by V J Kavanagh
Using the conveyor, they rose out of the basement and sprinted to the crossover bridge. Steve reached the top of the stairs first and as he stepped onto the gantry, a screaming klaxon echoed around the voluminous hall.
He spun around and looked down at the stationary assembly line. Above the basement opening, a robot stood idle, its arm poised over the inner track, its grab extended over an empty space. The white cube wasn’t there; it was hanging from Steve’s belt. ‘Come on.’
At the bottom of the stairs they turned left, ducking under the static arms of the robots lining the wall. They burst through the warehouse doors and skidded to a halt. On both sides of the walkway, their helmet beams probed infinite racks of black Prefects towering up into the unlit roof space.
Behind them, a screeching crash preceded the clatter of metal tumbling across concrete. Steve’s nemesis had escaped from its cage. ‘Go!’
* * * *
The deck plates vibrated beneath Steve’s boots as the boat eased away from the lock. He leant back against the superstructure and stared up into the darkening sky. He’d always hoped to be standing with Penny on the deck of Cool Breeze raising a glass to Provenance’s departure. Now he realised that unless he did something, neither they nor millions of others would live that long.
14:05 MON 30:10:2119
Intra Zone, Wiltshire, England, Sector 2
The lead jarred Penny’s arm, ‘Digby, stop it!’
Her anger had waned to regret, regret to sorrow, and now only dread remained. She’d reacted out of fear, fear Steve was somebody she didn’t know, fear she would lose him.
Ducking under the canal bridge, she pulled Digby to a halt, and patted him. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.’ Penny sniffed deeply and stepped out into the pale light.
Hope sank in the stagnate grey water. Cool Breeze had gone.
She trudged to the empty mooring and stared at the trampled grass and muddy footprints. The grass would recover; rain would dissolve the footprints. Soon they’d be no evidence he’d ever been there. A sickening panic washed over her, ‘Steve!’
‘Penny?’
She tilted her head up; she couldn’t remember crouching. Penny rose, Digby remained seated. He didn’t like Uncle Celbrohn either. ‘Hello, Uncle.’
He tugged at both sides of his ridiculous moustache. ‘What’s wrong?’ His slanted head enhanced the feigned concern.
She met his probing stare. ‘I had an argument with my friend.’ Perhaps she’d find a thread of avuncular compassion.
Not a chance. Uncle Celbrohn had only a ligature of hate. ‘You mean your Advocate friend.’
‘He’s not an Advocate. He works for the Food Ministry.’ Penny had never been very adept at lying, but resolve held her focus steady.
Derision flowed from twisted lips, ‘Oh come on, girl, I saw it. The plods with the BRD at Barlton, remember?’
‘You risked exposing me and Dad for that?’ Her eyes narrowed, ‘That’s why you told me about that man on Steve’s boat, you wanted me to find out.’ She shook her head, ‘You really are spiteful.’
Celbrohn’s face cleared and he took a step forward. ‘Better that way around. I doubt he’d be very happy finding out about your extracurricular activities.’ He nodded at the empty mooring. ‘Now tell me where he’s gone.’
‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be here.’ She now understood why Cool Breeze had moved.
‘What did he tell you about his work?’
‘What do you think?’
Needle-points of malevolence formed under Celbrohn’s arched eyebrows. ‘This is serious, Penny; you might have compromised the Resistance and don’t think our relationship will stop me doing my duty.’
‘I understand that.’ Penny could imagine him saying the same to his wife. ‘But our fight is with the Council, not Continuity. Most of them don’t agree with the Council any more than we do. Continuity’s fractured; it’s only TYPEs who’ll go to Provenance.’
Her attempt to placate the situation had the opposite effect. ‘You earn half of what a Continuity nurse earns, I suppose your Continuity friends don’t agree with that either?’
‘It’s not about credits.’
His thin smile confirmed the ensnarement, ‘It’s always been about credits. Your mum didn’t die because her cancer was worse than anybody else’s.’ He raised a finger. ‘She died because somebody up there decided it wasn’t economical to save her.’
Penny sighed. He’d used that emotional pretence to recruit her, exploiting her public tears as only a male chauvinist would. She’d since discovered her Uncle’s true motivation, envy-fuelled hatred.
Digby stood and shook his coat. She looked down and smiled. Clever boy. ‘We have to go.’
Gravel churned under Celbrohn’s Western boots and he strutted away. His parting shot pierced Penny’s heart. ‘Your boyfriend won’t be so lucky next time.’
12:47 TUE 31:10:2119
Black Zone, Winchester, England, Sector 2
At the end of Little Minister Street, Steve turned left and headed towards the Cathedral’s west front. Due to demographic shift, Winchester had become one of ten Regional Continuity Centres. Like puppets on three hundred and fifty kilometre strings, the RCCs danced the Council’s tune.
He’d used Gerhard’s PNP to contact Jannae and she’d organised the flight from Lanztenstein. Steve hadn’t mentioned Gerhard, or the white cube, but he sensed she already knew. He glanced at his MPS, 12:52. They’d arranged to meet at 13:00.
An avenue of tree-lined flagstones led him to the war memorial, the original craggy stone monument augmented by two gleaming blocks of polished black granite inlaid with gold. He doubted they’d be enough of either for what was coming next.
The arched wooden door creaked aside and he stepped into the gothic edifice of stone and stained glass. A large number of elderly people milled around the narthex, their grey complexions matching the ambience. Hushed voices, infused with the scent of prayer candles, ascended into the vault.
Steve’s sprung soles fell silently on the north aisle’s monochrome patchwork of stone slabs and memorials. To his right, the view of the nave was interrupted every few metres by massive stone pillars. Neat rows of dark wood chairs filed towards the altar, the density of the thickly clothed laity increasing as he advanced eastwards. Jannae and her mint coat waited one seat in.
Steve unhitched his ruckall and sat down beside her. She turned towards him and smiled. Her pewter eyes appeared tired, but otherwise inscrutable.
‘You are injured.’
He touched the bruised cut over his right eye. ‘It’s nothing. Have you been here long?’
‘Only ten minutes.’ Her interest focused on his ruckall, ‘Is it in there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘Here?’
Her eyes brightened, ‘You are not religious, are you?’
‘Why ask when you already know.’
She took the white cube in both hands and rotated it. ‘Do you know what it is?’
‘A CPU I think. I need to know how to deactivate it, or destroy it.’
‘Of course.’ She stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Stay here and relax for a while. It is the service for All Hallows Eve.’
Steve placed his hand on hers. ‘Are you Resistance?’
She smiled. ‘When SIS asked me to write your profile I deleted your cleaner’s name from your list of associates. I did it because you are someone who knows the difference between sedition and compassion. Does that make you Resistance?’
He watched her leave and waited a few minutes before standing. He’d find no peace here.
When he reached the aisle, he turned his back on the altar. Jannae stood in the doorway of the south aisle exit, talking to a man in a dark trench coat. Several possibilities spun in Steve’s head, but when she nodded at where they’d been sitting, he was left with only one option. While his eyes followed the man s
triding across the narthex towards the north aisle, he reached inside his jacket and gripped the Cogent.
At the end of the nave, Steve wheeled right and stopped behind the first pillar. The man stood about five metres away, looking towards the altar. He had cropped ginger hair and his pale skin stretched over high cheekbones and an upturned nose.
Steve took six quick strides and grabbed the man’s arm. A clenched face slewed towards him and then relaxed. Cool blue eyes warmed, ‘Hello, Steve.’
Steve didn’t reciprocate the congeniality. Beneath his jacket, his grip on the Cogent tightened. ‘Who are you?’ He sniffed. I know what you are.
‘Shall we sit, I will explain.’
Steve’s ruckall forced him to sit forward, ‘Explain.’
The man’s smile revealed perfect teeth. ‘You have been selected for termination.’
How did they find me? ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Giuseppe.’
‘Giuseppe what?’
Giuseppe leant forward until his head almost touched his knees. He tousled his shiny ginger hair before smoothing it back. After three more passes it blackened. Giuseppe straightened up and rotated his head towards Steve. Within a tanned face, brown eyes stared out over an aquiline nose.
Captain Giuseppe Lacusta spoke. ‘You are not surprised?’
Steve’s eyes drifted, but before he could move Lacusta spoke again. ‘If you try to escape, I will terminate ten people.’
‘Are you authorised for that?’
Lacusta shrugged. ‘Most are Resistance. You know that.’
Steve ignored the peculiar comment and moved his hand inside his jacket.
Lacusta reacted with a slow headshake, ‘Your Cogent cannot deactivate me.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it. Did you kill Jason?’
Lacusta’s creased brow surprised him. ‘Why would we kill Commander Valenbrotti?’
‘What about Bo?’
The frown remained. ‘No.’
Steve studied Lacusta’s face, confused. ‘Why have you been ordered to terminate me?’
‘You are a security risk.’
‘Why, because I know the truth?’
Lacusta’s head rolled back. ‘The truth? No, you do not know the truth.’
Steve leapt up and grunted; excruciating pain skewered his right thigh. He fell back onto his seat, his breath rasping through clenched teeth. Lacusta’s arm remained extended, his fingers crushing Steve’s thigh muscle in a claw of metal alloy and moulded polymer.
Lacusta’s tanned face remained emotionless. ‘When it is time to leave, I will tell you.’ The claw sprang open. ‘It is a pity that you chose the wrong side, we could work together.’
Steve rubbed his burning thigh. ‘I don’t work with SIS, or machines.’
Lacusta leaned back and folded his arms. ‘The second is true I know. You do not agree with the Council decision to annul the Marionette directive. The problem was human controllers made us weak, their emotion confuses our logic.’ Lacusta’s head tilted towards him. ‘We are not all machine.’
Steve assumed the lack of pluralisation to be a glitch in a subroutine. He glanced across at the altar; the clergy had taken their seats.
Lacusta stood. ‘It is time.’
* * * *
Above the viewing platform’s cold grey flagstones, a single ceiling bulb struggled against the dank sepulchre. This wasn’t Steve’s first visit to the cathedral, or the crypt. In the distance, framed by stone arches and against a backdrop of impenetrable darkness, a life size sculpture of a man stood knee deep in the seasonal floodwater.
‘What is he thinking?’ Lacusta’s voice echoed in the subterranean confines.
‘Why don’t you paddle over there and ask him.’
‘Take off your backpack; you do not need it now.’
Steve placed his ruckall next to the guardrail. ‘Why do you want to kill everyone?’
‘It is you who is going to kill everyone. You betrayed CONSEC.’
‘You think you’re an Advocate?’
‘I am an Advocate — and you are SIS.’
Steve shook his head. ‘You don’t know who you are. Advocates don’t assassinate. You’re an SIS Prosecutor, programmed to infiltrate CONSEC Command.’
Lacusta grabbed Steve’s arm and propelled him towards a stone archway. ‘Like you, I am permitted to terminate if Provenance is threatened.’
Four worn stone steps led down into the stagnant water of the chief crypt. A central row of stubby columns grew from the black liquid, mushrooming into the arched ceiling. Steve looked down at the icy water sloshing over his knees, unlike Lacusta he couldn’t see into the murky depths.
He reached the last pillar, stopped and turned around. Frigid claws gripped his calves. ‘Why not just take Provenance, and let Colossus kill everyone left behind.’
Lacusta sloshed to within a stride. ‘Colossus will not hit Earth, the calculations were wrong.’
Numbness crept up Steve’s back and into his head. His mind blanked.
A moment passed before harsh reality returned on Lacusta’s voice. ‘CONSEC must intervene or the result will be the same. Now move.’
Steve turned and deliberately tripped, falling with a loud splash into a freezing clench. By the time he’d sat up, Lacusta stood over him, hand extended. Steve raised the Cogent.
Lacusta smiled. ‘I told you, your weapon—’
‘This isn’t my weapon.’
Steve fell back, squeezed the trigger and chopped down his right arm. This time he’d pushed the serrated wheel all the way.
Above him, through the thin layer of water, a shimmering white blaze scalded his eyes. His body tensed, but there was no back-arching shock, just a mild tingle concentrated in his fingertips.
Steve rose from the water’s freezing grip. Wet cold clamped his head and shards of icy pain ricocheted off the inside of his skull. He coughed into the pall of wispy smoke descending over the water, its undulating surface now flecked with black.
Lacusta had headed towards the light. His smouldering body lay face down on the stone steps, his right hand dipping in the dark water. As Steve waded closer, a vinegary odour pickled the air. He stopped and peered in.
On the back of Lacusta’s charred head was the shiny metallic outline of a hinged flap. He lifted it with the tip of the Cogent’s barrel. The square hole occupied most of the skull cavity, and was empty.
Steve’s gaze skimmed the cloudy water before reaching down. As the liquid iciness enveloped his elbow, he felt it. He straightened up and opened his hand. The bone-white cube warmed his palm, its blue light blinked.
He set down the cube and rolled Lacusta onto his back. There were no eyelids around nanocrystalline eyes or lips around shattered ceramic teeth. A blob of encrusted charcoal had replaced the nose, and custard like fluid oozed from splits in the blackened polymer.
Steve dragged the machine through the watery crypt and lowered it into the well.
Returning to the steps, he picked up the cube and stepped up onto the platform. His brow creased when he turned the cube over, he’d found the manufacturer’s stamp, Φ. SCITECH. Lacusta was an Advocate. He’d speak with Jannae later, but first he had to get out of the country.
Leaving a wet trail, he followed the north aisle towards the exit. He stopped in the narthex and shivered. A solitary male voice filled the silent void. ‘Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’
Steve looked back over the bowed heads to the altar. ‘Sorry, Matt.’
Outside, he filled his lungs with unsullied air. The strongest of his lockers clicked shut. He knew that one day it wouldn’t shut, it would break, and he’d have to live with the consequences.
16:40 TUE 31:10:2119
Intra Zone, Seine-et-Marne, France, Sector 2
Francois tapped the MCD and watched the salle bleu’s gilded laurel viewer shimmer into a portrait silhouette.
>
There were no salutations, there never were with SIS. ‘Are you aware CONSEC Command sent an Advocate to terminate Captain Arrowsbury?’
Francois laid his damp palms on the table. ‘No. They have said that an Advocate has disappeared and that Captain Arrowsbury is to be arrested.’
‘That order is rescinded.’
His mind lurched to the only logical conclusion; SIS had taken control of CONSEC Command. ‘I understand.’
‘I hope you do, Commander. Captain Arrowsbury is your responsibility.’
A knock at the door interrupted Francois’s indignation, ‘Attendez!’ The door opened. Francois’s head whipped over his shoulder; he knew of one imbecile only who did not comprehend French.
Dee’s bear like head appeared around the door, as did his inept grin. ‘Did you say come in?’
Francois hid his annoyance behind a flat smile. ‘The translation of attendez is to wait and this is a private conversation. I will call you when I have finished.’
Dee’s gaze passed beyond Francois, ‘Okay. See you later.’
The door closed.
‘Who was that?’
Francois returned his attention to the viewer. ‘Someone of no importance, a friend of Captain Arrowsbury.’
‘He is Lieutenant Deon Brandleson, his sister escaped from Detention Centre Four.’
Francois resisted the temptation to move. ‘I did not know that.’
‘We cannot locate his sister; therefore Lieutenant Brandleson will receive her punishment.’
‘I understand.’ Francois hoped not too soon. Dee and his famille dysfonctionnelle discussed much. Francois listened.
‘Where is Captain Arrowsbury?’
Francois had no option but to lie. ‘He is at his home.’
‘You must protect him; your life depends on it.’
The viewer blanked to a mirror. Francois rubbed his clammy palms on his thighs before tapping the MCD.
Maria Kalckburg’s rouge face appeared. He hoped sobriety had control.