Yamata rolled off Jack, snatching up her gun as she did so. A popping sound followed her – bullets leaping into the air. Harry ignored them. She screamed as blue exploded around her. The scream ended suddenly as her body lost all focused motion, and she was a falling clutter of limbs tumbling limp on to the floor.
‘Well, that was nice and easy,’ gloated Harry. ‘Now for the rest of you.’ He turned and advanced on the floating creature that had broken Fist. Fire lashed out again, dancing through its tentacles and setting them writhing in agony.
Jack stood up. He tried to pull Fist back into his mind, but there was nothing there. He’d have to reclaim him manually. He moved back to where he’d seen him last.
‘You wanker,’ Yamata’s voice yelled. ‘I’ll just kill you again.’
Jack was baffled that the broken woman could still be present, still be attacking. Harry just laughed. ‘When I escaped you,’ he shouted back, ‘you must have known I’d come back. And I’d be ready for you.’
Jack quickly found Fist. The puppet’s plan was working. Harry had distracted Yamata. His crystal cage had disappeared. But Fist was unconscious, flickering in and out of sight, his core self straining to absorb the beating it had taken. Both his legs had been torn off. When Jack rolled him over, he saw that an arm was missing too. His eyes were open and unseeing, staring up at the ceiling. His mouth had fallen open in a lolling grin.
The lost arm was just next to Fist. Jack scrabbled round for the legs. One was untouched. The other was singed black, but basically functional.
There was a burst of light and swearing. Jack looked up to see Harry standing in front of the jellyfish, silhouetted by gouts of brilliant light as another attack exploded against it. Its tentacles thrashed in pain.
Harry’s laugh boomed out. ‘Did you really think you could hurt me, Yamata? I’ve spent the whole of my death getting ready for this.’
There was a tugging at Jack’s sleeve. Fist had regained something approaching consciousness. He could barely move his mouth to talk.
[Shut me down. Run.]
It would take a couple of minutes to force Fist into a protective closedown, swaddling his systems deep in Jack’s mind. Jack started the delicate process. It took all his attention. He couldn’t risk movement until it was complete.
[ For gods’ sake Jack, just crash me. Factory reset me once you’re safe.]
[ No, Fist. You’ll forget everything.]
[ Two great years, five shit ones. Won’t miss ’em.]
Fist lost consciousness again. Waking so quickly had placed too much of a strain on his fragile self. Jack stayed on his knees. Blue and white flashes pulsed rhythmically behind him. The struggle had become entirely silent. There was no way of understanding who was winning. They’d both forgotten Jack and Fist.
At last the puppet was fully shut down. Jack ran for the exit, his shadow dancing shakily out in front of him like a monster from a half-remembered nightmare. The building was on lockdown. He had to smash his way through several doors with a fire extinguisher. At last he crashed into reception.
Yamata was lolling in an armchair. She had a gun in her hand and it was pointed at him.
Chapter 34
Jack stood frozen, ready to die. He was too surprised to be afraid, astonished that Yamata had moved so much more quickly than him. The gun’s nozzle waved backwards and forwards. Jack wondered if she was taunting him, then realised that she was barely conscious. He moved cautiously past her.
There was another woman lying flat on a sofa. She was also Yamata, and she was also armed. Jack stopped, amazed. Another door opened. The guard carried a third Yamata through it. She hung limply in his arms. When he saw Jack, he beamed, then looked sad.
‘I’m so sorry. These are tranquiliser guns. They’re going to try and stop you. If they can’t, they’ve got real guns too.’
The Yamata in the chair was twitching feebly, as if some higher force was trying but failing to control her. Her limbs shivered and she gasped, but she was not able to pull herself into any coherent movement. She dropped her gun.
The Yamata on the sofa seemed to have achieved greater self-control. She was slowly and carefully sitting up. Her head twitched left then right, scanning the room with insect focus. Her gun wavered towards Jack.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ she sneered. ‘Running away.’ The lips of the other two Yamatas trembled in time with her words. Her voice was a little slower than it should be. There was a loud pop and her hand shook. Jack jumped as a tranquilliser dart sang past him.
The guard laid the third Yamata down on the floor then hovered nervously, waiting for a cue from Jack. ‘I can get between you and the guns,’ he said, ‘but I think they’d just kill me.’
Jack edged across the reception area, keeping as far away from the armed Yamata as possible. ‘No,’ he told the guard. ‘Don’t involve yourself in this. It’s not your fight.’
The guard looked crushed. ‘But I’d so like to help,’ he replied.
‘Silence,’ ordered Jack. ‘Don’t move.’
The sofa Yamata was standing up, rising in a series of jerky stops and starts, as if supported by invisible wires. She tried to say ‘stop’, but the word caught in her mouth and would not finish. For a few seconds she rattled out ‘StoStoStoSto …’ – a hard, barbed-wire sound – then she slapped herself. Her head jerked round then back again, her mouth now firmly and tightly shut. The gun spat another dart. It bounced off the wall just by Jack.
When Jack reached the door, the sofa Yamata was taking her first steps. The Yamata on the armchair was leaning shakily down to reach her gun. The one on the floor was shivering gently, a prelude to functionality. The guard was in tears, but he had not moved and his weeping was silent. Jack pushed through the door and started running immediately. He was halfway to the exit gate when a bullet barked past, tearing at the concrete path a few metres away from him.
When he reached the gate, he looked back. The three Yamatas were at the door. One had toppled over and was flailing feebly at the ground. The second was awkwardly trying to help her up. The third was walking smoothly towards him, but couldn’t aim her weapon effectively.
‘We’ll hunt you all the way back to Docklands,’ she called out. ‘We’re meant to take you alive, but we’re not going to try too hard.’
A great flash of white light burst upwards behind them, but they didn’t seem to notice. The dome over the building’s central atrium had shattered. Harry’s voice roared out, taunting Yamata. It seemed that he was winning the battle. Jack wondered briefly what death had allowed him to become. Yamata had also been remade as something more than human. He turned and ran.
It was habit that pulled his eyes towards the Pantheon. Without Fist he was offweave, so he saw nothing. He thought of Grey’s broken raven, East’s radiant wink. The night sky was serene without them.
A tranquilliser dart skittered past his feet. Jack didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see how much more easily his pursuers were moving, how quickly they would catch up with him. He realised that he was crying. It was then that East called to him. Her voice was impossibly soft. He felt as if he’d stepped out of hell and into a commercial.
‘You’ve seen Grey,’ she accused coquettishly. ‘Behind my back. Perhaps I shouldn’t rescue you, after all.’
Jack couldn’t speak. Darts, then a couple of bullets, cracked past him. His breathing was ragged. Soon he’d have to stop and rest, regardless of the danger.
‘Make for the Earthside development,’ East commanded. ‘There’s a little surprise waiting for them. Oh, and …’
Something impossibly deft touched his mind.
[ What happened?] said Fist, his voice broken shards.
[East woke you. Can you get onweave and get me to Earthside?]
[ No. Shit, my vocal calibration’s fucked.]