Resolution (84 page)

Ankestion headed for a quiet corridor, and after five minutes Tom followed. They came out into an angular hall where a mag-water pool floated above them, its lower surface only a metre overhead.

Tom held out his hand and opened it. On his palm lay a polished silver teardrop.

‘We came all this way’ - Ankestion plucked the silver object from Tom’s hand - ‘for a holopin?’

Tom shrugged.

‘Can you see anything strange about it?’

‘No.’ Ankestion looked in every direction, but they were alone. ‘Not a thing.’

He handed the holopin back to Tom.

‘Thanks, I suppose. We should— Ow!’

Something had pricked his hand. The holopin ...

Fate.

...
was unfurling, as it tested Tom’s DNA and confirmed his identity, knowing he was the right person to see the map it bore. The image was ghostly, transparent, and their current location was marked with a small scarlet sphere.

The route through to the edge of the Anomaly-occupied territory was marked in faint amber; the Enemy’s forces were shown as massed, bruised purple clouds, blocking off the main tunnels, on all five strata depicted in the holomap.

Someone’s coming ...

Ankestion moved away from Tom, drawing a punch-knife from his belt - the only weapon he was carrying here, to maintain civilian cover - and Tom’s hand went to his own knife. But the figure moving out of the shadows was a clone-warrior, and Ankestion nodded and said: ‘Likardion,’ for Tom’s benefit. Although Tom had memorized all fourteen clone-warriors’ names, he had found no way of telling them apart.

‘The holopin,’ said Likardion, ‘was in the dead-letter drop, exactly where it was supposed to be. There was no surveillance.’

All three of them looked at the entrances to the hall. The mag-pool hanging overhead cast strange silver ripples across their faces, lending them an eerie aspect.

No Enemy forces were coming with grasers drawn and inhuman determination in their dead eyes.

‘I took a long route here,’ Likardion added, ‘but I had no problems. The locals, the ones who haven’t been Absorbed, are too afraid to pay much attention to strangers.’

‘Good.’ Tom pointed into the holomap. ‘This is our rendezvous gamma’ - the place where all the surviving clone-brothers were due to meet up - ‘and this is the route that Trevalkin’s local agent has surveyed for us. We’re not too badly situated.’

Ankestion’s voice was a growl as he asked, ‘Do you trust him, this Trevalkin?’

‘I—’ Tom shook his head. ‘Our personal history is ... complicated, the Viscount and me. Why do you ask? Any particular reason?’

‘Just that this tunnel here’ - Ankestion pointed into the map, and a section glowed soft blue - ‘is a more direct route.’

‘Aye,’ said Likardion, ‘and I walked past it on my way here. There were only two guards.’

Tom frowned, for the map indicated a well-guarded post. If the map’s information could not be trusted—

‘Let’s go,’ he said, ‘and take a look. What d’you say?’

Ankestion’s stone features hinted at a smile.

‘We’re with you.’

Square blue pillars stood in rows along the broad hall. At the far end, where a square-cross-sectioned tunnel opened, stood eight troopers wearing identical dark uniforms of the Anomalous forces. All of the troopers bore graser rifles.

Out of sight behind a huge pillar, Ankestion and Likardion exchanged unreadable glances. Likardion had reported only two guards, not eight. Tom did not dare ask Ankestion and Likardion what they were thinking: even a faint sound would carry in this place.

Then something caused the air to change, and a faint scent of ozone drifted in their direction. Tom slowly put his head around the pillar’s corner, and looked towards the hall’s far end.

Sixteen troopers stood in the entranceway, and they were exactly identical. Beside Tom, Ankestion and Likardion stiffened, but this was not a clone-group that the Enemy had deployed. Tom had seen this kind of thing before.

Before Ankestion could stop him, Tom rolled away from the pillar and crossed the gap to the next one. Again, he moved with silent steps one pillar closer to the entrance; and another pillar, and then one more.

Close enough to feel strange energies on the air, Tom crouched with his back against hard stone, closing his eyes, trying to recall his mental state the last time he had seen this.

The air ripping apart as nine scarlet-clad fighters become eighty-one, advancing on Tom, but he has kissed Eemur’s Head, swallowed her sapphire tears, and somehow he can take the momentum of their reality-splitting energy flow and subvert it for his own use. As the geometric proliferation continues, the arena fills with hundreds and then thousands of Absorbed fighters, but Tom is not outnumbered.

For he, too, has become Legion, and there is one of him for every enemy, and then he strikes with focused intent, each fight a solo duel, the whole forming a battle he will remember as a dream when it is over and he has won and become singleton once more.

Eemur was not with him now, but sapphire fluid sang in his veins as Tom breathed deeply, feeling the dark forces moaning in the air. He raised his clenched fist, concentrating, merging with the flow—

Come on. I need to split apart.

But nothing was happening.

Fate. Chaos. Destiny damn it. Come on ...

Whatever the mysteries of parallel times, whatever strange abilities he had gained in the past, making use of the Blight’s power to split reality ... none of it was working now. Tom might have become more Seer-like, but something had been lost.

I
can’t do it.

Defeated, he slid down to a sitting position on the cold floor, back against the pillar.

Can’t...

Then Tom risked a glance around the pillar, and saw hundreds of troopers - two hundred and fifty-six he guessed, by sheer logic - and pulled back before any of them (or any of
him
... it was one man doubled, eight times over) realized there were intruders here.

No go.

Ankestion’s face peered around the rearmost pillar. After a moment, Tom rose to his feet, and made his way quietly back, trembling inside, sickened with defeat.

He could not take out even one small checkpoint manned by a single Absorbed component. What hope had he of destroying the trillions-strong entity as a whole? Here, in the midst of occupied territory, it came home to Tom for the first time that Nulapeiron was already lost.

~ * ~

51

TERRA AD 2166

<>

[15]

And so, the life and times of Kian McNamara.

What happened after Dirk stole the ship and disappeared?

UNSA closed ranks. Within the organization, few learned the full story; most accepted that grief over Kian’s burns had caused temporary insanity. A PR campaign focused on Kian’s suffering meant that UNSA management did everything possible to treat him with compassion.

Then there was the matter of Ro McNamara’s disappearance and presumed death.

No-one involved in the Flagstaff mall riot ever saw a courtroom. Two cops who had remained conscious throughout, and gave damning evidence against their own commander, found themselves taking early retirement in Florida. There, they took up part-time roles in a small consultancy that never advertised and paid exceptionally high salaries.

As for members of the public blinded in the freak electrical storm that had struck during a perfectly legal demonstration ... they received generous out-of-court settlements, and none of them was foolish enough to rock the boat after their discharge from hospital.

During their hospital stay, every one of the victims had received extensive hypnotherapy to help them see the truth of what happened, and allow them to recover from the trauma of being caught in such a storm.

SpyMotes Inc., by chance a wholly owned subsidiary of UNSA (via several layers of corporate indirection), upgraded the mall’s security systems free of charge. In the process of replacing every component, engineers quietly removed the old crystal logs to a safe location.