Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

One dead, three walking wounded. If it wasn’t for the drug she knew she’d have given up right there and then.

Teddy led them on,

The stream continued its inexorable advance up Eleanor’s legs. Solid footing was hard to find, the fast current pushing insistently at the back of her knees. A raggedy curtain of pigtail ivy ribbons hung from the gnarled branches above her, long enough to trail in the water, an irritant she was constantly having to sweep aside. There were big boulders in the stream now, creating a turbulent white-water surface. The stone-lined banks were closing in, becoming steeper. She and Des were pressing together, Suzi occasionally bumping into her. The stream was being channelled for some reason.

Teddy made them stop, then walked on alone, struggling to keep his balance. The second laser found him, inflaming his jumpsuit to a lambent crimson. His AK sent a burst of slugs back along the beam, A pyrotechnic shower of sparks erupted from a big acacia tree.

“OK people, last stage. Easy does it.” Teddy waited for the others to reach him, and they began to move off together.

Eleanor heard a low rumbling coming from somewhere ahead. Couldn’t quite place the sound, her ears still had a residual ringing from the pickets. The water reached her waist.

“Hey-” Victor began.

Teddy snarled a curse and vanished from view. Eleanor took a step forwards, and found the stream bed falling away. Instinct made her tighten her grip on the Rockwell, she knew she’d never be able to fight the water, she had to let it take her, Her feet were swept from under her, dunking her below the water. She breathed out, expelling air from the filter nozzle until she broke surface. Bobbing around like a piece of driftwood. The stone banks were like cliffs whizzing by. Ivy fronds slapped at her, She shifted the Rockwell round, hugging it to her numb chest. The rumbling was growing steadily louder. Memory placed it: waterfall.

Eleanor twisted desperately, getting her feet out in front, locking her legs straight. Slaloming round the last bend she saw Wilholm manor dead ahead. The building was floodlit, its roof blanked out, hidden in shadow. Biolum lights glared from the windows of the top two storeys, the ground floor was a featureless slate-grey band. There was a vast expanse of flat exposed lawn surrounding it. Killing ground, she thought. Then she went over the lip.

The waterfall wasn’t high, three metres. She seemed to hang in the air, floating down.

MASER ATTACK, shouted scarlet graphics. The photon-amp image dimmed. Thick fog exploded around her.

Eleanor hit the lake hard, her backside taking the impact. The Rockwell knocked the breath out of her. Don’t drop it, her only thought.

The weight of the weapon and the jumpsuit held her down, Rising with terrible slowness, her lungs bursting. Water had defeated the photon amp, all she could see was a uniform powder-blue mist.

Eleanor surfaced, keeping the water level above her shoulders, bracing herself for the graphic warning again. It remained off. Treading water. Somehow she’d turned round to face the waterfall. A dark figure shot over the lip, arms flapping at the air. The curving torrent of water behind it boiled furiously again as the manor’s Bofors masers fired,

“Check in,” a voice called out.

“Teddy? Teddy, I’m here, it’s Eleanor.”

“Christ, gal. OK, you still got the Rockwell?”

Eleanor paddled her one free hand, cumbersome in the thick garment, turning until she spotted him, a small mound protruding from the lake’s gently rippling surface. “I’ve got it.”

“Thank you, sweet Jesus.”

“Father, Suzi here.”

“Victor held the power unit.”

“Terrific.”

Eleanor saw Teddy bring the message laser out of the water.

“Shit,” Des’s voice, high and panicky. “Being lasered.”

There was a splash somewhere off to Eleanor’s left.

“Nicole, ‘nother unit.”

The façade of the manor seemed to flicker, its brightness oscillating. Tiny points of bright-red light twinkled from the second-storey windows.

LASER ATTACK. The photon-amp image went completely white.

Eleanor drew a deep breath and sank below the surface. The photon-amp image reverted to blue with slashes of black. This time she could make slightly more sense of it; three intense dots of brighter blue above her, where the lasers from the manor were striking the surface, bubbles fizzing up around her. She kicked with her feet, moving away.

“-look you bastards,” Teddy was shouting as Eleanor came up. “Christ,” he ducked below the lake.

White. LASER ATTACK.

The blueness was speckled with red and green, throbbing. Her lungs burnt. Can’t do this many more times.

Up again.

Droplets of water came in with the air. Eleanor coughed, swallowing some. It tasted foul.

“They’ve stopped,” Suzi called out.

“Now what?” Des asked.

“Wait,” said Teddy. “Eleanor, you and Victor come over to me, slow and easy. I wanna get that Rockwell sorted.”

Eleanor rolled over, letting herself float on her back with the water lapping round her chin. Waving her feet, creeping towards Teddy. Will they think grouping together is hostile?

Eleanor was about five metres short of Teddy when a voice boomed out from the manor. “Who the hell are you people?” It sounded angry.

Teddy began to flash the laser again. Eleanor stopped moving. Whatever morse code was, it seemed incredibly ponderous.

“You want to come in and talk about Mandel? Who’ve you got as a guarantee?”

“Do your thing, Victor,” Teddy grunted.

“Right.” He submerged.

Eleanor felt insufferably weary. Just wanted it all to be over. The infusion must be wearing off, she thought.

Victor came up without his hood, hair plastered across his forehead.

“Smile, man.”

“Victor,” the voice blared, “Hell, it is you. Are these people genuine? We’ve got them covered if they try and force you. Nod for yes. Shake for no.”

“Jesus wept,” said Teddy. “Paranoid or what.”

“All right,” said the voice. “And just how do you reckon on getting across the lawn? We can’t shut off the masers, and the ground floor’s sealed tight.”

The message laser flashed out a long complicated story.

“No way!” the voice called.

“Screw you, arsehole,” Suzi shouted.

“Throttle down, gal,” said Teddy, and even he sounded tired, The message laser flashed once more.

“All right,” said the voice. “Listen good. Only Victor may use the cannon. If one of those plasma shots lands anywhere but on a maser you are dead.”

“And up yours, too,” said Teddy. “OK, let’s get the Rockwell together.”

Eleanor started kicking again, her legs like lead. Teddy and Victor were moving forwards, towards the shore.

“Touching ground,” Teddy said. He was five metres short of the lawn.

Eleanor came up beside him, toes prodding the viscous lake bed.

“Let’s have it, gal.”

Victor drifted up on the other side. He and Teddy started muttering at each other as they mated the Rockwell’s cable to the power unit by touch alone.

With the Rockwell gone, Eleanor thought she’d be able to fly. She weighed nothing at all.

Victor stuck the Rockwell’s targeting imager over his right eye, its cable coiling down below the water.

“Ready,” he said.

Eleanor saw that Des, Suzi, and Nicole had swum up level with her. Unidentifiable, blind tumours of crêpe fabric. Behind them, on the shore where the trees bordered the lawn were two swift-moving red blobs. No, her mind cried, Enough, we’ve had enough, “Sentinels,” she called out, voice rasping in her throat. “Sentinels, they’re coming.”