Саймон Морден - Equations of Life

“The only way you might be able to get out alive is by letting Sonja go. The Jihad want to save her, which is the only reason they’re here. You’re just not that important otherwise. No Sonja, no Jihad. I’m kind of assuming that you’d prefer it that way, so you can go back to stealing stuff and shooting at drones.”

As soon as he said it, his palms went sticky. His gaze went from the faces of his audience to the expanse of plate glass behind them. He stood up, far too quickly, and announced: “We have to get out of here, right now.”

He swayed on his feet as he turned. Madeleine would have caught him; Sonja didn’t seem to know what to do, and watched him stumble into several chairs. He raised himself up again to find them all still watching him and not moving.

But not for long, because someone noticed a wide-winged, slim-bodied aircraft outside the building lining up for its final approach. He pointed out of the window and started to run at the same time, pushing a boy to the floor who was in his way.

The sudden eruption of movement broke the spell of inaction. Everyone surged for the door. Petrovitch was battered at the front of the wave. He tried to reach back through the rush of bodies to Sonja and grasped nothing but thin air.

“Sam!”

He was slammed into the door to the stairwell. For a brief moment, he was wedged in the frame. Then he managed to claw his way back, fingers tight against the plasterwork.

She was standing there, watching the drone grow in size. It made a tiny correction that leveled its flight. Petrovitch kicked his legs free of the doorway.

“Sonja,” he said. “Snap out of it.”

“Do you trust the Jihad?”

“No! Now come on!”

“I do,” she said. She smiled, and spread her arms wide to embrace it.

The drone swelled suddenly, taking up all of the window, plunging the room into darkness.

It hit the floor below them, disappearing from view then disgorging a bright tongue of fire. The concrete beneath their feet jerked; dust danced, the picture window crazed, and what sounded like a hundred doors slamming echoed in their ears.

“See?” she said. “They wouldn’t hurt me.”

The fire flickered and faded. Smoke replaced flame as everything combustible started to burn. There was smoke and dust billowing up the stairwell, too, and advancing along the ceiling as a milky-white haze.

“ Yobany stos, ” said Petrovitch, crouching down. “When I find the Jihad, I swear to God I’m going to kill them. We’ve about thirty seconds to get below the fire, or we’re trapped and we’ll burn. I’m going, and you might like to follow.”

It was like climbing down a factory chimney. The air was sharp as a knife; it cut deep at Petrovitch’s throat and stabbed at his already aching chest. He could barely see because his eyes streamed with the acid fumes. He kept his head as close to the steps as he could, taking breaths in small sips, but the smoke howled and roared around him.

He had one hand on the banister railings, feeling them flick past his fingers. He had the other wrapped around Sonja’s wrist.

They made the first landing, turned and saw that the door to the next level had been blown out. Black soot mixed with clean air from beneath and whipped upward, carrying glowing cinders in its wake. The air was hot, dry and quick, carrying the promise of incineration with it.

The plastic handrail of the banister was starting to sag and drip. He lay down and slid to the next landing. It was like being in front of a furnace door.

He crawled until he felt the top step, then rolled off, dragging Sonja with him. He was falling, bouncing, twisting, spinning. He landed in a heap, his leather coat scorched and smoking, Sonja stirring weakly on top of him.

The stream of air that moaned around them was clear. He took a deep breath, immediately coughed so hard that blood flecked the boot-stained stairs. He spat and coughed again, rasping and wheezing. Mucus was dripping from his nose, his mouth, and he was still blind with tears.

He found enough strength to heave Sonja away and took another breath. It made him cough again, but not so vigorously. He scrubbed at his eyes with his fingers. His left side cleared, his right didn’t.

Petrovitch squinted, and realized he’d broken a lens.

At least he was still alive, despite the best efforts of Oshicora, Marchenkho, the Paradise militia, Sorenson, his own heart and the New Machine Jihad.

He tried to speak, and it came out as a croak. He tried again.

“You’re not on fire. So help me up and get me down these stairs. No, wait.”

He reached into his pocket for the rat, and opened it up. The screen reported starkly: here. Petrovitch, still lying on his back, used the stylus to reply “ У тебыа чо руки из жопи растут” before closing it up with a satisfying snap.

“What did you tell them?” asked Sonja. Her face, her clothes, were stained dark, and her voice didn’t rise above a whisper. She no longer looked like the Oshicora heir, neither did she sound like her. Just another seventeen-year-old kid dumped on the street by wild circumstance and lost as to what to do.

“I told them they couldn’t find their ass with their hands. Which is pretty much the truth. We’re not going to survive another of their rescue attempts, so let’s get going.”

She tentatively picked him up. “You have a plan, right?”

“I did, but I’m pretty much making it up as I go along now.” He straightened up as much as he could. He was bruised and battered, and when he ran his hand across his mouth, it came away streaked with red. But at least the knot in his chest seemed to be unwinding. He could manage, just.

Twenty stories later, and there were ominous grinding noises coming from the superstructure of the tower. The building groaned and shook periodically, as if shrugging another chunk of masonry free and letting it fall onto the carpet of driverless cars below.

Petrovitch was so exhausted he almost missed the first floor, and instead started down the final wind of stairs to the ground. He stopped himself, backed up and turned his head so he could use his good eye to see the number painted on the door.

“In here.” He put his hand in his pocket and took hold of the Beretta without drawing it.

The corridor led both left and right, a series of identical doorways, but some were open, and others were blank-faced and shut. He picked at random and peered around. The door itself was lying on the floor, hinges ripped from the frame. The first room had been gutted, anything useful taken, nothing but foul detritus left in its place. At the far end was a window, and a door that led out onto a balcony. All the glass had gone long ago, and tatters of lace curtains twitched fitfully.

Petrovitch lifted his gun hand clear, checked behind him, then entered the room. “Stay close,” he said unnecessarily, for Sonja was almost walking on the backs of his heels.

The sound of the cars bumping and scraping against each other was like a gale in a forest. Amidst all the individual creaking and cracking was a rhythm that came and went, building and falling as the next gust passed through.

He picked his way to the balcony, nudged the door open with his foot, and stepped outside.

It was hopeless. There was no way they could find a path across the shifting sea of metal. Maybe if he was fit, if he was on his own, if he was sufficiently reckless, he might try it. But he was none of those things.

The blue nose of the riot wagon edged around the corner, crushing everything beneath it. It started down the side of the building that would take it right by Petrovitch, and he ducked back inside.