After Life (Power Reads Book 2) Page 32

  ‘You screwed up big, this time,’ Myles said.

  Han squinted up at Myles. ‘What do you mean I screwed up?’

  ‘The rebels are right, Han, you can’t be trusted. I leave you or the woman alive you’ll blow this whole thing to pieces. You’ve been part of their plan all along, to infiltrate the rebels and find out their plan.’

  Han stared at Myles for a long moment, and then it all fell into place.

  ‘You’re working for St John,’ he said finally.

  ‘No, you are.’

  The doctor and the rebel soldiers looked from one to the other, their rifles shifting from side to side as they did so. Myles looked at the rebels and pointed to his bruised, battered face.

  ‘This look like the action of a friend to you? He tied me up to get down here so he could finish Arianna off before she even had a chance to share what she’d learned. You found me, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Han shot back and looked at the doctor. ‘Tell them what happened.’

  The doctor looked from one to the other. ‘I don’t know why you came here,’ he said to Han. ‘Maybe you do want to kill her.’

  Han let out a gasp of despair and rubbed his forehead wearily with one hand. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  The rebels stepped forward, rifles still tightly aimed at both Han and Myles. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ one of the rebels said. ‘Arianna’s work is done no matter what happens.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Myles asked.

  ‘She’s the key, not Alexei Volkov,’ Han replied. ‘Icon’s got the holosaps by the balls. That’s why Icon really wanted her to be uploaded. It was nothing to do with solving a murder or finding evidence of corruption. She is his secret weapon.’

  Myles’s features paled and his jaw hung open as he looked over at Arianna’s body.

  As if on cue, Arianna gasped and sucked in a huge breath of air as she shuddered, her eyes opening as Tyree moved to her side.

  ‘Stay still, don’t try to move too quickly.’

  Arianna bolted upright in the gurney as though the doctor hadn’t said a word. ‘Connor!’ She blinked as she took in the basement, the rebel soldiers, Han crouched on the floor and Myles Bourne standing over him with the pistol in his hand.

  ‘It’s Myles!’ she yelled. ‘Myles is working for the holosaps!’

  Han only had the briefest of moments to look at Myles before his partner moved, a tiny metallic grey pistol flashing into his hand from beneath his jacket. Han registered the fact that it was not a police issue weapon and that it was too modern for it to have gotten into the hands of the rebels, compact and light.

  Three shots crashed out as Myles whirled with practiced fluidity, the shots hitting the rebels one by one and sending their own wild fire up into the ceiling to spray chips of concrete dust down onto the floor of the basement.

  Han tried to move but his weakened legs would not respond. The three rebels collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony from their wounds. Without haste, Myles stepped up to each of them and three more shots crashed out as he fired into each of their brains, silencing them forever.

  Myles turned to Arianna, Han and the doctor. ‘Arianna, you’re still alive. How unfortunate.’

  Arianna’s voice was croaky, her throat sounding dry as she replied. ‘If you can call it that.’

  ‘You’re a traitor,’ Han growled at Myles. ‘You’re condemning the entire human race to death.’

  ‘I’m no traitor, Han,’ Myles replied. ‘I’ve been working for my father since I was a child. I doubt that you, as an orphan, would understand why.’

  ‘Kieran Beck,’ Arianna said.

  ‘A visionary if ever there was one,’ Myles snapped with true pride stiffening his limbs and lifting his chin. ‘It helped to have family inside the law, and I am proud to have risked my neck to be here. It is over for the parasite that we call mankind.’

  ‘You are a human being,’ Han said in disbelief. ‘You’re killing yourself!’

  ‘That’s right,’ Myles agreed and then turned to Arianna. ‘It is time for a new beginning, and it starts with your end.’

  Myles raised the pistol to point at Arianna.

  With a heave of effort Han lurched to his feet and threw himself awkwardly at Myles. The younger man stepped a single pace back and to the right, dodging Han’s shambling attack as he swung the butt of the pistol to thumb sickeningly into the back of Han’s head.

  Han groaned in pain and sprawled onto the floor. He rolled over to see Myles turn his back to Arianna and the doctor and aim the pistol down at him.

  ‘A shame, Han,’ Myles said. ‘You could have had a great future if you’d joined the winning side.’

  Han, his features contorted by pain and regret beyond words, nodded stiffly. ‘So could have you.’

  Myles frowned pityingly and then squeezed the trigger.

  The gunshot crashed out and Han flinched as the bullet smashed through blood and bone. The left side of Myles’s head split apart in a messy spray and he toppled sideways to crash down onto the ground next to Han, his one remaining eye staring lifelessly at his former partner.

  Han looked up to see Tyree pointing Han’s pistol, the barrel smouldering.

  ‘I think I’ve definitely broken my oath now,’ the doctor said, his voice trembling.

  Han rubbed the back of his head as he clambered wearily to his feet. He looked down at Myles’s corpse, and the reached down and wrenched the pistol from his grip.

  ‘Can you walk?’ he asked Arianna.

  Slowly, Arianna slid off the gurney as the doctor carefully removed the lines from her arms and patched them. She balanced unsteadily against the side of the gurney as Han moved alongside her. The doctor spent a minute or two patching the wound in Han’s side, muttering again about how he needed stitches, before standing back and looking at them both.

  ‘You’re both alive, but I’ve never seen any two people look closer to death.’

  ‘You ready?’ Han asked her.

  Arianna nodded. ‘Where are we going?’

  Han was about to answer when a squad of police officers dashed down the stairwell and burst into the basement, their weapons aimed at Han, Arianna and the doctor as they flooded into the room. They came up short as he saw the bodies littering the floor.

  Han, one hand in the air and the other holding the dressing to his wound, managed to speak.

  ‘I’m a police detective. You here to kill us or save us?’ he asked.

  ‘Commissioner Forrester sent us,’ one of the officers replied through a face mask. ‘What the hell happened here?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ the doctor said. ‘Detective Myles Bourne was a Re–Volution informer, nearly killed all of us.’

  The officer looked at Arianna. ‘This woman is wanted for…–’

  ‘This woman just risked her life to protect us all,’ Han said. ‘The leader of the rebels, Icon, used her upload to access the holosap colony and then left her to die.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ the officer replied. ‘The man called Icon contacted Forrester’s office a few minutes ago and informed him of your location. He has requested that you join him in Westminster. Something big is happening!’

  ***

  49

  They moved swiftly.

  Icon’s men shifted from cover to cover across the crumbling remains of Westminster Bridge, toward the heavily fortified guard post protecting the entrance to the city. A couple of corpses, rabid dogs, lay nearby amid the dense weeds and cast a stench of rotting meat across the bridge as Icon walked past.

  Icon wasn’t even within a hundred yards of the guard post when he heard the first alarms going off, saw soldiers tumble from within the post in a thunder of boots on tarmac, rifles gripped in their hands as they amassed to confront Icon and his men.

  No need, Icon mused. It’s not us you need to worry about.

  Icon looked over his shoulder. The helicopter gunships he’d called in had thundered overhead toward the sou
th of the city minutes before. Two of them, leaving only another pair remaining to protect the city. Commissioner Forrester’s office had not believed him until he’d mentioned Han Reeves’s name, and that of Arianna Volkov. Now, the secrets and lies would start to emerge, if Arianna had survived. Part of him hoped that she had.

  He looked down the apparently deserted road behind him, and nodded once.

  The sound of a diesel engine growled and a large truck rounded the corner of the street down where the gutted shell of the old Park Plaza still stood. The truck drove slowly, rattling along until it lined up on the bridge. Then with a cloud of belched smoke from its exhaust the truck accelerated toward the guard post.

  Icon leaned back as the truck thundered past, then ducked down as the inevitable broadside of gunfire began. He glimpsed the windows of the truck shatter but it mattered little for there was no driver within to harm, the vehicle remotely controlled. Inside, a simple assembly of levers, servos and modified hydraulics steered and powered the truck on its suicidal charge.

  There was no time for the guards to bring heavier weapons to bear upon the truck before it ploughed through the razor wire fence, both sets of gates and then smashed into the guard house. Soldiers leaped out of the truck’s way and then it smashed through the barriers on the northern side of the bridge and came to a rest, fifteen yards past the guard house.

  Only now did Icon wave his men forward.

  In an instant, two things happened. Firstly, the troops guarding the city came under heavy and controlled fire from the advancing rebels. Secondly, the side of the truck hissed as a door opened automatically and from within the truck poured a flood of wild dogs, their jowls drooling with rage and their matted fur patched with lesions of rotting flesh.

  Just like the machines, thought Icon, only worse.

  He heard the screams of the soldiers as they were bitten, or tried valiantly to shoot the animals dead before they escaped into the city, but there were too many. Even as more police vehicles flooded toward the bridge from within the city, rushing to the aid of their beleaguered comrades, the animals darted off the bridge and bolted away up side streets and down the embankment, laden with their lethal disease.

  Icon hurried forward with his men to the truck as soon as the last of the guards had been picked off by his marksmen, and together they hauled out crates of heavy weapons. Moments later, as police vehicles swamped the north side of the bridge, a fusillade of rocket–propelled grenades screeched across the bridge and ploughed into them. Explosions rocked the vehicles, hurling them into the air like toys amid roiling balls of smoke and flame, hurled the bodies of police officers like rag dolls across the streets, snapping and severing limbs.

  Icon’s men surged forward, bigger weapons mounted on tripods now spraying a lethal combination of plunging and grazing fire across the burning vehicles, consumed amid writhing coils of dirty smoke and flame.

  The sound of helicopters overhead made Icon look up, but he feared them no longer as he directed RPG fire up into the sky. It only took a single direct hit to send the first plunging down into the city to the sound of deep, thumping explosions as it vanished behind glittering tower blocks of glass and stone. In an instant the remaining helicopter pulled back and up, away from the danger.

  Icon knew that the two helicopters that had travelled south of the city would already be hurrying back, but within minutes he would have nothing to fear from them either.

  Westminster loomed ahead, the crowds of commuters flocking the streets fleeing in screaming hordes as Icon’s men surged across the bridge between the flaming wrecks of the police vehicles. They swarmed down Westminster Road and placed charges against the sheer metal fences surrounding the Parliament buildings.

  Gunfire erupted from within Parliament as armed guards, finally realising what was happening, began trying to slow down the rebel attack, but there was little chance for them to out–gun Icon’s little army. Speed and surprise overcame the odds, for at least a while, and a while was all Icon needed. Every gunshot from within the building was met in reply by an RPG that smashed through the ornate glass windows and blasted the snipers and security guards into silence, forcing those within the building to retreat away from the windows.

  Moments later, Icon’s men fled into cover as their charges exploded with deafening blasts that echoed across the city. The steel fences lay twisted and torn, black metal bare and open like giant metallic flowers blossoming in the weak dawn light.

  ‘Forward!’

  Icon’s deep, bass roar thundered across the street and his men obeyed willingly with a great cheer of their own as they plunged unopposed down into the Parliament gardens toward the huge building’s many and various entrances. Charges were set, doors blasted open in violent cascades of shattered wood and masonry, and in a wave of righteous fury the rebel forces plunged into Parliament with blood lust surging through their veins.

  *

  The Chamber was packed to overflowing with ministers, holosaps occupying the seats where once Bishops had sat. Only a single representative from what had once been the Church of England remained, a sole voice for the Hope Reunion Church still clad in flowing black robes, his clerical collar stark white and illuminated in a strangely ultra–violet light by the glow from the holosaps that surrounded him.

  Upon a large screen was a chart showing votes cast for and against the voluntary euthanasia of the political cabinet. Over ninety per cent of the votes were in favour.

  Prime Minister Tarquin St John stood before the Speaker of the House, his voice carrying clearly through the amplifiers and betraying a slight tremor.

  ‘The wishes of this parliament have been made clear,’ he said. ‘We have, as a species, made every effort to save ourselves through conventional means, through the search for a vaccine for the terrible sickness that has plagued us and decimated our cities for decades.’ St John sighed. ‘We have failed and now I stand here as your Prime Minister on the last day of human rule in this country.’

  The chamber remained silent as a sepulchre as St John went on.

  ‘In order to ensure our continuation as a species and the governance of those that remain in our care, we have chosen that we should sacrifice ourselves in order that others may not yet have to. On this day, we shall cease to govern as human beings and begin to govern as Holo sapiens.’

  St John looked across the chamber to where his wife and children stood.

  ‘I shall be the first,’ he said. ‘And here, I give you the man responsible for humanity’s conquering of The Falling, Kieran Beck.’

  A ripple of applause shuddered through the chamber as Kieran Beck stood alongside Tarquin St John as the Prime Minister slipped out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeve.

  Kieran Beck looked up at the holosaps as he produced a syringe from his pocket and slipped the protective cap from the needle. The Prime Minister looked across at his family one last time.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, the microphones picking up his words. ‘It’ll be okay.’

  Kieran Beck leaned over the Prime Minister and slipped the needle into his arm. The amber fluid drained into St John’s vein. Kieran Beck stood back and looked down at St John. The Prime Minister sat in silence for a few moments and then his eyes began to droop. He turned his head wearily to his wife and daughters, who were holding each other and crying as they watched, and managed a gentle smile. His head dropped further and he sucked in a tremulous breath that he then exhaled slowly for several seconds as though unwilling to part with it. Then he slumped in his seat as his heart gave up its fight against the drugs surging through his system.

  Kieran Beck looked up to the holosaps, and moments later a ghostly figure shimmered into existence among them. A rush of exclamations and whispers echoed through the chamber as the Prime Minister appeared among the holosaps and looked down at his family.

  ‘See?’ he said, his voice reaching them from the amplifiers alone. ‘It’s okay, everything’s fine.’

  Kieran Beck
turned to the microphones.

  ‘Today is a monumental day, one that shall be recorded forever in human history as the day when we, as a species, finally took control of our own evolution and our own future. Never again shall we kneel before the wrath of nature. Never again shall we fear the spectre of disease and disability. Never again shall we face utter extinction. Our race will continue forever more, into a future that is bright with promise and…’

  A deep rumble shuddered through the building. Lights swayed gently in the high vaulted ceiling above. A ripple of concerned whispers fluttered like an errant wind across the crowd.

  Kieran Beck went on.

  ‘… with promise and the knowledge that we shall ever more be protected by our own ingenuity and technology. We shall be forever more. We shall be Homo immortalis.’

  Beck stood back and waited for the applause, but none came. Instead the crackle of automatic gunfire rattled from outside the building to mounting whispers of consternation from the crowd. St John’s holosap descended along the light path between the ranks of ministers. He paused as he saw his own dead body slumped in its seat, and then stepped up close to the dais behind Kieran Beck.

  ‘Gentlemen, I’m sure that there’s nothing to worry about.’ He glanced at the armed security guards dotted around the chamber. ‘Officers, if you will?’

  The police officers jogged immediately to the closed chamber doors and took up firing positions around them.

  ‘Speaker of the House?’ St John asked, ‘could we have visual on the outside of the building and the news channel please?’

  A series of large screens flickered into life on opposing sides of the chamber, and were immediately followed by gasps of horror. St John stared wide eyed at the screens showing the chaos outside as he yelled to the nearest security guard, felt the chamber windows reverberate as the shockwave from explosions shuddered through the ancient building.

  Behind him, his aide spoke quietly, as though fear had stolen the strength from her voice as she gestured to a screen set into the wall nearby.