Against Gravity

Sudden light flickering from high above distracted them both. Kendrick caught sight of Robert standing on top of a crate nearby. Robert's flesh was flickering with a ghostly brilliance: thousands of cilia-like extrusions from his skin waved softly in the air around him.

His eyes full of horror, Ryan stood gaping up at him. Robert alighted from the crate, moving so dizzyingly fast that to Kendrick it seemed that he had been there but was now here within the same second, standing almost nose to nose with Ryan. A hand flashed forward, touching Ryan on the cheek. Ryan's eyes dimmed – and he slumped lifeless to the ground.

Kendrick stared, numb, wondering if it was his turn next. But Robert merely gazed back at him, eyes blank and full of flickering energy. he was not like us you and I are like the bright but not him

Kendrick licked his lips. "I don't understand." some of us are more like the bright than others so they speak only to us to you to me to buddy to all from our ward but to no others

Seeing the threads emerging from all over Robert's body, like fine black wires, reminded Kendrick of how Torrance had died.

Robert reached out a hand to him. Kendrick screamed, imagining the chilly and terrible brush of those delicate cilia against his cheek. He lashed out and drove his blade deep into Robert's chest, somehow finding the strength to yank it out and stab again. As Robert crumpled, the light faded instantly from all around him, his flesh immediately turning soft and pliant as putty.

Kendrick staggered to one side and retched violently. Just for a second, he could have sworn that he saw some of the black threads emerging from Robert's flesh reaching out to the bare concrete beneath him, and push their way into it.

He thought suddenly of Caroline, and felt deep, dreadful shame.

But something was different now. The long hunt through the corridors had triggered something deep within him; something dormant in his augments.

24 October 2096 Los Muertos-controlled military base, Texas

Buddy leant down while Kendrick lifted Caroline towards him, holding her around the waist like a ballet dancer raising his partner above his shoulders. Buddy grasped hold and started to haul her on board.

Kendrick leapt up onto one of the helicopter's landing struts, dust whipped up by the rotors stinging his eyes and nostrils.

Some instinct made Kendrick look up just before he pulled himself in after Caroline. He saw three fighter jets tear through the sky with an almighty roar, followed by explosions somewhere far off across the base. The aircraft were too far away for him to be able to recognize their markings.

He watched in awe as fire blossomed in the distance and orange blooms stitched across the landscape towards the two remaining shuttles. The first shuttle was already lost in the night sky, its passage now visible only by an arc of flaming light.

The second shuttle's engines were already rumbling. It began to lift on its own pillar of fire.

The helicopter lurched as Buddy took it up fast. Kendrick slammed down the back of the co-pilot's seat and managed to drag Caroline's unconscious body into the rear of the aircraft.

"Buddy, thank God," he gasped. "Listen, I-"

"Under attack," Buddy interrupted tersely. Kendrick looked ahead and spotted tracer fire streaking towards them through the dark, coming from the darkened window of a nearby building. Buddy yanked on the stick so that the 'copter weaved from side to side.

"How the hell did you know where I was?" Kendrick yelled. "I don't have my wand."

"Roy Whitman sent someone to New York to meet you, saw you go off with the woman, then had to use guesswork. She's well known in Los Muertos. One of their top operatives."

"So why didn't you call me in New York and warn me?"

"Tried. But you didn't pick up. So I figured they'd locked your wand off remotely with a software worm. Now we know for sure that Los Muertos are trying to beat us to the Archimedes." Buddy shook his head. "Idiots don't stand a chance."

The second shuttle was already streaking through the upper levels of the atmosphere and would soon be lost from sight. The third was still sitting on its launch pad, but now a blazing inferno jetted from its engines. Kendrick and Buddy could hear the rattle of automatic weapons even over the din of the helicopter engine.

"Hold tight," Kendrick heard Buddy say. "We're still being shot at."

Most of the base was now invisible under great swathes of dust and smoke. Buddy veered the aircraft sharply to one side, keeping dangerously close to the ground. Kendrick felt his stomach lurch in about seven different directions as his companion flew like a maniac. He caught a glimpse of the third shuttle. They were close enough to it to get incinerated if it chose that moment to launch.

Then he understood what Buddy was doing. The shuttle was now positioned between them and the main base, effectively shielding them from any gunfire coming from that direction.

Once they were past it they accelerated hard. Then a roar filled the air, sounding like God falling out of Heaven, and Kendrick knew that the last shuttle had begun to lift. Their aircraft shook so hard around them that he couldn't believe it wouldn't simply fall apart.

As they tilted to rise again, he glimpsed the damaged shuttle – liquid fire spilling from it – rising with astonishing speed. Buddy was rapidly putting kilometres between them, but still they were far too close. From the way he was twisting in his seat, he was clearly struggling to keep them aloft.

As Kendrick turned to see the third shuttle streaking upwards he noticed a line of fiery pockmarks stitch itself across its hull, blossoming and expanding until they joined up to consume the spacecraft in seconds.

Kendrick watched in horrified fascination as the shuttle's hull buckled explosively in mid-flight. The nose of the craft spun away into the night air, twisting and turning as it fell through a long descending arc.

The rest of it disappeared in a mighty fireball, sending out a powerful shock wave that almost hurled the helicopter back to the ground.

Kendrick watched the base's mesa whirl below them as he waited for the end to come. But instead their course became gradually steady and smooth. He glanced at Buddy, who had pulled off his mask. A weak grin creased the pilot's mouth, then he whooped like a cowboy. "Jesus, what a ride!"

Far below them, a ruined freeway wound its way toward the horizon. They flew on, passing over farmland where crops had previously grown across uncountable acres but where now only a grey pulpy mass streaked the soil. Asian Rot had taken its toll here.

A little while later, they dropped down to a landing in a low-ridged canyon where the vegetation appeared to have escaped the worst of the Rot. Wild flowers and pinon shimmered in the heat, growing on the banks of a stream that was barely more than a trickle.

They eased Caroline out of the helicopter and onto the sparse grass, keeping her wrapped in the same sheets that Kendrick had found her in. Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal pupils that were wide and unfocused. Her lips parted, as if she was about to speak, but then her eyes closed and she was asleep again.

Buddy glanced at Kendrick uneasily. "You didn't tell me she was this bad."

"She wasn't anywhere near as bad as this the last time I saw her. That was only a couple of days ago."

"We can help her," Buddy reassured him. "Look, the launch is being run from an offshore site. They've got medical facilities there, so we'll make sure she's taken care of."