Downtime - Marc Platt [45]
Outside, he was away from the heat. He began to clatter down the corkscrew escape route. Halfway down, he heard a shout.
Christopher Rice was standing on one of the overhead walkways that linked the New World buildings, pointing up across the gap at the fire escape. From Danny’s vantage point, he could see Chillys converging from all directions. Above him, there was the clatter of descending footsteps.
Alarms started to jangle. Alarms with a cosmic disco heartbeat. Danny reached the foot of the escape and started to belt along the concrete walkways.
Twice he faced them head on, but he knew the system. He could cut corners, jump levels, clamber across roofs, running them in circles until they dropped and he got maximum points.
He careered another junction and skidded to a halt. Gliding out of a side turning came a small silvered globe. It echoed the alarm beat with its high staccato bleeps. It paused and then changed direction, seeming to glide rather than roll towards him.
Danny panicked. He started to backtrack, desperate to reach a stair up to the next walkway before the pursuing Chillys.
This wasn’t what he had planned. He was going to be sandwiched. Already there were more of the students gathering behind the gliding sphere, content to follow as its entourage.
Danny tore at a group of bikes parked by the stairwell, scattering them across the walkway, blocking the sphere’s path. He started to run up the steps, heading for the ramps that lead to the university generator rooms. Behind him, the globe reached the scattered bikes and began to weave to and fro, momentarily confused by the tangle of metal. The Chillys began to clear a path for the sphere.
There was no one on the next level up and Danny, his legs already giving out, made for the generator service area. He need only go a little higher to reach the feeder ramps and then down away off campus. But God only knew how he was going to find the Brigadier.
He struggled up to the crest of the walkway on what felt like his last breath and looked down towards freedom. A group of Chillys were heading up towards him. He looked back and saw more emerging from the stairwell. He ran to the edge and looked over. It was high. There was nowhere to run.
Both groups stopped short, one at either side of him. They waited as if afraid to upset the balance of which he was the pivot. The beat had stopped, but he could still hear from somewhere the high repeating pips of the sphere. There was a disturbance on the stairwell side and Christopher came pushing through the Chillys. He advanced, all cool smarm.
‘Come back, Daniel. Nothing to be afraid of.’
Danny nearly laughed, but it choked in his throat.
Christopher was coming closer. Danny climbed up onto the parapet. The ground below him swayed.
‘Come on, Daniel. We’re here to help you. You were chosen.’
The Chillys’ fixed stare unnerved him. It was like invisible hands holding him there on the edge. He braced himself against it. ‘It’s a sham! The whole thing! It’ll get you all!’
Christopher seemed almost nonchalant. ‘It already has you, Daniel.’
Behind him, the Chillys parted and the sphere glided, bleeping hungrily, through the gap.
‘Daniel the Devious,’ grinned Christopher and stepped back for the sphere to approach. The object began to rock back and forth as if gathering power for a sudden leap at its prey.
Danny looked down in despair. Tears were gathering on the lower rims of his glasses. He felt a new rage stinging and burning up inside him. He didn’t want to finish it here.
‘Go on then,’ suggested Christopher. ‘There’s no escape.
Not even that way.’
Danny flung his arms out wide and threw himself into the air.
He felt the world rushing up and wind hitting him, whistling between his fingers. Everything was whirling past in a maelstrom of concrete and sky and branches. And somewhere he heard a voice, her voice, calling his name.
‘ Daniel. ’
The air seemed to cradle him and carry him. The rushing fall became a cushioned swoop. Like the dreams of projection, like