by Paul Stewart
‘The electro-mesh,’ she says tonelessly and approaches the side of the dome closed off by its glowing red strands. Behind the mesh, frightened faces stare back at me.
Faces I recognize.
‘York? York, is that you?’
It’s Lina. And beside her is Dek, thin and ill-looking and minus his cybernetic arm.
‘It’s all right,’ I tell them. ‘We’ll get you out of there . . .’
I turn to Belle.
She’s crouched down, prising the cover off the mesh control unit embedded in the floor. As I watch, she reaches inside.
An arc of blue-white light shoots out from the unit and up her arm. Her body trembles. Her synth-skin glows and I can see vein-like tubes pulsing beneath the surface.
The electro-mesh fizzes, then snaps off.
Belle slumps to the floor. She has drained the last of her power. I turn to the disabled zoid and tear out its energy core, then run to Belle and crouch down beside her.
Lina, Dek and the others have stumbled out of the holding pen and are looking around at the fallen zoids and the unfamiliar scavengers. They stare open-mouthed as, from the opening above, the huge shaggy blue cyclops swing down to join them.
I press the energy core I’ve ripped out of the zoid to Belle’s chest and feel the heat as its power is transferred. She gasps as she recharges in one massive jolt. Then sits up. I realize my hands are burning and let go of the white-hot energy core, which drops to the floor.
‘Who is she?’ Lina is staring down at Belle, whose power plate is glowing from beneath her flakcoat. ‘What is she?’
I ignore the question as I blow on my rapidly blistering fingers. When I look up, Lina is staring at me, her eyes filled with tears.
‘It’s . . . it’s been awful . . .’ she begins, before sobs cut her short.
‘We’ve been here five days, York – we thought you weren’t coming,’ says Dek.
‘Six, isn’t it?’ says Lina.
‘Seven,’ I say quietly.
Dek shakes his head in disbelief. ‘As long as that? They’ve been feeding us our own proto-mix,’ he says. ‘Keeping us alive so they can study us,’ he adds bitterly.
‘Then they take us away . . . one by one . . .’ Lina wails.
‘Oldest first,’ says Dek, nodding.
‘They took my grandpa first,’ Lina whispers tearfully. ‘Then Fenda, and Mercer . . . Deal, Callow, Finn . . .’
‘And Bronx,’ says Dek.
I feel numb. ‘Bronx?’ I repeat.
‘To the other dome,’ says Dek. ‘Just before you got here.’
Belle is back on her feet. The Fulcrum scavengers have gathered the rest of the Inposters together in the centre of the dome and are busy setting explosives around the walls.
Ellis approaches. ‘It’s about to get noisy round here. But before this place goes up and the shooting starts,’ he says, looking at Belle and me, ‘we’d better find this Bronx of yours.’
I turn to Lina and Dek. ‘Go with the others,’ I say. ‘They’ll look after you.’
The scavengers from the Fulcrum have finished setting the demolition charges around the dome, and their cyclops are fully laden with the other Inpost survivors.
‘Get to the gap in the perimeter fence,’ Ellis instructs Garvey and Muldoon. ‘And wait for us there.’
‘We’ve set the detonators to go off in one hour. Will that be long enough?’ Garvey asks.
‘It’ll have to be,’ says Ellis.
Lina grabs my arm. ‘But you, York,’ she protests. Her gaze flits between my face and Belle’s. ‘What about you?’
I take her hands in mine. Look into her eyes. ‘I have to find Bronx,’ I tell her.
‘And my grandpa?’ she says, her voice tremulous.
‘Gaffer Jed too,’ I say. ‘Go,’ I tell her, gently but firmly. ‘Go now.’
‘Come on, Lina,’ says Dek.
He pulls her away from me, and I’m grateful to him. They head after the others. Lina looks back at me one last time.
‘Be careful,’ she mouths.
I nod, then turn away. The scavengers fire electro-magnetic zip lines through the opening at the apex of the dome, and they and their cyclops rise silently upwards with their precious cargo.
We are alone, Ellis, Belle and I, surrounded by zoid wreckage and gunk. The low hum of the zoid production lines rises from below to fill the silence in the dome.
Belle points to the opening at the centre of the floor, where the chutes carrying zoid parts from the apex disappear down to the level below.
‘We can get to the other dome through there,’ she says, accessing the schematics in her memory banks.
As we head towards it, Caliph suddenly pokes his head up from inside my flakcoat and looks round. I stroke him behind the ears.
‘I’d keep my head down if I were you,’ I tell him.
Caliph squeaks, almost like he’s understood, and dives back down inside.
‘This way,’ says Belle.
She clings onto the underside of one of the chutes, arms and legs crossed, then slides down into the darkness below. Ellis and I check our coolant suits, then follow her.
It is quite a ride, the smooth metal of the chute a blur in front of my face as I slide down. I hear the explosive percussion of the production lines getting louder, and look down.
The place is vast, extending in all directions further than I can see. It stinks of hot metal and scorched grease. The chutes spiral down through the air and empty their contents onto huge conveyer belts. The low chugging noise they make mixes in with the buzz, clash and din of power-tools. Running alongside the conveyor belts are suspended tracks, with zoids hanging from them in various states of completion. As we slide down towards the floor, I see teams of workzoids swarming round these hanging zoids, welding and wiring components into place in showers of sparks.
Before we reach the conveyor belt, Belle uncrosses her legs and hangs by her arms for a moment. Then she lets go and drops into a narrow channel in the floor directly below.
Ellis and I do the same. As I land, I find myself knee-deep in twists of metal filings and wire offcuts from the production line just above our heads.
‘This waste channel will take us to the central sump directly beneath the second dome,’ Belle tells us.
Ellis smiles. He is finding out how useful a companion Belle can be.
‘But watch out for the recycling zoids,’ Belle warns us.
Ellis pauses, the smile fading from his face. Without recon-sights, we’re going to have to rely on our own eyes and quick reflexes, we both realize.
Ellis reaches into his backcan and pulls out a couple of gunkballs, their detonator charges primed. He presses them against the wall of the waste channel and sets the timer.
‘Let’s go,’ he says.
Belle leads the way along the channel. We crawl on hands and knees through the scraps of metal and wire, while above us the workzoids go about their tasks in a deafening cacophony. Sparks and glowing metal shavings rain down on us. I glance up. Just above me, on the production line, a newly constructed zoid hangs from the suspended track. It is as broad as it is tall, clad in angular panels of armour that cover every movable joint. And it’s armed. Every last square centimetre of the zoid bristles with weaponry. Lasers. Grenade launchers. Surge-lances. Power-nets . . .
It’s a killer zoid, but like no killer zoid I’ve ever seen. This must be the very latest upgrade.
It’s being checked over by two workzoids. They’re configuring the weapons system and realigning the target sights. I guess that, when their checks are complete, this zoid will join the ranks of the killer zoids I saw outside.
Ellis looks at me, his expression grim. ‘A whole new army,’ he whispers, as he presses three gunkballs into the wall of the waste channel directly beneath the workstation.
Suddenly, out of the shadows in front of us, a zoid scuttles forward, nozzles on either side of its body sucking up the wire and metal debris. As it approache
s, its three visual sensors swivel in its head and glow red.
Belle reacts in an instant. Her arm lunges forward, she seizes the zoid by one nozzle and slams its body against the wall, flattening its head into a mush of circuitry and zoid-juice. Above us in the din of the production lines, the worker-zoids carry out their checks, unaware of what’s just happened.
We leave the fizzing wreckage of the recycling zoids behind us and continue along the waste channel. Sweat drips down my face, stinging my eyes. My knees are sore. My back aches, and I wish I could stand up straight and stretch. But now she’s recharged, Belle is tireless.
At last she leads us out of the cramped channel and into an immense circular chamber full of thick, intertwined cables that lead up towards a black vaulted ceiling high above. Without pausing, Belle begins to climb and, having laid the last of his gunkball explosives, so does Ellis.
We must be directly beneath the second dome, I realize. Somewhere above us is Bronx. I take a deep breath and, muscles protesting, begin to climb.
At the top, Belle uses a heat-pick to release the bolts on an access hatch and carefully pushes the metal cover to one side. In the circle of black above, I can see constellations of twinkling lights. A low babble of voices fills the air. I can’t make out a single word, but the weird jabbering sound gives me the creeps.
Belle pushes her head up through the opening. Ellis and I climb up beside her and look up into the dome. I clamp a hand over my mouth, unable to believe what I see.
The air is warm and sickly sweet and throbs with the sound of the low, muttering voices. The walls are lined with a web of flickering light tracks, pulsing with energy.
At the centre of the dome, suspended from glowing neuro-lines, are mind-tombs. Hundreds of them. Dark and inactive. They are what is left of the Half-Lifes the zoids have taken from the human settlements that they have destroyed down the centuries. Five hundred years of destruction . . .
And then I see it. A mega-zoid hanging in mid-air at the centre of the suspended mind-tombs.
‘Hot swarf!’ I gasp.
Eight tentacle-like pipes stick out from the zoid’s shimmering metal head and are attached to the mind-tombs closest to it. A gigantic black body, smooth and gleaming, hangs down beneath the zoid’s head.
This zoid is monstrous – but it’s not as monstrous as the object that stands on the floor beneath it . . .
It is a visiglass cube filled with a green plasma gel. And there, looming up from its depths, is a face. A human face. A face that is screaming soundlessly, and that I recognize at once.
Bronx.
I watch in horror as the body of the huge zoid begins to glow. Blotches of light mottle its black surface. They are blurred at first, then grow sharper, increasing in number and overlapping each other until the whole bulbous body is lit up from within.
I see that they are faces. Hundreds of them. Hovering like pale animated masks. They twist and contort, their eyes wild and rolling, their mouths grimacing in torment. Faces of the Half-Lifes. Faces from the Inpost. Gaffer Jed. The sound of muttering voices rises to a deafening chorus of human screams.
Beside me, I hear Ellis groan. I turn to him. His face is white.
‘I’d hoped they were just rumours,’ he’s muttering. ‘I’d prayed it couldn’t be true . . .’
‘What is it?’ I whisper.
Ellis shakes his head, his gaze fixed on the hideous creature. ‘It’s the death zoid.’
‘Death zoid,’ I repeat, the words chilling me to my core.
Then the zoid starts moving.
It lowers its glowing body until the tip touches the surface of the green plasma gel. The gel instantly churns and crackles with synaptic energy, and I see Bronx’s body convulse into spasms. Flashes of light surge up from his head, through the gel and into the zoid’s body.
Much more of this and Bronx’s mind will be swallowed up and imprisoned within the zoid along with the others. Downloaded.
‘Enough!’
It is Ellis. His voice rises above the screams as he leaps from the hatch and races across the floor of the dome. I’m up and on my feet too. So is Belle.
Ellis leaps into the air, grabs hold of a neuro-line and pulls himself up onto a hanging mind-tomb. Belle and I dash towards the plasma-gel cube. Belle throws me the heat-pick and I use it to attack the side of the cube. The visiglass cracks. Belle arches her back and kicks the cube once . . . twice . . . three times . . .
Suddenly the visiglass shatters and the plasma gel comes pouring out onto the floor – and with it Bronx, who flops heavily onto his back.
I crouch down. Clear the gel from his nostrils, his mouth. His eyes are open, but they’re staring blindly.
‘Bronx,’ I whisper, as I roll him over onto his side. ‘Bronx . . . Bronx . . .’
There’s no pulse. I press down on his chest. Again and again, the heel of my hand forcing his ribs down and up. He can’t be dead. He can’t be. Not Bronx. He’s been there for me all my life – the leader of the Inpost. My mentor. My friend . . .
‘York, look out!’ Belle shouts.
But I’m dazed. In shock. I feel Belle’s grip on my arm and a sharp tug as she pulls me away. I topple over onto my back and find myself staring upward.
Above me, Ellis is swinging from one data-tower to the next. His weight snaps one of the neuro-lines. A data-tower comes crashing to the ground. It misses me by millimetres and ends up lying shattered next to Bronx’s lifeless body. Ellis leaps from another of the black data-towers onto the shimmering metal head of the zoid.
The screams are louder than ever.
Ellis is a scavenger, born and bred. Just like me. He has spotted the zoid’s weak spot and is going for it.
The cutter he’s holding flashes as he plunges his hand into the head of the zoid, sending globules of zoid-juice spurting out into the air.
The zoid bucks and writhes, tearing its tentacles from their anchor points in the surrounding mind-tombs – three, four, five, six – until the monstrous zoid is held up by only two of its eight tentacle-pipes. As they whiplash free, I see that the pipes are tipped with razor-sharp neuro-spikes.
Ellis is clinging onto the zoid’s head, cutting deep down into its cerebral core. The human screams from the zoid’s body are deafening. And the faces of the Half-Lifes – each with their consciousness trapped within – are glowing red. With horror I glimpse Bronx’s face among them. And so does Belle. She dashes forward, reaches up and presses a hand against the surface.
Then everything happens at once.
Ellis rips his arm free of the zoid’s head in triumph, a dripping urilium cortex in his hand. The next moment I see a spurt of blood as a vicious neuro-spike bursts through his chest. He grimaces and his body shudders as five more of the neuro-spikes skewer his body.
The zoid freezes. Its body goes black. The screams stop and, as its remaining two tentacles detach from the data-towers, the zoid falls to the floor. Ellis falls with it. Belle leaps clear as the head shatters and the now dull body disintegrates, splattering the walls of the dome with zoid-juice.
Belle picks herself up. She walks over to me, bends down and runs her hand down my cheek. ‘York,’ she says, ‘we’ve got to get out of here.’
I try to clear my head. ‘Ellis?’ I whisper.
He is lying on his side a little way off, the neuro-spikes still embedded in his back and chest. He is dead.
I shake my head miserably. First Bronx. Now Ellis . . .
Belle takes my hand and helps me to my feet. Then, pulling me close to her, she fires a zip line up at an opening at the apex of the dome.
The walls are glowing brightly now, the light tracks turning a deep, pulsating red. An alarm has been triggered.
Belle activates the line and we sail up through the air. When we reach the top, we pull ourselves out onto the smooth curved roof of the dome. Below us, I can see ranks of killer zoids. Hundreds of them. Weapons systems begin to whirr as they power up. Heads rise on cabled necks as their
visual sensors start to glow.
The first killer zoid straightens up and takes a step forward.
Suddenly we see a familiar figure. It’s Ellis’s cyclops, Zabe, hunkered down and waiting patiently on the loading platform at the top of the first dome. The others have left and will be waiting for us at the perimeter.
As soon as he catches sight of us, Zabe clambers to his feet and jumps from the platform onto the curved side of the dome. He slides down the smooth surface, gathering speed as the slope increases until he free-falls . . . and hits the ground, his powerful arms cushioning his landing.
The first rank of killer zoids have powered up now. Below us I see a ripple of red as the ranks behind stir into life. Weapons systems whirr and click, visual sensors glow, heads turn to scan the surroundings.
Down on the ground, Zabe gallops across the open space between the domes towards us. When he reaches the dome we’re standing on, he begins to climb. His claws dig into the smooth surface as he pulls himself up.
On the ground the killer zoids are advancing from all sides in glistening ranks. I hear the ominous whine of pulsers locking on to their targets.
Zabe reaches us. We scramble onto his shoulders as the first volley of laser fire explodes around us. With our coolant suits on, the zoids are relying on their visual sensors. But now they’ve got our range the next volley will be fatal.
I hear the whine and . . .
There is a blinding flash. An ear-splitting noise. The shock wave hits us.
Zabe leaps into the air.
The first dome has exploded. An immense fireball goes up. Smoke and glowing debris spiral out from its molten centre.
The ground quakes and the killer zoids stagger this way and that, fighting to regain their balance.
Zabe lands on top of one of the bulbous energy hubs that cover Sector 17. Conveyor cables sprout out from it in all directions. He grabs hold of one and swings off along it, heading for the perimeter force field, which we can see shimmering in the distance.