From the outside, flat 47-126 didn’t look like much: just another shabby brown door in a long line of shabby brown doors. Nairn motioned Floyd and Rhodes into position on the opposite side of the passageway, their weapons trained on the flat’s door at chest height. The sergeant reached into his mouth and pulled out a wad of chewing gum, rolled it into a sticky ball, then pressed it over the spyhole. He flattened himself against the wall next to the door, nodded at everyone, then reached out and knocked…
No reply.
Nairn pointed. Rhodes?’
The trooper clicked a button on the chunky oblong strapped to the barrel of his Thrummer, peered into the weapon’s sight. Pulled his head back. Frowned. Slapped the oblong twice. Then went back to the sight again, sweeping the Thrummer back and forth. ‘No sign of movement.’
Nairn turned to Will. ‘You want us to force it?’
He was about to say yes when DS Cameron walked over and crouched down in front of the keypad lock set into the wall beside the door. She popped the cover off with a pocket knife, pulled a thin piece of bent wire from her asymmetrical hairdo and stuck it into the circuitry. As she fiddled about, the display panel flashed warning red. Then ten seconds later a small bleep sounded and the lights went as green as her suit.
‘Open Sesame.’ She pushed the door open on silent, plastic hinges, revealing a small, dark hallway.
Will stared at her. ‘I don’t believe you just did that. A hairgrip?’
‘Yeah, well.’ She stood and worked the impromptu lock pick back into place above her left ear. ‘That’s technology for you.’
‘Unbelievable…’ He stepped into the tiny hallway, opened the door on the other side, and walked into a nightmare.
A fug of hot air washed over them, bringing with it the stench of rotting garbage. Like a bin bag left in the sun. The windows were covered with broad straps of black plastic. Slivers of light found their way through the gaps, falling across the cramped space in horizontal bars. One wall was given over to a collage made up of little bits of paper scrawled with dense handwriting, all glued together to form the life-size silhouette of an angel. Only this angel didn’t have a harp, it had a sword. A big red sword that dripped blood. But that was nothing compared to what sat in the middle of the room.
The paper angel stood guard over a pile of severed heads. Severed halfheads to be precise.
‘Oh—my—God.’ Jo Cameron stared at the mound. ‘So that’s where they all went to!’ There were at least fifteen of them, possibly more, all neatly arranged in a heap.
Will dug a reader out of his suit pocket and pressed it into her hand.
‘Get the barcodes.’
Biting her bottom lip, she reached forward and slid the electronic eye over the nearest disembodied head. The reader gave a disapproving clunk. She scowled at the display. ‘Non sample error. Must be all the wrinkles: thing looks almost mummified…’ Jo snapped on a pair of thin, blue plastic gloves and tried smoothing out the skin on the forehead. Then had another go with the reader. Clunk. ‘Come on you little sod…’
Will left her to it, picking his way through the rest of the squalid flat. Rubbish spread out from huge piles in the corners of every room, hiding the floor from view. The kitchen was awash with green, hairy mould. He opened the fridge door, gagged, then slammed it shut again, bathed in the unmistakeable sickly sour smell of rotting meat. Holding his breath, Will tried again, one hand clamped over his nose. In with the bloated plastics of milk and black slimy vegetables were thick cuts of pale meat, with a fatty, goose-pimpled rind. The flesh a nasty greenish-grey colour, speckled with black mould.
The light didn’t come on. Power was probably dead, which explained the smell.
Will closed the fridge door, then hurried through to the bedroom before he had to breathe in again.
It was a dark, cramped little room, stuffed with rubbish. Another six-foot angel collage dominated the wall above the bed, just visible in the gloom. Mr Brown had done a much better job of taping over the bedroom’s tiny window. Will punched the lightsight on his Whomper up to maximum, bathing the room in its eerie green glow. It leached away all the colours, turning the whole scene into a monochrome landscape of half-seen garbage.
He stepped forward and felt something crunch underfoot. He froze. Please don’t let it be what he thought it was…Gingerly, he lowered the Whomper’s barrel, spotlighting the refuse beneath his feet.
Emerald light glittered back at him from dozens of cracked plastic cylinders. It was just discarded HotNoodle tubes, their biodegradable plastic littering the nest like gaily patterned animal bones.
He waded through the filth to peer at the angel and its blood-soaked sword.
Each bit of paper in the collage bore the same handwritten quotation:
‘And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, Ifany man worship the beast and his image, and receive his markin his forehead, or in his hand,
The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation;and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever:and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast andhis image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.’
That explained a lot.
Back in the lounge, DS Cameron was still cursing her way through the pile of severed heads, scowling at the reader. ‘Come on, you little—’
‘I know why he did it.’ Will said as she banged the handheld device against the floor. ‘No, scratch that. I don’t know why he did it, but I know why he thought he was doing it.’
She hurled the reader at the heads, settled back on her haunches, then looked up at him, her face all pinched and lined. ‘Why does nothing ever sodding work?’
‘The angels: there’s another one in the bedroom. They’re made up of little bits of the Book of Revelation. Chapter fourteen.’
She frowned for a moment, then started to recite in an almost singsong voice, ‘“If any man worship the beast and his image”—’
‘“And whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”’ Will pointed at the heap on the carpet. ‘It’s the tattoo.’
He turned the lightsight on his Whomper down to a more reasonable operating level. ‘Tell the SOC team to start scanning the place. When they’re done, have them bag and tag anything that looks like a body part. Start with the fridge. But tell them to get a shift on. Sooner we’re out of here the better.’
‘OK.’ She stood, then stooped to pick up the discarded reader. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘The other body George showed us, he lived two doors down. I’m going to take a look.’ He turned and made for the door. ‘Oh, and see if you can dig a VR set out of this midden. If our halfhead-hunting friend really did have VR syndrome, there’ll be one in here somewhere.’
The door to flat 47-122 swung open after a small amount of fiddling with the lock. It wasn’t as quick as DS Cameron’s hairgrip method, but it didn’t leave any physical evidence of tampering. The tiny hallway was as nondescript as its neighbour, but the rooms beyond it were completely different. Allan Brown’s flat had been a lair. This had been a home. Right up to the moment when Mr Kevin McEwen came home and shot his wife Barbara in the face. Then he’d gone into the second bedroom and done the same thing to his two children, before turning the gun on himself.
The council clean-up crew had stripped the place back to the fixtures and fittings, leaving it bereft and lifeless. Will stood in the middle of the empty living room and tried to imagine it before Kevin McEwen wiped out his entire family.
Like all connurb block flats it was surprisingly small, even with all the furniture removed: a lounge with a screened off kitchen, one master bedroom, a toilet-shower, and a secondary sleeping cubicle. The rooms were decorated in ancient wallpaper: the pattern a mixture of dirty yellow and green, faded with age. Picture
frames had left shadows on the walls, keeping rectangles of wallpaper rich and vibrant. A faint dark line marking the top edges. The McEwens must have been a house-proud pair, because other than that, the whole place was scrupulously clean.
A faint rumble sounded from down the hall. The SOC team had started scanning.
Will wandered from tiny room to tiny room; amazed that anyone could live somewhere this small, let alone raise two kids here. Every apartment in Monstrosity Square was the same: a testament to the ingenuity and inhumanity of the planning department.
Compressed Urban Habitation they called it. Cram as many people into as small a space as possible, then sit back and wonder why they start killing themselves. And each other.
He checked his watch, gave the meagre flat one last look, then headed back out into the hallway, locking the door behind him.
As Will hurried up the corridor the floor started to tremble. By the time he’d reached Allan Brown’s flat the sonics were in full swing. He had to shout to be heard over the din in the kitchen.
‘HOW MUCH LONGER?’
Stein puffed out his cheeks. ‘DONE THE LOUNGE AND BEDROOM, BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS: SOMETIMES THE MACHINERY WORKS FIRST TIME, SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO KICK THE HELL OUT OF IT.’ He aimed a boot at the scanner’s dented canister. ‘AND IT’S ALWAYS US! I MEAN IT WOULD BE FAIR ENOUGH IF IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE’S TURN NOW AND AGAIN, BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE: EVERY SODDIN’ TIME?’
Thankfully the howling scanning booms meant that Will could only catch snatches of the rant. He nodded in sympathy and when the subsonics kicked in mimed his concern and buggered off through to the main bedroom.
It was slightly quieter in here, but not by much, even with the door shut. DS Cameron and Sergeant Nairn were picking through the mounds of rubbish. A transparent evidence sack sat in the middle of the cluttered bed—there wasn’t much in it.
‘ANY LUCK?’
DS Cameron squinted at him. Then cupped a hand over her ear. ‘WHAT?’
‘HAVE YOU HAD ANY LUCK?’
‘A BIT. WHAT ABOUT YOU?’
‘WASTE OF TIME. THE MCEWENS’ PLACE IS CLEAN AS A WHISTLE, READY FOR THE NEXT POOR SODS TO MOVE IN. NOTHING LEFT.’
‘SORRY, CAN’T HEAR A THING OVER THAT BLOODY—’ The scanners fell silent and DS Cameron paused for a moment, then sighed. ‘God, that’s better…What were you saying?’
But Will was heading back to the kitchen: the scanners still had another cycle to go. If they were quiet now it meant they weren’t working. He burst into the room to see Stein and Beaton on their knees, poking at the equipment.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
Beaton jiggled one of the leads. ‘It’s buggered: that’s what’s wrong with it.’
Will checked his watch again. They’d been here almost fifteen minutes. Give it another six or seven to get back to the roof. Twenty-two minutes. Even then that was probably going to be tight. Running at full tilt the scanners would have interfered with all electronic activity within six hundred feet: that included the public virtual reality channels. Robbed of the only real escape they had, the locals would start looking for something else to fill the gap. Religion might have been the opium of the masses, but VR was their crack cocaine.
And no one liked going cold turkey.
‘How long to fix it?’
‘Don’t know.’ Beaton looked up at her colleague who gave a shrug. ‘Five, maybe ten minutes?’
That made it over half an hour. Will shook his head—there was a difference between reasonable risk and reckless stupidity. ‘You’ve got two.’
‘No chance. We’ve got to recalibrate the whole array or it’ll just fall over again.’
‘Then pack it up. We’re leaving.’
Stein shook his head and smiled as if he was talking to a small child. ‘You don’t understand—’
‘If you two aren’t ready to go by the time I count to ten, we’re leaving you behind. You can take your chances with the natives.’
‘But we—’
‘One. Two. Three—’
‘But,’ Stein pointed at the machinery’s dented casing. ‘The subsonics—’
‘Five. Six—’
‘We’ve got to recalibrate, or—’
‘Eight. Nine—’
‘But—’ He was beginning to go red in the face.
‘Ten. Time’s up.’ Will turned and shouted into the bedroom, ‘Sergeant Nairn, get your team together. We’re pulling out.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Nairn emerged from the bedroom with an evidence bag slung over his shoulder. DS Cameron was carrying one too, lurching after the sergeant into the lounge. With fifteen severed heads stuffed into the transparent sack, she looked like a macabre Santa Clause.
‘Did we get a VR set?’
‘Nairn’s got it,’ she said, as the man in question marched out the front door. ‘All twisted up into a pretty little shrine decorated with finger bones and jelly babies.’
Will closed his eyes. Blood and drums in the darkness. Definitely time to go.
‘Come on then.’ He ushered her out into the corridor.
A muffled, rapid conversation erupted in the apartment behind them: Beaton and Stein arguing over whether or not they’d really be left behind. Then there was the sound of mechanical scrabbling and professional swearing. The SOC team tumbled out of the flat, forcing their battered equipment back into its casing as they went.
‘All right, all right! We’re coming.’
Will reached up and keyed his throat-mike. ‘Lieutenant Brand, this is Hunter: prepare for dust-off.’
‘Roger that, Hunter. We are hot to trot.’
‘You see,’ said Detective Sergeant Cameron, hoisting her evidence bag, ‘nothing to worry about. I told you this place isn’t half as bad as you think.’
And that was when the shooting started.
5
It started out as a faint crack, like the sound an ice cube makes dropped into warm water. Then another. And another. Then the sound changed, grew deeper, got closer. Gunfire echoed down from the floors above, and Rhodes’ voice crackled in Will’s earpiece:
‘…repeat, we have hostiles!’
No: this wasn’t fair! He’d been careful. They were heading home!
Sergeant Nairn punched up the power on his Thrummer and shouted: ‘Dickson, Wright, get your arses back here on the double!’
They all sprinted for the broken escalator. Nairn jumped onto the ramp, his Thrummer searching for targets. ‘Talk to me Rhodes, what the hell’s going on up there?’
‘…Fifteen, maybe more. Automatic projectile weapons; I think I see a Zinger.’ The harsh burr of a Thrummer tore through the air. ‘Orders?’
Nairn looked at Will and waited.
‘We…It…’
‘Sir, I hate to hassle you, but now would be a good fucking time.’
‘But we…’ Deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
‘Fine.’ Nairn hit his throat mike again. ‘Rhodes, you are cleared for deadly force. I want everything neutralized and—’
‘No!’ Will grabbed the sergeant’s arm. ‘We’ve had two cases of VR syndrome on this floor in one week, probably hundreds more we don’t know about. You have to keep any contact to a minimum or this whole place will explode.’
‘Oh Jesus…’ Nairn swallowed, hard. ‘Rhodes—disregard last order, non-lethal force only.’
‘Sarge? Have you gone off your fuckin’—’
‘Shut up and do what you’re told. People: we need dust-off and we need it now!’ He charged up the ramp, with privates Dickson and Wright hurrying after him, leaving Will, DS Cameron and the SOC team behind.
Angry noises filtered up from the floors below: it didn’t matter that the scanners had been turned off and packed way, it would take time for the building’s local network to reboot. Sherman House was suffering from VR withdrawal. And if the residents couldn’t have computer-generated death and destruction, they could always have the real thing.
‘Erm…
’ Beaton shifted from foot to foot. ‘Not meaning to be funny or anything, sir, but shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here?’
Stein fiddled with the Field Zapper at his hip. The SOC team only carried small arms—anything bigger would have made manoeuvring the scanning equipment impossible. He was flicking the power switch on and off, on and off, never quite allowing it to get fully charged. Eyes darting up and down the corridor. Licking his top lip. The sound of gunfire was getting louder. ‘It’s going to be OK, right? No problem…’
Will pushed them towards the ramp. ‘I’ll take point; DS Cameron, you’re back door.’
She nodded, a faint sheen of perspiration speckling her brow. The bag of severed halfheads swung as she spun round to face back down the ramp, making her stagger. There was no way she could provide covering fire carrying a sack full of heads and Will told her so.
‘We can’t just leave them, they’re evidence!’
‘OK, fine…give them here. I’ll take—’
A soft ‘phfwoom’ sounded from the floor above and suddenly the entire corridor was bathed in flickering orange light. Then a sheet of flame exploded down the ramp.
‘GET DOWN!’
Will leapt, bouncing off the wall and twisting on the rebound to land behind the escalator, putting its bulk between himself and the fireball. Stein wasn’t so lucky. He was still straining with the scanning equipment when the blaze caught him. Beaton cowered on the other side of the scanner as the fire rushed past; leaving her unscathed while her colleague burned.
Stein staggered off the ramp, his hair and clothes ablaze, screaming.
Will tore off his own jacket and dived on top of him, smothering the flames. Stein’s thrashing body gradually fell still.
The bitter tang of smoke filled the air, and the corridor’s sprinklers finally kicked in, bathing the hallway with lukewarm, stale water.
Halfhead Page 5