Interceptor City, page 39
They started to stir, to yip and growl. Some trotted to the edge of the pavement, and leaned out, peering across the flood at her, sniffing. Some hurried up and down the edge, excitedly. One of the largest padded forward and snarled at her. It shook out its brawny shoulders, flapping its jowls and grinding its jaws.
Then it turned away. She knew where it was going. It was going to take a run-up and launch itself at the opposite side. She had no doubt it would make it. The mastiff almost had, and this brute was significantly bigger and more powerful.
She had nothing, not even her knife. She had to get off the dock, even if it meant leaving the tracer, her only lifeline, behind. She grabbed her pack and started to run. Behind her, two of the smaller canids leapt off the bank into the water, and started to thrash across, paddling, heads held up. The others started to growl and bay, their agitation increasing. She could hear the big dog coming, paws pounding.
She reached the archway, and started to scramble up the mound of rubble piled on the stairs. She kept slipping and sliding back. She could hear the sound of baying rising behind her. She scrabbled harder, clawing her way up into the darkness until she reached the top of the heap and met the scarred wall of the stairwell. The air was dank. She groped for a handhold. She couldn’t see anything.
She took out another stick flare, lit it, and tossed it onto the rubble. By its quivering red glow, she re-examined the walls. The remains of a step offered a crude foothold. Higher up, a missing stone allowed her fingers to grip at full stretch. Now what? Old pipework, out of reach and impossible to grip anyway. A dangling power cable.
She reached for that, missed, and tried again.
A yowling canid burst into the stairwell below, and began to skitter and paw up the rubble after her. Another came in right behind it. She’d almost grasped the hanging cable when the first dog reached the top of the mound and began to leap up, snapping at her, clattering its paws against the wall as it fell back to try again. She tried to reach the cable. The canid leapt again, and she kicked out at it to keep it at bay. The second one arrived at the top of the rubble, and tried to claw itself up the wall to get at her. Its ears were back, its eyes wild, its teeth bared as it bit at the air.
The first one leapt again. Jagdea yelled as she felt its bite close around her ankle. It was hanging off her, writhing, shaking its muzzle. If it hadn’t been for the metal inserts in her flight kit boots, it would have bitten through to bone. She tried to shake it off. It would not let go. Its weight and frenzy were going to drag her off the wall. Her fingers were slipping.
With her free hand, she released her helmet from the strap of her pack, gripped it by the visor, and used it as a club to beat at the canid’s skull. Just the effort of doing that threatened to throw her off the wall. The canid was a swinging weight, pulling her over. It felt as though it was going to bite her foot off.
The helmet connected with an ugly crack. The dog let go, and dropped away. It tumbled, yelping, down the rubble. The other hound started leaping at her too, its jaws closing with a snap at the summit of every jump.
She hurled the helmet at it, caught it across the muzzle, and knocked it aside.
More of the feral pack were bounding up onto the rubble. Their coats were wet. Some were biting and savaging each other to get to her first. The snarling and yelping seemed to fill the empty shaft.
She reached for the cable, caught it, and then jerked on it to test how secure it was. It slipped slightly, then held. She let go with her other hand, and threw herself sideways onto the cable. She got it with both hands, arms burning with effort, toe-tips against the wall.
Below her, the gore-faced canids were baying, leaping and snapping.
Jagdea didn’t look down.
The flare went out anyway.
Location unknown, time unknown
In pitch darkness, she rolled off the cable and onto a rockcrete slab. She had no idea how high she’d climbed. The desperate baying of the hounds echoed from below.
She could barely move, her limbs on fire and locked with effort. She was panting, unable to draw enough breath. She had climbed as far as she could, way past the point her hands and legs had threatened to give out, high enough to find a ledge to transfer to.
Now she had even less idea where she was. She rolled upright, feeling the floor around her. Stone or ’crete. She was dizzy, and her head wouldn’t clear. She fumbled out another stick flare. Her fingers, bleeding and stiff, wouldn’t work properly. She got it lit.
She looked around in the crimson glow. She was on a higher floor, a level above the loading dock. It was empty, filthy, abandoned and bombed out. Glass litter lay under every blind window. The ledge she was sitting on was the mouth of the doorway that had once opened onto the stairs, when there had been stairs.
She got up, unsteady. She almost fell. She braced against the wall with one hand, flare raised in the other. The wall was coated with sooty grime. She edged her way along, testing the floor at every step. There were holes in it in several places, where cave-ins from above had cascaded down and punched through. Water dripped. Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow.
She could still hear the dogs baying. They refused to let food escape.
She needed to get higher. She wondered if there were any stairs intact. She couldn’t climb like that again.
She found a room lined with decayed bunks. The bedding had rotted and disintegrated. Beyond that, a room containing the desk and chair of some supervising intendant. Everything was caked in dust. Filing cartons were full of mulch. There was a voxcaster, a cogitator and other apparatus. She didn’t even try them. She could see how split and dead they were.
She followed the hallway, testing the floor. A large section had fallen in, so she had to turn back. She followed another hallway, which brought her to a small administration annex. The chamber was circular, and the systems around the walls and in the central console were burned out. A human skeleton sat in the single chair, staring at her.
Her flare went out.
She lit another.
The skeleton was still there. She had almost expected it to have moved. It had been burned in its seat. Fire had gutted the chamber, and the corridor beyond, which was littered with debris and a few large human bones that the blaze had not consumed.
She stopped and leaned against a wall to rest. She could still hear the dogs in the distance. She thought about the tracer she had left behind, the green light blinking. Survival had forced her to leave hope behind, or was it the other way around?
There was no way out. She would never be found.
She limped on.
She found another stairwell, but that had collapsed too. There were no others, but she kept looking anyway. Just off the next hall, she found a hatch standing open, rusted in place. It led onto a walkway bridge.
She looked out. She was three storeys up. The flooded side street was directly below her, and the bridge crossed it, linking one structure with its neighbour across the street. Above her, there was nothing but darkness.
She edged across the bridge. The metalwork creaked, but it was secure. She got to the other side, into the other structure through a hatch that appeared to have been cut off its frame. More dust, more bones.
And, eventually, a staircase.
It was intact. It led down into the depths below, and up into the shadows. She started to shuffle her way up it. The metal handrail collapsed and fell with a clatter. She stuck to the wall instead, fumbling her way.
Another flare died out.
She didn’t have many left. She decided to wait for a few minutes, to get her breath back, and allow her eyes to adjust. She would keep going without flares for a while, if she could, to conserve them.
Her night vision slowly settled. She moved on upwards, feeling the wall. All she could see was a ghost of shapes, darkness against darkness, blackness of different intensities placed against each other. After a while, she became aware of a glow. Faint, green, the thin remnant of upper daylight filtering down through the depths, just as she had seen down on the dock.
She kept going. Another flight. Another. Her foot slipped on something. She was pretty sure it was a human femur that rolled out under her sole. She almost fell, but managed to catch herself. The femur, or whatever it was, rattled away down the steps.
She stopped to rest again, and ate the last pieces of the ration bar. She didn’t know if she could keep going. She had no strength. She felt so weak, and everything she was carrying seemed so heavy. She wondered what she could get rid of. Not the stick flares. Perhaps the decoy flares. It had felt like they might have a use at the time. She decided to keep them. She tossed her gloves, the useless purification tablets, the empty, mocking water bottle, the last of the hand-warmers, and the blanket. She knew she was probably being tired and stupid, but none of them seemed worth carrying. She looked at the medicae kit. It was rudimentary at best. If she picked up another injury now, it was academic. She was dying. She thought about redressing the wound in her calf before casting the kit aside. The effort seemed like too much.
But the wound was starting to hurt. She picked up the analgesic stimms. They were strong, designed to numb serious trauma. In her weary state, would they just put her to sleep? Maybe it would be better that way.
She popped one, and stuck it in the meat of her leg before she could think about it further. She tossed the empty stimm aside and sat back. Slowly, very slowly, a lazy warmth crept through her. She didn’t feel better, but she felt less pain, and as her pain was just about everywhere, it felt like a win.
She felt like she could move. As though she had a little fire left.
She ditched the medicae kit, and the emergency pack. She stuffed the decoy flares into one of her suit pockets, and the stick flares into the other, along with the last stimm shot.
She got up and resumed her climb, step by step. There would be a top, and she was going to reach it.
And die there, the shred reminded her. And die there.
‘Shut your damn mouth,’ she whispered.
Another flight of steps. Another. She stopped. She could hear a whining sound echoing through the blown-out building below. A distant wail.
The dogs. The feral packs of the hive floor moved through the darkness and the ruins with greater facility than she could. They could squeeze through gaps, leap walls, and thrash through water that she was not prepared to touch. They were driven by a ravening hunger that was all they understood.
They had her scent.
Location unknown, time unknown
There seemed to be more light. The dusty air was streaked with a chemical green. Either that, or her eyes were becoming truly nocturnal.
But the whining had increased. It came and went, and it was echoing and muffled, but it was getting closer. Occasionally, she thought she heard the skitter of paws, a yap, or a bark. Something trotting along a floor below her, sniffing for spore.
She had no idea how many flights she’d climbed. From windows, she could see nothing below to gauge distance, and nothing above. But the darkness above her seemed thinner than the darkness below.
That’s what she told herself. The shred confidently disagreed.
The brief sense of wellbeing from the stimm shot was beginning to wear off. Aches and pains were returning. She thought about using the last one, but decided to save it until she really hurt.
She continued to plod up the stairs. Everything was desolate and empty. She had expected to find some scraps, some litter, maybe even more bones or personal effects. But there was nothing except dust and ash. Firestorms had scoured the building back to the bare structure, and it was amazing it was still standing.
Or it was being held up by the buildings around it.
She day-dreamed of amasec, the good stuff. Or lousy joiliq. Or just chemical-tinged water from a chipped jug in the refectory. She day-dreamed of her cot, in her billet room. Of talking with Gumm. Of laughing with Lopard. Of arguing with Badler. Of flying. Flying free. The brutal reality of operational life at Six-Six seemed like heaven now, brighter and warmer than the radiance of any golden throne.
‘I’ll make a deal,’ she said to the hive, much to the shred’s amusement. ‘I’ll take it. I’ll stick to it. Just give it back to me. Forget Orison. Forget driving cargo. Forget a ride home on a replenishment carry. I’ll take it. I’ll accept it, fangs out, guns hot. Just give it back to me.’
The hive did not reply.
‘No?’ she said, clumping up the steps. ‘Then I’ll plead to the Saint. You know the one. Sabbat? Yeah. To her. In supplication. I’ll commit. To her, to the God-Emperor. I’ll embrace that truth, because it’s better than this. I’ll be His gunslinger, avowed and faithful, and make it my duty to fly for Him, until the ground comes up to meet me.’
Don’t you do that already? the shred wondered.
‘Shut your frigging mouth,’ she said.
That’s not how duty works, the shred suggested, laconic. That’s not how gods work.
‘Shut up.’ She didn’t want to listen. She felt as though she was losing her mind. Or worse, that something was stealing it. But the shred wouldn’t be quiet.
You live, or you die. That’s down to you. Gods don’t make deals. They simply exist so you can fear them. Like me.
‘Shut up.’
She could hear the whining again from below. The baying of hounds. On the next scorched flight of stairs, she felt a breeze lift the dust. Cold air on her face. She started to hurry, almost stumbling.
Jagdea limped out onto a platform. A wide, wide platform. A landing pad for lifters and service vehicles. A passenger dock. The mangled portico of the dock shelter adjoined the stair exit. She could feel the hive wind blowing in, stale and cold. She could feel the spatter of rain.
She was outside. The roof of the structure.
She sank to her knees. She could see nothing. Burned-out hab-blocks and hive-rise structures rose all around her, blocking any view of distance, and any hope of spotting a landmark. They rose high above the roof she was standing on, some standing thousands of feet taller, derelict, windows blown, obscuring the sky itself, except for a small patch of pale green cloud directly above.
She started to weep. She was so dehydrated, no tears came. Her shoulders shook. She coughed and gagged.
The whining was louder now, a persistent wail, the lingering scream of wolves. She got up, and walked directly to the edge of the platform. All fear of heights had gone, or been rendered inconsequential. You could only fear the drop if you didn’t want to fall.
It was a long way down. A long way. So far, she couldn’t even see the bottom. The darkness down there made it look like the drop went on forever.
A dead drop. She wouldn’t let the dogs have her. Of all the deaths her life could bring her to, being torn apart by a pack of feral canids would not be the one. She would rather make the decision herself, not leave it to animals.
It was a long way down. It would almost be like flying.
She took a deep breath, and a step forward, right to the lip. The wind tugged at her. She could hear the whining and the baying from the building below.
Then she realised that the shred had vanished. It had gone completely, dissolved like dirt in the rain. Now she was at the brink, there was nothing left to fear. It couldn’t grip her any more, it couldn’t choke her or wind its coils around her. Fear had no meaning. It had nothing left to threaten her with.
She tipped her head back. She felt free for the first time in her entire life. If this is what the end looked like, what it felt like, why had she been running from it for so long? It was empty, and meaningless. Death was nothing. Dying was the hard part.
And not even that. Living was the hard part. The pain, the mess, the sheer bloody fight of it, full of effort and aspiration, despair and hope. Life was a war, and in war there was always a chance of victory. Death was just defeat.
Fight. Fight until you can’t. Fight life, weapons hot, fangs out, hair on fire.
Fight like you mean it.
She ran back across the platform to the top of the stairwell. Edging a few steps down, she could clearly hear the baying as it echoed up the stairs. The wailing. The whining. The heavy slap of paws on rockcrete.
Jagdea went back up, and backed away across the platform. She stopped, ten yards from the staircase door. She took one of the countermeasure decoys out of her pocket, and set it down. She took out another, the one she had previously unsealed, and unscrewed the top. The mag-phos powder inside was dense and heavy. She trailed out a curving line of it, twelve yards long, on either side of the first decoy, facing the door. A little lifted away in the light breeze, but not much. Then she carefully tipped out the rest of it in a straight line, starting at the first decoy and stretching back across the platform. There was enough for another three, nearly four yards. She tapped out the empty canister and tossed it away. She could hear the dogs on the stairs, scrambling up, claws raking and scraping. She could smell them. She could hear their yap and whine and snarl.
She took three steps back. Four. Five, to be safe. She took out a stick flare and held it ready, her fingers on the tab.
The canids burst onto the roof, scrambling and sliding in their urgency. They barked and snapped. She saw clouded eyes and torn ears, the blotched marbling of old burns and scars, black lips loose with spit and chests flecked with foam, pelts stiffened with dried blood. There were half a dozen, and more behind them. The biggest beasts were the largest she’d yet seen. Monsters. Wild monsters from the depths of the shred. They didn’t hesitate. They bolted towards her, rapacious, jaws open to seize and clamp.
She pulled the tab on the flare. It tore off. Cursing her stiff fingers, she threw the dud flare away and snatched another from her pocket. She jerked the tab. The stick flare lit in a hissing cloud of red. She tossed it onto the end of the mag-phos trail.
