System Shock Part 26

Most of it was indecipherable, just the odd word or phrase was clear enough to merit some form of interpretation.

'I know we can't hear very much,' Harry said after a while, 'but what I can make out, I don't like the sound of.'

The others concurred.

'What is your status, Colonel?' Ashby asked Clark.

'I have no official or operational capacity until formally asked by the officer in charge,' Clark said with a shrug. 'I can advise, of course. And if you have the authority within your rules of engagement, you can order me to take action.'

'What, just you?' Harry laughed.

Clark smiled. 'I haven't yet been given authority to bring in my team.' He paused for a moment, then admitted, 'But I do have a few friends within earshot. Perhaps half a dozen. They can be here in a couple of minutes.'

'Handy,' said Ashby.

Clark nodded to Harry. 'Well, with all due respect, you never quite know how the OIC will turn out. If he dithers too long, there may not be time to a.s.semble an a.s.sault team on site. The lads are ready and waiting at Hereford, but I prefer to have a contingency force rather closer to hand.'

'Very wise, I'd say,' said Harry. 'Thank you.'

232.

Stabfield was still insistent that the Doctor could do nothing to stop Voractyll. 'Although as a belts and braces precaution, I think we would be well advised to remove you and Miss Smith from the equation altogether,' he said.

'What does that mean, exactly?' Sarah asked.

'It will also be useful for the security forces to focus their attention more on the hostages rather than the technical implications at this stage in the proceedings,' Stabfield continued. 'Yes, I think abnormal termination is the optimum option.'

'He means they're going to kill us,' the Doctor said quietly to Sarah. 'Not quite the outcome I had been banking on, but at least it's a start.'

'What do you mean, "a start"?' Sarah asked as she watched Stabfield giving instructions to Lewis.

'Well, there's no logical reason to kill us.' The Doctor lowered his voice still further. 'I think he's letting his somewhat reduced emotions get in the way. That could give us an advantage.'

'Not if we're dead, it couldn't.'

'Hmmm.' The Doctor considered this. 'Good point,' he eventually conceded. He raised his voice and called over to Stabfield: 'Could I be terribly rude and make a small suggestion?'

Stabfield looked round. 'Yes?'

'Why not just let us go? As you say, we can't do anything to upset your plans.'

'No,' said Stabfield.

'You mean no we can't, or no you won't?' Sarah asked.

'I suspect he means no he won't,' said the Doctor. 'But you don't want dead bodies cluttering up the place, do you?

Especially not when you're getting along so well.'

'Indeed not,' Stabfield agreed. 'Which is why Lewis will take you to the front of the house, and shoot you there. That will also afford your colleagues outside the best view of the event.'

Lewis flicked off the safety catch on his machinegun. Then he opened the door and motioned with his gun for the Doctor and Sarah to leave the room ahead of him.

233.

'Come along, Sarah,' the Doctor said. His voice was unnaturally loud as he all but shouted over her shoulder: 'He's obviously made up his mind to have us shot, so we'd better do as he asks and go to the front door.'

As they left the room, Sarah turned to see what the Doctor had been looking at as he spoke. But there was nothing in his line of sight except the huge bay window giving on to the darkness outside.

The words had come through loud and almost clear.

Certainly they were distinct enough to be understandable.

'I a.s.sume that counts as permission for an incursionary measure?' Clark asked.

'I'm not sure I know what that is,' Harry said. 'Just get them out of there.'

Lewis walked unnaturally slowly. He seemed to want the opportunity to speak to Johanna without Stabfield overhearing.

Sarah did not mind the delay, in fact she and the Doctor listened attentively to the conversation.

'Have you had time to a.s.similate the data I submitted for your a.n.a.lysis?' Lewis asked quietly.

Johanna glanced at him, then returned her attention to the Doctor and Sarah. 'I have reached a ninety per cent complete status,' she replied. 'I have to say that it touched several of my hot b.u.t.tons.'

'I thought it would.'

Johanna prodded the Doctor in the back with her machinegun as he leaned backwards to try to hear what they were saying. 'I remain undecided, however, on the final interpretation and actions resulting.'

'Good for you,' the Doctor said. 'What was the data again, exactly? Nothing to do with poor old Stabfield getting tired and emotional was it?' He slowed almost to a stop, but without turning round. 'I wouldn't stand for it if I were you.'

This time it was Lewis who shoved him in the back.

The Doctor tripped into the reception area and pitched forward on his face with an unconvincing cry of pain.

Immediately he was on his feet again. And staring down the 234 end of Johanna's Heckler and Koch. 'Just forget I'm here,' he said.

Lewis ignored him. 'Can I count on your support?' he asked Johanna.

'In the immediate term,' she said.

Johanna crossed to the main door, opened it and gestured with her gun for the Doctor and Sarah to go through. The brilliant white light of the searchlights spilled into the house and flowed round the Doctor and Sarah as they stood on the threshold.

'Well, I guess this is it,' Sarah said to the Doctor.

'Have I ever told you,' the Doctor said as he started down the steps and Lewis raised his machinegun, 'you have a way with words?'

'It's a bit late to tell me now.'

The Doctor waited for Sarah to start down the steps. 'Do you know my favourite word?' he called up to her.

'No, what is it?'

Behind him Lewis and Johanna brought their guns to bear.

'Run!'

The earth erupted round his feet as the Doctor ran towards the brilliant light. Sarah made to follow the Doctor's example, but Johanna caught her shoulder as she started forward, pulling her back into the house. Lewis grabbed her arm and threw her back inside.

The Doctor was already racing across the driveway, weaving and _linking rather than running in a straight line. The gravel leaped and whined at his feet as a burst of hasty machinegun fire whipped it up around him. It was only a matter of moments before one of the Voracians adjusted their aim.

But before that happened, several black shapes rose from the ground ahead. Figures in dark combat fatigues and face-concealing respirators leaped forward. Their machineguns loosed a salvo past the Doctor, bullets which sprayed across the doorway and ricocheted off the stone surround.

Johanna ducked back inside the house. Lewis lingered a moment longer, and a chip of stone skidded across his hand.

He flinched, and in the same moment a bullet hammered into 235 his right shoulder. He lost his grip on the gun, almost dropping it, and jumped back into the house.

The door slammed shut, and the dark figures dragged the Doctor away to cover. He stared up at the masked face of one of his rescuers, the round filter of the respirator protruding like a snout. 'It's strange,' he said, 'but you look more alien than those two.'

The face stared back impa.s.sively for a moment. Then a black-gloved hand pulled the respirator over the figure's head, and the Doctor found himself looking up into a craggy, weather-beaten face.

'Sergeant Collins,' the figure said. 'You must be the Doctor.'

The Doctor dusted himself down as the soldiers led him away from the house. 'Absolutely,' he said cheerfully. 'And this is my best fr' He broke off, pulling his arm from Collins's grip, and looked round. 'Where's Sarah?' he asked at last.

The Sergeant shook his head. 'She never got to us. Dragged back inside the house before she could get down the steps.' He took the Doctor's arm again, gently turned him and gestured for them to head back towards the searchlights. 'I'm sorry,' he said quietly.

'Oh Sarah,' murmured the Doctor, his face dark against the brilliant light.

Sarah used the momentum of Lewis's push to carry her across the reception area. Lewis and Johanna were both standing in the doorway, still firing after the Doctor. Sarah kept moving in the opposite direction, running out of the nearest door and into the main house.

Behind her, Sarah heard gunfire, and the front door slammed shut. She prayed the Doctor was safe, and kept running.

Lewis still held his gun in his left hand, though Johanna doubted he would be able to use it with any effect. Green fluid was oozing from the tear in his shoulder, running down the fabric of his dark suit and dripping to the floor.

'What happened?' Stabfield stood in the doorway.

'The Doctor got away,' Johanna said calmly. 'The girl has escaped into the house, but she won't get very far.'

236.

'More incompetence,' hissed Lewis.

Stabfield seemed surprised at his comment. 'Oh? And who has the monkey for this particular failure?'

Lewis was struggling to raise his machinegun without it shaking. His right arm was limp and useless and so the weight was entirely on his left arm. 'You're the problem, Stabfield,' he said, his voice sibilant and cracked. 'You always were. This whole project has been under-engineered from phase zero. We were set up to fail; launched into a nightmare scenario.'

'We haven't failed yet. A couple of minor glitches in the execution stages of the plan, but the end-goal is still eminently achievable.'

Lewis was shaking his head. 'Only if you go, Stabfield. Only if you take the package. We've done the risk a.n.a.lysis; we have the figures, the probabilities, the decision support output.' He turned to Johanna. 'Tell him.'

'Well?' Stabfield was standing quite still, hands by his sides, turned slightly outwards in a cla.s.sic gesture of openness. 'What is the final a.n.a.lysis?'

Johanna pulled back the c.o.c.king handle of her Heckler and Koch MP5. 'I've studied the report,' she said flicking the setting to semi-automatic. 'There is some justification in indictment of inefficient soft elements. The elimination of such elements would seem to offer the best achievement parameters.'

'You see,' Lewis's whole body was shaking as he tried to keep his gun levelled at Stabfield. pushback time.'

'Indeed it is,' Stabfield said quietly.

Johanna's head swayed slightly as he brought the gun to bear. The first shot echoed round the reception area, the bullet ripping its way into the Voracian's quasi-organic brain. The second caught Lewis in the chest, lifting him off the floor and hurling him across the room. He was still trying desperately to use his own gun when the third single shot tore the top of his head away. He crashed to the floor, face down. Blood and high-grade oil mingled in an unholy pool on the powder blue carpet.

Stabfield shook his head slowly. 'I've always said that pastel shades show every mark.'

237.

'His figures weren't far out,' Johanna said. 'He had the wrong inefficient element selected, but the supposition and prognosis were fundamentally correct.'

'The plan continues.' Stabfield turned and walked back towards the main computer suite. Johanna followed.

'I'll send two units after the girl,' she said.

Stabfield agreed. 'The fewer rogue elements the better at this stage. Not that she can cause us much of a problem.'

'No problem. We have her bugged.'

She kept running until her lungs hurt so much she had to stop. Sarah could remember the Doctor's warning about the electronics being alive, but she had not really believed him. Or at least, she had not really understood the implications. Until now.

As she ran through the library, the whole house seemed to come alive. Photocopiers lit up at random, trying to disorient her; printers spat paper into her path. The first attack was from the main chandelier in the library which sparked alarmingly in its ceiling rose, the heat severing the chain holding it in place.

It crashed to the floor inches from Sarah, spilling gla.s.s and twisted metal shards to the polished wooden floor.

Sarah screamed and ran from the room. As she raced along the corridor, lights exploded in her wake. A sequence of loud reports as each bulb went off in turn, sending gla.s.s flying into Sarah's path. She tried to protect her face with her hands, kept her head down, and ran.

She stopped for a while in the laundry room, gathering her thoughts. The lights were out, but at least she knew where she was. If the kitchen was empty maybe she could get out through the exterior door. Then her problem would be to get away from the house without being spotted.

From behind her, back towards the library and reception, came the sound of running feet crunching on broken gla.s.s. Her pursuers were on their way.

Sarah ran through the laundry and out into the corridor, the sounds of pursuit getting louder and closer behind her. A coffee machine guarded the door into the kitchen. As Sarah drew level with it, she heard the badgelock on the kitchen door 238 click shut. She cursed and slammed the palm of her hand against the coffee machine.

Immediately the facia lit up like a fruit machine. Sarah jumped back in surprise, and a stream of scalding hot liquid spat across the corridor at her. It pa.s.sed through the s.p.a.ce where her face had been, splashing to the floor, droplets burning her legs.

Sarah screamed, and dashed for the stairs as two Voracians emerged from the laundry. A burst of automatic fire pockmarked the stone stairwell and echoed like thunder in Sarah's ears.

She took the steps two at a time. At the bottom of the staircase, the Voracians checked their tracking scanner, watching the red dot that represented their quarry change direction and pick up speed as she reached the top.

The promotional ball-point pen in Sarah's pocket ticked off the hectic seconds, and transmitted a steady pulse to the Voracian trackers.

The meeting was a haze. He answered direct questions, commented on matters for which he had pertinent information.