Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

[The last satellite goes below the horizon in seven minutes.]

“Do your best. I take it you heard what McNeil said about the Outies.”

[Her explanation is consistent with the known facts. There are other scenarios which would also fit, but if I apply Occam’s Razor, hers is the most probable.]

“You should be flattered. They tried to destroy a whole city just to get to you.”

[Their actions were a gross over-reaction. Do you intend to ruin President Mackensie’s reputation with his voters?]

“I can’t honestly say I care about his reputation with the Reconstructionistas: they’ll probably love him for it, because, hey, we’re godless heathen foreigners. I would be disappointed, though, if there were more than a half a dozen countries which still had diplomatic relations with them by the time I’ve finished. But enough of the fun to be had. Finsbury Park: secure or not?”

[There are several concentrations of Outies, mainly to the east in the Lea Valley area, but groups are scattered throughout Finsbury Park. They are all moving north, and may decide not to engage with a heavily armed column such as the one you have assembled. However, caution is still advised.]

“Okay. Now tell me if I can trust her.”

[There is insufficient time left in the life of this universe to calculate that solution. Or, if you prefer—no, of course not, and you know that yourself. But you will go with her anyway, because you must.]

“Sucks to be me.”

[I will render assistance where I can. I should be able to deny the airspace to any planned extraction. Would you prefer them captured or killed?]

“I need bargaining chips. Keeping some of them alive would be good.”

[Are you intending to kill the agents who have your wife?]

“I’m intending to worry about that after she’s safe.”

Petrovitch reached into the bag Lucy had given him and retrieved the sphere. She’d sealed it in bubblewrap, and he pinched and tore at it until he could get his finger under a seam.

“Why did you want to bring that along?” asked Sonja.

“Because I thought I might need it.” He passed it to Tabletop. “Hold it like that.”

He glued two wires onto the circular terminals and secured them with tape so they wouldn’t rip free.

“It’s different, isn’t it?” said Lucy. “It’s not the same as the one on the news.”

“About one in a million people would have spotted that.” He opened the packet of electronic components and shook them out into his hand. His camera wouldn’t focus on the tiny writing on the sides of each piece, and he passed them back. “I need something in the microfarad range, and the biggest resistor you can find.”

Only Valentina could interpret the color coding. She explained the system to Lucy while sneering at Sonja for not knowing.

“What is your trigger voltage?”

“That’s a good question. About nine and a half volts.”

“About? If you are wrong, will anyone die?”

Petrovitch grimaced. “Probably.”

Sonja leaned forward. “Do you actually know what’s going to happen?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

She sat back again. “So you have no idea at all.”

He held his hand out and Valentina passed him the resistor and capacitor. She’d already twisted two of their leads together to form a chain.

“There’s a sentry gun,” he said. “We have to disable it somehow. We’re out of explosives, and experimental physics is all we have.”

“Take it over,” snorted Sonja. “Take it over like you do a car.”

Tabletop peered over the top of the sphere she held while the glue dried. “We already thought of that. It comes with a manual override.”

“Which means it won’t be as smart, but it’ll be faster.” Petrovitch held the tube of glue up to the side of his head and fashioned a circuit from wire and the components he already had. “If it’d been programmed to fire through walls, this car would be a lot emptier.”

He glanced up as the car bumped and jogged his hand. There were bodies all over the road—in places, thick enough to resemble a carpet of torn cloth and broken flesh.

Outies, Oshicora conscripts, civilians, MEA militia: all mixed up. Vehicles embedded in shop fronts and sideways in doorways. Lamp-posts felled by collisions and burned-out wrecks.

They slowed to a crawl, and the thick rubber tires fought for grip on the uncertain surface. Petrovitch glanced behind him, and discovered that Valentina had already clamped her hand over Lucy’s eyes.

“She is too young.” A muscle in her face twitched. “And I am too old.”

Tabletop stared open-mouthed through the windscreen. When it looked like she was going to drop the sphere, Petrovitch reached across and put his hand under it, holding his work in the other and the tube of glue in his mouth.

It got worse the closer to Euston Station they got.

Eventually, Petrovitch was able to place the finished circuit on the dashboard and remove the glue from between his teeth.

“Angry yet?”

“What have we done?” murmured Tabletop.

“When the sun came up this morning, all these people were alive. Most of them would still have been alive by tonight if I hadn’t taken it on myself to fight back. So I take my part of the responsibility. Your masters can take the rest. I’ll make sure of that.”

“When this is over, what are you going to do with me? I thought I could help you build the future, but this, this…” Her voice trailed away and she scrubbed quickly at her cheek. “You’re going to put me against a wall with the others and shoot me.”

“Surprisingly enough, I’m not in charge. I don’t know how much say I get in this.”

Tabletop looked back at Sonja, who met her gaze with such unflinching hostility that she decided she’d rather look at the dead people they were about to run over.

“I would say, though, that if we get Maddy back now, and Pif later, there might be grounds for clemency.” Petrovitch handed her the sphere back. “Now hold this still.”

He concentrated on his work for the next few minutes, gluing and taping joints and wires, fixing the batteries together in a bundle, then chasing conducting glue across their terminals.

Slowly, the road became clearer, and the car’s wheels managed to steer around the obstacles. By the time they got out to the Caledonian Road, Valentina felt it safe to remove her hand.

Lucy blinked in the light. “I wouldn’t have looked,” she said.

“You cannot unsee what you have seen, little one,” said Valentina.

“Not true: I can’t remember what my parents look like,” said Tabletop. “Neither can I remember how the CIA made me forget; I just have to accept that they did, and that I agreed to it.”

In the wing mirror, one of the following cars pulled over against the curb, jerking to a halt. The driver fell from the door and was copiously sick on the road.

“Maybe,” said Petrovitch, “we should find out the answers to both those questions.” He carefully fitted the two black wires together, leaving the two red ones free. He deliberately taped over the bare ends to prevent their accidental contact.

“Is it done?” asked Lucy.

“I can’t test the continuity or how much juice is in the battery pack. But it’ll either work or it won’t.” He tucked the rest of the roll of tape inside his overalls.

“And what will it do?”

“He won’t tell you,” said Tabletop. “He didn’t tell me the first time.”

“Yeah, well. There is such a thing as being too full of your own govno. ” He adjusted his camera so it faced backward. “It should tear a little hole in the fabric of space-time, just for a fraction of a second. Less than that, really: it should be instantaneous. The effect should be similar to a small explosion, except in reverse. Implosion. Gravity waves. Like I’ve created an infinitely heavy mass then made it vanish in the same moment.”