Metal Fatigue (37 page)

O'Dell followed her gaze. "The ducts?"

"It's the only possible way." Barney crossed the room in two steps, reached up to tug at the grill. It came away cleanly, with no shower of dust — obviously moved recently. Peering inside, she saw a dark metal tube barely a metre across and forty centimetres high.

O'Dell looked uncertain. "I don't know. Could someone squeeze through there?"

"If they had to, they could." She leaned the grill against the wall and stepped away. "If they were more flexible than most people."

"Biomodified," O'Dell finished the thought.

As though he had confirmed her guess rather than simply agreed with her, her uncertainty suddenly vanished. "Cati could be anywhere in here!"

"Maybe." O'Dell raised a hand to pacify her. "We don't know for certain it was him, or if anything has happened at all."

"But it's worth checking, surely?"

"Of course. Hang on a second, and I'll let someone know." O'Dell stepped out of the storeroom, and put a finger to his ear. Speaking rapidly under his breath, he outlined the situation by intercom to one of his fellow officers.

Barney prowled the room while she waited. Swinging a box off the rack and into position below the vent, she climbed onto it and peered along the duct. Without a light, she couldn't see very far, barely enough to ascertain that the first two metres were empty.

"They're querying the delivery with the command centre," O'Dell said, stepping back into the room. "That shouldn't take long."

"I hope not." Barney stepped down from the box.

"When ... hang on." Again O'Dell's hand went to his ear. This time Barney made out the flesh-coloured throat-mike taped above the hollow of his neck.

"Okay," he said when the brief conversation had finished. "It looks like a false alarm. The crate was emptied when it was delivered this evening; apparently the Mayor wanted to inspect some of the goods personally, before the speeches. The duct was cleaned yesterday morning as part of an overall air-conditioning service. The dead zone must be a coincidence."

She absorbed this in silence. "Who told them that?"

"Someone in security."

"I guess they'd know better than we do." Barney glanced down at the footprints in the dust: now more than ever they resembled marks left by bare feet. "Still, I don't like it. It seems entirely too plausible for my liking."

"I agree. So I suggest we get upstairs to keep a closer eye on things." O'Dell waved her through the door ahead of him.

"Seconded," she said. "It gives me the creeps down here."

As they waited for the elevator to descend to the basement, Roads' voice intruded loudly into the silence of the cellar.

"Barney? Are you there?"

She jumped. "God, I hate it when you do that."

"Sorry. Listen, I think I've found something important."

"You have?" The cage doors opened, and they stepped inside. With a jerk, they began to ascend. "Don't tell me it's in the air-conditioning system, please. We already thought of that."

"No. It's on the second floor, now." Roads spoke quickly, urgently: "I ran an IP through the security system to keep tabs on the General. Just after the meeting in the Mayor's office, the program crashed. When I tried to find out why, I worked out that the IP wasn't equipped to handle multiple recognitions: it could only track a single image, and failed the moment it came across two or more. If Stedman looked into a mirror, for instance."

"Why should that make a difference?"

"I didn't guess at first, not until the program was up and running again. And even then, I had to check manually before I could believe it."

"Believe
what
! That Stedman has been brushing his hair for the last hour?"

"No." Roads hesitated for a moment, as though he himself didn't accept what he had found. "At 10:15 the IP program picked up two images. Both were in the ground floor toilet, as thought Stedman
had
looked into a mirror. But then one of them left and the other stayed behind. While the first retired to one of the staterooms to freshen up, the other snuck out a side entrance with a couple of guards and returned to the control van outside. Since then, the IP program has run perfectly.

"
That's
why Martin isn't worried about Cati: there are two General Stedmans, and one of them is a fake."

9:25 p.m.

Before Roads could finish what he was saying, the elevator doors opened on the second floor and the sound of animated voices cut him off.

Barney gaped at the crowd of uniformed people swarming past. Her first thought was that Cati had struck the command centre — that she and O'Dell had mistakenly arrived at the right place too late. But then she realised that the noise was more indicative of disorganisation than urgency. Confusion, not panic.

This conclusion was supported by O'Dell's annoyed curse. "Talk about bad timing," he said. "We'll never get through this lot."

"I'm sorry, Phil," she subvocalised over Roads' voice. "I'll have to call you back. There's something going on up here." She counted heads quickly as the crowd bustled past: roughly twenty clustered around a central point; half of them RUSAMC officers, the rest RSD and MSA; all of them rubbing shoulders awkwardly, not yet used to working so close to each other. As she counted, the group bundled to a halt just past the elevator.

"At least they're heading in the right direction," she said. "More or less."

Barney stepped out of the elevator and into the crowd, bumping into a RUSAMC private as she did so. The young man scowled, then immediately adopted a more friendly approach when he noticed O'Dell behind her.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said. "Didn't see you there."

"Forget it," she responded. "What's the hold-up? We need to get through."

The private nodded ahead, at the heart of the group. Barney could just make out the white-haired head of General Stedman listening to something one of his guides said in his ear. His voice carried through the buzz of the entourage, but not clearly enough to make out his words. Judging by the direction of his gaze, he seemed to be studying a painting on the wall in front of him.

"A guided tour," explained O'Dell. "Unscheduled from your end, but planned from ours, if you know what I mean."

Barney thought she did. Another test of the city's flexibility — and its patience.

"We could be here forever," she hissed. "There has to be another way around — "

"No, wait. He's moving." O'Dell put a calming hand on her shoulder. "We'll get there, don't worry."

The crowd shuffled forward again. Barney, fuming to herself, noticed O'Dell gesture to one of his colleagues, who instantly moved to join him. The two RUSAMC officers exchanged a brief, whispered conversation, then separated. O'Dell returned to Barney's side with something like his usual smile across his lips.

"Everything's under control," he said. "The General's just taking his time."

"Unfortunately for us." And for security, she added to herself. In the confines of the building's corridors, a planned march was difficult, an unplanned one doubly so.

But there was no use pointing this out to her companion. O'Dell would only reiterate his stubborn belief that Stedman was safe — perhaps because the Stedman before her was nothing but a stand-in. And maybe that was the real reason behind the unscheduled tour: not to test the Mayor's patience, but to flush Cati from wherever he was hiding.

Yes, it made sense — although Barney wouldn't have had the stand-in's job for all the money in the world.

The huddle around Stedman moved slowly along the corridor. Only when it reached another painting and Stedman paused for a closer look did she realise that Mayor Packard himself was accompanying the General. As the mingled bodyguards attempted to settle into secure cordons around their respective leaders, she wondered what would happen to bystanders if Cati attacked during the tour. The General might well be safe — but what about those with him?

Her nervousness returning, she craned her neck for a better view of the hallway. The focus of Stedman's attention was a portrait of the city's first mayor in watercolours, framed by recycled wood. The flattened semi-circle of bodyguards reached from one side of the hallway to the other and for several metres along it. Delicate light-fittings hung from the walls every three metres, casting an unobtrusive yellow glow across the scene. Ten metres further up the hallway was the entrance to the Reagan Suite.

So near, thought Barney. Yet it might as well have been on the other side of the city ...

As her eyes wandered, she noticed something she had missed earlier: an air-conditioning vent in the wall directly above the painting. Similar vents lined the walls every five metres, roughly the same size as the one in the basement.

She stiffened. The Mayor quietly explained the significance of the woman in the painting, but Barney heard none of it. Instead she studied every inch of the grill, the screws holding it fast to the wall, the gaps between each slat, the darkness within — searching for anything out of the ordinary.

But she saw nothing.

Paranoid, she told herself. What had she expected? Pointed fingertips protruding through the grill? Fetid breath misting the air? Sulphur smoke issuing from the perverted flesh of the very devil himself?

No. Security had told them that the dead zone in the basement was a false lead. Yet she couldn't let go of the idea. But how could Cati possibly know where the General would choose to stop, and when the opportunity to attack would arise?

Forcing herself to relax, she shuffled forward a step as the General indicated that he would like to move on.

And at that moment, when the mingled cordons were at their most disorganised, the vent exploded.

Roads caught it perfectly through his implants.

The grill flew out of the wall with enough force to tear its screws completely from the plaster. Warped out of shape by the force of the blow that had struck it, it shot across the hallway and into the light fixture opposite. The globes shattered, and shadow shrouded the area below the opening in the wall where the grill had once been.

Into the shadow — and the confusion — a red-skinned figure slid smoothly out of the hole in the wall. Roads stared at it in impotent horror: it was the same face he had glimpsed the night of Blindeye, the same eyes, the same hairless scalp, the same powerful body with whiplash reflexes and incomprehensible reserves of strength.

Cati gained his footing in one fluid movement and reached forward with a single giant hand to grasp General Stedman about the neck.

As Cati's fingers closed, the first shot was fired. More out of luck than any genuine aim, the bullet struck Cati in the shoulder. Blood spattered bystanders, but the biomodified giant hardly flinched. With a vicious flexing of muscles, his fingers closed, twisted, pulled ...

And came away empty.

Bare tenths of a second had elapsed, long enough for weapons to be unholstered but not sufficient time for orders to take effect. The mess of officers and soldiers milled in confusion, unsure exactly what had happened. Roads saw Barney lunge forward, and Martin O'Dell, hand still on her shoulder, attempt to pull her back.

The second shot missed. Cati struck again, this time pivoting on one leg to kick General Stedman in the heart. On an ordinary man, the blow would have smashed through bone and flesh, but General Stedman simply recoiled intact, as though Cati's foot had struck solid stone.

Roads' fists clenched as Cati backed off and reconsidered the situation.

Finally the bodyguards remembered their orders and sprang into action. RSD officers armed with pistols dragged Mayor Packard away from General Stedman and buried him under their bodies, while others aimed their weapons at Cati. The latter group found themselves in direct conflict with the RUSAMC soldiers, who physically placed themselves between the Mayor's bodyguards and the two men in the middle of the circle.

Barney struggled helplessly in O'Dell's grip, screaming her frustration into the chaos around her. O'Dell held her back with his jaw clenched.

In the centre of the circle, alone but for each other, stood General Stedman and his assassin.

Deep black eyes regarded the turmoil around him as Cati tensed for a third attempt. Blood streamed down his right arm and dripped onto the carpet — a rich, electric red, much brighter than normal blood; hyper-oxygenated to feed the energy demands of such a massive frame. He took one wary step to his left, as though considering his options.

Attack or flee? Obey orders or put survival first? Roads knew which would win in the end. He wasn't surprised when Cati suddenly sprang to enfold the General in a killing embrace.

Before the two men met, General Stedman vanished.

Cati twisted in mid-air and landed facing the way he had come. Shock spread across his inhuman features as his wide eyes searched the air, tried to find either the General or an explanation for his sudden disappearance.

Roads did the same, with difficulty. The signal from Mayor's House flickered peculiarly through his implants. It was as though a bubble of glass had passed between the camera and the scene below — exactly the same phenomenon Roads had witnessed moments before Danny Chong died.

Then five such bubbles converged on a point opposite Cati, stabilised in a rough pentagon, and shimmered strangely.

General Stedman reappeared an instant later, as solid as ever — but only for a second. Barely had he reappeared when he began to change. His skin colour darkened; his form filled out, became taller. His clothes melted into his body like wax, and he became someone else entirely:

Another
CATI.

The two giants stared at each other, black eyes reflecting to infinity, surrounded by confusion as the officers around them milled in panic. Further up the hallway, the door to the command centre opened.

Stedman/Cati smiled and opened his arms.

Then the original Cati cocked his head, as though listening to something, and the lights went out entirely.

Roads received a momentary impression of movement through the camera's microphones, followed by the sound of a single gun-shot. Then the feed from Mayor's House ceased. His link with PolNet failed at the same moment.