Cronix (23 page)

“Must have been the Muertes blew it up,” said the driver. “Priests are based here too. Fuck, they usually just blow up soul poles out in the woods. First time they've done something like this.”

“You really think it was Muertes?” said Oriente.

“Who else would do this? They’ve got a lot more support since all these Cronix started appearing, killing them kids and scaring the shit out of folk. I reckon we’ll be seeing more of this.”

Oriente thought of the voice he had heard just seconds before the explosion. He nodded.

One of the blood-caked victims in the middle of a group of suited and uniformed men looked familiar. Oriente worked his way a little closer and saw it was Hencock. The usually dapper DPP inspector was barely recognizable, his arm in a sling and his singed hair standing at a crazy angle. He was barking orders to his staff and briefing the police chief at the same time. Fortunately, he failed to spot Oriente: all the men’s heads abruptly swiveled in the opposite direction, towards a thunderous sound coming from beyond the bombed-out palace.

The noise grew louder, before a squad of mounted Rangers burst round the far corner of the palace at a gallop. Huge, bearded men on giant horses, they swept round the front of the building and reined in just in front of Hencock’s group. The DPP staffers looked at them with something resembling awe: individually, the Rangers were striking figures. In a posse, they were positively frightening. While the Eternals were generally obsessed with looking as good as possible, the cult of the Rangers was the exact opposite. Fitted with genetically adapted skin that a bullet could only graze, the Rangers emphasized their toughness, their apartness, with elaborate facial tattoos and scars, metal studs embedded in the skin like rivets, and haircuts ranging from Mohawks to waist-length dreads. Some were dressed entirely in the worn-leather clothes of bushmen, while one had a bison hide slung over his bare shoulders. They were all draped with weapons, from crossbows to bowie knives and high-powered rifles, their saddle bags bulging with ammo, supplies and bivouac kits.

There was an impromptu conference held on the gravel: the Rangers declined to dismount, but occasionally glanced at the cadavers that Hencock pointed to. Oriente could not hear what was being said, though the point was clear: the posse was to ride out immediately and hunt down the terrorists, who had no doubt fled back to their lair in the woods.

Oriente recognized one of the gargantuan riders as a man who had patrolled near Dorking. He had sometimes spent the night at Oriente’s cabin on Box Hill, sharing his victuals and swapping tales over a bottle of moonshine. He had been an electronic goods salesman in his first life, before the Exodus: centuries later he had returned to Earth as seven-foot tall killing machine, naturalist and horseman, with the strength of a Neanderthal and capable of killing a Cronix with his bare hands.

The briefing over, the head Ranger snapped a brief salute and wheeled his horse. The riders galloped off once to the south, into the woods.

“That’s more Rangers than I’ve ever seen in one place,” the driver said. “Gotta be the entire London force. God, they’re ugly buggers. Never seen ‘em ride out together like that. Usually they just patrol in ones and twos.”

Oriente looked back at Hencock and realized that this time, the chief inspector had spotted him. Their eyes locked and Oriente immediately excused himself from his companion. There was no pointing trying to avoid him now, so he walked over to the DPP chief.

“Oriente, what are you doing here?”

“I’m very sorry for your losses, inspector.” said Oriente. “Hope you’re not hurt badly.”

His display of concern slightly softened Hencock's scowl. “I’m fine. We lost thirteen men though, eight of them Saps. They won’t be coming back. They got Demarra too. He’s just animated airside.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I heard the explosion from the clinic. Jumped in a car and headed up here, wanted to see if I could help.”

“We have the situation under control,” said Hencock.

Oriente remembered the voice he had heard just seconds before the explosion:
They are coming,
it said. Was it talking about the bombers? He wanted to mention it to the inspector, but worried he might take him for a crazy man. Hell, he was starting to take himself for a crazy man.

Hencock beckoned one of his officers over. Oriente saw the inspector’s pale, manicured hands were crusted in dirt and blood.

“Slade, this is Luis Oriente. He’s a guest at Lambeth hospital and will be needing an escort back there now. Please make sure he gets back safe and sound.”

The officer nodded and put his hand on the hunter’s elbow. “This way please, sir.” Oriente nodded a goodbye to Hencock, who simply stared back and the hunter realized he had just been added to some new list in the inspector’s head.

***

It was around seven-thirty, on a bright plains morning. But that day, the birdsong Glenn listened to every morning was drowned out by the rumble of engines. Cars. Several of them. It was a sound he had not heard for days. Pulling back the curtain, he saw a small cavalcade draw up outside the farmhouse.

Glenn knew it must be Fitch. He dressed quickly and checked himself in the dresser mirror. He looked a mess, unshaven, hair sticking out at electrified angles. But there was no time to shave. He went to the stairs.

There were men depositing heavy Samsonite cases and military-looking hold-alls in the hall. The first two men Glenn saw were huge, muscle-bound bodyguards. One of them, a dark-haired man with a smudge of beard on his chin, had a rough-hewn slab of a face, like a wooden icon carved by myopic primitives equipped only with blunt instruments. The other was better looking, weathered and over-muscled like a football star just past his prime. Both men looked up almost at once and stared at Glenn. He raised a hand weakly in greeting and walked down, the men’s eyes fixed upon him like attack dogs.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Glenn.” It sounded more like a question than an introduction. The unnerving men did not speak, and Glenn withdrew his outstretched hand. To his great relief, Laura stepped through the front door, carrying a small bag and followed by other two men, the older one with dark, blank eyes, the other a skinny, pale man in his late thirties with receding brown hair and bad skin. Laura put down the bag and smiled her no-shit smile.

“I see you guys are getting to know each other already.” She pointed at the Easter Island head. “This is Kevin, and this is Rex,” she added, pointing at the blond. Glenn noticed the man had piercing blue eyes, like a husky. His demeanor suddenly changed. He shook Glenn by the hand.

“Hey Glenn, good to meet you. Wasn’t sure who you were for a moment there. No offence, buddy.”

Glenn smiled and shook his hand, relieved. “And this,” Laura continued, “is Doug, whose stellar performances you’ve been watching on TV…”

“Nice to meet you Glenn,” grunted the man. Once again, Glenn reflexively proffered his hand, though there was nothing in the man’s posture that invited physical contact. “Listen, we’ve just arrived from a very long trip. We’re going to go upstairs and freshen up, then you and I going to have to have a talk.” Glenn nodded automatically: the words were said without warmth, just a point being checked off a schedule that might stretch from here to infinity. The shark-eyed man picked up one of the hold–alls and headed upstairs, followed by Laura and the two muscle men.

Glenn found himself alone with the younger man, who grinned enthusiastically, revealing tiny square teeth set wide apart in receding pink gums.

“I’m Frank. Frank Stiney. Everyone calls me Stiney, don’t worry about the Frank. Welcome to the ant farm, Glenn.”

Glenn smiled, grateful for some human interaction after his brush with the cold ocean current that was Doug Fitch. “The ant farm?”

“Yeah, that’s what we call it. Don’t tell Doug though. Specially not now, he’s a grouch when he’s jet lagged, and right now his limbic system is still somewhere over the Azores. You ever have an ant farm when you were a kid?”

Glenn shook his head.

“Really?” said Stiney, with a look of disbelief. “Man, you really missed out. You must've had terrible parents.” He chuckled. “Well, you know what ant farms are, of course? Two panels of glass held a few inches apart, bunch of ants and tunnels and eggs and queens. It’s all about looking inside, seeing what those little crawly creatures are getting up to in the darkest recesses of their burrows. They think you can’t see them, but you can.”

“And why do you call this place the ant farm?” Glenn asked, none the wiser.

Stiney picked up two of the bags and headed for the stairs. “I guess that’s what Doug wants to talk to you about. Meanwhile, I’m gonna take an Ambien and get me the eight hours that Continental owes me. Nighty-night.” And he too disappeared upstairs.

***

Mayor Lupo was livid. A normally phlegmatic man, he found it easy to rub along with just about anyone, Eternal or Sapien, with his amiable brand of small town politics and his limited list of duties: overseeing the maintenance of historic buildings, glad-handing delegations from the outlying villages, and coordinating with the authorities on the Orbiters, who were generally happy to leave him to run his community. He had even eschewed the Eternals’ habitual obsession with beauty, and had ordered himself a more down-to-earth face, the sort of face you could trust. Part Honest Abe Lincoln, part Thomas More standing up to Henry VIII, and by god, it hadn’t been easy to get those genes to work together. He was constantly being mistaken for a Sapien, something he like to brag about when dealing with his mortal colleagues on the council.

He had never had to deal with a terrorist attack before, though. But that was only part of the reason he was quickly losing his temper as he stood in his office with Hencock of the DPP and his new police chief, a man named Aubrey Harrell. Lupo had taken an instant dislike to Harrell for his lazy, off-the-rack-Paul-Newman good looks, which the ugly mayor considered a tired cliché.

“So this is the picture of the suicide bomber?” Lupo said, frowning at the print-out the police chief had just given him. “Are you quite sure, Harrell? This is clearly an Eternal.”

“I'm aware of that, Mr Mayor. But that's the least of it. We ran a scan of the individual in the picture. Ken Wallinger's the name. He was supposed to have downloaded two months ago. Fact is, Ken Wallinger never made it. He's still up there, in the Orbiter.”

“What do you mean, he never made it?” Lupo felt like slapping the police chief for his crime-drama delivery. “Just give me the facts Harrell, for god's sake.”

Harrell was clearly annoyed. “What I mean, Mr Mayor, is that the Wallinger download was a misfire. He never made it. The creature caught in the CCTV footage at the bombing, the person you're looking at: that's a Cronix.”

“A Cronix suicide bomber destroyed the DPP headquarters?” The mayor laughed: on top of everything, his police chief was a half-wit. “That's impossible Harrell. These things can't think, they can't plan in advance. They don't...”

“It was delivered to the site in a car driven by Sapiens, sir,” cut in Harrell. “They must have strapped the explosive device on. I don't know how, but they trained it, or ...”

Harrell's voice tapered off and Lupo stared at him. You didn't train a Cronix any more than you trained a piranha. The mayor he shook his head, and turned to the more pressing matter, the reason he had summoned his security chiefs to his office in the first place: their Ranger super-unit had disappeared, vanished off the radar.

The last communication with the squadron’s commander, a giant called Lex Ofrex, had been a fleeting transmission, full of static and panic, the night before. Since then, total silence. Something was clearly going badly wrong, and Mayor Lupo was groping in the dark. That was not a feeling he relished. He leant on his desk and stared at his security chiefs.

“We’re going to have to call in central command. It's possible we have just lost every damn man capable of defending the city and we don’t know if there are any other bombers out there, just waiting to strike. I know, Harrell, you’ve mobilized the local militia, but we need professionals here, not a bunch of yokels and pampered Eternals whose only experience of combat is battling the poison ivy on St Paul's. We’re not letting London slip out of control, not on my watch, gentlemen.”

Harrell started to object: his forces were more than capable of hunting down a few renegade bombers. Lupo cut him off again, his voice rising.

“Goddamit, Harrell we are going to get more professionals. And if we need to bring in more Rangers, we’ll get them too. Hencock, I want you to get your people ready to put a large reanimation consignment together. How long will it take for twenty, thirty Ranger downloads? That should take care of the issue.”

Hencock pursed his lips and looked at the floor. “There might just be a problem with that, Mr Mayor.”

Lupo looked fit to burst. “What problem, for crying out loud?”

“You see, Mr Mayor, we’ve been having a few technical issues with the downloads recently,” Hencock said. He glanced at Harrell, as though seeking back-up. “Remember after the protest last month, when I briefed you a while back on the Cronix surplus?”

Lupo stared. “Go on.”