Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [105]
Something was coming up the stairwell on the far side. Halfway along was a recess with fire extinguishers and an emergency phone. Kohn hauled Janis into it after him. They flattened back and Kohn glanced out.
Another horseman was cantering along the walkway. In the opposite direction Kohn saw the Stasis man leap to the top of the stairs and hit the floor, a heavy pistol clasped in both hands in front of him. Kohn jerked back.
The padding hooves stopped, close.
‘Throw out your weapons.’ The agent’s voice sounded strained and strange. ‘Don’t say a word or you’ll be shot.’
‘Oh, shit,’ Kohn said through his teeth. Some part of his brain began displaying detailed pictures of what would happen to it if he were captured. He wrenched his attention away from images of bone-saws and drill-bits and trodes in time to catch Janis’s urgent low whisper: ‘…just the guns, then use anything you’ve got left, they mightn’t expect all you’ve got…’
Kohn looked at her and nodded. She tossed the pistol on the floor. Kohn followed it with the gun. It landed on its bipod. Kohn raised his arms and was about to step out when he heard the creak and tinkle of thin glass breaking.
‘FIRE!’ said the alarm, in a deep, calm chip voice.
The gun opened up. Janis stepped smartly forward before he could stop her. She’d grabbed a fire extinguisher. She jumped in front of the horse and aimed the foam straight for its eyes. It screamed and reared, striking the rider’s head against the ceiling. He fell backwards. Janis was at the horse’s side in an instant, shoving at the saddle. The animal tottered, off-balance, rear hooves beating a desperate prance, the fore-hooves hammering at the glass. The rider’s legs kicked until his feet disengaged from the stirrups. He slid down the slope of the horse’s back. The huge window broke. The horse went through the glass in a sickening slow motion and vanished. Janis ducked, scooping up the pistol. The rider was sprawled on his back, one arm underneath him, the other making warding-off motions. Janis stood astride him and pointed the pistol at his face.
‘Don’t!’ Kohn yelled.
The gun continued its scything fire. Kohn threw himself behind it. It was supposed to respond to his voice only. He forgave it, this once. The agent was gone. Must have rolled to the stairs. Nice. None of the holes in the far wall were lower than half a metre.
The gun stopped, out of ammo. Kohn peered through the howling gap down at the mound of meat on the central reservation.
He looked at Janis.
‘That was dangerous,’ he said. ‘You might have killed somebody.’
She glanced back as Kohn slammed another clip into place.
‘We’re in the army now,’ she said, and turned back to the man at her feet.
‘So you can’t shoot him now! He’s out of it!’
Janis shook herself and stepped back. ‘OK, OK.’ She gingerly took an automatic and a sheath-knife from the man’s belt and rolled him off his broken arm. He’d already fainted.
They ran back the way they had come. Janis stood clear as Kohn crawled to the top of the stairs and used the gun’s sensors to look over the edge. Nothing there. They went down the stairs and out across the foyer, back to back. Nobody had responded to the fire alarm. Just as well.
The whole place looked as if a gas bomb had hit it. Everything intact but bodies everywhere. Vehicles still pulling in seemed suddenly to go on automatic: driverless. Good reflexes, these civilians. Nothing between here and the truck but the Cadillac, and the slumped body of the agent Janis had shot. They got behind an inexplicable object, a sort of concrete tub filled with packed earth. (Kohn had always vaguely assumed the things were provided to give cover in shoot-outs. Part of the facilities.) He edged around it and very deliberately pumped a few more shots into the body.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘Give you cover.’
He crossed the tarmac as in an unpredictable dance with an invisible