Against Gravity

The kick caught her on one shin, and she lost her footing, her grip loosening. Kendrick pulled himself free and stumbled towards the window just as Draeger's gunmen crashed into the room, weapons drawn. One took aim and Kendrick ducked to the side, hitting the ground rolling once more as the glass behind him exploded outwards.

Kendrick yanked himself up again, waiting for the bullets, catching a glimpse through the shattered window of the street several storeys below.

Panicking, he turned, desperate for some escape route that he knew wasn't there. Just then, Candice launched herself at him again with renewed fury. The force of impact drove him backwards against a weakened pane that had not yet shattered. In that same instant, which seemed to last for ever, Kendrick felt the glass give way. Sky and concrete tumbled past his vision.

Free fall was followed by a sudden, jarring impact like nothing he had ever imagined, as if some giant had gone walking across the Earth and caught him under its heel. In that moment he felt something beyond pain.

Several seconds passed before Kendrick realized that he was still alive. But the world felt remote and distant, like a cinematic projection on the inside of his skull.

An instant later he snapped to, re-emerging into a universe of noise and confusion. The streets of Edinburgh revolved around him in a drunken whirl. He managed to sit up, his mouth full of blood. He coughed and spat, and then looked down.

Kendrick and Candice had landed together on the roof of a parked car, their joint impact bending its roof badly out of shape. The air around them was filled with the cacophony of its alarm.

I should be dead, he realized. But Kendrick was a Labrat, which had made just enough difference.

He'd obviously landed on top of Candice, who had softened his landing. Her back was broken and her neck was twisted at a sickening angle. He heaved himself off the wreckage, collapsing into a heap at the roadside.

Already the initial shock was wearing off. Kendrick glanced up shakily at the smashed window of the hotel suite. It looked a very long way up. Cars had screeched to a halt all around him, as their computer brains registered an accident of some kind.

He lurched to his feet like a drunkard, distantly aware of people nearby standing and watching him, their expressions stu

One man came towards him but Kendrick waved him away. Then a woman tried to take his arm. He was scarcely aware that she was advising him to remain still before he injured himself any further.

He pushed her away, but not too roughly, assuring her that he felt all right. Somehow he managed to make his way to the other side of the road, then slowly worked his way down the street and away from the Arlington's entrance.

Limping badly at first, after thirty seconds or so he began to pick up speed. Soon he was startled to realize that he was already a couple of blocks from the hotel.

Somewhere in the distance he heard sirens. A lot of people must have seen him. They would be able to describe him and ultimately identify him.

To his own amazement, Kendrick managed to start ru

Kendrick waited until it was dark again, nursing coffee after coffee in the back of a small cafe buried in an ancient, twisting lane near Cockburn Street. Freezing rain sleeted down outside and the shoulders of passers-by beyond the glass were bowed under the arctic wind blowing westwards, Every now and then he tapped through an eepsheet that had been abandoned at the table he'd taken, one near the back amid plenty of shadows. He used it to scan science sites and article databases concerning zero-point energy, noting that a lot of the information provided led back to research programmes instigated by Draeger's various subsidiary companies.

To Kendrick's considerable surprise nothing had yet appeared about the recent incident at the hotel. He briefly toyed with the idea that Draeger had the means to suppress news reports, then wondered when he'd become so paranoid.

It felt appropriate to be waiting there as lightning flickered beyond the rooftops, to be waiting for the storm to approach and swallow the city in its fury. Eventually the cafe had to close, and then Kendrick wandered the darkened streets, collar up, head down. Icy sleet turned the skin of his face red with cold.

Now he had more than enough time to think. He needed to find a way out of the city. But, whatever happened, he owed it to Caroline to find her.

Kendrick pulled out his wand for the thousandth time. Even if nothing had yet appeared on the grid about the incident at the Arlington Hotel, that didn't mean people weren't out looking for him. And Edinburgh wasn't that big a city.

It was possible that someone had tapped his wand's grid address, in which case they'd know how to find him as soon as he used it. But he needed to speak to Todd and he'd started heading for the Saint a couple of times before turning back. Draeger would know to look for him there.

The wand chose that moment to inform him that he had an incoming call from Todd. Kendrick watched the icon flash for a moment on the instrument's screen. Then he hit receive, and put the wand to his ear.

"Before you say anything, Kendrick, this line is encrypted. Took me ages to get it sorted out. I heard something about what happened. Unless that was somebody else who fell out of a third- or fourth-floor hotel window and just walked away."

"So we're safe on this line? I thought maybe-"

"Just don't tell me where you are in case I'm wrong about the encryption and someone can hear us. If anyone oat there has good enough software they can probably break the q-crypt code in a couple of minutes. So I won't be long." A pause. "I did as you asked."

Kendrick forced himself to relax, to grip the wand less desperately. "You've found Hardenbrooke?"

"Sure. I'm uploading Hardenbrooke's most recent co-ords to you now. By the looks of things, he's on his way to New York. But, a word of warning, I found him the same way he's most likely to find you."

"That's fine to know, Todd, but I'm in a hurry here."

"Sure, sorry Ken. Once you've checked out the stuff I'm sending, my best advice is to ditch the wand. If Hardenbrooke had ditched his I'd never have been able to track him so easily."

"Thanks, Todd. I owe you big time."

Kendrick closed the co

His wand informed him that Hardenbrooke was somewhere over the Atlantic, heading west – towards America. Numbers scrolled in a corner of the screen, and

Kendrick was pleased to see that Todd's coordinates constantly updated themselves in real-time.

And what if Hardenbrooke does have Caroline? he asked himself. Does she run straight into your arms if you manage to rescue her? Almost certainly not. Draeger had told him earlier that Los Muertos were behind Caroline's abduction – which meant there was a good chance that Hardenbrooke had been involved. So if he could find Hardenbrooke, then he could find Caroline.

A black wave of depression began to settle over Kendrick's thoughts. Admit it, this is all because of Robert. You killed her brother, and now you figure this is your chance to make up for it.

Kendrick thought back to what Buddy had told him, and about what he'd managed to find out while he'd searched the grid for information about zero-point energy. He couldn't even imagine, remembering the few words he'd managed to digest, the sheer destructive horror that such knowledge could be turned to.

Now, it seemed, the lure of infinite energy was leading everyone towards the Archimedes.