Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

Plan. Need a plan.

Will scanned the room: he had two Network troopers-one on the verge of death-a traumatized Bluecoat, and a knackered set of scanning equipment. And none of the evidence they’d just risked their lives to collect.

‘Where’s the bag of halfheads?’

‘Sir? What should we do?’

‘Shut up and let me think!’

He stuck his head out into the corridor: the evidence bag lay against the wall by the escalator ramp. He was halfway down the hall before he realized what he was doing and by that time it was too late to turn back.

The wall lights were overflowing with stale water, casting wriggling snakes of dim light as Will splashed past. Now that the fire was out, the sprinklers were little more than an incontinent dribble. They’d probably done more damage to the building than the flames had.

He slithered to a halt by the escalator, grabbed the discarded evidence bag and hefted it over his shoulder-staggering under the weight. He peered up the ramp. Half way up, it came to an abrupt end, dirty orange rebar sticking out of the fractured foamcrete. Sergeant Nairn was right: there was no way anyone could jump that gap. Not without a body-wire…

‘Fuck.’ It was like a kick in the goolies, but it was the only option.

He reached up with trembling fingers and clicked on his throat-mike, trying to keep his voice steady: ‘Lieutenant Brand, I need you to get that Dragonfly airborne.’

‘Forget it. We’re not leaving you behind!’

‘Just do what you’re bloody well told, for once.’ There was something rectangular and half-melted at Will’s feet: Stein’s Field Zapper-the one he’d kept fiddling with-its plastic casing blistered and cracked. As Will bent down to pick it up, the building went ominously silent.

Not good. Definitely not good.

Will splashed his way back down the corridor, lugging the heavy bag of severed heads. ‘I want that gunship outside apartment one twenty-six, forty-seventh floor-drop out five bodywires and a cargo net. We’re going for hard D.’

‘From inside a building? Are you mad?’

‘If you’ve got any better ideas, let’s hear them, because I’m all out.’ His earpiece went silent. And then,

‘Nairn, get your team back to the ship. Pickup in forty-five seconds.’ Static burst across the signal as the Dragonfly’s engines went to full power. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Will.’

Struggling along the gloomy, waterlogged corridor Will hoped so too.

He was almost at the flat’s front door when a hard crack sounded behind him. A plume of water danced at his feet. Another shot and the bag on his back jumped, throwing him forward. Will just managed to stay on his feet as more bullets tore into the walls around him, sending out puffs of paint and shredded plasticboard.

He scrambled into the flat and slammed the door shut.

‘We’ve got company!’ He heaved the bag of heads into the middle of the room. ‘Get Stein ready to move. Beaton, clip his bodyharness to yours, I don’t want him bashing his brains out on the window frame. Cameron,’ he pointed at the broad strips of black plastic blocking out the world, ‘tear that crap down.’

She grabbed a corner and tugged. Light flooded into the room.

Will turned Stein’s burnt Field Zapper over in his hands. The battery lights were still winking away merrily to themselves: with any luck it wouldn’t short out and electrocute him.

‘Where the hell’s that damn Dragonfly?’

Right on cue the sunlight disappeared again. The flat’s windows rattled in their frames as Lieutenant Brand’s gunship twisted in the air, dipping its nose down to expose the double drop bay doors in its belly.

A single bullet thudded into the apartment door, ripping a hole straight through it and into the tiny hall. And then another one. And another.

‘That’s as close as you get!’

Will pulled up his Whomper and thumbed the trigger. The assault rifle kicked in his hands-its bark deafening in the confines of the filthy lounge-and the front door tore itself apart. One moment it was there, and the next it was a hail of sizzling plastic, pattering down on the threadbare carpet. He slung the Whomper over his shoulder and powered up Stein’s Field Zapper. The weapon’s lights flickered then died.

‘Fuck.’ He thumped it against the wall. Shook it. Tried again.

A tatty, ginger-haired figure leapt into the gap where the door used to be.

She was big-boned rather than fat, dressed in the same eclectic, colourful rags they’d seen this morning. Tribal scars twisted across her pale skin, pulling at the corners of her ice-green eyes. She was carrying an old F24, virtually an antique, and as she brought it up, a smile split her face. Teeth filed to points.

Will shot her.

The arc from Stein’s Field Zapper caught her in the chest, throwing her back into the sodden corridor. Stepping forward, Will pointed the weapon at the waterlogged carpet and held the trigger down.

A chorus of shrieks and squeals erupted in the hall as the blue lightning danced down the corridor. Then there was the sound of bodies hitting the floor. And then silence. Will didn’t risk sticking his head out to check the results: someone might have been wearing insulated boots.

DS Cameron forced the lounge window open. Debris leapt into the air, dancing and spinning in the hot backwash from the Dragonfly’s engines, like angry, paper seagulls.

Sergeant Nairn dropped from the ship’s belly, a cluster of body wires reeling out behind him. He grabbed at the open window with both hands and DS Cameron lunged forwards, dragging him into the room. Before his feet could even touch the carpet, gunfire was clanging off the ship’s hull: a Network Dragonfly made a big and inviting target.

Something bellowed from the floor above and the whole craft lurched.

‘Come on people, get a move on: we can’t hang around here all bloody afternoon!’

Will helped Nairn clip on Stein and Beaton’s bodywires while DS Cameron wrapped another set of wires through the handles on the scanning canister, finishing them off with a huge, in elegant knot. The bag of heads went into the cargo net.

That just left Will and the Detective Sergeant.

As they struggled into their harnesses a tubular canister bounced in through the door and landed on the grubby carpet-little red lights chasing each other round and round the ends.

‘Oh shit…’ Will punched his throat-mike and braced himself. ‘Hard D. Now!’

The Dragonfly leapt away from the building, yanking them out of the living room window. The scanning canister caught the frame side on, glass and twisted aluminium spraying everywhere. Someone screamed, the sound whipped away as the gunship rolled into a tight turn, accelerating hard.

The explosion tore Allan Brown’s apartment to shreds.

The sun hangs in the dirty blue sky like a jewelled furnace. It’s blurred around the edge, a faint shimmer of chemical fog that grows thicker as she watches. The wind must have shifted, bringing with it the firestacks’ industrial perfume.

She’s been wandering the streets for hours, drifting through her own personal smog. Faces swim in and out of focus: colleagues, patients, victims…

Something flashes overhead and she turns to watch it roar across the sky. Small figures dangle beneath it, slowly being drawn up into its belly. The shape is familiar, haunting: like a bad dream only half remembered. But right now everything is like that.

She doesn’t even know who she is.

Her stomach rumbles and she flinches, startled by the sound. It’s been six years since she’s felt anything as profound as hunger. She knows this because one of the city’s big, floating Scrubbers carries a flickering advert with today’s date.