Саймон Морден - Equations of Life

Petrovitch shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not. I’m lying through my teeth every time I talk to it. So far I’ve found out the New Machine Jihad is really Oshicora’s VirtualJapan supervisor, the whereabouts of the secret room, the information that yes, it can be damaged by something there, and I’ve got a promise it won’t try and kill me just yet. Tell me who else can get close enough to the Jihad to disable it?”

“You lied?” She sounded shocked, and Petrovitch was outwardly disappointed but inwardly pleased.

“Maddy, I lie all the time. About almost everything. My entire life is constructed on a lie, and if it means I get to save the Metrozone, I’ll carry on lying until my pants spontaneously combust.”

“So why did Chain get rid of us?”

“Because despite your ‘why can’t we just get along’ speech, the idiot thinks I’m pro-Jihad. In his binary mind, that means I’m willing to let the city burn, and because you’re naturally going to take my side in everything, he sees you as part of the problem.” He wanted to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He had no way of doing so; he’d run out of hands. “If Chain gets to the tower before I do, any advantage I might have had has gone and you can wave the city goodbye.”

She sat back on her heels, wiping the worst of the congealing gore on her face away with her armored sleeve. “There must be something we can do.”

“Short of calling down a nuclear strike, no.” He tilted his head to see her better, her worry lines, her misshapen nose, the black scab perched at the end of it and the streaks of blood on her lips and chin. “I’d do it, too, if I thought anyone would believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“All we have is some scaffolding and a phone that no longer works.” He grimaced. “And a mad computer who thinks we’re on its side. I don’t know if it’s enough.”

She ventured an uncertain smile. “I’m used to doing things knowing there’s a whole team behind me: that if I fall, there’s someone else there to pick up where I left off.”

He struggled to his feet and looked over the lip of the pit. “You have my pity: I wouldn’t like to rely on me, either.”

She joined him. “It’s getting darker,” she said, looking up at the cloud-shrouded sky. There was no hint of orange in it at all.

“This is going to be a night like no other,” said Petrovitch. “The Jihad must have cut the power completely. When it gets properly dark, it’ll be chaos.”

“Then,” she said, lifting herself up to ground level, “we’d better get moving.”

Petrovitch lifted the steel pipe onto his foot and lofted it in the air so she could catch it. “I have a plan,” he said. “We’ll need that.”

She reached down and wrapped her arm around his back. Their faces were very close. He didn’t know what to do.

“I’m lost,” he said. “I don’t know which way to turn and I have no map to guide me.”

“You think I do? Until this morning, I was a nun.” She adjusted her grip and heaved him up. “It’s like the blind leading the blind.”

The pain in his shoulder flared bright, and he closed his eyes against it. Something warm and soft pressed against his, dry, cracked and dusty lips.

He opened one eye. “Did you just kiss me?”

“Maybe,” she said, and looked away. “What’s the plan?”

“We steal a car.”

“And the Jihad…?”

“Won’t be able to touch us in a pre-Armageddon wreck. In fact, the older the better. Only, I can’t hotwire anything at the moment, so you’ll have to do it. Can you stand being ordered around by me?”

She spun the pipe over her wrist, up her arm, down the other until it slapped into her open palm. “Sam. Yes, for the last time.”

“I still don’t know why.” He started to push through the bushes back toward the street.

The only cars left on the road were old: the newer majority had been conscripted by the Jihad. Petrovitch picked an ancient, rusting Skoda, one that had clearly been through several wars already, and one he knew how to take. He nodded to Madeleine, who smashed the passenger window with the steel pipe. Chips of glass exploded across the back seat, and she quickly reached through to open the door.

“It wasn’t locked,” she said.

“Yeah. Beginner’s mistake. Don’t worry about it.” He clawed at the driver’s door and helped it open with his boot. “Pole, through the steering wheel, and twist hard.”

The steering lock snapped and Petrovitch crouched down by the dashboard.

“The plastic bit under the steering column. Get your hand behind it and rip it out.”

Kneeling beside him, she reached in and tore the fascia away. She threw it behind her, and Petrovitch retrieved a nest of wires. He got his thumb through them and jerked them free.

“Okay. The two red ones. Twist the bare ends together. Now the black one; just wind it round where the other two join. Huy, check it’s not in gear.”

“How do I do that?”

He stopped and blinked. “You can’t drive?”

“No.”

“I hate to say the words ‘crash’ and ‘course’ together, but you’re about to get a crash course. Get in.”

“Why not you?”

“Because I can’t hold the steering wheel, I can barely see and I can’t work the gear stick.”

She got in, and barked her knees against the dash. “You should have stolen a bigger car.”

“Push the seat back, woman! Lever under your seat, pull it up and kick back.”

Madeleine shot back with a bang that jarred her neck.

Petrovitch ground his teeth. “ Yobany stos . Put your hand on the gear stick: move it from side to side.”

“It won’t,” she said.

“Pull it down until it comes loose.”

“Done.”

“At last. My record in St. Petersburg was fifteen seconds, from brick through the window to driving away. I’m embarrassed how long this is taking.” He reached over her legs to fumble at the wires, touching a blue-shrouded cable to the spliced ends. It made fat blue sparks as he ran the frayed copper end up and down the bare metal.

The engine turned over and didn’t catch at first.

“Right foot on the gas. Lightly,” he added quickly as she stamped down, “not all the way.” He tried the wire again, and after a few asthmatic wheezes, the engine caught and spluttered into life, but always threatening to stall again. “More gas. Don’t flood the carb, though.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she yelled over the clattering roar.

“Just don’t touch anything until I’m on board.” He slammed her door shut and jogged as best as he could around the bonnet. As he slid into the passenger seat, she was fixing her seatbelt in place.

“What?” she said, looking at him looking at her.

“Actually, that’s not such a bad idea.” He tried to reach behind him, and each time the pain in his shoulder made him pull back. “Okay, forget it. Handbrake.”

“Which is…” Her hands fluttered over the controls.

“Here! Behind the gear stick. Never mind.” He winced as he gripped it and gasped as he let it free. “Right. Turn the wheel all the way to the left, put it into first gear and let’s get the huy out of here.”

“And I do that…?”

“You use the clutch.”

“You know,” she said, “you’re dead bossy.”

“I’m trying to save upward of twenty-five million people. I think that allows me to do a bit of shouting.”

“Just saying. Clutch. Which one was that?”

Petrovitch rubbed his bandaged hand against his forehead. “ Chyort . Left-hand pedal. All the way down. Look, don’t worry about the gears: I’ll do them.”