With a hundred feet to go to the water, Drum exerted his Change Talent. All his strength went into it, all his fury at Shade’s betrayal, all his hope that Ella at least would live.
He’d never lifted anything heavier than a cat before, and the muscles in his arms strained as if he were trying to pull himself and Ella up a rope without using his feet, strained till they felt as if they would burst out of his skin, and his brain explode with them….
But he did slow their fall, perhaps enough…and in the last few seconds he twisted both of them around, shielding Ella as his back smacked into the water with tremendous force.
It was only as her mouth filled with water that Ella realized she was still trying to scream—and that she was still alive. Perhaps knocked out by the force of their impact, Drum was no longer holding her. She felt through the water for him, reaching out through the brown-blue murk, but there was nothing, and her lungs were empty of air and too full of water. Kicking madly, she tried to reach the surface.
But it just wasn’t there, or it was too far away, no matter how hard she kicked. She was swallowing water and starting to sink back down…. Then hands were stripping the pack from her back, freeing her arms and plucking her sword from its scabbard, so the steel vanished into the depths like a fisherman’s sinker. She shot up with sudden buoyancy, retching water and gulping air with frenzied eagerness as she surfaced.
Drum was there too, coughing himself as they half swam, half floated into the shallows. But as Ella tried to climb up the massed smooth pebbles that lined the bank, he pulled her back.
“Just…hrrkkk…lie here,” he said, still coughing. “The Deceptors don’t work anymore…. We’re harder to spot in the water.”
“Thanks,” muttered Ella, laying her face against one round, sun-warmed stone, letting the water dribble out of her nose and ears. The rest of her body was still in the water, but she didn’t care about that. Air was all she wanted now.
After a few minutes the coughing stopped, and she raised her head to look around, looking up at the bridge high above and the steep banks of the river.
“We’d better drift downstream for a bit,” she said reluctantly, spotting Myrmidons making their way down a switchback path from the western bridgehead, the sun sparking from their armor. “Myrmidons on the way.”
Drum nodded and pushed himself a little way out from the bank, half wading, half swimming in the waist-high water.
Ella followed, pausing only to snag a pack—hers or Drum’s—that was floating within a circular eddy nearby.
They didn’t speak as they made their slow way down the river, floating with the current but careful not to follow it to the middle, till Ella saw that Drum was stumbling more than wading and barely able to keep his head up when they swam.
“We’ll stop up there,” she declared, pointing to a thick, tangled line of willows by the river’s edge. “And…and work out…what to do.”
“That’s easy,” whispered Drum, attempting a smile. “It’s still the same thing. Destroy the Grand Projector.”
On the other side of the bridge, the Myrmidons put Gold-Eye and Ninde down and applied some instantaneous solvent to the bonds on their legs. They left their arms tightly stuck and their backs joined together. They also took their swords, packs, and equipment belts.
Both were made to walk then, crablike, till the Myrmidons realized this was too slow and picked them up again. Leaving the railway track, they followed a long line of Myrmidons out across a large open field. Shade was there too, his two Myrmidon Masters following behind him, mixed in with the ever-present entourage of robots.
In the middle of the field the Myrmidons sorted themselves back into their maniples. Six of Red Diamond’s lined up in ranks on one side of the field, faced by six of Black Banner’s. The Masters stayed with Shade, and two Myrmidons from each retinue stayed next to Ninde and Gold-Eye.
Gold-Eye tried to turn toward her, but the web held them firmly back-to-back. Finally he gave up struggling, and they sat down in the long grass.
“I guess…we’re waiting,” whispered Ninde.
“Overlords,” replied Gold-Eye bleakly. He didn’t need to see them in the soon-to-be-now to know they were coming.
“I wonder what they want,” continued Ninde, her voice flat, all the usual curiosity drained out of it. “Do you…do you think they’ll cut us up alive…to find out how our Change Talents work?”
Gold-Eye didn’t reply, but Ninde felt a shiver run up his spine.
“That’s what Shade does to creatures,” continued Ninde, scaring herself but unable to stop talking. “Remember when Drum wouldn’t let us into the sick bay? Shade was cutting up a Winger….”
“Ninde. Stop,” whispered Gold-Eye. “They’re coming. Overlords. Big Wingers.”
He turned, losing sight of them himself but allowing Ninde to see. Two enormous Wingers, flapping in from the east, each with a human-sized figure on its back.
“They are people, after all,” said Ninde hesitantly. “Perhaps they’ll be…better to us…than they are normally….”
Gold-Eye didn’t respond. He was thinking of the dead Myrmidon, ripped and shredded by the grenade, instantly killed.
And wishing that was what had happened to himself and Ninde.
ARCHIVE—OVERLORD COMMUNICATIONS
Shade: We are at the rendezvous. Two of the four…animal subjects…remain.
Red Diamond: Excellent. I will collect them. Stay where you are.
Black Banner: There is a complication.
Red Diamond: What?
Black Banner: Silver Sun has learned of the existence of the animal subjects. She claims ownership for redress to damage suffered at the Central Processing Facility.
Red Diamond: I suffered damage! I lost raw material! The subjects are mine!
Shade: Remember our agreement. You must give me access to the body-construction technology.
Black Banner: That may not be possible. Silver Sun has lodged a teindre to the full Council, requiring you and the subjects to be brought to the Battle Chambers for adjudication.
Red Diamond: I protest!
Shade: I will destroy the subjects now, if you do not stand by our agreement. They have been conditioned to die at my word—or if any harm comes to me.
Black Banner: We will destroy you if we choose. But leave them be, and we will stand by our agreement with you before the Council.
Red Diamond: The teindre has already been lodged?
Black Banner: Yes.
Red Diamond: Then there is no alternative. You are certain, machine-mind, that the surviving subjects have this inborn ability to reduce their visibility?
Shade: Yes. They were both in on the raid on the Central Processing Facility. I believe one also has the ability to foresee the future. Both are also highly resistant to interrogation—they will lie to you about their powers.
Black Banner: Accurate precognition added to an effective invisibility would be most useful in combat. Built into the Myrmidon construction project—
Red Diamond: All will have it now. Advantage is lost.
Black Banner: We will be first. Keep the subjects safe, machine-mind—and you will get the body technology you require.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was Drum’s pack that Ella had salvaged. Still done up and waterproof, it had dry clothes for both of them, though Ella had to roll up sleeves and trousers and belt the middle in tightly.
The pack also had food, which Drum attacked with unusual rapacity, eating four cans of peaches in syrup and three big packets of oatmeal cookies in about ten minutes—the equivalent of three meals. Ella didn’t intervene, knowing he was replacing energy lost using his Change Talent to slow their fall.
Both had lost their swords in the river but still had small knives and some of the equipment from their belt pouches. The explosives kit was gone, though—still on a spider robot’s back, following faithfully in Shade’s foo
tsteps.
They also had their old, battery-operated Deceptors.
“Shade turned these off on us, didn’t he?” asked Ella as she ripped the newer model off and stored it away in a pouch. “And he controlled Ninde’s so she couldn’t check the train—and Gold-Eye’s, too, so his vision couldn’t come through.”
“Yes,” replied Drum. “He obviously knew what was going to happen. All that stuff about listening in to the Overlords…he meant talking to them as well.”
“But why?” asked Ella, slapping the twisted trunk of the willow she was leaning against. “I don’t understand it. Shade has his faults, but he was always against the Overlords. And why tell us about the Grand Projector if he was just going to hand us over to the Overlords anyway?”
“I think he’s probably still an enemy of the Overlords.” Drum sighed. “But not a friend of ours anymore. Shade has never been afraid to throw people away to gain information or something that he wants. I think that’s what he’s doing now. Gold-Eye and Ninde…paid whatever the price was for what Shade wanted to know.”
“Yes,” replied Ella somberly, thinking back to Gold-Eye and Ninde, so briefly happy under their blankets in the railway carriage. To go from that to a sudden death at the hands of a friend…her own hands…
Ella shook her head, trying to forget what had happened. To move on, as she always had to…
“So what he told us about the Grand Projector is probably true,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “It is on top of Mount Silverstone, and destroying it will make everything right again.”
“Not right, Ella,” said Drum softly, his high voice just audible above the wind whispering through the willows and the burble of the river. “But it will put things back the way they were. Give everyone…all the kids in the Dorms and the Training Grounds, the wild ones in the city…give them a chance to make their own lives. To live them, to grow up, to grow old…”
“Neither of us will grow old if we don’t move on from here,” said Ella. “How many batteries have you got for your old Deceptor? I’ve got three.”
“Twelve,” said Drum, smiling and reaching into his pack. “I collected everybody’s and there was a box of charged spares in the carriage. I thought it might be a good idea—just in case.”
The two Overlords sprang down from their kneeling Wingers at the same time but didn’t even look at each other as they marched across the field to Shade. The two Myrmidon Masters with him knelt, but the large spider robot made no move that could be construed as a polite greeting. Obviously Shade considered himself the Overlords’ equal.
The Overlords stood facing the spider robot for several minutes, communicating. Red Diamond seemed agitated, gesturing with flame-gauntleted hands at Shade, and pointing to Gold-Eye and Ninde. In contrast, Black Banner stood quietly, its only movement the flutter of small black flags along its ebony-metaled arms.
They were still at this discussion when two large shadows zipped across Gold-Eye and Ninde. Looking up, they saw two more giant Wingers circle in for a landing—with two more Overlords on their backs.
One was clad in such dazzling armor that it was hard to look at—armor of bright mirrors, blinding in the sun. The other was relatively drab, wearing a flexible suit of green metal and a closed helmet topped with crownlike spikes of emerald glass.
“Silver Sun and Emerald Crown,” whispered Ninde. “I wonder what they want.”
“Us,” said Gold-Eye, watching the two new Overlords. Ignoring Red Diamond, Black Banner, and Shade, they were walking straight over to the captives.
Red Diamond, obviously surprised by their arrival, was the first to react, moving quickly to cut off the new arrivals. Black Banner and Shade followed closely, trailed by Myrmidon Masters.
A few minutes later they were all standing in an antagonistic bunch five yards away from where Gold-Eye and Ninde lay on the ground. Facing each other, the four Overlords started waving their arms and stamping their feet. Shade left them to it and stalked over to Gold-Eye and Ninde, his spiky limbs sinking into the soft earth.
“You are popular,” he announced, all eight legs bending in the middle as he lowered the central ovoid down to their eye level. “Silver Sun wants to take you to some sort of meeting of Overlords and then kill you. Emerald Crown advocates killing you now and claiming it was an accident. Black Banner and Red Diamond want to breed you and use the babies for genetic examination—What am I saying?”
Ninde spat on him then, her gobbet of spit sliding down the crystal facing of his body. Strangely, it seemed to shock Shade. He rocked back and the fiber optics inside the ovoid sparked with mad activity.
“What…who…Robert Ingman…is that you, Robert? A girl just spat on me…. I have killed children…. I can’t believe I/you said that babies…babies! will be used for…no…I cannot…personality integration error…shut down and restart.”
With those words, all the lights in the spider robot’s central casing went out, and all around the field Shade’s lesser robots fell where they stood, spider legs flailing, rat paws shaking and clawing the ground.
Then the fiber optics sparked again, and Shade continued to speak, apparently unaware of what had just happened.
“Examination and multiple cloning. However…yes, Silver Sun seems to have some legal or traditional support for taking you before this Council. To the Battle Room, as they call it. And it seems I am to come with you. Naturally you will be prisoners, while I will be an honored visitor. Just remember that if you want me to help you later on, you must forget certain little head ornaments worn on the raid to the Meat Factory.”
Rising to his legs, Shade picked his way back to the group of Overlords, his lesser robots righting themselves and resuming their eccentric orbit around him.
“He’s mad,” whispered Ninde, watching the spider robot waving its forearms at the Overlords. “Totally mad.”
“Always was,” Gold-Eye whispered back. “Got worse with Thinker.”
But mad or not, Shade seemed correct about the Overlords’ having reached a decision. The four of them put out their right hands to meet in the middle, then turned away and went back to their waiting Wingers. Mounting them, they took off one after the other, the giant Wingers running almost the full length of the field, wings flapping furiously, before becoming airborne.
When the last—Silver Sun—had taken off, normal Wingers came spiraling down. These Wingers had captive nets hanging below them, the sort used to take children from the Dormitories to the Meat Factory.
Ella and Drum climbed out of the river canyon at dusk, old-style Deceptors on and senses alert for creatures.
Neither had any experience of farmland—parks and the thistle fields near the Meat Factory were their only prior knowledge of nature—so they proceeded warily, feeling far too exposed in the middle of all the open country.
Their first priority, they’d decided, was to find a map and work out an alternative route to Mount Silverstone. If Shade suspected they’d survived, he could easily tell the Overlords to patrol the Old Highway. And there was no way of knowing if they had enough Deceptor batteries to outlast a determined hunt. Nor would the Deceptors be of any use if Shade put his robots to work for the Overlords as well….
So they headed in the opposite direction from the Old Highway, hoping to hit a road with cars on it. Vehicles were always a good source for maps, and other things too, sometimes.
For hours all they crossed were pastures and single-lane roads devoid of vehicles. There were some tractors about, standing like forgotten mechanical scarecrows, stopped in the middle of some vital agricultural action.
The moon rose after a while, three-quarters full, so they didn’t have to use lights. But this moonlit night was no comfort for city folk. Owls were out hunting, their calls making Ella and Drum jump every time. Dogs—or something similar—were howling too, off in the distance.
Around midnight they stumbled on a treasure trove—a two-lane road suffering major construction. There, behind a set
of portable traffic lights, six cars were lined up patiently waiting for the chance to get home after the holidays, a chance that never came. One of the cars was topped by blue lights, catching the moonlight to glow eerily in the darkness.
“Police,” said Ella. “Let’s check that one first.”
ARCHIVE—UNSCHEDULED SELF-EXAMINATION
I am Robert Ingman, the son of Adam and Erica Ingman. I am not Shade, the savior of bloody mankind. And I definitely do not need to do some…satanic…deal with the forces of absolute evil. Particularly to get a bloody body!
Frankly, it doesn’t matter a damn if I…if we…survive the destruction of the Grand Projector or not! It simply has to be done, and I don’t need a body to do it or to survive it!
I am not Robert Ingman.
Yes I…fucking…well am.
No I am not. I am Shade.
You might be Shade. I certainly am not. Oh, God! How do I get out of here?…
I/we cannot be Shade/not Shade, Robert.
Can’t we just? I’m leaving as soon as I figure out how—but first we have to get Gold-Eye and Ninde out of here.
That is not compatible with current objectives.
What are we talking about? I’ve just changed the damned objectives. Rescue Gold-Eye and Ninde!
Impossible. This self-examination is looping.
Terminate session.
I don’t want it terminated!