‘Now this I don’t like,’ he said. He stooped and picked up one of the many pieces of briar charcoal that were scattered on the ground, then tossed it into the lock. The thing that immediately dropped from the ceiling onto the charcoal was a wolf spider half a metre long—only it was a spider with metal bracings and hydraulic pistons augmenting its legs, and a more complicated arrangement of gleaming motors augmenting its obsidian fangs.
‘Jesus!’ Semper bellowed.
Stanton’s pulse-gun sputtered white light, hitting the creature mid-air as it leapt out at them. It slammed back against the jamb, hit the ground and, smoking, made to leap again at Semper. Angelina drew her own weapon and fired, complementing the shots Stanton was again putting into the creature. Twice more it leapt and their shots slammed it back. It only gave up when its organic body was reduced to a charcoal remnant inside its cyber-bracing skeleton.
‘Okay, Semper, the door,’ ordered Angelina.
Stanton kept his weapon pointed at the cyborg spider as it slowly curled up its legs like a fist. Semper took rather longer over the true palm lock operating the second door, but soon they were stepping into the brightness of Stalek’s home.
‘Stanton, find his house system and neutralize it,’ Angelina instructed, herself making no move to go further into this strange home.
The big man moved on, rounding furniture seemingly fashioned from the carapaces of huge crustaceans, while keeping an eye on the large plants contained in pots scattered throughout the room—plants whose beautifully coloured giant daffodil heads turned to track his progress. Reaching the further wall, he studied something set into it that looked more like a work of weird art than any technology, then stepped back raising his weapon and blasted it, his shots punching molten holes through the gleaming metalwork and oddly shaped touch panels and screens. The bright lights flickered briefly as they dropped from the control of a house AI to some backup safety system. Turning, Stanton fired twice at a plant lowering its lime-green and purple striped head towards him, severing its stalk. As the head dropped to the ground, it protruded a red tongue coated with small metal hooks.
‘About as safe as we’re gonna get,’ he observed.
Angelina pointed to a wooden door to Stanton’s right. ‘We go there—up to the attic. That’s where Stalek did his work.’
She followed, giving the plants a wide berth but staying well back so he and Semper would encounter first anything nasty, Stanton noted, as he operated the simple latch and opened the door. The stairs winding up into the attic were lit by biolights—yet another sign of Stalek’s attraction towards exotic technologies. Stanton eyed the spidery creatures with their glowing sugar-bag bodies, then glanced back at Angelina.
‘Why the hit on him?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Seems to me he was providing you with some useful toys.’
‘Not really your concern,’ Angelina replied. ‘But he was becoming increasingly unstable, and some of his work was of questionable… quality.’
‘So you have this lunatic subvert a Golem Twenty-five android for you?’
‘Just get up the stairs, mercenary,’ Angelina spat.
Stanton nodded to himself and began to climb, thinking how Angelina and her brother Arian were not the best people to make judgements on the stability of others. However, Stanton was not about to push his luck too far—the money of these terrorist rich kids was still good.
From the topmost landing, four wooden doors led off into different rooms, but Angelina, coming up closer behind Semper and Stanton, pointed to the one directly ahead. ‘The rest also contain various workshops, but he uses that one for any final assembly.’
Adhesive mine still to hand, Stanton nodded to Semper, who shoved open the door in front of him. Stanton stepped into the room and then slid to one side, crouching down, pulse-gun aimed and adhesive mine held palm outwards in readiness. Semper did the same, moving to the other side of the door. Stanton noted that the man was just as trusting as himself: as well as brandishing a pulse-gun, he held a small EM grenade.
No action. Stanton slowly stood upright and surveyed the room.
Stalek’s and Falco’s bodies were not visible, but Stanton tracked the trails of blood over to the Cleanviro booth, and guessed where they might be.
‘Find the fucking control module,’ said Angelina, obviously shaken by what she was seeing.
Stanton left Semper to go over to where wrecked computers and other equipment had been stacked in a corner of the room. Himself, he did not intend to turn his back on the room’s other occupant. The Golem had pulled a chair up in front of a table. It wore a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat. Before it on the table, several objects were laid out as if it was involved in some intricate game of chess with an unseen opponent. Those objects consisted of various tools and pieces of hardware, a small rubber dog and two other gruesome items. While Stanton watched, the Golem reached out one brass hand, clad in a blood-crusted fingerless woollen glove, and carefully turned the head of the aviapt so that it faced Stalek’s head. It then looked up and gazed at Stanton with midnight eyes.
‘Found it.’ Semper came over and handed a small console to Angelina.
The woman’s hand was shaking, Stanton noted, as she took the console and detached from it the small black pebble of a control module. She closed her eyes for a second, concentrating, then slipped the module into one of her belt pouches.
‘Stand up… Mr Crane,’ she said finally.
The Golem stood and stepped aside, as if ready to come around the table. Stanton took a step back. Jesus, the thing was big! Standing there, it seemed to fill the entire room. Stanton estimated it to be at least two and a half metres tall.
‘Hold it there!’ Angelina yelled.
The Golem froze.
‘You will follow us, doing no more than I instruct,’ she said, with enforced calm in her voice. She turned to Stanton. ‘Put that mine of yours on its chest, over its brain case.’
Stanton was not so sure he wanted to get that close, but he obeyed. As he stepped in, the Golem abruptly reached up and undid the top buttons on its coat, exposing its brassy chest. Stanton placed the mine carefully, hoping that hand movement had been at Angelina’s behest. The Golem buttoned up its coat again.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ she said.
The Golem reached down and closed its hand over one of the severed heads.
‘Leave that!’
The hand closed and the head imploded with a dull thud, spewing bloody gobbets of brain across the table-top.
‘Follow!’
As Angelina turned away, Stanton saw the Golem’s hand snap out and take up the small rubber dog, which it slipped quickly into its pocket. He made no comment on this, nor when the Golem turned its face towards him and half closed one eye in what might have been a wink. With Semper at his side, he just followed the killing machine out, glad that the thing was walking at Angelina’s back rather than his own.
‘A message in a bottle would be the nearest analogy.’
Cormac chewed over the words as they crossed the now empty chamber to the Flint runcible. Before reaching the dais, he halted and glanced round at his companions. Gant stood beside Mika, as if ready to prevent her escape. Perhaps that was because it had taken so long to get her moving. The result of this delay was now stacked on a gravsled that Thorn guided by a remote-control device: the woman’s luggage.