‘Really quite a remarkable piece of Voidborn technology,’ Fletcher said, ‘capable of full molecular disintegration. Everything that enters the energy field is broken down at the molecular level and then harvested to be used as raw materials in the nano-forges. Absolutely nothing is wasted – true lossless recycling. I’m sure you can imagine the effect that it would have on human tissue.’ He turned back towards Sam and Jay.
‘Is he working
with
these things?’ Jay asked Sam, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Sam said, staring at Fletcher.
‘Do you want to know what I really hate, Sam?’ Fletcher asked. ‘I really hate being threatened, especially by a boy. So here’s how this is going to work. Your friend Jay is going to tell me exactly where the rest of your little friends are holed up right now, or I’m going to feed you piece by piece into that disintegration field while he watches.’
‘Don’t tell him anything, Jay,’ Sam said as the Hunters dragged him towards the portal.
‘Where are your friends?’ Fletcher asked Jay. Jay spat on the floor at Fletcher’s feet and said nothing. ‘Have it your way.’ He turned back to the Hunters restraining Sam and closed his eyes for a second. Again Sam heard the whispering inside his skull and a moment later the Hunters began to drag him closer to the furnace, raising his right arm and pushing his hand towards the crackling energy field.
‘Last chance,’ Fletcher said. ‘Tell me where the rest of the resistance is based or your friend loses his arm. And that will just be the beginning.’
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Jay said. ‘Please, I . . .’
‘Are you going to tell me or not!’ Fletcher yelled.
‘No,’ Jay said, hanging his head. ‘I’m not.’
‘Very well,’ Fletcher said, turning back towards the Hunters and closing his eyes again.
Sam fought with every ounce of his strength against the Hunter holding his arm as it pushed his right hand towards the disintegration field, but it was no good; the creature was simply too strong. He felt the hairs on the back of his arm stand up as his fingers moved to within millimetres of the field.
Suddenly, there was the sound of an explosion in the distance, followed almost instantly by the sound of automatic gunfire. The Hunter that had been pushing Sam’s arm into the furnace was torn apart by a hail of bullets, sending hot green liquid spraying across Sam’s face and chest. The Hunter’s tentacles went slack and Sam wrenched his arm free of its grip as the creature holding his other arm shrieked in enraged alarm. Moments later there was the sound of another explosion from somewhere much closer, and the night sky in the compound outside was lit up by a billowing fireball. The Hunter holding Sam’s other arm released its grip and spun backwards through the air, twitching and jerking as it too was hit by another burst of fire. Sam pulled himself free and spun round just in time to see Rachel and Nat advancing into the room, rifles raised. A moment later they fired in unison at the Hunters hovering above Jay, taking them both down.
‘Catch!’ Rachel yelled, and pulled the pistol from the holster on her belt, throwing it to Sam. He caught the weapon and raised it, aiming at one of the other Hunters that had been supervising the slaves as they emptied their loads of rubble into the furnaces. He pulled the trigger and the pistol bucked twice in his hands in quick succession, hitting the Hunter dead centre and sending it spinning straight into one of the nearby disintegration fields, where it vanished with a flash. Jay untangled himself from the twitching tentacles of the two dead Hunters that were wrapped round his arms and ran towards Nat who tossed her own side-arm to him. Fletcher made a break for it, running for cover as two more Hunters that had been on guard started to return fire at the four armed humans. Sizzling green energy bolts flashed through the air, sending the two girls diving for cover behind the furnaces. Sam kept firing, moving towards Rachel’s position as energy blasts struck the ground near his feet. He threw himself against the wall as another bolt flashed by, missing him, but striking one of the mute slaves square between the shoulder blades, and the man toppled to the ground. Unbelievably, the rest of the Walkers just continued with their work, unloading rubble into the furnaces as if nothing was happening, oblivious to the raging firefight that was going on around them.
‘I thought Jackson ordered you to stay home,’ Sam said, as he leant out and fired, knocking another Hunter out of the air.
‘Lucky for you that I suck at following orders, then, isn’t it?’ Rachel said, grinning as she fired at the last remaining Hunter, winging it, but not putting it out of action. It returned fire and multiple energy blasts slammed into the furnace that they were taking cover behind, tearing chunks out of the machine’s heavy metal skin. A moment later, Nat ducked out from behind the furnace on the other side of the room and fired a three-round burst into the wounded creature, putting it down for good. As the last of the Hunters in the chamber hit the ground, Fletcher made a break for the door at the far end of the room, sprinting across open ground. Jay stepped out from cover, took careful aim at the fleeing man and fired. The bullet caught him high in his left arm, spinning him round and knocking him to the floor. Jay ran towards the fallen man with the others close behind him. As Jay approached, Fletcher struggled to his knees, trying to climb to his feet.
‘Siddown,’ Jay said, kicking him in the backside and sending him sprawling flat on his face in the dirt. Jay levelled his pistol at Fletcher as the man rolled on to his back and looked up at the four angry-looking children who now surrounded him.
‘How’s it feel?’ Jay said, his voice shaking with anger. ‘Knowing you’re going to die.’
‘You can kill me,’ Fletcher said, clutching the bloody wound in his upper arm, ‘but none of you are going to make it out of here alive.’
‘Jay, no,’ Sam said, putting his hand over his friend’s gun and pushing it downwards until it pointed at the floor. ‘We need him alive. He knows what the Voidborn are building here.’
‘The what?’ Rachel asked as they heard the angry buzz from outside of what sounded like a horribly large number of Hunters getting ever closer.
‘The Voidborn, that’s what the Threat call themselves,’ Sam explained. ‘That’s what he told me, at least. We have to take him back to Stirling. The information he’s got in his head could be invaluable.’
‘Stirling,’ Fletcher said, a frown appearing on his face. ‘Iain Stirling? I might have known.’
‘You know him?’ Rachel said, looking confused.
‘Oh, we’re old friends,’ Fletcher said with a pained laugh. ‘And you’re all his little helpers, are you? How amusing.’
‘Shut up!’ Jay barked at Fletcher. ‘Sam, we can’t take him back with us. You saw how he was controlling those Hunters – he’d bring every one of the Threat . . . or Voidborn, or whatever you say they’re called now, right down on top of us.’
‘Jay’s right,’ Rachel said. ‘We can’t risk them tracking us back to base. It’s too risky.’
‘Oh, do make your minds up,’ Fletcher said. ‘I’m not sure I can stomach much more of your indecisive whining.’
‘That’s it,’ Jay said, raising his pistol. ‘I’m finishing this treacherous piece of filth off.’
‘Fine,’ Sam said, turning and walking towards the exit, ‘but make it quick.’ It didn’t matter what Fletcher had done, that he’d sold out his own species; something about killing another human didn’t sit right with Sam. They’d all been changed by everything that had happened since the arrival of the Voidborn, but this was the one line that he could not bring himself to cross.
‘Nothing personal, but you asked for this,’ Jay said, pointing his pistol at Fletcher’s head.
‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ Fletcher said, closing his eyes.
A split second later one entire wall of the recycling chamber exploded in a flash of bright white light, knocking everyone in the room to the floor. Sam slowly dragged himself to his feet. It was almost impossible to see anything through the thick smoke that now hung in the air, but he felt something growling in his head and then the ground shuddered as a huge black shadow moved through the haze. Sam’s fears were confirmed when the room was suddenly filled with a monstrous bellowing roar.
‘Grendel,’ Sam whispered to himself. A moment later a second roar answered the first from somewhere on the other side of the room. ‘Oh, great,’ he said, sneaking over to where Rachel and Nat were picking themselves up off the floor.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Sam said as the smoke in the room began to clear. ‘Where’s Jay?’ He heard a groan from nearby and as the smoke continued to clear he saw Jay rolling over on to his back with a nasty gash on his forehead, blood trickling down the side of his face.
‘Jay, you OK?’ Sam whispered, helping his friend to his feet.
‘Yeah, something hit me. Must have been a piece of debris or something,’ he groaned, slowly standing up. ‘Where’s Fletcher?’ He looked around for any sign of the man who had been right there just a few seconds earlier.
‘Don’t worry about him. We need to move,’ Sam said, picking Jay’s pistol up from the floor and handing it to him. A gentle breeze blew through the room and the smoke began to suddenly clear more quickly. A pair of Grendels, their heads almost touching the ceiling, were just fifteen metres away on the other side of the room. One of the creatures turned its monstrous head towards Sam and the others, its huge mouth opening wide, razor-sharp teeth glistening as it spotted them and roared again.
‘Run!’ Sam yelled, and all four of them bolted for the exit. The two Grendels strode across the room towards them, the impact of their giant footsteps sending tremors through the floor. As Sam ran out into the crater compound, he saw that several of the outlying Voidborn structures were ablaze, with huge holes blown in their walls.
‘We had to plant a few distraction charges on the way in,’ Rachel said, sprinting along beside him.
‘Don’t worry, you made quite an entrance,’ Sam said, looking over his shoulder as the two Grendels smashed their way through the doorway leading out of the recycling chamber. ‘Your timing was impeccable. You might just have saved my juggling career.’
‘Can we save the jokes for when we’re not running for our lives?’ Nat said, raising her rifle and fired a short burst at a Hunter that came buzzing out from behind one of the damaged structures, sending it spinning into the flames with an ear-piercing shriek.
‘Where exactly are we going?’ Jay asked as they ran headlong towards the crater wall.
‘My plan extended about as far as running away from those things,’ Sam said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the two giant, black monstrosities chasing them through the compound.
‘You know, that’s actually a good plan,’ Nat said, glancing nervously over her shoulder.
‘Don’t know what you’re worrying about,’ Rachel said, firing at another Hunter that came screaming towards them and sending it crashing to the floor. ‘You’ve taken one of those things down before.’
‘Yeah, I hate to remind you, Rach, but on that occasion there was only one of them and I had a rocket launcher,’ Jay said when they reached the bottom of the crater wall. ‘Biggest difference tonight? No rocket launcher.’
‘Point,’ Rachel said, and the four of them began to scramble up the steep crater wall. Behind them, the two Grendels pounded across the open ground between them and their prey, roaring in anger. As Sam and the others reached the top and hauled themselves over the edge, the Grendels were just reaching the bottom. The massive creatures began to climb, but their huge size made it more difficult for them because the loose soil and gravel gave way beneath their weight.
‘Rach, wait,’ Nat shouted as they sprinted towards the railings that surrounded the once magnificent park. She reached into Rachel’s backpack and pulled out their last brick of plastic explosive. She ran back to the crater and placed the charge on the ground just above the climbing Grendels.
‘Nat, you’re a genius,’ Jay said as she ran back to the others.
Rachel pulled the remote detonator from the pouch on her belt and waited as the first Grendel’s massive claw reached up and over the edge of the crater, before slamming down on the ground and dragging the creature upwards. She hit the trigger just as the Grendel’s head appeared, and the creature vanished with a bang in a cloud of fire and dust. The burning, decapitated body of the Grendel tumbled back down the slope, knocking the other creature to the bottom of the crater.
‘Bought us some time,’ Nat said, ‘but not much.’ She pointed upwards and they saw half a dozen drop-ships racing towards them from the Voidborn Mothership. They climbed over the iron railings and on to the pavement. At the far end of the street another Grendel rounded the corner and roared as it caught sight of them.
‘Other way I’m guessing,’ Jay said, and they all sprinted in the opposite direction.
‘Which route did you take to the surface?’ Sam yelled at Rachel as they ran down the street with the Grendel striding after them, swiping aside the cars that sat in the road ahead of it like toys.
‘Same way you did,’ Rachel replied, ‘We . . . erm . . . persuaded Adam to give us the route that he’d given to you guys.’
‘Is that the closest entrance to the tunnel network?’ Sam asked, trying hard to remember the map that Jackson had given him to memorise several weeks previously.
‘I think so,’ Jay replied as they ran round another corner, heading towards Big Ben, which was now just visible above the rooftops. ‘The only other entrance that’s sure to be open is Westminster Tube, but the entrance under Parliament is nearer and we know it’s not blocked or locked up.’