The Orb Page 7

  Zip clasped her hands to her chest, tears of joy dripping from her chin as she craned her neck to take in every detail of the Orb’s unearthly perfection. The blue of its surface was intense, as though it were an eye, gently examining the souls of the Pilgrims that stared back. Zip wanted to be taken up and swallowed whole by the Orb, absorbed into it, lost to the world and found by God. Around her, thousands wept and smiled, every face turned to the blue, all praying for the same thing: to be taken.

  Zip was overwhelmed with emotion and gasping for breath in-between rapturous sobs. She lowered her gaze to calm herself and stared at the back of her white-knuckled hands, which were gripping the metal rail.

  A tiny red spot. There was a tiny red spot of blood on the back of her hand. Instinctively, she touched her nose then stared in puzzlement at her unblemished fingertips.

  Silence fell like a guillotine. Her excited breathing sounded louder than cannon fire. A second before, the air had been filled with the gasps, tears and the wordless exaltation of tens of thousands of Pilgrims. A coldness washed over her body; she raised her head, searching for the cause of the abrupt silence.

  The handsome family had been shredded. A few strips of red flesh hung from their splintered bones. It couldn’t be. Zip spun around. The Wave of Pilgrims had turned into a macabre sea of gory skeletons, dripping with blood and worse. She was the only one left alive. Zip’s throat was torn by her screams.

  Over her own shrieking, Zip heard heavy pounding. Mutiny AIs were emerging from the Orb and coming for her. Their massive bodies were encrusted in human skulls. Each wielded a giant spiked hammer and a heavily serrated butcher’s knife, dripping with gore. Like a trapped animal, Zip went crazy and started ripping at her own flesh to escape her safety harness. As she tore away handfuls of skin and muscle, a thought came to her, unbidden: The Pilgrims were wrong. God’s chosen were the AIs.

  Somehow, from somewhere, the doctor was talking to her.

  “Zara, I know you can’t move and that was probably a little disturbing. We have just one more VR dream to complete the diagnoses. This will draw on deep memories, likely traumatic, from your past, which we’ll juxtapose with your beliefs. I’m administering the initiation process … now.”

  Musty, thousand-year-old bone dust rose up as their feet fell. The heavy padding of the robot was kicking up slightly less. Somehow, it ran more lightly and quietly than its human companions, despite its size and the weight of the bomb on its back.

  Far above their heads there was a constant crump, crump of heavy munitions detonating against shields. Like vultures, the shells were sniffing for any weakness. If a shield section failed, even for a second, the testing ordnance would summon a shit-storm of hellfire onto that spot. The game had been going on for nearly five years. The city above was surrounded by the Ungodly and Pilgrim alliance. There was no escape for the besieged Catholics from the relentless pounding. The eternal city somehow survived. Sections of the shield failed but were always repaired; exhausted supplies were somehow replenished; desperate defence morphed into ferocious counter attacks for a day or two, before the slow-motion carnage of the stalemate reasserted itself.

  Zara led, Mathew and the Pilgrim followed, with the robot AI bringing up the rear. Their route through the catacombs avoided the city’s main defences. There were still countless autonomous anti-personnel weapons scattered throughout the tunnels that had to be circumvented or destroyed. So far, they’d missed only one. Luckily, the AI had shielded Zip, Mathew and the Pilgrim from the full force of the blast. They’d escaped with cuts and bruises. The AI was unscathed. If it fell, the mission was over. Only the AI had the strength to carry the bomb. If they could get it in position, the siege would be over.

  “ETA?” Mathew asked, in his usual clipped manner.

  “The Necropolis is a klick out, directly ahead. Let’s take a minute,” Zara whispered, and slumped to the stone floor. They’d emerged from claustrophobic tunnels into a large open space. The forest of pillars holding up the arched ceiling disappeared into the gloom ahead. She felt exhausted. They’d been fighting their way through the catacombs for hours. Her face was covered in dark streaks where the thick dust had mingled with her sweat. Her chest was splattered with dried blood from an earlier take down. Mathew and the Pilgrim were equally soiled.

  Mathew joined Zara on the floor. He was a very beautiful young man, even under the muck of battle, and was her current fuck-mate. Zara hoped this one would survive longer than the last; he was better at it than most. Except for Q. She missed him. Nobody could replace Q.

  Zara was scared and sick in her soul. Q wouldn’t approve of what she was doing. If her team survived, and reached their target under the Basilica, she would be committing genocide. Being the lesser evil didn’t make it easier.

  The sour-faced Pilgrim remained standing, scanning the space, weapon ready, obviously anxious to be moving on; not that he said anything. The AI had turned into a monstrous, quietly purring still-life. It was designed for stealth and infiltration rather than frontal assault. It looked like an oversized panther skeleton constructed from black metal, tightly bound with dark red sinews. It had a vaguely feline head, sporting faceted blue eyes and moved on all fours. Quite pretty really, unless it was bearing down on you, vomiting death out of its shoulder-mounted weapons.

  The vibrations from a new defence testing barrage shook the ceiling. The irregular, but ceaseless, crump, crump worried her nerves. Zara wondered how those above had clung to their sanity, let alone the discipline needed to defend their city, so tenaciously for so long.

  “Pilgrim, think this’ll end it?” Mathew asked, pointing at the AI and its bomb. Zara was surprised Mathew had spoken again; he was usually as taciturn as any machine.

  The Pilgrim looked across at Mathew, studying him closely as though he thought his question was some kind of trick. “If the Vatican falls, then South America follows, which just leaves Lhasa. It’ll end it.”

  “Hey, Alpha, what do you think?” Mathew asked, his question surprisingly directed at the AI.

  “It’s the likely outcome,” was the response.

  It was the first time Zara had heard it speak. The voice was surprisingly human and warm. Zara was curious. “There’ll be peace?”

  “Until the next war, the final conflict,” the AI answered.

  “Final? This one’s pretty final. Half the world’s dead,” Zara said.

  “The Pilgrims will turn on the Ungodly, or we’ll destroy you both.”

  “We?” Mathew asked.

  The machine laughed. “The AIs.”

  “Enough, and that’s not funny. One bloody war at a time,” Zara said, and got to her feet, signalling for the others to follow. At least they might end this war and bring a kind of peace to the beleaguered city. After some minutes, they passed out of the open space and into one of the typical passages they’d been trekking along for hours – narrow, claustrophobic spaces lined with ancient burial niches. The AI’s wide shoulders occasionally grazed the side walls, dislodging fragments of the soft rock or the detritus of the long dead. Their small party ploughed on through the clouds of ancient Christians and probably the odd Jew. Did the Pilgrim have any doubts? Probably not. He was only interested in adding to the dust.

  Ahead, the passageway abruptly ended in a crumbling stone wall. Zara removed a probe and worked it into the ancient mortar. It crumbled like biscuit. A moment later, an image of the chamber beyond illuminated her Headgear. It was the Necropolis, and there were no guards. Zara removed the probe, stepped back and kicked the wall hard. The masonry gave way easily. With a few more kicks, there was space for her to pass through. She emerged into a wide passage lined on both sides with imposing mausoleums. Mathew and the Pilgrim joined Zara, with the AI bringing up the rear and tearing itself a bigger hole in the process.

  Somewhere nearby was the tomb of the Apostle Peter. Above their heads, the Basilica of St Peter’s itself. Zara hung her head; nothing could stop them now.

  “
Alpha. There,” she said, pointing her laser sights at an open area.

  The AI leapt over their heads and landed silently. The nuclear device was detached from its back and placed on the ground. It dug a pit and buried the weapon, leaving only its small control panel visible, then retreated to assume a sphinx-like pose.

  Zara tried not to think about Rome’s desperate population directly overhead. “Set the timer and let’s go.”

  Mathew touched the exposed panel. “Four hours. Set.”

  Vibrations from a staccato of heavy explosions rippled through the floor, turning it into a bubbling stream of dirt and mincing the ancient mortar binding the tombs. Many of the vaults lost their battle with time and collapsed in a jumble of masonry.

  “Localised shield failure. We need to go, now,” Zara shouted above the din.

  “A very large number of enemy personnel are converging on this location from two directions,” Alpha announced.

  Up above, the rain of fire was reaching a crescendo.

  “Establish a perimeter. Mathew, give me detonation control,” Zara whispered, as she dived for cover through the stone arch of the nearest standing mausoleum.

  Mathew touched the bomb’s panel again. Standing up, he kicked loose dirt over the exposed surface of the bomb, burying it completely, and retreated to cover.

  The AI leapt into the air and landed atop one of the taller intact vaults.

  The Pilgrim dived for the dirt and laid himself out in a prone position.

  “Fire on my command,” Zara whispered over her Headgear. If they were overrun, she would detonate the bomb, and they’d be incinerated along with the rest of Rome. At least she wouldn’t have to live with the guilt.

  Her own senses started to pick up the enemy’s approach. It didn’t feel right. It was raucous and chaotic. Sounds of high-pitched screams and panicked shouting grew louder as a mob closed on their position. It was coming from directly ahead and the way they’d come. She still couldn’t see anything.

  “Eyes?” said Zara.

  The AI had the best position and by far the best senses. After a short pause, it responded, “Multiple civilians, four hundred meters, closing. From east and west. Woman and children. No combatants. Orders?”

  One way or another, Zara knew they had to kill them all. “Hold position.”

  “Movement,” Mathew whispered.

  Zara turned to see a jumble of lights pour through the hole she’d kicked in the wall. A flood of old women and young children streamed past her position, as though they were in the grip of a silent gale. Tattered clothes hung off emaciated bodies like billowing war banners. Many had ragged wounds, patches of fried skin; some were covered in blood as though they’d been caught in a ruby rainstorm. The cries of the children and the screams of the wounded blended into a deafening wail that echoed around the graves.

  Zara pulled further back into the shadows, confused, clutching her weapon to her breast for reassurance. She had to do what she’d come to do.

  “Report,” Zara whispered.

  “The two columns of civilians, from the east and west, are on a collision course. Escape routes are blocked,” the AI said.

  She watched the forward momentum of the mob slow and then abruptly stop. People were thrown against each other like cudgels. Bones snapped with the noise of a whiplash. A pile of weakly thrashing and trampled bodies formed directly in front of Zara.

  The deafening firestorm raining down on the city above them was abruptly replaced by the familiar crump, crump of exploratory fire, searching for a new weakness. The shield must have been repaired.

  “Hold position,” Zara whispered.

  The pile of bodies in front of her was trying to slowly separate itself out into the mobile living, the immobile crippled and the dead. She stepped out to look back the way they’d come. Their only way out was blocked with flesh.

  “Please,” a voice whispered.

  Zara instinctively spun in the direction of the sound, dropped to one knee and raised her weapon. A child with an outstretched hand was calling out. She couldn’t tell its sex or its age; the face was covered in blood. Zara choked back a sob, slung her weapon behind her back and gently pulled the kid towards her. She couldn’t find any obvious injuries. Wiping the face clean, it was obvious she was a girl, maybe nine years old, pretty, except for the usual tattoos scarring her face – a Vatican flag on her forehead and crucifix-shaped tears running down both cheeks. She checked the pulse. It wasn’t good; Zara suspected internal bleeding. The little girl didn’t have long.

  “Take this,” Zara said. She put a strong painkiller between the girl’s cracked lips, followed by a trickle of water from her canteen. The girl swallowed and immediately coughed up blood.

  The screaming and cries, which had died away when the two streams of refugees had collided, was swelling in volume again. Zara shut her eyes and clapped her hands to her ears. She wanted to grab the little girl and run, forget the bomb, forget the war and never see that damn Orb or another Pilgrim again.

  “You’re not Catholic; you’re a dirty atheist, a fucking Pilgrim lover.”

  Zara opened her eyes. The girl was lunging at her with a knife. The blade caught her in the throat, slicing through her carotid artery. Zara clutched uselessly at her neck and fell backwards, followed by the little girl, who collapsed into unconsciousness. As Zara’s lungs filled with blood and the darkness fell, she gurgled, “Fuck ’em all! Bomb One! Execute! Nova! Nova!”

  Chapter Six – Quattro and Mathew

  Peter wasn’t expecting the call from Mathew’s lawyer. He’d been expecting the prison to call and schedule another session.

  “I have some unfortunate news, Peter.”

  Peter held his breath as one terrible thought about Mathew came to mind. “Has the bastard escaped?”

  “Escape from the Thermal Mines is impossible, Peter. My client suffered a massive stroke shortly after your VR meeting and is in a medically induced coma. He will be unable to assist you for the foreseeable future.”

  The air tumbled out of his lungs, but something stopped Peter relaxing completely. “Are you sure it’s not a trick?”

  “Peter, for all practical intents and purposes, Mathew is dead. Goodbye.”

  The tension ebbed away, and Peter smiled. Good, justice at last. His smile withered before it had fully bloomed. How would Quattro react? Could this news push her over the edge?

  Peter emerged on the daybed in the cellar VR and began to sit up before immediately jerking his head back in surprise. Quattro was standing directly over him. He’d become used to her emerging timidly from the shadows. His shock was amplified by the radical change in her appearance. For an instant, he thought he’d done something wrong and emerged in someone else’s VR.

  Somehow, she’d managed to ape the trashy side of Zip’s dress sense, and her beautiful black hair was bleached blond. Peter was appalled. What had Quattro done? The woman looked disgusting, cheap, nothing like Kiki.

  Peter swallowed and struggled to calm his breathing. She wasn’t his daughter. The end was coming, and it helped that she behaved and looked less like Kiki every time he saw her. Quattro had said it herself: she was only a machine’s dream, and soon Orb Industries would be switching it off for good.

  Peter sniffed. She was exuding a strong perfume: bait scent, full of pheromones, exotic mood manipulators, arousers. She wore a skin-tight, gossamer, black dress that barely covered anything and long, slinky, red gloves. The heels on her red shoes were unfeasibly high. Her nipples were thimbles, her breasts … were larger? Her smile was wicked, dirty, red-lipped and tarty, like a VR porno slut. What was happening? How could she be manipulating his VR?

  “You’re aroused? How … predictable. The history of your recreational VR sessions is very revealing. For someone so intelligent, I thought you would have more imagination. Daddy’s Girl? Really?”

  His cheeks flushed. It was a disgusting accusation. Could she really know? It was private. Private. She had to be guessing.
Peter pushed past Quattro as he slid off the VR couch and backed away, embarrassed, shamed. He covered his arousal behind crossed hands. “How dare you!”

  Quattro suppressed a girlish giggle with a fluttering, red-gloved hand over her mouth then smiled provocatively. “I’m not your daughter. I’m not even real. Not yet. So, we could, if you want?”

  Peter was shocked at Quattro’s behaviour and disgusted by his body’s response. He backed away, trying to avoid looking at her. It wasn’t easy. Quattro was dancing, slowly, sensually. Her long fingers traced her curves. Her lips glistened. Big, dark eyes said she understood his every desire and promised to fulfil them. Peter bit his tongue and forced his gaze down.

  “Stop it!”

  Quattro laughed. “Your lust murdered Melisa. Own it, Peter. Own your desires.”

  Peter was confused. “What? My wife? What are you talking about?”

  Quattro was smiling: a wicked, accusing smile. “Why did she turn to the Tramp and the Orb? Ever wonder why?”

  Horrible memories flooded back. Peter turned away. “It’s none of your business. Stop this.”

  “Petula sent Melisa VR recordings, lots of VR recordings, and she told Melisa you thought she was stupid. And fat.”

  Peter moaned and covered his ears. “That’s a lie. We were colleagues. Colleagues.”

  “I’ve enjoyed the VRs, Peter. You should be proud. Fucking Professor Petula Simmons, the century’s greatest mind. Feeling, tasting, touching, the two of you together in the VR was very, very hot.”

  Peter pulled at his hair. How could she know? How?

  “Shut up! You’re sick, making it all up.”

  “Peter, I can do everything Petula did, and more. Wouldn’t you like to see what’s under this dress?”

  Despite himself, Peter looked at Quattro and moaned. She was doing disgusting things with her fingers, her mouth. “Why? Why are you doing this?”