“Stop it!” the man screamed. He crashed to his knees, hands batting feebly to ward off the machine gun. “Stop it for fuck’s sake. I surrender, goddamn it.”
The serjeant eased off the trigger, and walked forwards. “Lie down flat, put your hands behind your head. Do not attempt to move or apply your energistic power.”
“Fuck you,” the man snarled through clenched teeth. His body was shaking badly.
“Down. Now!”
“All right, all right.” He lowered himself into the mud. “Mind if I don’t go any further? Even we can’t breathe mud.”
The serjeant took its holding stick from its belt, a dull silver cylinder half a metre long. It telescoped out to two metres, and a pincer clamp at one end opened wide.
“What the hell . . . ?” the man grunted as the serjeant closed the clamp round his neck.
“This restraint has a dead-man function. If I let go, or I’m made to let go, it will fire ten thousand volts into you. If you resist or refuse to obey any instruction, I will shove a current into you and keep turning it up until your energistic ability is neutralised. Do you understand?”
“You’re gonna die one day, you’re going to join us.”
The serjeant switched on a two hundred volt current.
“Jesus wept,” the man squealed.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, fuck. Turn it off. Off!”
“Very well. You will now leave this body.”
“Or what, asshole? If you zap me too hard we both die. Me and my host.”
“If you do not leave of your own volition, you will be placed in zero-tau.”
“Fuck. I can’t go back there.” He started sobbing. “Don’t you understand? I can’t. Not there. Please. Please, if you’ve got an ounce of humanity in you, don’t do this. I’m begging you.”
“I’m sorry. That is not an option. Leave now.”
“I can’t.”
The serjeant pulled on the holding stick, forcing the possessed to his feet. “This way.”
“What now?”
“Zero-tau.”
The cheering in the Ops Room was deafening. Ralph actually grinned out at them from his office, the image of the captured possessed being led away lingering in his mind. It might work, he thought. It just might. He remembered walking out of Exnall, the girl crying limply in his arms, Ekelund’s mocking laughter in the air.
“Enjoy your victory with the girl,” she’d sneered. His only personal success in that entire frightful night.
“Two down,” Ralph whispered. “Two million to go.”
The fish were dying. Stephanie thought that the oddest thing. This rain should be their chance to take over the whole world. Instead the ever-thickening mud was clogging up their gills, preventing them from breathing. They lay on the surface, being pushed along by the leisurely waves of water, their bodies flapping madly.
“We should like hollow out some logs, man, use them as canoes. That’s what our ancestors used to do, and those cats were like really in tune with nature,” Cochrane suggested when they cleared the end of the valley.
They’d only just made it, the sluggish river was leaking over the top of the track. At times it seemed as if the whole surface of the valley was on the move. They stood above the gurgling edge of the flow, and watched the gargantuan outpouring spread out to surge on across the lowlands.
“Fat lot of use that would be,” Franklin muttered grimly. “Everything’s heading down to the coast, and that’s where they are. Besides,” he gestured round extravagantly at the denuded valley. “What trees?”
“You are such a downer. I want some wheels, man. I have like totally had it with tramping through this shit.”
“I thought cars were spawned by the capitalist Establishment to promote our greed and distance us from nature,” Rana said sweetly. “I’m sure I heard somebody say that recently.”
Cochrane kicked at the fish flopping about round his feet. “Get off my back, prickly sister. Okay? I’m thinking of Moyo. He can’t handle this.”
“Just . . . quiet,” Stephanie said. Even she was waspish, fed up with the pettiness they were all displaying. The ordeal of the bus and then the track had stretched everyone’s nerves. “How are you?” she asked Moyo.
His face had returned to normal, the illusion swallowing his bandage and shielding his scabbed tissue from sight. Even his eyeballs appeared to dart about naturally. But he’d taken a lot of cajoling and encouragement to walk along the track. His thoughts had contracted, gathering round a centre of sullen self-pity. “I’ll be okay,” he mumbled. “Just get me out of this rain. I hate it.”
“Amen to that,” Cochrane chirped.
Stephanie looked round the shabby landscape. Visibility was still pretty ropy on the other side of their protective umbrella, though it was definitely lighter now. It was hard to believe this eternal featureless mire was the same vigorous green countryside they’d travelled across in the Karmic Crusader. “Well we can’t go that way,” she gestured at the cataract of muddy water rumbling away into the distance. “So I guess we’ll have to stick to this side. Anyone remember roughly where the road is?”
“Along there, I think,” McPhee said. Neither voice or mind-tone suggested much confidence in the claim. “There’s definitely a flat ledge. See? The carbon-concrete must have held up.”
“Till the foundation gets washed out from under it,” Franklin said.
Stephanie couldn’t honestly see any difference in the mud where he was pointing. “All right, we’ll go for it.”
“How far?” Tina demanded querulously. “And how long will it take to get there?”
“Depends where you’re heading, babe,” Cochrane said.
“Well I don’t know, do I? I wouldn’t ask if I did.”
“Any kind of building will do,” Stephanie said. “We can reinforce it against the weather ourselves. I just want us out of this. We can think what to do next when we’re rested up. Come on.” Stephanie gripped Moyo’s hand and began to walk in the direction the road was supposed to be. Fish tails slapped pitifully at her wellingtons.
“Oh man, it don’t make no difference what we decide. We know what’s like gonna happen.”
“Then stay here and let it,” Rana told the miserable hippie. She started off after Stephanie.
“I didn’t say I was in a rush.” The edge of the invisible shield moved towards Cochrane, and he scrambled after them.
“There was a village called Ketton on this road,” McPhee said. “I remember going through it before we turned off up to the farm.”
“How far?” Tina asked, her voice rising in hope.
Cochrane smiled happily. “Miles and miles, it’ll probably take us like about ten—twenty days.”
A ferocious jet of white fire squirted into the wall two metres above Sinon’s head. He flattened himself into the mud below as paint ignited and carbon-concrete blistered.
Coming from the shops, seventy metres right.it was hard to see with all the smoke mingling with the rain, but his retinas had a long purple after image scorched across them.
Got it,kerrial answered.
The white fire expanded into a thin circular sheet, rivulets trickled down, their tips wriggling purposefully towards Sinon. “Shit.” If he stayed the fire would get him, if he moved he’d lose the cover which the wall provided. And there must be several of them in the shops; two other serjeants were under attack as well.
Eayres was a nothing village in the guidance block’s memory. A cluster of houses clumped round a road junction, its population mostly employed by the local marble quarry. Who would expect the possessed to make a stand here? Expect the unexpected, Choma had chanted happily when the white fireballs burst open amid the squad.
Sinon saw Kerrial swing himself into position, bringing his machine gun to bear on the shops in the middle of the village. Bullet craters slammed across the brickwork in front of him. Then his body was being flung back, nerve channels shutting down. Bla
ckness. Kerrial’s memories arose from his neural array to be absorbed by an orbiting voidhawk.
They’ve got guns!sinon broadcast.
Yes,choma said. I saw.
Where did they get them from?
This is the countryside, hunting is a sport here. Besides, did you think we had a monopoly?
The white fire rivulets had reached the ground. Steam roared up as they floated sinuously along the top of the mud towards Sinon. He scrambled to his feet, and jumped forward. The white fire behind him vanished. Another, brighter, spear lanced out of a shop’s fractured window. He hit the mud, rolling desperately as he brought his grenade launcher to bear.
You’ll kill them,choma warned. sinon’s right leg went dead as the white fire engulfed it. He slamfired the launcher, hand pumping the mechanism with cyborg intent.
Grenades thudded into the upper floor of the shop, detonating instantly. The ceiling split open, hurling down a torrent of rubble as the roof caved in. Three radiant lines of machine gun fire poured through the ground floor windows and into the tumult inside. The white fire evaporated into tiny violet wisps, splattering off Sinon’s leg. He scrambled up, and pushed himself hard for the buildings dead ahead, dragging his useless leg along. Crashing through the first door to land in a deserted bar.
Clever,choma said. I think that’s got them cold.
The white fire had gone out everywhere. Serjeants converged on the little row of prim shops, walking forwards steadily, firing their machine guns continually. The squad had responded to the possessed like antibodies reacting to an incursive virus. Flowing in towards the village from both sides, the reserve squad racing forward. A miniature version of the noose contracting around Mortonridge. They had it encircled within minutes. Then began their advance.
Seventeen of them walked through the smoke that whirled along Main Street, impervious to the flames roaring out of the buildings all around. Their gunfire was concentrated on the shops, aiming their vivid bullets through any gap they could find. Weird lights flickered inside, as if someone had activated a nightclub hologram rig. Steam fountained out through windows and cracks in the wall.
“All right. Enough. Enough , God damn it. We’re through.”
The ring of serjeants held their places ten metres from the central shop, feet apart, juddering in time to the roaring guns.
“ENOUGH. We surrender.” The machine guns fell silent.
Lumps of stone stirred on the mound of rubble which had been the shop’s upper floor, spinning down to splash into the ubiquitous mire. Limbs began to emerge amid a welter of coughing. Six possessed squirmed free, holding up their hands and blinking uncomfortably. More serjeants moved forwards to clamp their necks with holding sticks.
Elana Duncan reached Eayres two hours later. The fires were out by then, extinguished by the rain. She whistled appreciatively as she climbed out of the truck, a sound violent enough to make the marines wince. “Must have been a hell of a fight,” she said in envy. The trucks had halted in the village’s main street. Over half of the buildings around her had been flattened into small hillocks of debris; of those that remained, few were left with roofs. Naked, heat-twisted girders skewered up into the gloomy sky. Black soot stains smeared over entire walls were already dissolving under the rain to reveal deep bullet pocks.
Marines began jumping down from the other trucks in the convoy. It was a familiar routine by now. Urban zones, whatever the size, were occupied by a garrison. They served as emergency reserves and staging post; also a transitory field hospital a lot of the time. The possessed weren’t giving up without a fight. The marine lieutenant in charge started shouting orders, and the troops fanned out to secure the perimeter. Elana and the other mercs began unloading their truck with the help of five mud-caked mechanoids.
First off was a programmable multipurpose silicon hall. An oval twenty-five metres long, with open archways along the sides. It was a standard Kulu Royal Marine corps issue, designed for tropical climates, with an overhang in anticipation of heavy showers, and allowing a constant breeze to filter through. Ordinarily ideal for a place like Mortonridge. Now, they were having to direct the mechanoids to bulldoze up a base from soil and stone which they then sealed over with fast-set polymer. It was the only way to keep the hall’s floor above mud level.
Once that was up, they started moving the zero-tau pods in. A double file of serjeants marched down the main street, escorting three possessed. Elana splashed out to greet them. She enjoyed this part of her duty.
One of the possessed had given up, a man in his late sixties. She’d seen that before. Filthy, torn clothes. Not bothering to heal his wounds. Even the rain was allowed to soak him. The other two were more typical. Dignity intact. Clothes immaculate, not a scratch on them. The rain bounced off as if they had a frictionless coating. Elana gave one of them a long look. A woman in a prim antique blue suit, white blouse with a lace collar, and pearl necklace. Her hair was a solid bottle blonde coiffure that could have been carved from rock for all the wind affected it. She gave Elana a single distasteful glance, defiantly arrogant.
Elana nodded affably at the serjeant guarding her, whose leg was wrapped in a medical package tube. “Humm, she’s the third one of these today. And I thought that woman was unique.”
“Excuse me?” the serjeant asked.
“They enjoy historical figures. I’ve been accessing my encylopedia’s history files ever since this campaign started, trying to place them. Hitlers are quite popular, so’s Napoleon and Richard Saldana, then there’s Cleopatra. Somebody called Ellen Ripley is a big favourite with the women, too; but none of my search programs have managed to track her down yet.”
The blue-suited woman looked dead ahead, and smiled a secret smile.
“Okay,” Elana said. “Bring them in.”
The mercenaries were hooking the zero-tau pods up to their power cells, datavising diagnostics through the management processors. Elana’s ELINT block gave a warning bleep. She rounded on the three prisoners, pulling a high-voltage shockrod from her belt. Her voice boomed out from her facial grille, echoing round the hall.
“Cut that out, shitbrains. You lost, and this is the end of the line. Too late to argue about it now. The serjeants might be too honourable and decent to fry your bodies, but I’m not. And this is my part of the operation. Got that?” The ELINT block quietened. “Good. Then we’ll get along just fine in your final minutes in this universe. Any last minute cigarettes, you can indulge yourselves. Otherwise just keep quiet.”
“I see you have found an occupation which obviously suits you.”
“Huh?” She glanced down at serjeant with the injured leg.
“We met at Fort Forward, just after arriving. I am Sinon.”
Her three claws snapped together with a loud click. “Oh yes, the cannon fodder guy. Sorry, you all look alike to me.”
“We are identical.”
“Glad to see you survived. Though God knows how you managed it. Trying to storm ashore through that weather was the dumbest military decision since the Trojans took a shine to that horse.”
“I think you’re being unduly cynical.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You must have a decent dose of it too, if you’ve survived this long. Remember the oldest military rule, my friend.”
“Never volunteer for anything?”
“Generals always fuck up bad.”
The first zero-tau pod opened. Elana pointed her shock-rod at the blue-suited woman. “Okay, Prime Minister, you first.” Sinon kept the holding stick round her neck as she backed in. Metal manacles closed round her limbs, and Elana switched on a mild current. The woman glared out, her face drawn back with the effort of fighting the electricity.
“Just in case,” Elana told Sinon. “We had a few try to break free once they finally realize their number’s up. You can take the holding stick off now.” The clamp sprang open, and Sinon stood clear. “You going to leave all nice and voluntarily?” Elana asked. The front of the zero-tau pod
was already swinging shut. The woman spat weakly. “Didn’t think so. Not you.”
The zero-tau pod turned midnight black. Elana heard a hiss of breath from one of the waiting possessed, but didn’t say anything.
“How long do you leave them in there?” Sinon asked.
“Cook them for about fifteen minutes. Then we open up to see if they’re done. If not, it’s just back in for progressively longer periods. I’ve had one hold out for about ten hours before, but that was the limit.”
“That sounds suspiciously like enjoyment to me.”
Elana waved the next possessed into his pod. “Nothing suspicious about it. General Hiltch, God fuck him, says I’m not allowed in the front line. So this is the second best duty as far as I’m concerned. I don’t take marine discipline too good. Sitting with a bunch of those pansy-asses in a place like this counting raindrops would have me thrown off-planet inside of a day. So as I’m technologically competent, me and my friends requested this placement. It works out fine. Army’s short of skilled techs who can also handle the noise if the possessed start to panic: we fit the bill. And this way I get to see the bastards booted out of their bodies. I know it’s happening.”
The second possessed was put in a zero-tau pod. He didn’t resist. Then the third zero-tau pod was activated. Elana aimed the shock rod at the last possessed, the apathetic one. “Hey, cheer up. This is your lucky day, looks like the reserves got called out. You’re on, kid.” He gave her a broken look and grimaced. His features melted, shrinking back to reveal a wizened face with anaemically pale skin.
“Catch him,” Elana yelled. The man’s legs buckled. He pitched forward into her arms. “Thought that one might quit,” she said in satisfaction.
Choma removed the holding stick’s clamp from around his neck. Elana eased him down onto the floor, calling for blankets and some pillows. “Damn it, we haven’t had time to unpack the medical gear yet,” she said. “And we’re going to need it. Those bastards.”
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