Against Gravity

Kendrick's lips felt heavy and numb. To his surprise, he began to feel anger. Just then, just for an instant, he hated McCowan in a way he couldn't previously have imagined. Here was a literal ghost from his past, demanding his attention, his active participation in schemes born of madness.

"Do you know what the alternative is?" Kendrick asked. "How could you be Peter and have been there in the Maze, and yet not know what happens to people like us when our augments turn rogue and we leave them untreated?"

"Kendrick-"

"You know what I heard happens in those secure wards that the Legislate operate? They open you up and try and cut the things directly out of you. But they can never get all of them, so they start to grow back again. Yet they still do it anyway."

Kendrick shook his head. "And sometimes when the augmentations grow back in, they develop in new and even more unexpected ways." He stared at the ghost with fervent eyes. "I need Hardenbrooke. With his help I can stay free, and maybe then find a way not just to stay alive but to stay at least remotely human for as long as I can before these fucking things inside me finally kill me!"

He was hyperventilating, dizzy with the effort of coping with this so soon after his latest seizure, furious but feeling desperately frail.

"Kendrick. This is why…" Peter's shape twisted, disappeared, reappeared again, his features marginally distorted. "… rdenbrooke has set you up. I swear this is true. The nanotech tracers he's put in you do more than restructure the core algorithms of your augmentations. They act like a Trojan horse, analysing you from the inside out, practically reading your fucking thoughts. Remember what happened in the Maze, Kendrick. Remember the four of us – you, me, Buddy and Robert."

"I remember."

"What's inside you is based on Max Draeger's research. He… he…"

As Kendrick watched, McCowan became more like a two-dimensional image, or a badly tuned signal. "Listen, Kendrick, I've got to go. I'll see you soon. For Christ's sake, think about what I'm saying." He flickered again, his voice turning scratchy, giving the lie to any notion of his being a genuine physical manifestation.

A product of technology, then, not a ghost – or at any rate not the kind that haunted empty houses and lonely castles. McCowan's image flickered once more, then finally disappeared. Kendrick felt a touch of vertigo as he realized that the tea, the spreading puddle of it, had vanished. The table was bare of any sign of Peter McCowan's presence.

For a few minutes, Kendrick stared at the empty seat in front of him, filled with an overwhelming sensation of unreality.

16 October 2096 Uisghe Beatha bar, Leith

"Vasilevich?"

Hardenbrooke's face still stung from the freezing rain blowing off the sea. The bar was tucked away in an obscure side road not far from the docks at Leith. Malky glanced up in response, and Hardenbrooke thought the little man couldn't have looked more furtive if he'd tried.

"There are other people here," Hardenbrooke stated flatly.

Malky made an exaggerated show of looking to either side at the meagre clientele, most of them huddled together in a deep, muttered conversation with the barman. "Nobody either of us knows. And if there's any surveillance dust, I'd know about it." Malky raised one arm above the table so that Hardenbrooke could see the databand fixed around his wrist.

Hardenbrooke grimaced and sat down opposite him. Meeting in such a public place was a bad idea. Vasilevich sometimes put too much faith in modern technology, forgetting that there were simpler ways of finding out information. Seeing two people together, for instance, and drawing conclusions – what could be easier?

"We could have met at my clinic. My security there is excellent."

Malky shook his head. "Look, you can be as careful as you like, but if you're going to get caught out, then you're going to get caught out, right?"

Hardenbrooke said nothing, reflecting inwardly on why he disliked the other man so much.

"Let's get this over with. I just had a surprise visit from one of Draeger's representatives. He was looking for information about Gallmon."

Malky shrugged, his gaze darting away from Hardenbrooke's. "What's it got to do with me?"

"The man who visited me is called Marlin Smeby. He turned up una

Malky laughed at this, and Hardenbrooke gave him a cold glare that could have frozen a volcano. "If something happens to me, Vasilevich, it happens to you too. Remember that."

"I hadn't forgotten. Can you deal with this guy Smeby?"

"Not in the way I think you mean. If anything happens to Smeby, Draeger won't be fooled."

Malky nodded. Their business relationship spa

This had provided surprising dividends for Malky. A little reading between the lines had made it clear to him that Hardenbrooke was supplying information not only to Max Draeger but also to Los Muertos, in what appeared to be a complex double-cross.

Hardenbrooke understood that Malky realized this, and in turn Malky understood that Hardenbrooke understood this, both of them in a kind of Mexican stand-off where each party simultaneously had everything and nothing to lose.

Malky sighed and leaned back. "All right, then. What did you have in mind?"

"My Stateside friends" – Malky grimaced; as if he didn't already know exactly to whom Hardenbrooke was referring – "want Gallmon before Draeger gets his hands on him. Smeby has already met Gallmon in person."

Small beads of sweat appeared on Malky's forehead. "Jesus. You mean they grabbed him?"

"No, I mean Smeby invited Gallmon to a meeting, and Gallmon went along."

"But why? I mean, what's so special about Kendrick?"

"Who gives a damn about the reason? All I know is, Draeger is wise to us-"

"Fuck off," Malky snapped. "Wise to you, you mean. I never volunteered for all this shit."

"Either way, we have to move quick or it's both our necks. Okay?"

"Fine. Kidnap it is, then." Malky let out a long breath. "One more level to add to my rich and colourful criminal career."

Hardenbrooke glared at him. "Listen to me, you're going to help me with this or-"

"Yes, I know," Malky muttered in a tired voice. "Or I'm dead meat. But I'm not going to pretend I like it. Kendrick is a friend of mine." He shook his head. "It still doesn't make sense. What in God's name do these people want with him?"

"Either way, it's your skin or his, Vasilevich." Hardenbrooke gave a nasty smile, made all the more unpleasant by the way the scar tissue rucked up around one side of his face. "If we don't give them exactly what they want, I can't predict what they might do. But I can guarantee it wouldn't be very pleasant for either of us."

30 June 2088 Maze Internment Camp, Venezuela

Six months had passed since Kendrick had watched Marco die in that detention centre, and during that time he'd come to wonder if perhaps he hadn't died too and been reborn into Hell.

He woke on his hard bunk to the sound of boots marching through the mud outside. A hand snaked out of the darkness and touched his shoulder. He jumped as a face loomed out of the murk; it was Buddy. A pilot in the military a few years before, Buddy had been caught, along with another man named Roy Whitman, smuggling alleged dissidents south into Mexico and beyond.