Against Gravity

by Gary Gibson

The whole complex was fenced off, as he’d noticed on his way in, which meant more guards to deal with. Unless he could steal transport there was no certain way to get back to civilization.

  Kendrick stood against the wall, just beside the open door. He stole a glance back along the corridor and saw that his guard was now talking into a databand on his wrist. Kendrick’s stomach lurched sickeningly as the head of a second soldier suddenly popped out of the open door of Kendrick’s cell. Kendrick dodged back out of sight quickly.

  He slipped along the side of the cell block, moving as fast as he could and taking advantage of the deep shadows there, ducking occasionally as a series of jeeps and trucks roared by, heading for the airfield where another huge cargo jet was approaching fast. Further away, Kendrick could see other trucks pulling up to a screeching halt before unloading dozens of uniformed men. Shouts came from somewhere close.

  He ran towards an empty hangar a short distance away and watched from the shadows as the trucks returned the way they had come, kicking up great clouds of dust.

  A klaxon sounded, strident and abrasive in the night air. Kendrick guessed it was for him. Uniformed men started heading towards the hangar he was lurking beside.

  Time to get moving. He rounded a corner, trying to find a way towards the base perimeter. Then, through the gloom, he spied a fence several metres high.

  But, when he saw what lay beyond it, Kendrick stumbled to a halt, gaping. He didn’t know a great deal about spacecraft, but he knew enough to realize what a military orbital shuttle looked like.

  There were three of them. Vast tarpaulins were being pulled off them to reveal their gleaming black carapaces. Kendrick stared at the smooth bulge of their fusion engines. He remembered seeing the huge rockets, still shrouded, earlier and wondering what they were.

  Each one was mounted on an enormous movable platform that resembled a wide-bodied truck. Because of the much smaller size of these shuttles’ engines – and because their fuel requirements for reaching orbit were modest by comparison – they were a lot more compact than the old-style versions that had been in use almost a century earlier. Like most modern spacecraft, they also lacked the external disposable boosters once necessary to get those earlier giants into orbit.

  Kendrick also knew, from his research into Draeger’s part in the development of the fusion technology that had made such craft possible, how these shuttles could be moved into position and deployed in just a few hours.

  The night lit up like midday.

  At first Kendrick’s senses did not register the explosion, only a surge of heat and pressure. Then he became aware of a fireball engulfing the perimeter fence perhaps a half-mile distant, the noise of it rolling over him like a sonic boom.

  The sound of shots came from somewhere nearby. Kendrick moved deeper into the shadows and waited long, tense moments.

  After the light from the fireball had almost faded, a low, tooth-rattling vibration began to surge through the ground under his feet, followed by an almighty roar. Seeing fire blossom at the base of one of the shuttles, he started to head for the edge of the base, keeping close to the hangars as he did so.

  Before long Kendrick found himself at the base perimeter, near a cluster of buildings that had a large number of jeeps and trucks parked outside. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Caroline in the jailhouse – so where else would they be keeping her? Instinct told him now that if she was anywhere it would be somewhere in the buildings directly ahead. He tried not to think about the possibility that they’d put her on board one of the shuttles.

  Kendrick stopped at an abandoned jeep that had its engine still running. He prayed that its rightful owners wouldn’t suddenly reappear. Climbing into the driver’s seat, he flipped the vehicle over to manual control, then began to drive off carefully, keeping his head down. Now that he’d had more time to look around, the base itself didn’t seem to be all that large.

  He halted the jeep after a few seconds and tapped at its command screen, located just to the right of the steering wheel. Three pre-programmed destinations appeared, listed in alphabetical order.

  He glanced into the rear of the jeep and saw that a rifle had been left there. He reached back to pick it up, surprised at its weight. He had no idea how to use the damned thing, but just knowing it was there gave him some comfort.

  Kendrick dropped the weapon onto the passenger seat next to him, then brought the jeep’s destination list back up with a single tap on its screen, selecting the location it had most recently come from.

  The vehicle began to move off slowly but soon picked up speed. It slowed at one point when its bumper sensors picked up the body heat of a group of soldiers. Kendrick ducked his head, hoping fervently that they wouldn’t try to commandeer the jeep for themselves. But they didn’t even spare him a glance. They were too busy losing control of the situation.

  After only a hundred metres or so – about a quarter of its way across the base – the jeep rolled to a stop outside a one-storey building among the cluster that Kendrick had already spotted earlier. He jumped out, grabbed the rifle and took a look around.

  Caroline could be anywhere.

  Hearing voices nearby, Kendrick ran half-crouching along the side of a wall. Around a corner he saw what appeared to be a troop carrier parked alongside a loading bay. A surgical pallet had been placed in the back of the vehicle, a bundled shape strapped to it.

  A soldier emerged next to the loading bay and spotted him.

  Shit.

  Kendrick brought the rifle up to his shoulder without thinking. Is the safety on? he wondered, realizing that he had no idea. He aimed just as the soldier ducked back through the door. Kendrick almost didn’t spot a second soldier coming out of the driver’s side of the troop carrier. He swung the rifle towards the man and squeezed the trigger, reacting out of panic more than anything else. The driver’s shoulder exploded in a burst of blood and bone. The rifle’s recoil almost jerked the gun out of Kendrick’s hands.

  He glanced back over towards the door and saw the first soldier reappear, armed with a pistol and taking aim.

  Moving with augmented speed, Kendrick dodged to one side. When the soldier took a step back, alarm written across his face, Kendrick threw his rifle at him like a club. It slammed into the man’s head and sent him sprawling.

  Kendrick ran over, retrieved the rifle, and smashed it down on the soldier’s head, gripping the barrel with both hands. The soldier jerked and twisted spasmodically for a moment, then lay still.

  Kendrick felt as if he were watching all this from a distance, alternately appalled and exhilarated by what he was doing. Did the rage he felt come from himself, or was he now being manipulated by his augmentations?

  Maybe a little of both.

  He looked quickly around, then ran up to the front of the truck. No more soldiers, not close at any rate. That didn’t mean he had much time, though. He stuck his head through the door of the building but saw nobody there.

  When Kendrick climbed into the back of the troop carrier he found, to his amazement, that he’d guessed right.

  It was Caroline who was strapped down onto the pallet. She was swathed in thick blankets. He wondered where they’d intended to take her. She looked as though she was drugged but he managed to undo the straps and lower her from the troop carrier. Lines of rogue augment growth now marred her once-beautiful face. Since the last time he’d seen her, her condition had become dramatically worse.

  Kendrick ignored the rattle of nearby gunfire and bundled Caroline into the back of the jeep. At first he didn’t realize that the shots were coming from somewhere outside the fence, but then he watched as bullets kicked up a trail of dust leading towards another jeep, filled with soldiers, that was driving towards the perimeter. He jumped back into his own vehicle and screeched off, not wanting to wait around.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see that the other jeep had jarred to a halt, soldiers spilling out and putting as much distance as possible between the incomin
g fusillade and themselves. The bullets slammed into the vehicle. An instant later it spun into the air, seemingly supported briefly by a column of fire and smoke that then slammed it flaming onto its side. Driving a jeep suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  Kendrick scanned the perimeter and saw that the entrance nearest the building seemed unguarded. He drove the jeep into the shadow of a hangar and pulled Caroline out, heaving her onto his shoulders. She felt curiously light.

  From somewhere overhead came the sound of rotors and a blast of air as an enormous black shape hovered low above him.

  A searchlight on the helicopter’s undercarriage pinned and tracked Kendrick as he ran. The machine moved a little ahead of him, dropping even lower so as to block his path. He was forced to a halt, searching wildly for some way of escape.

  There was a door at one side of the hangar itself, almost hidden behind a stack of metal crates. Kendrick ran towards it and pulled at the handle. Realizing that it was securely locked, he waited for a hail of bullets to thud into his back.

  When none came, he started to kick at the door. Agony shot through his leg but the metal began to buckle under further severe impacts, the hinges starting to warp and bend.

  And still no bullets. He wondered what they were waiting for.

  At the instant when the door began to give way, Kendrick heard a familiar voice, electronically distorted. He flattened himself against the ruined door and crouched, partly hidden by the crates, and looking wildly around him.

  As he studied the ’copter, he had a flash of recognition and immediately knew that they were safe. With its black, bulbous nose and scarred paintwork the aircraft looked almost as if it had been rescued from a junkyard. A shadowy figure was just visible through the canopy.

  “Kendrick! Get the fuck in here!”

  This time the voice was unmistakable.

  Kendrick glanced past the helipcopter, and in the far distance saw one of the three shuttles rapidly gaining height on a pillar of flame. A roar like nothing he could ever have imagined filled the air. Already flame was licking out from the engines of the remaining two spacecraft.

  Just then the pilot’s door of the ’copter swung open and a figure leant out, its face obscured by insectile headgear. Kendrick grinned and ran forward, hardly daring to believe that he’d been rescued.

  Buddy.

  Summer 2088 (exact date unknown)

  The Maze

  His stomach roiling painfully from lack of food and water, Kendrick stared down the long, empty corridor and called out, listening to his voice echoing into the lightless distance.

  He had almost convinced himself that if he searched hard enough he could find an escape route, some way of hiding from Sieracki’s cameras indefinitely.

  He kept a tight grip on the long, wicked-looking knife that he had found lying in an alcove minutes after the shield doors had opened, as he had entered these lower levels for the first time.

  I could just leave the weapon here, go find Ryan, talk to him and refuse to fight. That was the right, sane and sensible choice to make.

  Kendrick knew that there was a cache of food and water, along with medical supplies, in a locked vault somewhere on the very lowest level. There were weapons too – if you could find them. But the vault unlocked itself only when just one person remained alive.

  There were other choices, of course. Some people preferred to just lie down and die. Others walked calmly into the field of fire of a gun turret to end it quickly. One side corridor had soon been transformed into a graveyard where the corpses were dragged and left to rot. Over a few days the stench of decay, permeating the empty passageways, had become inescapable.

  And there were also stories of a demon that haunted the lowest levels of all.

  Kendrick glanced back in the direction of the shield door, now firmly closed behind him. Ryan had to be in here somewhere – Ryan who had sworn to his face that he would not be the one to die. That didn’t make Kendrick any less determined to find some kind of rational compromise. But he’d been down here for over an hour now, without any sign of his selected adversary.

  More time passed, immeasurable in that endless night.

  The first few times that Kendrick heard the distant roaring, he felt sure it was some form of auditory hallucination. But then he saw light flickering down in some far corner, the first light he had seen in . . . for ever.

  Perhaps, he mused, the roaring noise came from something burning. At first the flickering seemed painfully bright to him, but his augmented senses rapidly adjusted themselves. He stared along the corridor, moving closer to the wall.

  What is that? he wondered again. It sounded very much like the roar of flames.

  “Explain,” Sieracki’s voice boomed over the tannoy.

  Kendrick flung himself to the corridor floor, frightened to the core by the sudden echo of the voice.

  “You said something was burning? Explain,” Sieracki repeated, his voice insistent.

  Perhaps, Kendrick thought, he himself had spoken without even being aware of it. The light suddenly grew much brighter.

  “I don’t know what I saw. I—”

  “Our instruments show nothing burning,” Sieracki replied in his familiar flat tones. Kendrick had heard answering machines with more emotional depth.

  He framed a reply, then stopped when he saw something that he would never, ever forget.

  At first Kendrick thought that the figure was burning. But if this was fire, then the flames were of liquid silver. Insane laughter filled the air and the figure ran at him, almost whooping with joy. Kendrick stood, awestruck, as the creature ran towards him down the long corridor before stopping suddenly at an intersection.

  All of a sudden, Kendrick could see something flowing through the conduits that lined the walls and ceiling. No, not seeing; more like a kind of sensing, like trying to hold an image steady in his mind. There for a brief instant, gone the next, always wavering then shifting away.

  It was a little like the times when he had become aware of the flow of energy in the electronics systems around him, but on a level of complexity and depth that he could never have previously imagined. Energy, flowing through the walls, suddenly as clearly visible as the streets of a city on a summer afternoon. Bright pulses flared out everywhere from the walls and the ceiling.

  Kendrick shouted out to Sieracki, unable to keep himself from babbling. “What was that? You never told us about this. Is it human? For God’s sake, what is it?”

  “Explain.”

  “I saw him glowing. I never imagined . . . I thought he was on fire.”

  Kendrick stared up at the nearest camera. “Didn’t you see it?”

  Sieracki was silent this time.

  Kendrick wandered, lost, until he came to yet another of the Maze’s thousand intersections. Here a shaft curved down into murky blackness. Empty offices filled with shadows beckoned him on either side. He gripped his knife tighter, imagining Ryan lurking in there, waiting.

  He climbed down the dark stairwell, the air echoing with his lonely footsteps. Tiny lenses glittered here and there, crudely epoxied to any available surface. He pictured Sieracki watching him from the comfort of his own office.

  From somewhere ahead sounded the clattering of feet. Kendrick ducked into an empty office space till the noise began to recede. Something metal gleamed at him in the corner of the room.

  He picked it up: a catapult. Not a child’s toy, however, for this one looked deadly. Next to it lay a small box filled with steel balls. He wondered how much damage could be done to a human body with such a missile.

  Nobody who returned from the lower levels had ever reported finding firearms there. Of course, firearms lacked artistry from the point of view of a man like Sieracki. Just aim and fire – that wouldn’t tell Wilber what a bio-augmented soldier might achieve in hand-to-hand combat. A catapult or a knife was more visceral, more immediate. In the context of Sieracki’s grand experiment, they made perfect sense.


  Disgust and self-loathing filled Kendrick as he threw the catapult down where he had found it. He stepped back out into the corridor, flooded with sudden hatred.

  “Can you hear me, Sieracki?” he screamed, his voice echoing down the empty corridors. “Fuck you, I’m not playing your game any more! Do you hear me? Sieracki!”

  “But you have to.” The voice sounded close, very close. “Or else he’ll just kill both of us.”

  Ryan lunged out of the shadows. Kendrick caught sight of him at the last second. He spun out of the way, crashing into a wall as something hot streaked across the side of his chest. He felt a stinging warmth traverse his flesh.

  Ryan’s forward momentum had sent him crashing into an ancient file trolley and tumbling to the ground amid clouds of dust. Kendrick felt a sudden desire to fight, to win. The knife was already in his hand, poised for a killing lunge. Instead, he stepped rapidly away from Ryan, keeping the knife pointed towards his adversary, so that at least he could defend himself.

  “For Christ’s sake, Ryan, just listen to me. There has to be a way out of here. We could—”

  “There isn’t,” Ryan growled, picking himself up from the dust. There was a determination in the words as he met Kendrick’s gaze.

  “There has to be,” Kendrick insisted.

  He glanced down to see blood soaking through the thin paper of his shirt. Ryan had injured him – but surely it was only a flesh wound? He was still standing, still ready to protect himself.

  “Uh-uh,” said Ryan, shaking his head. He was carrying a knife like Kendrick’s. Dried blood stained the dusty floor between them, and Kendrick tasted bile at the back of his throat. “Next time, defend yourself,” Ryan warned him, backing away. “I never said I was going to make this easy for you.”

  Ryan turned and fled. Kendrick watched him go, dumbfounded. Then he went back to pick up the catapult.

  Peering down a stairwell, Kendrick saw flickering light somewhere far below.

  “You’re in my head,” he whispered to himself. “You’re not real.”

  real am real am real