Quake (22 page)

People were crying, standing beside the collapsed building and crying.

All around him, London was a living chaos.

Carter started to dig, pulling free a huge section of concrete and rolling it down to the pavement. He worked with other grim-faced men heaving rubble, digging with his hands, pulling at beams and twisted metal. With five other men he heaved free a huge section, which rolled with a thud to the pavement.

They waited for a crane, which did not arrive.

More distant sirens wailed.

The sounds filled the world.

For hours Carter worked.

Until his fingernails snapped.

Until the bloodied skin was worn from his fingers.

Until he sank into a crumpled heap on the pavement and slept, crouching under the black dust.

‘Carter?’

He wasn’t sure if the tears were tears of gratitude or fear. He took her trembling hands in his.

‘I love you, Carter, you hear?’ She coughed, her face twisted in pain.

‘How is she?’

‘We need to get her to the hospital. You can ride with us if you want.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

They had found her crushed under a heavy section of twisted concrete, semi-conscious, mumbling for help. It had taken hydraulic lifting equipment to free her and Carter, acting on impulse, maybe through some twisted sixth sense, had homed in on her as she was carried to the ambulance. He had stumbled forward through the rubble and dust and screaming confused people to drop to his knees by her side.

The ride in the ambulance had been a long, tense experience—

And now?

Now they would play the waiting game.

‘Mr Carter?’

Carter’s head jerked up. The doctor he had threatened with the Browning stood with three other doctors huddled close by. They all stared at him suspiciously.

‘How is she?’

‘The news is not good.’

His face grim. Carter climbed to his feet, hands hanging limply. He walked slowly forward, and said simply, ‘Tell me.’

‘Natasha has severe internal injuries. She has a ruptured spleen, heavy internal bleeding - we’ve managed to stem most of the blood loss but there are still problems, and we may have to remove one of her kidneys. After operating, she failed to regain consciousness and is currently in what we call a state of obtundation, or coma.’

‘And the baby?’

‘The baby is still alive.’

‘Thank God,’ whispered Carter.

He seemed to slump then, his whole frame collapsing against itself. He seemed somehow smaller, less menacing, almost... weak.

‘Every man has a breaking point,’
whispered Kade. ‘
Don’t let this be yours.’

‘Fuck you.’

Carter moved backwards and sat down tiredly in the seat. The doctors looked at each other, then seemed to shuffle forward a little, gaining confidence in numbers.

‘Ahh ... Mr Carter, this isn’t the waiting room. You really should move back through those doors where all the other relatives and friends are waiting—’

Carter’s head lifted.

The doctors stared hard at him.

One muttered, ‘Well, maybe ... maybe on this occasion ...’

‘When can I see her?’

‘You may come through for a short while now, if you wish ...’

Carter nodded, pocketed his Browning and followed the doctors. They left him at the door with the words, ‘Five minutes only,’ and then they dispersed into the corridors and wards of a hospital pushed way beyond its limits.

Carter stepped through the portal.

The lighting was subdued, the background filled with the hum of machines. Natasha was linked to myriad matt-black monitors that glittered with small coloured lights. Tubes snaked from her nose and side, and she was attached to an umbilical cord of IV fluids and drugs.

Carter looked down at her face. Her eyes were closed, her face scratched and heavily bruised. Carter reached out and touched her cheek gently but there was no response. He could feel the warmth of her flesh beneath his battered fingers.

‘Don’t you die on me, girl,’ he whispered.

His hand moved, coming to rest gently on her abdomen. He imagined that he could feel the precious cargo within her womb: beating with life, struggling to grow and survive and to be free.

Carter bit his lip and gritted his teeth so that cords of muscle stood out along his jaw. His gaze returned to Natasha’s face and he crouched low, his mouth to her ear. ‘Come on, baby, come back to me. Don’t leave me on my own. Not now.’

He bowed his head and cried.

The nurse gently prised him away from Natasha, smiled understandingly and helped him from the room to the white-tiled corridor. There was a shout and Carter’s red-rimmed eyes failed to focus through the aftermath of tears. He blinked them away, to see Mongrel and Nicky striding towards him.

‘Carter, we just heard,’ growled Mongrel. ‘How is she?’

‘Bad, Mongrel, she’s in a real bad fucking way.’

‘Oh, Carter.’ Nicky embraced him, held him, and he buried his head against her neck, smelling musk and sweat and woman; they sank to the seats and Carter suddenly looked up into her eyes.

‘Any news of Jam? And Slater and TT?’

‘No, nothing ...’

Carter nodded. He could read her pain. And desperation.

Mongrel spat onto the white tiles. ‘Spiral have regrouped, and retreated between HQs 2, 5 and 7.’

After the original bombing of the Spiral headquarters in London a year earlier by the traitors Durell and Feuchter, Spiral had rebuilt itself - but had realigned its structure using the same premise on which the Internet was based. No single hub in complete control - but a myriad of powerful cells, units that could act independently of one another, each containing a core of the whole and strands of the Spiral mainframes ... so that in times of crisis, no single devastation could make Spiral weak again.

Mongrel continued, ‘They work hard to find out just what happened in London yesterday. London not the only city hit - Moscow, Paris, Hong Kong. We need you to come back with us to HQ2 - we need your help, Carter ...’

Carter glanced up at Mongrel then, frowning suddenly. ‘Sorry, mate, I’m staying here.’

‘There’s nothing you can do, Carter. Natasha is in coma - and they’ll let you know when she awakes. We desperately need your help ...’

Carter stared hard at Mongrel. ‘How the fuck do you know that Nats is in a coma? You said you had just heard. What’s fucking going on here? What are you not telling me?’

‘Tell him,’ whispered Nicky as her eyes filled with tears.

Mongrel sighed, glancing around. ‘This place not secure.’

‘Just fucking tell him,’ she snapped, and Carter held her tight, feeling her trembling.

‘We have intel on Jam,’ said Mongrel. ‘He not dead -despite the PB from his ECube. We think he being held hostage, possibly in Slovenia, more details to follow ... I need your help to get in there and get him out.’

Carter stared hard at Mongrel, who held Carter’s gaze without flinching, without weakness, without backing down.

‘I love Jam,’ growled Carter slowly, carefully, his voice controlled. ‘But as you can see, I have my own fucking problems. Or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘I need you, Carter,’ said Mongrel. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

Carter got to his feet, turned and stared at his two friends. A battle raged within him. ‘Look - a few short hours ago you know, you fucking
know
I would have jumped at the chance ... I would never let Jam suffer and I would give my life for him. But now ... have you any idea what you’re asking me? I am needed here, Natasha needs me ...’

Mongrel took a deep breath ...

And Carter caught the connection, the quick glance between Mongrel and Nicky.

‘What?’ he snarled. ‘What the fuck is it?’

‘Let us say that doctors have not quite been candid with you, my friend,’ said Mongrel softly. He moved closer, placed a hand on Carter’s shoulder.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Natasha is dying. Slowly, but she
is
dying.’

Carter stared hard.

‘And when Natasha dies, your baby will die with her.’

‘Fuck you,’ whispered Carter.

‘It’s true,’ said Nicky softly.

Carter shook his head. ‘No, it’s not true ... it can’t be true ...’

The Browning pressed against Mongrel’s chin. The metal was cold and hard and Carter’s face was a twisted nightmare of insanity and hatred.

‘Be calm,’ whispered Nicky.

‘I will fucking burn you,’ hissed Carter, staring into Mongrel’s eyes. ‘How can you feed me this shit? How can you fuck with my mind like this?’

‘I need your help,’ repeated Mongrel, voice strong, gaze unwavering despite the pressure of the Browning. ‘Put your gun away, Carter. You won’t shoot me. Not here, not like this.’

‘Want to take a fucking bet?’ he snarled.

‘There’s more,’ said Nicky softly.

‘Much more,’ said Mongrel. ‘Tell him about the Avelach.’

‘The SAD teams have been killing the Nex; hunting them down and slaughtering them. But Jam was onto something - a machine, a machine they call the Avelach that is used by Durell and Feuchter to
create
the Nex. The Avelach is old, really old. The Nazis discovered it during World War Two - but for decades it remained unused.’

‘So what?’

‘This machine that’s used to create the Nex - well, its primary function is to heal. It could bring people back from the brink of death, save those who were mortally wounded ... only Durell and Feuchter found a way to subvert the mechanics of the machine, to twist it and force it to create abominations ... Blending, they called it.’

‘Jam knows where machine is,’ said Mongrel softly. ‘If we find Jam, we can get machine and we can heal Natasha.’

Carter took a step back, his gaze incredulous. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he hissed. ‘You would use Natasha and my unborn child to force me into helping you to bring Jam out alive? In the hope that some fictional fucking machine will save her?’

‘It’s far from fucking fictional,’ rumbled Mongrel.

Carter met his gaze.

‘You cunt,’ he whispered, his head shaking.

‘I never claimed to be anything else,’ said Mongrel, his heavy-browed face filled with thunder and power, his iron-strong voice steady, unwavering.

Carter sat down. Slumped. Pocketed his gun. Put his head in his hands.

Mongrel and Nicky exchanged glances. Nicky gave a tiny shake of her head.

They waited ...

Finally, Carter looked up. His eyes were filled with tears. He licked his battered lips. ‘I want proof,’ he said softly. ‘I want proof that Natasha and the baby are dying ... and I want proof of the fucking machine’s existence.’

‘We can show you,’ said Nicky gently.

Carter frowned then. ‘If you’re fucking with me, I guarantee you one thing.’

Mongrel nodded in understanding.

‘A single bullet in the fucking brain.’

‘Let’s go - we’re wasting time,’ said Mongrel, and strode off down the hospital corridor.

Carter sat in the doctor’s plush office, toying with his Browning. The main doctor delivering the report, Pat Callaghan, a tall dark dashing stud of a man, was looking nervously from Carter to Mongrel - and then back again.

Carter stared at the medical notes.

‘So - she is dying.’

‘Yes. Very slowly. It might take a single week, maybe two. But the damage is too great; we could try nano-implants, but in terms of replacing kidneys and liver, they are unproven and we have been getting high failure rates ... and in the current situation they are not the easiest mod to come across. The biggest problems lie in Natasha’s internal structural damage - her body is rejecting her own organs, and we cannot work out why.’

‘And the baby?’

‘If you look at Scan 5, you can see it is currently healthy and alive. Kicking, shall we say.’

‘Can you not deliver the baby? By Caesarean?’ Carter’s voice was cold, almost uninterested ... but Mongrel and Nicky knew that he was forcing himself into a state of detachment - working out the best way to get the job done ... the job being the saving of Natasha and their unborn child.

‘We
could
deliver, but the trauma would certainly kill Natasha immediately. Due to the crushing injuries she has sustained, several organs and arteries have been moved - they are in the way. There is no clear path to the child without immediately putting Natasha in, shall we say, a terminal situation. And the other angle is that it’s almost as if Natasha’s body has caged her baby. The shock of such a long-drawn-out operation could also kill the child. In fact, I would say there was an extremely high probability. It might work ... but then, we wouldn’t do it until there was absolutely no alternative.’

Carter tapped his Browning against the desk.

‘Doctor Callaghan, can you leave us for a few minutes?’