Zero (30 page)

He looked up as Harvey helped Hugo out of his jacket then started to pull his shirt off. Even if he hadn't had been too exhausted to make a joke, the stiffness in both their movements
and the blood smeared across Hugo's skin would have swamped his humour.

“
You okay, Captain?”

Hugo looked up blearily, blinked slowly then nodded.

“Sit,” Harvey ordered and helped Hugo up onto the workbench where she started washing out the gouge on his shoulder.

The panel finally booted up. Webb activated the motion-sensor hubs they'd placed at the doors and windows of the old workshop. He was just about to try and stream some newsfeeds when he noticed a blinking light in the corner. Heart climbing into his throat he opened up the coded messaging program.

“What is it, Commander?”

Webb looked up. The captain's eyes were on him and his scowl was back.
“Message from Rami, Captain,” Webb said, skimming the code. “They had a near miss with some bounty hunters on Lunar 5 by the sounds of it.”

“
Anyone hurt?”

Webb shook his head as he reached the end.
“No. But they had to high-tail it out of there pretty quick. Evangeline doesn't mess around.”

“
They need to get out of the Lunar Strip,” Hugo muttered, reaching down and attempting to pull off one of his boots.

“
Sunside?”

Hugo shook his head.
“They need to get out of space. Tell them to go to Earth, Tokyo or somewhere else neutral and lay low until this is over.”

Webb nodded, rubbing his eyes and setting about typing in a coded reply. He paused as he reached the end, trying to think of something
personal to say to Rami, but couldn't. He sent it, then went back to scrolling through news sites. “Well folks...we made the headlines at last,” he mumbled.

“
About fucking time,” Harvey said, throwing the bloody rag back in the basin.

“
Are we still on track?” Hugo asked pulling off his other boot.

Webb checked a few more forums and reels.
“Looks like it. No one knows who's doing it. We must have taken out everyone before they could get word out.”

“
Good,” Hugo said, rolling up his trouser leg to reveal another gash in his calf. He reached for the basin but Harvey pulled it out of his reach.

“
Let me change the water,” she muttered then took the basin back to the tap. She dumped out the bloody water but then just stood leaning against the bench with her head bowed. Her shoulders started to shake.

“
Marilyn?” Webb hauled himself to his feet and limped over to her.

“
I'm fine,” she growled, scrubbing a sleeve over her eyes and turning on the tap. Webb exchanged a glance with Hugo.

“
This isn't your fight, Marilyn,” he said quietly. “We got Armin. Your score is settled. You don't have to stay.”

“
Stow it,” she spat, turning off the tap and not looking at him. “Don't patronise me.” Webb blinked and took a step back. She brought the basin out of the sink and dumped it on the bench beside Hugo, water sloshing out onto the dusty surface. “It's not over,” she said. She looked at him, eyes sharp, without a flicker of fear. She glanced from him to Hugo, who returned her look with a heavy one of his own, then stalked across the workshop to where their blankets were bundled in the corner, curled up in one and turned her face to the wall.

“
You need any help?” Webb said, seeing Hugo bending to clean his leg.

Hugo shook his head.
“Get some sleep, Commander,” he said in a low voice. Webb sighed then nodded. He dug out a medkit from one of the packs and took it to Hugo who nodded his thanks then he went to go to his own blankets, though he doubted very much that he would manage to sleep.

“
Webb…”

Webb turned back to the captain. He had paused with binding in one hand and a sterilising pad in the other and was gazing off into the distance.
“Yes, Captain?”

“
Marlowe's next.”

Webb felt a shiver run across his skin and stopped himself from showing anything on his face. He managed a nod. Hugo carried on appraising him and Webb wondered what he was seeing. Then he looked away and the moment was gone.

“You were right about Doll,” Hugo murmured so quietly that Webb barely heard it. “We were right to keep her out of it.”

Webb didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything. Hugo finished binding his leg then got down from the workbench.
“Are you going to wash that off?”

Webb frowned, then remembered the boot black. He moved over to the sink and turned on the tap. The water spluttered out in fits and starts but he pulled off his gloves and scooped handfuls of it to scrub at his face. When he was done both Harvey and Hugo were curled on the floor in their blankets. Webb checked the motion-sensors' stream one more time then shut the panel down, pulled off his boots and wrapped himself up in his own blanket and lay on the concrete. The workshop was a fractured spread of shadow and scrubbed highlight from the night
-cycle track lights bleeding in through the dusty windows. He stared into the shadows for a long time, purposely not thinking about Marlowe.

Stiffness from sleeping on concrete and the exertion of the night before awoke him just as the day
-cycle started to grey outside. The others were still asleep and he crept from his blankets and padded away with the computer panel. Every tendon seemed to be on fire and the shooting across his ribs had faded to a dull but insistent ache. He got himself to the other side of the workshop and worked his way through some stretches in an attempt to loosen himself up then he sat cross-legged on the floor, booted up the panel and started work.

He wasn't sure if it was the increased volume of his cursing or the
brightening day-cycle that woke Hugo, but the captain joined him before long, slumping onto the floor next to him and peering at the panel.

“
What have you found?”

“
There's only two ways we're going to bring down Marlowe,” Webb muttered, leafing through the schematics of Houston Block for the hundredth time. “And you're not going to like either of them.”

“
What are they?”

“
Option one: we wait for him to leave and take him down in the street.”

Hugo shook his head.
“Not an option. We can't break pattern now. It needs to be in his home.”

“
Well that's Houston Block,” Webb growled. “Fucker has the whole top floor as his own private playground by the looks of it. Half the businesses in the block are his. The other half answer to him, I'd wager.”

“
I couldn't find anything conclusive when I looked.”

“
You didn't know where to look, Captain,” Webb replied dourly. “I wish I didn't. Houston is his domain and he'll have that place tied up tighter than a ship hull, with enough armed personnel to take us down ten times over. Each.”

“
What's the second option?”

Webb looked up.
“We take out the power.”

Hugo blinked. Once. Slowly.
“Take out the power?”

Webb nodded.
“We plunge the whole of Houston Block into the fourteenth century. Only then do we stand a chance of getting past the alarms, locks and men with guns and into level 350.”

“
And what happens after that?”

“
I haven't got that far.”

Hugo carried on looking at him, but didn't scowl. Webb wondered when it was that Hugo had started listening to him. Then he wondered if that was a good thing.

“Can it be done?”

Webb rubbed the back of his neck.
“We'd need to disconnect it from the mains
and
disable the back up generator. And either way I reckon it would only buy us ten or twenty minutes before they re-route the connection. But it's possible...I think.”

Hugo chewed on that for a moment.
“And there's no other way?”

“
Not that I can think of.”

“
Why do I get the feeling I don't want to know what you're talking about?” asked Harvey as she strolled towards the tap with a canteen.

Webb allowed a mischievous grin to spread over his face, lightened by Harvey's return of character.
“You think we've had fun so far?”

The hardest part was splitting up from the others and trusting them to do their bit. But he had to. And, though he didn't say as much, when he looked in himself he didn't find any doubt. Hugo would get it done.

Still, it was easy enough to trust him to do his duty, he thought. Not as easy to trust him to not get himself killed in the process. But Webb shook the thought away and carried on down yet another maintenance way, flattening himself against the wall as a couple of technicians wandered past at a junction.

He scrambled up and out of the next exit hatch and took a moment to stare up into the murk and listen to the sound of traffic and machinery permeating the chill air around him. He reassured himself that, one way or another, he wouldn't have to come back to this godforsaken colony again after tonight.

He pushed the tangled feelings aside and started to run. Houston Block reared up ahead, a towering spread of orange and white lights, shuttle platforms and skyway junctions, so huge that no matter his pace he never seemed to get any further towards it. He skidded to a halt in the shadows behind one of the relay blocks, held his breath then pushed a button on his wrist panel. A burst of red and orange reared up above the buildings behind Houston and the ground trembled.

“
Back up generator destroyed, Captain,” Webb mumbled into his wrist panel. “How are you two doing?”

“
Nearly there,” came Hugo's clipped reply.

Webb fished his night goggles out ready and craned his neck up to look at the megastructure, cou
nting down under his breath. He had just started to panic that something had gone wrong when all the light from the block went in one go and he was plunged into darkness. He let out a sigh of relief, feeling his heart start to pound and pulled on his goggles and set about pulling a tarpaulin off their stolen flyer. The chaos of the suddenly blind skyways filtered down in a series of crashes and beeps as well as the whining of thrusters reversed in a hurry. Closer by there was the screeching of tyres as the groundway entrance choked with confused traffic and then, slowly, shouts started to build in volume.

Webb clambered into the flyer's pilot seat then started to count, fingers tapping on the wheel.
“Hurry, Hugo,” he hissed, then heard booted footsteps sound in the darkness nearby. Harvey and Hugo clambered into the flyer, both shouting for him to go.

He gunned the thrusters before Hugo was seated and jerked the stick up. They climbed until they were zooming up parallel with the darkened levels of the block. He dodged amongst the confused skyway traffic and pulled them round a shuttle parked at a blackened platform that rang with panicked shouts, and then he could see the to
p of the structure approaching. With every breath he felt a suffocating heat build inside him. He clenched his teeth and pulled on the air brake. The flyer jerked and shuddered then smoothed over the edge and levelled over the sprawling roofspace.

“
Go,” Hugo barked even before they'd stopped.

Webb felt every pound of his boots meeting the metal
roof as though it were from far away. With an effort, he pushed away the heat and sank into the darkness that lurked behind it, feeling it fill and calm him like a vacuum. He found an emergency hatch and knelt beside it to lay charges. He hadn't had the materials or the time to knock up any of his implode charges so he shooed the others back a good distance before hitting the detonator. There was a flash and a creaking bang and a groan and then they ran back.

The silence that surrounded them when they dropped into the pitch-black maintenance way was eerie. He set off at a run, skidded around a corner, not caring what noise his boots made on the grill floor. There was confused shouting and the tinny reply of a comm up ahead. Webb didn't break pace but hurtled round the next corner.

They left the two Splinters bleeding on the floor and forced open the checkpoint they'd been guarding and pelted down the corridor beyond until skidding to a halt at a signal from Webb. He stood staring at the door for a moment, breath heavy in his chest.

“
Commander,” Hugo hissed next to him.

Webb shook himself and placed more charges. They backed away as far as they could and Webb pressed the button. The heat and sound blasted them back, but they recovered quickly and ducked through the ruined door and squeezed into the tiny maintenance space beyond. Another door, wooden this time, barred their way but the charges had taken out the hinges and they shouldered it open and staggered into the room beyond.

A large bedroom showed up in the dull green of the night vision. Shelves and shelves of hard-copy books lined the walls and there was a huge wall display mounted over a dark fireplace. Webb took all this in in a second and went toward the door when he was frozen to the spot by the sound of a stifled sob. He turned and saw a small figure hunched in the corner, arms clutched over his head, shaking. The heat inside Webb blazed white and for a moment he was blinded, choked with anger, fighting back memories threatening to swamp him. Another sob came from the boy. Webb made himself move over to him.

“
Hey,” he said, holding out a hand. “Hey, buddy. It's okay. We're not gonna hurt you.”

“
What’s a child doing in his bedroom?” Harvey asked but no one answered. The silence that followed was thick.

The boy didn't move until Webb trie
d to take a hold of his wrist. Then he flung himself away and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“
Vince
,” he screamed. “In here! Vince!”

Webb swore and grabbed after the boy but Hugo was already there, seizing the boy and clamping a hand over his mouth. He bucked and struggled and kept screaming Marlowe’s name against Hugo's glove.

All the lights came on. All three of them swore and pulled off their goggles, blinking. Alarms began blaring and there was more noise from deeper in the building. The boy had gone quiet and Webb looked over and saw he was slumped in Hugo's arms, eyes closed, wetness on his cheeks.

“
He's okay,” Hugo growled at the look on his face. “He fainted. Quick, Harvey. Take him.”

“
What?”

“
Take him and get him out of here.”

“
You can't go on without me,” Harvey said.

“
We've got no choice,” Hugo said, heaving the slight body up in his arms and passing him to Harvey. “Take the flyer. Get him to the nearest youth unit.”

Harvey shook her head, muttering under her breath, threw one unreadable look at Webb then left the way they'd come with the boy in her arms.

“Move,” Hugo said. “Now.”

Webb nodded, drew his gun then moved to the bedroom door. He took a moment to press his ear against it. There were footsteps coming their way.

“Stand back,” he hissed at Hugo then flattened himself against the wall beside the door just as it came crashing open. The men that had entered didn't have time to take in that they weren't alone before Hugo and Webb had taken them down. Peering back out the door he saw the corridor beyond was clear.

“
This can't be it,” Hugo said, eyeing the bodies on the floor.

“
It won't be,” Webb replied. “Come on.”

They jogged down the corridor. There was a thick white carpet under their feet that muffled the sound of their boots. When they reached the end they took a moment to breathe and then peered aro
und the corner.

A huge space opened up in front of them, a display at one end that took up an entire wall. A long plexiglass table dominated the centre of the room, scattered with hastily abandoned hand-panels, papers and comm units. There were at least twenty Splinters milling about it, all dressed in black and all with automatic rifles. Marlowe stood at the end of the table, his face still but his eyes blazing. Webb felt his stomach flip inside him. The man stood tall and calm as he issued orders to his men over the blaring alarms.

Webb and Hugo both pulled back around the corner when Marlowe's glance slid in their direction. Hugo was grinding his teeth and glaring at the opposite wall. Then, after a pause, he holstered his gun and pulled a grenade out of his utility belt.

“
I like your thinking,” Webb said.

“
This all ends tonight, Commander,” Hugo said. “One way or another.”

“
Yes, sir.”

Hugo searched his face for a moment longer but Webb kept his expression blank. Then the captain pulled the pin and hurled the grenade round the corner. Webb braced himself but the blast still made him stagger. He didn't give himself time to think but ran out, firing blindly into the smoke and flames. They flung themselves behind the remains of the table and continued firing. More cries confirmed that they'd taken down another couple of Splinters
but then the air around them was exploding with shots.

As the smoke from the grenade began to clear, he could see that all that was left of the ceiling and walls was a scorched and flaming mess. A number of mangled bodies were strewn about. At least a dozen Splinters had taken up position behind a downed section of wall and from the shouts that filtered through over the sound of the gunfire more were on their way.

“I have one charge left, Captain,” Webb shouted.

“
Do it.”

Webb ducked back behind the table, wincing as plaster and glass rained down on him. He pulled out the last charge, activated the timer, then hurled it towards the Splinters.

This blast was smaller but still shook the room. There was the groaning of protesting metal and the floor heaved and tilted. He flung himself flat on the carpet and tried to dig his fingers in. The table slid with them and a series of crashes and screams before the floor stopped tilting.

Webb got back to his knees to peer round their barricade. Half the room had caved into the level below. The section of wall and the Splinters behind it had gone
and all was smoke and shouts and noise.

Gunfire broke out again as new arrivals took up position across the room. The remains of their table bucked and splintered. Webb cursed and ducked down to reload then noticed a tall, suited figure
slipping away in the confusion.

“
He's getting away,” Webb shouted, firing and managing to take out one of the men covering Marlowe’s escape. The second one got up and ran after Marlowe. “Hugo, cover me.”

He didn't give the captain time to protest but came up shooting. He sprinted through the smoke and leapt over the tear in the floor. He landed, staggering,
tore round the corner and pelted down the corridor after Marlowe. Bullets flew in the air all around him.

He turned another corner in time to see
the tall man and his Splinter guard keying open a heavy door. Webb increased his speed and got there just as the door of the panic room was sliding shut. He skidded the last few feet, shoving his boot in the gap. The heavy door cracked on his foot and he grunted in pain but shot out the control panel and shouldered it open.

He staggered inside the small room, bringing up his gun, but was knocked to the ground from behind. He scrambled up onto his hands and knees but the Splinter kicked him on
to his back, bearing him down into the floor. The world span back into place just as the man on top of him leant his whole weight onto the rifle pressed over his neck. Webb coughed and choked, trying to hold off the weight, his vision blurring and blood pounding in his ears. Just before it all went grey, he caught sight of Marlowe, watching with his arms folded and a soft smile on his face, and a surge went through him.

With an effort that had his shoulders screaming, he heaved the Splinter off and delivered a kick to his head whilst the big man was still trying to regain his balance. There was a crack of bone and he went down like a sack of parts. Webb scrambled for his gun but Marlowe lunged, grabbed hold of his collar and slammed him against the wall. The breath was knocked from him and his head span. He tried to fight it, but the strength of the broader and taller man brought the memory screaming back and it swamped the fire inside him. Feeling the fight go from him, Marlowe tightened his grip on his throat, lifting until his heels left the floor.

“I know you, don't I?” Marlowe said, face so close Webb could smell the cigars and rum on his breath. “I wasn't sure before… but now I've seen you from this angle -” he leaned in closer, choke-hold tightening and leaning his full weight into Webb's body. “- yes, I remember.” There was a horrible moment when a smile that was all teeth and eyes that were grey as iron filled his entire vision. “You've grown.”

Heat flared from somewhere desperate and
Webb gathered it to him, snarled and shoved. Marlowe staggered and Webb stuck out, landing a blow that cracked into his jaw. Marlowe spat and struck back but Webb managed to duck and land a kick on the older man's kneecap. He swore and bent away but then threw himself forward.

Webb ducked again and went for a blow to the ribs but Marlowe had recovered and dodged. Webb's momentum carried him too far and Marlowe grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind him, forcing him to his knees. He cursed and struggled but Marlowe got a grip of his hair and pulled his head back so he was looking right up into the cut-glass gaze.