Саймон Морден - Degrees of Freedom

“You know this is just madness, don’t you?” she told him as he crashed to the floor.

“We’re trying to prevent a bunch of fanatics armed with an atomic bomb from putting a glowing crater in the Freezone. Compared with what we’ve already been through, this counts as sane.” He held his good hand up. “Shall we do it, then? Take revenge for all the ones the Armageddonists got through?”

Her fingers tightened around his wrist and he was dragged upright. “That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it? In their nuclear dreams, they get to stop them, just once.”

She pushed her night-vision goggles up her forehead long enough to kiss him hard on the lips. Then she pushed him behind her, and knelt down to crawl toward the sharp-edged void of the shaft.

The singularity bomb was shattered: the resin that had held the warp and weft of the wire had been reduced to a few large fragments with the rest of it turned to pea-sized grit. That meant he had two left, then. Petrovitch and Madeleine sat on opposite sides of the end of the tunnel and looked out over the shaft.

Madeleine checked the rope, which had been tied around the base of the last tunnel support.

“I still don’t get what’s keeping them.” Petrovitch curled his fingers around the haft of a shovel and felt its reassuring, primitive weight. “If it had been me, I’d have blown it by now. There has to be a good reason.”

“And you want to exploit it.”

“We’re not dead yet.” He peered over the edge; no mines or tripwires that he could see. He glanced upward again, at the great mass of debris hanging high above their heads.

“If I lower you down, both of us are vulnerable at that point. If they’re watching the shaft…” Madeleine studied the vault doors. The stone that had kept them ajar had been kicked aside, and it rested almost shut on the thickness of a fiber-optic cable.

“I need to get down there,” he insisted.

“You really think you’re going to talk them out of this?”

“I think I should try. It’s not over till the Fat Boy sings.”

“Sam, I want you to listen to me.” She dragged his face around. “They’re not going to be dissuaded. They’re not just soldiers, they’re martyrs. I understand this sort of thing. They’re not going to recant; they believe in what they’re doing.”

“I don’t.”

“You can’t stop them. We can’t storm the vault, and they won’t come out. They’re in there and, whatever it is they’re waiting for, anything you say is more likely to make them detonate early, not less.” She took the shovel from him and put it to one side. She clasped his now-empty hand in both of her own. “I want a future with you. I don’t know where it’s going to be or what it is we’re going to be doing, but I want it with you. That’s never going to happen if we stay here.”

“Ireland,” he mumbled. “We’re supposed to be going to Ireland, set up a Freezone on a long contract. We’re citizens—diplomats, even. It’s all arranged, everything. Michael is there already; the Irish government in exile have installed a quantum computer in the Cork mission station. That’s what we were going to do.”

“Then why are we sitting in a cold dark tunnel under the center of what used to be London, trying to protect something that is no longer of any importance, trying to persuade some zealots not to blow themselves up?”

“Because I have to. Because I’ve lived my whole life in fear of the Armageddonists. I’ve done some really shitty things to all kinds of people—good, bad, mad—because I’ve been so very afraid, and I have to show that I can choose to do the right thing, just once. If I stop them, I get to cancel out all the crap I’ve dealt out over the years.” He chewed at his lip. “But mostly because I hate them and what they’ve done to me.”

“The question is, do you hate them more than you love me?” She pressed his hand tighter. “While there was still a chance, then of course we had to try and prevent this, this outrage. We did our very best. We couldn’t have done more. We have all been, at times, utterly magnificent. And it still wasn’t enough. They’ve chosen their path: it’s time for us to choose ours. While we still can.”

Petrovitch rested the back of his head against the tunnel wall and groaned long and loud. “Every time. Every time I play their yebani game, they win.”

“Then stop playing. Only an idiot keeps gambling against someone with loaded dice, and you’re not an idiot. Recognize this for what it is: a stitch-up from start to finish. I’m more than willing to die down here with you, but I’d like to be able to look St. Peter in the eye and not have him think me weapons-grade stupid for throwing my life away in such an heroically pointless manner.” She fixed him with her electronically enhanced stare for a moment, before looking at the ground between their legs. “How about it, Sam?”

“I can’t argue with that,” he said. “Everything you say makes perfect sense.”

“But we’re still going to go out like Butch and the Kid, right?”

“No. No we’re not.” He freed his hand and raised her chin. “You’re absolutely right. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on. Plan B.”

“Do we have one?”

“We do now. The vault needs to be properly shut.” He reached for the shovel and presented it to her. “You’re the only one who can do this in time, however much time it is we have left.”

She snatched at the shovel and threw it through the hole, where it clanged hollowly against the rubble at the bottom of the shaft. She wrapped her waist with the rope, and positioned herself on the lip of the drop.

“Watch my back,” she said, and started down.

Petrovitch dragged his pistol out and dared the door to open any further than the crack it already was. Madeleine reached the bottom, stooped briefly to pick up the shovel and ran to the vault.

The tiny green light glowed in all its lonely glory.

She knelt down and hooked the cable in one hand, and with the other, slipped the blade of the shovel in the gap. She leaned in on the handle, and the perfectly balanced door moved in sympathy.

Someone was waiting, but they wasted their first fusillade into the back of the heavy steel blast door. Sparks illuminated the shaft and Madeleine’s crouched form: she turned her face away from the sudden brightness and the angry whine of deflected bullets.

A second later, she brought the shovel down on the cable, cutting it neatly in two. She took the end that led to the computer and gave it a sharp tug. The firing started again, and she pressed herself against the concrete wall.

It fell silent, and she looped the slack cable around the shovel’s handle, once, twice, tugged it tight, then threw the whole assembly through the door into the corridor beyond. The result was predictable, but Madeleine rolled across the floor and got her back to the door. She heaved, and the door swung shut, cutting off the crack of rifle fire the instant a seal was made.

The locks hummed, the bolts slid home, and the green light winked red.

“Tell me again why I’m doing this?” she called, panting.

“Because it’s a bomb-proof bunker,” shouted back Petrovitch. “Now get back up here.”

She ran back and took hold of the rope. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Yeah. If we can’t stop the explosion, we might be able to stop the fireball breaching the surface.”

She pulled hand over hand, and the rope creaked in protest.

“Come on, come on!”

A hand reached over the lip of the hole, and gripped the jagged edge. Sharp stone and iron cut into her palm, but she used the hold all the same. She put her other hand over and flailed for something to hang on to. Petrovitch caught her wrist and jammed his feet against the soft rock, pulling hard.