“Shit!” Sarha groaned.

“Get positive, Sarha,” Liol demanded. “We have to get over Joshua’s horizon.”

“I’ve got lock-on,” Beaulieu said calmly. “Two nukes, active seeker heads. They acquired our radar emission.”

Sarha initiated the maser cannon targeting program without conscious thought. Her brain was churning with too much worry and indecision to actually think. Bright violet triangles zeroed the approaching submunitions.

“Would Josh leave one of us down there?” Liol asked.

“You piece of shit!” The masers fired, triggered by the heatlash in her mind. Both submunitions broke apart, their fusion drives dying.

“We can beat them,” Beaulieu said.

The imperturbability of the cosmonik’s synthetic voice chided Sarha. “Okay. I’ll handle fire control. Beaulieu, switch to active sensors, full suite; I want long-range warning of any incoming hostiles. Liol, take us down.”

They were hammering on the maintenance engineering deck’s hatch. Its edges had started to shine cherry-red, paint was blistering.

Cherri gave the circle of metal a jaded look. “All right, all right,” she mumbled. “I’ll make it easy all around. Besides, what would you lot ever know about fraternity?”

After the hatch’s locking mechanism melted away, an equally hot Oscar Kearn dived through the smouldering rim. Any hope of retribution died instantly as he saw the figure curled up and sobbing dejectedly in front of the console. The soul of Cherri Barnes had already vacated the flesh, retreating to the one place where he was never going to chase after her.

Monica finally felt as though she was regaining control of the mission. There were twelve operatives with her in the Disassembly Shed providing overwhelming firepower, and their evac craft was on the way. None of their processor blocks were working, nor their neural nanonics. Everyone had taken off their shell helmets so they could see; the sensors were glitched, too. The lack of protection made her nervous, but she could live with that. I’ve got Mzu!

She applied some pressure to the pistol barrel at the side of Calvert’s neck, and he moved aside obediently. One of the Edenists claimed his machine gun. He didn’t protest when he was made to stand with his three compatriots, all of them with their hands in the air and covered by a couple of operatives.

“Doctor, please take your hand away from that backpack,” Monica said. “And don’t try to datavise any activation codes.”

Alkad shrugged and held her hands up. “I can’t datavise anything anyway,” she said. “There are too many possessed in here.”

Monica signalled one of the operatives to retrieve Mzu’s backpack.

“You were in Tranquillity,” Alkad said. “And the Dorados too, if I’m not mistaken. Which agency?”

“ESA.”

“Ah. Yet some of your friends are obviously Edenists. How odd.”

“We both consider your removal from this planet to be of paramount importance, Doctor,” Samuel said. “However, you have my assurance you will not be harmed.”

“Of course,” Alkad told them equitably. “If I am, we all know who I’ll end up with.”

“Exactly.”

Gelai looked up. “They’re coming, Doctor.”

Monica frowned. “Who?”

“The possessed from the Organization,” Alkad told her. “They’re up in the shed’s framework somewhere.”

The operatives responded smoothly, scanning the metal lattice above them for any sign of movement. Monica stepped smartly over to Alkad’s side and grabbed her arm. “Okay, Doctor, we’ll take care of them, now let’s move.”

“Damn,” Samuel said. “The police are here.”

Monica glanced back to the hole blown into the wall where they’d entered. Two Edenists had been left to cover their retreat back to the cars. “We can deal with them.”

Samuel gave a resigned grimace. The operatives formed a protective cordon around Monica and Mzu and started to walk back towards the wall.

Monica realized that Joshua and the others were hurrying after them. “Not you,” she said.

“I’m not staying in here,” Joshua said indignantly.

“We can’t—” Samuel began.

A portcullis slammed down out of the tangle of girders above. It struck two of the operatives, punching them to the ground. The valency generators in their armour suits were glitched, preventing the fabric from stiffening into protective exoskeletons as they should have done. Long iron spikes along the bottom of the portcullis punctured the suit fabric, skewering their bodies to the wet carbon concrete.

Four of the operatives opened fire with their machine guns, shooting straight up. Bullets ricocheted madly, grazing sprays of sparks off the metal.

Training compelled Monica to look around and locate the follow up. It was coming at her from the left, a huge pendulum blade swinging straight at Mzu. If her neural nanonics had been on line and running threat response programs she might have made it. As it was, boosted muscles slewed her weight around to pirouette Mzu out of the blade’s arc. They went tumbling onto the floor together. The blade caught Monica’s left leg a glancing blow. Her armoured boot saved her foot from being severed, but her ankle and lower shinbone were shattered by the impact. Shock dulled the initial pain. She sat up, groaning in dismay, and clutched at the ruined bones. Bile was rising in her throat, and it was very difficult to breathe.

Something extraordinarily heavy hit her shoulder, sending her sprawling. Joshua landed on the ground right beside her, rolling neatly to absorb the impact. A burst of hatred banished Monica’s pain. Then the blade sliced through the air where she had been a second before, a tiny whisper the only sound of its passing. Pendulum, she thought dazedly, it comes back.

One of the embassy operatives raced over to Monica. He was holding a square medical nanonic package and cursing heavily. “It’s glitched, too, I can’t get a response.”

Joshua glanced at the package glove covering his hand. Ever since he’d come into the shed, it had been stinging like crazy. “Tell me about it,” he grumbled.

Gelai joined them, squatting down, her face full of concern. She put her hand over Monica’s ankle.

The original intensity of the pain had frightened Monica, but this was plain horrifying. She could feel the fragments of bone shifting around inside her skin, she could even see the suit’s trouser fabric ripple around Gelai’s hand—her glowing hand. Yet it didn’t hurt.

“I think that’s it,” the bashful girl said. “Try standing.”

“Oh, my God. You’re a . . .”

“Didn’t you professionals know?” Joshua said evilly.

Samuel dodged around the pendulum and crouched beside them, alert, his machine gun pointing high. “I thought you’d been hit,” he said as Monica gingerly applied some weight to her left foot.

“I was. She cured me.”

He gave Gelai a fast appraisal. “Oh.”

“We’d better get going,” Monica said.

“They’ll hit us again if we move.”

“They’ll hit us if we stay.”

“I wish I could see them,” he moaned, blinking away the drizzle. “There’s no target for us. Shooting wild is pointless, there’s too much metal.”

“They’re up there,” Gelai said. “Three of them are just above the pendulum hinge. They’re the ones giving it substance.”

Samuel jerked his head about. “Where?”

“Above it.”

“Damn it.” If he could have just switched his retinal implants to infrared there might have been something other than mangled blackness. He fired his machine gun anyway, sluicing the bullets over the area he imagined Gelai was talking about. The magazine was spent in less than a second. He ejected it and slapped in a fresh one—mindful of how many were left clipped to his belt. When he looked up again, the pendulum had vanished. Instead, a length of thick black cabling was swaying to and fro. “That’s it? Did I get them?”