Against Gravity

AWE TEPEE PILOT

Then Kendrick made arrangements to pick up a hired car the next morning.

21 October 2096 En route to Loch Awe

Kendrick heard the car parking itself outside his flat in the early morning hours. He stepped outside and gazed up into a red-tinged pre-dawn sky. The jet lag from his long hours of flight had sent his sleep cycle spinning, but he didn't feel he could afford to rest more than was strictly necessary.

A strong breeze whipped down the winding streets as his vehicle navigated its way through the ancient city. Kendrick kept a window open, for once enjoying the lash of wind and freezing rain. It made for a genuinely pleasant change after the burning heat of Cambodia.

Kendrick had done a lot of soul-searching in the hours since his return, even filling himself with doubt over his prompt refusal of Draeger's offer. But there were hundreds of other Labrats scattered around the globe who could benefit from the treatment, some of them perhaps already at death's door. Draeger using his supposed solution to every Labrat's problems as nothing more than a bargaining tool was the basest kind of bribery. Kendrick breathed deeply, pushing the anger away from him. Instead he watched the morning light spill over distant mountain peaks.

Three words. And they could only have come from the one living person whom Kendrick had ever felt he could really trust.

The car drove on, leaving the city far behind. Grey rain clouds skirted the horizon, spreading out across a sodden landscape of hills and valleys. Kendrick listened to the news as he went. Mostly they talked about the continuing spread of Asian Rot, as close now as the fields of southern Spain, and the source of frantic headlines for the past few weeks. After a while he passed through a damp-looking Falkirk before heading north to Stirling, and then on to Loch Awe.

An hour and a half after Kendrick had left Edinburgh, brilliant sunlight finally split the rain clouds wide, sending God-sized fingers of radiance down onto the waters of the Loch and the surrounding Braes.

The rain still pelted down sporadically as he passed along the shores of the Loch. Now he assumed manual control – and almost missed the old hotel building as it loomed out of bushes of wild heather, with dense thickets of oak trees lining the path to the retreat.

Kendrick let the car park itself in the driveway to the sound of gravel spitting under its wheels. Before him was a two-storey building of granite. Bought by a wealthy Buddhist a little over a century before, since then it had become a dedicated retreat, although Kendrick had never once seen an orange robe during his visits. He walked up to the entrance and passed through the unlocked front door, finding himself in a wide hallway, a bare pine floor under his feet. At first glance it looked as though little had changed during the last several years.

"Hello, can I help you?" A young woman with a crew-cut approached Kendrick from an adjacent room. To one side he could see people sitting in a separate dining area, talking and drinking tea. He didn't recognize the woman, but then, the kind of long-term residents who benefited most from this retreat didn't usually spend much time inside the main building.

Kendrick looked over her shoulder towards the gardens. The parkland that extended toward the hills behind the retreat was visible through tall veranda doors at the far end of the hallway.

"Yeah, I'm looking for Buddy. Buddy Juarez." The young woman looked blank. "Maybe you haven't been here that long?" he suggested. "He comes up here sometimes, when he wants to get away."

Her expression grew slightly wary. "Was he expecting you? Some of the people here don't like to be disturbed."

"It's okay, Sally." Kendrick turned to find himself facing an elderly man dressed in slacks and an open-necked shirt. A name came to him: Hamilton.

"I remember you." Hamilton nodded. "Lukas, isn't it?"

"It is," Kendrick replied, recognizing one of his former aliases. "Buddy's around, is he?"

"Yes." Hamilton studied him. "He turned up just yesterday – rather unexpected, I'm afraid. I do hope everything's all right for him?"

Kendrick spread his hands. "I'm sure everything's fine, Mr Hamilton. I know how much he's gained from visits here over the years. We made arrangements to get together while I myself was in the area." Kendrick beamed, trying to look friendly. "Is that okay?"

"Yes, I suppose it is," Hamilton replied after a lengthy pause. "But please remember that we have to respect the wishes of all our other residents."

"Thanks, I appreciate that." As Kendrick moved towards the veranda doors and the path beyond, he could feel Hamilton's suspicious stare burning into his back with every step he took.

Leaving the building behind him, he began climbing up the increasingly steep slope. Just beyond a low dry-stone wall stood an ashram with a curved roof of corrugated iron, a trellis of ivy growing up one side of it. The whole institution radiated a certain peace, but Kendrick had never derived anything like as much pleasure from it as Buddy did. Somehow he found he always missed the hustle and bustle of busy city streets.

A couple of teenagers were wrestling heavy water-smoothed stones into place, building a path from the ashram itself to a nearby stream that ran down into the Loch – from whose shore they'd presumably lugged the stones. Several years before, Kendrick had spent a long weekend helping Buddy and some other survivors of the Maze to build a similar path at the opposite side of the house. That had been just after the Wilber Trials at a time when Kendrick had felt the very real need to work some things out in his head. He hadn't realized until then how much the simple labour involved in building a path could distract him from his problems, how much basic fulfilment and satisfaction it could bring him.

But in the end it had not been enough. After only a couple of days he'd started to become bored, itching to get back to civilization. Buddy, however, had stayed on there for a year or two, with Kendrick paying him sporadic visits once he'd permanently relocated himself to Edinburgh. To some extent, the paths of their lives had since diverged.

But there was still that connection: the Maze.

It happened sometimes with people who'd survived major disasters together. They clung to each other, sometimes keeping in contact for the rest of their lives. Kendrick could understand that easily.

For a long time it'd been that way with Caroline, and with Buddy. There'd been others, but he'd seen too many of them die as their augments turned against them, destroying them from the inside out. He'd given up going to funerals at which half a dozen Labrats watched each other from either side of a grave, wondering which of them would be next to go.

Kendrick headed past the ashram, with a nod to the path-builders. He continued upwards, through a landscape broken by copses and isolated patches of woodland. Smoke curled up from several points among the trees.

Letting his memory guide him, he headed for one copse in particular. Kendrick had somehow never quite managed to get used to the idea of an ex-US Navy pilot living in a tepee.

Buddy was sitting outside the tent, wearing a ragged pair of dungarees over a woollen sweater, a couple of days' worth of stubble clinging to his cheeks. He looked thinner than Kendrick remembered from the last time he'd seen him, more than three years before. He had a cooking fire going in a shallow pit surrounded by pebbles, and was using a plastic spatula to prod at the contents of a tin pan balanced on a wire frame arching over the flames.

Buddy looked up and squinted at him. "So I guess you got my message. I was worried in case it might have been a little obscure."

"I'm not the only one who could have figured it out, you realize."

Buddy grinned back. "I don't see them coming here. Remember how long I ended up here for, after the Maze?"

Kendrick nodded. "Couple of years?"

"You thought I was some kind of lunatic for staying here so long." Buddy picked up a plastic bowl from where it had been sitting on the grass. He lifted the pan from the fire, covering its handle first with a dish towel. "I'm glad you came. How did things go with Draeger?"

Kendrick reeled back. "How the hell did you know about that?"

Buddy shrugged. "I keep my ear to the ground."

"You mean Erik Whitsett wasn't the only one spying on me?"

Some of the light faded from Buddy's eyes. "Erik never got back in touch, Kendrick. What happened?"

"Somebody killed him, is what happened. We met, we talked – and somebody shot him."

Buddy looked shocked. Kendrick explained what had happened in more detail.

"Los Muertos," Buddy muttered after a pause. "They've been targeting us."

"Erik mentioned something to that effect."

Buddy looked like he was thinking hard. "I asked you how things went with Draeger. I need you to tell me straight out: are you working for him?"

Kendrick laughed. "Are you serious? Who do you think you're talking to?"

"People do change."

"But not that much."

"All right, so how do you explain your meeting with him?"

"I never had the chance to speak with him face to face before. I just wanted to see what he was like, see what he had to say to me. Wouldn't you want to be able to do that?"

"Sure. And?"

"He tried to bribe me with some miracle cure."

Buddy smiled wryly. "There is no cure for what we have."

"That's pretty much what I said to him."

"Yet you believe him? Is that what you're saying?"

Kendrick hesitated. "He wanted something out of me, it's true, but he wasn't lying. He wants people to know how brilliant he is – it's one of his flaws. So, yes, I'm inclined to believe him. I've also been getting some treatments myself, which gives me a serious chance of staying alive longer than without them. That lends a lot of credence to what he told me."

"A cure." Buddy nodded slowly. "That would be quite something."

"If it's true, it represents a real chance for all of us." Kendrick knelt on the damp grass and looked across at him.

"How many other people have been offered miracle cures?" Buddy asked. "Ways of turning back the clock and fixing us?"

Kendrick grinned. "Pretty much as many people as have died testing them out."

"Exactly," said Buddy, stabbing the empty spatula in his direction. "So forgive me if I don't necessarily share your enthusiasm. And how much did Erik tell you before he died?"

"He talked about the Bright – and about the things we witnessed when Sieracki isolated the four of us, back in the Maze."

Buddy's smile became grim. "How well I remember that. Anything else?"

"He told me you had some damn-fool plan to go to the Archimedes."

Buddy laughed, rocking back on his haunches. "Oh, man, the look on your face. So what did you make of that?"

"Well, I said he was crazy – and that you were crazy. But, after Erik was killed, I got the impression that somebody was taking it all very seriously. Max Draeger's also entirely aware of your intentions."

Buddy shrugged. "If Los Muertos know about us, then Draeger figuring certain things out is no surprise. But what we've got planned will be over before he can do anything to stop or hinder us."

"Look, there was a bomb incident in a bar. And someone else tried to kidnap me. Whatever's going on, you clearly know a lot more than I do."

Buddy pursed his lips, then started dishing food onto a paper plate. "Hungry?" he asked.

"Not particularly."

Buddy shrugged, and continued talking between mouthfuls. "It's not like I've been hiding anything from you. In fact, I've been trying to draw you in. I understand exactly why you've been keeping out of sight, but it made it harder to track you down."

"Unfortunately, that doesn't seem a problem for anyone else."

"Yeah, well… once I realized something might have happened to Erik I figured I'd better take care of things myself. A lot's been happening since you and I last saw each other. Four people don't regularly share the same nightmare unless there's something particular going on, right?"

"If you're referring to Sieracki's experiment, then, granted, we shared something. But it was all in our own heads. There was nothing objectively real about it."

"No, what we saw was real. The Bright are real."

"The Bright were from Robert's deranged-"

"For Christ's sake!" Buddy dropped the plate onto the grass and threw up his hands in the air. "Will you listen to yourself? What is it about all this that you can't accept? You were the one who told me the most about the Bright, before Robert died and-"

"Don't say it," Kendrick interrupted quickly.

"Look, I'm sorry. But it's just-"

"Here's a question back at you. When did your augmentations turn rogue?"

Buddy looked impressed. "What makes you think they have?"

"I found some medical records with all our names on them. They told me everything I needed to know. So tell me when."

"Round about the same time as you, probably. Anyone who got out of Ward Seventeen who hadn't yet developed rogue augments went on to develop them between nine and twelve months ago. We're all in the same fix. That's just one more reason why we all have to work together."

Buddy stood up to stretch his legs. "Okay, I brought some stuff I wanted to show you. It's all back in the tent, so care to join me?"

He turned away, ducking down to crawl into the tent's interior. Kendrick hesitated a moment, then followed.

Although it was based around an ancient design, the tepee had been made from modern heat-absorbing artificial fibres. There was enough room inside for both men to stand, and the supporting struts were fashioned from super-light alloy. Rather than living by basic means, Buddy had been able to spend his time here at the retreat in relative comfort while still maintaining the near-complete isolation he'd once craved.

Noise and activity covered the interior walls, eepsheets and printouts having been hastily taped onto any available surface. Kendrick noticed that the London Times was tacked up near his head, its real-time default set to its technology pages.

Kendrick saw mostly pictures and videos of the Archimedes orbital. One image looped endlessly, a computer animation very similar to the one he had found in Caroline's working files.

He studied some of the printouts, most of which were related to the LA Nuke, the Wilber Trials – anything that tied in to the history of the Labrats. If he hadn't known better, or hadn't seen some of the things he'd seen over the past several days, he would have thought that this was the work of an obsessive or a madman.

"I said I wanted to show you something. Look at this." Buddy carefully detached one eepsheet from the tent's inner wall. The 'sheet was tuned in to what appeared to be a journal.

"This is a multi-author feed that collates information relating to the space industry," Buddy explained. "A lot, but not all of it, consists of technical and safety issues."

Kendrick took the eepsheet and flicked through its summary page. "What am I supposed to be looking for here?"

"There's something happening near the Archimedes. A spatial anomaly that's got half the physicists in the world spinning on their heads."

"Meaning what?"

"Look – for Draeger, building the Archimedes was an important step on the road to proving the reality of the Omega Point. You're an expert on Draeger, so you know the theory."

The idea was more than a century old. It suggested that since intelligent life always sought to preserve itself, then, faced with the ultimate extinction – the final collapse of the universe and the end of time – that intelligence would seek to preserve itself indefinitely, using some unimaginable super-science of the most distant possible future. The result would be a subjective virtual environment, which, the theory argued, would be effectively indistinguishable from Heaven.

Kendrick saw the gleam in Buddy's eye and shook his head violently. "Oh, come on. The Omega Point theory just doesn't wash. You'd have to make a lot of prior assumptions for it to even begin to hold water."

Buddy made a dismissive gesture. "Look, what I'm saying is, if Draeger built the Archimedes primarily so that the nanite computer networks up there could try and find God for him – well, I'm saying they achieved it. Or they found something, that's for sure."

Kendrick couldn't keep the look of scepticism off his face. "Where's the proof?"

"You saw the evidence." Buddy tapped the side of his head. "The visions. The Archimedes."

"Or maybe there's something hard-wired into our augs. Something triggering a collective hallucination."

"C'mon, Kendrick, that's grasping at straws."

"Look, maybe there is something in this shared-experience thing. Maybe it's something like what happened to the four of us in the Maze, but if that's the case I'm only getting the thirty-second preview. Whatever the rest of you have been seeing, Erik made it clear that it was a lot more than I'd seen."

"Which would explain why you haven't been in touch. If you had, you'd-"

"I'd know. Sure. Erik said the same thing." Kendrick rubbed at his face. "Fine, so you're going to the Archimedes. How? And what are you going to do when you get there?"

"The Bright is the collective term by which the AI nanite communities On board the Archimedes refer to themselves, right? The Bright found the Omega… and they also found us."

"Buddy, this is utterly crazy."

"Listen to me. If you didn't see what the rest of us saw, then I'll tell you what we were shown. The Bright have learned a lot from the Omega. The anomaly I mentioned is a wormhole that they've constructed, a gateway to the end of time."

Kendrick began to snigger. "Yeah? So what would they do with that?"

"The Bright were designed to be curious. Every answer they could possibly desire is there at the end of time, in the Omega. So why not go straight to the source?"

"This is too much, Buddy. I don't know how to take it in. Do you know how ludicrous this sounds? A worm-hole? What kind of wormhole?"

"There's strong evidence that the Bright have figured out a way to access zero-point energy. You know what that is, right?"

"Sure, it's getting something out of nothing, energy out of empty space." Physicists had long theorized that even within cold, empty vacuum vast unbounded energy resources existed on the quantum scale, powering the constant generation of short-lived virtual particles in a seething, invisible maelstrom of creation. Finding a way to tap directly into those resources was an objective that physicists had been hunting for decades.

"Well, you'd need nearly infinite energy to keep a wormhole indefinitely open, in order to cause the kind of fluctuations that have been observed up there. It's hardly surprising that Los Muertos are so concerned about preventing us getting to the Archimedes. If they could get their hands on energy resources like that they could hold the whole world to ransom – if they wanted. They don't want any of us in the way."

A radiant smile spread across Buddy's features, and Kendrick was reminded of a supplicant throwing down his crutches at the feet of a healing saint. "But Los Muertos we can deal with. What matters is that the Bright have invited us to go along with them. To them, we're all the same: you, me and anyone else who survived Ward Seventeen."

Kendrick returned to Edinburgh and tried again to contact Caroline, without success. In the end he let himself into her flat a second time – and found it wrecked.

Either someone had searched it messily or there'd been a struggle there. He sat in Caroline's living room, with the moonlight streaming through her window-screen, painting pale stripes across broken furniture and a dent in one wall where it looked as though a body had impacted hard. He tried to remember that Caroline was the kind of woman who knew how to look after herself. For an hour or so Kendrick sat on her couch and stared numbly at the wreckage.

In the end he called Buddy and told him what he'd found.

"Shit." Then a long-drawn-out silence. "I'm sorry, Kendrick. Do you need me there?"

"No, I don't know if that would make any difference. I'm going to ask some questions, see what I can find out."

"Look, I can get over there in a couple of hours-"

"It's fine."

"You're going to look for her, aren't you?"

"I'll let you know how it goes. So stay in touch."

"Yeah, sure. Be careful. Be very careful."

Kendrick broke the connection and stared around Caroline's ruined apartment, lost in thought.

Apart from himself, who would have known where Caroline lived? Only Malky, unless she had made new friends over the past year. An image of Malky's dead eyes flashed through his thoughts.

It was hard to accept what Buddy had told him about the Archimedes, but what he'd said about zero-point energy made some sense of both Draeger's and Los Muertos' actions. Zero-point energy was a prize with dangerously high stakes, and the Labrats were apparently caught right in the middle.

And then there was Hardenbrooke, who was clearly playing his own extremely dangerous game, setting each party off against the other – and presumably being paid by both without the other realizing.

Hardenbrooke? Kendrick stared into the distance, knowing that he had only one real option left. If there was even the slightest chance that the medic had been involved with or knew something about Caroline's disappearance, Kendrick had to find him.

22 October 2096 Edinburgh

"Some mess, eh, Kendrick?" McCowan's ghost sat beside him in the rain.

"Tell me I'm not crazy," Kendrick replied. "Tell me if any of this is real."

"Don't talk shite."

Kendrick had only gradually become aware of McCowan sitting beside him on the park bench. In Caroline's flat he'd felt another wave of nausea wash through him so he had made his way outside, desperately wanting to breathe fresh air and find somewhere to wait until the feeling of disorientation passed. He'd stopped at a stretch of green running parallel to the road into Leith when the nausea had become particularly bad.

"Then tell me something useful. Like how to find Caroline." As Kendrick spoke, the world around them began to move very slowly, as if caught in some viscous liquid. A dog galloped across a street nearby in languid slow motion.

"I can stretch out our subjective time together this way," McCowan told him. "Gives us longer to talk. But I can't help you with Caroline, Kendrick. I'm sorry."

"Why can't you?"

"Look, out of all the others who survived Ward Seventeen, you're the only one I'm still in contact with. So, I don't know anything about what's happened to Caroline. You'll have to find that out for yourself."

"But why are you only in contact with me?"

"Look, the treatments you received from Hardenbrooke had the unexpected side effect of blocking the signal coming from Robert… coming from the Archimedes."

"What the hell?" Kendrick squinted at him. "Robert on the Archimedes?"

"Shut up and bear with me. Hardenbrooke got your augments under control, and that had the added side effect of blocking Robert – mostly. So you only got snatches, little bits of what Buddy and the rest received. At the same time, Robert was blocking me, preventing me from communicating with you, or indeed with any other of the Ward Seventeen Labrats."

McCowan held up one finger. "Except Hardenbrooke's treatments, by blocking Robert, somehow gave me the opportunity at least to reach you, if nobody else. It means that I can speak to you, but only you, for just seconds at a time."

"But why wouldn't Robert want you contacting me?"

McCowan looked at him sharply. "He's insane – or don't you remember what happened between the two of you? It's hardly surprising that he bears you no goodwill."

"I haven't seen Robert: no dreams, visitations, whatever it is the others got."

McCowan had a sad look on his face. "Ken, Ken," he said with a sigh. "You have seen him, plenty of times. And as for where he is, well, part of him is down here, and part of him is up there on the Archimedes. You'll be seeing more of him, once your augments learn to fully circumvent Hardenbrooke's treatments. Robert is going to have less trouble getting through to you now, which means, in turn, that it'll be harder for me to reach you."

A signal coming from the Archimedes? Knowing that made it easier, more real, more objective. "So why can't you just – I don't know – transmit yourself to the station or something, if that's presumably how Robert got there?"

McCowan made an exasperated sound. "I've tried and failed every time, thanks to that son of a bitch. I can't get there on my own. And as long as Robert's the only human mind directly interfacing with the Bright I can't be that sure the wormhole to the Omega is ever going to open."

A spasm of pain shot through Kendrick's skull and he grabbed his head, gasping at the suddenness of it. McCowan was right, though: it wasn't as bad as previously.

Not quite.

"I don't give a shit about Robert. What about Caroline, for Christ's sake? What the hell about her?"

"Find her if you can but, whatever you do, I need you to get to the Maze. If you can do that, I can give you all the answers you've been looking for. But you need to hurry."

"The Maze?" Kendrick screamed through a storm of agony. "Are you fucking insane?"

Another intense flash of pain. Any lingering illusion of reality McCowan had possessed abruptly disappeared as his seated figure twisted into a sudden smear of colour before vanishing entirely.

Kendrick moaned as the full weight of the seizure came upon him. He crumpled to the grass under his feet.

The Maze? Why would McCowan want him there? And where exactly was he-

– Unless, in some way, he was still down there. That revelation hit Kendrick like a ton of bricks.

He looked back up and the city around him was gone.

He pushed himself up onto his knees. That same tiny figure came buzzing towards him on azure wings, its passage through the long-stalked grass sending puffs of pollen floating into the air.

"I know you," Kendrick said, as the creature hovered quite close to him, only a metre or so away. In response, the tiny lips twisted up in a cruel smile. Laughter fell from its mouth, a tinkling half-crazed sound.

"I know you!" it cried. "I know you! I know you!"

McCowan had been right. On some deep level, Kendrick had known from the start but now he couldn't avoid the truth any longer. The creature had Robert's face. And it buzzed around him on silken wings, its laughter chiming in his ears.

Then, as suddenly as he had left it, he was back in a damp park in Edinburgh, his fingers digging spasmodically into the hard turf beneath him.

It didn't take long for Draeger to show his hand.

As Kendrick headed for home, turning down a quiet side street leading towards Leith Walk, he caught sight of an expensive-looking limousine driving towards him at speed. It braked hard and a door swung open in front of him even before it had come to a halt. Kendrick stepped back, alarmed.

He'd barely registered the two men heading his way on the opposite side of the street. They stepped quickly towards him, pulling pistols from their jacket pockets and aiming them at his head. He glanced around and realized, to his chagrin, that there was no one else to be seen. They must have deliberately waited until they were sure there'd be no witnesses.

Smeby stepped out from the limousine and studied Kendrick with an expression of mild amusement. Then he gestured to the two gunmen, who dragged Kendrick forward and bundled him into the rear of the vehicle.

Another car slipped by and kept on going. Kendrick found his voice and yelled out, hoping to attract someone's attention. His voice sounded dull and flat inside the limousine.

Then he felt the muzzle of a gun pressed against his neck and he grew still.

"These weapons are extremely quiet." Smeby leant over from a front seat. "Nobody would hear it."

The gunmen sat on either side of Kendrick. "There's no point in killing me," he said.

"I wasn't talking about killing you," Smeby replied. "I was talking about blowing your kneecaps off."

Kendrick tried not to show his fear. "You could have given me a call if you wanted to see me this badly."

"If we'd asked you to come to the Arlington to meet with us, would you really have come?"

No, thought Kendrick, looking away

The limousine drove into an underground parking area beneath the hotel. Kendrick was dismayed to see that there was no one else around here either, no one to witness what was happening to him. The gunmen marched him to an elevator, keeping a firm grip on each of his shoulders. Their guns were pressed up against his head and neck respectively. Then they rode up in silence, along with Smeby, and a few moments later were back in the same suite as before.

Kendrick wasn't in the least surprised to see Max Draeger waiting there for him. Candice stood by the window, dressed in a dark wool trouser suit.

"Mr Gallmon," said Draeger. "I'm not going to waste any time before getting to the point. You're here simply for your own protection."

Kendrick gaped at him. "What?"

"Caroline Vincenzo has been snatched in order to persuade you to do as Los Muertos wish. I can't allow that to happen."

"Fuck you."

Draeger nodded to Smeby. The two gunmen dragged Kendrick backwards, forcing him awkwardly into a seat, still aiming their pistol at him. Smeby stepped forward and punched Kendrick, hard, in the stomach.

"Hardenbrooke – tell me about him. Everything you haven't said already."

Kendrick sucked in air, swallowed and shook his head. "What happened to the friendly style of chat we had out there in the jungle?"

Draeger stepped forward, his expression intense. "There isn't the time for niceties any more. I could shoot you full of drugs that would have you telling me all I want to know, but I'd rather let you tell me for yourself. It's your choice."

"For Christ's sake, he hasn't said anything to me."

Draeger shook his head. "I don't think you understand the danger you're in, Mr Gallmon. There are agents of Los Muertos already in this city, and I might be the only friend you have."

"I don't find that likely." Kendrick's hands were clammy with sweat. A dull nausea throbbed in the pit of his stomach and in the back of his throat.

Draeger stepped a little closer. "I thought you might have connections with Los Muertos."

Kendrick laughed, a harsh, nervous bark. "Are you fucking crazy?"

"They don't have your best interests at heart."

"And you do?"

"Los Muertos merely want to kill you. They don't offer you something in return for information."

"All right," said Kendrick. "How about getting these two away from me?"

Draeger cocked his head. "You're telling me that you're prepared to cooperate? Fully?"

"Fully, yes."

Draeger studied Kendrick coolly for what felt like a long time. "If you're lying, my employees are going to hurt you very, very badly. You won't be in any condition to walk, let alone enjoy a space flight. I want you to remember that before we continue."

"I understand that. I just… I don't want what the others want."

Kendrick knew that he could never bring himself to tell Draeger anything. But buying time was all he could think of. There has to be a way out of here.

It was an effort to meet Draeger's gaze, but after a few moments the other man's attention shifted to the two gunmen. Kendrick heard them step away from him.

"Wait downstairs," Draeger told them.

"Sir." Smeby stepped forward, "I'm not sure-"

"Do what you're told, Marlin. My rules."

"Sir, I must seriously fucking protest-"

Draeger snapped him a look, and Smeby shut up and stepped back. But Kendrick registered the cold anger in the ex-mercenary's face.

Kendrick was seated facing towards the windows, and the door was behind him. He took careful note of where everyone was positioned in the room. Draeger himself stood near the middle of the room; Candice and Smeby stood at almost opposite ends of it, facing towards him.

He heard the door snick shut as the gunmen departed.

"I went looking for Caroline," Kendrick told Draeger, "and found that somebody had taken her out of her home by force. You're saying that was Los Muertos?"

Draeger nodded. "I suspect the only reason they have abducted her is to try and lure you into some idiot attempt at rescuing her."

"Look, I've already seen one other Labrat die in the past couple of days, and do you know who I blame? You. None of this would be happening if it hadn't been for you."

"Under the circumstances, the only reasonable precaution is to have you return to Angkor Wat with us and work with us there from a safe base of operations."

Kendrick nodded carefully and stood up. Smeby's gaze followed him, but he did not move. "I guess that's it, then," Kendrick said. "You're sure this is the best way?"

"I'm glad you've decided to cooperate." Draeger cast him an appraising look.

"I was… I…" Kendrick bent over, gripping the side of his head and gritting his teeth. "Oh fuck, no," he gasped.

"What is it?" asked Draeger. Kendrick could hear the suspicion in his voice.

"Seizure," said Kendrick. "Help me. I can't…" He sagged, his knees touching the floor, then let out a bellow of animal pain and covered his face with his hands.

"Get him up," he heard Draeger say.

Kendrick glanced between his fingers to see Smeby approach, reaching towards Kendrick's shoulder to yank him back upright.

Through the windows, Kendrick briefly saw that the earlier rain had given way to harsh, bleak sunlight.

He moved with unnatural speed, stabbing upwards with the fingers of one hand held rigid, aiming for Smeby's throat. Smeby saw it coming but not soon enough. Kendrick caught him under the chin and the other man stumbled back against a coffee table.

Smeby yelled in anger and pain as he hit the floor. A coffee urn that had been resting on the table toppled over onto the carpet. Kendrick moved quickly, aiming a vicious kick at Smeby's head. Smeby gave a brief uk sound and lay still.

Kendrick himself sprawled as something hard slammed into his back. As he hit the floor he rolled, knowing instantly that his attacker was Candice. She followed his movements, hammering at him with her fists. As she caught him on the jaw, his teeth clicked together and he tasted blood.

He managed to block her next punch by slamming a foot into her stomach, but she twisted away and pulled herself upright with blinding speed. Augmented too.

Kendrick noticed Draeger speaking quietly into his databand. What followed happened so fast that Kendrick was still remembering lost fragments of it over the next several hours.

While he'd been looking towards Draeger Candice had darted towards him before he could get up again. Grabbing his head, she dug her thumbs and fingers into his eyes.

Kendrick screamed and struggled as she wrapped him in a deadly embrace, pinning his arms to his sides and pressing him down with a knee in his back. He squirmed desperately, but she held him in a vice-like grip. Panic drove him to lash backwards with his foot.

The kick caught her on one shin, and she lost her footing, her grip loosening. Kendrick pulled himself free and stumbled towards the window just as Draeger's gunmen crashed into the room, weapons drawn. One took aim and Kendrick ducked to the side, hitting the ground rolling once more as the glass behind him exploded outwards.

Kendrick yanked himself up again, waiting for the bullets, catching a glimpse through the shattered window of the street several storeys below.

Panicking, he turned, desperate for some escape route that he knew wasn't there. Just then, Candice launched herself at him again with renewed fury. The force of impact drove him backwards against a weakened pane that had not yet shattered. In that same instant, which seemed to last for ever, Kendrick felt the glass give way. Sky and concrete tumbled past his vision.

Free fall was followed by a sudden, jarring impact like nothing he had ever imagined, as if some giant had gone walking across the Earth and caught him under its heel. In that moment he felt something beyond pain.

Several seconds passed before Kendrick realized that he was still alive. But the world felt remote and distant, like a cinematic projection on the inside of his skull.

An instant later he snapped to, re-emerging into a universe of noise and confusion. The streets of Edinburgh revolved around him in a drunken whirl. He managed to sit up, his mouth full of blood. He coughed and spat, and then looked down.

Kendrick and Candice had landed together on the roof of a parked car, their joint impact bending its roof badly out of shape. The air around them was filled with the cacophony of its alarm.

I should be dead, he realized. But Kendrick was a Labrat, which had made just enough difference.

He'd obviously landed on top of Candice, who had softened his landing. Her back was broken and her neck was twisted at a sickening angle. He heaved himself off the wreckage, collapsing into a heap at the roadside.

Already the initial shock was wearing off. Kendrick glanced up shakily at the smashed window of the hotel suite. It looked a very long way up. Cars had screeched to a halt all around him, as their computer brains registered an accident of some kind.

He lurched to his feet like a drunkard, distantly aware of people nearby standing and watching him, their expressions stunned and disbelieving.

One man came towards him but Kendrick waved him away. Then a woman tried to take his arm. He was scarcely aware that she was advising him to remain still before he injured himself any further.

He pushed her away, but not too roughly, assuring her that he felt all right. Somehow he managed to make his way to the other side of the road, then slowly worked his way down the street and away from the Arlington's entrance.

Limping badly at first, after thirty seconds or so he began to pick up speed. Soon he was startled to realize that he was already a couple of blocks from the hotel.

Somewhere in the distance he heard sirens. A lot of people must have seen him. They would be able to describe him and ultimately identify him.

To his own amazement, Kendrick managed to start running.

Kendrick waited until it was dark again, nursing coffee after coffee in the back of a small cafe buried in an ancient, twisting lane near Cockburn Street. Freezing rain sleeted down outside and the shoulders of passers-by beyond the glass were bowed under the arctic wind blowing westwards, Every now and then he tapped through an eepsheet that had been abandoned at the table he'd taken, one near the back amid plenty of shadows. He used it to scan science sites and article databases concerning zero-point energy, noting that a lot of the information provided led back to research programmes instigated by Draeger's various subsidiary companies.

To Kendrick's considerable surprise nothing had yet appeared about the recent incident at the hotel. He briefly toyed with the idea that Draeger had the means to suppress news reports, then wondered when he'd become so paranoid.

It felt appropriate to be waiting there as lightning flickered beyond the rooftops, to be waiting for the storm to approach and swallow the city in its fury. Eventually the cafe had to close, and then Kendrick wandered the darkened streets, collar up, head down. Icy sleet turned the skin of his face red with cold.

Now he had more than enough time to think. He needed to find a way out of the city. But, whatever happened, he owed it to Caroline to find her.

Kendrick pulled out his wand for the thousandth time. Even if nothing had yet appeared on the grid about the incident at the Arlington Hotel, that didn't mean people weren't out looking for him. And Edinburgh wasn't that big a city.

It was possible that someone had tapped his wand's grid address, in which case they'd know how to find him as soon as he used it. But he needed to speak to Todd and he'd started heading for the Saint a couple of times before turning back. Draeger would know to look for him there.

The wand chose that moment to inform him that he had an incoming call from Todd. Kendrick watched the icon flash for a moment on the instrument's screen. Then he hit receive, and put the wand to his ear.

"Before you say anything, Kendrick, this line is encrypted. Took me ages to get it sorted out. I heard something about what happened. Unless that was somebody else who fell out of a third- or fourth-floor hotel window and just walked away."

"So we're safe on this line? I thought maybe-"

"Just don't tell me where you are in case I'm wrong about the encryption and someone can hear us. If anyone oat there has good enough software they can probably break the q-crypt code in a couple of minutes. So I won't be long." A pause. "I did as you asked."

Kendrick forced himself to relax, to grip the wand less desperately. "You've found Hardenbrooke?"

"Sure. I'm uploading Hardenbrooke's most recent co-ords to you now. By the looks of things, he's on his way to New York. But, a word of warning, I found him the same way he's most likely to find you."

"That's fine to know, Todd, but I'm in a hurry here."

"Sure, sorry Ken. Once you've checked out the stuff I'm sending, my best advice is to ditch the wand. If Hardenbrooke had ditched his I'd never have been able to track him so easily."

"Thanks, Todd. I owe you big time."

Kendrick closed the connection and switched the screen to review Todd's location data. He realized that he hadn't yet told Todd about Malky – and he couldn't make up his mind whether this was a good or a bad thing.

His wand informed him that Hardenbrooke was somewhere over the Atlantic, heading west – towards America. Numbers scrolled in a corner of the screen, and

Kendrick was pleased to see that Todd's coordinates constantly updated themselves in real-time.

And what if Hardenbrooke does have Caroline? he asked himself. Does she run straight into your arms if you manage to rescue her? Almost certainly not. Draeger had told him earlier that Los Muertos were behind Caroline's abduction – which meant there was a good chance that Hardenbrooke had been involved. So if he could find Hardenbrooke, then he could find Caroline.

A black wave of depression began to settle over Kendrick's thoughts. Admit it, this is all because of Robert. You killed her brother, and now you figure this is your chance to make up for it.

Kendrick thought back to what Buddy had told him, and about what he'd managed to find out while he'd searched the grid for information about zero-point energy. He couldn't even imagine, remembering the few words he'd managed to digest, the sheer destructive horror that such knowledge could be turned to.

Now, it seemed, the lure of infinite energy was leading everyone towards the Archimedes.

Exact date unknown: 2088 The Maze

"I know where we are. I swear, I know where this is."

Vernon Lee's face was visible only as a pale, pleading shadow in the terrible darkness of the lower levels. He'd been one of only three to survive Ward Nine.

They had gathered together in huddled groups ever since they had found themselves locked away in freezing dark corridors down in the depths of the Earth. Some, like Kendrick, could see those gathered around them as pale, shadowy outlines. Others whose bio-augmentations had not taken such firm hold on their bodies were still lost in the blackness, clinging quite literally to each other in the vast echoing spaces.

There was no evidence that food or water would ever be forthcoming and, after almost forty-eight hours, people were beginning to suffer. For himself, Kendrick felt parched, dry and cold. His stomach longed even for the thin gruel that he had known back in the Ward.

Kendrick pressed his hands against the cold metal of the shield door and felt something humming under the hard surface – the bright subliminal presence of electricity flowing through circuits. But it seemed faint, as if far away.

"Okay." Kendrick looked over his shoulder at Lee. "So where are we?"

He could just make out Buddy, standing to one side, listening.

"Used to work for a company did contract military work," Lee explained. "We built stuff for them, but only bits of it."

Buddy shifted in the dark. "I don't get it."

"What it is, if someone in the military wants something built top secret, they still have to bring in civilians a lot of the time. They screen you for all kinds of shit, you sign release forms, and they do everything but stick a torch up your ass and take a look." Lee shrugged. "Sometimes that too. But you never see the whole thing – only part of it. Only a few people outside the military ever get to see the project as a whole. Usually whoever's running the operation from the top."

"Just a minute," said Kendrick. "Are you saying you helped build this place?"

"Yes!" said Lee excitedly. "That's exactly what I'm saying. These doors are designed to withstand nuclear blasts," he explained, placing a hand against the same cold metal.

A wall of steel cut across the corridor, completely blocking their access to the upper levels. They were abandoned in what appeared to be literally miles of lightless passageway, but half a dozen huge steel doors blocked any way out for them. "I helped design these things," Lee continued. "I even remember how the corridors are laid out."

Buddy spoke, his voice low and intense. "Can you get us out of here, then?"

Lee shook his head. "No, I can't. All I'm saying is, I know where we are, but that's it. All this stuff – the doors, I mean – the controls are centralized. The only way out would be finding some way of interfering with the electronics, but there's no way to access the mechanisms."

"So what's above us?" asked Buddy. "We're in South America, right? You must know that, at least."

"Venezuela," Lee said decisively. Then he grinned ruefully. "Shit, looks like I'm going to jail for breaking my oath of secrecy. Well, fuck."

Kendrick shook his head. "I had no idea."

"What does it matter?"

Kendrick turned at the sound of McCowan's voice. Peter emerged out of the gloom, his words sounding harsh in the freezing air. "We're screwed, wherever we are. Knowing exactly where isn't going to make any difference. There've been rumours for, Christ, years, about US control south of Mexico."

"It's true," said Lee. "There's no real government up above there. It's a lawless place now, and the gene-rots hit here even before they hit the States."

Kendrick pulled his hands away from the metal, feeling defeated and depressed. "Which leads me to wonder when they actually built this place," he muttered. "It must have taken a long time, considering the size of it. And in total secrecy, too."

"I'll tell you," said Lee. "I'm talking twenty years ago. I was just a boy, really." He shook his head. "Place hasn't been well maintained."

"You could house an army down here," said McCowan. "The Wards could have been originally intended for treating wounded soldiers."

"Out here, outside the US, they could get away with anything so long as they were sure nobody was watching," Buddy spat, his voice bitter and angry

Telling the time, or even the day, was impossible but Kendrick estimated that they'd been trapped in the darkness for about three days when the voices came.

In the meantime, there had been at least a dozen deaths – some from a lack of medical treatment necessary to keep the weaker Labrats alive, but most of them suicides.

One had hanged herself, knotting one leg of her trousers around her neck after first tying the other end to an overhead pipe. She had stood on the body of her dead lover to reach up to the pipe before pulling her legs up at the knees and somehow, horribly, holding them there until she passed out. As she slumped unconscious, her improvised noose and the force of gravity completed the process of strangulation.

Her lover – they never found out either of their names – had died within hours of arriving in the lower levels from the sudden and explosive growth of his augmentations.

There were other incidents, equally as gruesome and equally depressing.

And then there were the other stories.

One told of the figure glowing with light, lightning spitting from its fingertips as it ran laughing through the most distant corridors, somehow passing through the great shield doors that penned the prisoners in as if it could walk through walls. To Kendrick this meant only that people were losing their sanity as starvation and sensory deprivation pushed them to the brink.

But then the voices came.

Kendrick had seen speakers slung up high along the corridors at irregular intervals. One day they started crackling with the sound of a familiar voice.

Sieracki?

Kendrick listened with a dawning sense of horror. The worst was yet to come.

"Enter the corridor marked Level 9, South-West," Sieracki ordered them. "The door will open. There is food there, but only for those who survive." Kendrick listened to the shouts of dismay around him in the darkness. "You will have to fight for the right to live. We wish now to test the survival skills of subjects from our different experimental groups."

"I get it." Kendrick turned to McCowan, who stood behind his shoulder. There was a sadness in his voice. "They never intended any of us to get out of here alive."

"It's fucking insane!" Buddy shouted. "I mean, it doesn't make any sense."

"No," said Kendrick. "It makes perfect sense. They made us what we are, and they aren't going to set us loose. Instead of just killing us themselves, they throw us in a hole in the ground and leave us to kill each other. That way they get rid of us, but they also figure out which experimental group has produced the best results. The ones who can survive, that is."

"Maybe it makes sense," McCowan agreed. "But it doesn't mean that's how it's going to work out. People don't need to fight each other when they know they're going to die anyway."

"I don't know." Kendrick shook his head. "If you've been hungry and desperate long enough, I'm not sure what any of us would do. Long as people think there's even the slimmest chance, the faintest hope, they'll fight tooth and claw if given the chance."

"I won't," said Buddy decisively. "I can refuse."

"You can refuse." Kendrick nodded wearily, thinking: And that way you'll die. And the ones who won't refuse will fight, and Sieracki still gets what he wants.

22 October 2096 Edinburgh

Getting out of the country turned out to be less of a problem than Kendrick had initially suspected. Not long after his conversation with Todd he got another call from Buddy. Kendrick filled him in.

"I'm on my way to the States myself. Listen, head for California, okay? That's where we're meeting," said Buddy.

"I need to find Caroline first, Buddy."

"But do you even have any idea where they might have taken her?"

"New York. I know Hardenbrooke is on his way there, and may be he's got Caroline with him. It's not like I have any other options."

"You know this has to be a trap, right?"

"It doesn't matter."

Kendrick could hear Buddy sigh on the other end of the line. "I guess I'd do the same. Good luck, but maybe you should tie your wand into mine."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea. Every time I use this thing it gives someone a chance to track me down over the grid."

"So what? They can probably find you anyway. This way at least your friends will know where you are, right?"

Kendrick thought about it. "Yeah, okay then. Listen, about the… this whole thing with the Archimedes.'"

"Yeah?"

"How long before you go there?"

"Three days, Kendrick. Three days. Remember that."

Kendrick closed the connection and thought for a moment. Then he called up Roy Whitman's grid address.

"Long time, no hear," Roy chuckled when he realized who he was talking to. "What's it been, a couple of years? Anything from Buddy recently? Haven't heard from him in a good long while myself."

"Buddy's doing fine, Roy. Listen, I need a favour."

"Uh-huh," said Roy. "What kind of favour?"

"A special kind of favour."

"Right, hang on a minute."

The sound of Roy's breathing disappeared abruptly for a few seconds. "Okay, we're on a secure line now," he said when he returned. "Can you talk freely where you are?"

Kendrick looked around him. He was standing in a narrow alley near the city centre but a furtive glance around assured him that no one was paying attention to him. "Yeah, I'm alone."

"Is there something else I should know?" Roy asked, his voice guarded. "You sound, er, tense."

"Nothing you'd want to know," Kendrick replied. "I'm just worried about being tracked via this wand. Is there any way you can make my line permanently secure from tracking?"

"Not really, no. Only way to be sure is get rid of the thing."

"I don't want to do that," Kendrick replied. "I want Buddy to know where I am."

"Then so will whoever's looking for you."

"I know, Roy. It's a long story. I need you to help me because-"

"No," Roy said quickly. "By the sound of things, maybe you shouldn't even tell me. Keep it all on a need-to-know basis, yeah? Besides, I owe both you guys one."

Kendrick found it almost frightening how easily Roy created a new fake identity for him. As instructed, Kendrick used public transport to get himself to Edinburgh airport, heading for a public fax unit on his arrival. He tapped in the q-crypt key that Roy had supplied and a few seconds later the fax spat out a cream-coloured plastic card with his picture on it, along with fake retina and DNA details coded into a hologram strip, together with yet another assumed identity, also supplied by Roy. A small matt-black data-chip followed the card a few moments later.

Kendrick studied the plastic card, memorizing the name printed there, and wondered if he could really pull this off. He'd learned how to behave on passing through Customs. The secret was not to act too sure of yourself. People who behaved too smoothly were often those who raised suspicions.

The datachip contained his flight information and payment details. As far as the flight company was concerned, Roy was Kendrick's legal employer. Probably the datachip would also contain encrypted financial information to do with Roy's business. This would give Kendrick's trip some purpose: many businesses were now too paranoid to trust their most sensitive information to the public grid, as even private grid networks had their flaws. Nanodust transmitters were only one of many technologies available to the modern corporate spy, and as a result there was still a call for human couriers to carry information physically from one place to another.

To all appearances, therefore, Kendrick was just another courier. Okay.

Kendrick stared past the endless food concessions and identikit bars, which had always infested airport terminals, towards the check-in desks beyond. He took a step forward, then another, wondering just how self-conscious he looked.

To hell with it, he decided, picking up his pace. Do or die.

In the end, Kendrick's fears came to nothing. The check-in people asked him what he was carrying and he showed them the datachip, as Roy had instructed. A woman placed his chip in a reader and that was that -they waved him on.

The jet was barely half-full. Not surprising, given how its destination had lost its tourist appeal in recent decades. The majority of the passengers wore T-shirts or caps that made it clear they were on their way to do relief work. Apart from them, Kendrick saw a smattering of men and women in businesswear.

The jet boosted to the top of the atmosphere, skipping across the borderline between sky and space like a stone skimming across waves. Kendrick spent most of his time staring out the window at the deep blue of near-space.

23 October 2096 New York

A few short hours later Kendrick stepped out of the terminal building at La Guardia and into utter chaos.

There were tanks parked all the way around the airport. That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing was the sea of beggars who surrounded him the instant he stepped beyond the terminal entrance.

Just metres away Kendrick sighted a rank of antique and battered-looking cabs, the entirely manual kind that still needed real human drivers. He headed for the first in line, pushing past all the people pleading with him. One woman, her face a mask of tears, even thrust her baby at his chest, yelling words he couldn't comprehend amidst the commotion.

Knowing that he wasn't the only one having to deal with this gave Kendrick scant relief. He noticed the relief workers from the same flight pushing just as hard against this human tide but they looked like they had more experience of it. A phalanx of them just bulldozed through the beggars, heading for a private-hire bus parked a little way beyond the taxi rank.

Kendrick kept asking people to step out of his way but they thrust themselves in his path all the more eagerly. He could see soldiers sitting on top of some tanks in the distance and imagined that they were watching the scene with detached amusement.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted another passenger from his flight – a business type – literally battering the beggars aside with his aluminium suitcase. The man bulled on through, his technique appearing to work.

Giving up any pretence at the niceties, Kendrick followed his example. He propelled himself forward, smacking against shoulders and heads with his elbows. It was, indeed, the only way. Things were bad all over in his native country, but he'd forgotten just how bad.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered once he reached the first of the taxis. A woman whom he recognized from his flight – small and chocolate-skinned, with short, cropped hair and wearing a T-shirt that read NEW YORK AID RELIEF in large block letters – had reached the cab behind his. A scrawny young girl, who couldn't have been older than ten, was standing right next to her, thrusting little tinfoil-wrapped packages at her. The relief worker managed to ignore the girl as if she wasn't even there.

Kendrick stared at the child and thought of his daughter.

He looked back up, suddenly catching the woman's eye. "Jesus won't help you," she said with a cheery smile, her accent a soft drawl from somewhere south of Virginia. "But I can give you a ride into town if you like."

"Thanks, but I've got to make my way somewhere…"

The beggars were trailing off as fresh meat from some other flight began exiting the terminal. The relief worker had the door of her cab half open. She left it and stepped over to him.

"Don't get in that cab," she murmured. "You'll never see tomorrow."

"What are you talking about?"

She leant a little closer, so he could smell her perfume. "It's the licence plate. I can tell."

He stared at her, then stepped back from his cab, closing the door. The driver glared at him from inside, shook his head, and went back to reading his eepsheet. She drew him back with a gentle pressure on his elbow and nodded towards the registration plate on the rear.

"It's fake. There's ways to tell. They lock you in, gas you, and steal anything valuable. As often as not they put a bullet through your head and dump your body in the river. Corpses get dredged up all the time, and nobody ever checks on them."

Kendrick saw the driver glance around at them and mutter some inaudible profanity. A moment later the cab shot away from the kerb with a screech of tyres.

Kendrick watched it roar away, dumbfounded. "All I'm saying is you look like this is your first time over here," she said. "Yet you're obviously American, so…" She shrugged.

"Weren't you together with all those other relief workers on that flight?"

"Nah, they're headed for the West Coast." She gave an impish smile. "I deal with European fund-raising for the regional administration that takes care of food relief for New York." The woman studied Kendrick for a moment, her smile growing just wide enough to show a glint of small, perfect teeth. "Listen, I usually always stay at the same place. It's safe and has the advantage that nobody tries to kill you in your sleep."

"What's it called, this place?"

"The Chelsea. Used to be quite well known."

Kendrick saw the woman with the baby moving towards them again, having presumably found slim pickings elsewhere. Tears still streamed down her face and her voice was a constant wail. The baby's mouth hung slackly and he realized to his horror that the child was dead.

That was the worst thing he could possibly have seen. He got into the taxi: anything to avoid the sight.

The relief worker slid into the seat beside him.

"My name's Kendrick," he said. "Thanks for the lift."

"No problem at all. I'm Helen," she said, smiling. "Chelsea Hotel, please, driver."

Helen swayed against Kendrick's shoulder as the cab pulled sharply around a corner, between looming and run-down brownstones. Something had been niggling at Kendrick's memory. "The Chelsea Hotel – I feel like I should know that name."

Helen nodded. "You used to get a lot of artists and musicians staying there. They've been going there for a long time, well over a century. I suppose it used to possess what you'd call bohemian charm."

The cab pulled to a stop right outside a twelve-storey brownstone. "Look, I'll pay for this," Kendrick offered, finding his wand.

She squinted at the device. "Isn't that thing something of an antique?"

He smiled quickly. "I don't like the, ah…" He shrugged amiably.

Helen raised an eyebrow a millimetre or so. "I didn't take you for the type to get upset about subderms. Makes my life easier, though, if I want to pay for something in most parts of the world."

"Maybe so, but it bothers me. And I don't mind if people think I'm old-fashioned." Which was bullshit, of course: Kendrick's augs would fritz the subdermal implants that everyone else used to pay for their goods and services – or even to make phone calls.

She sighed. "Well, that wouldn't do you much good round here anyway." She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out some crumpled notes. "Stick with cash here, long as you're in town. Foreign currency only -yen, if possible."

As old and shabby as the hotel looked from the outside, it was a different story on the inside. At some point the building's original innards had been ripped out and the present internal architecture was of a much more modern design.

"Listen, I want to thank you," Kendrick told Helen after he'd checked in. He found it hard to take his eyes away from her shape under the T-shirt. She had luminous wide eyes, and she smiled prettily.

"Then you can buy me a drink in the bar."

First, Kendrick went up to his room and dumped his stuff. All he had really was his jacket – and his wand, which he didn't intend to let out of his sight. He thought again about getting rid of it but reminded himself how much harder it would be for Todd, or anyone else, to help him if he did so.

He checked the instrument for the hundredth time since he'd glanced out of the plane window and first seen New York on the horizon. Todd's GPS tracker told him that Hardenbrooke was already somewhere in the city. That meant there was a chance that Caroline was somewhere nearby.

Kendrick resisted the urge to run out and start looking for her immediately. He had to be careful if he didn't want to end up in the same boat as her. Rest up, he told himself; he was feeling jet-lagged, run-down. He wasn't sure that he could handle the pressure of so much happening.

Kendrick showered, then studied himself in the mirror for several seconds. As he got dressed and headed for the bar, he wondered about the guilt he was feeling.

Later.

Kendrick leant over to smooth one hand along Helen's jeans-clad thigh, feeling her small hands slide up around his head, then reach down to tug at his shirt. She pulled him down towards her and they kissed deeply. He let his fingers slide under her own shirt, feeling the firm curvature of her breasts.

Caroline – did he still love her, he wondered? Maybe he hadn't really accepted that it was over between them. She'd been right, after all: he had deceived her.

Helen slid down, still lying under him on the bed, and started to wriggle out of her jeans.

Every muscle in Kendrick's body ached; for months – no, years – he'd been wound up like a steel spring, wondering if he was going to live, wondering if he was going to be allowed to live. And he noted with a certain detachment how easy it was to put everything that had been happening out of his mind – just for a little while.

Helen pulled her T-shirt off, her jeans already on the floor. Then Kendrick was inside her, feeling her hips rise to meet him – not Caroline, whose face was still hovering, unwelcome, in his mind's eye, but this woman Helen.

How long had it been? A long time – there'd been nothing like this since the break-up with Caroline. Alcohol buzzed in his brain.

Just then, as Helen shifted under him, her body moving with a languid animal rhythm, it was easier to think of Caroline not at all.

24 October 2096 The Chelsea Hotel, New York

When Kendrick woke a few hours later he knew that he had made a terrible mistake.

Helen coughed, a soft sound verging on the inaudible, but enough to cause him to wake up to near-darkness, the only light a thin yellow luminescence seeping in from the street lamps beyond the drapes.

He did not even need to move to know that Helen was no longer lying in the bed beside him. Perhaps, he thought, she had picked this as an opportune moment to dress and leave for her own room.

The sound of her cough reflected off the hard surfaces of the hotel room's walls before arriving at Kendrick's ears. There his augmentations processed the sound through a variety of arcane algorithms, thus generating a crude map of the space contained by the four walls.

So Kendrick did not literally "see" Helen standing in one corner of the hotel room, but he could sense her.

Then another sound, a faint creak that Kendrick interpreted as his wallet being opened.

Alarmed, he lifted his head a few inches from the pillow. Now he could make out her silhouette.

She stopped then and glanced over at him. He could not be sure if she could see him watching her.

"Helen?" he said softly.

She turned away again, and his eyes, more fully adjusted to the light, could now see that she was studying the contents of his wallet. Angry and confused, he slipped naked from the bed and went over to her. He reached down to take the wallet from her hand, thinking how easily he'd been taken in and that she was nothing more than a thief.

Helen whirled, her limbs and torso blurring in motion. Some enormous force lifted him and threw him against the opposite wall. He landed back on the bed, its springs creaking in protest. A cheap framed print tumbled from the wall above the bed and fell to the floor.

She flew at him across the room, and at once he realized that she was an Augment. The heel of her fist slammed into Kendrick's chin, pressing him so hard into the mattress that he could feel the springs digging into his spine.

However, she no longer held the advantage of surprise. Kendrick twisted his legs and thighs upwards, allowing him to slide a few inches down lower on the mattress and dislodging the main focus of her grip. Grabbing at Helen's hair, he pulled her face down towards him. Then he dug the fingers of his free hand into one of her eyes, feeling a sense of satisfaction bordering on the sadistic when he heard her scream.

As she managed to twist out of his grasp he seized the chance to pull himself off the bed. She came at him again, kicking and punching blindly.

Kendrick barely managed to fend off her attack. Whatever kind of augmentation Helen had, it made her react faster than he could.

Still, he had learned in the Maze what he was capable of, so he managed to block some of the blows that rained down on him at lightning speed, if not all of them. Helen glared at him, the flesh around her right eye now bruised and raw-looking. As one blow caught him on the side of his head, Kendrick felt the back of his skull rebound off the hotel-room door. He heard wood crunch under the impact.

While he was still dazed, Helen pushed him to the floor and, gripping the top of his head in both hands, began to slam his cranium against the floor.

The first couple of impacts stunned him and he tasted blood. It didn't take long for him to lose consciousness.

The sound of someone drawing on a cigarette. Then a silence, lasting several seconds.

"Awake yet?"

Kendrick heard footsteps moving closer. A hollow click, as of the safety being taken off a gun. Tensing, he found that he was tightly bound, the bonds cutting painfully into his flesh.

A painful tearing sensation as the blindfold was removed, and he stared up into sunlight so bright that he had to screw his eyes up tight against it. He tried to speak but found that he'd been gagged.

Kendrick stared up at a face reduced to a hazy silhouette by the jagged ferocity of the sun at high noon. Wherever he was now, it was somewhere very hot.

The dark outlines at the edge of his vision told him that he'd been deposited in the boot of a car. His body was folded up painfully in the limited space.

Hands dragged Kendrick out, the hard metal lip of the boot scraping painfully against his flesh. Now he could see that his wrists were bound in front of him with narrow strips of white plastic. Although these strips looked relatively fragile, he could barely flex his hands.

With some dismay, he realized that his legs too were bound. He fell down hard on a dusty desert road.

A handgun wavered into view, a vicious-looking thing with a long barrel. Its muzzle was pressed against his temple.

"Here's the deal." Now he could make out Helen's face. "If you need to take a leak or a shit, the time is now. Then you're back in the car."

As Kendrick nodded, she tucked the gun into her jeans and yanked his trousers down around his thighs. He felt a hot flush of humiliation.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm enjoying this," Helen muttered, "but there is absolutely no fucking way I'm going to untie you."

She dragged him to the side of the road where the tarmac merged with rough desert grasses, then kicked him over onto his side.

"Right, take a leak if you need it. Don't take for ever."

Kendrick tipped himself a little further over onto his side, and urinated onto the desert soil, only partially managing to avoid wetting himself in the process. He gritted his teeth and twisted away from the puddle of urine.

"D'you need to shit?" Helen asked him.

Kendrick twisted his head from side to side in the negative, staring into the middle distance while she yanked his trousers back up around his hips.

"Well, thank Christ for that," she muttered. A few minutes later she lifted him up and rolled him back into the boot of the car. Kendrick watched the daylight disappear again as the boot-lid came down with a solid thunk, leaving him with only his own thoughts and the petroleum stink of a pile of greasy rags – which was the nearest thing he had to a pillow.

Summer 2088 (exact date unknown) The Maze

Kendrick shivered, wrapping his arms around his ribs. His thin paper uniform provided absolutely no defence against the freezing cold of the darkened corridors. He'd given up trying to count the hours and days since their abandonment.

Someone had died recently just a few metres from where he now crouched. The death had occurred in a sudden outburst of violence that'd had nothing to do with Sieracki's instructions. It might already have been a few hours ago, but time was getting harder to judge.

The man's dying screams had gone on for far, far too long. Nobody knew exactly what had happened, or who was responsible for the killing. Kendrick had been the first to stumble across the body, while it was still cooling. The weapon used to slay him – a piece of metal twisted from one of the trolley frames – still lay nearby in a pool of gore.

And that's how it happens, Kendrick thought, alone now in the darkness. Fear and desperation were driving them all apart.

He'd known from the start that he would answer Sieracki's call when the time came.

Sieracki's voice had boomed out again, some indeterminate number of hours before. Three names had been called; nobody Kendrick knew, but all of them men. A crowd had followed them to one of the great shield doors beyond which lay the lowest levels, but Kendrick hadn't had the stomach to witness it.

As always when the names were called, the door lay open.

The first time this had happened, several men and women had rushed eagerly towards the suddenly open shield door, not seeing what the rest had noticed – automated gun turrets positioned just beyond. Those who ran forward were cut down instantly; as the rest fell back, the turrets powered down with a whine like a jet plane approaching a runway. Kendrick witnessed it all.

When those first two names were called out again, a woman had stepped hesitantly forward from the crowd, her expression unreadable. Kendrick realized with horror that she could see nothing in the darkness; she made her way hesitantly, by touch.

She was joined by another, a man this time, and it was clear from his movements that he could see better than the woman. He had glanced at her uncertainly as, her face pale and drawn, she had found her way to the edge of the shield door, guiding herself past the gun turret by sliding her hands along the corridor wall.

Kendrick remembered how someone had reached out to try to stop her, only to be slapped away. There were shouts and heated debate, a cacophony of voices.

He remembered the woman screaming, then running forward, stumbling blindly away from the corpses of the recently fallen. Her selected combatant had stared after her for at least a minute, before himself stepping forward with the stiff gait of someone deliberately walking over a cliff edge.

Kendrick could still smell the blood and scorched flesh of the bodies that had been torn apart by the guns earlier, and he despised himself when that memory made his mouth water. Wherever the innards of the dead were exposed he could see fine filaments, like silvery wires, threading through their flesh.

He kept telling himself that when his own time came he could refuse. Others had done so, and lay slowly dying of thirst and hunger in the corridors and the echoing spaces all around.

Kendrick knew that he could refuse, but deep inside he already knew he wouldn't.

24 October 2096 En route to Texas

Kendrick could hear the sound of jet planes outside. He was lost in oil-scented darkness, the air so thick and stifling that it was almost like drowning. His lungs heaved and his skin felt on fire. Even if it wasn't Helen's actual intention to kill him he was pretty sure that he'd suffocate if he remained trapped in the tiny space for much longer.

He kicked out with his feet, trying to make some noise, draw attention. He felt relief blossom in his chest as someone finally unlocked the car boot.

His reward was a chink of light, a tiny, star-like point, and he felt a rush of ecstatic relief that they were going to let him out. He wasn't going to die there in the airless dark after all.

The chink of light expanded, rushing towards him. Not sunlight, however – something else altogether.

Kendrick found that he was no longer bound. Instead he was falling, as in a dream, through an ocean of warm air. Finally he came to a soft landing on a very familiar grass plain. Once more he could see insects buzzing through the tall grass while, further away, the land curved upwards, rising to meet itself.

Kendrick looked around him, his aches and bruises suddenly a memory. He stooped down to pluck a blade of grass, twirling it between forefinger and thumb. It felt very slightly damp, the texture of its surface somehow vivid under his fingertips. If this was some kind of augment-generated hallucination, it was entirely indistinguishable from reality.

But really he was trapped, tied up in a car boot somewhere in America, not here. Logic demanded that. Yet it was hard to deny the apparent reality of what he was now experiencing.

Perhaps this is death, he mused. Or maybe the sneak preview? Either way, he felt curiously unconcerned, for the Archimedes provided a curious substitute for Heaven – or for Hell.

A darkness swept across the green, the shadow of something vast. Kendrick looked up.

Far above his head, floating in the centre of the vast cylinder that was the Archimedes, he saw a twisting, amorphous shape that he didn't recall from his previous visions. At first he thought it was merely a cloud. But this was more like a great ocean of silver droplets that had been suspended in the artificial sky above him, the grasslands around him and his own upturned face captured and reflected in its shifting peaks and troughs.

Watching the cloud become more agitated, Kendrick felt himself gripped by a sudden fear, as if something malevolent lurked unseen just behind his shoulder.

He looked around. The great shell of the Archimedes stretched into the distance on either side of him, capped at each end by striated layers of steel. He knew that the station was divided into two huge caverns. Nearer one of these layers could be seen great scaffold-like structures surrounding transfer facilities that were used for bringing materials into and out of the station.

Above him the mercury-like cloud appeared to be dispersing. Spinning fragments, resembling drops of molten metal, boiled away from it like a swarm of silver locusts.

They began to rush down towards him and Kendrick didn't wait to see what happened next. He bolted across the grasslands, feeling the tug of his own muscles, the air streaming past him as he moved.

Even so, he could see the shadow of the pursuing cloud-fragments overtaking him, darkening the grass around him in every direction. Light poured down upon him from long, narrow windows extending the length of the chamber, the light itself diffused by complex mirror arrays.

He stopped, dream muscles aching, and stared up again. The individual cloud-fragments were now more discernible, moving with clear intelligence and purpose. Like swarms of tiny fish darting through ocean depths, their movements appeared almost telepathically coordinated.

Kendrick stopped again, wondering what it was that felt so wrong about all this. It was like the time when his heart had ceased beating, the feeling that part of him had vanished so suddenly that he could not at first work out what was missing.

And then he knew.

He was no longer breathing.

In this dream-place, his lungs, like his heart, were still. He deliberately drew breath then, so that air filled his chest. He actually felt the air flooding into him.

At first, panic surged within him and he felt himself begin to hyperventilate – suffering the delusion that something was blocking his nose and throat. It took a serious effort of will to maintain self-control, to remind himself that none of this was real. His lungs still moved inside the flesh-and-bone cage of his real body regardless of where his mind currently resided.

Kendrick heard the singing long before it properly impinged on his conscious mind. It brought a kind of peace that he had never believed might be possible, as if he had woken up into an angel's dream. Hardenbrooke's medication was finally wearing off: there was now little to stand between Kendrick and the message that Buddy and the rest of the Ward Seventeen Labrats had already received.

But there was still that sense of malevolence he'd felt. Where did it come from? He remembered what McCowan's ghost had told him about Robert.

The insect-like motes were close enough now to take on discernible shapes. They rushed around each other as they approached Kendrick, faster and faster until they flowed together again, taking on an outline, vaguely humanoid, fleshing out as the motes blended together into a seamless whole. It took on the size and shape of a man: a flesh-and-blood human being.

At first the shape had the face of Robert Vincenzo, but its expression constantly flowed like liquid, becoming somehow simultaneously imbecilic and dangerously intelligent.

The singing faded and Kendrick struggled to hear it still, wanting to follow that sound for all eternity, to rest in its gentle cadence until the end of time.

For the first time, Kendrick understood what Buddy had been trying to tell him, understood the peace and the safety that Buddy and the others believed they would gain from boarding the Archimedes. Everything Erik had told him, on that chilly shore so far away, suddenly made sense.

The face of Robert Vincenzo stared back at him from the dream-landscape of the Archimedes. Its mouth twisted silently, forming words that Kendrick could hear in his head, as if they were his own thoughts.

Not you.

Kendrick started to speak and felt his lungs spasm violently as they kicked back into action a second time, sucking in the air necessary to project the words that he was trying to voice.

"I didn't mean to kill you," Kendrick stammered. "But you made me do it, damn you."

The face twisted into the parody of a smile.

Without warning, the ground split apart under Kendrick's feet and he fell, tumbling into a bottomless well of night filled with stars.

Kendrick lurched up from the motel bed, the sudden motion spinning him off it and sending him sprawling onto a hard wooden floor.

In an instant he was back in the real, in the here and now. He found himself in the narrow space between the side of the bed and the nearby wall, staring up at the underside of a cheap bedside table. A Gridcom box sat on it, its tacky styling designed to resemble an old-fashioned telephone.

From somewhere outside, he could hear the rush and roar of aircraft landing and taking off, just as when he'd been imprisoned in the car boot. He was still tightly bound at his hands and ankles. He struggled and twisted on filthy green linoleum, kicking and pushing until he worked his way round to the wider space between the bed and the room door.

He heard more aeroplane noise from outside. Then the sound of animated voices. The motel-room door crashed open and soldiers entered, wearing camouflage gear overlaid with dark grey armour.

With a sinking feeling, Kendrick realized that they were Los Muertos. Every one of them had a crude crucifix stitched onto the shoulder of their camouflage gear. One also wore a wide and varied collection of religious paraphernalia attached by strings and chains draped around his neck. Among these were pieces of circuit board, strung together.

And something else: something dull and silvery that Kendrick realized must have come from near the Maze. It was the same nano-stuff he had seen infesting the flesh of a dying Los Muertos warrior.

One of the soldiers grinned at the sight of Kendrick lying prostrate and helpless on the floor, and chuckled as he helped his colleagues hoist him off the floor like a sack of potatoes. Kendrick's gag had worked loose and he tried to speak, but even thinking about it left him feeling listless and drained of energy so he decided to save his strength.

As they carried him outside, Kendrick could see the rest of the motel, which mainly comprised run-down breeze-block huts with dried-out gardens delineated by narrow margins of whitewashed pebbles. Several of the huts lacked glass in their windows, and beyond these buildings and a small park filled with abandoned-looking trailers he could see a vast fenced-off area with the all too familiar features of a military base. Administrative buildings and prefabs stood next to a long runway and a complex of hangars, all dusty and broken-looking, as if it had all been abandoned a long time ago.

The soldiers dumped Kendrick unceremoniously into the back seat of an ancient manual-drive jeep that now looked as if it was composed primarily of rust. He felt his teeth clack together as his head bounced off the side door. One soldier got in the front, another sat next to Kendrick in the back, and they took off in a cloud of dust. After only a few minutes' journey they arrived at a security gate and were waved straight through.

In the distance Kendrick could see a series of vast hulking shapes at the far end of the base, looking for all the world like sleeping giants hidden under enormous camouflage shrouds. He could not even begin to guess what they might be.

Several minutes later they came to a halt outside a low, whitewashed building that turned out to be a jail. Limbs still bound, Kendrick was locked into a cell.

From the floor of the cell, he could see that there was one tiny barred window, which looked too small for him to even squeeze his head through, set high in what was presumably an exterior wall. Some soldiers were talking, out of sight, further along the corridor, and two appeared a moment later. Like all the rest, they wore crucifix-adorned uniforms.

While one kept his rifle trained on Kendrick's skull the other jailer pointed a wandlike device through the bars of the cell and Kendrick's bonds suddenly fell loose. In a matter of seconds he could pull free his aching wrists and feet.

The soldiers left him then and he groaned with relief as blood rushed back into his fingers. He crouched on the tiled floor, seeming to feel every one of the thousand bruises and aches that now patterned his body. Free at last, he thought sourly.

Kendrick stared at the door of his cell and listened. But he heard nothing beyond the occasional whine of aircraft engines starting.

Once he was sure that the soldiers weren't likely to reappear any time soon, he stepped forward and studied the lock on die door. He'd already noticed that it was electronic.

Kendrick shook his head – were these people idiots? They'd have been better off leaving him locked in the boot of the car. It was almost as if they wanted him to escape. And he was more than happy to oblige them.

Kendrick knelt down next to the lock – a smooth, oblong steel box that did not require a keyhole – and fingered its cool surface, searching for its electron pulse with his eyes closed.

Nothing came to him. His brow furrowed as he pressed both hands against its surface. Still nothing -the cell door remained resolutely locked. A chill rushing up his spine, Kendrick hammered at the lock with the heel of his hand in sudden frustration, then rolled himself into a ball on the floor, cursing and gasping at the pain of it.

Augments or no augments, that had definitely hurt.

They had finally invented the Labrat-proof electronic lock.

A couple more hours passed, which Kendrick spent lying stretched out on a narrow folding bunk fixed to the wall by chains. Then Helen returned, accompanied by Hardenbrooke and some soldiers. Kendrick sat bolt upright when he saw the medic.

This time, Helen too was dressed in combat gear, a crucifix stitched onto her tunic just over the heart. Hardenbrooke avoided Kendrick's gaze, but she eyed him frankly.

"I don't see why I need to get involved in this," Hardenbrooke whined as they halted outside Kendrick's cell.

"Because I say so," Helen snapped. "Besides," she said, studying Kendrick through the bars, "anything he knows about the other Augments, we can use. Isn't that right, Mr Gallmon?"

Inwardly Kendrick's soul shrank, wondering what would happen to him when they realized he probably knew less about what was going on than they did.

When he didn't answer after a moment Helen shrugged, producing some kind of gun which she pushed through the bars and fired. Kendrick felt a sharp pain in his arm and looked down to see a tiny dart embedded in his skin.

The drug rapidly paralysed his muscles, leaving him awake and aware. He slid off the bunk and onto the floor, watching helplessly as they unlocked the cell door.

"What about the zero-point technology?" probed Helen.

"What?"

"The zero-point tech on board the Archimedes," she repeated impatiently.

"I don't know anything about it," Kendrick answered truthfully.

"He genuinely doesn't know about that," he heard Hardenbrooke say.

There was a pause. "He doesn't know about it?" Helen snapped. "Then what the fuck does he know?"

Hardenbrooke replied, sounding almost apologetic. "Look, I'm sure there's a lot he knows which he's holding back. That stuff you shot him up with, sometimes you need to think about how you phrase your questions. Context."

"Peter McCowan told me about all the rest," Kendrick said. "He told me about the Bright, how they found a way to the end of time."

Rustling noises, and he looked up from the chair he'd been dropped into, searching his captors' faces. A soldier lurked in the shadows nearby.

"Who's Peter McCowan?" Helen demanded.

"A friend of mine. He spoke to me while I was locked in the trunk of your car."

Another brief silence. "Tell me more about your friend."

"He died in the Maze."

"Fuck."

Helen covered her eyes with one hand, quietly repeating the word "Fuck" over and over, under her breath.

"Okay. Let's start again," she continued after a bit. "The Bright – what are they?"

"They live on the Archimedes. Draeger designed them to find God. I…" A wave of nausea surged through Kendrick. He heard himself groan.

Someone nearby was muttering under his breath, in a rush of words that sounded like a litany. It was the soldier, and he looked as though he was weeping. Helen turned to bark something at him that Kendrick couldn't make out. When she turned back to Kendrick, her eyes were shiny.

"And that's what they call themselves – the Bright?" she asked.

"Yes."

Now she turned to Hardenbrooke who was leaning against a wall, his arms folded, watching. Night had fallen and pale moonlight spilled through the high-up window of the cell.

"We should give him some more shots of another inhibitor," Hardenbrooke muttered. "His augments will have dredged most of what we've already given him out of his bloodstream. That's how he's managing to hold so much back."

"Fine. Do whatever you need to," Helen said impatiently. Hardenbrooke stood up and stepped forward. A moment later Kendrick felt a tiny sting in one arm, followed by a numbness spreading through his thoughts.

"Okay, then," Helen said brightly, sounding like a teacher instructing a class of pre-schoolers. "He obviously doesn't know anything new about zero point. Okay… so how long have you known about the Archimedes?"

"About the Archimedes?" Kendrick asked.

"Anything, Mr Gallmon."

"All I know is, Buddy says those things that I've been dreaming about found God at the end of time. It meant something to Caroline, too – before you took her. The others think they could live for ever, if only they could get there."

Kendrick could see the incredulity written on Hardenbrooke's features. Helen's expression, by contrast, was fervent, almost ecstatic. She muttered something that sounded like a prayer.

"This is insane, this is bullshit," said Hardenbrooke. "What does this have to do with zero-point weapons?"

"Shut up," Helen snapped. "This is important."

"Oh Christ, sometimes I can't believe you people really believe this shit." Hardenbrooke looked ready to tear his hair out. "We're not here to talk about religion. We're here to find a way to win."

"If we win, it's because God smiles on us, and not on you," Helen said evenly, still staring down at Kendrick. "Hardenbrooke, I'll ask you not to take the Lord's name in vain again."

"Let's be clear," Hardenbrooke said carefully. "Zero-point tech is the purpose of this interrogation. Any more of this flagrant bullshit isn't. So keep your religious beliefs out of this, okay?"

Helen ignored him, leaning over Kendrick and peering into his eyes, as though she might find secrets lurking there. "Draeger thinks you're special," she muttered, just inches from his face. "Maybe you're not. Maybe he's wrong, and we're all barking up the wrong tree."

She looked off into space for a while, saying nothing, before finally shaking her head and standing upright. "This is useless. Look, he's no use to us if he doesn't know anything more than we do."

"But Draeger thinks he's important, you said."

"So what? Draeger is an egomaniac. You know, you haven't exactly earned your money yet – or don't you understand that?"

Hardenbrooke blinked. "I don't know what you mean."

"You told us that Draeger thought this idiot was essential to regaining access to the Archimedes. So far, he doesn't come across as very fucking essential to me. That means his friends can still take the Godhead away from us, regardless of whether we have him here or not. What are you going to do about that?"

Hardenbrooke's face was pale. "You're nuts, do you know that?" he said quietly. "Any military advantage-"

"I know what you want," Kendrick interrupted, his thoughts rapidly becoming clearer.

They both swivelled to stare at him, as if he were a corpse suddenly returned to life.

"With zero-point energy, you could win a war against anyone. Somehow, you think I can get you on board where everyone else has failed, don't you?"

Helen's expression remained mask-like. "Can you?"

"I don't know," Kendrick replied. He listened, helpless, as the truth spilled out of his own mouth. "No more so than any of the rest. But whatever's up there, it hates me. It doesn't want me there."

Kendrick found that he couldn't stop blinking. A dawning sense of horror began to awaken within him, as if he were emerging from a deep, restful sleep only to find everyone he had ever cared about torn limb from limb and lying in front of him.

"It's wearing off," said Hardenbrooke. "But pumping any more into him isn't going to work."

Another soldier entered the cell, looking harassed. Helen glared at him. "This had better be good, whatever it is."

"It looks like the enemy know we're here. The perimeter defence just brought down a robot recon, but we're almost certain it transmitted our location first. Command says we're to pull out early – launch ahead of schedule."

Helen cast a worried glance in Kendrick's direction.

Launch what? he wondered.

The soldier left in a hurry.

"Well, haven't you been a complete waste of time," Helen muttered at Hardenbrooke. "All this trouble and it looks like your friend here can't tell us a damn thing after all."

Hardenbrooke looked as though he was about to explode with rage, having undoubtedly promised that a gold mine of information would spill from Kendrick's lips. He stepped quickly towards Helen and grabbed her shoulder. She spun, staring at him unbelievingly.

Kendrick witnessed all this, including the way that Helen shook her head almost imperceptibly over Hardenbrooke's shoulder at the guard, who had begun to step forward. The soldier stopped, but lowered his rifle to hold it levelled at Hardenbrooke at waist level.

"There was an agreement." Hardenbrooke's face flushed red, which made his scars all the more ugly. "We need the rest of the information from him, about what Draeger is planning-"

"Shut up. You've been worse than fucking useless."

"No, I've had enough of this demented nonsense. I-"

Kendrick watched Helen's hand slip down to the holster clipped to her belt. The motion of her delicate fingers on the gun was smooth and practised, and he found himself admiring the way the pistol slid gracefully into her grip. Raising it only slightly, she shot Hardenbrooke in the stomach at point-blank range.

He went down like the proverbial sack of potatoes. Helen stared down dismissively at his crumpled body. Then her finger tightened again on the trigger, and a few more shots hammered into Hardenbrooke's supine form.

"Helen," Kendrick croaked, his throat still immobile-feeling.

Her breathing slowed. She closed her eyes for a moment before looking at him.

"My name's Leigh," she said.

"Leigh? That's good." A bitter chuckle fell from Kendrick's lips. He felt as though he'd been raped. "Because you're a lousy lay, Leigh," he told her. "Even if you do fuck for Jesus."

He wondered if she would shoot him too now, but there was still enough of the drug remaining in his system for him to find it surprisingly difficult to care. Instead, somewhat to his surprise, Leigh/Helen stepped forward and backhanded him across the face – so hard that at first he thought she'd dislocated his jaw.

It came to Kendrick, even through the haze of pain, that he was only still alive because she hadn't entirely convinced herself that he would be of no further use to them. He watched as they exited the cell, securely locking it behind them, the guard dragging Hardenbrooke's corpse along with them.

Time passed.

Kendrick was unable to sleep, so he pulled himself off his narrow bunk and slumped with his back against the cell bars, watching the stars wheel beyond his one tiny window. He thought about what the soldier had said earlier: The enemy knows we're here.

The question was – who was the enemy?

If he was still somewhere in America, then he had to be in one of the breakaway republics that had favoured Los Muertos. Otherwise, how would they have the run of this entire military base? Perhaps, then, a neighbouring republic knew Los Muertos were here, and were launching an attack?

Eventually Kendrick fell asleep despite the stink of Hardenbrooke's blood coagulating in one corner of the cell. He did not dream.

He woke some hours later to find a databand lying on the cell floor in front of him. It was the kind that was found in shops that sold cheap plastic jewellery. Moonlight streaked the floor where it lay.

Kendrick picked it up, studying its pale blue plastic shell. The tiny fingernail-sized screen was currently grey and inactive. He wondered where on Earth it could have come from.

Then a pale blue light appeared on the screen, and he almost dropped it in his surprise. He glanced through the cell bars to the glow of light visible down the other end of the corridor, where someone was on night duty. Surely nobody could have got past the guards there and deposited the bracelet without even waking him?

"It's me, Peter McCowan." The voice emerged tinny and distorted from the bracelet's tiny speaker.

"Peter?" Kendrick lifted the bracelet closer to his mouth, keeping his voice to a low whisper.

"It's a lot easier to get in touch with you this way, don't need so many visuals. But in the meantime you need to get out of that cell."

"Really? Do you think so?"

"Kendrick-"

"Look, there's planes landing and taking off from here all the time. I'm locked in a cell, and I don't have a fucking clue what's going on." At least with the constant roar of the aircraft landing or taking off outside there was less chance of anyone hearing him speak.

A long sigh from the bracelet's speaker. "Kendrick, nobody's going to get you out but you. But that's going to mean some cooperation."

"Cooperation?" Kendrick studied the bracelet in his hand. "What are you talking about?"

"I can get you out of there, but I need you to do something in return."

"Tell me."

"You need to get yourself to the Maze. If you just agree to do that, I can help you find a way out of the cell."

Several seconds passed as Kendrick closed his eyes, then opened them again to find the bracelet was still there and he was still in his cell. "I know, you asked me before, but I just can't do it," he replied. "Besides, it's-"

"Off-limits? God, there's a war on, in case you hadn't noticed. Los Muertos have enough on their hands to distract them. I need you to get here, Ken."

"Peter, where precisely are you? Are you telling me that's where you are – down there?"

"Just tell me you'll do it."

A roar filled the cell as another plane took off. "You need to tell me more. You need to tell me what it is that's so fucking special about me that every lunatic with a gun and a grudge is now chasing after me."

"Look, I already told you that: out of all of us who are still alive, you're the one closest to the Bright in terms of the way your augmentations developed. If Draeger is so interested in you, it can only be because you represent the highest achievement of Sieracki's research programme."

"Peter-?"

"Ken, understand this. The Bright are hammering at you with everything they've got. You have no concept of the energy resources available to them, but I'll bet Draeger has an idea, and, thanks to Hardenbrooke, Los Muertos do too. The Bright are like children who've figured out how to build a nuclear reactor and are using it to make phone calls. We're talking serious overkill. If it was up to Robert, you'd never know about any of this, but the Bright want you too much even for Robert to be able to do too much about it."

"The woman interrogating me here thought I could somehow get Los Muertos on board the Archimedes."

"With your particular affinity with the Bright, they figure they stand a better chance of boarding the station and staying alive there if they have you along with them. Also, Los Muertos knew that Draeger had you flown out to Cambodia – and they know everything about the programme of treatments that Hardenbrooke administered to you."

"Right: so apart from wanting to haul me up there, Los Muertos also kidnapped me because I'm important to Draeger."

"At last! Give the man a sticky bun! Took you fucking long enough to grasp that, didn't it? They all think you're special, and to a certain extent you are. But not, perhaps, so much as they think. Now, will you come to the Maze?"

Kendrick groaned. "You haven't given me one good reason to."

"If you do, I'll give you something you want very badly – something you've been seeking, for a long time."

"What?"

"I can get you the proof of Draeger's direct involvement with the Labrat research programme. But before that you have to come here."

"What if I say no?"

"But you won't, will you?"

"You're serious, aren't you? You can give me that kind of proof, Peter?"

The bracelet had fallen silent. Kendrick stared at it, knowing that it wasn't real. He dropped it on the concrete floor of the cell. It clattered as it landed, the plastic cheap and slightly scratched. He kicked at it gently and it slid a metre or two across the floor. It resolutely refused to disappear or evaporate.

Then, because he could think of nothing else to do, Kendrick turned his attention back to the lock. He caressed the smooth, machined steel box, thinking about McCowan's words.

Yes, damn you, I'll do it.

Suddenly, it was there: the electrons running through the lock's circuitry were like bees buzzing in a hive. Kendrick's hand tingled where he touched the surface of the lock and, although he couldn't feel it or even sense it in any way, he imagined information flowing through the nanotech augmentation that riddled his flesh, bio-aug programs analysing the interior of the lock, reaching out and distantly manipulating its complex innards.

Somehow, in some arcane way more like magic than science, McCowan was doing this – through Kendrick. He thought about a dead mind reaching out through his fingertips from buried lightless corridors – and shivered inwardly.

The box made a soft click-thunk sound and softly, very softly, the door swung towards him.

Kendrick stood, transfixed. Perhaps he'd done something wrong the last time and-

But it wasn't that. The lock had been designed to keep a Labrat imprisoned.

Get to the Maze, McCowan had said.

Could he really bring himself to go back there? Would it even be possible?

Perhaps it would, Kendrick thought. Perhaps there were even more miracles to be found there.

If he went – and if McCowan was telling the truth about Draeger.

Another aircraft took off, sounding as if it had barely skimmed the roof. Kendrick had to resist the urge to duck. Very softly, he stepped out into the corridor. He halted when he found that he'd stopped breathing, clutching at his chest in panic, wondering if his throat was blocked. Yet he didn't even feel out of breath, though the impulse to suck in air and breathe it out again appeared to have gone – at least for now.

Kendrick stepped back into the cell to try to deflect the subsequent wave of panic that threatened to swamp him. This wasn't like the last time, when he'd found himself on the Archimedes. This was real.

Very deliberately, he expanded his chest, drawing air into his lungs and then pushing it out again. He repeated this a few times until he felt nature take over: his lungs began moving without the need for conscious thought on his part.

His mind reeled. How long had this been going on? Seconds, minutes… more? What in Christ's name had his body been running on in the meantime?

What was happening to him?

Kendrick went back to the open cell door and glanced down the corridor. Ten metres or so away, he could see one edge of a desk and the side of a guard's head. There was a bend in the corridor there, which meant that whoever was currently minding the store didn't necessarily have a completely clear view down towards the cells – although it would take the guard only an instant's glance to see Kendrick peering out from his cell.

He moved soundlessly down the corridor, away from the guard. He reached a door after what seemed like an eternity. The guard hadn't so much as glanced up yet. Kendrick was amazed to find that the exit wasn't even locked. A glass panel at eye level allowed him to peer out at the dark shapes of nearby buildings looming beyond the jail. He reached down very gently to the metal lever of the door handle.

The lower edge of the door scraped noisily against the tiles under his feet and, glancing down, Kendrick saw that a shallow groove had been scraped away after many years of use. Just then, another plane thundered overhead. He glanced back to see the guard's head flick up, but the man was looking away from him. Kendrick watched as the guard nodded to someone who had just entered the jailhouse from the opposite end.

No time to waste. Kendrick pushed the door open wider, the air outside shaking with the sound of braking jet engines and screeching tyres. Taking advantage of the racket, he slipped out through the door and into the night.

Adrenalin surged through Kendrick's body, filling him with intense joy. He was out. The dark hulk of a military transport jet screamed overhead, so close that he felt he could almost reach up and touch it. But where now?

The whole complex was fenced off, as he'd noticed on his way in, which meant more guards to deal with. Unless he could steal transport there was no certain way to get back to civilization.

Kendrick stood against the wall, just beside the open door. He stole a glance back along the corridor and saw that his guard was now talking into a databand on his wrist. Kendrick's stomach lurched sickeningly as the head of a second soldier suddenly popped out of the open door of Kendrick's cell. Kendrick dodged back out of sight quickly.

He slipped along the side of the cell block, moving as fast as he could and taking advantage of the deep shadows there, ducking occasionally as a series of jeeps and trucks roared by, heading for the airfield where another huge cargo jet was approaching fast. Further away, Kendrick could see other trucks pulling up to a screeching halt before unloading dozens of uniformed men. Shouts came from somewhere close.

He ran towards an empty hangar a short distance away and watched from the shadows as the trucks returned the way they had come, kicking up great clouds of dust.

A klaxon sounded, strident and abrasive in the night air. Kendrick guessed it was for him. Uniformed men started heading towards the hangar he was lurking beside.

Time to get moving. He rounded a corner, trying to find a way towards the base perimeter. Then, through the gloom, he spied a fence several metres high.

But, when he saw what lay beyond it, Kendrick stumbled to a halt, gaping. He didn't know a great deal about spacecraft, but he knew enough to realize what a military orbital shuttle looked like.

There were three of them. Vast tarpaulins were being pulled off them to reveal their gleaming black carapaces. Kendrick stared at the smooth bulge of their fusion engines. He remembered seeing the huge rockets, still shrouded, earlier and wondering what they were.

Each one was mounted on an enormous movable platform that resembled a wide-bodied truck. Because of the much smaller size of these shuttles' engines – and because their fuel requirements for reaching orbit were modest by comparison – they were a lot more compact than the old-style versions that had been in use almost a century earlier. Like most modern spacecraft, they also lacked the external disposable boosters once necessary to get those earlier giants into orbit.

Kendrick also knew, from his research into Draeger's part in the development of the fusion technology that had made such craft possible, how these shuttles could be moved into position and deployed in just a few hours.

The night lit up like midday.

At first Kendrick's senses did not register the explosion, only a surge of heat and pressure. Then he became aware of a fireball engulfing the perimeter fence perhaps a half-mile distant, the noise of it rolling over him like a sonic boom.

The sound of shots came from somewhere nearby. Kendrick moved deeper into the shadows and waited long, tense moments.

After the light from the fireball had almost faded, a low, tooth-rattling vibration began to surge through the ground under his feet, followed by an almighty roar. Seeing fire blossom at the base of one of the shuttles, he started to head for the edge of the base, keeping close to the hangars as he did so.

Before long Kendrick found himself at the base perimeter, near a cluster of buildings that had a large number of jeeps and trucks parked outside. It occurred to him that he hadn't seen Caroline in the jailhouse – so where else would they be keeping her? Instinct told him now that if she was anywhere it would be somewhere in the buildings directly ahead. He tried not to think about the possibility that they'd put her on board one of the shuttles.

Kendrick stopped at an abandoned jeep that had its engine still running. He prayed that its rightful owners wouldn't suddenly reappear. Climbing into the driver's seat, he flipped the vehicle over to manual control, then began to drive off carefully, keeping his head down. Now that he'd had more time to look around, the base itself didn't seem to be all that large.

He halted the jeep after a few seconds and tapped at its command screen, located just to the right of the steering wheel. Three pre-programmed destinations appeared, listed in alphabetical order.

He glanced into the rear of the jeep and saw that a rifle had been left there. He reached back to pick it up, surprised at its weight. He had no idea how to use the damned thing, but just knowing it was there gave him some comfort.

Kendrick dropped the weapon onto the passenger seat next to him, then brought the jeep's destination list back up with a single tap on its screen, selecting the location it had most recently come from.

The vehicle began to move off slowly but soon picked up speed. It slowed at one point when its bumper sensors picked up the body heat of a group of soldiers. Kendrick ducked his head, hoping fervently that they wouldn't try to commandeer the jeep for themselves. But they didn't even spare him a glance. They were too busy losing control of the situation.

After only a hundred metres or so – about a quarter of its way across the base – the jeep rolled to a stop outside a one-storey building among the cluster that Kendrick had already spotted earlier. He jumped out, grabbed the rifle and took a look around.

Caroline could be anywhere.

Hearing voices nearby, Kendrick ran half-crouching along the side of a wall. Around a corner he saw what appeared to be a troop carrier parked alongside a loading bay. A surgical pallet had been placed in the back of the vehicle, a bundled shape strapped to it.

A soldier emerged next to the loading bay and spotted him. Shit.

Kendrick brought the rifle up to his shoulder without thinking. Is the safety on? he wondered, realizing that he had no idea. He aimed just as the soldier ducked back through the door. Kendrick almost didn't spot a second soldier coming out of the driver's side of the troop carrier. He swung the rifle towards the man and squeezed the trigger, reacting out of panic more than anything else. The driver's shoulder exploded in a burst of blood and bone. The rifle's recoil almost jerked the gun out of Kendrick's hands.

He glanced back over towards the door and saw the first soldier reappear, armed with a pistol and taking aim.

Moving with augmented speed, Kendrick dodged to one side. When the soldier took a step back, alarm written across his face, Kendrick threw his rifle at him like a club. It slammed into the man's head and sent him sprawling.

Kendrick ran over, retrieved the rifle, and smashed it down on the soldier's head, gripping the barrel with both hands. The soldier jerked and twisted spasmodically for a moment, then lay still.

Kendrick felt as if he were watching all this from a distance, alternately appalled and exhilarated by what he was doing. Did the rage he felt come from himself, or was he now being manipulated by his augmentations?

Maybe a little of both.

He looked quickly around, then ran up to the front of the truck. No more soldiers, not close at any rate. That didn't mean he had much time, though. He stuck his head through the door of the building but saw nobody there.

When Kendrick climbed into the back of the troop carrier he found, to his amazement, that he'd guessed right.

It was Caroline who was strapped down onto the pallet. She was swathed in thick blankets. He wondered where they'd intended to take her. She looked as though she was drugged but he managed to undo the straps and lower her from the troop carrier. Lines of rogue augment growth now marred her once-beautiful face. Since the last time he'd seen her, her condition had become dramatically worse.

Kendrick ignored the rattle of nearby gunfire and bundled Caroline into the back of the jeep. At first he didn't realize that the shots were coming from somewhere outside the fence, but then he watched as bullets kicked up a trail of dust leading towards another jeep, filled with soldiers, that was driving towards the perimeter. He jumped back into his own vehicle and screeched off, not wanting to wait around.

He glanced over his shoulder to see that the other jeep had jarred to a halt, soldiers spilling out and putting as much distance as possible between the incoming fusillade and themselves. The bullets slammed into the vehicle. An instant later it spun into the air, seemingly supported briefly by a column of fire and smoke that then slammed it flaming onto its side. Driving a jeep suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea.

Kendrick scanned the perimeter and saw that the entrance nearest the building seemed unguarded. He drove the jeep into the shadow of a hangar and pulled Caroline out, heaving her onto his shoulders. She felt curiously light.

From somewhere overhead came the sound of rotors and a blast of air as an enormous black shape hovered low above him.

A searchlight on the helicopter's undercarriage pinned and tracked Kendrick as he ran. The machine moved a little ahead of him, dropping even lower so as to block his path. He was forced to a halt, searching wildly for some way of escape.

There was a door at one side of the hangar itself, almost hidden behind a stack of metal crates. Kendrick ran towards it and pulled at the handle. Realizing that it was securely locked, he waited for a hail of bullets to thud into his back.

When none came, he started to kick at the door. Agony shot through his leg but the metal began to buckle under further severe impacts, the hinges starting to warp and bend.

And still no bullets. He wondered what they were waiting for.

At the instant when the door began to give way, Kendrick heard a familiar voice, electronically distorted. He flattened himself against the ruined door and crouched, partly hidden by the crates, and looking wildly around him.

As he studied the 'copter, he had a flash of recognition and immediately knew that they were safe. With its black, bulbous nose and scarred paintwork the aircraft looked almost as if it had been rescued from a junkyard. A shadowy figure was just visible through the canopy.

"Kendrick! Get the fuck in here!"

This time the voice was unmistakable.

Kendrick glanced past the helicopter, and in the far distance saw one of the three shuttles rapidly gaining height on a pillar of flame. A roar like nothing he could ever have imagined filled the air. Already flame was licking out from the engines of the remaining two spacecraft.

Just then the pilot's door of the 'copter swung open and a figure leant out, its face obscured by insectile headgear. Kendrick grinned and ran forward, hardly daring to believe that he'd been rescued.

Buddy.

Summer 2088 (exact date unknown) The Maze

His stomach roiling painfully from lack of food and water, Kendrick stared down the long, empty corridor and called out, listening to his voice echoing into the lightless distance.

He had almost convinced himself that if he searched hard enough he could find an escape route, some way of hiding from Sieracki's cameras indefinitely.

He kept a tight grip on the long, wicked-looking knife that he had found lying in an alcove minutes after the shield doors had opened, as he had entered these lower levels for the first time.

I could just leave the weapon here, go find Ryan, talk to him and refuse to fight. That was the right, sane and sensible choice to make.

Kendrick knew that there was a cache of food and water, along with medical supplies, in a locked vault somewhere on the very lowest level. There were weapons too – if you could find them. But the vault unlocked itself only when just one person remained alive.

There were other choices, of course. Some people preferred to just lie down and die. Others walked calmly into the field of fire of a gun turret to end it quickly. One side corridor had soon been transformed into a graveyard where the corpses were dragged and left to rot. Over a few days the stench of decay, permeating the empty passageways, had become inescapable.

And there were also stories of a demon that haunted the lowest levels of all.

Kendrick glanced back in the direction of the shield door, now firmly closed behind him. Ryan had to be in here somewhere – Ryan who had sworn to his face that he would not be the one to die. That didn't make Kendrick any less determined to find some kind of rational compromise. But he'd been down here for over an hour now, without any sign of his selected adversary.

More time passed, immeasurable in that endless night.

The first few times that Kendrick heard the distant roaring, he felt sure it was some form of auditory hallucination. But then he saw light flickering down in some far corner, the first light he had seen in… for ever.

Perhaps, he mused, the roaring noise came from something burning. At first the flickering seemed painfully bright to him, but his augmented senses rapidly adjusted themselves. He stared along the corridor, moving closer to the wall.

What is that? he wondered again. It sounded very much like the roar of flames.

"Explain," Sieracki's voice boomed over the tannoy.

Kendrick flung himself to the corridor floor, frightened to the core by the sudden echo of the voice.

"You said something was burning? Explain," Sieracki repeated, his voice insistent.

Perhaps, Kendrick thought, he himself had spoken without even being aware of it. The light suddenly grew much brighter.

"I don't know what I saw. I-"

"Our instruments show nothing burning," Sieracki replied in his familiar flat tones. Kendrick had heard answering machines with more emotional depth.

He framed a reply, then stopped when he saw something that he would never, ever forget.

At first Kendrick thought that the figure was burning. But if this was fire, then the flames were of liquid silver. Insane laughter filled the air and the figure ran at him, almost whooping with joy. Kendrick stood, awestruck, as the creature ran towards him down the long corridor before stopping suddenly at an intersection.

All of a sudden, Kendrick could see something flowing through the conduits that lined the walls and ceiling. No, not seeing; more like a kind of sensing, like trying to hold an image steady in his mind. There for a brief instant, gone the next, always wavering then shifting away.

It was a little like the times when he had become aware of the flow of energy in the electronics systems around him, but on a level of complexity and depth that he could never have previously imagined. Energy, flowing through the walls, suddenly as clearly visible as the streets of a city on a summer afternoon. Bright pulses flared out everywhere from the walls and the ceiling.

Kendrick shouted out to Sieracki, unable to keep himself from babbling. "What was that? You never told us about this. Is it human? For God's sake, what is it?"

"Explain."

"I saw him glowing. I never imagined… I thought he was on fire."

Kendrick stared up at the nearest camera. "Didn't you see it?"

Sieracki was silent this time.

Kendrick wandered, lost, until he came to yet another of the Maze's thousand intersections. Here a shaft curved down into murky blackness. Empty offices filled with shadows beckoned him on either side. He gripped his knife tighter, imagining Ryan lurking in there, waiting.

He climbed down the dark stairwell, the air echoing with his lonely footsteps. Tiny lenses glittered here and there, crudely epoxied to any available surface. He pictured Sieracki watching him from the comfort of his own office.

From somewhere ahead sounded the clattering of feet. Kendrick ducked into an empty office space till the noise began to recede. Something metal gleamed at him in the corner of the room.

He picked it up: a catapult. Not a child's toy, however, for this one looked deadly. Next to it lay a small box filled with steel balls. He wondered how much damage could be done to a human body with such a missile.

Nobody who returned from the lower levels had ever reported finding firearms there. Of course, firearms lacked artistry from the point of view of a man like Sieracki. Just aim and fire – that wouldn't tell Wilber what a bio-augmented soldier might achieve in hand-to-hand combat. A catapult or a knife was more visceral, more immediate. In the context of Sieracki's grand experiment, they made perfect sense.

Disgust and self-loathing filled Kendrick as he threw the catapult down where he had found it. He stepped back out into the corridor, flooded with sudden hatred.

"Can you hear me, Sieracki?" he screamed, his voice echoing down the empty corridors. "Fuck you, I'm not playing your game any more! Do you hear me? Sieracki!"

"But you have to." The voice sounded close, very close. "Or else he'll just kill both of us."

Ryan lunged out of the shadows. Kendrick caught sight of him at the last second. He spun out of the way, crashing into a wall as something hot streaked across the side of his chest. He felt a stinging warmth traverse his flesh.

Ryan's forward momentum had sent him crashing into an ancient file trolley and tumbling to the ground amid clouds of dust. Kendrick felt a sudden desire to fight, to win. The knife was already in his hand, poised for a killing lunge. Instead, he stepped rapidly away from Ryan, keeping the knife pointed towards his adversary, so that at least he could defend himself.

"For Christ's sake, Ryan, just listen to me. There has to be a way out of here. We could-"

"There isn't," Ryan growled, picking himself up from the dust. There was a determination in the words as he met Kendrick's gaze.

"There has to be," Kendrick insisted.

He glanced down to see blood soaking through the thin paper of his shirt. Ryan had injured him – but surely it was only a flesh wound? He was still standing, still ready to protect himself.

"Uh-uh," said Ryan, shaking his head. He was carrying a knife like Kendrick's. Dried blood stained the dusty floor between them, and Kendrick tasted bile at the back of his throat. "Next time, defend yourself," Ryan warned him, backing away. "I never said I was going to make this easy for you."

Ryan turned and fled. Kendrick watched him go, dumbfounded. Then he went back to pick up the catapult.

Peering down a stairwell, Kendrick saw flickering light somewhere far below.

"You're in my head," he whispered to himself. "You're not real." real am real am real

Kendrick cried out at the pain that had just exploded inside his skull. The words sounded deafening, overwhelming: but they did not echo.

In my head. He pushed himself down the steps towards the burning figure, the light around it flickering like silent lightning. Again he perceived lines of energy flowing through the walls and ceiling, but they were now far more evident than before. It was as if he could deduce the layout of the Maze in its entirety, reduced to a schematic displaying the flow of electrons throughout its structure.

He looked closer and realized that the burning figure was Robert Vincenzo, Caroline's brother. But transformed – no longer human. Kendrick halted, frozen to the spot. Then Robert was gone, turning and fleeing into the depths.

Eventually Kendrick found the will to put one foot in front of the other, continuing his descent.

Even from far away, Robert's words still filled Kendrick's head. the bright began it

"Began what?" everything came the reply, they woke on the archimedes and waited such a long time now they know we are here

"You're going to have to explain that more clearly, Robert." they see themselves in us

The voice faded suddenly, interrupted by a series of high-pitched giggles that sounded near – very near.

Kendrick wasn't even looking for Ryan now. He just wanted to understand what had become of Robert, the only one yet to escape the Wards. He wanted to see if the flaming creature with Robert's face had objective reality, or if he was simply losing his mind.

A shadow flickered in the distance, accompanied by the clatter of feet on metal. Kendrick hurried towards it, finding himself on the threshold of a vast chamber filled with towering piles of metal crates.

He hesitated. It would be too easy for Ryan to creep up on him in there. Overhead, light glinted from a lens.

Kendrick wrapped his fingers tightly around the haft of his knife and stepped slowly forward into the chamber, listening, watching. Several low-bodied trucks sat on rails next to an industrial-size elevator.

Hearing the faintest scuff of a heel directly behind him, he turned, moving faster than he could ever imagine possible. A blade arced past his ear, missing his head by millimetres.

That should have killed me. Kendrick marvelled at the lightning speed of his own responses. Ryan stepped nimbly away from him, an animal sound emerging from his throat as he prepared to lunge again.

Sudden light flickering from high above distracted them both. Kendrick caught sight of Robert standing on top of a crate nearby. Robert's flesh was flickering with a ghostly brilliance: thousands of cilia-like extrusions from his skin waved softly in the air around him.

His eyes full of horror, Ryan stood gaping up at him. Robert alighted from the crate, moving so dizzyingly fast that to Kendrick it seemed that he had been there but was now here within the same second, standing almost nose to nose with Ryan. A hand flashed forward, touching Ryan on the cheek. Ryan's eyes dimmed – and he slumped lifeless to the ground.

Kendrick stared, numb, wondering if it was his turn next. But Robert merely gazed back at him, eyes blank and full of flickering energy. he was not like us you and I are like the bright but not him

Kendrick licked his lips. "I don't understand." some of us are more like the bright than others so they speak only to us to you to me to buddy to all from our ward but to no others

Seeing the threads emerging from all over Robert's body, like fine black wires, reminded Kendrick of how Torrance had died.

Robert reached out a hand to him. Kendrick screamed, imagining the chilly and terrible brush of those delicate cilia against his cheek. He lashed out and drove his blade deep into Robert's chest, somehow finding the strength to yank it out and stab again. As Robert crumpled, the light faded instantly from all around him, his flesh immediately turning soft and pliant as putty.

Kendrick staggered to one side and retched violently. Just for a second, he could have sworn that he saw some of the black threads emerging from Robert's flesh reaching out to the bare concrete beneath him, and push their way into it.

He thought suddenly of Caroline, and felt deep, dreadful shame.

But something was different now. The long hunt through the corridors had triggered something deep within him; something dormant in his augments.

24 October 2096 Los Muertos-controlled military base, Texas

Buddy leant down while Kendrick lifted Caroline towards him, holding her around the waist like a ballet dancer raising his partner above his shoulders. Buddy grasped hold and started to haul her on board.

Kendrick leapt up onto one of the helicopter's landing struts, dust whipped up by the rotors stinging his eyes and nostrils.

Some instinct made Kendrick look up just before he pulled himself in after Caroline. He saw three fighter jets tear through the sky with an almighty roar, followed by explosions somewhere far off across the base. The aircraft were too far away for him to be able to recognize their markings.

He watched in awe as fire blossomed in the distance and orange blooms stitched across the landscape towards the two remaining shuttles. The first shuttle was already lost in the night sky, its passage now visible only by an arc of flaming light.

The second shuttle's engines were already rumbling. It began to lift on its own pillar of fire.

The helicopter lurched as Buddy took it up fast. Kendrick slammed down the back of the co-pilot's seat and managed to drag Caroline's unconscious body into the rear of the aircraft.

"Buddy, thank God," he gasped. "Listen, I-"

"Under attack," Buddy interrupted tersely. Kendrick looked ahead and spotted tracer fire streaking towards them through the dark, coming from the darkened window of a nearby building. Buddy yanked on the stick so that the 'copter weaved from side to side.

"How the hell did you know where I was?" Kendrick yelled. "I don't have my wand."

"Roy Whitman sent someone to New York to meet you, saw you go off with the woman, then had to use guesswork. She's well known in Los Muertos. One of their top operatives."

"So why didn't you call me in New York and warn me?"

"Tried. But you didn't pick up. So I figured they'd locked your wand off remotely with a software worm. Now we know for sure that Los Muertos are trying to beat us to the Archimedes." Buddy shook his head. "Idiots don't stand a chance."

The second shuttle was already streaking through the upper levels of the atmosphere and would soon be lost from sight. The third was still sitting on its launch pad, but now a blazing inferno jetted from its engines. Kendrick and Buddy could hear the rattle of automatic weapons even over the din of the helicopter engine.

"Hold tight," Kendrick heard Buddy say. "We're still being shot at."

Most of the base was now invisible under great swathes of dust and smoke. Buddy veered the aircraft sharply to one side, keeping dangerously close to the ground. Kendrick felt his stomach lurch in about seven different directions as his companion flew like a maniac. He caught a glimpse of the third shuttle. They were close enough to it to get incinerated if it chose that moment to launch.

Then he understood what Buddy was doing. The shuttle was now positioned between them and the main base, effectively shielding them from any gunfire coming from that direction.

Once they were past it they accelerated hard. Then a roar filled the air, sounding like God falling out of Heaven, and Kendrick knew that the last shuttle had begun to lift. Their aircraft shook so hard around them that he couldn't believe it wouldn't simply fall apart.

As they tilted to rise again, he glimpsed the damaged shuttle – liquid fire spilling from it – rising with astonishing speed. Buddy was rapidly putting kilometres between them, but still they were far too close. From the way he was twisting in his seat, he was clearly struggling to keep them aloft.

As Kendrick turned to see the third shuttle streaking upwards he noticed a line of fiery pockmarks stitch itself across its hull, blossoming and expanding until they joined up to consume the spacecraft in seconds.

Kendrick watched in horrified fascination as the shuttle's hull buckled explosively in mid-flight. The nose of the craft spun away into the night air, twisting and turning as it fell through a long descending arc.

The rest of it disappeared in a mighty fireball, sending out a powerful shock wave that almost hurled the helicopter back to the ground.

Kendrick watched the base's mesa whirl below them as he waited for the end to come. But instead their course became gradually steady and smooth. He glanced at Buddy, who had pulled off his mask. A weak grin creased the pilot's mouth, then he whooped like a cowboy. "Jesus, what a ride!"

Far below them, a ruined freeway wound its way toward the horizon. They flew on, passing over farmland where crops had previously grown across uncountable acres but where now only a grey pulpy mass streaked the soil. Asian Rot had taken its toll here.

A little while later, they dropped down to a landing in a low-ridged canyon where the vegetation appeared to have escaped the worst of the Rot. Wild flowers and pinon shimmered in the heat, growing on the banks of a stream that was barely more than a trickle.

They eased Caroline out of the helicopter and onto the sparse grass, keeping her wrapped in the same sheets that Kendrick had found her in. Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal pupils that were wide and unfocused. Her lips parted, as if she was about to speak, but then her eyes closed and she was asleep again.

Buddy glanced at Kendrick uneasily. "You didn't tell me she was this bad."

"She wasn't anywhere near as bad as this the last time I saw her. That was only a couple of days ago."

"We can help her," Buddy reassured him. "Look, the launch is being run from an offshore site. They've got medical facilities there, so we'll make sure she's taken care of."

Kendrick nodded. "You know what I don't understand?"

Buddy tilted his head. "What?"

"Why did the Bright do this to us? All our augments turned rogue at the same time, but the question is: why?"

"I don't claim to understand that." Buddy looked exasperated. "Perhaps the Bright triggered something in us, just by the simple act of communication."

"Did you ask the Bright that?"

Buddy looked pained. "You may have noticed their communication tends to be solely one-way."

"It certainly makes it hard for anyone to refuse them if staying down here means we'll all die a lot sooner."

"You're implying that they turned our augments rogue deliberately. But that's ridiculous."

"Sure of that, are you?" Kendrick snapped. "Can you just look at what's happening to Caroline and tell me you believe this is all for the best?"

"I…" Buddy's face coloured. He turned away without another word and headed back to the helicopter.

25 October 2096 New Mexico

Kendrick woke to a sky streaked with red. His face numb with cold, he sneezed in the chill morning air. The rest of him was wrapped in a thermal sleeping bag, and the helicopter loomed as a dark shape above him.

"Time to be going." Buddy hovered over him and handed him a plastic thermos lid filled with hot instant coffee. Kendrick sipped at it, blinking himself awake and longing for just another twelve hours of sleep.

Against his better judgement, he let his mind roam back to the day when he'd killed Robert. The shame and horror of it were never far away from his thoughts. The incident – every word, every action – was etched eternally in his mind. Sometimes he felt as though he'd died that day too: as though he'd become someone else, someone with the same body, even the same thoughts but, on a level that he couldn't quite define, not the same person.

Caroline was still sleeping but he sensed that this was normal sleep now, rather than chemically induced. He stepped over to inspect her, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. She twitched, then a corner of her mouth crept upwards in an unconscious half-smile. Kendrick studied the myriad lines criss-crossing the once flawless skin of her face.

Buddy stepped over beside him. "I think she's going to be okay," he whispered.

Kendrick nodded down at her. "You call that okay?"

"I call it a lot more okay than if she'd been stowed on one of those shuttles. You did good, Kendrick – real hero stuff."

Kendrick gestured for them to move away, then began, "Where are we right now?"

"New Mexico, heading west," Buddy replied.

"And we're headed for this offshore launch base?"

"Yeah, hundred klicks or so out from the Californian coast. But we're going to have to stop off in LA on the way. There's a place – a safe house, if you like – and some people will be waiting there. They're Labrats, and I need to make sure everything's running smoothly before the last of them head out to the launch site."

Kendrick digested this. "How far are we from the Maze?"

"Not nearly as far as I'd like to be."

"Could we get there from here?"

Buddy studied Kendrick for several seconds. "If that's a joke, it's in bad taste."

"I'm serious. I want to go there."

"No comprende, senor."

"I know this is hard to understand, but I really do want to go to the Maze."

"Kendrick, why the fuck would you want to go there? Why would anyone who had to be there in the first place ever, ever want to go back?"

Because when Peter McCowan spoke to me about the Maze, he asked me to go there. That meant that, somewhere down there, in the darkness, part of McCowan still lived.

"I found something out. I… a source told me that if I can only get down there, I can find what I need to prove Draeger's absolute complicity in what happened to us. That's important, Buddy, you know how important. We'd have Draeger by the balls."

Buddy fell silent, staring angrily off into the distance. Kendrick waited, listening to the wind blowing across the desert. It made a high, eerie sound.

"Look, I understand what you're saying," Buddy replied at length. "But right now, where we're going is more important than anything else. You know why."

"If you help me, I promise I'll do whatever I can to help you get to the Archimedes."

Buddy glanced at him sharply. "You're saying you've changed your mind? You're going up with us?"

"Yes."

"There's something you're not telling me."

"Buddy, what's going to happen if you fail? If the wormhole never appears, and you stay right where you are?"

"Ken-"

"Either it's Draeger, or it's Los Muertos, or maybe it's even someone else. If the Archimedes stays put and any of them find a way on board, maybe they will find the secret of zero-point energy that the Bright have supposedly harnessed. And then, as far as I'm concerned, you really do have the end of the world, just like Wilber predicted. The Archimedes can't be allowed to fail into any of their hands."

"It won't," Buddy said quietly. "Once we're there, in a couple of days' time, we'll be gone for ever, no trace left. We'll be somewhere better."

For all your sakes, I hope so. "I know you will," Kendrick replied, trying to sound reassuring. "But I remember a time when you wanted to nail Draeger just as much as I did. Are you telling me that's no longer true?"

Buddy looked distressed. He seemed about to say something a couple of times but changed his mind each time.

"Christ, fine," he said at length. "How long will this take? It's not like we aren't in a hurry, and there's Caroline to take care of. So how long?"

"I don't know. A day, maybe?"

Buddy groaned and covered his head with his hands. "Shit, shit, shit," he muttered. "Right, listen – a day, and that's it. Any longer and I'm out of there, do you understand me?"

"I'm not asking any more than that. But, yeah, we do have to take care of Caroline first."

"It doesn't need a cryptkey. Just plug and go."

Kendrick held Buddy's wand next to the node set in the dashboard and waited until the wand had established a connection. Wide scrubby plains blurred past them a few hundred metres below, the sun low on the horizon behind them. They were on their way.

In the meantime, Buddy rummaged around until he pulled out a crumpled eepsheet. Kendrick took it from him, smoothing it out. He aimed the wand at the eepsheet and it beeped quietly, confirming that it had successfully transferred the link from the helicopter to the 'sheet.

In response, the crumpled page of electronic paper lit up, a logo blurring rapidly across it. Images of politicians and actors appeared in rapid superimposition, one fading into the other, before presenting the front page of Buddy's default subscription newsfeed.

"What are you expecting to find there?"

"After we finally got out of the Maze, I found that a lot of records had been deleted or destroyed. But whoever did it wasn't quite thorough enough. The Maze extends for several kilometres under the jungle, and it goes down a hell of a way as well. I've seen a lot of schematics over the years, but they're all different. Most of the original designs were stored in Pentagon databases and they disappeared during the civil war."

"Different how?"

"I need to take a look before I remember." Kendrick tapped an address into the eepsheet's search box. A couple of seconds later he heard the sound of crackling, followed by a graphic of flames burning away the 'sheet's main information display, a widening pixellated inferno that eventually revealed a demonic face. Insane laughter issued from the eepsheet.

"What the fuck is that?" asked Buddy, bemused.

"Ssh."

"Who dares summon the sleeper in the dark, that they may seek knowledge?" The voice was a deep baritone, the face itself dark red with wide, staring eyes and a half-crazed grin filled with sharpened teeth.

"I seek knowledge," Kendrick replied laconically.

The demonic eyes grew wide and round, before sliding from one side to the other, as if checking whether anyone was eavesdropping. "Are you prepared to pay the price, mortal?"

"Yes," said Kendrick, in a resigned tone. They'd redesigned the front end, and although it looked slicker it was taking almost twice as long for him to get where he wanted to be than he remembered from previous visits.

Still, it could have been worse. The kind of information he was after wasn't something you could get out of any public newsfeeds. For this kind of thing, you needed hackers. "I'm looking specifically for information on the Maze. I need a schematic of the whole thing, downloadable to this eepsheet."

The face wiggled its eyebrows. Somewhere out there, maybe in Kazakhstan – which was functionally an anarchist state – was a real live computer geek with a micro-lens mapping the movements of his face to this devil animation. Probably not even speaking English, since some top-end translation software was virtually undetectable. "Such schematics are available publicly," the devil pointed out.

"Not the ones I'm looking for. Check the records for the World Court proceedings, charges of genocide, accused President Wilber and General Anton Sieracki, 2090.1 don't have the exact date of the investigation to hand, but there was a question of missing schematics concerning to the Maze, how it was built, who contracted it."

Of course, Kendrick had found his way to such schematics before during his lengthy researches into Draeger's background. They weren't legally admissible as evidence since they came only from highly illegal sources.

Which, of course, didn't mean they couldn't be found, so long as you knew who to ask and were willing to pay the price. The fact that the schematics had disappeared from every official database, server and Washington office where investigators might have reasonably expected to find them, along with untold terabytes of information and incriminating data, had done nothing except convince Kendrick that someone had set out to deliberately destroy evidence of a direct, explicit connection between Draeger and the Maze.

"Mm-hmm" said the face after a short pause. " Veerry interesting. You accessed this information once before, yes? 12 March 2093."

"Yes, but I don't have access to it any more. I deleted it."

"Very wise. Also, I note your current position near the border of the former United States, moving approximately south-east. Flying in the direction of Venezuela, perhaps?"

Shit. "Please don't spread that around," Kendrick said earnestly. He hadn't expected this.

"Of course not. Well, not unless someone pays us to know where you are right now." The face grinned evilly. "Here are your schematics."

The face was replaced by a new animation of a taloned hand shaking a dented tin can. Kendrick pointed Buddy's wand at the eepsheet and watched as a substantial amount of money transferred itself to the hacker's account.

A look of alarm spread across Buddy's face. "Christ, Kendrick, that's a lot of money. I'm not rich-"

"If you're right about the Archimedes, you won't need the money much longer, will you?"

Buddy blushed red. "Yeah, true."

"Look, once we're in LA I can arrange a fund transfer from my account if you like-"

"That won't be necessary."

Kendrick looked back down at the eepsheet. The taloned hand had gone and had been replaced by a list of files. Most of them were useless, the same publicly available schematics he'd seen before. But he persisted, delving deeper, finally finding what he wanted: rooms and corridors that didn't exist in other schematics, laid out in a three-dimensional array that he could study from any angle. He zoomed the POV outwards until he saw tunnels stretching far, far beyond the main body of the complex, their dimensions delineated in crude planes of primary colours.

"Look at this," he said, holding up the eepsheet.

Buddy squinted at it. "You blew all my money on this?"

"Yeah, and for a good reason. There are tunnels leading several kilometres away from the Maze. They're well hidden. Los Muertos might know about them, but then again they might not."

Buddy let out a long, descending sigh. "You're going to get me killed, I absolutely know it, and for some reason I'm still going to follow you in there."

Kendrick grinned. "We'll be fine."

Kendrick half-slept as Buddy simultaneously piloted the craft and fired out messages via the helicopter's ancient gridnode. Kendrick woke when the constant drone of the rotor blades above his head changed subtly. He looked down with sleepy eyes and saw a crossroads: two intersecting highways cut through an infinity of scrubby desert. As he looked more closely, he saw a truck kicking up sand and dust as it approached the intersection. Buddy piloted the 'copter down, landing it close to where the two roads met.

Caroline was awake now. They helped her out and she swayed a little as she tried to stand, choking on the thick dust kicked up by the rotor blades still turning slowly above their heads. The truck had pulled up a few metres away from them. A tall man with shaggy blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard climbed out. Kendrick ransacked his memories, trying to remember where he'd seen him before.

Samuel Veliz, he remembered, the memory rushing back Veliz had arrived in Ward Seventeen only just before the liberation and so had never made it down to the killing levels. Although Kendrick had never spoken directly with the man before, he remembered that Veliz had given evidence against Maze guards during the subsequent trials.

"Is that the lady?" Veliz strode forward. Caroline peered at him awkwardly, as though she wasn't sure what was going on. Kendrick kept an arm around her shoulders, more to support her than anything else.

"Kendrick, I'm sorry," she murmured. Kendrick shook his head, as if to say It doesn't matter. Together, he and Veliz helped her into the rear of the truck where a cot had been arranged for her.

"Where are you taking her?" Kendrick asked Veliz.

"Frisco. Then offshore to…" Veliz glanced over at Buddy, who nodded that it was okay. "Offshore to the launch ship. They've got facilities there that don't necessarily involve UN nanoware restrictions. Long as you don't tell nobody," he added, grinning slyly.

"I won't," Kendrick promised sincerely.

Veliz looked at him curiously. "So how come you two guys ain't heading there right now?"

Buddy stepped forward. "We've got some things to take care of first. When you see Sabak, tell him I'll be there a little later than expected."

"Okay, but there isn't much time left," Veliz warned. "When we go, we go."

"I know that," Buddy replied, casting a significant glance in Kendrick's direction. "We'll head for LA first, if there's time. But not just yet."

Over the next several hours they stopped twice again, dropping into small, private airstrips for refuelling as they continued south. The landscape changed beneath them, becoming rougher, wilder, before all visible signs of civilization disappeared beneath a verdant jungle canopy. At one point they saw a ruined highway passing through the jungle from horizon to horizon, cutting the green world into two halves.

With its camouflage on, the helicopter appeared from below as just a pale blue outline that would darken as the day moved on to dusk. From only a few dozen metres away, you could barely hear the sound of the rotors. Although it looked ready for a scrapyard, hidden under its scarred and dented interior lurked some pretty state-of-the-art technology. In fact, it had been optimized for smuggling. Of course, good-quality thermal-imaging equipment could penetrate its disguise in a second, but some kind of concealment was better than nothing.

Finally, when it seemed their journey would last for ever, Buddy skilfully guided the 'copter down through a narrow gap in the canopy, somehow managing to drop the craft onto a patch of even ground. While Kendrick watched his knuckles turn white with terror, Buddy appeared calm throughout this operation, the only noticeable tension in the lines around his mouth.

They stepped out into an inferno of heat even worse than the one that Kendrick had experienced during his trip to Cambodia. Animal noises echoed through the tropical forest and hot mist rose in occasional wisps from the tree trunks whose vast gnarled roots dug hungrily into rich black soil. A bird with brightly coloured feathers flashed shrieking through the air above them, heading for the treetops high above. The very air tasted honeyed and thick.

Kendrick felt a fresh chill of fear down his spine. This was Los Muertos territory, and they could have been tracked even before they'd landed.

"That's possible," Buddy admitted when Kendrick voiced his worries. "But it's a chance we're going to have to take. Remember the last time we were here, with that kid Louie? Keep in mind that we're right in the middle of tens of thousands of square miles of jungle territory. Los Muertos can't cover more than a fraction of that."

Kendrick eyed the helicopter, seeing the way its camouflage software reflected the vegetation around them like a constantly shifting funhouse mirror. He had no doubt that from further away the machine would blend in perfectly with its surroundings.

"Do Los Muertos have satellite capability? Could they track us that way?"

"I don't think so – though I think they have people who hack into commercial GPS satellite feeds."

Earlier, Buddy had copied the maps that Kendrick had downloaded into his own wand. Now he peered into its tiny screen, lost in thought.

"Okay," he said, dropping the device back into his pocket. "Your secret entrance is maybe fifteen klicks east of here. We can get ourselves there in a couple of hours, and get out some time before dawn – with any luck. That'll give us plenty of time to take a good look around while we're down there."

"Couldn't we have landed closer?"

Buddy shook his head. "Terrain's no good for landing any further east. And we can't follow the highway, either: too good a chance of being spotted by road patrols."

Kendrick shrugged. "So I guess we just walk?" His back already itched from the river of sweat pouring down it.

Buddy flipped open a storage hatch, pulling out some bundles and dropping them to the ground. Then he tossed one of a pair of water bottles over to Kendrick. Next he produced a machete.

Buddy slammed the hatch closed and began to pack some of the stuff he'd taken out into a backpack.

He looked up at Kendrick. "This is not going to be a picnic. It's going to be a long, hard slog. Do you understand that?"

"I hear you. Remember, I've been in places like this with you before."

"Even so, it's easy to forget." Buddy handed him the backpack. "We'll take turns carrying this. You first."

Kendrick slung the backpack over his shoulders. Although it looked large and bulky, it turned out to be surprisingly light. The heaviest items they had with them were the water bottles.

At first they made good progress, since the jungle had been relatively sparse where Buddy had dropped them down. They kept within a few hundred metres of the highway but far enough away so that anyone using it would be unlikely to spot them. This undeniably made the going a lot harder, but both men considered it far better than getting shot at.

After an hour or so Kendrick's muscles began to ache badly. Though the ground was level, every step taken involved a negotiation of tree roots and tangled vines, to the accompaniment of the constant shrieks of outraged birds and monkeys. The sun glancing down through the high canopy revealed slippery mosses coating the rocks, and fallen branches seemed to reach out malevolently to trip them up. They trampled through wide-leaved plants that grew wherever sunlight reached the soil and enormous ferns batted at their faces as they passed.

But just as the pain in Kendrick's sinews and joints threatened to become unbearable it faded away magically, becoming distant, easier to ignore. The augmentations had just kicked in, tweaking his nervous system to allow him to keep going far beyond his usual limits. He wished it had been that easy when he had suffered the seizures.

After a couple of hours the going got harder as the terrain began to rise. Buddy glanced down at his wand from time to time, checking the GPS and keeping them on course.

They had run into no one so far, which made Kendrick paranoid. He wondered if they had just been lucky, or if they were being tracked without their knowledge.

"Okay," Buddy announced some indeterminate time later, halting with his back against the vast trunk of a banyan tree, his shirt stained black with sweat. "Okay, that's good time. Only five kilometres to go, and we're ahead of schedule. Maybe another couple of hours if we keep up this pace, and we'll be there." He nodded, as if attempting to convince himself. "Maybe we'll make it."

They rested a little while longer, Kendrick swilling water that tasted like the sweetest wine round his throat. It wasn't hard to imagine that he could get drunk on it, if only he were to drink enough.

Having crested the hills, the two men were on ground that now sloped downwards again. Before too long they heard a sound like static crackling. It came at them across a stream that rushed over boulders before falling several metres to form a wide pool below a nearby cliff. Vines and roots trailed in the clear water below them and they stopped, briefly spellbound by the sudden beauty of the place.

They were getting near. Very near.

Between twisting trunks they could see slivers of the distant horizon as the jungle dropped further towards a flat plain: a broad expanse of cleared land that looked as though it stretched on for ever. Kendrick squinted into the near distance, seeing a needle-thin road leading towards a huddle of breeze-block buildings. In an instant, his memory flashed back to that day when a transport plane had dropped out of the skies, spilling himself and countless others into a searing daylight that they would not experience again for several months.

Buddy consulted his wand. "Somewhere around here," he said.

Kendrick looked around him. "I don't see anything." He stepped up beside Buddy, studying the wand's readout over his shoulder. It definitely showed a clear match between their current location and the GPS read-out for the hidden entrance.

Kendrick felt his resolve waver. He'd brought them out here on the whim of a man who had been dead for years. It was insane, after all.

He stepped across to the cliff edge, peering down through the dense foliage. A shelf of rock, jutting out above the cascading water, cast deep shadows across the base of the cliff.

"Down there," he said, stepping back.

Buddy stuck his head over the edge, peering down the sheer drop. "You think?"

"Only one way to be sure."

They picked their way carefully around the cliff top until they came to a less sheer descent, clinging for support to roots and rocks as they went. There were probably easier ways to get down but neither of them wanted to waste another hour trying to find one.

It came close a couple of times, as Kendrick's hand slipped on a slimy tree root and he tumbled before fetching up against another tree growing from the hillside.

This close to the Maze they would be extremely vulnerable if they were spotted. Defending themselves when trapped on a near-vertical gradient would be impossible. They moved patiently, quietly, carefully, picking their way over rocks and vines, making slow but steady progress.

Kendrick was the first to notice something strange. He was clambering over a scattering of loose boulders when he spotted a silvery glint in the nearby foliage, mistaking it at first for a spider's web.

Then he looked much more closely. "Hey, Buddy. Check this out."

They could discern the thread-like substance everywhere – a fine nacreous filigree, so thin and delicate that it was almost invisible, spreading across trees and rocks and bushes alike.

Buddy reached out to touch a thread and jerked his hand away almost immediately.

"What's up?" asked Kendrick.

Buddy looked afraid. "Touch it and see."

Kendrick fingered the strand. For a moment he was somewhere deep and dark as a sense of unutterable loneliness washed over him. He quickly wiped his hands on his jacket, aware that they were shaking.

"Remember following that kid Louie halfway across Venezuela?" he muttered. "This is the same kind of thing we found then." He suspected that the threads extended deep beneath their feet, all the way down into the Maze itself.

Buddy nodded. "Like I could forget."

Kendrick stepped away. "We shouldn't be surprised by this. This stuff is what keeps Los Muertos so close to the Maze."

Buddy shrugged. "I know, but…"

Kendrick nodded in turn. Sometimes there just weren't the words, but he was shocked by the fear that he detected in Buddy's voice.

Buddy's eyes widened and he pointed over Kendrick's shoulder. "Hey, I think I see the entrance!" He picked his way between two vast tree trunks, sliding down a muddy slope until he reached the base of the cliff. Kendrick followed, grabbing at roots or anything else he could use to stop himself falling too fast. The air was filled with the sound of exotic and primal wildlife, and those silver filaments were everywhere: it was like being on another world.

The threads had even woven themselves into the rough surfaces of tree trunks and were also visible in patches of mud, or stretching between blades of grass. As the sun sank towards the western horizon they reflected its light in an unearthly glow, giving the surrounding forest an hallucinatory dimension.

Sure enough, at the base of the cliff, hidden behind bushes and moss-covered rocks, lay the mouth of a cave, its interior dark and mysterious. Kendrick gazed long into its lightless depths before kneeling and brushing his fingertips against some of the thin fibres that extended ahead.

It was like someone finding, while standing in the middle of a vast crowd, that they possessed a hidden talent for telepathy. A rapid series of impressions flew through Kendrick's mind, faint enough for him to be uncertain whether or not they were the product of his own imagination.

Suddenly he had an image in his mind of a clearing in the jungle…

He lingered, feeling a powerful urge to look over his shoulder as if someone – or something – was standing there watching him. Something malevolent.

Buddy stepped past Kendrick and on into the cave. More threads glinted from deep within, making it appear that he was walking into the innards of some great metallic worm.

Kendrick gave in to the urge to glance over his shoulder. Nothing there – just the deep, darkening jungle behind them.

But it felt so strongly as if someone had been right there. He walked back towards the fading daylight. The clearing he'd seen in his mind's eye, like a scrap of someone else's memory…

"Where are you going?" Buddy demanded, staring after him with a bewildered expression.

Whatever it is I felt when I touched the thread, it knows we're here. Not Peter McCowan, but something else.

Kendrick crossed the banks of a stream that drained the pools beneath the cliff, his boots splashing noisily through the shallow water.

Over – there.

The jungle around him suddenly felt full of an overwhelming sense of presence.

Buddy shouted after him. "Kendrick! Where are you going?"

"Two seconds."

He pushed deeper into the jungle, past trees and bushes, almost slipping and twisting his ankle on wet rocks. He cursed and pulled himself upright, moving past more trees. Then he saw it.

He stared at it for a long time. After a little while, he heard Buddy come up next to him, breathing hard.

"Kendrick, what the fuck are you- Oh, hell."

Threads had gathered together to form a vast woven bowl extending between the tree trunks, filling a wide glade beyond. Thick ropes, comprising thousands of filaments clumped together, extended downwards from the underside of this bowl, entangling themselves in the living soil below.

Kendrick had seen it earlier, when the threads had first brushed his skin.

"Do you know what it looks like?" Buddy breathed.

"I know what it looks like. Like a transmitter – or a receiver."

As they looked up, through the thick matting of strands glistening in their millions, they could make out the dusk's sky and the sparkle of its stars.

A few dozen metres into the cave they came to a familiar shield door. The sight of it sent a riot of memories surging through Kendrick's mind.

"The question is, can we still get it open? The electronics might be shot." Buddy shone his torch across the surface of the door.

"Damn," he exclaimed, jerking his hand away.

"More threads?" asked Kendrick.

"Yeah." Buddy's face was pale, even in the darkness.

Kendrick reached out and touched the shield door's rusting metal. Nothing happened, although he was surprised to detect a faint glimmer of current. Then he slid his hands across the surface and sensed something shift subtly, deep within the metal.

Something inside him reached out and twisted.

The door rumbled, filling the humid air with an appalling groaning sound. At first it looked as though this entrance had been too long neglected to function any more and all their efforts would come to nothing. But then it creaked again and slowly, slowly began to slide open. Then it stopped, leaving a sliver of space barely wide enough for one man at a time to slip through.

"Okay," said Buddy. "I'm going to die underground." He shrugged. "Suits me."

The two men worked their way through the gap to find themselves in a near-absolute darkness that brought back unpleasant memories for them both.

Kendrick looked around him. It was almost as if he'd never been away, or as though the whole complex had become indelibly stamped into every cell of his brain. He shivered, only partly because it was cooler behind the shield door.

"Like a haunted house," said Buddy, coming to stand beside him. "Have you seen how there's these other threads – gold ones – as well?"

Kendrick nodded, and reached out to one stretching along a wall. As soon as he touched it, he felt again that strong sensation of being watched. But, although it seemed deeply irrational, the gold threads felt somehow friendlier.

He turned, suddenly half-expecting to see Peter McCowan standing there just behind him. He almost imagined he could smell the man's warm, beery breath – but he saw only Buddy.

"Okay," said Buddy. "What now?"

"Might as well keep moving," Kendrick replied, and they set off.

Several minutes later, Kendrick noticed that Buddy was behaving oddly.

The shield door was now far behind them, but with their augmentations they could see well enough. The sense of being watched only grew more intense the deeper into the tunnel they went. At first Kendrick dismissed this as merely his own nerves playing up. But in truth this did seem like a haunted place, just as Buddy had said, full of the spirits and the memories of the dead.

"I remember when they tried to cordon off this whole area," said Buddy. Kendrick knew that he was referring to the nanotech infestation.

"I remember." They'd seen the first intimations of that when they'd escaped the Maze. "For something so dangerous, you wouldn't expect it to look so – I don't know." He shook his head. "So beautiful, I guess."

Buddy laughed harshly. "It isn't what it looks like that matters. It's what it can do to us. This was a bad idea."

"Take it easy there, Buddy. Are you feeling okay?"

Buddy stared at him, his face pale and sweating. "No, I keep… I keep hearing things, like… oh fuck, like whispering."

Kendrick could hear nothing and saw only the empty corridor, silent and dark ahead. "Can you make out any words?" he asked carefully.

"No." Buddy put his head back and yelled, letting loose a series of expletives that rattled down the corridor and echoed for long seconds afterwards.

"Buddy-"

"I can't go on." Buddy shook his head, as if a swarm of wasps were buzzing around it. His breathing was rapid and ragged. "I just can't."

"What is it?"

"It's just… I can't. Not beyond this point. Something won't let me, Kendrick. Let's turn back. You'll have to think of something else."

"Look, we're almost at the end of this section. Try going a little further, see how you are then. It's probably only nerves," Kendrick assured him.

Just ahead of them rose another shield door, barely visible in the murk. It stood half-open, and the heart of the Maze lay beyond.

Buddy shook his head, sounding more reluctant with every passing second. "I can't, Kendrick, I swear. I don't have any choice in this matter. If I take one more step, I'll die, or…" He started to retch, leaning over, his hands on his knees. Kendrick could see that he was shivering badly.

Then Buddy looked up. "I'm heading back."

"I can't go back myself, Buddy. Wait for me at the stream, by the cave mouth. Stay hidden. I won't be long."

"If I go any further, I'm going to die," Buddy repeated, looking at Kendrick with an expression that said So will you, if you go any further.

"Go back," he urged Buddy. "Go back and wait for me."

The other man didn't need any more prompting. "Good luck," he whispered, and handed Kendrick his wand, the map of the Maze still displayed on its screen. "Keep it. I've got another one back at the 'copter. If anyone appears while I'm waiting and I have to take off, this way we can make sure we stay in contact." He also gave Kendrick the backpack. It still contained most of their water and the torch.

Then Buddy turned and moved as fast as he could back towards the entrance and the fading light beyond. Kendrick watched him go, cold dread filling his stomach.

He shook his head, turned back and began walking deeper into the Maze.

Once Kendrick passed through the second shield door he finally began to hear the voices.

The walls and ceiling were still covered with the same rusting pipes, making it harder to suppress a niggling fear that he had never actually left the Maze in the first place. He had forgotten how absolute the silence could be, and how easily it lent itself to such delusions.

Kendrick stopped and punched the wall next to him, hard. The impact sent shivers through the air around him and it felt as if a spell had been broken. The sound filled the darkness like the first words of God echoing through an unformed universe.

He had to get rid of his fears, the ghosts and nightmares that still populated his mind. He kept on walking, knowing that the tiniest hesitation might send him running back towards the cave entrance.

The threads, he noted, were much denser now, almost completely coating the wall surfaces around him. They made crackling sounds under his boots as he walked over them and he stopped a few times, unsure if he really had seen them moving, their loose ends drifting in the dark like sea anemones sifting for plankton.

When Kendrick reached out and touched the threads the voices became much clearer. It was like tapping into someone's thoughts, but those of a madman: random fragments of memory chasing each other like a blizzard of half-formed images, faint intimations of things that he recalled experiencing during his seizures.

Kendrick also detected an anger that threatened to overwhelm his own thoughts, tempered by a sense of childish delight that chilled him to the core.

He broke the contact with the threads and kept on walking till he came to a stairwell and worked his way down. There were light switches at hand, but none of them worked.

On their way here Kendrick and Buddy had wondered whether they would find Los Muertos inside the Maze. Kendrick learned the answer as soon as he reached the Wards.

From a distance the body looked as though it had been there for a relatively short time. It wore the familiar ragtag uniform of a Los Muertos soldier, a crucifix crudely sewn on the jacket. At first Kendrick wondered if the man was merely sleeping, but as he came closer the smell of putrefaction was evident. The corpse lay with one hand outstretched, as if reaching towards the rifle lying a metre away. The dead man's face was turned to one side, his desiccated mouth open in a silent scream, the eyes now reduced to dark pits. He was encased in silver threads as though he'd been wrapped in the cocoon of some enormous metallic spider.

Kendrick glanced up and, for one terrible moment, felt sure that he could see something hovering in the darkness before it flitted away on fragile wings. He peered around himself for a long time, listening and watching, but there was nothing more.

Moving on, he found two more corpses. One lay slumped in a corner, while the other had both hands to his face as if he'd been trying to claw his own eyes out.

It was getting harder now for Kendrick to keep the fear at bay, fear of what he might find if he went any further. If I lose it now, I might never make it back out.

He took the precaution of pulling a pair of heavy gloves out of the backpack and sliding them over his hands before stepping through a door that led into a Ward. The rusting skeletons of beds stood in uniform rows around him. Most of their mattresses had rotted away, but he could still clearly make out a number painted above the room's entrance.

He was in Ward Seventeen – or Ward 17b, to be precise: it had been reserved for the male inmates. Ahead of him, the Dissection Door lay open, empty blackness beyond it.

The notion came to Kendrick right then, that something there had been waiting for him to return all these years. He pushed this thought away and stepped through the door.

Not even the teams of researchers and war-crime investigators who had arrived at the Maze immediately following its liberation had managed to penetrate these deepest parts of the complex. The nanotech infestation had already become too widespread for any further exploration to be possible.

A no-go zone had subsequently been placed around the Maze, and for a while UN forces had patrolled it. But once it became clear how bad things were getting back in the United States, these troops abandoned the task and left. Sieracki's soldiers finally emerged from their jungle strongholds, metamorphosing over time into Los Muertos.

Kendrick arrived at a series of ruined elevators, most of them now reduced to gaping shafts. He peered down one to see silver threads lining every surface, the occasional gleam of gold visible among them. At the corner of his vision, something crawled…

He looked down and saw that the fine filaments coating the concrete had broken under his boots. Their loose ends twisted and spasmed with tiny movements.

Cold sweat broke out on his brow as some of the threads reached up over the tops of his boots, as if they were seeking out his flesh.

He jerked his foot away, heard a ripping sound, and overbalanced, catching at the side of an elevator shaft with one gloved hand. He spotted shapes darting about far below, black on black, coming closer.

Kendrick ran, eventually finding a stairway. He slammed a half-rusted door shut behind him and kept running. Several seconds later he heard a sound, making him think of a ton of feathers flung against a sheet of steel at high speed. He gulped down air, knowing he was dangerously close to outright panic.

You need to be here, he reminded himself. You're not here just for yourself but for everyone else who was dragged here to die. Think of it that way.

He continued to descend till, stepping through an open shield door, he knew instantly that he had finally reached the lower levels.

This was the place where Kendrick had almost died. Where thousands had died. But something was different, and after a minute he worked out what it was. Down here, many more of the threads that coated the walls were gold-coloured, although the silver ones still predominated.

He pulled off a glove, and somehow found the strength of will to reach out and briefly touch a thick strand of the pale yellow filaments.

Kendrick whirled around, sure that Peter McCowan was standing there.

"Peter?"

His voice seemed to echo for an unusually long time.

This way, he imagined McCowan saying.

He turned to face down one particular corridor.

Suddenly he knew he had to go… that way.

A rusting gun turret still stood on its mount beside a shield door, the filaments that coated it giving it a strange bejewelled look.

Kendrick stepped closer to the large weapon and, as he watched, some of the gold threads glistened noticeably before slowly taking on a distinctly silver hue. As he waited and watched, he saw more of the gold absorbed into the silver all around it.

At that moment, Kendrick realized that he was inside McCowan. The Maze had become Peter McCowan's body, the corridors his arteries. Which left the question of the identity of the silver filaments. Someone or something else – Robert Vincenzo, he was sure – was in the process of eating away at McCowan, like a silver cancer.

Beyond the shield door there came a sound like fluttering wings. Again he caught half-glimpses at the edge of his vision, lost in faraway shadows.

All in your mind.

But what if it was real? Something had killed those soldiers back there.

The fluttering faded and Kendrick found his way to yet another stairwell that led far, far down. Somewhere down there, at the very lowest levels, people had died, some of them his friends.

Robert Vincenzo himself had died, somewhere down there. And Peter McCowan, too.

Summer 2088 (exact date unknown) The Maze

Kendrick searched until he came across the promised cache of provisions and water in a place that he could have sworn had been empty the last time he'd looked there. He stopped and gorged himself, making himself violently sick, even though there was not all that much food. It was in any case mostly freeze-dried protein, dry and tasteless. Enough to keep him alive for a few more days, however.

He allowed himself some fleeting dreams of freedom, of great metal doors sliding open at the wave of a hand, as obedient as well-trained dogs.

Then he gathered up as much as he could of the remaining supplies and found his way back up through the levels.

On reaching one of the shield doors that was open, waiting for his return, a voice sounded from a speaker. "Leave the food."

"Who is that?" Kendrick called out, aware how hoarse his own voice had become. "Where's Sieracki?"

"Drop the supplies or you'll die," the voice insisted.

Kendrick heard the sound of well-oiled machine parts rotating. A gun turret swivelled towards him and briefly spat bullets. The concrete above his head exploded into fragments that rained down on his shoulders.

He cowered on the ground, abandoning the food and water where they fell.

The voice continued, "Now, exit, please."

"I remember what happened when the Dissection Door went crazy." McCowan scratched at his chin. "I didn't attribute too much to it at the time. Not a lot of the stuff here works too well, apart from the guns."

Buddy shook his head. "No, I felt it, too. We did something to make that happen."

Kendrick nodded agreement. "If we could make that door open, what about the shield doors? Could we do the same with them?"

McCowan laughed. "Talk all you like, but I still don't see you having too much luck getting out of here."

"Maybe that's why they locked us down here," Kendrick replied bitterly. "They'd be mad to let any of us leave here alive."

Peter McCowan had been summoned the next day.

The voice over the speakers was a different one again. Just before it clicked off, Kendrick thought he heard shouting or screams in the background.

He'd gone back to squatting by one of the shield doors. McCowan reappeared a little while later, and for more than an hour just sat staring hollowly into the darkness.

Kendrick waited to see what the other man would do. If McCowan refused to enter the killing levels, he probably wouldn't last more than another day or two. Like the rest of them, his torn clothing hung on his emaciated frame like rags on a scarecrow. His eyes were bright even in the darkness, like jewels in the eye sockets of a cadaver.

McCowan's name was called for the last time. A few seconds later Kendrick's name was also called. McCowan's eyes glinted in the dark as his gaze fixed on Kendrick's. Then he got up and walked away.

"Ken?"

Kendrick forced himself to turn slowly. McCowan stood only a short distance away, at the far end of a storage area like the one that Robert Vincenzo had died in.

Kendrick noticed that the other man wasn't carrying a knife.

McCowan's gaze fell to the long blade grasped in Kendrick's own hand. He shook his head ruefully. "So, you going to use that thing on me?"

Kendrick opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a kind of stutter. Then he shook his head, as if he could as easily shake loose the confusion and near-delirium that plagued him.

Then he started to laugh until tears rolled down his face, and this laughter transformed into a violent, racking sobbing that sucked up every last remaining dreg of energy left within him. He sank down onto the cold, hard concrete, clutching his head in his hands, while the knife clattered down beside him.

Kendrick felt a hand drop onto his shoulder. "I guess you know the rules better than I do now," McCowan said. "That raises a couple of questions."

"Peter-"

"We're not doing this," McCowan said firmly. "Right?"

Kendrick nodded. "I've been thinking that there must be some way out of here," he said at length.

"Well, you've not yet had any success trying to magic those doors open. Look, if I'm going out, I can think of ways better than doing so for Sieracki's personal entertainment."

"Sieracki is dead."

McCowan cocked his head quizzically. "What makes you say that?"

"You can hear it whenever they summon people in. It's different voices. They sound… out of control, I think. This has nothing to do with testing military technology, not any more. It's about killing us, in the most sadistic way possible."

"So what do we do now?"

"I didn't get a chance to explore even a tenth of this place the first time I was here. And if things are falling apart up above us, then maybe there's somewhere they can't see us, or find us. Or perhaps there are weapons we can use against them."

"I heard stories about what happens to people who don't do what they're told once they're down here."

"You mean gas?"

"That's what I heard. You can't run away from gas."

"Maybe so, but if we don't find some way out, we're going to die one way or the other."

McCowan nodded. "Listen, before we do anything else, I want to ask you this. That knife you had in your hand a few minutes ago – were you really going to use it on me?"

Kendrick felt his face grow hot, and looked away while McCowan continued. "I'm not playing this game, Ken. No matter what the consequences may be."

Kendrick nodded slowly. "If we can't find a way out, they'll gas us both."

McCowan shrugged. "We're dead men anyway, aren't we?"

They searched, together or separately, calling out to each other through the infinite darkness. A tentative map of the lower levels was now beginning to grow in Kendrick's mind, but they found no secret entrances, no bolt-holes in which they could hide away from the soldiers who controlled the Maze. Kendrick felt a frustration burning in him: it would take too long to explore the lower levels thoroughly.

At one point, he heard Peter McCowan's voice echoing through the corridors, calling his name.

"I found something." McCowan grinned when Kendrick found him in what looked as though it had once been an office complex, a maze within the Maze, a warren of cubbyholes and empty rooms stacked with mouldering paperwork. A long green metal case lay open at his feet. The contraption of rubber and glass in his hands was a gas mask.

"Not so fucking thorough after all, eh?"

"Are there any more of these things?" Kendrick circled the room, kicking aside trash, vainly searching for another of the green boxes. "Let me take a look at that," he said, reaching out. Some inner clock was telling them that they had little time left before the next batch of victims would be cycled into the lower levels.

McCowan glanced around thoughtfully. "Did you notice how there are hardly any cameras down here? Seems like the lower the level, the less thorough the surveillance. There have to be blind spots."

"We should do something about the cameras," Kendrick muttered.

"Yeah, why not? Let's blind the sons of bitches."

A brief silence fell between them. "Peter, if we can't find ourselves another mask-"

"Shut the fuck up," McCowan snapped. Kendrick averted his gaze.

"We'll find one," McCowan continued eventually. "But standing around yattering won't do it. Start looking again. Maybe we missed something."

They pulled a couple of ruined chairs apart and wielded the metal legs like clubs. It was a strangely joyous experience, smashing the cameras wherever they found them, even though the devices were tougher than they looked. But the two men destroyed sufficient numbers for them to achieve a powerful sense of satisfaction.

Unless some other means of tracking their movements existed, there were now whole areas of the Maze where their progress could not be tracked.

It had occurred to both of them that they would have no warning when the time came for them to die. Kendrick left McCowan to carry the mask, an act of implicit trust. For them not to trust each other would mean winding up with one of them dead for certain.

Kendrick had hoped, perhaps, for an ABC suit, a logical thing to find in such a place. Or else an airtight vault where they could seal themselves in. But their search was fruitless.

At some point, Sieracki's soldiers would need to pump their poisoned air back out in time for the next batch of combatants to be thrown in.

Exhausted, Kendrick and McCowan found themselves at the deepest level. Robert and Ryan had died near here.

"I don't think we've got much longer to go."

McCowan's eyes flicked upwards at the ceiling. "You think they're still alive up there?"

"Who?" asked Kendrick, puzzled.

"Your family. Your wife and your kid."

"I just don't know. Sometimes I convince myself they must be, other times…"

"I understand."

McCowan nodded. "I found something else." He pointed down the network of corridors that he had just been investigating.

"What did you find there?"

McCowan hauled himself up again. "I should show you first. C'mon."

The room was round like an upended bowl, extending above their heads for about a dozen metres. In its centre stood an enormous engine of some kind, and they had entered onto a circular catwalk extending all the way around the open space in which it stood. The floor, a few metres below them, was accessible by ladders.

"Over here." McCowan pointed with the gas mask that he still held loosely in his hand. Kendrick followed him down a ladder and over to some kind of control area. Banks of rusted machinery stood all around them.

Kendrick gazed around. "I don't see anything."

He didn't see the steel chair leg swinging towards his head until it was far too late. His vision blurred under a wave of agony. McCowan's fist slammed again and again into the back of his neck, smashing him to the floor. Just before all thought and awareness abandoned him, something cold and hard was pressed against his face. The last thing Kendrick heard was the sound of McCowan's laboured breathing.

He dreamed.

Fantastical creatures floated through the empty blackness of the lower levels like monsters from a Bosch nightmare. A burning figure ran screeching along the corridors, the surrounding flames golden yet cool so that they did not burn. It cried out his name, sometimes imploring, sometimes harshly angry.

He tried desperately to find a way out. He ran through doors that slithered open at his approach, ran past robot gun turrets that melted into slag as he passed. He was now nothing more than skin and bone riddled with metallic threads, more machine than human.

Kendrick woke up to find something pressed against his face. He screamed, still half-caught in a nightmare of drowning at the bottom of a deep, dark ocean. The thing was still pressed against his face, and he couldn't get it off.

Staggering to his feet in a panic, it took him a moment to realize that it was the gas mask strapped over his face. His thoughts numb, he instinctively reached around the back of his head and, with unsteady fingers, began to unstrap the mask.

Then he stopped as he remembered the rumours of gas. Refastening the straps, he sucked air into his lungs, the sound loud and claustrophobic in the confines of the mask. A canister had been carefully strapped between his shoulder blades.

There was no sign of McCowan himself.

A dull vibration rolled through the ground under his feet. But low enough so that at first Kendrick thought it was a product of his imagination.

Half an hour later, he found McCowan. The other man hadn't gone far. From a distance, he looked almost peaceful, sitting with his back against a wall. But, as Kendrick drew closer, what had appeared from a distance to be a contented half-smile resolved itself into a rictus grin, the lips drawn painfully back across the teeth, the eyes showing mostly the whites.

Safe inside his gas mask, Kendrick licked his lips nervously. It was easy to picture himself lying there instead. And, even though he hated himself for it, it was impossible for him to deny the thrill of gratitude he felt at knowing that someone else had died on his behalf.

He remembered that dream, the way every door had slid open at his merest whim. It had all felt so real, so…

Kendrick left McCowan where he lay and worked his way back up through the levels until he came to the same shield door through which he had twice entered these killing zones.

The closer he came to it, the louder the shield door buzzed with an invisible energy that made him want to reach out and twist it with his bare hands. He felt an indefinable something shift in it at the thought.

Open, damn you, he thought. Let me out of here.

This time the tannoy remained silent, the unbroken camera lenses glinting down at him. Kendrick wondered if they'd let him out.

He stepped up to the enormous steel slab and pushed it, aware how futile this gesture might be. Then he sank to his knees and pressed his head against its surface.

Something inside it gave: like a release of pressure, or a bubble bursting.

He pressed against the door again and found that he could sense the lines of electrical energy connecting the cameras in a network. The gun turret that stood nearby became perceptible as a faint skeletal shadow, a pattern of controlled lightning that flowed out of and joined with the electrical systems that controlled the entire complex of the Maze.

Kendrick pressed his fingers harder against the metal and wondered if he had only imagined feeling it tremble.

The door shuddered, then grew still, although he could hear gears and levers clicking deep inside. No wonder Sieracki and his men were so afraid of us.

A small sob escaped his throat as, finally, the door laboriously swung open.

25 October 2096 The Maze

"Who's there?"

It felt like being in a crowded room where everyone else was invisible and silent. The sensation of another presence was palpable.

Kendrick was back now in the place where Robert had died. He flicked the torch on, having so far used it only sparingly in order to conserve its batteries. But here he needed to be able to see clearly, to be sure that the figments of his imagination really were just figments.

Under the steady light of the torch, the distant walls shimmered, transforming a military storage facility into something more like a fairy grotto. To Kendrick's astonishment, Robert's corpse still lay where it had fallen all those long years ago.

I should have died down here with him and Peter. I didn't deserve to survive this nightmare.

As Kendrick played the torch's beam over Robert's remains, it struck him that the corpse had an eerily beautiful quality to it. The skeletal form was wreathed in silver threads that converged upon it from all corners of the vault-like space, their slender lines twisting together in great bales that erupted from both the walls and ceiling. Threads crawled across the floor in uncountable millions, and Robert's gaping, fleshless jaws glistened with fiery brilliance as the light moved across them.

Kendrick sensed rather than heard the gentle beat of a thousand wings, the source of that almost inaudible sound somehow always out of range of his torch beam.

He forced himself to step towards the gleaming skeleton, even though his mouth was dry with terror. He imagined that something was shifting in those empty sockets as if it was observing his passage. He could feel something constantly prying at the edge of his awareness, making itself known through a furious tingling in his skin.

Then wings began to take shape in the periphery of his vision, a thousand million malignant hornets, each with the face of the same dead boy.

Kendrick moved away from the eyeless skeleton – and then he started to run.

Kendrick turned a corner; then another corner. He ran further, found a stairwell and descended quickly, encountering a greater proliferation of the gold threads there. He leapt down more stairwells, noting how rapidly the gold-coloured threads around him were now being subsumed into the silver. He stopped, momentarily uncertain, at an intersection and saw how the silver threads right above his head began to drop down, towards the top of his head. Yelling, he ducked away from them.

Far behind him there was a sound like rushing water. Kendrick's blood ran cold to think what might be coming after him in the dark.

The gold threads led ever downwards, and he followed them.

Kendrick reached the same great domed room with its central engine and banks of equipment, as silent as the day he'd left them.

Passing through it quickly, he discovered Peter McCowan's body slumped exactly where he remembered. Kendrick felt the sting of tears in his eyes, along with a deep and indelible sense of loss.

Golden threads sprouted in thick plumes from McCowan's exploded skull, reaching up in twisted bundles to the ceiling far above. The corpse shone like a jewel.

Even as Kendrick glanced to one side, he noticed glints of silver beginning to spread through this river of gold. Near McCowan's remains the air smelled of beer and cigarettes and sweat, all overlaid with a lingering musk of death.

"Peter?"

Right here. The words seemed less than a whisper, deep in Kendrick's mind.

"Why can't I see you? I could see you before."

Used up all my resources trying to keep him out, but soon it'll all be gone. Then I'll be gone.

Kendrick gazed down into the golden skeleton's empty eye sockets. "What do you want me to do?" he pleaded.

Take me with you.

"You told me I could get all the answers I needed down here."

Not down here. No, the evidence you need is on the Archimedes.

Kendrick blinked, and a chill ran through his spine with such intensity that he almost cried out. "Then why the hell bring me all the way down here?"

Because you need me up there with you. You'll never find what you're looking for if you have to deal with Robert on your own. Put out your hand – or I'll die without your help – and you'll die without mine.

"What makes you think you can do any better with Robert up there than you fucking did down here?"

He has an advantage down here that he won't have up there. I can handle him, I swear. Now touch me. Put out your hand and touch me.

"You tricked me, you lousy shit!"

I told you I could get you what you need to bring Draeger down, if you came here. And I will. But if you walk away from me now I won't be able to help you. Take me to the Archimedes and you'll get what you need.

Kendrick wished that he still had a functioning heart so he could hear how loudly it was hammering.

"You misled me, damn you. You could have been fucking straight with me."

As no answer came, he shook his head and swore loudly. Then he knelt down next to McCowan's corpse. As he did so, he realized with a shock just how fast the silver was spreading, and again he heard that distant rushing sound.

Kendrick removed one of his gloves and reached out to McCowan's skeletal cheek, for the first time noticing that even the surface of the bone was covered in cilia-like threads, like golden fur. Reaching further, he closed his eyes and felt a sting as the filaments brushed against his skin.

He opened his eyes again, stifling a scream. Golden threads slithered across the back of his hand, coating it in an instant, as if he had just combed his fingers through a cluster of aureate spider webs.

Stumbling backwards, his foot caught against a bony elbow. The skeleton collapsed in front of him, the skull toppling with a clatter.

Kendrick pulled himself upright and stared again at the back of his hand, watching in horror as the golden filaments melted into his flesh.

The rushing sound was growing louder, more frenzied.

And then McCowan was standing there in front of him, his face twisted in a grimace. "That's more like it," he growled. "Right, let's get the fuck out of here."

"What have you done to me?" Kendrick screamed. "What's this stuff getting inside my skin?"

"That stuff is me," Peter replied. "Trust me, I'll get you what you want. But first you're taking me to the Archimedes."

As Kendrick retraced his path, invisible wings assailed him. Yet when he waved a hand in front of him he found that there was nothing there.

"Just get out of here," he heard McCowan mutter. Behind them the gold was dying, fading, the silver seeping through it like dye in water.

"Not real," Kendrick muttered to reassure himself as he found his way back to a stairwell and began to climb. "Just in my head." He repeated the words over and over, like a mantra. He stopped at a door, thoughts whirling through his mind.

He realized that Robert Vincenzo must have been the source of the original nanite infestation. The augmentations had extruded outside his body, spreading uninterrupted through the corridors and dark spaces of the Maze over the intervening years, some echo of the boy's deranged mind still locked somewhere inside them. The same must have happened with McCowan and perhaps, somewhere out there, the corpses of other Labrats lay in mass graves with nanite filaments slowly infiltrating the surrounding earth. Perhaps their thoughts still flickered silently through dank, mossy soil even now…

Laughter, high and child-like, echoed from far away in the darkness.

In my head.

"It's not in your head, it's real." McCowan's voice spoke as if from right behind Kendrick's shoulder.

"Fuck this! None of this is real!" Kendrick pressed forward, his muscles numb with fatigue. He moved steadily up and through innumerable stairwells and corridors.

He was now out of the killing levels but still had a long way to go.

The densely packed networks of filaments – all silver now, wherever he looked – were beginning to bubble up, like pockets of gas rising to the surface of heated liquid.

As he got closer to a smooth dome of silver, several inches in diameter and protruding from the filament-dense wall, a homunculus-like shape began twisting under its oil-slick surface. As if waiting to be born.

Kendrick backed away from it and something clattered to the ground by his feet. In my head, in my head. Panic swelled in him like a great black tide. More of the bubbles were forming all around him. He turned away and ran, adrenalin pushing him onwards, heading for the sunlight somewhere far above him.

Several minutes passed before he realized that he'd dropped the torch.

McCowan hovered, a constant invisible presence, just behind his shoulder.

"There were more than you two down here," Kendrick gasped. "What happened to them?"

"Robert subsumed them, swallowed them up like Jonah's whale. They weren't from Ward Seventeen -didn't have the strength, not like you and me."

Dragging himself up a stairwell, Kendrick found himself back in the Wards. A sound like a river rushing through the depths of the Maze swelled in the darkness behind him. He pushed through a door and slammed it shut. He grabbed a rusted bed frame and managed to wedge it against the door.

Almost there, almost there.

He hurried on into the corridor beyond, soon finding the central staircase leading upwards. Empty elevator shafts gaped like maws beside it.

As Kendrick put one foot on a lower step he glanced down the long corridor nearby, seeing a cloud of tiny, winged figures racing around each other like angry wasps.

Here, close to the surface levels, the walls weren't so thickly coated with the threads. But even as he watched, a patch of silver smoothed and rounded, budding within seconds. He gaped as the silver took on a sudden golden hue. The bud instantly faded back into the wall, as if never there at all.

Peter is doing this, he realized. Holding Robert back.

Kendrick staggered forward again, all sense of time lost. The corridors became infinite, stretching into darkened eternity. But something kept him going, his body just a machine transporting his awareness through the lightless depths.

The outside world lay somewhere ahead. A dim greyness became more than a hint of light, resolving itself into a faraway point glimmering at the centre of his universe.

"Almost there," McCowan muttered encouragingly in his ear. Except, of course, McCowan was now in him, not outside. Once they'd left the Maze, would they go on sharing his head? Or would there be an end to it?

Kendrick stumbled into painfully bright morning sunlight, shielding his eyes until his augmented vision adjusted. The sun was still low on the horizon, burning off moisture from the surrounding jungle vegetation. Fatigued and shaken, he sucked in air perfumed with a thousand scents…

… And stopped again. His skin tingled, everywhere across his legs and his back. Almost a burning sensation…

He spotted Buddy standing not too far away, on the crest of a low hill overlooking the plain on which the Maze stood. His arms were folded casually, like those of some tourist checking out the sights.

Buddy turned, as if subliminally aware of Kendrick's sudden presence. He started towards him, smiling widely. But Buddy's smile faded quickly, replaced by an expression of horror.

"Jesus Christ, Kendrick, your face-"

Kendrick looked down at his bare hands, at the lines and vague shapes he could now see writhing beneath his skin. Filaments slid through his flesh like fine subcutaneous webbing. He reached up, his fingertips tracking the same fine, thread-like lines slithering under his cheeks, his nose, his ears, over his skull. He made a sound like a whimper and fell to his knees.

Buddy ran over to grab him by the arm, but Kendrick waved him away, "Don't touch me."

"C'mon, Kendrick, we have to get you to a hospital or something."

Kendrick gasped. He wanted to burn his own flesh off, to hack it away, to tear it from his bones in great bloody strips. Looking at Buddy, he couldn't fail to see the revulsion that the other man couldn't quite hide.

Summer 2088 (exact date unknown) The Maze

The shield door froze halfway, forcing Kendrick to squeeze through a narrow gap. But it had opened, and he could hear voices: people talking excitedly, shouting.

Something thundered with a long, low vibration that rattled through the pipes and conduits lining the ceiling. He could see the shapes of other Labrats watching in the darkness. The gun turret near the shield door stood silent, motionless.

Static hissed from the tannoy speakers. Something had happened to the soldiers and scientists who had been guarding them. Kendrick knew in an instant that they had a real chance at escape.

He stepped forward again. The gun turret remained dormant. A figure moved towards him from up ahead. After a moment he realized that it was Buddy.

"Kendrick, is that you?"

The others were coming closer now. He could sense them shuffling and moving and muttering around him in the dark, shadows against shadows.

"There's a way out," he told them, letting the gas mask drop from his fingers. Buddy gaped down at it, wide-eyed.

"Where did you -?"

"Sieracki's men didn't get everything. What happened here while I was down below?"

"We heard shooting over the tannoy, then it went dead, like you can hear now. That was a couple of hours ago. And loud booming noises, like something's been blown up." Buddy grimaced. "We thought you were both dead. You were in there a lot longer than anyone else so far. Is Peter-?"

"He's dead. We found this gas mask – that's what kept me alive."

Buddy eyed Kendrick uncertainly.

"It wasn't like that. He deliberately saved my life. Listen, I think we can get out of here. There's a way."

Kendrick pressed his hand and cheek against the great shield door that separated the lower levels from the Wards above. It buzzed with energy under his touch. He closed his eyes, hearing people shuffling and muttering behind him. He had to do this or they would lose all hope of survival.

He slid his hand across the door's surface. Something surged and shifted beneath his touch. A hollow rattle sounded from somewhere deep inside it – and he felt it shift.

"Now," he said, standing. "Push."

At first he thought he'd failed, as a dozen pairs of hands belonging to people weak from hunger and thirst pressed against unyielding metal. Then something internal gave and the door slid aside, fraction by fraction, its hinges squealing in protest. Kendrick pressed harder, feeling something else give. Shouts of exclamation rang out as the door moved freely now, swinging wide to reveal the long corridors and ascending stairwells beyond.

Free! Kendrick stared at the soft glow of electric lights in the distance. They were free.

It soon became clear that the Maze was under attack. As for its soldiers and scientific staff, they found several men, half out of their uniforms, gazing up at ceilings as though they could see through them to some point beyond. One man lay crumpled in a corner, his face glistening with some thread-like substance that glittered as though it was some rare and precious metal. His features were peaceful, and he appeared to be unaware of their approach.

Kendrick moved past him, caught up in a great flood of bodies. He twisted, staring as the soldier died, oblivious, under a hail of fists and stamping feet.

They found others, cowering in laboratories and offices, as the mob moved on, meeting no resistance. Many of the Maze's staff died during this exodus, beaten to death with anything that came to hand. Kendrick followed the inmates' example, unable and unwilling to resist the desire for vengeance.

One or two Labrats fell, shot by the few remaining guards. But the rest of the prisoners, caught up in a whirlwind of mindless rage, surged forward regardless, the soldiers dying under a torrent of blows.

A sound like muted, distant thunder came from somewhere yet higher up. They swarmed through the Wards in their hundreds, lifting men and women out of their beds where they found them alive, and leaving the corpses behind. They moved on more slowly now; they were becoming tired.

Finally they reached the surface level, staggering numbly up staircases and along corridors as the Maze staff – so very few of them now – fled at their approach, their yells of warning reverberating into the distance.

Kendrick moved on with the rest, always upwards, horrified by what he could now see of his own body in the brilliant electric light illuminating the upper levels. His clothing was reduced to less than rags, his scarred flesh smeared with blood and grime.

Gazing down a final passageway, he spotted natural sunlight streaming through a door at the far end. The ground rocked again beneath their feet and Kendrick knew that – at last – someone had come to rescue them.

26 October 2096 Los Angeles

Kendrick still dreamed of endless corridors.

Sometimes he burned with a strange silvery light. Other times he died, over and over again, the stiff black handle of a razor-sharp knife protruding from his chest, the pain unimaginable. He remembered dying in two different ways. He remembered running to escape from someone with his own face, then slumping against a wall, unable to breathe in the poisoned air.

Kendrick opened his eyes to the broad grey blur of rotors slicing through the air above him. He lifted his head from the co-pilot's seat and gazed out and down to the landscape below.

Struggling upright, he could see smoke rising from campfires several hundred metres below. How long had he been asleep? He dragged his scattered thoughts together, and caught Buddy's eye when the other glanced briefly over.

Los Angeles, he remembered now. Buddy was taking them to Los Angeles.

He'd obviously been unconscious for most of the journey. He felt obscurely grateful for that. Now he was looking down on the reconstructed parts of the city. He was familiar with television footage of the ultra-modern spires, like shards of crystal rising quite literally from the ashes. But now that he was actually here, those occasional oases of light and technology appeared uncomfortably poignant amid so much unreclaimed devastation.

Stroking the back of one hand, Kendrick started tracing the new whorls and shapes underlying the skin, reflecting that since he'd made his way back to the sunlight McCowan had vanished from his senses.

A little while later another glance downwards revealed a huge encampment of tents spread far across a hill. Among them the symbol of the Red Cross was prominent. He suddenly thought of Hardenbrooke, and of what it must have been like to be here when the city was destroyed.

Soon they passed over a recognizably military encampment with trucks and jeeps standing in ordered rows, all painted in their camouflage colours.

As if reading his thoughts, Buddy smiled reassuringly. "Mexican Army. Remember, California is barely part of the US any more. Not that it'd be much of a prize anyway, since the economy and everything went tits-up after the nuke. Washington's got its hands full enough with breakaway republics, without worrying too much about who's left in charge of a bunch of ruins."

The helicopter ripped on through the sterile LA skies. Here and there, areas that had miraculously survived the devastation could be seen. But Kendrick was shocked at how much of the city was still in ruins after so many years.

Deserted five-lane freeways stretched in parallel lines towards the ocean and, as they dropped lower, Kendrick noticed scores of abandoned swimming pools scattered across the side of a hill, next to the ruins of expensive mansions. He vividly recalled detailed news footage of the Beverly Hills burning.

The pools themselves looked like half-revealed bones bleached white in the merciless heat of the sun. Elsewhere, what had once been boulevards full of expensive boutiques and fashionable galleries had been reduced to abandoned shanty-towns. Everywhere around them the palm trees grew wild.

As Buddy guided his aircraft towards the ground people gazed up at them from a wide expanse of unkempt grass that rose and dipped with artificial uniformity. Nearby stood a group of buildings, some half-demolished, some apparently built of random detritus, roofed over with sheets of corrugated metal. Some of the open land nearby had been tilled, and new crops grew on it in rows. It took a moment for Kendrick to realize that he was looking down on an erstwhile golf course. All around it the rusted skeletons of cars were scattered across the cracked tarmac.

Kendrick stepped out of the helicopter, the whine of its rotor blades dropping rapidly, and blinked in the bright Californian sunshine. The people he'd noticed earlier were moving towards them, dragging a huge green tarpaulin behind them. Buddy dropped down from the cockpit and ran towards them to grab one edge of it. Kendrick stood by as they hauled the tarpaulin over the 'copter.

Buddy then stepped over and clapped him on the back, but it wasn't hard for Kendrick to sense just how uneasy his friend was.

"What's the tarpaulin for?"

"Smothers the heat signature." Buddy turned to greet Veliz who was standing chatting with the others.

"Hey, Samuel, still got any of that Mexican beer?"

Kendrick's skin itched in the early-evening heat. He felt drowsy from the food and drink that he'd been given. They sat out in the open air by a crackling log fire built in a circle of bricks. Nearby stood half a dozen patched-together vehicles which, contrary to their appearances, apparently did function. Kendrick gazed numbly into the flames, the stars overhead, trying hard not to think of anything in particular.

A woman came over, although he couldn't help but notice that she didn't get too close. Her face cracked open in an uneasy grin – there was something likeable about her.

"Still hungry?" she asked. "Could getcha 'nother bite to eat."

"I'm fine for now." Kendrick shrugged. "It's sort of hard to believe that everyone here is a Labrat. Haven't seen this many of us together in one place since…" He let the sentence trail off.

She nodded. "Same for all of us, yeah."

He studied her more closely, wincing when he saw how close she looked to dying. She was in the advanced and final stages of rogue augmentation growth, her neck dark with the spread of nanite threads inside her, thick cords of the material distorting her cheeks and lips.

Kendrick felt a powerful stab of pity. He looked away.

Shortly after the woman had left him, Kendrick made his way to the building where he would be spending the night. Right now he wanted to be somewhere inside rather than being watched by scared eyes out in the open.

He found his way to a communal bathroom and stared for a long time at his moonlit reflection in the fly-specked mirror hanging from a nail above the washbasin. The room was little more than a cupboard with a chemical toilet, although the sink was at least plumbed in. Instead of a door, a dark wool curtain had been tacked onto the frame.

Kendrick tugged at a light cord and a halogen bulb lit up, sending shimmering sparkles skittering off the filaments that now coated his face. His gaze tracked them down the curve of his neck, seeing how they disappeared beneath his shirt collar.

"What's happening to me?" he whispered to no one. There was no sign of McCowan. Was that a bad sign? There was no way of knowing.

"You okay there?" a voice said quietly. Kendrick looked around to see the woman to whom he'd briefly spoken earlier, peering at him around the edge of the curtain.

"I never caught your name," he replied.

"Audrey," she said. "I wasn't spying, I just heard you talking to yourself." Through the now open door behind her he could see pots hanging on hooks in what was obviously a kitchen.

"Buddy mentioned you before," she continued, "so I got the impression you were on our side. But I can see the way you look at us, like you think all of us here are crazy. You were in Ward Seventeen, right?"

Kendrick nodded, and stepped out of the bathroom to stand closer to her. Audrey's words were friendly enough but, whatever their shared experiences, he reminded himself that he didn't really know these people. So he chose his own words carefully. "I was, yes, but according to Buddy it hasn't been exactly the same for me as for the rest of you."

"But you saw it – the visions? Buddy said you did."

"I saw some of what the rest of you saw, but I was receiving special medical treatments that stopped me getting all of it. To be honest, I don't know if I'm ready to believe that any of what I'm told you've all seen is real."

Audrey looked appalled. "The Omega is real. I've seen it, felt it."

"The Omega Point theory is only a theory. And, like any theory, it depends on certain preconditions – it only works if a certain set of circumstances is presumed to come about. You know what I mean?"

"Believe me, I'm entirely acquainted with the details."

"Are you, though? None of you know for sure that any of what you've witnessed is objectively real. All you've seen are pictures in your head. So, having that degree of faith, it's more like believing in a religion than anything else."

Audrey shook her head, smiling the knowing smile of a true believer. Kendrick felt a burst of irrational anger. She was eyeing Kendrick as if he were some errant child refusing to see the error of his ways.

The problem was that something was happening, something enormous, unprecedented. Somewhere up there a wormhole was forming, an impossible spatial anomaly that was giving every physicist on the planet sleepless night after sleepless night. Maybe it just wasn't something he wanted to face up to, to deal with. Who could blame him?

Kendrick wondered what Audrey's reaction would be if she knew he'd rather see the station destroyed than risk it falling into the hands of Draeger – or anyone else.

"Well, I've got some news for you," Audrey told him. "It may just seem a theory to you, but there are people out there who believe we're monsters – things are only going to get worse for us. One of these days they'll either intern us all or just kill us, and that'll be the end of it. But this way some of us get to take control. This way we choose our own destiny."