ain’t a person anymore.”

  “I see. Well, I’m hardly an expert, but I can ask around for you.”

  “Cheers,” Adnan said in a voice dripping with irony.

  Claudette walked into the kitchen. It was all Ollie could do not to groan out loud, but that would mark him out as being bothered by her. Showing weakness right now simply wasn’t an option.

  Jade looked down on the naked, frowzy woman from the heights of amused contempt. “Grown-ups talking in here, sweetie. Go away.”

  “This is my house,” Claudette bellowed. “You go away. Now!”

  “We are going,” Jade mocked. She flicked her fingers in aristocratic dismissal. “Out.”

  “Fuck you, bitch! My Tronde doesn’t need curing. He’s perfect.”

  “Good news for you, then.”

  Ollie watched Claudette’s hand slowly clench into a fist. “Tell Tronde I’ll come upstairs and see him in a minute,” he said. He really didn’t need to be standing here when whatever abominable peripherals Jade had blew the crazy woman to bits. “I’ll say goodbye.”

  Claudette spun to face him. “You don’t go anywhere near my bad boy!”

  Hands up in surrender, a half step back. “All right. Okay.”

  She flicked a V sign at him and stormed out.

  “Nice,” Jade said.

  “Look,” Adnan said, “I appreciate you coming to us with this, but the fact is there’s only the two of us left now. We can’t guarantee we’ll be able to take out the relay station. Hell, we didn’t really manage it last time in Croydon when all of us went.”

  “I understand. This raid will be using more bird drones than last time. We just have to get close enough once the darkware hits their network.”

  The fine hairs along the top of Ollie’s spine stood up at the chill of those words. “We?”

  “Yes. Adnan’s right, two people isn’t enough. I’ll be coming with you.”

  Ollie couldn’t believe he had the self-control necessary to stand still. All he wanted to do was turn tail and run—maybe even all the way to the police. “And the bird drones?” he asked weakly.

  “They’re in my bagez. You can carry them on a modified harness.”

  “Right.” It would be like wearing old-style suicide vests if security shot at them. The map data Tye was splashing showed the East Bedfont station had two large fusion systems that supplied backup power for one of London’s shield generators in its adjoining compound. Holy fuck, she really is working for the Olyix!

  “If you want me to carry flying bombs, I’m going to need to check my stealth suit over again with some serious diagnostics,” Ollie said. “It got hit with some bad glitches when we were on the Croydon raid.” Spoken all calm and level, like it was a perfectly standard part of the operation. No need to panic and run screaming from an alien secret agent. Not at all. He even gave Adnan a rueful smile. “You need to do that as well.”

  “Sure,” Adnan said, “but I want to see the bird drones first. What have you got?”

  “Some kestrels, doves, plenty of parakeets,” Jade said reassuringly. “They’ll blend in just fine.”

  “So why do you need us?” Adnan asked. “Just release them a couple of kilometers away.”

  Ollie’s half-smile froze in dread. Why are you questioning her? Don’t you get how dangerous that is?

  “I need the darkware loaded from the closest solnet nodes, to avoid G8Turing analysis and protection. You will have to physically attach the modules onto the defense-grade cables leading into the East Bedfont station; that way it can be routed into the compound network with only one level of protection to get through. You’ll also be snipering the boundary sensors.”

  “Weapon?” Adnan asked keenly.

  “Micromaser. Three-hundred-meter range.”

  “That’s close.”

  “Too much for you?” she challenged.

  “No, but we’ll be in harm’s way. That’s expensive for you.”

  “Trying to leverage me at this point is a bad idea.”

  Tronde’s icon splashed across Ollie’s tarsus lenses. You need to leave, the message said. The police are coming.

  Ollie was sure he whimpered. The other two either didn’t hear or ignored him.

  “No, it’s not,” Adnan said. “Because you just told us there’s even more profit to be made from this now. You’re not going to deny us a fair share, are you? Given how critical we are to it, and everything.”

  Jade’s index finger traced a full circle around the rim of her coffee mug, as if she was giving the demand serious thought. “I could increase your bonus by seven percent. Final offer.”

  “As you and Piotr agreed before: nine.”

  “Very well, nine it is.”

  Adnan stuck his hand out. Jade shook. Then she turned to give Ollie a questioning look.

  “Now I’m definitely going to check my stealth suit,” he said and turned his back on her. Oh shit, will it hurt? She’ll go for a kill shot, right? To the head? Maybe not. Maybe it’ll be a flesh wound. A warning. Will she shove Kcells down my throat, or up my—? Not that, please! Shit, shit, shit— He didn’t—couldn’t—breathe. Just kept walking. Every facial muscle was rigid, locking his expression into a grimace. If anyone saw that they’d know…

  The shot never came. As he left the kitchen, Adnan was saying: “How much do the bird drones weigh?”

  The blessed sanctuary of the lounge. Ollie never hesitated, never fumbled. The stealth suit went on fast, its heavily screened systems coming online glitch free. He put his purloined cryptokens in an internal pouch along with the one Jade had brought before and the one intended for Lars, which he’d never quite got around to handing over. A shaking hand sealed up the front of the suit. Hood on, mask down. Theoretically, he was invisible to most active scan sensors, but visually he remained a blatant fuzzy gray human-shaped lump. He switched the lounge lights off. Now he had as much optical substance as a shadow.

  The window opened, and he went through with the ease of a pro gymnast. Tonight the civic power grid was so patchy London’s streets were as dark as they had been back in the nineteenth century when they were lit by gas lamps. The shield refracted that sparse luminosity as a wispy nebula curving overhead. Without his suit’s optical amp he wouldn’t have been able to see a thing in the garden, which finally gave his confidence a boost. This was the perfect milieu for the suit. Without background illumination to silhouette him, he was effectively invisible in every spectrum.

  He hurried away from the house, reasonably sure that none of Jade’s peripherals were locking on. I did it. I’m out.

  There was some small tinge of guilt. About Adnan. Tronde, maybe. Lars, not much.

  Tye splashed up locations and status for the sensors embedded in the boundary wall as he slipped through the rhododendron bushes and Japanese maple trees that surrounded the lawn. Like all the houses on Lichfield Road, Claudette’s boundary incorporated all the requisite safeguards to assuage the middle-class fear of interlopers and their street violence. His suit would negate most of the gadgets. But when he got over the wall, there would be more alarms in the neighbor’s garden to cont
end with.

  Without drones, he couldn’t scout whatever lay beyond. As he was studying the moss-covered brick, he saw something flicker against the shield’s meager glimmer above. For a second he allowed himself to believe it was a bat or bird, but then his suit was warning him the garden was being scanned with micro-power ultrasonics. The sweep was close to a bat sonar but too regular, too persistent.

  Police drones!

  Ollie froze. His suit fabric was quite capable of absorbing and cancelling a sonic pulse, and he was already under the boughs of a beech tree, which would distort the sweep even further. Tye switched his view feed to upright, using the passive sensors on the top of his hood. It wasn’t the clearest image; the beech leaves cluttered his observation as much as they would for the drones. But larger shapes were flitting through the sky now, big enough for Tye to illustrate the silent downwash from their fans in bright false-color green plumes. He held his breath. There were more than thirty of them, including some big urban counter-insurgency drones. Which was a ridiculous overkill deployment. Special Branch must really want the Legion.

  Originally he’d intended to scramble over the wall into next door’s garden, then maybe move along a couple more properties before creeping out into Lichfield Road and sneaking away. But now he was worrying about what else the Specials had brought to the game. It didn’t matter, he knew; he had to make a move. Staying this close to the house was definitely going to get him caught, while distance at least gave him a chance, however pitiful. Though he was scared the police teams would already be sneaking toward him in the neighboring gardens…which means the houses on either side have had their alarms deactivated.

  Ollie made his decision and sprinted for the wall, jumping with his arms outstretched to get a hold on the top. The moss was spongy, but his fingers managed to grip, and he began to lever himself up.

  Tye splashed a dozen alert icons. Claudette’s house was hit with a monster emp. Simultaneously, the drones that had now encircled it fired a barrage of nerve-block pulses. His suit protected him from the worst of the effect, but his flesh burned hot, like an entire army of soldier ants had crawled inside the tight fabric to bite his skin. He strained hard to pull himself over the wall.