Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [54]
But then the octagon pulsed, winking out for an instant. It returned, but its orange glow had diminished and it was fuzzy around the edges. The entire heat image of the city wavered, then it began to fold in on itself. The night sky suddenly snapped from mint green to a dead TV‐screen grey. The head‐up displays of his instruments began to swim, registering random numbers, machine‐code garbage.
Sean’s rage was so enormous he couldn’t get the headset off. His fingers fumbled at the velcro. He heard a voice howling obscenities, muffled by a gaming mouthpiece, and the voice was his own. The virtual reality of Indonesia had faded away completely, replaced by a blank screen nowhere, nowhen. Sean knew what had happened. Someone had disrupted the gamesmaster process on their portable computer. He tore the games set off his head, knowing who he would see, knowing who would had sneaked into the tent. He would smash Warren’s fat face in. Break his nose and then –
But it wasn’t Warren.
It was a man. He had dark skin with some kind of black grease smeared across his cheekbones. He wore a black jacket and loose black trousers. Calvin was standing by the portable. He’d switched if off but now his hands were behind his head, fingers laced. His eyes never left the man. The man was bending over Sean’s chair.
He was pointing a gun at Sean.
A real gun.
Sean felt the sudden warm rush flowing down on his leg, soaking his baggy nylon camouflage shorts as his bladder let go. The body had won after all.
* * *
9
By the time Ace and Dfewar reached the small encampment with their prisoner, Dfewar’s men had already secured the place. The mercenaries had relaxed. Some were drinking cans of Fresca that came out of the American boys’ small refrigerator. Others were smoking cigarettes from packets they’d brought with them in waterproof ammunition bags. There was a round of applause and a ribald cheer as Ace and Dfewar came down from the moonlit hillside. Ace was glad of the darkness so no one could see her blushing. The boy, Guthrie, was walking behind her and Ace heard him stumble on the narrow trail. Dfewar reached back and caught him before he fell. Guthrie’s hands were tied behind his back, fastened with a scarf Dfewar had taken from his backpack. Ace carried the boy’s automatic rifle, slung over her shoulder, unloaded and with the muzzle pointing down at the ground. She was near enough now to see the other prisoners. Two more teenage boys, handcuffed to the support pole of the tent which housed the generator.
The encampment was what you might expect from a bunch of rich kids playing wilderness games. In addition to the tents and the generator Ace could see a lot of expensive toys. A beached aluminium canoe was lying beside one of the tents, folding paddles still propped up beside it in their factory wrapping. The Kurds had a couple of expensive VR gaming headsets which evidently belonged to the kids. The mercenaries were waiting impatiently to play with the sets. The men who were currently using them were smoking kif and giggling. In the space between the tents there was a portable refrigerator, a small cooking range with natural gas cylinders, and a low opaque plastic cylinder, about a metre in diameter, standing upright on the ground. A hose ran from the cylinder to a small water pump. Ace realized it was an outdoor shower. All the comforts of home.
‘What are you guys doing here?’ Ace turned to Guthrie. Guthrie had opened his mouth to answer when there was a shout from the tents.
‘Don’t tell the skank anything!’ The bigger of the other two boys had jumped to his feet, forgetting about the handcuffs.