Hunter shook him roughly. ‘Come on. Focus. We need to know what’s going on.’
‘And I saw… I saw…’ Shavi looked at Sophie and fell silent at the expression in her eyes. ‘There is no more I can tell you. The Void is here. It is ready to do what its nature has prepared it to do. The rest is not important.’
Hunter turned to the others, his face grim. ‘We need to find the fifth quickly. Then get out of here and locate the Void… before it gets us first.’
‘Bloody hell! Can’t you say the name yet?’ Mallory said.
‘No!’ Sophie gripped his wrist so tightly that her nails raised blood.
It was clear to Mallory that she knew more than she was saying; he accepted her plea with a silent nod.
‘Leave me here,’ Shavi insisted. ‘This is no longer my business. It is the time of the new Five now. Only you can save… everything.’
‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ Mallory said, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice, ‘there’s only four of us.’
Shavi slumped into a cross-legged position, his back against the wall, and lapsed into unconsciousness once more. That was the way they left him, a faint transcendental smile on his face, like a saint about to be led to his death.
The four of them made their way towards the high-security wing. All the cells were silent, their once-noisy occupants either dead or stilled in the gloom. They came across the corpses of many guards in various states of butchery, but whatever had slaughtered them appeared long gone.
‘Is it me or is it colder in here?’ Mallory said.
Caitlin exhaled heavily; a white cloud bloomed from her lips. ‘It’s colder,’ she said.
Hunter drew his sword; Mallory followed suit, the flames of Llyrwyn painting the walls and ceiling a brilliant blue. Caitlin balanced an axe carefully in each hand; the light of the Morrigan began to come on in her eyes. Sophie followed behind, head slightly bowed, her hands at her sides.
They turned into another corridor and were shocked to see the walls glistening with a rime of frost; it was as if they’d stepped into a butcher’s meat locker. The lights here were eerily dimmer, and further on the corridor progressed into darkness.
‘Looks like this is it,’ Hunter said redundantly.
The words had barely left his lips when a security door crashed shut behind them. They started in shock, but it was too late: their exit had been cut off. As they turned back, another security door, this time barred like a jail cell, slid into place ahead of them.
Hunter took point as doors further along the corridor opened slowly. Reid was one of the first to emerge, but behind him Hunter could just make out the shadowy figures of Government officials, the Cabinet, senior advisors who had once been the captains of industry, the aristocrats, the financial sector’s biggest players.
‘Open the doors,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re here to protect you.’
Reid stood before them, carefully surveying Mallory, Caitlin and Sophie before moving his attention to Hunter. ‘Still only four of you?’
‘Reid, time is running out.’ Hunter attempted to moderate his voice against the urgency that was straining every fibre of his being. ‘The thing that’s behind the invasion is already here. We need to find it — destroy it — before it wipes everything out.’
‘I know exactly where it is.’
Hunter was struck dumb by the quiet confidence in Reid’s voice.
Reid motioned further down the corridor. On the edge of the crepuscular zone, Hunter saw the frozen door that he had noticed when freeing Mallory. ‘It’s been here for a long time, Mister Hunter.’
Realisation crept up on Hunter, but not comprehension or acceptance.
Mallory, a man who mistrusted all authority, grasped the situation instantly. ‘You’re working for it.’ His eyes blazed as brightly as his sword.
‘In a way.’
‘It’s controlling you,’ Caitlin ventured. ‘It’s a very seductive power-’
Reid silenced her with a simple shake of his head. ‘People who deal with power on a daily basis are pragmatic. That is the most vital quality for any political leader-’
‘What about honour?’ Mallory interrupted, his voice cold and hard. ‘Integrity, ethics?’
‘Unnecessary,’ Reid replied. ‘Oh, lovely, lovely qualities, of course. No one would disagree with that. But completely useless for the job of leadership. The traits you mentioned are useful for winning one great battle. But then you have to retire. Politics is about winning battles every day, little ones, mundane ones. You need to be pragmatic to retain power so that you can continue to do that.’
‘Politics,’ Mallory sneered. Behind him, Caitlin was checking the security door for a way out.
‘Oh, politics is the most important thing of all, because it’s about the way we live our lives. Every decision is a political decision. Most of us who work to keep things running can’t afford the luxury of fighting for a cause, like you, however worthy that cause might be. We need to make sure that we stay in power so that we continue to live our lives the right way.’
‘Which implies that your way is the right way.’ Hunter was trying to buy the others time to find a way to break free; it was a clumsy attempt, but Reid didn’t appear to mind.
‘It is the right way. It’s been proven by time. It’s been accepted by the majority of the people, and consequently it is, by definition, normal. Any opposing view is therefore aberrant, and something to be resisted.’ The most chilling aspect about Reid was his calm expression of his views. There was no hatred there, no contempt or anger, not even any superiority. He was like someone patiently explaining a scientific fact to the uneducated.
In a display of impotent anger, Mallory crashed his sword against the bars. The flames surged at the impact, but the blade left no mark. ‘You’re thinking you can use the Void to maintain power?’ he raged. ‘You’re insane! It’s Anti-Life. You can’t control it. It wants to wipe out us, the world, the universe!’
‘Not in the way you suggest.’ Reid summoned two guards and motioned for them to train their guns on Caitlin, who was clearly considering throwing one of her axes through the bars. She reluctantly lowered her weapon. ‘The Anti-Life it represents is not an absence of life. It’s more abstract than that. I suppose I could wallow in the depths of philosophy, but to put it simply, you have to consider what life actually means. As a concept. This is all profoundly pretentious, is it not?’ He gave a small laugh.
‘You’ve communicated with it?’ Hunter said incredulously.
‘I wouldn’t say we exactly sat down over beer and sandwiches, but yes, after it sent its advance guard to prepare the way, we found it a place to wait. And then we entered into negotiations.’ He shook his head. ‘If you knew what we went through, you would find that almost laughable. Negotiations. The Void, as you call it, is not a thing. It’s not a life form. It doesn’t exist in any physical way you or I could comprehend. But even so, it connected with us, and we with it. And… ’ He held out his hands and gave a small shrug that made Mallory even angrier.
‘So you gave in to it?’ Caitlin said.
‘You have to understand, we couldn’t win. That was never on the agenda. It’s too powerful. It’s like trying…’ He searched for the words to describe the magnitude of what he was attempting to say. ‘Like trying to punch the universe. No point even beginning to fight. So… pragmatism, you see. We found out that what it wanted wasn’t actually very far from what we wanted. Certainly it was something we could live with. And that’s when we decided on the most beneficial course of action. If you can’t win everything, you should at least try to win something.’
Hunter looked past Reid to the shadowy figures hovering in the background. ‘You betrayed the whole of humanity just to save yourselves?’
‘You’re missing the point,’ Reid said. ‘Our aims are the aims of society. What’s best for us is best for you. It’s the same. We did the right thing.’
Hunter could see that Reid completely believed what he was saying, and that all those waiting behind him believed it, too. Flickers of dread rose in his heart. They’d lost the fight the minute they started; the seeds of that defeat were buried in the heart of what they were fighting to save. The enemy — the true enemy — was all around them. But they didn’t look like the enemy, and didn’t believe they were the enemy. How could anyone fight that?