Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

He settled back against the wall, cursing under his breath. An assault team was the last thing he wanted in his home at quarter to two on a Tuesday morning. They’d have light-sights, they’d have infrared, they’d have Zappers, Screamers, Whompers, and God knew what else. All he had was a Palm Thrummer…and Detective Sergeant Cameron.

With one hand he grabbed the duvet and dragged it off the bed. Before Jo could start swearing he slapped the same hand over her mouth and pointed at the bedroom door with his Thrummer. She scowled up at him in the gloom, and then another clunk came from somewhere inside the flat. Her eyebrows shot up.

Will let go of her, put a finger to his lips, and went, ‘Shh…’

She mouthed the word, ‘Fuck,’ then scrabbled through her discarded clothes.

Will clicked his throat-mike and activated the emergency channel. ‘Control, this is Hunter: do you copy?’ he whispered, stuffing the earpiece into place.

‘Sir?’

‘I need a pickup team here and I need it now .’

‘Sir?’

‘Just do it!’

‘Sir, all our teams are out on-’

‘I don’t care if you have to call in your sick granny! Reserves, anything! Just get them-’ Will’s earpiece exploded into a barrage of static and he dragged it out.

Jo whispered, ‘How we doing?’ She was stark naked, holding a brand-new Field Zapper. The thing was three times the size of her original sidearm, the telltales casting a soft blue glow over her caramel skin. She caught him looking and shrugged. ‘What? Thought if I was going to hang around with you I’d better pack a bit more firepower.’

‘They’re jamming the coms channels. We’re on our own: nothing in, nothing out.’

She swore quietly. ‘How many?’

‘Couldn’t tell.’ Will cranked his Palm Thrummer up to full. ‘At least four.’

‘So what’s taking them so long?’

‘How the hell should I…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. Get a little tense when people are trying to kill me.’

They sat side by side in the dark, both weapons pointing at the partially open door.

‘Maybe they’re doing a room to room search?’

Will shook his head. ‘If they’ve got infrared goggles they can see our heat signatures. They don’t need to search.’

‘What if they’re on low-light?’

Will opened his mouth to say: ‘Don’t be daft’, but it would explain why they hadn’t just charged straight into the bedroom. A smile tugged at his face. If they were using light-amplification goggles, they were in for a nasty surprise.

He crept towards the bedroom door, keeping close to the wall. ‘Cover your eyes and get ready to run.’

Outside, in the lounge, he could hear soft, careful footsteps. They were getting closer.

Will risked a glance through the slit between the door and the frame, into the living room beyond. A strange-looking creature with goggles over its eyes looked straight back at him. In the split second it took them to recognize each other Will took in the troop boots, the vid-helmet, the heavy gloves and the full-sized Thrummer.

He closed his eyes and shouted, ‘Lights!’

Suddenly the entire apartment exploded into brilliant daylight-he could see pink through his eyelids-and then the flat was full of swearing.

‘Lights off!’ He grabbed Jo’s hand and charged out through the bedroom door.

Will’s night vision was still good as he barged into the trooper with the Thrummer and sent him flying. The man smashed through the coffee table, hands clasped to his goggled eyes, blinded by the sudden brilliance. The room was full of them, staggering around clutching their heads. Will ran for the front door, Jo hot on his heels.

She snapped her Field Zapper up and sent a blue arc of lighting into the chest of the nearest invader. He screamed and flew backwards as every muscle in his body contracted, sparking like a Catherine wheel into the control panel. The Whomper in his hands barked and something red and wet sprayed across Will’s cheek. He turned, just in time to see a man in combat gear, with a shark-sized bite out of his torso, twitch and judder to the floor.

Will didn’t stop at the front door, just ran straight through, shouting, ‘Lights!’ again as he crossed the threshold. He could hear swearing erupt for a second time as he and Jo sprinted for the lifts.

She was spray-painted raspberry red all down one side. Naked or not, it wasn’t an erotic sight.

They skidded to a halt at the end of the corridor. Will punched the button for the lifts. It bleeped back at him and the doors slid open, revealing a startled-looking woman in combat fatigues, her Thrummer unhitched and resting against her foot.

‘Shite!’ Jo shot her in the face with the Field Zapper.

The trooper’s head crackled with hot blue sparks and a deafening roar filled the lift as the Thrummer went off, taking the woman’s left foot and a chunk of flooring with it.

‘Will you stop doing that!’ Will leapt into the lift. It was full of pink mist that smelled of raw meat and roasting ozone. Hot red blood pumped from the woman’s truncated leg, spreading out in a slippery puddle, dripping through the hole in the floor. Fifty-seven stories straight down.

‘Stop complaining and get us out of here!’ Jo dropped to her knees and wrenched the Thrummer from the unconscious trooper’s hand.

Will pressed the button for the building’s shuttle bay and sank back against the cool mirrored wall as the doors slid shut and the car started to accelerate downwards.

Jo wrestled the crash webbing off the twitching body in the middle of the floor. ‘You see how many?’

‘Seven that I counted, plus this one. Standard pickup team is ten, not including the pilot. My guess is there’s another two covering the exits.’

‘Catch.’ She threw the webbing at him and he fastened it over his dressing gown, twisting it round the right way so the spare power cells for the Thrummer were easy to get at. When he was all buckled up she passed across the assault rifle and then laughed at him. ‘What do you look like?’

‘At least I’m wearing something!’

‘True.’ Jo unsnipped the catches on the front of the woman’s jumpsuit and sat her up, pulling the limp arms out of the sleeves. ‘How much longer?’ she asked, trying to drag the jumpsuit’s one remaining leg over the trooper’s heavy boots.

‘Thirteen floors.’ They were already decelerating.

‘Damn!’

‘Ten, nine, eight, seven-’

‘I can’t get the bastard thing over her bloody boot!’

‘Two, one.’

The lift went ‘ping’ and Will braced himself against the back wall, Thrummer pointing at the twin doors. As they gently slid apart Will looked out through the opening gap into the shuttle bay. Two men were standing on the platform-one carrying a Whomper, the other a Screamer, both weapons pointed in his direction.

Will didn’t wait for introductions, just jammed his thumb down on his Thrummer’s trigger, tearing a hole in the lift doors at chest height. The two men dived for cover as he held the button down, filling the air with vaporized metal and the sound of tortured bees. He slapped the control panel with his other hand and sent the elevator back up to the ground floor, the lift shaft clearly visible through the new four-foot hole in the doors.

‘Got it!’ Jo stood, a blood-soaked, tattered jumpsuit in her hands. She managed to get one leg into it before the elevator juddered to a halt and Will shoved her out into the building foyer.

‘What the hell was that for?’ She staggered against the wall as, behind them, the floor of the lift exploded upward. The unconscious body of the one-legged trooper jerked as round after round tore into it. ‘Ah, got you.’