Jack Four

by Neal Asher

  ‘Tanis,’ he said. Lowering the stun baton, he asked, ‘Polity?’

  I decided against standing up since that would’ve been more threatening. It had been foolish of me to reveal myself. I now felt I must help these two and, while my power supply had reached twenty per cent, not even at full power could I get them out of this building and across the roof.

  ‘Are you able to move about freely in this building?’ I asked.

  ‘All who are …’ he began, then reached up to the seeping wound on the back of his neck. He looked down at the thrall he’d torn away.

  ‘You need glue,’ I said. ‘Clean up your neck, pull the thrall fibres off and stick the thing back in place. Do it quickly now.’

  He gaped at me. I guessed I’d given him too much to process.

  ‘Here.’ Betan came off the bed, pulling the sheet with her, and held it out to him. He threw the stun baton down and began wiping away the blood while she went off into another room. She shortly returned with a first-aid kit and sat him down on the bed. I stood, seeing my power was now up to a quarter. She sprayed a coagulant. He picked up his thrall and began pulling out its internals. The coagulant also worked as glue and in a moment he had the thing stuck back in place. He looked at me questioningly.

  ‘Some clothing,’ I suggested. ‘And perhaps some kind of scarf.’

  Betan opened a wardrobe and began pulling out items. With a bitter look on her face, she shed her leather garment. Tanis went over to get clothes for himself, just as the door opened. I closed my visor, and turned my ’ware back on.

  ‘Here too,’ said a woman. She turned to the man I’d seen earlier, ‘I would bet you have cuffs or manacles,’ she added with a wry smile.

  ‘Damn.’ He reached for his sidearm.

  I stood up and stepped away from the wall. Betan and Tanis had moved back from the wardrobe, clutching the clothing to themselves and looking over to where I’d been sitting. I waited until the door had swung shut before I stepped in closer.

  ‘No need—’ began the woman.

  I shot her once through the throat, blowing a mess of smoking flesh in a crescent across the wall behind her, then turned to the man and shot him through the back of the head. Tanis, spattered with brains and bits of skull, screamed. Betan stood in shock for a moment, then whirled, caught hold of him and clamped a hand over his mouth. He sank to the floor and she went down with him. After a moment, she released him and he sat there gasping. How old were they, I wondered? Probably only just teenagers. I turned off the chameleonware again and plugged the power cord back in, belatedly remembering that they were technically older than me.

  ‘It’ll be dangerous out there now the thralls are going offline,’ I said, leaning back against the table. ‘But here will be dangerous too.’

  They both watched me wide-eyed. I was preparing to abandon them to their fate, I realized, then as quickly understood that I couldn’t.

  ‘Put those clothes on,’ I instructed them.

  The power climbed to halfway as they dressed. I unwound the cord further and stooped down by the corpses, relieving them of weapons, ammo and power cartridges. One sidearm I kept, the other I hesitated over for a moment, then held it out, with spare clips, to Betan.

  ‘Conceal this.’

  They both now wore loose shirts and tight trousers. She put the weapon in her waistband and covered it, then went to search out some shoes. Tanis, with shaking hands, picked up the stun baton and concealed that under his shirt. Finally, after finding some suitable footwear, they were ready.

  ‘Now what?’ said Tanis, trying to be brave.

  ‘We wait until I’ve recharged my power supply, then we walk out of here. You will be my prisoners.’

  ‘Are you … Are you Polity?’ he asked again.

  I thought about this for a long moment, considering who and what I actually was.

  ‘Yes, I am Polity,’ I replied.

  Tanis and Betan walked ahead out into the corridor. Behind them I kept my visor closed and ran the map display for exterior broadcast, concealing my face. I hoped it would be enough, though I felt pretty damned sure I was making a big mistake trying to rescue these two.

  ‘Take the shortest route down,’ I instructed.

  We only got a few hundred yards along the corridor when four of Suzeal’s soldiers charged around a corner. One of them immediately brought a pulse rifle up to his shoulder, but another slapped it down.

  ‘You good?’ the second asked me.

  I waved a hand. ‘They’re no trouble, but I’m told Suzeal wants them all out of here.’

  He nodded and the four ran on.

  ‘The dropshaft,’ said Betan a moment later, pointing. She looked ready to run.

  ‘Only walk,’ I said. ‘If you’re running they’ll just bring you down.’

  At length we came to a dropshaft entrance. Tanis stepped forwards to enter it and I caught his shoulder, stopping him at the lip.

  ‘Look.’ I pointed at the red cross on the console beside the shaft. ‘It’s been shut down. We’ll climb down. Can you do that?’

  Tanis nodded mutely, reached inside to grab a rung and began to descend. Betan hesitated at the edge.

  ‘Tanis seems okay,’ I commented.

  She got into the shaft and, after clinging for a moment, began to descend. I followed, counting floors. When they stopped below me, I reached across to the other side of the shaft, found the rungs there and descended past them. Tanis clung to the ladder, peering in through one of the shaft’s entrances. Three corpses lay in the corridor beyond, still smoking from pulse rifle wounds. All of them were naked and thralled.

  ‘Keep going,’ I said. ‘All the way to the bottom.’

  I moved ahead of them, finally seeing the bottom of the shaft. Another thralled corpse lay there, body broken by the fall. Beyond the entrance was a foyer, soldiers scattered here and there, some standing armed over thralled workers who were loading corpses onto sleds. The fact the guards were so attentive told me the nanite must be continuing to do its job, as well as the sound of gunfire, which I could now hear again. I stepped out and waved the two youngsters ahead of me.

  ‘Just head for the exit,’ I said.

  Nobody took any notice of us, until we stepped out of an entrance leading into the park, and a woman turned towards me. I felt my stomach drop when I recognized her.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked.

  ‘The pens,’ I replied.

  ‘Bit young for that, aren’t they?’ she commented, frowning.

  I thought fast. ‘Suzeal’s instructions,’ I said, poking Betan in the back with my gun. ‘These are Brack’s.’

  She grunted and turned away.

  ‘Keep walking,’ I instructed the two.

  We crossed the park, heading down an alley between restaurants and finally out of sight of prying eyes.

  ‘Do you know how to get to the rim from here?’ I asked.

  Tanis nodded, but Betan said, ‘But our dad?’

  ‘Salander is at the rim and that’s the only place you’ll be safe. Your father will head there if he can. Now go.’

  ‘We can help you,’ said Tanis.

  ‘You’ll die if you stay with me. Go.’

  Finally, and hesitantly, they headed away. I felt bad about it, but had to stay with the larger picture. I guessed that would be how a Polity agent acted. They disappeared out of sight at the end of the alley and I turned to a nearby door, planted my boot against it and entered. I needed the backpack that had been left on a balcony above.

  I took the CTD out of the pack and studied it. At once, I understood the workings of the console attached to the end of the matt black cylinder. I was about to take it and go, but then had second thoughts and pressed my weapon against its stick patch, picked the pack up, and hung it on my back. Swinging the multigun ahead, I grabbed the leads Marcus had detached and plugged them back into the thing. A second later, following a series of instructions that came up in my HUD, I detached the optic from my carbine, w
here it plugged into a belt socket, and switched its weapon control over to wifi. There was a danger of hacking with this option, but it should be fine for a secondary weapon. I then uncoiled the optic of the multigun and plugged it in. A firing list came up, selection of options by blink control and firing by the main trigger. A series of buttons behind the main trigger also gave me the same options, only slower. I familiarized myself with them, then checked on how much ammo and power remained. After some thought, I cancelled the rail-bead function, since it drank power and the recoil would either put me through a wall behind or require full suit assist.

  Finally ready, I exited the apartment, reducing the weapon options to a series of dots down the side of the HUD, having memorized them, and called up the map again. This building was part of the designated hub rim, with no access to the station railgun from here. I needed to go down, head along the park to its far end, where cargo and personnel shafts led up into the space dock transfer area. No doubt the security would be heavy. On the way down, people who’d been thralled startled at the sight of me and ran. They mistook me for one of Suzeal’s people and this became evident again a few floors down when the suit alerted me to danger behind.

  I dropped and turned as something streaked overhead and exploded at the end of the corridor. A man shouldering a short launcher fired again. I targeted him and could easily have taken him out with one shot, but instead engaged chameleonware and leapt to one side. The floor erupted where the missile struck, then it bounced on down the corridor in a series of secondary thermal explosions. Pulling out of a half-collapsed wall, I went full suit assist and hurtled forwards through the smoke. He’d backed up against a wall and was trying to insert another missile into his homemade launcher when I reached him. I pulled the thing from his hand and tossed it aside, then caught him by the throat and pushed him back against the wall, slapping from his hand the sidearm he attempted to draw. I cancelled the ’ware.

  ‘I’m not going to kill you.’ I lowered my visor. ‘I’m with Salander.’

  He carried on trying to fight me.

  ‘I’m with Salander!’ I shouted in his face and finally he desisted.

  ‘Okay, then let me go,’ he said.

  I did so and stepped back. He eyed his launcher, but made no move to pick it up.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

  ‘I released the nanite that freed you.’ I gestured to the dressing on the back of his neck. ‘Salander has retreated to the rim. Tell everyone to head there – you’ll be safe.’

  ‘Safe?’ he repeated viciously. ‘And what exactly does that mean?’

  ‘You, and as many people you can tell, need to head out there.’ I didn’t elaborate on what more was to come, since if he told others and Suzeal’s people caught and interrogated him, chances were she would realize her railgun was a target. ‘We have nerve gas mines in the ventilation,’ I lied.

  ‘She said nothing about that,’ he said. ‘She just told us on the sub-net to get to the rim.’

  I turned away. ‘Perhaps you can understand why she didn’t want to spread the news?’ I headed off.

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘Not your concern,’ I replied.

  Unavoidable casualties, I thought. So Salander had managed to contact those who’d been thralled and told them to head to the rim and what safety she could provide there. Many would do that but some, like the man behind me, would stay to exact payback. Most of those would end up dead at the hands of Suzeal’s soldiers, or die when the prador arrived. I could do no more than I had done in telling the lie about nerve gas. Perhaps Salander should do something like that too, but Marcus hadn’t provided me with a comlink for her so I couldn’t suggest it. I tried to think of other ways to get the people here to flee, as I walked out of the alley and back into the park. I then realized secondary considerations had begun to bog me down. I needed to stay focused on my objective. I couldn’t save every life.

  Bodies still littered the park, as well as clear-up teams and armed thugs. I fitted in perfectly and nobody took any notice as I headed out to the central path towards the far end. I passed a large sled loaded with bodies – the lower layer prisoners while the upper layers were those who’d been thralled. Then I saw something I couldn’t ignore: two soldiers were shoving two men out of a restaurant onto the fading grass. Only as I saw them doing this did the nearby tree finally come into focus. Two corpses hung by the neck there, and the soldiers were driving their prisoners towards it.

  I walked off behind a tangled briar and stooped down, engaging chameleonware. I knew I shouldn’t allow this to distract me and, had Marcus been in my position, he would not have allowed it to. I ran out just as the two men were forced down onto the ground, with one of the soldiers uncoiling a length of high-tension cord. I slowed as the other soldier turned towards me, his expression puzzled – he’d heard me running. I shot him in the face, then turned and shot the other one, but this rebounded off his closed visor. He dropped the rope and squatted, grabbing for the carbine hanging from a strap over his shoulder. My sidearm would do no good against his heavy armour so I selected option two and fired. The multigun emitted a glaring blue particle beam that struck his front. He leapt up yelling but I kept it centred. He staggered back, armour smoking and peeling away, then the beam stabbed through, blowing a fountain of smoking flesh out of his back. The two prisoners were up now. Without shutting down my chameleonware I shouted at them.

  ‘Run for your lives! Head for the rim!’

  They didn’t even pause, breaking into a sprint back towards the restaurant. Other soldiers now took notice. Shots cracked in from the side and one of the men cartwheeled then simply exploded into rags. The other reached cover, but whether he survived the fusillade that destroyed the front of the restaurant I couldn’t say. A big pulse shot then hit the ground just a few yards to one side of me, fountaining earth. Then another struck an equal distance over to the other side. I looked up, as the source was high up in one building – but surely I was invisible? A mini-gun opened up from a nearby copse, hitting the ground twenty feet behind me, then tracking across towards me. I fired two explosive shells back at that copse and broke into a run. Something hurtled out of cover with multiple legs thumping against the ground just before the shells detonated, bringing down a couple of trees. The robot fired a particle beam that scored past me. I went full assist and changed course just as an explosive shell detonated where I’d been.

  How the hell was it, and the shooter above, tracking me?

  I realized in an instant, even as the particle beam scored across again, briefly touching my leg with hellish heat. I dodged, stumbled and rolled, and came up looking for cover. Over to my right stood a fountain. I swerved towards it, heavy pulse gun fire still tracking me from above. Soldiers were now running towards the area and firing in my general direction. Obviously relay to their HUDs from the robots, but I hadn’t yet been properly targeted. As I reached the fountain, it exploded and tumbled me through the air in rubble and fire. It had been obvious cover for me. I hit the ground hard, broken stone raining down around and on me. The impact stunned me, though the suit absorbed most of its effect, but I had no time for that. I reached for my wrist console to call up the EMR recharging options and quickly cancelled them. Stupidly I’d left them on and so opened myself to detection.

  I was up and running again as shots rained down where I’d been. Soldiers all around fired on anything that looked remotely suspicious. A pulse shot hit my thigh, I stumbled, another hit my pack, throwing up error warnings in my HUD, and a laser carbine beam swept across my chest. I was heavily armed and capable of delivering a devastating reply, but the moment I did that my position would be located. I just kept running, finally entering a banyan and taking cover deep inside. I lay there, down beside a trunk, and gasped for breath.

  Stupid stupid stupid!

  I should not have intervened. But how could I walk casually past murder being committed? I shrugged off my pack to inspect the damage
. The shot had mostly been dispersed by armouring in the pack itself, but it had seared an energy canister. I inspected the thing and checked diagnostics. Brief overheat but again stable. The CTD was undamaged. I put the pack back on, even as soldiers began searching through the trees. Moving on, and freezing any time anyone came close, I eventually came to the edge of the banyan. The end of the park lay ahead with its cargo and dropshafts, but now many of the robots were gathering there.

  ‘High-phase scanning,’ my suit informed me.

  My way was blocked.

  17

  The building beside the park presented a blank wall above a slot-like space at ground level. Just inside, the floor dropped away and, before me, a cluster of massive pipes extended up towards a distant ceiling. Checking my map identified this as a fuel and supplies feed to the space dock projecting into the gap in the hub. The railgun sat on the other side of the hub from me, almost lined up with that dock. Time, I felt, to get a bit more inventive about my course towards it. I moved round the lip of the drop, looking for a way up, and eventually found a rail for an inspection robot running up one wall. Grav was low here, mostly being station spin and a side effect from the park. Setting my suit to fifty per cent assist, I began to climb.

  Some fifty feet above park level, I paused to watch soldiers move in below to search the area with hand scanners. My suit delivered its warning again and I climbed faster. If one of them pointed a scanner upwards I’d be in trouble. A short while later they departed, but three of the robots moved to take their place, facing outwards. Perhaps they thought they had confined me to the park. Most likely, from Suzeal’s point of view, one person in chameleonware wasn’t a major problem. Some of her soldiers might end up dead but I would bet she had heavy protections and scanning around her. I intended to at least disabuse her of the idea that I wouldn’t be a problem.

  Two hundred feet up, the rail turned horizontally to run along a pipe leading into the mass in the centre of the shaft. I climbed along it and then up on top of the pipe where it joined the main mass. Here I ran a diagnostic on my suit. It needed repairs yet again but had not been breached. I began looking at its suitability for vacuum and found all I needed to know under ‘Sealed Combat Mode’. The suit could seal itself completely against vacuum, but was intended for general combat where bio or nanoweapons might be deployed. It possessed a CO2 scrubber and cracker, and an oxide substrate in its layers could activate to produce oxygen. I’d be able to last in vacuum for one hour on this, on condition that the combination of that and the ’ware didn’t deplete the power supply.