The Abyss Beyond Dreams Page 35

  Bethaneve sent out some instructions, sensing them dissipate across the cells. Several mod-birds fell from the sky, striking rooftops with nasty thuds – dead long before they landed. The remaining mod-birds started to flap hurriedly away from the area, withdrawn by their owners.

  *

  Excitement and animosity began to build in the crowd waiting outside the barricades – a psychic wave that washed across the station and began to unnerve the placid neuts. As they were led out of the cattle trucks and into the boarded-up wagons, they began to buck about, anxious to escape this new and frightening environment. Handlers were hard pressed to cope with them.

  ‘Is that a truck of mod-apes?’ Bethaneve asked in surprise.

  Cell members (level twenty-eight) were close to the train, sharing their perception. Sure enough, two of the trucks seemed to be full of mod-apes.

  ‘Those stables are greedy,’ Slvasta murmured.

  ‘More like desperate,’ Coulan said.

  Jeers rippled across the protesters jamming the streets outside the station as they picked up on the shared ex-sight. The new surge of antipathy made several neuts rear up and run frantically. Stable Guild workers ran after them, trying to calm the terrified animals.

  An insidious teekay began to open the locks on the cattle wagons. The neuts crammed inside, already frantic and oversensitive to the psychic storm boiling from the hostile crowd, burst out and stampeded across the station’s marshalling yard. Amid the chaos, more truck locks were opened. The mod-apes broke free. The humans in the marshalling yard yelled wildly as the tide of alien animals raced about chaotically, hooves kicking at anybody in the way. Guild workers tried to halt the mod-apes that were rampaging amid the neuts, but their ’path orders had no effect.

  ‘Oh crud,’ Slvasta gulped. ‘Did we do that? Did we set them free?’

  ‘We didn’t plan it,’ Bethaneve said. ‘But it looked organized to me.’

  ‘One of the cells innovating, maybe?’ Javier said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Irrelevant right now,’ Slvasta said. He was standing a little way up Cranwich Road, surrounded by the crowd. The atmosphere had begun to change from confident aggression to unease. A hundred metres away, the sheriffs on the barricade across Knole Street, which ran along the side of the station, were turning round nervously. Behind them, one of the tall cast-iron gates leading to the marshalling yard began to shake as neuts hurled themselves at it. Individually, a neut was a modest animal without a great deal of power, but now there were hundreds of them hurtling along, goaded by their own fear. Herd instinct, enhanced by a shared crude psychic distress, made the flight imperative utterly dominant. The impact as they flung themselves heedlessly at the gate was like a battering ram. Then a couple of hulking mod-apes hit the gate.

  Slvasta was perceiving it with his own ex-sight, so there was no mistaking the force and coherence of the telepathic orders which frantic Stable Guild members were thrusting into the minds of the mod-apes to stop. Yet they made no difference.

  The gates burst open. Hundreds of panicked frenzied neuts burst out into Knole Street and began to run for freedom.

  ‘That’s wrong,’ Slvasta whispered. ‘Why can’t the wranglers get control of them . . . ?’ Bad memories began to percolate into his conscious thoughts.

  Anxiety started to flare through the crowd around Slvasta. Over by the barriers, the sheriffs were trying to combine their teekay before the onrush of hundreds of crazed neuts bearing down on them. The neuts at the front of the rampaging pack were felled as the sheriffs lost discipline and sent spikes of teekay into the animals’ brains, shredding the neural cells. But it took time, and the corpses were immediately swarmed by the rest of the inflamed herd. Several sheriffs broke and sprinted for the relative safety of the buildings on either side of the road.

  ‘Slvasta, you need to move,’ Javier said.

  The crowd around him seemed to be sharing that opinion. People were turning, pressing towards the buildings lining the streets that had been locked up against trouble since first thing that morning. Teekay and boots thumped into locks on sturdy wooden doors. The equally frantic residents and storekeepers inside used their strength and teekay to keep them out.

  Slvasta turned and let the alarmed crowd push him along. Once he felt the flow of bodies surging round him, he started to push in the same direction as those heading back along Cranwich Road. The road opened into some sort of square ahead, he remembered; the pressure would ease off and the crowd could disperse down half a dozen alleys and lanes that led away from it.

  Behind him, the neuts and mod-apes reached the abandoned barricades. Their weight and speed sent the metal and wood rails crashing to the ground, and hooves sped over them. Slvasta was concentrating on running with the crowd – he could sense the street opening into the small square ahead while flashes of shared ex-sight showed him the torrent of neuts and mod-apes pouring along Knole Street. People were clinging to windowsills to get above them; some had even scaled iron lamp posts, hanging on for dear life as the animals thundered past underneath. He perceived one man drop, to be pummelled under the hooves.

  ‘Oh, that’s all we need,’ Bethaneve declared.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Coulan asked.

  ‘The bastard Meor regiment. They’re coming out of the government buildings. Must have been waiting since last night. Our people missed that.’

  ‘What in Uracus do they think they’re going to do?’ Javier asked.

  ‘If the officers are smart, they’ll take out the neuts and mod-apes,’ Coulan said.

  ‘Those bastards are more likely to kill people for running away,’ Javier said.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if they’re well organized,’ Bethaneve said. ‘And there are more coming out of the station.’

  ‘Too late!’

  The front of the stampede reached the junction of Cranwich Road. ‘Oh, crudding Uracus!’ Slvasta exclaimed. Over half of the neuts and seemingly most of the mod-apes peeled away to charge along Cranwich Road. The screaming began all around him – high-pitched shrieks and bass roars combining into a wall of sound that hammered against his brain, amplifying the primeval fear that was rising all along the road. The last dregs of civility shattered in that single moment. The crowd became a mob, with everyone looking out for themselves, no matter what the cost.

  Slvasta came hurtling out of Cranwich Road into Eynsham Square, a pleasant cobbled area with tall blue-leafed arctan trees lining the small central garden. Stalls with striped canvas canopies defending food and clothes from the sun were clustered together along one side, the vendors fleeing away down side lanes along with the mob.

  Then Slvasta saw them, pressed up against the railings round the garden not twenty metres ahead. ‘No,’ he yelled, his mind emitting a burst of horror. Instantly, Bethaneve, Javier and Coulan were querying him, anxious for his personal safety. The image that blasted into his eyes flashed out, shared openly by his distraught mind, imbued with a terrible flood of urgency and fright.

  *

  Josanne’s Hill junior school had begun that Tuesday like any other. Most of its middle-class parents had picked up on the expected trouble growing round Doncastor station, but the school was eight streets away. Safe enough, surely? Besides, they all had to work. Protesting was all very well for the feckless louts and union militants who lived by sponging off the edge of society, but those who had to earn money to support their family couldn’t afford to take a day off. They dropped their children off at the school gates at eight thirty, as they did every day, kissed them goodbye, then went off, gossiping with other parents as they went.

  At ten o’clock, as they did every Tuesday without fail, Josanne’s Hill’s full contingent of eight-year-olds, all thirty-two of them, were led out of the school grounds by seven harried teachers for their weekly swimming lesson at the lido pool on Plaxtol Street, an eleven-minute walk away, taking them directly through Eynsham Square. This Tuesday, the walk took a lot longer, with the teachers
having to wind their way round the clutter of protesters assembling in the streets around the station. It was all good-natured then, but the children picked up on the excitement, and their teachers had to keep special watch to make sure everyone stuck together. By the time they eventually made it into the square, the neuts had broken loose.

  The terrified mob moved like a solid wavefront. Nobody cared that there were children in the way. The teachers gathered their charges together, sheltering them with teekay and arms hugging close. They were clumped against the railings around the garden, with several children crying as they were repeatedly pummelled against the thick trunk of an arctan tree.

  Slvasta needed all of his strength just to stop, his strongest teekay shell forcing people to surge round him. He was three metres away from the schoolchildren. The braying cries of the neuts were rising above the human screams as the stampede approached the square.

  ‘They’re going to smash straight into the kids,’ Slvasta told his friends. ‘Where’s the Meor regiment?’

  ‘The nearest squad to you is in Arlington Lane,’ Bethaneve ’pathed. ‘They’ll never reach you in time.’

  Slvasta turned and faced the end of Cranwich Road. It was barely visible beyond the frantic charging bodies. Curses and threats were hurled at him as people lurched past. He drew the revolver he’d been carrying – so carefully obscured by a psychic fuzz. It was the one he’d taken from the bunker below the Joint Regimental Council office, a world and a life ago. There were five bullets in the chamber, another dozen in his inside pocket. His teekay clicked the safety off. He took a breath. Steadied himself.

  He was aware of Bethaneve’s distant ’path producing a string of instructions; they were passed along the convoluted command channels of the cells. Then someone else was standing beside him, a man in his fifties in a shabby jacket, struggling against the throng of people desperate to escape the square.

  ‘Kolan,’ he said, with a thick Siegen county accent.

  ‘Slvasta. Thanks for this.’

  ‘No worries, pal. We’ll not let them get the kiddies, eh?’

  Slvasta just had time to say, ‘Right,’ when a frightened young woman came to stand on his other side. She was trembling as her surprisingly strong teekay pushed running people away.

  ‘Teekay spike directly into their brains,’ Slvasta told them.

  Another youthful lad joined them. Slvasta almost laughed. Four people standing firm against an onslaught. It was suicide.

  ‘There are more comrades in the square,’ Bethaneve ’pathed. ‘I’m trying to get orders out. They’ll help.’

  The mob was thinning out fast. It was mostly the elderly now, wheezing as they half-limped, half-staggered along, crying with fright as they tried to stay ahead of the feverish neuts hot on their heels.

  Then there were no more humans, and the neuts came thundering out of Cranwich Road. Slvasta hadn’t known the stupid creatures could actually move that fast. He stared at the one directly ahead, and lashed out with his teekay. It died instantly as his invisible blade sliced into the brain, tumbling across the cobbles and tripping two other neuts as it went. He stabbed out again, and again. The cell comrades standing by him were doing the same. He perceived similar spears of teekay reaching out from other places in the square, directed at the neuts.

  One cell was standing just at the edge of Cranwich Road when the first half-dozen mod-apes charged out. The big shambling beasts managed to protect themselves from the teekay assaults with basic shells, snarling in rage as they did. ’Pathed orders to stop had no effect on them at all. And Slvasta’s memory was all too horribly clear on that. ‘Faller!’ he warned Bethaneve. ‘There’s a Faller controlling them.’ He raised the pistol, forcing himself not to hurry. Slain neuts were plummeting to the ground, peeling away from the thundering herd. But the mod-apes kept coming. Slvasta fired.

  The noise of the shot overrode every other sound in the square. For a second, there seemed to be nothing but silence. Then the yelling and screaming redoubled. One of the bulky mod-apes crashed to the ground, blood pouring from the fatal head wound. Slvasta moved his arm, lining up on the next . . .

  He fired. Again. Again.

  Around the square, people pelting into the relative safety of the lanes began to slow, glancing back. The tiny band of stalwarts standing resolutely in front of the sobbing, wailing children instigated a great deal of shame. Slvasta’s one arm was raised to shoot with calm accuracy. A mod-ape fell with every bullet. Neuts were collapsing from teekay strikes that were coming from all directions. As people stopped fleeing, they began to add their own mental power to the strikes.

  ‘Can anyone see the Faller?’ Javier asked.

  ‘We don’t know who it is,’ Coulan ’pathed urgently.

  ‘They’re here for a reason,’ Slvasta told them. His teekay was slapping fresh rounds into the pistol. ‘This is the perfect cover to snatch a few people.’

  ‘So what are we looking for?’ Bethaneve asked. ‘I’ve still got contact with most of our cells.’

  ‘They’re strong,’ Slvasta said as he lined up the pistol again. And two mod-apes were slavering as they rushed him, powerful hands raised to grab and claw. He fired. A perfect shot, catching the lead one in the centre of its head. The back of its skull blew off; gore and blood exploded out.

  Nine cell members across the square combined their teekay and penetrated the remaining mod-ape’s crude shell, decimating its brain. The bulky creature toppled to the ground, momentum skidding it along for several metres. It scrunched to a halt a metre short of Slvasta and the other defenders.

  Slvasta took a deep breath, trying to stop the shakes. ‘The Faller will be carrying someone away.’ He aimed at a rampaging neut. Fired. Two bullet left in the chamber, two in his jacket pocket.

  ‘They’ll be unconscious,’ Coulan added, ‘so it’ll look like they’re trying to help a friend.’

  ‘Tell our comrades to search for that,’ Javier said. ‘And quick.’

  Slvasta shot another neut as he sensed Bethaneve’s frantic instruction spreading across the cells amid the agitated crowds. In Eynsham Square, the stampede had now stalled. People were turning round and emerging from the side roads, directing teekay strikes at the petrified animals that mewled in bewilderment as they jostled about. They fell in silence, adding to the distress of those remaining.

  Humans closed in on them from all directions, seeking retaliation. The mods that lay dead were kicked at, stomped on, spat at, had their softer flesh ripped by vengeful teekay twists.

  The scene vanished behind a deluge of images dispatched by every cell member in the area as they hunted around for people being carried away by others. There were many: men hauling women and children along, their faces distraught, pleading, urging . . .

  ‘Look for someone who doesn’t care about who they’re taking,’ Slvasta urged. For a second the montage was overwhelmed by the vision of Quanda’s face, beautiful and terrible, her mouth parted in a wide victorious smile as she loomed over him.

  ‘There!’ Coulan exclaimed.

  Slvasta focused on the sight gifted by a comrade from a cell at the far end of Cranwich Road, where a relative peace had fallen. People who had leapt out of the way of the stampede were beginning to re-emerge onto the street, as were the sheriffs. At the junction was a big thickset man in late middle age wearing a filthy tweed jacket and stained brown trousers. He carried the limp form of a teenage boy over his shoulder. His walk was methodical, inexorable, as evidenced by the determined expression on his squat face. One hand only had two fingers.

  ‘Got to be him,’ Slvasta breathed.

  ‘Challenge him,’ Bethaneve sent to the nervous cell member who was watching from a safe distance.

  The possible Faller was going round the corner into Knole Street and heading away from the station and the sheepish sheriffs. In all the turmoil no one else was paying him the slightest attention.

  ‘Faller,’ the cell member said in a feeble voice. Nobody even hear
d her, let alone paid attention.

  ‘Back her up,’ Bethaneve’s instruction went cascading through their erratic communication web between cells.

  ‘Faller.’ This time the cell member sounded a little more confident. She raised a hand and pointed. ‘Faller!’

  The call was taken up by other cell members along Knole Street.

  ‘You, hey, you!’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘Faller! He’s a Faller.’

  ‘Stop him.’

  ‘Sheriff, sheriffs! Do something.’

  Now people were starting to look. The Faller – if that’s what he was – had quickened his pace.

  A sheriff stepped towards him. ‘Just a moment, you.’

  He was ignored.

  The sheriff was only five metres away now, his arm held up, palm outwards as if he was directing traffic. ‘Right, you—’

  The Faller flung the unconscious teenager he was carrying right at the sheriff, who collapsed under the impact, crashing to the pavement. He screamed in pain. The Faller started running, moving incredibly fast for a man his size and age.

  It seemed as if everyone on Knole Street was shouting. A cacophony of alarm and fear that was swiftly supplanted by shrill sheriffs’ whistles, calling for help. Some people tried to stop the Faller, lashing out with teekay. Others – stronger, confident men – attempted to tackle him physically. They were smashed aside as if they were rag dolls.

  Then a couple of Meor regiment squads raced into Knole Street.

  ‘Get down,’ their officers bellowed – an order backed up by shrill ’path shouts. The soldiers brought up their carbines. Everyone dropped to the ground, parents clawing at their children, forcing them onto the cobbles; even the sheriffs ducked down. The only person moving was the Faller, pounding along at an inhuman speed, still looking directly ahead as if he hadn’t noticed what was happening. Even treading on cowering bodies as he went.