Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [49]
‘Good luck,’ Gemboyle called over.
Gemboyle watched as Forrester composed herself, drawing her hands to her sides, pulling herself straight, tucking her head down tight to her collarbone. She brought her breathing under control. When she was ready, she looked up at the black slope that vanished into the clouds. Gemboyle kept his eyes fixed on her.
She clicked her heels together and shot into the air.
8
Angels and/or Devils
Falconstock stood at the edge of the terrace. It was the middle of the night. He had wanted to come up here, to reflect on what had happened tonight. Soon those young people would be dead. Through the thick plate glass, the city looked serene as ever. The air was thin up here and the sound of babies crying and barking dogs rarely drifted this far up. Falconstock remembered a story he’d been told by one of his teachers, decades ago. Once upon a time, an old man who had been born blind was cured. When he had looked at the world the first time, he saw all the cracks in the plaster, the chips in the paint, the mould on the walls, the missing roof slates, discoloured tarmac, the dirt, rust, mange, acne, grime, discoloration, filth, all the little imperfections that he had never imagined were there, that he had never pictured. Unable to live in an imperfect universe, he took out his own eyes the very next day. The story probably wasn’t true, not in the usual sense.
Nowadays, restoring sight was simply a routine operation, not the miracle it might once have been. The Scientifica could cure cripples and lepers here with their medicines. They could walk on water and part the seas with artificial gravity. Molecular processors could turn water into wine, lead into gold, people into columns of salt.
Food poured from nutrition synthesizers. They’d abolished poverty. They’d proved conclusively that Father Christmas didn’t exist, that there were no such things as fairies and that angels were simply metaphors. They could kill children in the name of justice. Everything could be explained away.
A woman wearing a grey fur coat fell up past the window. She held in mid-air for a moment, raising her arm straight out in front of her. Falconstock had time to register that she was holding something before there was an explosive blast and the plate glass shattered into shards.
Falconstock stumbled back, covering his eyes. Something whizzed past him, and the viewscreen bolted to the back wall exploded into sparks.
The intruder alarm was buzzing, it had been ever since the glass had shattered. The sound shook Falconstock, convincing him that he hadn’t been dreaming. He whirled round. A metal hook was embedded in the monitor, a taut metal line led from it and outside into the cold night air.
Falconstock rushed over to the window. The woman was dangling five metres below him, the line wrapped around her right hand. As he watched, she began to pull herself upwards. Her eyes were closed, she was out of breath, but she continued, hand over hand. Beneath her, fragments of glass were twinkling against the lights from the Scientifica, they still hadn’t reached the ground. In almost no time, she was hauling herself over the window frame, her leg swinging over for momentum. She was sweating, trying to catch her breath. She grunted something. She was old, no more than ten years younger than him.
Falconstock punched her in the face. She reeled, but in the same movement had lashed out, forcing him back. He grabbed a piece of metal piping that had fallen from the frame and swung it at the woman’s head. She caught his wrist, squeezed it, prised the pipe from his hands and kicked his legs from under him, all in one movement.
The alarm continued to blare. Why hadn’t anyone answered it yet?
As he fell, Falconstock slipped. A sound like a whip crack passed through him.
A headless body fell into his field of vision alongside him.
She wasn’t pressing her attack. Why were her eyes wide?
Why was she staring at him? Why that expression of horror? And why was the body wearing his tunic?
Alarm bells ringing.
It’s my body. Alongside