Hex (24 page)

“Raven? You OK?” he asked, with concern.

“I'm fine,” Raven insisted. She glared at him, but didn't pull away, admitting to herself, if not to her companions, that she lacked the strength to support herself anymore. She had been running on adrenaline and determination; now she had only the determination left. “We've got to get out of here soon,” she told Wraith. “I won't be able to hold control over the computer much longer and I don't want to trigger the system wipe until we're safely out of the lab.”

•  •  •

Dr. Kalden glanced angrily around the control room as he entered, and suddenly stopped dead. Behind him he heard a shocked gasp, but his consuming emotion was anger. Splashed across the row of security monitors were transmissions from vidchannels, their logos identifying them to be a broad section of the media. All of them were showing information so classified that only senior CPS officials had access to it.

“Our security has been compromised,” he said in an icy voice.

“We'll be crucified,” one of the scientists moaned and Kalden shot him a steely glare.

“This experimentation was authorized at the highest level,” he stated. “If those gutter rats intend to accomplish anything by this, they are gravely mistaken.” He studied the computer monitor for a few moments, then gestured to one of his operatives. “Shut down this transmission and get this system back under control. I want the lab's defenses back online now.”

The operative seated himself at the terminal and his fingers sped rapidly over the keypad. After a few moments he began to frown.

“The system's acting up,” he informed Kalden. “It's not letting me back in.”

“She'll have put a block up,” Kalden said impatiently. “Break it.”

The operative returned to the keypad, watched intently by Kalden, and after a few minutes the images on the monitors winked out.

“I've shut down the transmission, sir,” the man said with relief. “And I'm trying to regain control of the security system.”

“Can you find out where the intruders are?” one of the guards asked. “If we know that we won't need the defenses—we can go and get them personally.”

It was a while before the operative could persuade the computer system to provide him with an answer. Eventually he stated:

“They're on the roof.”

“Get after them,” Kalden ordered fiercely. “Don't let them leave this complex! That girl's been in this system—if she's allowed to escape she could do untold amounts of damage to our research.”

As the security people raced after the gangers, one of the scientists turned to speak to Kalden:

“What if they escape, sir?” he asked nervously. “The media exposure alone . . .”

“There are ways to minimize this damage,” Kalden said, cutting him off. “The media won't find anything here to use against us. I've taken precautions against that.”

•  •  •

Wraith raced across the flat roof of the laboratory, still carrying the unconscious form of Revenge and closely followed by Ali and Luciel. Raven and Kez were a little behind them, Raven grudgingly accepting Kez's aid. Jeeva and Finn brought up the rear, guns ready for any sign of pursuit. The flitter was waiting for them, and as they approached, the doors hissed open at Raven's command. Only Kez noticed her stagger as they did so.

Jeeva and Finn covered the area while Wraith placed Revenge as gently as he could in the back of the vehicle. He hurried Ali and Lucil in after her, retrieving his gun, and turned back to the others just as a shout rang out from across the roof.

“Guards!” warned Jeeva, and Finn spoke simultaneously:

“They've found us.”

“I'm losing control of the system,” Raven warned and the gangers ducked as the guards fired at them.

“Into the flitter!” Wraith ordered and Finn and Jeeva piled into the back as Raven took the driver's seat and Kez slid in beside her. Wraith fired one last volley at the guards, who were much closer now, before hurling himself inside, beside Finn. The doors hissed shut and the flitter took off into the air. Raven was using manual controls instead of her link with the machine, but even so the flitter climbed swiftly, out of the range of the guns and rifles.

“We're out of range,” Finn stated and Ali breathed a sigh of relief. Two seconds later there was a flash of light and searchlights came to life all over the facility. There was the boom of an automatic gun and the flitter banked to avoid the fire.

“The CPS is in control of the computer system again,” Wraith deduced. “Raven, kill it.”

Kez turned to look at Raven as her eyes defocused, glazing over as she renewed her link with the lab's computer system. The searchlights went dead and the gun was silenced. Raven's eyes rolled up into her head and she slumped forward over the control panel, as the flitter went into a screaming dive.

“Raven!” Wraith yelled and Ali screamed piercingly. Kez lunged at the controls over Raven's body and forced the flitter back on course. He was shaking with tension as he wrestled with the controls and climbed over Raven to pilot the flitter from the driver's seat.

“Can you handle it, kid?” Jeeva asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“What's wrong with Raven?” Ali demanded, an edge of hysteria in her voice.

“She's still breathing,” Kez assured her. “She must have knocked herself out shorting out that system.”

“No sign of pursuit,” Finn reported, from his vantage point at the back of the flitter.

“I think we're clear,” Wraith responded. “Kez, what are you doing?”

“I can't pilot this thing without lights!” the boy replied angrily. “I'm not Raven. And if the Seccies caught us without lights on the road we'd be pulled over for sure.”

“Stay chill,” Jeeva told him. “Keep to the speed limit, follow the road. No one knows we were the ones who broke into that lab. There's no alert out yet.”

“This place will be swarming with reporters in under an hour,” Ali said authoritatively, losing a little of her tension. “We should worry about them as much as the Seccies, if we don't want to be caught on camera.”

“When the media gets here Kalden will have a lot of explaining to do,” Luciel said with satisfaction.

“I hope so,” Wraith was beginning, when Finn gave a yell.

“Pursuit!” he warned. “Get off the road!”

Kez pulled the flitter aside, bringing it to a halt with a jerk and turning off the lights. It hovered there as the cause of Finn's warning became visible to the rest of them. A group of flitters with CPS symbols emblazoned on their side sped past them, not halting at all. In moments they were out of sight, but Ali pointed downward at more vehicles. Skimmers were on the road below them, heading away from the lab at high speed.

“The scientists,” Luciel said softly.

“Rats deserting a sinking ship,” Ali added.

“I don't like this.” Wraith's voice was grim as he watched the lights fade into the distance.

“I guess they don't want to be here when the media arrive either,” Kez said, craning back to look in the direction of the laboratory.

It was out of sight, no lights left to show them its location. But all six watched apprehensively, infected by Wraith's foreboding.

And then they saw it. The light of the fireball reached them before the sonic boom of the explosion. Clouds of smoke and fire boiled into the sky, throwing flaming debris high into the air. Then the shockwave hit them and the flitter rocked with the air disturbance as the ground far below shook. Wraith clenched his fists and Ali hid her head in Luciel's shoulder but no one spoke as Kez guided the flitter back over the road, heading back to London while the fireball lit the sky behind them.

The vidscreen was on. It
had been on constantly for the past three days since their escape from the lab. Ali sat on the floor of the squat, in front of the battered unit, not looking at any of the others. Barely a word had been spoken since they had arrived back in London, after the long, weary night, and negotiated with the Countess for the use of one of her properties. It was down in the depths of London, in precisely the setting that would in other circumstances have frightened Ali and annoyed Raven. But no one was complaining.

Raven hadn't stayed with them. Wraith had told her about the destruction of the lab but she hadn't said much in response, white and tired from overstraining herself, except to ask if Kalden had escaped. No one knew the answer and when Kez suggested she link up to the net Raven had just shook her head. Once they reached London she had stated her intention of seeking sanctuary with the Countess and no one had had the energy to argue with her.

The others had been isolated in the three rooms that comprised the squat. Jeeva and Finn had returned once for their payment and to tell Wraith that their gang would not be exacting retribution for Melek's death. Luciel had remained, tinkering with the electronic equipment that Raven had abandoned when she'd disappeared into the Countess's fortresslike building. He didn't speak much, burdened by the weight of his guilt for the lives that had been lost when the lab was destroyed. Wraith was also silent. He spent long hours caring for Revenge, trying to coax a resemblance to the child he had known out of the shattered body of the test subject. Ali already knew that the effort was wasted. But Wraith was trying to salve his own conscience by caring for the child he had managed to save. Kez was still with them, but he disappeared for long hours at a time, wandering the streets of the urban catacombs.

The group had fragmented and Ali blamed it on the absence of Raven. Wraith and his sister had balanced each other, his private humanity providing a foil for her public ruthlessness. Together they had been the perfect leader. His caution and her daring had carried them through the raid on the lab, but having achieved that end the link had been lost. Ali suspected Raven would have disappeared anyway, whatever had happened; the presence of Revenge disturbed her on a level that made it difficult for her to remain. Unlike Wraith, she had never once called her sister by her old name, a tacit recognition of the change that had overtaken her. But the presence of Revenge was not the only reason for the fragmentation of the team. That had come inevitably with the sense of failure that had overtaken them all, once the media coverage had begun.

The appearance of the lab records on every main vidchannel simultaneously had stunned the media as much as the general public, and reporters had been immediately dispatched to the alleged location of the CPS facility. The footage they had sent out had appeared within the hour on every major news channel, showing the gutted shell that had been the lab. But before the reporters could examine the wreckage the Security Services had arrived, with a government injunction, forcing the media to leave. The news channels had continued to speculate on the situation over the next day and their persistence had been rewarded with the announcement of an official investigation. The government had stubbornly refused to comment, and despite the inevitable comments from sources, it became clear that officialdom was stonewalling the media.

The team had watched this from the relative safety of the squat with increasing frustration. Raven had regained consciousness after twelve hours and refused all offers of medical treatment to watch the vidscreen. But she was the first to turn away from the coverage, announcing that she was going to see the Countess and declining Kez's company on the way. Finn and Jeeva had left shortly afterward, declaring that their part of the operation was over.

Jeeva had wished them luck, but Finn had departed without a word, impatient to call an end to their association.

Wraith had lost interest in the coverage in light of Revenge's continuing vacancy. Luciel had done his best to explain what had happened to her and to assist Wraith in taking care of her. But the girl had retreated into her own mind. Her periods of lucidity were rare and came in the middle of incoherent ravings, so that Ali could never be certain at what point reality began for her. She had nightmares too, and after waking three nights in a row to the sound of banshee screaming, Ali's own dreams were displaying the same maelstrom of insanity. Flames licked at her, while the screams rang on, sleeping and waking. She would have left too, but unlike Raven and Kez or even the gangers, she had nowhere to go. She and Luciel were trapped there by the simple fact that any of their old connections would refuse to aid them. As far as their parents were concerned, they were dead, and Ali reflected that the way things were going that was likely to come true before very much time had passed.

•  •  •

Wraith could hear the muted sound of the news channel, even through the closed door. He wished Ali would turn the thing off, but she had seemingly taken root in front of the screen and only removed her gaze with reluctance. At least her obsession with the coverage was preferable to her wandering around the squat, mournfully regarding all she saw as if she were interred in a tomb. Wraith sympathized with her situation, but he didn't feel himself equal to handling it. It was difficult enough to come to terms with the fact that his long search for his sister was over, without the satisfaction of having really found the object of that search. Revenge was an entirely alien creature to him, and he could see little or nothing of what he had lost in the shadows of her haunted eyes.

She was sleeping again, a natural sleep, if disturbed by the dreams that plagued her, and Wraith took the opportunity to check on Ali.

“What's happening?” he asked as he entered the room, gesturing at the scratched screen.

“There's going to be an official statement this evening, given by the Prime Minister, followed by an announcement by the Head of the Security Services. Most of the news channels are speculating on what they'll say, some are rerunning the transmission from the lab, to see if they can detect any evidence of fraud.”