by John McNally
“Zero.”
“Allez!” said Henri Clément to the drop master, as casually as if signalling to a waiter that they were ready to move on to the next course.
The catapults fired – THWABOOOINGK!!!
FEBRUARY 21 02:34 (GMT+3). Carpathian Mountains, Romania-Ukraine border
Santiago made his silent way across the wood. As the ground became steeper, he had to grab at the thick branches and haul himself forward. He was worried about getting caught, but if the Siguri did find his tracks and follow him, he would say he was checking his traps.
Eventually he reached the foot of the cliff and started to pick his way up the ice-slick slope. After a minute or so, he reached the base of the fissure that ran up through the rock like a black bolt of lightning.
Was this the place? “Si,” Santiago confirmed to himself.
He took off his bow and started to search. He grubbed around in the depths of the fissure, sparking a flint and steel striker for stinging, momentary illumination.
He had to find it. For the angel and the miracle in her hand – the boy he was convinced must be some kind of saint, no matter what he said. Sacred, yes. Not “science”, whatever that was.
The Primo would be angry if he found out, but if Santiago could be swift, the Primo wouldn’t know.
He could feel a presence in the woods. Had even seen tracks. Had more angels arrived? Nothing surprised him any more. He would have to return and investigate. But now he had to work fast.
The bright moon gave the night a cosmic glow.
The fissure was wide enough to climb right into when you got this low down. It was as if he had walked into the mountain; the two sides might bite him.
Santiago scratched at his flint. The fissure seemed vast and the task impossible. The mix of forest litter and snow would take days to search, but Santiago tried not to cry, tried to keep his eyes open and fixed on the task.
He searched for nearly an hour, moving up the cliff until he was well above the tops of the highest trees on the valley floor. Behind him the silhouette of the monastery loomed across the valley.
Then Santiago spotted something.
A dent in the snow, in a cleft like a basin carved into the side of the rock. He flicked the snow away, just to check, and there was … something.
He picked it up. It was a thing for sure, not a leather collar like the ratters had, like he had expected, but something smooth and made of some other material. And with a thing attached …
“Angelli?”
THIRTEEN
FEBRUARY 21 06:57 (GMT+3). Monastery of Mount St Demetrius of Thessaloniki
Dawn broke across the thousand-mile arc of the Carpathians, catching first the highest peaks, sharp as sharks’ teeth, frozen white with a single fleck of gold, as the half-ruined, half-gilt dome of the monastery caught the light.
In the library, Carla woke. Saw giant eyes on a distorted face.
“Santiago!” she said, sitting up. She felt Finn move in her hair.
Santiago nodded, silent and scared. He rummaged beneath his layers and pulled out Yo-yo’s strange collar.
“He got it!” shouted Finn.
Carla gasped and touched his hand. “Oh, Santiago!”
Santiago reeled at her touch, disturbed by the electric warmth, and edged away, leaving Carla with the collar. It was chunky, in military green, marked in Chinese, and – most importantly – it had the strange cylinder still attached.
“Switch it on!” said Finn, scrambling down for a better look.
Carla studied it. There was a rectangular button on the side. She tried to press it, but it didn’t want to press. She tried harder, tried pulling it.
“Slide it!” said Finn.
“I’m sliding, I’m pushing, I’m pulling – it’s not moving!”
“Let me have a look,” said Finn.
Carla took Finn from her hair and placed him on the floor beside the strange cylinder.
At his scale, it was the size of a van. He looked at the button – and realised it wasn’t a button. It was a cover to protect a handle. A handle that could only possibly be operated by the tiniest of hands.
“Oh, sweet …”
“What is it?”
“I think it’s for me.”
He pulled the handle. Inside the cylinder, hydraulic pistons released months of stored energy and the whole thing hissed open like a clamshell.
“Oh, wow …” was all Finn could manage, for he was looking at an Aladdin’s cave. Tightly packed – in military fashion – was absolutely everything a nano-boy in trouble could possibly need.
The first thing Finn did was rip out a ration pack and sink his teeth into a tube of bolognaise sauce. After feeding on nothing but blood for months, flavour exploded in his mouth and tears stung his eyes.
There was food enough here for days – food for the three of them who had been lost in the Forbidden City at nano-scale, and who Yo-yo had been sent in to find. There was protection too – M27 light machine guns, grenade launchers, flares. But best of all, and taking up ninety per cent of the available space … there was a Bug11, an X2 Skimmer, sleek and shark-grey.
He pulled a strap marked RELEASE HARNESS and the Skimmer folded itself out of the cylinder.
“Finn? What is that, a bullet?” asked Carla.
“A ticket to ride …” said Finn. “It’s Delta’s Skimmer.”
He jumped into the cab and pressed the twin ignition buttons … WHOOOOOOOM! With a sharp intake of breath, the jet compressor at its heart lit and it came to life, floating just a millimetre in the air, soft as a petal, steady as a rock. Finn could have wept.
He did when he saw there was an nPhone12 backpack on the back seat.
“YESS!” he cried, seizing it. “An nPhone! This is it! All we need is a mobile signal and we can text home!”
“What?” gasped Carla, beaming down at him – she’d never seen him so happy.
“I’m OUT OF HERE!” He grabbed an M27 and fired into the air – DRTDRTDRT! – and collapsed laughing, delirious with unexpected relief.
“Hey! Shhhh!” she said, laughing with him, though there was no one to hear them but Santiago, repeatedly crossing himself a few feet away.
“There’s enough fuel in here for hours of flight. I could probably make it to the village!”
“You don’t even know what direction that is!” said Carla. “And who knows if that’s where the nearest phone signal is anyway.”
“Santiago can tell me. And there’ll be cars to hitch rides on, trains, people … Real people!”
Finn grabbed the M27 and threw it into the Skimmer cab along with some ammo and provisions.
Carla felt her heart squeeze. Finn was off. She’d protected him for all this time and she was about to lose him, lose the person that was almost part of herself.
“Don’t you dare get lost!”
“I won’t get lost!”
“Tell them I’m alive,” said Carla. “Tell Delta, I mean. Tell her I love her – I love them all – and that whatever they do to save us, they’ve got to do it carefully! That they have to save the children and—”
“Stop!” said Finn, realising what was going on despite his excitement. He looked up into her eyes.
“Everyone here gets out alive. You especially. For my sake, you have to stay safe. You …”
Finn stalled. How could he say it? You mean more to me than anything? Yuk. You are my blood sister?
But before he had a chance to decide, Carla broke the look.
A strange sound had disturbed her.
Wacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawaca …
“What the …?” Finn said, mind racing to place the rising noise.
Carla looked out of a gap in the shacks. She had time to take in two things: Siguri, guns raised, some with nets – and three small birds, closing fast.
Wacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawaca …
Finn realised what the noise was.
Helicopters. Nano-helicopters.
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“Apaches!” shouted Finn.
Then a voice rang out over a loudhailer: “Nobody move!”
Carla gasped. Finn leapt into the seat of the Skimmer.
“GO!” she said.
Wacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawaca …
Pan, Amazon and Barabbas, each in an Apache attack helicopter, swept in low over the roofs of the library’s shanty shacks heading for a bright dot of nano-material at the centre of their radar screens. They were just 9mm tall, their aircraft just 40mm from nose to tail. This they did not find extraordinary.
What they found extraordinary was the honour bestowed on them by the Master.
And the thrill of the chase.
Carla ran through the shacks as grunting Siguri started tearing them apart, scattering the Carriers.
Finn hauled the twin control sticks back and sent the Skimmer into a rocket-like ascent.
It streaked up on the Apaches’ nano-radar like a magnesium flare.
“Got visual!” said Pan in the lead Apache as he spotted it.
Finn reached the heavenly ceiling, flipped the Skimmer round to look for an exit, and saw instead a war machine rising at speed, Pan grinning, the 50mm cannon slung beneath the chopper spinning and spitting fire.
DRRRTRRTRTRTRT!
Finn felt the breath of the lethal shells, tearing past and peppering the ancient plaster around him.
He ducked, punched the controls down, and the Skimmer shot back down across the library. Almost blacking out as the seat harness bit into his shoulders and the blood rushed from his brain.
He braked. He had to stay in control. He was way faster than the Apaches, but there were three of them. To prove the point, Amazon was waiting to surprise him …
DRRRTRRTRTRTRT!
Finn rolled out of the incoming fire to skim across the top of the shacks.
In the cab of the third Apache, Barabbas locked a Sidewinder missile13 onto the fleeing blip. He buried the fire button on his joystick and the rocket burst from its launch housing—
BOOOOOOOOOSH! A fierce white streamer snaked across the library. Finn heard the radar alarm, saw it in his rearview, and instinctively he threw the Skimmer hard right.
WOOOOOOSH! He smelt rocket burn as it passed within an inch before smacking – BAAAM! – into the stone base of the Primo’s dais.
The Primo tried to get a grip on events. The ordered splendour of his mind was rendered useless by the chaos, the crackling fire, the cries of Carriers flushed out of the shacks, the shouts of the astonished spectators.
Get out! thought Finn as – BOOOOOOOOOSH! DRRRTRRTRTRTRT! – Amazon and Pan let loose with cannon fire and another Sidewinder.
Finn flipped the Skimmer like a coin and ran for cover, corkscrewing into the shadows, into the shacks, adding to the chaos of their evacuation, hammering through the warren of sackcloth and sticks.
He could out-manoeuvre them in the confined spaces but – DRRRTRRTRTRTRT! – he needed a way out. He punched through a rip in a sackcloth roof and emerged into a crowd of Carriers and Siguri.
A great yell went up as Finn slalomed between wide eyes and open mouths. Heads ducked and bodies a hundred and fifty times his size dived for cover.
DRRRTRRTRTRTRT! Barabbas in the third Apache was waiting for him, covering the main passage. Should he evade or take him on? Finn thought of Delta and braced himself.
When in doubt, just point and shoot. His thumb jammed into his fire button.
DRRRTRRTRTRTRT!
Barabbas was still firing as Finn’s cannon fire shattered his rotors and chaotic forces instantly tore his chopper to pieces – BADADOOOOOM!
One down.
Also an alarm – Beeeeppeeepppeeepep!
Finn checked the screen, but there was no screen … just shattered glass. The Skimmer had taken a hit right in the nerve centre. He hit buttons. No weapons. No radar. Great.
Just the flight controls still responsive. Go!
He shot out of the library and up the main passage.
On the dais, the Primo felt a pull at his ankle. “Primo!”
Santiago. Always Santiago. Then another voice: “Help me.”
Carla.
They would take the monastery down brick by brick to find her now. It would only be a matter of time. But instinct told him the girl was different, change was coming, the world he controlled was about to crumble. What future lay beyond these walls? What authority?
What to do?
Finn shot into the kitchens pursued by the two remaining bat-like Apaches. They curled after him through the steam, past swinging pots and roasting pigs, past fat cooks roaring at the chaos – 50mm cannon fire ricocheting off pans in tin-pot timpani – DRTRTRTR TiN TaNG Ti PAP!
Finn felt the hot breath of burners as he flew through the flame tops.
DRRTRT! – THUDTHUD! – A couple of shells pierced the skin of the Skimmer.
Pan, right on his ass.
Amazon closing.
He dived beneath the worktops and – out of nowhere – YAP!
Ratters, incoming.
Yo-yo could smell Finn. Could taste his distress and had sounded the alarm. The ratters had exploded in fidelity – YAPAPROWRUFFOW!
Yo-yo leapt and snapped his jaws viciously at the first bird he saw, and narrowly missed pulverising his young master in the Skimmer.
The next dog, Livid, rose like a salmon to take the second. Pan saw a killer row of tusks and a slavering pink chasm and just managed to escape the SLAM of his jaws.
Amazon ran into the trailing pack, an ugly-mug uprising of snapping ratters, a freak-show deathtrap – SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM! The last of them, Barrel-Shaped-Fart-Wagon, gave it all she’d got and – SNAP! – clipped the Apache’s tail with a trailing, slobbering lip.
It was enough.
Alarms sounded and the chopper tumbled over and over, and Amazon braced herself for death.
THUD! – a massive Siguri hand caught her before impact, the shock knocking her unconscious.
Two down.
Finn sped away.
Through his body pumped the blood of the brave. Through his mind ran fruit-machine wheels of options, needs, objectives: top – lose Pan, escape the nano-radar. How?
There.
Mounted on the wall. A set of speaking tubes, each leading directly to a different part of the complex. “Yes!” yelled Finn and he shot into the mouth of the nearest one, into the unknown, into a tunnel that curled and curved and endlessly looped, illuminated by the Skimmer’s headlight, accompanied by the screams of its echoing distorting engine. Finn tried not to hit the sides, his mind racing. Could they track him in the tube? Would the radar penetrate? Where would the tube come out?
Suddenly a perfect circle of light ahead expanded and – WHOOP – he was out of the tube and back in a room, a different room, with an ancient interior and blackened walls. The High Chapel, holy sanctuary, until …
WHOOP – through the tube after Finn came …
Wacawaacaawacawacaaa …
DRRTRTRRTRTRTR!
Pan.
Finn grabbed his M27 from the back seat, aimed the Skimmer at a small, high window – DRTRRTRTRTRT! – shot out the glass, and burst out into a splash of sky.
He gasped. The bright perfect blue. The monastery roofs below, thousands of feet of nothingness above, and a surroundarama of snow-capped peaks.
He was free …
He had no radar or electronic brain, but he still had power. He would outrun the Apache and follow the valley, he would have time and distance then, he would preserve his fuel, he would find people, a road, a boat, anything he could hitch himself to, anything to get to a signal, he would risk it and run, anything was better than this place.
He was free … oooooooooOOOOSHSHH! – BAAAAAM!
The Sidewinder air-to-air missile thudded into the Skimmer’s underside and shrapnel ripped through it. Instantly it started to fall and break up, instantly everything around him was in flames.
Finn’s ears rang and his body
was racked with shockwave pain, his soul shaken. Stupid, he thought, stupid radar, stupid no alarm, stupid hope to stop and stare, and now all there was were flames and spinning, spinning, spinning …
THUD. The craft hit a roof and shattered in a dozen directions at once, Finn thrown far from it, burning gold, gold … all he could see was golden flame and the golden sun and … gold.
He was not burning. He was on the half-ruined golden dome, on his back. He raised his head and saw the Orthodox cross that had stopped Baptiste in his tracks …
Wacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawacawaca …
The Apache blotted out the sun and he passed out.
WACAWACAWACAWACAWACAWACAWACA …
When Finn came to he was in a clattering gale, a blitz blizzard. He forced open his eyes against the wind and saw the dome pass far beneath him. He tried to move, but found he was bound, bound and slung across the nose of the Apache like a prize stag across the front of a hunter’s 4x4.
He looked round and saw Pan smirking at him through the windscreen. He was bringing in Infinity Drake, the Master’s greatest prize.
“Oh great,” was all Finn’s brain could think. He had lost the Skimmer, Carla, his weapons, his family … everything.
WACAWACAWACAWACAWACAWACAWACA …
Down they went, sweeping over the great dome and the patchwork terracotta roofs, down through the window at the top of the High Chapel, past the staring eyes of the grimacing Abbot and the whooping Siguri, down and down, as word spread through the Forum and the roars and applause of the hyped adoring Tyros rose to meet them. Down over the head of the Siguri chief as he opened the catacomb doors, down through the skull-encrusted passages, down the flight of steps that led into the depths of the mountain, heading for the centre of the earth, for his destiny.
Down still further, following the twisting line of the monorail as it fell along the natural flue that snaked randomly through the rock, Finn falling in and out of a trance, the colours flashing by – ancient orange and blue and black – increasing his sense of speed, and deepening his foreboding …
Down and down until finally the Great Cavern opened up like the Colosseum before them.
Finn saw the equipment lined up, the weaponry, the personnel. The rushing waters of the underground torrent echoed with the applause of the assembled technicians as Pan rounded the henge of particle accelerators, enjoying the ride, savouring these last moments as he closed inexorably in on the side cavern and Kaparis.