Neal Asher - The Departure

Then, suddenly, a massive disruption in the Minsk network, whilst simultaneously something exploded within the back end of the space plane, extinguishing that punctuated glare of its motors and throwing out chunks of dark metal trailing spears of smoke. It dropped out of the sky with all the aerodynamics of a falling chimney pot.

‘Mother of God!’ Hannah exclaimed.

He groped for information throughout cyberspace, hit disruption wherever he looked, then oddly found easy access to cameras positioned on high buildings, giving him multiple views of the disaster. He watched the plane trying to stay level but, with one of its rear wings tearing away, its nose came up as it descended. Another view gave him four seconds of its underside hurtling in, silhouetted against fire, until its rear end struck the building on which the cam was positioned. Back to another view of that same edifice, the plane carving through it, its position in the sky and angle of descent hardly changed by the impact, the wreckage of the top half of the building now strewn across factory complexes below. Then the plane went in like a wounded black swan descending on to a lake, churning up and spraying the lower buildings like water. As the nose slammed down, it disintegrated, becoming a train-shaped firestorm within which could be seen the burning black bones of its structure. It cut a swathe of devastation ten kilometres long.

Only when the final debris rained down did Saul consider why it had been so easy for him to access these views of this disaster. Someone had got there before him, to position the cams.

‘Let’s move,’ he said, shoving his elbow against the door of the taxi.

It wasn’t opening, which meant that from somewhere an instruction had been sent to lock it down. He turned and looked behind him, spotted an armoured troop carrier motoring into sight.

Then something out there. Some pattern forming in surrounding and seriously disrupted cyberspace. Something tentacular expanded, a shadow cast by someone’s manipulation of the network, yet Saul immediately recognized that this wasn’t the comlife that had been hunting him. Hannah became like a distant creature trapped in the taxi, alongside that set of mobile fleshy sensors that seemed to be a minor part of himself – yet within which resided the essential him. It had to survive because, even in this new state, he knew himself unready to depart physical existence; knew that without that human connection he would lose any real reason to stay alive.

This new comlife, he realized, was taking control of Inspectorate aeros that were even now ascending into the sky to head for the crash site. They began firing upon each other.

Missile streaks cut above the devastation caused by the space plane, and cartridge cases rained down from machine guns firing continuously. Two of the aeros just dropped like bricks, trailing smoke, and slammed into the ground, one exploding and the other just turning into a fattened mess of wreckage. Another aero blew a fan and began spinning around about its other main fan, until that too blew and tore its guts out. It also went down.

Saul saw it then: a single craft departing the battle, between its fellows, neither firing nor being fired upon. It flew past the face of a tall building built in the shape of a cowl – one he recognized as he withdrew from cam systems and used only his eyes. The building lay just half a kilometre away from them, and he watched the aero fly into view, settle into a hover and revolve towards them. He knew in an instant that they weren’t the target – those troops back there were – but, trapped inside this taxi so close to them, he and Hannah would die.

Hannah had told him that in his previous incarnation, as well as being a semi-autistic genius with enough going on in his head to frighten members of the Inspectorate, he had excelled in the martial arts. And, as he had since discovered, he still did. His body still possessed the muscle and coordination developed through all that previous training. However, that alone would not have been enough – it was knowledge acquired from Janus that tipped the balance. His AI, which was now part of him, knew the design of autotaxis like this one down to the smallest detail. The lockdown was a security protocol usually employed by the Inspectorate to secure suspects remotely, before they themselves could arrive on the scene.

A lockdown would seal the doors, then shut down the vehicle’s computer so those trapped inside could not access it to open them. No mental access for him there, but he knew precisely how the vehicle was constructed. Two steel locking bars had engaged to the rear of the door, and these could only be physically disengaged from outside by arresting officers. The window glass wasn’t glass at all but a laminated perspex which here, in the spaceport where many important people might use the taxis, was capable of stopping a bullet. The weakness lay at the hinges, being angled steel plates riveted to the body and the door, connected by five-millimetre steel hinge pins. He spun in the seat, grabbed a hand support provided for less able passengers, drew back both his legs and kicked out hard at the front of the door, over those hinges, the force of the blow running from his rigid arms right down through his body. The top hinge broke, the door tilting out. He kicked it again, and the second hinge broke away, but the door still hung suspended from its two locking bars. Leaning over, he shoved the door forward off its bars, and it clattered to the ground.

Saul got out, turning to drag Hannah after him, but she was already close on his heels. Behind them, troops were still piling out of the armoured car and, noticing someone trapped in a taxi just ahead, he realized the lockdown hadn’t been directed at only his taxi. Somebody began shouting, and he saw a crowd of people, outside Embarkation, pointing over towards the aero. A glance in that direction, fire faring under the craft, a stream of missiles spewing out, smoke trails heading directly towards them. Less than ten seconds, he calculated, as he grabbed Hannah’s hand and they ran.

One man stood at the scanner beside the entrance to Embarkation, the glass doors drawing apart for him. Saul shouldered him aside, just hoping the readerguns in the foyer beyond would still ignore them. Just for a fraction of a second, the sight of numerous pot plants – the first green he had seen in a while – fazed him, but then he dragged Hannah towards a guard booth stretching all along the left side of the foyer. The doors to this stood open, an enforcer halfway across the blue-carpeted floor, on her way to the main doors. The woman turned towards him, to say something, he didn’t know what. He pushed Hannah ahead of him to reach the door into the booth, where she threw herself on the floor with her hands over her head. An enforcer within the booth turned on his revolving chair, hand dropping to the ionic stunner at his belt. Saul dropped down on top of Hannah, shoving his fingers in his ears just as a sound impacted like that of an avalanche in a scrapyard.

Then came the light and the fire.

The blasts blended into one hollow roar, and Hannah felt something grab and drag Saul backwards off her. Heat washed over her legs and then the roar receded, as if some angry fire god had just paid a brief visit then departed. She raised her head and saw that the vacuum created by the blast had dragged Saul halfway out of the booth. Glancing up she realized the armoured glass had been blown in, sheets of it now resting against the back wall to form a low ceiling. The enforcer seated in the revolving chair had not ducked fast enough and lay on the floor, his head weeping blood.

Saul stood up and mouthed something at her. She gazed at him, puzzled and stunned. Her ears were ringing and his words an indistinct mutter. He studied her for a moment, then, crouching below the armourglass, reached out a hand to haul her up, and they ducked out of the booth.