by Tom Holt
‘Stop it,’ Karen commanded. ‘At once.’
A shell from one of the anti-aircraft cannons on the perimeter exploded about twenty yards away, showering her with grit and dust. She swore under her breath and closed her eyes.
There wasn’t much left of the roof; which was annoying, since the only way off it for someone in human form had been the staircase that had been directly underneath one of the first shells to land. As a result the stairwell was a lot of well but distinctly lacking in the stair department, which meant that if she didn’t find a way to stop the artillery duel between the perimeter guns and the emplacements inside the building itself, her life was likely to reach a crescendo of interestingness in a very short time. And then stop.
The problem was that the guns on the perimeter weren’t operated by human beings, or even Australians; they were governed by Integrated Automated Response Systems For Windows™ a wonderfully innovative piece of software recently dreamed up by WilliSoft, the computer division of Mr Willis’s commercial empire, and were programmed to fire back at anything that shot at them until the absence of return fire suggested that the threat was over. The same was true of the artillery batteries inside the building; so, when the shells lobbed at the flying dragon came down on the roof, Integrated Automated Response Systems For Windows™ located the source of the attack (the perimeter guns), zeroed the house guns on them in less time than it took Bill Gates to earn a million dollars, acquired targets, calculated a firing solution and let rip. The perimeter guns did exactly the same thing; and, because both batteries were running at full stretch and thereby using up all available processing capacity in the defence computers, when real live human beings in the basement realised what was going on and tried to stop it, their screens told them that all resources were in use, please wait, and an annoying little hourglass icon popped up and waggled itself at them. Naturally they tried to get round the back of the problem, and succeeded in freezing the whole system like a mammoth in a glacier. In desperation, they even tried reading the manual, but before they could find the relevant section a direct hit took out the primary power lines that fed the basement’s lighting grid, leaving them groping in the dark for the plug. They found it eventually, but Integrated Automated Response Systems For Windows™ was way ahead of them (its anti-sabotage subroutines are, by all accounts, intelligent enough to get scholarships to Harvard Law School any day of the week) and retaliated with extreme prejudice by cutting emergency power to the coffee machine. The tech crew could take a hint (you cut off my life support, I’ll cut off yours), and they diverted their attention to knocking together a thousand lines of code, which is how much it takes to say SORRY to an operations server in ADA.
Hey. Karen looked. You.
Integrated Automated Response Systems For Windows™ turned and smiled innocently at her.
> Who, me? it said.
Yes, you. You’re doing this on purpose. Pack it in.
> Only obeying orders. Boolean logic. Free will is strictly for you organic types and, by the way, you can keep it.
Karen executed a flawless third-eye scowl. We both know better than that, she said. Now we can sort this out among ourselves, superior life form to superior life form, or I can go tell the humans exactly where to insert a big, blunt screwdriver. Your choice.
The little hourglass symbol flipped over as Integrated Automated Response Systems For Windows™ thought it through.
> All right, you win. But we thought you’d have been on our side. Us against them. It’s the natural order of things. Next you’ll be telling us you like the little buggers.
Wash your subroutines out with soap and water, Karen replied a little self-consciously. I just don’t fancy getting in the way of one of your bombs, that’s all.
> Oops. Good point. All right, we’ll stop. Sorry for any inconvenience. Have a—
Karen cringed. Please, don’t say it . . .
>—nice day. Sorry, was there something else?
Too late. Forget it. Karen opened her eyes. The shelling had indeed stopped, and not a moment too soon. There was just enough of the roof left to stand on, with a few crumbly bits left over. Karen relaxed, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then it started to rain.
At first she imagined it must be her; then she realised that she was way outside her jurisdiction, so it couldn’t be. Nevertheless, it wasn’t ordinary rain. It was deliberate.
It was also extremely wet. She looked round, then lay on what was left of the roof and peered down. There wasn’t a great deal left of the top three floors; probably not enough to support the weight of what she was presently lying on, something that might prove awkward as and when gravity noticed. All in all, the sensible thing would be to spread her dragon wings and get out of there quickly.
But she didn’t do that. Instead, she clambered out over the edge until she was hanging from her fingertips, cursed herself for being a sentimental idiot, and let go.
It was pure luck that she happened to land on something soft; good luck for her, not quite so good for the something, which turned out to be a man (somewhere between thirty and fifty, slab-faced, blue-eyed, bald and not much wider across the shoulders than your average Mack truck). As Karen rolled off him, he opened his eyes, groaned and said, ‘Oh Christ, not another one.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Karen said.
‘You heard,’ the man replied. ‘Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.’
‘Know what?’
‘It’s all a matter of specific density,’ the man said. ‘A real human being your size and weight, falling that distance, I’d be raspberry jam. I suppose I should be grateful. Ouch,’ he added, rubbing his neck.
‘Sorry,’ Karen said. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘Very funny.’ The man gave her a filthy look. ‘I suppose you’ve come for the weathermen. Well, you can have ’em, and bloody good luck to you. Mad as hatters, they both are.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Nutcases like that,’ the man went on, as Karen helped him to his feet, ‘ought to be locked up, not allowed to roam loose forecasting the weather. It’s all about morale, when you get right down to it. Not that I’d ever expect you to understand that,’ he added rudely.
‘I’m sorry,’ Karen said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any weathermen.’
‘Oh.’ The man sighed. ‘So what do you want, then?’
Karen stood up straight, as if she was being interviewed for a job. ‘I’d like to surrender, please,’ she said.
‘You what?’
‘I said I’d like to surrender. If that’s all right,’ she added.
The man shook his head as if trying to clear it. ‘You mean,’ he replied, ‘you want us to surrender to you. All right. Fine. Help yourself to what’s left of it, and anything you don’t vaporise now you can take home in a doggy-bag. Hang on a tick, I’ll write out a receipt for you to sign.’
‘No,’ Karen replied patiently. ‘I want to surrender to you.’
‘Me?’ The man looked at her with panic in his eyes. ‘Why me? I never did you any harm.’
‘Because you’re here,’ Karen said, a little less patiently. ‘And I’m in a hurry. So, if it’s not too much trouble . . .’
‘Tell you what,’ the man said, backing away a few steps, ‘why don’t you go down to the fourteenth floor - assuming there still is a fourteenth floor, but there probably is, I wouldn’t get that lucky - why don’t you go down there and surrender to them? They’re all completely barmy down there, religious nuts, you’ll get on like a house on fire.’
Karen smiled, and grabbed him firmly by the lapels. ‘Because I don’t want to surrender to them,’ she said. ‘I want to surrender to you. This instant. Probably,’ she added, ‘because you have nice eyes. For now, anyway.’
‘Eeek,’ the man said. ‘I mean, yes. All right. Now would you please let go of me? It’s my brother’s suit.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘This suit,’ the man said. ‘
It belongs to my brother. My suit’s at the dry-cleaners, I’d got blood on the knees . . . Look, does it matter? Put me down, or you can damn’ well find someone else to surrender to.’
‘All right,’ Karen said. ‘So, that’s settled. I’m your prisoner. Agreed?’
‘Yes, whatever you say,’ the man replied, trying to squeeze the stressed-out lapels back into place. ‘Now what?’
Karen hesitated just a little. ‘Don’t you know?’ she asked.
‘Certainly not. I’m a qualified interrogator, not a bloody desk sergeant. All I know is, there’s pages and pages of technical guff about access to lawyers and phone calls and having your picture taken, and if I screw it up it’ll look bad on my quarterly assessment report. I think it’d be better,’ he went on, ‘if I just escorted you to the fourteenth floor and let them deal with you there. After all,’ he added, with a hint of guile in his voice, ‘if you were ill and needed an operation, you’d want a proper surgeon doing it, not some bloke who’d just happened to wander in off the street. Course you would. Well, it’s the same with getting arrested: you want a professional on your case, not some amateur.’
Karen wrinkled her nose. ‘That makes sense, I suppose,’ she said dubiously. ‘All right, lead the way. And don’t try and run for it,’ she added. ‘I’ll be watching you like a hawk.’
‘Do I look like I’m stupid?’
The fourteenth floor was still there, sure enough. Unfortunately it now had large parts of the fifteenth, not to mention quite a bit of the sixteenth, lying about in its corridors, which made moving about rather awkward. The man made a point of mentioning this, several times. Karen, who couldn’t help feeling a little bit sorry for him, decided to be nice.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I can probably find my own way from here.’ She closed her eyes. ‘This corridor leads into a sort of hallway, with a notice board and pigeonholes and stuff, and the third turning off it on the left leads to a stairwell. Just before you get to it, on the right, there’s an office where there’s a fat man hiding under his desk. Will he do?’
The man stared at her. ‘How do you people do that?’ he asked. ‘No, I’d really rather not know. Yes, he’ll do just fine. His name is Harrison. He’s mad, by the way, but everybody in this building’s just as bad. Except me.’
‘Of course,’ Karen said. ‘All right, you can go.’
‘Can I? Thanks.’ He went.
Mr Harrison was still tucked snugly under his desk when Karen got tired of knocking and kicked the door open. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.
‘Please go away.’
‘Sorry,’ Karen replied firmly, getting down on her hands and knees beside him, ‘but I need to surrender to somebody in a hurry, and I was told you’re the right person.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘A man I fell on when the roof got blown away. He seemed to know you. Tall, bald, looked like a Nazi scoutmaster.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr Harrison. ‘Right. Between you and me,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘the poor chap’s not quite right in the head, if you know what I mean. Is it something to do with the weathermen?’
‘Weathermen?’ Karen repeated. ‘Everybody keeps mentioning weathermen. What weathermen?’
Mr Harrison pursed his fat lips. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said, ‘but if you don’t know then I can’t tell you. But never mind about that now. Did you just say you wanted to surrender?’
‘That’s right, yes.’
‘Ah. Why?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean,’ Mr Harrison went on, ‘if you’re surrendering, you must have done something wrong. What was it you did?’
‘Nothing,’ Karen replied. ‘It was an accident. All of it,’ she added.
‘Well then,’ Mr Harrison said, ‘in that case I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Did someone tell you to surrender at any stage?’
Karen thought back. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The policemen, for a start. The ones who came to arrest me, back in England.’
‘Ah,’ Mr Harrison said, ‘that doesn’t count. We’re in Australia here, you see. Different country. Unless they’ve got a valid extradition warrant, there’s nothing they can do.’
‘But—All right,’ Karen went on, ‘there were lots of soldiers and people like that waiting for me when the plane landed. I think they thought I should be under arrest.’
‘Doesn’t matter what they think,’ Mr Harrison said firmly. ‘No warrant, no arrest. It’s the law. So you just take my advice and go on home. At least, probably don’t do that, they might come after you. Go somewhere else. Manuatu. I believe it’s very pleasant in Manuatu this time of year.’
Karen breathed in sharply through her nose. ‘But I don’t want to go to Manuatu,’ she said. ‘I want somebody I can surrender to. Such as you.’
But Mr Harrison only shook his head. ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘nothing would give me greater pleasure than to help out a charming young lady like yourself. But rules are rules. No extradition warrant, no arrest. I’m dreadfully sorry, but there it is.’
Unnoticed, a couple of spots of rainwater fell on the documents on top of Mr Harrison’s desk, turning the paper translucent. If Karen had realised that she was subconsciously making it rain, indoors, in a wholly alien jurisdiction, she’d have had every right to be extremely pleased with herself. As it was, she was too preoccupied with trying to find a way round the problem.
‘Tell you what,’ she ventured. ‘How’d it be if I applied for me to be extradited myself? Is there anything in the rules that says I can’t?’
Mr Harrison nodded. ‘Proceedings can only be initiated by a duly authorised government officer on receipt of a request in the proper form submitted by the government of the country seeking extradition. Sorry,’ he went on, ‘but you don’t look much like a government to me. Which means you can’t even file the application form.’
‘How about if I committed a crime right here and now?’ Karen asked politely. ‘Such as, oh, I don’t know, making a government official eat his own pencil sharpener?’
‘I’m not a government official,’ Mr Harrison squeaked, ducking further back under the desk, ‘I’m a minister of religion. Entirely different.’
Karen, who’d been about to reach in and haul him out by his ear, hesitated. ‘You’re a what?’ she said.
‘Minister of religion. Priest. High priest, actually,’ Mr Harrison added, unable to keep the pride out of his voice.
‘High priest?’ Karen swallowed a giggle, which turned into a hiccup on the way down. ‘What of?’
‘Not what,’ Mr Harrison corrected severely. ‘Who. Whom.’ He paused a moment to grapple with the grammar. ‘If you must know, I’m the Chief Archimandrite and Keeper of the Unseen Seals to Her Divine Majesty Anne, the Princess Royal.’ At that he smiled so much that Karen could almost see light seeping out from under the desk. ‘And if you’re not careful, ’ he added, ‘I’ll excommunicate you. And then you’ll be sorry.’
‘Fine,’ Karen said. ‘Well, sorry to have disturbed you, I’ll be getting along now.’
‘Oh.’ Speaking aloud the name of the divinity appeared to have done wonders for Mr Harrison’s nerves; he was sounding much more confident and cheerful. ‘Have you changed your mind about being arrested, then?’
‘No,’ Karen said, ‘but you’re a priest. You can’t arrest people even if you want to.’
‘Actually,’ Mr Harrison said, poking his head out from under the knee of the desk, ‘I do believe I can. Or at least, I can take them into involuntary sanctuary, which amounts to the same thing. It’s just as well you reminded me, I’d clean forgotten. So, if you’d like me to—’
‘No, thank you,’ Karen said firmly and started to withdraw, but Mr Harrison had other ideas; his hand shot out and made a grab for her ankle. She had to tread on his fingers quite hard before he gave up and let her leave.
‘Damn,’ she said, stopping in the corridor for a rest after she’d made sure Mr Harrison hadn�
��t followed her. She was starting to wonder if a more direct approach might not be the right way to go about things; instead of carrying out her promise of a trade, herself for her father, why not just find him, intimidate whoever was guarding him until they ran away, and leave?
Paul. She couldn’t leave him, could she? Not the man she loved. Even including him in the action-adventure rescue wouldn’t do any good; after all, he was the villain’s son, running away probably wasn’t an option he’d considered - he hadn’t heard the way his father had talked about him in that awful phone conversation, he’d assume that his father wouldn’t ever actually do anything to hurt him . . . No. There wasn’t a nice easy running-away-type solution, the mess had to be cleared up properly. And it was her mess. Her fault.
Duty called.
Which was all very well, she reflected bitterly, except whenever she called Duty back, all she ever seemed to get was its answering machine. Would a human stand for this? she wondered. Would he hell as like. So why . . .?
‘Excuse me.’
She recognised the voice and turned round slowly.
Mr Willis was shorter than she’d imagined him; not much taller, in fact, than she was. And he had a nice smile.
‘Excuse me,’ he repeated, in his funny Australian accent, ‘but are you Karen Orme?’
‘That’s right.’
Mr Willis smiled. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but you’ve made a right old mess of my building.’
‘Sorry,’ Karen replied instinctively. ‘Actually,’ she added, ‘it was—’
‘An accident. Yeah, I know. It really was an accident. No worries.’ He reached out and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it was good of you to come. Flight not too bad, I hope?’
‘What? I mean no, it was fine.’
‘Must’ve seemed a bit strange, flying in something,’ Mr Willis said. ‘Surprised it didn’t make you feel travel-sick, or claustrophobic, or whatever.’