Against Gravity

As they came closer they heard a high-pitched scream from the direction of the facility itself.

"Ken, that sounded like-" Gunshots now: several noisy detonations, one after the other, in rapid succession.

Something rumbled through the hull under their feet. Cold sweat sprang out on Kendrick's skin as he imagined someone detonating a nuclear device -perhaps in the previous chamber, perhaps somewhere outside the station. It was far too easy to speculate on the hull ripping apart beneath them, sending them both spi

But the rumbling faded a few moments later. Kendrick glanced down at the read-out on his arm and found a message icon blinking up at him.

He lowered his arm and headed rapidly towards one of the buildings directly ahead. A sign mounted in front identified it as the primary section of the research facility. Draeger was in there somewhere. He had to be.

"Kendrick, wait. Before we go further we should check back with the others and see if they have any idea what just happened."

"Bad idea. Whatever they say won't make any difference, so let's just get this over with."

The low-roofed buildings making up the facility had been tastefully designed from glass and wood. A wide balcony overlooked a pool fringed with pebbles, the water overgrown now with pond scum and silver filaments. It looked like something from an eerily deserted university campus.

Kendrick slowed, wary of ru

"Listen, Kendrick, I've got an idea. We're heavily outnumbered, right? We can't just walk right in there among them."

"I know that, but there isn't time left to try anything else. We'll just have to work it out as we go along." He carried on towards the entrance.

"If you march in and they see you they'll have no compunction about killing you. Look, let me talk to Draeger."

Kendrick stopped and faced Buddy. "Talking to him isn't on the agenda. He used us to get here and the instant we looked like showing him any resistance he ran – but only because he couldn't kill all of us."

"Those men in there with him are professional soldiers, maybe Augments. You don't stand a chance against them. Negotiation is the only way."

"Someone is already dead, thanks to Max Draeger's negotiating skills. All I'm saying is, if we don't try and stop it now-"

"Maybe we can find a way to reason with him."

"Reason with him?" Kendrick glared at Buddy. "What exactly is your problem? When he blew that guy's head off, did that strike you as reasonable?"

Buddy's mouth worked silently for a moment. "I suppose what it comes down to is that – I don't trust you as much as I thought I did."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning maybe I had you wrong. I thought that once you were up here with us you'd understand."

"What, you're worried I might jeopardize things for you?"

"Look, ever since we found those bombs I've been thinking that if Draeger does have one the last thing we want to do is give him any excuse to set it off. Right?"

"Well," said Kendrick. "That depends."

Buddy looked incredulous. "On what?"

"On whether or not that means we let him get away."

Flinging his hands out in a gesture of despair, Buddy made a strangled sound. "You see? Can't you hear yourself? How fucking monomaniacal do you have to get? One way or another, if Draeger has one of those nukes, he's also got us by the balls – or can't you understand that?"

Kendrick spoke quietly and carefully. "Buddy, let me explain something. He's got you by the balls. He's got Sabak by the balls. But he hasn't got me, because I don't care about his threats. I'm going to nail the fucker. I want the world to know what kind of man he is. Otherwise everything that happened to us down there in the Maze isn't going to mean a damn thing.

"And it's not even that which really worries me. I don't know how he's going to do it, but I'll bet every last pe

Buddy's face looked as though it was carved from stone. "Fuck them" he said quietly.

They were standing almost face to face now, and Kendrick started to turn away. From out of the corner of his eye he saw Buddy move towards him, reaching out to grab his arm.

Kendrick swivelled rapidly, taking hold of Buddy's wrist and punching him hard in the face as he did so. Buddy reeled back in surprise, then slipped and fell to the ground. Kendrick stepped over and clouted him a second time – unable to halt the sudden terrible anger that threatened to overwhelm him.

He became distantly aware that the air around him felt chillier than it had only seconds earlier. A sudden wind rippled through his hair, becoming stronger. Something was happening to the atmosphere in the station.

Buddy still lay flat on the ground, gasping and cursing.

"Don't get in my way," Kendrick yelled at him. "Don't dare come after me." He stepped away, panting. "I wish it didn't have to work out this way."

Buddy stared up at him with angry pain-filled eyes. But he didn't try to move from where he lay.

Kendrick retreated for a couple of metres, keeping Buddy well in sight. Then he turned and ran for the facility entrance. He turned a corner and stopped to make sure that his pistol was loaded.

Buddy was right about one thing: just charging in after Draeger would be like committing suicide. Kendrick had felt sure that by now some plan would have come to mind, some way to thwart Draeger without placing himself in such immediate danger. Unfortunately, his mind remained obstinately blank.

The screaming started again, a ragged and terrible animal sound, drifting from somewhere deeper within the building.

Kendrick was far from surprised to find more bodies inside, lying next to a pair of wide doors at the far end of a hallway. Kendrick gagged again at the stench of blood and viscera until his senses could adjust to filter it out. He noticed that both doors had been partly blown off their hinges.

Stepping closer to the corpses, he recognized them as some of Draeger's men. Marlin Smeby was not among them. At first Kendrick assumed they had been blown apart by the force of the explosives after having made a dangerous error in trying to blast their way into the facility interior. But closer inspection revealed that their flesh had been torn and ripped as if by claws. He nudged one body with his foot, trying very hard not to think about what these injuries signified.

The corpse cradled something in its arms. Another nuke, Kendrick realized, shuddering. It had almost certainly been retrieved from one of the dead Los Muertos whom he and Buddy had come across earlier. Two nukes now located, but still with the possibility of another.

Kendrick passed through the ruined doors into a wide office space scattered with the mouldering corpses of yet more Los Muertos. One even appeared to have raked his own eyes out of his skull, while another had clearly blown his own brains out with his rifle. The wall against which he had propped himself was still liberally smeared with the resulting gore.

Kendrick heard another sound, neither screaming nor gunshots this time. More like a bell gently tinkling, as if far away. He stood stock-still, trying to work out what this was, but it faded away to nothing after several seconds.

As far as he could tell, most of the corpses around him had engaged in what looked like mutually assisted suicide. Some lay twisted together in a deadly embrace, knifes still clutched in their fists. Kendrick could not imagine what demons had driven them to such deaths.