Against Gravity

A soldier emerged next to the loading bay and spotted him. Shit.

Kendrick brought the rifle up to his shoulder without thinking. Is the safety on? he wondered, realizing that he had no idea. He aimed just as the soldier ducked back through the door. Kendrick almost didn't spot a second soldier coming out of the driver's side of the troop carrier. He swung the rifle towards the man and squeezed the trigger, reacting out of panic more than anything else. The driver's shoulder exploded in a burst of blood and bone. The rifle's recoil almost jerked the gun out of Kendrick's hands.

He glanced back over towards the door and saw the first soldier reappear, armed with a pistol and taking aim.

Moving with augmented speed, Kendrick dodged to one side. When the soldier took a step back, alarm written across his face, Kendrick threw his rifle at him like a club. It slammed into the man's head and sent him sprawling.

Kendrick ran over, retrieved the rifle, and smashed it down on the soldier's head, gripping the barrel with both hands. The soldier jerked and twisted spasmodically for a moment, then lay still.

Kendrick felt as if he were watching all this from a distance, alternately appalled and exhilarated by what he was doing. Did the rage he felt come from himself, or was he now being manipulated by his augmentations?

Maybe a little of both.

He looked quickly around, then ran up to the front of the truck. No more soldiers, not close at any rate. That didn't mean he had much time, though. He stuck his head through the door of the building but saw nobody there.

When Kendrick climbed into the back of the troop carrier he found, to his amazement, that he'd guessed right.

It was Caroline who was strapped down onto the pallet. She was swathed in thick blankets. He wondered where they'd intended to take her. She looked as though she was drugged but he managed to undo the straps and lower her from the troop carrier. Lines of rogue augment growth now marred her once-beautiful face. Since the last time he'd seen her, her condition had become dramatically worse.

Kendrick ignored the rattle of nearby gunfire and bundled Caroline into the back of the jeep. At first he didn't realize that the shots were coming from somewhere outside the fence, but then he watched as bullets kicked up a trail of dust leading towards another jeep, filled with soldiers, that was driving towards the perimeter. He jumped back into his own vehicle and screeched off, not wanting to wait around.

He glanced over his shoulder to see that the other jeep had jarred to a halt, soldiers spilling out and putting as much distance as possible between the incoming fusillade and themselves. The bullets slammed into the vehicle. An instant later it spun into the air, seemingly supported briefly by a column of fire and smoke that then slammed it flaming onto its side. Driving a jeep suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea.

Kendrick sca

From somewhere overhead came the sound of rotors and a blast of air as an enormous black shape hovered low above him.

A searchlight on the helicopter's undercarriage pi

There was a door at one side of the hangar itself, almost hidden behind a stack of metal crates. Kendrick ran towards it and pulled at the handle. Realizing that it was securely locked, he waited for a hail of bullets to thud into his back.

When none came, he started to kick at the door. Agony shot through his leg but the metal began to buckle under further severe impacts, the hinges starting to warp and bend.

And still no bullets. He wondered what they were waiting for.

At the instant when the door began to give way, Kendrick heard a familiar voice, electronically distorted. He flattened himself against the ruined door and crouched, partly hidden by the crates, and looking wildly around him.

As he studied the 'copter, he had a flash of recognition and immediately knew that they were safe. With its black, bulbous nose and scarred paintwork the aircraft looked almost as if it had been rescued from a junkyard. A shadowy figure was just visible through the canopy.

"Kendrick! Get the fuck in here!"

This time the voice was unmistakable.

Kendrick glanced past the helicopter, and in the far distance saw one of the three shuttles rapidly gaining height on a pillar of flame. A roar like nothing he could ever have imagined filled the air. Already flame was licking out from the engines of the remaining two spacecraft.

Just then the pilot's door of the 'copter swung open and a figure leant out, its face obscured by insectile headgear. Kendrick gri

Buddy.

Summer 2088 (exact date unknown) The Maze

His stomach roiling painfully from lack of food and water, Kendrick stared down the long, empty corridor and called out, listening to his voice echoing into the lightless distance.

He had almost convinced himself that if he searched hard enough he could find an escape route, some way of hiding from Sieracki's cameras indefinitely.

He kept a tight grip on the long, wicked-looking knife that he had found lying in an alcove minutes after the shield doors had opened, as he had entered these lower levels for the first time.

I could just leave the weapon here, go find Ryan, talk to him and refuse to fight. That was the right, sane and sensible choice to make.

Kendrick knew that there was a cache of food and water, along with medical supplies, in a locked vault somewhere on the very lowest level. There were weapons too – if you could find them. But the vault unlocked itself only when just one person remained alive.

There were other choices, of course. Some people preferred to just lie down and die. Others walked calmly into the field of fire of a gun turret to end it quickly. One side corridor had soon been transformed into a graveyard where the corpses were dragged and left to rot. Over a few days the stench of decay, permeating the empty passageways, had become inescapable.

And there were also stories of a demon that haunted the lowest levels of all.

Kendrick glanced back in the direction of the shield door, now firmly closed behind him. Ryan had to be in here somewhere – Ryan who had sworn to his face that he would not be the one to die. That didn't make Kendrick any less determined to find some kind of rational compromise. But he'd been down here for over an hour now, without any sign of his selected adversary.

More time passed, immeasurable in that endless night.

The first few times that Kendrick heard the distant roaring, he felt sure it was some form of auditory hallucination. But then he saw light flickering down in some far corner, the first light he had seen in… for ever.

Perhaps, he mused, the roaring noise came from something burning. At first the flickering seemed painfully bright to him, but his augmented senses rapidly adjusted themselves. He stared along the corridor, moving closer to the wall.

What is that? he wondered again. It sounded very much like the roar of flames.

"Explain," Sieracki's voice boomed over the ta

Kendrick flung himself to the corridor floor, frightened to the core by the sudden echo of the voice.