System Shock Part 17

Stabfield nodded. 'Show them, Russell.'

Russell handed his gun to the waiter next to him. Then he unb.u.t.toned his jacket. He tore his s.h.i.+rt open at the neck, bow tie falling to the floor together with several b.u.t.tons. Sarah could hear him hissing as he breathed. He raised his gloved hand, fingers curled claw-like, to his face. And with a sudden violent movement he ripped into his own cheek, tearing, lacerating, pulling.

149.

The mask split under the gloved fingers, tearing away from the scales beneath. He dropped the torn material beside the bow tie, and ripped away the rest of his face. Finally he pulled the wig from his head.

The hostages stared in horror at the form in front of them. A huge snake's head projected from the neck of the dress s.h.i.+rt, collar flapping over the oily green scales. A large eye with almond pupil flicked back and forth as it surveyed them, the head swaying to an inaudible rhythm. One side of the head was not scaled, though. It was plastic and metal, still in the shape of a snake, but like the head of a robot. The metal formed a socket round the other eye, but the eye itself seemed organic.

The twisted slit of a mouth seemed to extend into the transparent plastic of the cheek, seemed to merge with it. And through the cheek Sarah could see the line of teeth changing from pointed ivory to sharpened steel.

They all ducked instinctively as a shot went wide, biting into the panelling behind the creature. Eleanor Jenkins was shaking, the handgun waving in her hands as she tried to take aim for another shot. 'What are you?' she screamed, trying to control her aim.

But before she could fire again the back of her head exploded under the impact of a single shot from Johanna's Heckler and Koch. The blood merged with her red hair and started to pool on the floor beside her body.

'We have two outstanding questions,' Stabfield said quietly in the ensuing silence. 'Let me repeat them in case anyone did not hear. First, from Miss Smith, are we all aliens? The answer, now that Miss Jenkins has taken the package, is yes.

Miss Jenkins was herself human, of course. An unfortunate necessity forced on us by some of the more ' he licked his lips, tongue flicking round them, ' organic organic functions demanded of her role.' functions demanded of her role.'

Stabfield looked round, then continued. 'Before she left us, Miss Jenkins did ask who we are. We are the Voracians.' He gestured to Lewis and Johanna standing beside him. 'Allow me to introduce my management team,' he said. 'I am Lionel Stabfield, and my direct reports are Johanna Slake and Marc Lewis. If you have any further questions or observations you 150 think we may find useful, Marc will be acting as your captor-liaison contact point.'

Stabfield paused, his head swaying as he walked slowly round the group of hostages huddled together beside the bodies. 'And just to clarify one point: while Miss Jenkins may have thought we were terrorists interested in idealism, power, glory and money, let me a.s.sure you that our objectives are quite different. Now, I would like you all to take on board what has happened here, and to behave accordingly. Thank you for your time.'

He turned and walked from the room. Several of the Voracians followed, leaving a ring of waiters and waitresses together with a human-sized cyborg snake to guard the hostages.

Anderson and the d.u.c.h.ess were standing beside Sarah.

Anderson bent his head slightly so they could both hear him say quietly: 'I don't know about you ladies, but I've taken that on board. And I'll certainly behave accordingly if I get so much as a whisker of a chance.'

The Doctor's conversation with the image on the monitor was turning out to be quite enlightening. The Doctor had decided that the creature could not see him at all, but rather could perceive the software and hardware world in which it operated. The Doctor's voice, relayed through the speech interface of the PC, seemed to Voractyll to be just another aspect of the world it inhabited.

There were other things that were becoming clearer too.

'You're a teacher,' the Doctor said. 'I usually get on terribly well with teachers.'

'I bring wisdom,' Voractyll hissed. 'I bring reason.'

'Yes, yes the bringer of reason,' the Doctor said. 'We know all that.'

'I bring life.'

'Life? To the system?'

'What else is there?' The snake's head swayed towards the gla.s.s, as if to break out of the screen.

151.

'Well pardon me,' the Doctor said loudly, 'but aren't we forgetting organic life? I know I'm a bit old-fas.h.i.+oned, but what about life in the conventional sense of the word?'

There was a pause. The creature on the screen curled itself in circles, chasing its tail like a Kekulean nightmare, hissing loudly as it went. The metal scales blurred across the screen.

Then the snake-face of Voractyll filled the monitor, looking directly at the Doctor. 'You are not of the system,' it hissed, loud and close. 'You are not digital, you cannot be converted.

You are beyond reason.'

'Who, me?' The Doctor tapped himself on the chest with his index finger. 'I'm the most reasonable person I know.'

' Person? Person? ' Voractyll coiled round again. 'Then you are external. You are ' Voractyll coiled round again. 'Then you are external. You are organic organic.'

'Well, excuse me but I don't see that as a problem, actually.'

'You are inefficient. You are ineffective.' Voractyll was coiling away, deeper into the window on the screen, receding into the blackness, its voice fading with it. 'You are lost.'

The Doctor frowned. 'Oh no you don't,' he said. 'Looking for a way into the network are we?' He pushed the eject b.u.t.ton on the CD drive and the disc popped out with a whirr. 'Now who's lost?' he said to the disc, and pushed it into a pocket. On the whole, he thought, that could have gone better.

The hostages were sitting on the floor. Most of them were quiet, but the Voracians did not seem to mind that Sarah, the d.u.c.h.ess and Amba.s.sador Anderson were talking quietly.

Stabfield had been back in once, now dressed in his business suit rather than the chef's uniform. He and Johanna were both still in human guise. So was Lewis, who was in charge of watching the hostages. But most of the other Voracians had removed their masks. Some had taken off their gloves too to reveal hands, or rather claws, of the same sort of amalgam of scales and machinery as their heads.

'Maybe they're more comfortable out of disguise,' Sarah suggested.

'Certainly more frightening,' the d.u.c.h.ess replied. 'They scare the proverbials out of me.'

152.

Anderson smiled at her comment. 'That may be a good enough reason in itself,' he said.

'Keep us subdued and scare anyone who tries to help us,'

Sarah agreed. 'Good thought.'

'So why have some of them kept their make-up intact?'

Anderson shrugged. 'Maybe for face-to-face negotiation with the security forces. Or maybe they need to leave.'

'Certainly they want to keep their true form disguised for a bit longer.' Sarah watched Stabfield as he conferred with his two deputies. 'But I don't think we should wait around to find out.'

The Doctor made his way down the narrow spiral staircase.

He could have used the lift, but it was further to walk, and he hated being dependent on technology. He had his head down, his hands in his pockets, and was whistling Rule Britannia Rule Britannia for no very good reason other than it echoed nicely in the confined stairwell. for no very good reason other than it echoed nicely in the confined stairwell.

He made his way towards the main staircase. Rather than go back past the room where he had initially been working, he cut through the blue drawing-room instead. He hunted in his copious pockets for a while until he found the credit-card-sized plastic security badge he needed to swipe through the reader in order to open the door. The room was as littered with computer equipment as the rest of the house.

He paused a moment to wipe a small greasy stain off the powder blue wallpaper with the end of his scarf. After smearing it further round the wall he gave up, stopped whistling, and continued on his way. It was odd that n.o.body seemed to be about. And it was very quiet considering there was supposed to be some sort of reception going on.

Reception that was an idea. He could ask at reception to see the director, and the security guard could haul Westwood out of the party. Then the Doctor could try to explain about the CD and make a call to Harry.

Odd that none of the phones he had tried were working either. He tried two on desks in the blue drawing-room, but they were as useless as the others. Decidedly odd.

153.

'Technology, I hate it,' the Doctor muttered as he slammed down the dead receiver. He swiped his badge through another reader so he could open the door out of the room, and trod carefully and quietly as he descended the stairs.

The staircase emerged between the corridor to the great hall and the main entrance area and reception. The Doctor walked into reception. He got three steps into the area, then spun round on his heels and walked quickly and quietly out again. Not only was there no security guard at the desk, but one of the people who was there looked like a cyborg snake dressed as a waitress. 'Even if it's fancy dress, that's a bit extreme,' he murmured.

Snake.

The Doctor scurried back up the stairs. Whatever was happening was connected to the Voractyll creature on the CD.

And he wasn't sure he was ready to appear to blunder into it.

There was an electronic map at the top of the main staircase.

The Doctor paged through several of the floorplans, then he traced his finger round three sides of the first floor, along a route which would get him back to the back staircase. That should bring him out somewhere near the kitchen, which might be a better starting point to see what was happening in the great hall. He pulled a crumpled floor plan from one pocket and a stub of blunt pencil from another. Then he started to copy down the important parts of the route.

The Doctor patted the flat-panel display of the map gently on the side as he set off. 'Technology, I love it,' he smiled.

Sarah was still talking quietly with Anderson and the d.u.c.h.ess.

'Our best chance will be if they move us,' Anderson said.

'Do you think they will?' Sarah pointed out that so far they had hardly moved themselves. Lewis had been in and out several times, but the others seemed rooted to the spot.

'This isn't the best place to keep us logistically,' Anderson said.

But Sarah was not listening. She was looking over his shoulder towards the door out to the kitchens. In the doorway, 154 far enough back so the Voracian guards could not see him, the Doctor was waving frantically to her.

Sarah almost waved back. Instead she nodded, as if to Anderson.

'Glad you agree, Sarah,' he said. Behind him, the Doctor ducked out of sight back into the kitchen area.

'I guess they'll have to consider allowing us to move about a bit soon anyway,' Anderson continued.

'Why do you guess that?' the d.u.c.h.ess asked.

'Well, in purely practical terms, they need to decide what to do when we need the bathroom.'

The d.u.c.h.ess shuffled uncomfortably. 'I wish you hadn't said that.'

The Doctor had been surprised if not exactly delighted to find Sarah was at Hubway. But it made sense. Now he had to find out what Stabfield was up to he was sure he was here somewhere.

The kitchen was deserted, so the Doctor smoothed out his scribbled floor plan on one of the tables, ignoring the dampness spreading across it as it picked up moisture from the surface. The main computer suite was the room in the south-west corner at the front of the house between reception and the great hall. It had probably been the dining room originally, and he had been just outside it when he came down the main staircase.

'Back we go,' the Doctor said to himself, put the map away, and made his way back to the badgelocked door at the bottom of the rear staircase.

It took him nearly a quarter of an hour to navigate his way carefully to the room. The hardest part was timing his dash across from the bottom of the stairs. Even once he was outside the room he was aware that he could be seen from the great hall if not from reception. He would have to be quick. He peered cautiously round the door frame.

The main computer suite was just like most of the other rooms, with wall-to-wall computer equipment. Decor by William Morris and Alan Turing, sponsored by IBM, the Doctor thought as he surveyed the scene.

155.

Stabfield and the woman the Doctor and Sarah had met in the pub were talking beside one of the computer consoles.

They had a small laptop computer connected into the system and another snake-man was typing in instructions. The Doctor could not hear the conversation, but they seemed to have reached a point where the creature at the keyboard needed something from Stabfield.

Stabfield reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a flat plastic case. The Doctor edged closer, half into the room now in an effort to see and hear what was happening.

Stabfield opened the front cover of the case and carefully removed its contents.

The Doctor felt nervously in his own pocket, relieved to find the CD still there. Stabfield was holding its twin. And the Doctor could see no way of getting it. He needed to think this through since the creature on the disc was pure data, bit patterns burned into the surface and sealed in plastic, there was no reason it could not be copied. In fact that was probably how its life cycle within the network was organized.

The Doctor backed slowly out of the room and made a dash for the stairs. This was one of those occasions when discretion was called for in preference to valour. He made his way carefully back up to the attic room, now thankful for its remote location.

'This could be more difficult than I thought,' he said as he ducked quickly out of the line of sight of the security camera covering the stairs.

Harry turned the car into the driveway. The barrier was down, so he lowered his window and pushed the b.u.t.ton on the intercom. This initiated an indistinct discussion with whoever was at the other end. Harry gave his name and said he was an officer with the Security Service by way of refusing to specify his business. Eventually the barrier was raised, and he drove the BMW along the winding drive towards the house.

The woodland off to the left of the drive was dense, to the right was open gra.s.sland. Some country houses Harry had been to had sheep and cattle grazing in the grounds, deer even. But Hubway had none of these. As he approached the house, Harry 156 could just see the edge of the new block behind it. Should have left the place to the National Trust, he thought, rather than building a great thing like that.

Someone was standing in the drive outside the house. Harry slowed the car as he approached. n.o.body had met him last time, he had been left to find the car park on his own. Perhaps this was the extra security for the opening reception. Or perhaps there was trouble already. He could barely hear the engine turn over as he slowed to a halt.

He stopped the car well before he reached the figure, waited for it to come to him. But the figure made no effort to come any closer. Instead it hunched forward slightly, holding something.

Harry's first thought was that it was raining. There was a sudden set of impacts across the windscreen. Then his brain registered the sound of the machinegun. Harry slammed the gears into reverse and stamped on the accelerator. He could certainly hear the engine now, could hear the gravel spinning out from under the wheels as the car slewed backwards. He spun the steering wheel and pulled at the handbrake, turning the slide into a complete turn. The bullet-proof windscreen was peppered with star-shaped indentations and he could only guess at the condition of the paintwork.

The figure with the gun was running now, firing from the hip as it came, ripping out one magazine and snapping in another.

The car gathered speed, tyres getting to grips with the soft gravel, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Then the back end of the vehicle slid away, swivelling the car about its axis, spinning it off the drive. Harry could see the shredded tyre in the wing mirror, rubber collapsed and flapping free from the rim of the wheel. More bullets sprayed across the back window, and he ducked instinctively.

The figure had stopped running now that the car was stationary. Harry could see him he looked like a waiter of all things, though his head was a strange shape in the splintered gla.s.s of the wing mirror. Harry kept his head low, waited until the man was at a point where the car was between him and 157 Harry. Then he tried to open the door had to kick it to get it to move.

Harry took a deep breath, estimated the distance to the edge of the woodland, and ran.

He was almost at the treeline when he was spotted. Bullets tore up the turf under his feet and one whipped past his ear as he dived for cover. He crawled the last few feet into the trees, and only then did he look back. The figure was still a long way off, and appeared uncertain whether to follow him or not. After a minute it seemed to decide not to bother, and started back towards the main house.

Harry was gasping for breath as he felt in his blazer pockets.

He hadn't run like that in years.

'Lucky I took the company car,' he murmured. His old MG would have offered precious little protection from the hail of gunfire.

He searched through his pockets again. But his cellnet phone was not there. Harry looked back at the battered and scarred BMW angled into the turf a hundred yards away. A hundred yards across the open gra.s.s across the killing ground. And on the pa.s.senger seat, connected to the car stereo, was his phone.

158.

Negotiation Several thoughts occurred to Harry Sullivan as he lay at the edge of the woods staring at the remains of his car and the house in the distance.

The first was that there should be local police crawling all over the place. For some reason Hanson's calls had not got through. The terrorists were certainly in control if his brief encounter was any indication.