Against Gravity

by Gary Gibson

  A sudden, unexpected sound . . .

  Kendrick glanced sideways along the front of the building where a path was visible, winding its way through the trees. “Did you hear that?”

  “No, I—”

  Something whirred – a machine sound that stirred up deep memories. Kendrick stepped away from the window and headed along until he was about halfway between the airlock exit and the building’s entrance.

  Out there, something glinted in among the trees. There was something hauntingly familiar about the noise he’d just heard.

  Kendrick moved closer to the far end of the huge room, to look further between the building’s exterior and the trees beyond where gardens once carefully maintained had grown wild. He cocked his head, listening hard, and heard a series of rapid staccato thumps. At the same instant he glanced over his left shoulder – in time to witness the main entrance of the building explode inwards in a shower of glass.

  Kendrick fell to the marbled floor, covering his head with his hands as the windows nearby shattered almost at the same instant. He half-crawled, half-scuttled towards the relative safety of an expanse of wall that separated one large glass panel from the next. There he pressed himself flat against the floor while bullets whined through the air above him. They made a dull thudding sound as they impacted with the inner walls opposite the windows.

  Peering down, Kendrick saw a fine tracery of nanite threads rapidly spreading across the marbled tiles under him. The tingling in his hands became urgent, almost unbearable. He longed to scratch his palms, to—

  In an instant he understood what was required of him. Rolling slightly onto his side, he started to pull a glove off. Throwing it to one side, he gazed down at the palm of his uncovered left hand, noticing the faintest pattern of gold still etched into his flesh.

  Only a few days before, he had witnessed all-out war raging at the molecular level, deep underground. Perhaps this time things would be different.

  Kendrick spread his fingers out wide and laid his bared palm flat against the tiles beneath him. He screamed as his flesh united with the cool stone. Searing pain shot into his brain while bullets continued to zip through the air just inches above his head.

  He could hear people shouting, and yet more screaming.

  Through a haze of agony he became aware of the corpse lying several feet away from him, its head and shoulders reduced to a crimson pulp. He still couldn’t prise his hand away from the tiles, so he twisted his head around, trying to see what was happening behind him. Most of the other Labrats, he saw, had retreated to the relative shelter of the pressure chamber.

  The walls of the gallery were constructed from alternate panels of glass and columns of concrete: perhaps twenty Labrats had managed to find shelter behind the safety of the concrete. At least a dozen more lay scattered in the stillness of death.

  Kendrick gripped his wrist, still trying to pull his hand free. He felt a fresh stab of icy pain as the skin of his palm ripped. While he watched, golden threads crawled out from under the flesh, seeking out the nearest silver filaments. The silver turned to gold within moments.

  He finally realized that the firing outside had stopped. “It’s me – Kendrick!” he screamed into the sudden silence. “Can anyone hear me?”

  “Ken!” It was Buddy. “I thought you were down!”

  “Those things are gun turrets,” Kendrick yelled. “The same as back in the Maze.”

  “Stay tight, Ken. We did notice that.”

  Kendrick twisted his head around enough to catch sight of Buddy crouching low behind a long concrete bench near the centre of the gallery.

  He managed to work his hand free at last, leaving a disturbing amount of blood and skin on the tiles. Keeping his injured hand cradled, he worked his way to the edge of a wall column and peeked around it.

  He saw a sliver of grassland, then spotted something shiny and man-made visible to one side of a tree ten or twelve metres away, deliberately positioned so that it covered as much of that side of the building as possible. He slowly pulled his head back again.

  They had to do something now. Draeger was still somewhere out there.

  Moving very slowly again, Kendrick shifted closer to where the window had been, and lifted his head.

  “Hey!” a voice yelled. “Hey, stay back!”

  He saw Veliz peeking out from the door leading into the pressure chamber. One of the turrets whirred and Veliz dodged back out of range. Another volley of bullets spat into the building’s interior.

  Draeger could be downloading reams of lethal information and transmitting it back down to Earth while they were trapped here. Or else erasing the proof of his guilt for ever.

  Kendrick allowed himself no more time to think. He stood and ran out through the shattered window, still cradling his injured left hand against his chest. He headed towards a copse only a few metres distant. His movements were restricted by the suit he was wearing, making him feel clumsy and slow.

  The turret whined again and dirt was kicked up in tiny spurts, tracking after Kendrick as he threw himself into the shelter of the trees. Bullets ripped through the branches above him. He shielded his head as leaves and twigs rained down.

  The gun whined into silence as its target disappeared from its sensors.

  “Kendrick! Are you there?” Buddy again.

  “I’m okay,” Kendrick shouted back. “I’m outside here. There’s a turret just ahead of me.”

  He heard a muted argument from somewhere inside the building. “Stay where you are,” Buddy yelled back.

  Then came the sounds of running feet and more bullets whining and ricocheting. Glancing back quickly towards the shattered window through which he’d exited, Kendrick saw Buddy take cover in the same place he himself had. Buddy gave him a one-handed thumbs-up before ducking back out of sight.

  The reality of what he had just done began to hit Kendrick with the force of shock. He could very easily have died. He rolled onto his back and gazed up through the copse’s branches.

  Buddy called out to him again. “Kendrick, I’m throwing something over.”

  A small brick-like object landed not too far away, compact enough to fit into the palm of Kendrick’s uninjured right hand. The turret whined briefly in response, spitting a few bullets into the air near where the object had landed. Kendrick reached out for it with tentative fingers, ready to snatch them back behind his cover, but the turret didn’t respond this time. He picked the object up and recognized it as one of the grenades that Sabak had taken on board the shuttle.

  “Do you think you can hit that thing from where you are now?” Buddy yelled.

  “I can try – but do we have any more of these if I miss?”

  A pause. “Just try and get it first time, okay?”

  Great. “How does it work?”

  “Touch the screen. Press where it says ‘arming’. Got that?”

  “Got it.”

  “When you’re ready to throw, press down hard on the plastic button on the reverse side, and then for God’s sake just throw the damn thing. You’ll have maybe seven seconds before it detonates.”

  Kendrick nodded. Then he dragged a branch from the soil and tossed it high into the open air. The turret whined, and the chunk of bullet-splintered wood jerked in the air before hitting the ground.

  “Listen,” said Buddy. “I’m going to draw its fire, then you throw. You got me?”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. That thing’s got a much faster response rate than—”

  Buddy moved in an augmented blur, heading for another tree several metres away from where Kendrick sheltered. The turret whirred in response, tracking Buddy’s path with fire as he ran.

  Damn. Again there was no time to think. Kendrick pressed down on the grenade’s activator and stepped out from behind his own tree, hurling the device as hard as he could in the direction of the turret.

  As he’d stood he’d glimpsed Buddy diving towards the meagre shelter of another tree. None o
f the trees on board the station could possibly be more than nine or ten years old but they were already tall and gnarled, with thick trunks. It occurred to him that they’d have been altered genetically to grow much faster than nature intended. They also, he dimly recalled from some documentary, served a vital function in the station’s complex artificial ecology.

  Far more importantly, they at least provided more shelter than natural-grown saplings.

  Buddy dropped down out of sight again and the turret rapidly swung back towards Kendrick. The grenade had landed just a foot from its base.

  Kendrick threw himself back behind the tree and stumbled. As he started to pull himself up, he realized that he was still in the turret’s line of sight.

  He could see the turret zeroing in on him. Desperately, he reached behind himself for the knapsack in which he had stored his helmet. As he flung it away from him the turret’s sensors picked up the sudden movement. Kendrick caught a glimpse of the knapsack dancing in the air, giving him the opportunity to slide rapidly back behind the tree.

  A moment later the air was filled by a noise like a giant hammer blow. Dirt and splinters rained down on Kendrick’s head. He lay exhausted, trembling from the adrenalin still pumping through his veins.

  But the turret was dead.

  Over the next several minutes, similar blasts were audible from further along the side of the building as Sabak’s men managed to take out the remaining gun turrets. As Kendrick lifted himself up and peered towards the one he’d managed to destroy he half-expected it to spring back to life.

  He climbed up on unsteady feet and went to retrieve the knapsack. The helmet, he found, was ruined. If he wanted to escape from the station he’d have to find another.

  Buddy looked haggard and pale, and Kendrick assumed that he himself probably looked just as bad. He glanced around at the grass and trees, shimmering here and there with familiar pale silver threads.

  Buddy followed the direction of his gaze. “Same as the Maze,” he muttered.

  “Not quite, no.” The flesh of Kendrick’s hand was still torn and bleeding. The pain felt even greater now that he was less preoccupied with just staying alive.

  Kendrick looked back to the building, where the survivors were only just beginning to emerge from hiding. Its walls sparkled here and there with silvery light, but the longer he watched the more the silver took on a distinctly golden hue. He visualized the same change spreading through the entire station, through the soil under his feet, through all those circuits and corridors.

  All around them a war was taking place – in absolute silence.

  Fourteen people were dead. They were laid out in rows in the centre of the gallery. All around Kendrick the tiles were red with blood where the victims had been caught in a massacre.

  Kendrick spotted Sabak and approached him. “Look, time’s running out. I’m going after Draeger now and I need your help. I know I can’t manage this alone.”

  Sabak shook his head firmly. “Nobody’s going anywhere. None of us are taking any more chances than we have to. So we stay right here. Not one more life is going to be wasted before the wormhole opens.”

  Kendrick stared at him, his expression revealing his sudden anger. “And Draeger? You’re going to let him get away with this?”

  Sabak chuckled long and low, glaring back at Kendrick with something like hatred. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re not in charge of this operation. I know you think we’re all crazy. Well then, fuck you. Fuck you and Draeger both.”

  Kendrick stepped away, appalled. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’re a Labrat, and you—”

  “I’m a human being, Mr Gallmon. I want to be able to choose my own destiny – and this is what I choose. I’m not here to be a hero or to save the human race.” Sabak jabbed a finger into his own chest. “The human race can take care of itself just fine.”

  Kendrick licked his lips. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He looked around and saw that other people had been listening. But none of them would meet his gaze.

  “This isn’t right,” he said, for the benefit of all of them. “There are people down there who— Ah, the hell with it.”

  He turned from Sabak without another word and stepped back outside the building.

  Kendrick wasn’t sure how long he’d been out there in the open when he realized that Buddy was standing near him. No more than a couple of minutes, probably.

  “I saw the way you were looking at these threads. I can see they’re changing colour. You’re going to tell me what’s happening here, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Kendrick lied. How could he explain? He was far from sure that he could go out there and find Draeger on his own. He needed Buddy’s support – even Sabak’s.

  Buddy shook his head slowly. “There’s something you’re not telling me. First that trip to the Maze, now this. It’s not right to keep me in the dark.”

  Kendrick sighed and looked away. “I need to find Draeger. Are you going to help me?”

  Buddy glanced back into the building where they could see Sabak in heated conference with several of the Labrat survivors. Things were not going nearly as well as most of them had hoped.

  “I’m not sure,” Buddy admitted. “We need to take care of things here. Sabak—”

  “You heard what he said! This is as far as the rest of them are going. But this isn’t the time to discuss or negotiate. We go now, and we find him. I need whatever help I can get.”

  Buddy rubbed at his face with both hands, gazing off into the middle distance. Meanwhile Kendrick studied his suit’s read-out. Nearly an hour and a half had passed since they had disembarked from the shuttle, so his time was running out if he was to have any hope of escaping from the Archimedes.

  But did you ever really believe you were going to be coming back home from this?

  “See things from my point of view,” Buddy pleaded. “There are injured people back there. I’m needed.”

  Kendrick shook his head in disgust and began to walk further away from the building and from Buddy. “You know why I’m here,” he called over his shoulder. “You know what’s at stake.”

  “Ken—”

  Kendrick stopped and turned. “Doesn’t what we went through matter to you any more? Or do you really want to stand by while Draeger gets away with everything?”

  A few moments passed but Buddy still didn’t answer. Kendrick turned and resumed walking.

  “Wait!” Kendrick slowed his pace and Buddy fell into step beside him. “Okay. Look, we’ve come this far together, so fine. I’ll come with you. Everyone’s badly shaken, is all. Nobody was expecting to have to deal with any of this.”

  Kendrick merely nodded and glanced back over his shoulder. He could see the building behind them rising above their heads now as they moved further up the curve of the cylindrical chamber. He quickened his pace to a trot, and Buddy moved to keep up with him.

  There were other buildings hanging above their heads now, open-air offices among gardens that had grown wild. None of it looked as though it had been really designed for people to live in. These vast chambers, with their artificial forests and machine-controlled environments, were really little more than a showcase not just for Draeger’s technological achievements but for the sheer amount of money President Wilber had been happy to pump into constructing them.

  Kendrick dug out his wand and studied the station map. It would have been a lot easier if they’d been able to use whatever the station’s erstwhile occupants had used to move themselves around its interior. According to the map there was a transport system buried in the hull, but its nearest entrance was next to the place they were heading for anyway.

  “Here.” He jabbed his finger at the map display and turned to Buddy. “This is the research facility that’s in the next chamber. It’s where Draeger’s heading because he can access the central AI memory core from there. We keep moving this way, we should reach an airlock leading to a connecting corridor pre
tty soon. You got any more of those grenade things?”

  “Just a couple,” Buddy replied.

  Kendrick had the illusion that, even as he walked, he was in fact staying rooted to the spot while the ground rotated under him. The building where Sabak and the others were still sheltering now hung way down behind them. He looked back and saw small figures milling around outside it, perhaps looking for them. All they needed to do was look up.

  They found their first corpse by the airlock complex that led into the second chamber. The male victim appeared to have been flayed alive. The stink reached them long before they even set eyes on the ghastly remains. There were enough scraps of clothing left to identify him as one of Los Muertos.

  Equipment lay scattered around the grass near the body and Kendrick stepped forward to find weapons or anything else they could use. He tried hard to ignore the overwhelming stench of death in his nostrils but failed completely.

  “Jesus,” Buddy muttered as he went to help him. Then he turned away, his hand clamped over his nose. Kendrick suddenly remembered the vision he’d had of Los Muertos soldiers torn apart by the creatures with Robert’s face.

  “He was in the middle of doing something when he died,” Kendrick suggested, noticing a heavy backpack nearby that had some oblong metal object sticking half out of it. Fingers half-stripped of their meat reached towards a rifle that lay a few metres away. Buddy pulled the oblong thing free of the backpack before retreating out of range of the reek of putrefaction.

  “What is it?”

  Buddy didn’t answer. He just stared at the box in his hands before lowering it to the grass, his face pale.

  The metal casing featured an inset LED display on which a series of numbers appeared. It looked like a countdown, but the display was frozen. Kendrick imagined that the dead soldier had been configuring it in some way but had died before completing his task.

  “What is that thing?” he asked. But Buddy simply closed his eyes and gave no answer.