Acid (35 page)

‘I have to go,’ Anna says. ‘
Do not set foot outside this room
.’

It’s a long, long day. Fiona brings me food and stands watch so I can use the bathroom, but she’s in too much of a hurry to chat, and I’m not in the mood for talking anyway. I sleep, pace the room, do sit-ups, and stare out of the window at the sea, which is the same iron-grey as the sky.

I don’t hear the general come back to his room until nearly twenty-three-hundred. By then, all the other agents who were on the day shift have returned and the corridor outside is silent. The general seems to take for ever getting ready for bed. It’s almost midnight before everything goes quiet. I make myself wait another
half-hour
, then pull on my ACID uniform and my helmet, gloves and boots. I switch off the light and, guided by the night-vision overlay on my visor, go to the door.

The very first thing I see when I open it is the ACID agent, uniformed but without his helmet, sitting on a chair outside the general’s door with a gun cradled in his lap. He glances over at me and nods, then looks away.

I punch him square on the side of the jaw, grabbing his collar with my other hand to stop his head smacking against the wall. His eyes roll up to the whites and he slides bonelessly off the chair. I lift him up by his armpits and drag him down the corridor to the bathroom, where I use the wrist and ankle restraints on his belt to cuff him before bundling him into one of the showers and closing the door. Hopefully, by the time he wakes up or someone finds him, I’ll have done what I need to do.

I go back down the corridor to the general’s room and turn on the light, hurriedly dimming it to its lowest setting so it won’t wake him. I want him to see my face when he wakes up, but once I lift my visor, I won’t have my helmet’s night-vision overlay to help me see any more.

The general’s laid on his back in the bed, eyes closed, snoring softly. His jumpsuit and equipment belt, with his gun still resting in its pouch, are hung up on the other side of the room, well out of his reach.

As I walk towards him, flat-footed and silent, I take my own gun off my belt and place my thumb on the
charge
switch. I half expect him to wake up, but he keeps snoring.

When I reach the bed, I look down at him for a moment. Hatred surges through me. How can he sleep so peacefully when he’s responsible for so much misery, so many deaths? He deserves never to sleep again.

Or to sleep for ever.

I jam the muzzle of the gun against his forehead and, as his eyes fly open, flip up the visor on my helmet so he can see my face.

‘Hello, Sean,’ I say, smiling at him. ‘What a long time it’s been.’

CHAPTER 63

I FLIP THE
charge switch back, powering the gun up. ‘Make one sound and you’re dead,’ I tell him. His eyes are huge, his mouth working soundlessly as he stares up at me.

‘You . . .’ he croaks.

I dig the gun a little harder into his forehead. ‘What did I just say?’

He closes his mouth with a snap.

‘Get up,’ I say.

He glances towards the door.

‘Your bodyguard had to take a shower,’ I say. ‘
Get up
.’

General Harvey sits up, pushes back his duvet and swings his legs to the floor. I see he’s fully dressed, wearing a black sweater, trousers and socks. I frown. Weird. Is he cold or something?

‘Sit down,’ I say, jerking my head at the chair by the window. He sits, and, switching the gun off and tucking it into my belt, I take the wrist and ankle restraints from my belt and shackle him to the chair, then take the gun out again and switch it back on.

‘Well,’ he says when I’ve finished. He seems to have regained his composure; his tone is bored, even sarcastic. ‘This is all a bit over the top, don’t you think, Jenna?’

‘Shut. Up.’ I make as if to squeeze the trigger and he closes his mouth. Reaching up, I turn on the vidfeed in my helmet. ‘So,’ I say. ‘How did it feel, sending someone to kill my parents?’

He looks at me. Blinks.

‘You can speak now,’ I say.

‘That – that was you,’ he says.

‘No it wasn’t,’ I say. ‘It was an ACID agent working under your orders.’

I see a tiny muscle twitch under his right eye. I wait for him to ask me how I know that, but he doesn’t.

‘What do you want from me?’ he says.

‘I want you to say you sent someone to kill them, and that you had ACID brainwash me to think that I did it.’

He gazes steadily at me.

‘
Say it
,’ I snarl, starting to press the trigger again.

‘Are you filming this?’ he says.

‘Yes.’

‘And what are you planning to do with it, may I ask?’

‘Upload it to the kommweb,’ I say.

‘You don’t have the facilities to do that here, do you?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I can do it when I get back.’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘Get back where?’

‘Nice try,’ I say. I aim the gun right at the centre of his forehead. ‘Spill it.’

He sniffs. ‘Well, if you insist.’ He clears his throat, then looks directly at me. ‘It was me who gave the order for your parents to be killed. You’re innocent.’ He raises his eyebrow again. ‘Will that do?’

I feel a surge of irritation. Why is he being so patronizing? Why isn’t he
scared
? ‘Yeah. I guess.’

‘So are you going to let me out of these cuffs?’

‘No.’ I tuck my gun back into my belt and head for the door.

‘Jenna . . .’ he calls as I’m about to step through it.

I stop, looking back over my shoulder at him.

‘If you’re going to find Sub-Commander Healey, there’s a little message I’d like you to pass on to her,’ he says.

As I frown, he smiles. ‘Tell her I know why she and that team of
agents
,’ he says, the sarcastic emphasis on the last word unmistakable, ‘are really here.’

‘What?’ I say.

‘I know about FREE, Jenna. I know what they’re trying to do.’

A flash of heat goes through me, followed by a wave of freezing cold. ‘No,’ I say. ‘No way.’

The general’s smile widens. ‘I’ve known about them for a while now, as it happens. Although seeing you here was quite a surprise.’

‘
How
do you know about them?’ I say.

The general shakes his head. ‘Questions, questions. What a pity I don’t feel inclined to answer them. All that matters is that everyone’s together in one place. And the fact that you’re here too is, quite frankly, a bonus.’

A chill trickles along my spine. ‘What do you mean?’ I say.

The general lifts his chin slightly. ‘There’s a fleet of
rotos
on its way, carrying pulse cannons and explosives,’ he says. ‘They’ll be here in just over an hour.’

I stare at him, horror rising inside me.

‘They’re going to destroy the prison,’ he says. ‘And they’re going to take you, the FREE team and that mother of yours with it.’

CHAPTER 64

‘YOU’RE TALKING CRAP,’
I say. ‘Why would you come here if you were going to destroy the place? Why would you put yourself at risk like that?’

The general doesn’t answer me, but as I stare at him, trying to figure it out, something goes click inside my head. ‘You couldn’t bear not being here to witness it with your own eyes, could you?’ I say. ‘You wanted to make absolutely
sure
that Anna and the others were killed, along with all the people you’ve locked up here.’ I give him a thin, humourless smile. ‘Only you were planning on watching it happen from a safe distance away, on board a roto.’

I start towards the door. ‘Jenna, wait! Why don’t we make a deal?’ he says, and for the first time, I hear a thread of panic in his voice.

I stop. ‘What?’

‘Wipe that footage you just took and uncuff me, and I’ll call them off.’

‘And then what will you do?’ I spit. ‘Lock us all up in the cells here for the rest of our lives? I don’t think so.’

I step through the door. ‘Jenna!’ the general calls after me.

Shit
, I think.
He’s gonna wake people up
. I spin on my heel and hurry back to his room. ‘So you agree, then?’ he says, looking half amused, half relieved. Ignoring him, I grab a shirt off a hanger on the back of the door and wind it into a loose rope, which I wrap around his head, gagging him. His face flushes and his eyes bulge as he makes throttled-sounding noises from behind it. There’s no way anyone’ll hear him now.

That’s why he was dressed
, I think as I sprint out into the lounge, which is empty, and make for the elevator.
He was going to get himself – and probably the other agents who were off-shift too – out of here while the FREE lot were on duty. Anna said there was still a roto over on the island
 . . .

I jab at the holoscreen beside the elevator to call it, then link Anna on my komm. ‘Which block are you on?’ I ask her, before she can say anything. ‘We’re in trouble.’

‘What do you mean?’ she says, her voice sharp. ‘Has the general realized you’re here?’

‘It’s much worse than that,’ I say. ‘Where are you?’

‘Three. But—’

‘Is one of the big boats still moored to the rig?’

‘Yes. Now please will you tell me what’s—’

The lift arrives. ‘I’m on my way,’ I tell her, and cut the link.
We need to get as many people onto the boat as possible
, I think as the lift takes me down to Three.
Take them over to the island, then get the inflatables while Felix powers up the roto. Even if we just get people onto other islands for now, at least they’ll be safe
.

Inside my head, I add up how many people we need
to
evacuate from the prison. Two hundred and forty inmates. Eight of us, plus the other eight agents. The general, and the maintenance staff – I don’t have a clue how many of them there are.

In other words, a lot.

And we have about an hour to do it. Maybe less.

When the elevator reaches Three I get out and sprint to the reinforced doors. I don’t know the keycode so I pound on the doors with the flats of both hands. A few seconds later they open to reveal Anna and Rav standing on the other side.

‘What the
hell
is going on?’ Anna says, removing her helmet.

I explain as quickly as I can. ‘We have to warn the others and start getting people out of their cells,’ I tell her, watching the colour drain from her face.

‘I’ll do it,’ Rav says, and he turns away, speaking rapidly into his komm.

‘Where’s the general now?’ Anna says as we wait long, agonizing moments, listening to Rav telling the others what’s happening, and giving them instructions.

‘In his room, cuffed to a chair and gagged,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry. He won’t escape. We have to get him out too, though.’

Anna nods. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t forget about him.’ She runs a hand through her hair, pulling it back off her face. ‘Christ, how did he find out? We’ve been so
careful
—’

‘Done,’ Rav says, turning back. His face looks pale too.

‘OK, let’s start getting people out,’ Anna says. ‘I think the best thing to do is keep up the pretence we’re ACID – it’ll confuse the inmates if we explain, and slow things down. Just tell them the prison’s being evacuated. Show them your guns if you have to – anything to get them moving. Jenna, you stay here with me. Rav, you warn the staff on the floor below ours. We’ll leave the general and the other agents until last.’

Rav heads to the elevator and, after she’s put her helmet back on, Anna and I run through the airlock and along the block. We start with the cells at the far end, unlocking the doors and ordering the frightened-looking inmates to their feet, before unshackling their wrists and ushering them out into the corridor. ‘Wait in line,’ I bark at them through my helmet. ‘Nobody moves until we say so.’ Seeing my gun, no one tries to protest, not even the ones who’ve always called out and screamed insults at us when we’ve been on patrol. They shuffle out into the corridor, a pitiful sight in their ragged, filthy clothes. A few people are so weak that others have to help them walk. The same rage rises inside me that I felt when I looked down at the general’s sleeping face, that I felt after Aysha died and I found Max, and I’m half tempted to suggest to Anna that we leave the general and the other team of agents behind.

But the general has to be made accountable for everything he’s done – all the years of oppression and corruption and terror he and ACID have subjected us to.
We
owe it to these people, and my parents, and Alex Fisher, and Max . . .

Have they got him out yet?
I think as we usher everyone towards the stairwell – there are too many for the elevator.
Please let him be OK
.

Before long, we start to catch up with the people being evacuated from the floor below. Behind us, more are coming down from the blocks above, and soon the stairwell is packed solid. ‘This isn’t going to work!’ Anna’s voice says in my ear. ‘There isn’t going to be room out on the gantry. We’ll have to get people to wait in the stairwell. Can you link the others and tell them?’

Holding up my gun to stop the people around me from jostling past, I do as she asks. Just as I finish, a guy tries to shove past me.

‘Stay where you are,’ I snarl at him. ‘
Everyone
stay where you are. D’you want to kill yourselves?’

I hold up the gun again and flip the charge switch back, a sick feeling in my stomach as I watch the people around me shrink away. I hate threatening the inmates when they’ve done nothing to deserve it, but if the evacuation becomes a free-for-all, everyone’ll get trampled.

It feels as if I wait there for ever. Calling up my wraparound, I see twenty minutes have already passed since I linked Anna to tell her what was happening. Panic threatens to rise inside me, and it’s an effort to push it back down.

And what was that noise? Roto blades? I listen more
carefully
, but all I hear is the mutters and coughs of the prisoners waiting on the stairs around me. Then my komm pings. ‘OK, start getting people out onto the gantry,’ Anna says.

As I push my way down there, someone grabs at me, almost pulling me over. I manage to grab hold of the rail just in time, and turn, holding the gun up. ‘Stop fucking about,’ I yell. ‘We’re trying to save your fucking lives here!’ Outside, it’s raining, drops of water blowing in through the doors that lead out onto the gantry. The inmates huddle together, reluctant to go out there. ‘Keep moving!’ I yell.