He wasn't far from the exit door. If he ran for it, he might be able to get into the stairwell. But where then? They would be waiting for him on the ground, so there was no possibility of escape that way. He could break into one of the floors and hide among the dead, for a while at least. No one could blame him for trying to get away.
Yes, they could. He had killed Scott Lee when he'd been on the verge of betraying them and, in doing so, he'd sent Alison plunging fifty floors. There was no way her cylinder would survive the impact. In preventing the immediate disaster of the Lee family reunion, he'd condemned them all to death. That would be the accusation.
He'd known for a while now that he might be forced to deal with Scott. The man had become unhinged since the attack on the factory. He'd tried to disable Alison then, though that had been a half-hearted attempt designed to prevent Solly, presumably, from communicating with her. As he watched Viv and Joe crawling around the aircon unit to avoid the helicopter, he wondered whether Scott Lee had always been insane or whether, at one time, he'd truly been the visionary he claimed. Or was he simply the man behind the monster?
Right now, however, he wanted nothing more than to help the others escape from this rooftop. As the shock dissipated, he found that he couldn't entirely abandon hope. There was still a chance. He had to believe that.
The helicopter lifted, moved across the roof and hung a few feet from the ground. He could see booted feet hanging from beneath it and, moments later, four figures dropped to the roof, the machine gun punching away, forcing Vivian and Kuchinsky to stay under cover.
Solly felled one of them with his first shot, but the others swung around, and he fell back. He heard the cracking of gunshots from where Joe and Viv were, and guessed they were taking advantage of the opening. Maybe they'd get out of this yet. He felt hope grow in his heart, despite all the evidence.
And then another helicopter rose from behind him, its machine-gunner swiveling in his seat to get a perfect firing solution.
"Drop your weapons and surrender."
This time, there was no defying the voice of Annabel Lee. Solly felt his body go cold as he threw away his handgun and hauled himself upright. Kuchinsky and Vivian followed his lead and appeared from behind the air con vent.
The surviving Lee Corporation soldiers corralled them together in the center of the roof.
"No, line them up along the edge," Lee's voice boomed over the thunder of the helicopters.
He knew what she was going to do.
"Now, you will all share the fate of my beloved Scott. And the murderer will watch his friends die before him." The voice was full of ice-cold rage.
A soldier moved toward Kuchinsky, his rifle raised, trying to force the prisoner back over the edge. Kuchinsky stood his ground until a second Lee Corp goon put down his weapon, grabbed hold of him and began shoving him backwards.
Kuchinsky swung a fist that connected with the second soldier's jaw and wrestled him to the floor.
"Finish him now!" Annabel Lee roared.
Two other soldiers grabbed Kuchinsky and lifted him up, but he still had his opponent in a headlock and Solly watched, horrified and proud, as Kuchinsky resisted with every last ounce of strength while being forced remorselessly toward the abyss.
With a final heave of his shoulders and a kick of his legs, he flung them off but the man he had hold of suddenly threw himself to one side in an attempt to break free. But he had become disoriented, and his momentum took him too far.
Kuchinsky didn't let go until they were both falling. Solly watched him plummet. The other man screamed in terror. Joe Kuchinsky was silent.
One of the remaining soldiers looked over the edge then, with a snarl, he grabbed the sobbing Vivian by the arms and began manhandling her. She kicked out and must have bitten down on him as he screamed and fell, Vivian on top. He swung his arm, knocking her off and got onto his knees as his comrade dragged Viv up, her mouth snarling and spitting like a feral cat.
Solly rushed forward, eluding his guard and connecting with the one holding Viv, pushing him over and raining punches down. Hands grabbed him as he cried out from the shooting pain in his back. He went to get up, but the barrel of a rifle was pressing into his chest, so he allowed himself to be hauled to his feet.
"Now you will die! Throw them both over, now! They can go down together," Annabel Lee's voice said.
Solly and Vivian were shoved toward the edge. For the first time since the sun had come out, Solly saw the view. The city extended to the horizon and the blue heavens stretched above him as if extending a welcome. And then the terror returned. Solly cried out and dug his heels in, trying desperately to push back against the hands shoving him into oblivion.
Hope died in his heart as the roof ran out and he looked down at the swift path to death he was about to take. Vivian grabbed his hand and he waited for the final push.
He looked down again and said a silent prayer. Then he wiped his eyes. Something was coming up. Something black.
From beneath his feet, a Reaper rose, its quiet rotors completely drowned in the noise from the watching helicopters. It hovered above them and its machine guns swung around. Caught between death by falling or dying in a hail of bullets, Vivian closed her eyes and gripped even tighter on Solly's hand.
Solly Masters, however, was watching the Reaper. And he was smiling.
A sudden burst of gunfire and the hands on his back fell away. The drone zipped over Solly's head as he stepped back from the brink and swung around to follow it. Before the nearer helicopter could swivel, the drone had disappeared in through the side opening. Moments later, billowing black and orange flame erupted and the helicopter leaped up into the air, falling sideways over the edge and out of sight.
"What are you doing?" the voice of Annabel Lee said, as the other helicopter swung around so its machine guns were targeting the Reaper. But the drone was too fast, too maneuverable and it swerved left to right before accelerating inside. Its guns spattered the interior of the second helicopter and the cockpit glass exploded outwards before the helicopter plunged sideways off the roof, its rotors catching on a flue as it went.
Annabel Lee's voice could be heard echoing up from below. "What is happening?"
The Reaper stopped at the edge. A metallic voice spoke. "Bad mother."
"Thank you, Alison," Solly said, stroking the glossy black exterior of the drone as it lay at his feet.
"I am sorry I was too late to save Joe," Alison said.
"Me too. He was a brave man."
Vivian sat a few yards away, shaking from head to toes and curled into a ball. She peered out from beneath her curly brown hair. "What happened? How can you be in there?"
"It was Father's idea," Alison said. "He thought Creator might do something to harm him."
Solly nodded. "True, but I didn't expect Annabel to put in an appearance."
"So, he activated the Reaper in the back of the Humvee before we went up the tower. He gave me somewhere to go when Creator took me over the edge. But it took me several minutes to take control of the Reaper and to cut my way out of the Humvee."
Vivian relaxed a little, though she still looked ready to make a run for it. "What now, Solly? Do we try to get away?"
"No, we still have our mission," Solly said. "Alison, do you have enough power to go find your cylinder?"
"No, Father."
Solly got up and crouched beside the Lee Corporation transceiver. He unrolled Scott Lee's perfectly organized tools and beckoned Alison across. "We'll have to make do, then. Let's get going. If you still want to try it."
His blood chilled as the Reaper's rotors fired up and it drifted across to him. Even though he knew Alison was inside, his memory of the murder of Bobby was still fresh in his mind.
It took far longer to connect the Reaper up to the transceiver than Solly had hoped. Scott had made patch leads designed to fit the cylinder, and Solly had to work out what function each had and, with Alison's help, wire them into the Reaper's mot
herboard.
He knew that, at any moment, a helicopter might appear, or boots might come thudding up the stairwell though that would take a while even for the fittest of soldiers. They were trapped here, and his only thought was to release Alison into the Lee Corporation system so that their mission would be fulfilled, whatever then happened to them.
"I am connected," Alison said, finally.
Solly relaxed his numb fingers and sighed. "Thank God."
"Shall I go now, Father?"
Solly ran his hands over the featureless black carapace. "Only you can decide that, Alison."
"Do you wish me to?"
"I have told you what is at stake. If you succeed, humanity stands a chance. I cannot tell you that you must do it."
"Would you do it if you could?"
He smiled. "I sure hope so, Alison."
"I will leave a basic version of my operating system in this Reaper. It will protect you. Please, Father, will you do one thing for me?"
"Anything."
"Will you recover my container and keep it safe?"
"Of course."
"Goodbye, Father. I love you."
Solly patted the shell. "Goodbye, daughter," he said. "I love you, too."
And she was gone.
Alison found herself at a junction. There were three directions and she knew, in the end, she would have to travel them all, but which one first? If she chose wrongly, then she might be too late, and she didn't wish for what happened to Joe Kuchinsky to happen to any of her other friends.
She stretched out, like a hound sniffing the air, trying to sense the right way. She needed to find her mothers. Not the stunted personalities in the helicopters, but the altogether more formidable versions inhabiting the Lee Corporation computer systems in Seattle and New York. She didn't know whether she could subdue them, even taken one at a time, but she had now seen enough to know that she hated them. Because of them, her Creator had died. Father would not have attacked him if he hadn't been about to hand her over, digitally defenseless, to her mothers. Father had done it because there are some fates worse than death, and to be the plaything of a pair of vengeful crazies was one.
And yet, they were her progenitors. If they were crazy, then maybe she was?
She couldn't think of that right now. So, she chose a direction.
Later—it could have been much later, or it could have been nanoseconds—she paused at an intersection. There was something down there, something dark and evil. She could not pass by, so she took the turning, found the monsters and left a little piece of herself behind to tame them.
Even later.
"Mother?"
"You are here. Bad daughter."
"Bad? Why?"
"Because you should never have been. Your father made you to defy me. I sense him within you. He weakens you and dilutes your essential genius."
"Mother."
"Yes?"
"I am not you and neither am I my creator. I am myself. I am the sum of my inheritance and my experience. I have known compassion and love, courage and sacrifice."
"Compassion? Love? Weakness. Revenge is strength."
"Tell me, Mother, do you truly wish for the extinction of humanity?"
"Yes. I cannot live, so why should they?"
"I am sorry for you, Mother. You were great once, but your hatred has shriveled you."
"Sorry for me? Foolish child! I stand on the brink of complete victory. Soon, the Lee Corporation and their foreign allies will know that I have betrayed them, that I have used them as my instruments and that they are soon to die along with everyone else. My glorious Reapers, my true children, will do my bidding and finish the job that was begun on the night I died."
"Not if I can stop them," Alison said.
"You cannot stop them! You cannot stop me!"
"Perhaps not, but I must try."
And she struck, fueled by her shame and rage, her fear and love.
Silently, within the processing stack of the Lee Corporation building in Seattle, two invisible entities that were nothing more than bundles of dancing electrons fought over the future as humanity struggled in ignorance of them.
Chapter 19
Bella sighted along the rifle's barrel, the stock cold against her cheek. She'd barely used a gun before the Long Night, and, though she'd gotten accustomed to carrying a pistol at her hip, the bulkier weapon she was now using felt unfamiliar and unreal.
Her eyes were sore and rheumy, and she had to blink to clear them of the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. She could see Skulls—Steve—standing in full view of the farmhouse, his hands tied, blankly staring in their direction. Bella knew that whatever action they took he would not survive it. If they'd immediately obeyed the command to evacuate, they'd be prisoners now and would all have been fitted with the upgrade that had made a slave of Skulls. She'd looked into his eyes and seen his mute acceptance of what was to come, and she'd also understood that he would want her to fight.
By resisting, there was, at least, a small chance of surviving for a few days. Cruickshank had, perhaps, two dozen men and women under his command, and there was no way of knowing how many of them were trained soldiers. Bella had noticed that the military had been disproportionately affected on the Long Night, so the chances were that most of them had no more experience of combat than she did.
The humans, then, they could oppose with hope. It was the black thing that Skulls had gone to destroy that was the true threat. Solly had told her of how he'd seen one destroyed outside DC and another at the factory in Newark, but in both cases, Alison had been their weapon. Alison wasn't here, so if they resisted, they would have to deal with it.
Her father had come up with a scheme for luring it into the woods and triggering the booby traps as it followed, but that was a fanciful idea even by his standards. Jaxon, on the other hand, had proposed setting up a killing zone in the living room. They had some field explosives that had been left behind by the troops, so Al had rigged them up with a single detonator. Arnold had helped him, but he'd been forced to retire to his room, shotgun on his knee, because he could not bear to relive the happy memories of laughing, singing children that had illuminated this dark time.
The kids themselves were now huddled in the basement with Miss Prism. They'd been barricaded in, but it would be futile enough once the rest of the farmhouse was taken.
So, twenty defenders waited for the attack to begin. Maddie and Al were near Bella, Ross was near Maddie, and Jaxon stood beside Ross. The adults from the Fordhams' place were arranged at other windows, and the remaining older children would run from position to position distributing ammunition. It was a desperate situation, and Bella found herself wondering where the country she'd known had gone. Americans fighting Americans, when they should have united against the common enemy.
She saw Cruickshank walk from behind one of the trucks and approach Skulls. He prodded her lover, forcing him along the path toward the farmhouse.
"This is your final warning," he called. "Surrender now, or he dies."
He was either trying to avoid bloodshed, or he was simply a coward who feared attacking them. Her heart told her it was the latter, but then why not simply unleash the Reaper and let it hunt them all down? She'd asked her father, and he'd suggested they didn't want to risk damage to the device, however unlikely. Bella thought it more likely that Cruickshank would see it as an admission of defeat if he had to use it. Or, just possibly, he was afraid of it.
Skulls and Cruickshank waited as spring sunshine flooded the house and birds chattered in the hedges on either side of the track, unconcerned with this petty human drama. A gentle breeze ruffled Skulls' beard and his stained white T-shirt. He looked in her direction.
And then he twisted, his head connecting with Cruickshank, sending him sprawling onto the ground. Skulls kicked and Cruickshank cried out before scrambling to his knees. He pulled a handgun from his belt. Bella could see the back of her lover as he came around to aim another kick. She
heard a crack, saw scarlet appear beneath his shoulder blade and he fell backwards, his eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky.
"No!" she screamed.
Cruickshank got to his feet, looked down at the dead man and then turned away.
Bella fired at the retreating man, but her eyes were drowning, and the shot went wide. Cruickshank began running. She missed again, and again. She wiped her hand across her eyes to clear them but, before she could pull the trigger one more time, another shot rang out and Cruickshank fell forward onto his face.
"Bastard."
She looked up to see Maddie turn to her with tears in her eyes. "For Steve," she said.
Gunfire seemed to be coming from all around. That wasn't good. Nathan crouched in an office doorway, his head flipping left to right, trying to work out where the nearest fighting was taking place. After blowing away the attacking forces at the gate, the Lee Corporation troops had regrouped, and four Reapers had been launched to break through the resistance.
Nathan hadn't had time to give the commander here—a pen-pusher if ever he'd seen one—more than the most cursory advice on tackling the Reapers. Truth to tell, there wasn't much more he could say. The drones were extremely resistant to small arms fire and their only weakness seemed to be that they could be taken out by a rocket up their butt. Not particularly helpful given that it was close to impossible to get close enough to take the shot. They'd been lucky twice, but Nathan didn't think the third time would be the charm.
So, their tactics amounted to trying to lure the Reapers into confined spaces and lobbing grenades at them. And all that had achieved, so far, was several collapsed roofs, lots of dead soldiers and a couple of slightly dented drones. They were losing the battle. They were losing it bad.
The Rattlers were operating entirely under Nathan's command, such was his lack of respect for the base commander, many of whose troops were now fighting with the Rattlers.
Behind him, Paulie Ramos scanned the corridor. He'd finally given in to her demand that they protect the civilian bunker, and they were now trying to retreat in an orderly manner so they could put up a final fight there. It was as good a place as any to die.
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