Against Gravity

Not you.

Kendrick started to speak and felt his lungs spasm violently as they kicked back into action a second time, sucking in the air necessary to project the words that he was trying to voice.

"I didn't mean to kill you," Kendrick stammered. "But you made me do it, damn you."

The face twisted into the parody of a smile.

Without warning, the ground split apart under Kendrick's feet and he fell, tumbling into a bottomless well of night filled with stars.

Kendrick lurched up from the motel bed, the sudden motion spi

In an instant he was back in the real, in the here and now. He found himself in the narrow space between the side of the bed and the nearby wall, staring up at the underside of a cheap bedside table. A Gridcom box sat on it, its tacky styling designed to resemble an old-fashioned telephone.

From somewhere outside, he could hear the rush and roar of aircraft landing and taking off, just as when he'd been imprisoned in the car boot. He was still tightly bound at his hands and ankles. He struggled and twisted on filthy green linoleum, kicking and pushing until he worked his way round to the wider space between the bed and the room door.

He heard more aeroplane noise from outside. Then the sound of animated voices. The motel-room door crashed open and soldiers entered, wearing camouflage gear overlaid with dark grey armour.

With a sinking feeling, Kendrick realized that they were Los Muertos. Every one of them had a crude crucifix stitched onto the shoulder of their camouflage gear. One also wore a wide and varied collection of religious paraphernalia attached by strings and chains draped around his neck. Among these were pieces of circuit board, strung together.

And something else: something dull and silvery that Kendrick realized must have come from near the Maze. It was the same nano-stuff he had seen infesting the flesh of a dying Los Muertos warrior.

One of the soldiers gri

As they carried him outside, Kendrick could see the rest of the motel, which mainly comprised run-down breeze-block huts with dried-out gardens delineated by narrow margins of whitewashed pebbles. Several of the huts lacked glass in their windows, and beyond these buildings and a small park filled with abandoned-looking trailers he could see a vast fenced-off area with the all too familiar features of a military base. Administrative buildings and prefabs stood next to a long runway and a complex of hangars, all dusty and broken-looking, as if it had all been abandoned a long time ago.

The soldiers dumped Kendrick unceremoniously into the back seat of an ancient manual-drive jeep that now looked as if it was composed primarily of rust. He felt his teeth clack together as his head bounced off the side door. One soldier got in the front, another sat next to Kendrick in the back, and they took off in a cloud of dust. After only a few minutes' journey they arrived at a security gate and were waved straight through.

In the distance Kendrick could see a series of vast hulking shapes at the far end of the base, looking for all the world like sleeping giants hidden under enormous camouflage shrouds. He could not even begin to guess what they might be.

Several minutes later they came to a halt outside a low, whitewashed building that turned out to be a jail. Limbs still bound, Kendrick was locked into a cell.

From the floor of the cell, he could see that there was one tiny barred window, which looked too small for him to even squeeze his head through, set high in what was presumably an exterior wall. Some soldiers were talking, out of sight, further along the corridor, and two appeared a moment later. Like all the rest, they wore crucifix-adorned uniforms.

While one kept his rifle trained on Kendrick's skull the other jailer pointed a wandlike device through the bars of the cell and Kendrick's bonds suddenly fell loose. In a matter of seconds he could pull free his aching wrists and feet.

The soldiers left him then and he groaned with relief as blood rushed back into his fingers. He crouched on the tiled floor, seeming to feel every one of the thousand bruises and aches that now patterned his body. Free at last, he thought sourly.

Kendrick stared at the door of his cell and listened. But he heard nothing beyond the occasional whine of aircraft engines starting.

Once he was sure that the soldiers weren't likely to reappear any time soon, he stepped forward and studied the lock on die door. He'd already noticed that it was electronic.

Kendrick shook his head – were these people idiots? They'd have been better off leaving him locked in the boot of the car. It was almost as if they wanted him to escape. And he was more than happy to oblige them.

Kendrick knelt down next to the lock – a smooth, oblong steel box that did not require a keyhole – and fingered its cool surface, searching for its electron pulse with his eyes closed.

Nothing came to him. His brow furrowed as he pressed both hands against its surface. Still nothing -the cell door remained resolutely locked. A chill rushing up his spine, Kendrick hammered at the lock with the heel of his hand in sudden frustration, then rolled himself into a ball on the floor, cursing and gasping at the pain of it.

Augments or no augments, that had definitely hurt.

They had finally invented the Labrat-proof electronic lock.

A couple more hours passed, which Kendrick spent lying stretched out on a narrow folding bunk fixed to the wall by chains. Then Helen returned, accompanied by Hardenbrooke and some soldiers. Kendrick sat bolt upright when he saw the medic.

This time, Helen too was dressed in combat gear, a crucifix stitched onto her tunic just over the heart. Hardenbrooke avoided Kendrick's gaze, but she eyed him frankly.

"I don't see why I need to get involved in this," Hardenbrooke whined as they halted outside Kendrick's cell.

"Because I say so," Helen snapped. "Besides," she said, studying Kendrick through the bars, "anything he knows about the other Augments, we can use. Isn't that right, Mr Gallmon?"

Inwardly Kendrick's soul shrank, wondering what would happen to him when they realized he probably knew less about what was going on than they did.

When he didn't answer after a moment Helen shrugged, producing some kind of gun which she pushed through the bars and fired. Kendrick felt a sharp pain in his arm and looked down to see a tiny dart embedded in his skin.

The drug rapidly paralysed his muscles, leaving him awake and aware. He slid off the bunk and onto the floor, watching helplessly as they unlocked the cell door.

"What about the zero-point technology?" probed Helen.

"What?"

"The zero-point tech on board the Archimedes," she repeated impatiently.

"I don't know anything about it," Kendrick answered truthfully.

"He genuinely doesn't know about that," he heard Hardenbrooke say.

There was a pause. "He doesn't know about it?" Helen snapped. "Then what the fuck does he know?"

Hardenbrooke replied, sounding almost apologetic. "Look, I'm sure there's a lot he knows which he's holding back. That stuff you shot him up with, sometimes you need to think about how you phrase your questions. Context."