After Life (Power Reads Book 2) Read online

  ‘This is murder!’ Reed wailed.

  Marcus watched as the doctor’s image began to crumble as though he were being split apart atom by atom, the carefully stored data tumbling from his holosap in a cascade of bright pin–prick spots of light that Marcus somehow knew was binary code, countless billions of data streams collapsing before his very eyes.

  Dr Reed’s screams fell silent as the holosap’s ability to generate sound vanished. Despite himself, despite all that Dr Reed had done and despite the fact that he had already died once for real, Marcus could not help feeling some small quiver of guilt as he saw every infinitesimal stream of data that was Dr Reed collapse into a tumble of shimmering lights that spread out from the projection plate on which he had stood and faded into blackness.

  Marcus stared at the spot where the doctor had been standing only moments before. He could hear Kerry’s fingers flying across the keyboard before her but he realised he could also hear the drumming of boots on asphalt. He turned and hurried across to the window.

  Below, running in a tight formation, several dozen troops were pouring into the terminal below them.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ he called across to Chad in a harsh whisper.

  Chad nodded but didn’t even look up as he replied. ‘We’re short on ammunition, not much we can do about it.’

  ‘Say what?’ Marcus blinked. ‘You’re just going to quit now?’

  ‘I only need a few minutes,’ Kerry called to them. ‘Quickly, come here Marcus!’

  Marcus rushed over just in time for Kerry to turn in her seat and jab a syringe straight into his arm.

  ‘Ow!’ Marcus yelled. ‘What the hell are you doing?!’

  ‘You’re immune, Marcus,’ she said. ‘I’m sending your blood, not mine.’

  ‘I’m as good as dead!’ Marcus snapped back, but he held his arm still as she drew his blood. ‘We all are,’ he added softly.

  ‘No,’ Kerry replied as she withdrew the needle and patched his arm, her useless legs dangling awkwardly from her seat. ‘You remember where some of the world’s most effective serums came from, back in the day?’

  Marcus thought for a moment and then he realised. ‘Snake venom,’ he whispered.

  Kerry nodded. ‘Just keep them at bay for long enough for me to scan your blood and to send this data, and we’re done.’

  ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  Kerry did not reply. Chad stepped up, checked his rifle’s magazine and then began rifling through the bodies of his fallen comrades. He pulled out ammunition pouches and a handful of what Marcus assumed were fragmentation grenades.

  ‘We could use the Wasps and the sphere you control,’ Marcus suggested.

  ‘They’ll have hacked them by now,’ Chad replied. ‘They won’t make the same mistake twice.’

  ‘We’ve dodged them before,’ Marcus said with more conviction that he felt. ‘We’ll do it again.’

  Chad grinned tightly but said nothing as he tossed two magazines to Marcus, who caught them and stuffed them into the pockets of his jeans. Marcus then watched as Chad yanked the body armour from his fallen comrades and arranged the suits into two piles half way between the entrance to the control room and the control panels.

  ‘This is going to be over fast,’ Chad reported to Kerry. ‘You done yet?’

  ‘Almost there,’ Kerry said, tapping the keys fast. ‘I’m reactivating the cameras and hacking links to every broadcast network I can. I want the whole damned world to see this as well as hear it.’

  The drumming of boots running down the concourse toward the control room echoed around Marcus. He looked up to see the troops advancing toward them. Hovering around them were black specks emitting a distant hum.

  ‘Here they come,’ Marcus shouted.

  ***

  47

  Chad took up a position near the doors and whispered across to Marcus.

  ‘I’ll hit them with the frag’ grenades first. Hopefully we’ll take out a few of those Wasps with the shrapnel.’

  Marcus nodded as he crouched down behind an upturned desk and aimed down the concourse.

  ‘Single shots,’ Chad added, ‘don’t spray them. Aim for their body armour. The shots won’t kill but they’ll stun enough to drop them. Take the headshots while they’re on the deck. Make every round count, understand?’

  ‘Hold them off!’ Kerry yelled before Marcus could reply. ‘I’m broadcasting in thirty seconds!’

  Marcus saw Kerry press a portable memory drive into the terminal, the one that contained the raw data of her cure. He saw an upload panel, a blue bar filling with light, and then a blinking message. Kerry wasted no time as she hit the button to send the data, then reached up and activated the bulbous black eye of a camera mounted atop the control panel.

  He heard her voice speaking into the camera as he took aim down the corridor.

  ‘My name is Kerry Hussein. I am a research biologist working for the United States Government in Louisiana, and broadcasting from the international airport outside of New Orleans. I have discovered a cure for The Falling.’

  Chad set his rifle down and held two fragmentation grenades in his hands. He pulled the pins, counted one second, and then hurled them both in a straight line as hard as he could down the concourse. The two grenades shot through the air as though they had been fired from a cannon, too fast for the soldiers to react, and both weapons detonated at head height just in front of the charging squad.

  Marcus saw the double burst of flame and debris cut through the front few troops like a scythe, saw Wasps hurled with immense force into the walls of the concourse to shatter into pieces on the floor or blasted out of the broken windows. The double blast thumped through the control room and the shockwave rang in Marcus’s ears so that he barely heard Chad’s yelled command.

  ‘Open fire!’

  Marcus aimed through the swirling grey smoke at a staggering soldier, his bulky battle kit and black body armour an easy target. He fired. The rifle kicked into his soldier and he saw the soldier jerk under the impact and tumble to the ground, gasping for air behind his respirator.

  As rounds flew back at them down the concourse and he glimpsed Chad firing shots at controlled, regular intervals of about two seconds, dropping soldiers with each round, Marcus aimed at the soldier he had dropped and fired a single shot into the side of his head.

  A bright puff of scarlet blood and the man fell still.

  The remaining soldiers plunged into the limited cover available to them either side of the concourse, and in an instant the handful of still–flying Wasps hummed loudly above the cacophony as they raced toward the open doors.

  ‘Wasps!’ Marcus yelled.

  Kerry’s voice continued behind him, as calm as could be, into the camera.

  ‘I am sending with this broadcast data from my partner’s blood, which will reveal the genes responsible for his immunity. Both myself and my colleague were bitten. I am the control subject and remain infected. My partner was bitten by a pit viper before he was infected, and it is that snake bite which has saved his life. The noise you hear in the background is the government’s troops attempting to kill us. They have been lying, to all of us, for decades. The Falling is not incurable and never has been. It is the aim of the holosaps to gain control of our government and then eradicate humanity from the face of our planet.’

  Marcus took aim at a Wasp and fired. The bullet shattered the cruel drone in mid–flight and it spiralled downward and crashed onto the concourse floor.

  ‘Nice shootin’!’ Chad yelled as Kerry’s voice continued behind them.

  ‘The holosaps consider us a plague upon our planet, a weakness, something to be destroyed. They hate us and will stop at nothing to claim their place as the supposedly rightful heirs to this planet. They truly believe themselves to be the future of humanity, the next natural evolutionary step, and equally believe human beings to be the next victim of a natural extinction. They are wrong. We will not fall and we will not be subjugated.
This immunity, contained in the blood, is the very reason why we need not surrender to holosap rule. Homo immortalis is just that, immortal, but only if we allow them to be.’

  Marcus fired another round into a Wasp, catching it with a glancing blow that was just enough to send the drone crashing into a wall. It tumbled down onto the concourse floor and Marcus fired at it again, smashing it to pieces.

  ‘Fall back!’

  Chad’s voice rang out above the gunfire now pouring into the control room as the attacking soldiers regrouped and began advancing yard by yard down the concourse toward them. Marcus leaped up and saw three remaining Wasps race through the open entrance to the control room.

  ‘The body armour!’ Chad yelled. ‘Use it!’

  Chad dove beneath one of the piles of body armour, pulling it across his legs and body before firing at the nearest Wasp. Marcus turned for the other pile nearby and then saw Kerry, sitting with her back to the room, still talking into the camera.

  ‘The holosaps have built an army of robots here in New Orleans, weaponised machines, some controlled by people, others entirely automated. They are not for research purposes to cure us of The Falling. They are not for farming or maintenance. They are designed to kill us. No doubt they will have similar machine armies in most surviving cities. Find them, destroy them, stand up for those of us who have survived this far and for those who might live in the future!’

  ‘Kerry!’ Marcus yelled. ‘Get into cover!’

  Kerry did not move, staring up at the camera as she spoke.

  ‘There is a virus present in the holosap’s storage system. We don’t know who caused it but it may be our only chance to shut them down before every last human being on Earth is murdered by our own creations! Let the virus run and never trust them again, ever!’

  One of the Wasps dove at Chad, who deflected it with a swipe of the heavy body armour as he fired a pistol at it. Marcus grabbed one of the thick body suits and whirled to swing it at an attacking Wasp. The drone was batted aside and clanged loudly against a metal pillar.

  Marcus turned and saw the third Wasp dive in toward Kerry.

  ‘Kerry!’

  Marcus leaped between the Wasp and Kerry and swung his rifle butt at the drone.

  The Wasp plunged beneath the weapon, swinging its metallic abdomen up toward Marcus and squirting a spray of venom across his face. The sharp, ammoniac tang wafted across his nose as it splashed across his eyes like liquid fire.

  Marcus screamed and swung his arms in blind panic as he toppled to his knees, the humming of the Wasp loud in his ears as its wings beat the air and then he felt the cold metal legs grip his neck as the Wasp collided with him, sharp, evil clamps biting into his skin as something long and sharp plunged into his neck.

  Marcus gagged as much in horror as pain as the Wasp injected venom deep into his body. He reached up instinctively and grabbed the drone, yanked it free and smashed it against the ground with ferocious blows, driven by pain and terror, hearing the metal crash against the floor tiles but unable to see as his eyes burned and throbbed. The drone’s metallic body writhed in his grip but he felt its wings smash and bend, its head crunching and snapping until he hurled it away across the room.

  Kerry dropped down alongside him from her seat and he felt her arms wrap around him as bullets ricocheted in a violent hymn of destruction. Panels smashed in bright clouds of sparks, the smell of burning cables and exploded touch screens tainting the air.

  ‘This is it!’ Chad yelled, firing at what sounded to Marcus like two Wasps attacking him. His warning was followed by agonised cries and then a deep thump as a grenade went off. The blast reverberated through the control room but it seemed somehow distant as Kerry shielded him from the blast, her long black hair falling like a veil across their faces, hers barely an inch from his own.

  Chad’s weapon fell silent, and Marcus realised through his pain that the soldier must have been holding the grenade that had just detonated. Pain seethed through Marcus’s body, burning like flames in his veins and throbbing in his neck as though it were swelling to ten times its normal size. He felt his skin stretching under unbearable strain, felt his heart racing and his limbs twitching beyond control, the control room a shadowy blur now as some of the venom drained from his face.

  ‘Marcus.’

  He heard Kerry’s voice above the din, soft in his ear. His eyes were blurred, pain bolting through them, but he managed to turn his head enough to see her looking down at him, one hand cupping the back of his head as the other gently brushed her hair from out of his eyes.

  ‘We did it,’ she whispered.

  Marcus, despite his pain, gave a jerky nod. ‘We’ve certainly gone and done it now.’

  He saw Kerry smile, laugh even, a tiny ray of hope and light amid the darkness and destruction surrounding them and the yelling voices that burst into the control room.

  ‘There they are!’

  Marcus pulled Kerry close to him with the last of his strength.

  ***

  48

  London

  Han Reeves watched as the doctor pumped Arianna’s blood through the bypass machine, this time having warmed the blood first. The ice was gone and Han realised that he was clenching his fist in desperation as with the other hand he held the pistol pointed at the doctor.

  The sound of the helicopters outside had been confirmation that it was over, that somebody had called them in as soon as they’d had the chance. A mole amongst the rebels, perhaps? An informer for the police? Han couldn’t be sure, but he knew now that he would be unlikely to escape the basement alive.

  ‘Open the door!’

  The rebels were outside and with them was Myles. He recognised the voice and the anger in it.

  ‘It’s over Han!’ Myles called out. ‘There’s nowhere for you to go now!’

  Han ignored the calls, although he knew that sooner or later the rebels outside would be forced to risk the doctor’s life in order to take Han down. He had covered the grubby window with his jacket, hanging it there so that nobody could take a lethal shot at him while the doctor worked. Han knew now that if he died before Arianna was revived, it was all over. Everything. Her sacrifice would be for nothing and so would his. The rebels would kill them all and the police helicopters would then arrive to kill the rebels.

  Corrupt officer, no doubt would be the accusation, betraying his force for money or perhaps the chance to upload with the holosaps someday. Maybe by now the Prime Minister had already managed to somehow tie Han into the murder of Alexei Volkov and the blasts at Re–Volution.

  Mind you, they probably wouldn’t even need to bother. Han looked down at his shoes, one of which was glossy where his blood was leaking from his wound. He could feel it squelching under his foot. His mind felt feeble and his legs numb, but he kept the pistol pointed at the doctor.

  ‘Hurry it up,’ he insisted.

  ‘She’s almost ready,’ the doctor said, ‘another minute or two. You can’t hurry life, or death.’

  Doctor Tyree looked at Han, who realised belatedly that a professional physician probably knew a dying man when he saw one. Han glanced at the monitors relaying Arianna’s condition and saw that she still did not have a heartbeat. Her core temperature was now up from sixteen degrees centigrade to thirty four degrees.

  ‘You’re not going to last long enough,’ the doctor said with a confidence Han did not want to think about. ‘You’re losing too much blood.’

  ‘You worry about Arianna’s blood,’ Han snapped. ‘I’ll worry about mine.’

  Tyree looked at Han for a moment, as though considering something, and then he waved him over. ‘I can dress the wound.’

  ‘The wound’s fine.’

  ‘You’re going to drop stone cold unconscious at any moment,’ the doctor replied, ‘at which point I’ll dress the wound anyway and then open the door for the police once Arianna’s alive. Which order would you prefer all of that to happen in, detective?’

  ‘You’re not here
to save her or me,’ Han growled, clenching his pistol tighter.

  ‘If that were true, how come she’s not already dead?’ the doctor asked.

  Han blinked, blood loss clouding his thoughts. Sweat was beading cold on his brow, his heart fluttering in his chest.

  ‘I don’t care what you think. I’m not going to…’

  The world tilted wildly as Han’s vision and balance vanished in unison. He had almost hit the floor when the doctor caught him, slowing him down enough to lay him flat on his back.

  ‘Get the damned gun out of my face,’ Tyree insisted.

  Moments later, as Han’s vision focused once again, he felt the doctor holding a dressing against his wound.

  ‘You need stitches, badly,’ then doctor informed him. ‘But the wound is not fatal. Get up and keep the pad pressed against the wound.’

  Han hauled himself upright as Tyree turned away from him. He reached up and applied a small electrode to Arianna’s chest and then hit a switch. A loud beep echoed around the room and then settled into the calming, rhythmic signal of a beating heart.

  ‘Rhythm’s good, temperature’s up,’ the doctor reported. ‘She’s coming around.’

  The blast came from behind Han, not an explosion but the sound of a metal ram smashing through the basement doors. He whirled for his pistol and then realised that the doctor was holding it close by his thigh, a quiet smile on his face.

  ‘Sorry detective,’ he said, ‘but there’s just no way that you’re getting this back.’

  ‘Get down!!’

  The rebels burst into the basement in a flood of hoods and weapons. Han crouched down as the rebels, rifles pulled into shoulders and aimed at them all, fanned out through the room. Myles Bourne strode to stand before Han where he crouched on one knee, one hand holding the medical pad to his bloodied side.