Glasshouse - Charles Stross [163]
“Repeat.” I’m staring at Greg. What used to be Greg. Someone behind me is making horrible sounds. I think it’s Liz. “We have a code red, two down.”
“I said, Panic two,” says Janis. “They’ve got a Vorpal—”
Pink noise fills my ears, and her voice breaks up: cognitive radios meet heuristic jamming. “Come on!” I yell at Sam, who’s bending over Liz. “Follow me!”
We’re on a landing at the top of the stairs. Yourdon’s apartment covers one side of the building, but on the other side—there’s a door. I dash toward it, reloading on the go. Greg tried to kill me, I realize. Which means he warned them. So . . .
I pause at one side of the door and wave Sam to the other. Then I brace myself and unload the entire clip through it at waist height.
While my ears are ringing, and I’m fumbling the next magazine into place, Sam kicks the door in and quickly shoots the police zombie slumped against the side of the corridor in the head. (That one was still moving, hand creeping toward the shotgun lying in the floor; the two bodies behind it aren’t even twitching.) Seeing how efficiently Sam steps in gives me a momentary chill of recognition. No hesitation. Behind us, Liz is still moaning, and Martin won’t be good for anything. “What is this place?” I ask aloud.
“More offices.” Sam kicks a door open and duck-walks through it. “Modern offices.” I follow him. The next door is more substantial, opening onto a glass-fronted balcony above a room with open floor space, an office-sized assembler at one side, and a row of glassy doors . . . “Is that what I think it is?”
Bingo. “Gates,” I say. “A switch hub. How do we get down—”
“Hello, Reeve,” says my earpiece, in a voice that sets my teeth on edge. “This isn’t going to work, you know.”
Where did Fiore get a headset from? Greg? Or have they captured one of Team Green?
Sam looks as if someone’s poleaxed him. His jaw is literally gaping. Too late I realize he’s on the same chatline.
“You’ve lost, Reeve,” Fiore adds conversationally. I can hear noises in the background. “We know about your plot. There are guards outside the switch chamber, and if you get past them and make it to the longjump pod, you’ll die—there’s an active laser fence in there. I’m most disappointed in you, but we can still work something out if you put down your popguns and surrender.”
I touch my index finger to my lips and wait until Sam nods at me, to show he’s got the message. Then I walk toward the door onto the staircase leading down into the switch chamber and its bank of shortjump gates.
I don’t want Sam to see how sick I feel.
“You don’t know shit, Fiore,” I say lightly.
“Yes I do.” He sounds smug. “Greg’s unfortunate death makes further concealment irrelevant. Bluntly, you’ve failed. You can’t—”
I rip my earbud out and throw it away, frantically miming at Sam to do likewise. He pulls it out of his ear and stares at it. As he’s about to toss it there’s a dual bang. He doubles over as a thin reddish mist sprays from his left finger and thumb, retching with pain.
“Sam!” I yell at him. He cradles his damaged hand, panting. “Sam! We’ve only got a few seconds! Fiore can’t stop us, or he’d already be up here! Sanni’s got him pinned down! We’ve got to blow the longjump pod before he gets away! Give me your jacket!”
“No choice—” He takes a shuddering breath and shakes his head. “Reeve.”
I place my gun at my feet and take him by the shoulders. “What is it, love?”
A moment of awful tenderness, as I see the pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says brokenly. “I couldn’t be what you wanted.”
“What—”
And his good fist, still wrapped around the butt of his gun, whacks me across the back of my head, propelling me straight into a pit of darkness from which I only emerge when it’s far too late.
Epilogue
TO cut a long story short, we won.
IT feels very different when you watch a replay of a body tumbling off a cliff, in free fall toward the harsh ground so far below, and it’s not your body, and there are no second chances.
In the years since Sanni and I—and the rest of our ragtag resistance network