Context (56 page)

Armoured
flyers, growing larger by the second.

Come on.

Sprinting, pushing hard, Ro
headed away from her parked TDV, the automated tourist-station.

I’ll die without water
—

Rock shards splintering, cracking
beneath her boots. Dry air, already burning her throat. Sweat evaporating.

Broken shadow: a flyer overhead.

Running—

But it’s death if I stay.

Dodging around a polished
stone-tree, stones spraying as she skidded. Then she moved upslope, thighs
pumping, muscles beginning to burn.

Run.

Slipping, sliding in the scree.
But she had to get over the top: out of sight if the flyers landed.

Run harder.

The air was a hot hand pressed
against her face, covering nose and mouth. Getting harder to breathe—

Push now.

Then she was over the top, arcing
through the air, but her foot caught on something and she tucked her chin
against her sternum as she rolled by reflex, the clash/spray of tiny pebbles
beneath her back, and then she was on her feet and running once more.

Shadow.

No.

Shadow, enveloping her.

I will not let this happen.

Then the gut-wrenching roar, and
she opened her mouth to scream unheard inside the thunder, and the shock wave
smashed Ro to her knees.

No.

Hot blood trickling from her
nose.

Sound dying away ...

She looked up, got to one knee,
as the flyer landed perhaps twenty metres away, crushing a stunted mesquite tree
to oblivion, settling upon splintered stone.

Don’t give up.

Sprang to her feet, heading left,
as peripheral vision registered the gull door’s swinging open.

She ran.

Watch out!

Red light, a narrow beam, blasted
vertically downwards in front of her. Stones exploded, cutting her face as she
dodged, ran faster.

Two more vertical beams —

Second flyer.

—
as she zigzagged, but
then a sheet of light pulsed down before her.

Skidding to a halt.

Anne-Louise’s killers. Must be...

Turning—

But why am I their enemy?

Behind her, eight—no, nine—mirrorvisored
men jogged into position, grasers trained upon her.

I don’t want to die.

Ro’s breath heaved in and out of
her struggling lungs, salt sweat stung her eyes, as she crouched at bay,
looking for a way out.

Nothing.

They
weren’t just going to kill her. They were going to rape her first. Make it look
as if some drunken band of gang-bangers, rather than professionals, had done
her in.

They have grasers.

She knew their intentions when
the burliest of the men pulled off his mirrorvisor, laid it aside with his
weapon, and degaussed his jumpsuit’s magseam. And walked towards her.

‘Who are you?’ she said.

No answer.

The others kept their grasers
trained upon her. Mirror-bright: white sunlight reflecting off the transmission
ends. Prismatic colours.

Like stone, the big man’s face.

Professionals. Anne-Louise, what
were you
—
?

A heavy boot crashed into her
stomach.

Shocked, she fell, mouth wide
open like a landed fish. Struggling—

Didn‘t think he ‘d move so fast.

Fatal error.

If she could hang on while he
raped her, gain the surprise advantage later— Bad thinking. The big man was
sitting on her stomach, the hot weight of his muscular buttocks and thighs
pressing her down, and then his fist swung down towards her face.

No!

She blocked the first punch, but
the second got through, fast, and momentary blackness exploded as its power
bounced her head off the rock beneath her.

Bastard...

And then her attacker proceeded
to pummel her.

No—

Parrying what she could.

No...

Wordless pain.

Inferior position. Getting
weaker.

A distant sound, a muffled
twinge: the crunch of ribs going.

Then he switched intention, elbow
to her head—
impact
—and fluorescent flashes burst before her eyes.

He’s going to rape me when I’m
unconscious.

Or reduced to a whimpering,
brain-damaged animal—

I’m dead.

Couldn’t move her hands.

Bands of steel—

Another man.

The second attacker, huge as the
first, pinned her wrists against the ground—‘No!’—while the first smashed her
once more in the jaw
-fractured world, spinning—
and ripped her jumpsuit
open. Gauntleted hand upon her breast, squeezing hard until she thought it
might burst—

No!

Rough fingers inside her bikini
briefs ...

Lock.

Yes, that was it: the electronic
lock. In the doorway at Police HQ. And those other odd occasions scattered
through the years.

... tearing the delicate fabric
apart.

Remember the lock.

Reaching inside circuitry with
delicacy, unlike the hard, rough fingers forcing their way inside her—

No!

A different kind of flow: liquid,
tiny, incredibly complex.

I will NOT!

Building inside her, a
rage-crescendo.

NEVER!

And the explosion.

JUST... DIE!

Cacophony of blazing light; a
brilliance of crashing sound.

DIE, ALL OF YOU!

Roaring, coruscating blaze.

Die...

And nothing.

And
came awake, hurting.

Breathe...

Hard. Great mass, pressing down
upon her.

Groaning, she pushed dead weight
a fraction to one side, wriggled out from underneath. Stones scraped her back, and
her torn jumpsuit tangled.

Pushed herself up to hands and
knees.

And knelt there, swaying.

What happened?

Two dead men lying across broken
stones: her would-be rapist murderers, now bulky lifeless corpses. And—

Pain shot through her bruised and
fractured ribs.

Whimpering, still on hands and
knees, Ro moved to the one who had held her wrists. He lay face upwards—

God, no.

She retched, thin bile extruding
slowly to the ground.

What did I do?

Where his eyes had been, opaque
white jelly now lay in sockets of burnt and blackened meat. Liquefied eyes,
growing sticky in the desert heat.

The other corpse’s head was
twisted to one side, and a trickle, as of drying tears, had escaped down one
roasted cheek. Already, scout ants had climbed the salty trail, antennae waving
as they settled into their unexpected feast.

Sweet
Jesus.

Crawling backwards, away from the
men she had destroyed.

Danger... ?