The sweathead appeared, moving like a nightmare made of sticks and dirty blankets. It howled words that could have been ‘stopped us completing our quota!’, then staggered down the hall towards him, kicking the luggage out of the way. Its broken eye leaked dark, poisoned blood. Yellow teeth showed through a tear in its cheek. Its shattered voice carved through the air like a siren.
Jack stood poised, ready to bring the fire extinguisher down. The sweathead closed on him, then let itself sink to the ground, before springing up to fly towards him. Its long limbs were spiderlike in the air, its knife carving in like a stinger, its rock swinging in like a claw.
Jack was barely able to bring the fire extinguisher down in time. It smashed against a ruined face. The knife took Jack in the forearm and he felt a tearing pain. The sweathead smashed against the wall and half-fell. It turned its broken face towards Jack. He swung the fire extinguisher again. It ducked away, and the extinguisher smashed against the wall. The knife whipped across Jack’s knuckles. Pain flashed, making him stagger and almost drop his weapon.
‘QUOTA!’ the sweathead screamed. Its good eye was clouded with white. Reeking spittle stung Jack’s face. He took a firmer grip on the fire extinguisher as it sprang towards him again, swinging against his attacker’s blind side. It hit his opponent’s head with a dull clang. Scrabbling for purchase, the sweathead fell to the floor. Jack smashed the fire extinguisher down hard, crushing its chest. It screamed and lashed out with the knife, slicing Jack’s lower thigh. Jack fell to his knees, bringing the extinguisher down one last time. The full weight of it hit the sweathead’s neck, snapping its head too far to one side. Its scream became a choking gurgle and died away.
A second to savour the victory, to feel for the pain of his wounds, to hope that he wasn’t too badly hurt; to realise what he’d just done. Sick disgust filled him, but only for a moment. Adrenaline ebbed and all darkened. Vision flickered for one last moment. There was a small figure, moving down the hallway towards him. ‘Fist?’ he said. But that was impossible. And then, despairing, he passed out.
Chapter 36
Jack was lying somewhere soft. He could hear running water. His face was covered, his own breath warm against it. His arms were crossed and held tight against his chest. He was swaddled in blankets. He remembered a small figure, half-glimpsed at the end of a passage. He wriggled. Pain danced between his ribs, across his face and hands. There was a soft thudding in his head. Perhaps he’d been captured by one of Kingdom’s agents. Soft voices whispered. There were two or three people talking. Jack risked movement. He carefully brought one arm up to pull the blanket away from his head. The speakers were arguing about him.
‘We’ve got to look after him.’
‘We can’t keep him.’
There was a pause.
‘Well, he’s here for now anyway.’
The first voice was clear and high-pitched, a far more natural version of Fist’s. The second had an uncertain huskiness to it. Jack opened his eyes and saw a metal wall. Someone giggled next to him, then prodded him in the small of his back and said, ‘Sleepyhead!’ It was unmistakably the voice of a very young girl. ‘He’s waking up,’ she called to the others. They must be children too – an older boy and another girl. Jack wondered at the adults that would leave them alone with a captive. He rolled over. A blanket decorated with a brightly smiling cartoon mouse slid off him. He was lying on a mattress, one of several pushed together. A small, dark-haired girl sat next to him, wearing a ragged dress and a shiny blue anorak. She held a cuddly rabbit and was tugging absent-mindedly at one of its ears.
‘Get back, Lyssa,’ said the husky voice. There was a table at the other end of the room. The older boy and the other girl were sitting at it. Both were just as shabbily dressed. The wall behind them was covered with bright, dynamic designs; paintings of different parts of Homelands. Some of the buildings had names scrawled across them – Chuigushou Mall, Glass Vision Tower, The Shard, The Acorn, Violin Square.
‘You won’t hurt us, will you?’ said Lyssa. ‘You killed the wicked men.’ She peered down at her bunny, pulling its nose to left and right as she spoke. ‘Wicked, wicked, wicked men.’ She looked up again, her gaze surprisingly confident. ‘You’re a ghost, aren’t you? Like us?’
‘None of us are ghosts,’ said the boy grumpily.
‘Then how come no one can see us? Not even the lions and tigers and bears?’
‘Quiet, Lyssa,’ cautioned the girl at the table. ‘Don’t tell him secrets.’
‘It’s not secret,’ said Lyssa, her head turned over her shoulder. ‘He knows,’ she concluded, whispering conspiratorially to her bunny.
‘Who are you all?’ asked Jack. Lyssa was now deep in conversation with her cuddly toy. The girl from the table came over and sat down, putting a protective arm around her. She looked at the boy, who nodded.
‘I’m Ato,’ she said brightly, ‘and this is Fred.’
‘Where are we?’
‘Deep underground, in Station’s skin,’ Fred replied. ‘About an hour’s walk from where Ato found you. We’re safe. All this’ – he waved at the walls – ‘insulates us from anyone outside.’
‘No sound scanners, no body heat cameras, nothing,’ said Ato.
‘That’s pretty impressive,’ said Jack. ‘You built this yourselves?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ scolded Lyssa. ‘Our mummies and daddies did. And Grandpa helped them.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘When the police came and took them, they left this room for us to be safe in. And they took us offweave and made us all invisible.’
‘How did they do that?’
‘Secrets from Grandpa,’ whispered Lyssa. ‘He knew that InSec were coming.’
‘For your parents?’
‘Yes.’
Realisation struck Jack. The terrorists must have tried to protect their children from InSec, and in doing so made phantoms of them.
‘Why did InSec come for them?’ wondered Jack.
‘They were fighting for peace,’ said Fred, firmly. ‘For a better world.’
Jack wondered how the parents’ weavehack worked. It must be very effective – if InSec had been able to perceive the children, they’d have been taken into care. He wondered whether Lestak could arrange for them to be looked after; if she’d even let him get a word in edgeways. Perhaps she might listen when he told her about Kingdom.
He sat up.
‘No, don’t!’ snapped Ato.
Pain spiked in his head. The room spun.
‘You’re still not better,’ she told him. ‘Lie down.’
He felt the soft pressure of her hands on his shoulders, pushing him down. It was a relief to sink back on to the mattress.
‘We’ll look after you. And anyway, you can’t go anywhere just now. They’re looking for you upstairs.’ There was a confident finality to her voice. She was talking as much to Fred as to Jack.
Jack felt a soft scratching in his mind. Fist was stirring. An indicator pinged. The puppet’s core consciousness would start rebooting in an hour or so. Perhaps it would be best to sleep until then. He felt that he could trust the children not to betray him. Exhaustion rolled over him like a dark wave, and he let himself fall into it.
He dreamed that he was Corazon again. Her assassin pursued him through sleep. Sometimes there was one Yamata, shooting at him through a keyhole. Sometimes many limped behind him, never quite catching him, never slowing down. At one point, he found himself in the middle of a silent, moonlit piazza. Bone-white stone surrounded him. There was no one else there, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop running.
When he awoke, he barely felt rested. The room was quiet. Lyssa was sitting by the table, playing with her bunny. Fred stood at the rear wall, sketching on it with a marker pen, roughing out a new building for the Homelands mural. Neither noticed he’d woken. There was no sign of Ato.