The Dark Side (26 page)

Justus surges through the crowd and chases him up the incline, making up ground with each step. He's thirty meters behind.

The second level is brighter, raw-sienna in color, dedicated to Jupiter. Justus is twenty-five meters behind.

The third level, dedicated to Mars, is bright crimson, filled with antique weapons and the history of war. Justus is twenty meters behind.

The fourth is all blinding gold panels, dedicated to the power of the Sun. Justus is fifteen meters behind—and wondering what the hell the killer has in mind.

The fifth level is pale yellow, dedicated to Venus and filled with graceful statues of nude women. Justus is ten meters behind.

The sixth level, dedicated to Mercury, is paved with dark blue bricks—Justus is five meters behind.

And then they're at the very top, the silver-painted seventh and last level, dedicated to the Moon itself. There are people everywhere, some admiring the huge lunar globe and the artifacts of early explorations, others just taking in the incredible evening view of Sin.

But the killer isn't interested in any of this. He's charging, literally
charging
, across the top level, as if he's about to leap off the edge, as if he's suddenly going to kill himself. And Justus pulls up in his tracks, his hands seizing a railing for support, and he just watches, openmouthed and gasping, as the killer bounds up a ramp to the very top of the Temple.

Justus can barely believe it.

The killer
leaps
. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop him.

T
ORKIE MACLEOD HAS ALWAYS
regarded himself as a realist. He doesn't believe in life after death or divine reward or resurrection. He doesn't even believe in leaving a legacy, insofar as anything of that nature, good or bad, is completely insignificant to the one who is dead. Torkie's pragmatic philosophy has always been to make the most of his limited time alive, which for him means not striving for fame or riches, not ticking off a list of famous destinations, not indulging in any death-defying feats, and certainly not raising a family to “carry on his name.” To Torkie Macleod, realist, life means making decent money with limited effort, hanging around with cool people, not being bossed around by anyone, and ingesting any mind-altering substance he chooses without a scintilla of shame or regret.

It also means accepting the brutal truth of any dire situation immediately. And not trying to be a hero.

So when Macleod hears a loud snap, looks around, and sees Spyder Blue's head hanging at an unnatural angle, he swiftly accepts that he has a homicidal robot on board—in an enclosed, pressurized space—and reacts with only one practical priority in mind: self-preservation.

“What the fuck, man?”

“What the—?”

“Did he—?”

“He did—he killed Spyder Blue!”

“He can't do that!”

“Are we dreaming here?”

“He's dead, man—his fuckin' head's halfway down his chest!”

Macleod registers all this with his eyes fixed determinedly on the path ahead. He just keeps driving, like an ultra-discreet chauffeur. Not his fight, none of his business.

“Vote again,” demands the droid.

“What the fuck? Man, you just killed Spyder Blue!”

“Vote again.”

“This is fuckin' insane!”

“This is a democracy, sir. Vote again.”

But Dustproof Shockproof doesn't vote again. In fact, it's clear the band doesn't know what to do. Probably they realize they're in no condition for a fight—there's nowhere to run if things look bad—but on the other hand they're not inclined to bow to anyone, least of all a neatly groomed android who looks like a narc.

“Fuck you, man!”

“Who the fuck—?”

“Fuck your democracy!”

The droid says, “Are you forfeiting your vote, sir?”

“What the fuck are you taking about?”

“Are you relinquishing your right to vote?”

“I'm not relinquishing anything!”

“Then are you acquiescing to the wishes of your superior?”

“No—fuck you, no!”

“And the rest of you?”

No answers.

“Then it seems the vote is now even,” the droid says. “There is no majority. So to prevent a leadership crisis, which would be most undesirable at this delicate time, I will assume command. Driver, kindly turn this vehicle in a northerly direction.”

“No, driver—fuck this!” says Maxx Dee.

“Don't you dare turn this thing!” says Q'mar Kent.

The droid, puzzled, addresses Kent. “But sir,” he says, “you previously wanted to go to Purgatory.”

“I did!”

“Then are you changing your vote?”

“I am!”

“Why are you changing your vote, sir?”

“Because I am!”

“That is not a rational answer.”

“Well, fuck you, your democracy, and your fuckin' tin asshole!”

Macleod still doesn't turn his head. But he hears what comes next. The droid has clearly risen from his seat. There are shouts of protest. There is movement—the whole vehicle rocks. There's a smack, like a piston hitting a side of beef. Another smack, and a crack. And then there's chaos.

Macleod still doesn't turn. But there are screams. There are ripping sounds. Something fleshy hits the back of his head. A spray of blood splatters across the glass in front of him. There are cracking sounds. Gurgling sounds. Moaning sounds. Dying sounds. And still Macleod doesn't turn. Nothing he can do about it, no point trying.

But surreptitiously he starts turning the VLTV north. He steers off the hard-packed track, and weaves between some craters.

Finally there is no noise at all apart from death rattles. All in all, it's taken about four minutes. He hears someone—the only survivor—move forward, shift a dead body, and drop into the seat behind him. Macleod just keeps driving, as if this sort of thing happens every other day. He's just relieved he hasn't got a pulse-light attached to his face, because it'd be flashing like a disco lamp.

Finally there's a voice.

“You are heading north, sir.”

Macleod gulps and nods. “That's what you want, isn't it?”

“It is, sir. I am the King.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I
am
the democracy.”

“Uh-huh.”

Macleod can
feel
the droid's eyes on him. It's absurd, but he reckons he can
feel
the droid's breath too, prickling the hairs on the back of his neck.

He coughs. “You just tell me if you wanna change direction or anything . . .”

“Not at all, sir; you are a skilled driver. Please keep driving.”

So they continue for about fifteen minutes, Macleod going through the motions stiffly but efficiently—at least his heart has stopped pounding—and the droid remaining perfectly silent. It's not that different, Macleod tries telling himself, from those times when he's had a disagreement with a passenger, or some uppity celebrity. He decides to speak.

“The night will overtake us soon.”

“Will this affect your driving, sir?”

“I'll just turn on the floods.”

“Let me know when you do that, sir.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let me know when you make any changes at all.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The toggle at the top right of the left panel—that is for directing the lights, sir?”

“That's right.”

“And those guarded buttons—they're for the airlock doors?”

“Uh-huh—I flip the guards and press the buttons one after the other.”

“Both doors will not open together?”

“Only if you press the buttons at the same time.”

“And what is the maximum speed of the vehicle, sir?”

“Hundred and twenty on tarmac. But out here, I don't go higher than a hundred on hard track, fifty at most on rough terrain.”

Silence again. Macleod is perversely proud of himself, for conducting the conversation in such bizarre circumstances—and while still under the lingering influence of Selene—but inevitably he starts wondering why the droid is so interested in the operations of the VLTV. And inevitably, even through his drug haze, he sees that it can't be good.

But Macleod is a realist—or so he keeps telling himself—and he's not interested in sustaining false hopes. So he's determined not to cry about it.

“Can I ask a question?”

“What sort of question, sir?”

“I just wanna know where you came from.”

“Why do you want to know that, sir?”

“I just like to talk to my passengers.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Well . . . where do you come from?”

“I come from nowhere, sir. There is only the future.”

“Uh-huh.”

“When you're on an express train, you don't get off till the end of the line.”

“Uh-huh.”

“When I see a hurdle, I hurdle it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence for another minute or two and then Macleod chuckles. He chuckles for so long that the droid says to him, “Why are you laughing, sir?”

Macleod says, “You're going to kill me, aren't you?”

He can almost hear the droid manufacture a frown. “That is a strange question, sir.”

“You killed the others . . .”

“They contributed nothing to the bottom line.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They were surplus to all requirements.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But you, sir, are a valuable commodity.”

“Uh-huh.”

Slowly and imperceptibly—with such stealth that he hopes the droid doesn't notice—Macleod puts the vehicle in high-terrain mode. If uncorrected, it will burn out the batteries much quicker than normal. It will stop the vehicle well before Purgatory. This little action, thinks Macleod, is possibly the most heroic and selfless thing he's ever done.

“You know,” he tells the droid, partly as a distraction, “I once worked in a post office. Many years ago.”

“I did not know that, sir.”

“At a sorting office. There were about fifty of us. Then one
week an ‘efficiency expert' came along, observed us in action for a few days, and wrote up a report. He spoke like you.”

“In what way, sir?”

“He told us all we were doing a good job. He said we should have no concerns about our future. He even said we were valued contributors to the company.”

“I am very pleased to hear that, sir.”

“Uh-huh. And a month later we were all fired. Because in his official report to the management team, which we weren't supposed to see, he said we were ‘surplus to all requirements.' He said we were ‘economically obsolete.' And so we were replaced—by robots.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”

Macleod chuckles some more. “Anyway, it was at that moment that I made a deal with myself. I said I was never going to work for a listed company or government department ever again. I was never going to wear someone else's name on my shirt. And I was never going to believe anything said by a guy in a suit.”

“That is an interesting reaction, sir.”

“So I
know
you're going to kill me, man. I just want you to do it quick.”

He drives on in silence. And on. And on.

He drives on for so long that he begins to think he was wrong—that the droid isn't going to kill him after all. Maybe he
is
a valuable commodity after all. The day-night terminator, meanwhile, has closed in on them. They're minutes away from being engulfed by blackness.

“Here comes the Dark Side,” Macleod says, to no one in particular.

The droid's hands wrap around his head, wrench it sideways, and snap his neck.

J
USTUS'S FIRST THOUGHT—AND
the first thought of all the gasping tourists at the top of the Temple—is that the killer is leaping to his death. That it's a suicide. That he's been driven into a corner and sees no way out. In fact, Justus has seen it before: the assassin so committed to his personal ideology that he's willing to sacrifice his whole life rather than be caught.

Except that this killer, whoever he is, doesn't look like he has
any
sort of ideology. He looks like a kid who's been blackmailed, or just paid a life-saving amount of money, to commit a murder. An opportunist, not even sure whom he's killed, not sure who's hired him—certainly not the sort who'd end his life just because he's being pursued.

And as it turns out—as Justus sees right now—he's not committing suicide at all. From the top of the ramp he's spearing upward—a trajectory impossible on Earth—and soaring over the
guardrail, arms outstretched. And then his hands are locking around one of those ceiling bars—one of the thousands of rungs, struts, ventilation pipes, water dispensers, and power cables that make up the ceiling grid of Sin. Then he's swinging forward, propelled by his own momentum, then back, then forward and back again. And when he's sufficiently stable he reaches out and latches onto another rung, then another and another, like a monkey on horizontal bars. And just like that, as everyone watches, he's getting away—he's already gone at least fifteen meters.

But Justus, still gaining his breath, isn't going to be beaten. Not like this. He's already done his own horizontal-bar exercises at Copernicus, where the instructor taught him how to “walk” with his arms and shoulders. And with thicker muscles he figures he's roughly equal to his quarry, just as they'd been in the ground-level pursuit. The kid might have had more practice—his very digression into the Temple suggests he's escaped this way in the past—but that doesn't mean Justus can't catch up to him again. Provided he doesn't waste any time.

So he draws a huge breath. He sets himself. And right before the astonished tourists he takes ten bounds, charges up the ramp, and launches into the air as well—propelling himself upward with all the power in his legs.