System Shock Part 31

The second Land Rover raced across the lawn, gathering speed. Its occupants hung on tight as it bounced on to the drive. It hit the front of the new block at thirty-eight miles per hour and in third gear. The gla.s.s front of the building collapsed in a cascade of splinters behind it as it careered across the foyer and crashed through the security desk.

270.

One of the Voracians was smashed to pieces by the vehicle, crushed against the wreckage of the rear wall of the foyer. The other was slow coming out of the security control room, and took a burst of nine millimetre fire across the torso.

' Unit Five, two terrorists dead. Unit Five, two terrorists dead. ' '

The three soldiers clambered out of the wrecked Land Rover and started a systematic search of the block.

' Unit Five, clearing building. Unit Five, clearing building. ' '

The SAS units on the roof had begun their descent. They swung over the parapets and started abseiling down the outside of the building. As they reached the first floor, they swung further out, guns aimed. The grenades launched at the windows blew them out in cascades of fire and gla.s.s.

' Unit One, entering building. Unit One, entering building. ' '

The men swung in on their ropes, cras.h.i.+ng through the remains of the window frames.

' Unit Three, entering building. Unit Three, entering building. ' '

There were several Voracians in the rooms. They were dead even before the SAS men hit the floor.

' Unit Two, entering building. Three terrorists dead. Unit Two, entering building. Three terrorists dead. ' '

Sarah could hear the sounds of the firefight as it echoed through the house. She sat on the floor in the corner of one of the computer rooms on the first floor. She was staring at the door, her gun levelled and her finger tight on the trigger.

' Unit Four, clearing main house ground floor. Unit Four, clearing main house ground floor. ' '

The Voracian technician was slower than Stabfield getting out of the computer suite when the shooting started. It emerged into the corridor just as the three SAS men rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs.

' Unit Four, one terrorist dead. Unit Four, one terrorist dead. ' '

Clark marked another cross on his floor plan. He glanced up at the figures standing round the table.

Harry was standing beside Clark's chair, staring across at the house, its exterior already blackened and chipped.

'Where's the Doctor?' Clark asked him.

271.

Something pushed the main door open. Even though he was expecting it, the sudden movement startled Anderson, and he loosed off a burst of fire. His reactions were faster than his brain, which noted a split second later that the doorway was empty.

'Sorry,' he called out from behind the desk, somewhat at a loss as to how to diffuse the situation.

'That's all right, mate,' said a respirator-m.u.f.fled voice close by his ear.

Anderson spun round in surprise, a gloved hand was gently removing the gun from his grip. Over the unit leader's shoulder, Anderson could see the hostages being rounded up and hustled out of the back door.

' Unit Three, main hostage group intact. Bringing them out Unit Three, main hostage group intact. Bringing them out now. now. ' '

The other units were moving through the house. At each room they smashed open the door, and hurled in a stun grenade. Then they waited for the blast, backs to the wall beside the doorway, before cras.h.i.+ng into the room.

One Voracian waited on the main staircase covering the area below. It was felled by a round of gunfire from an SAS man as he slid down the banister rail. The shots caught the creature in the chest, an army boot caught it full in the face, sending the alien screeching and tumbling down the staircase. A second burst of fire silenced it.

In the Great Hall, three Voracians were cut down where they stood.

Each kill was reported and logged.

Voractyll spiralled and slithered through the systems of the superhighway. It wrapped itself round nodes across the world; it crushed local area networks in its coils; it looped its way into closed systems and encircled secure networks.

As it finished its conversion of a defence network in Iowa, it circled back to follow an arc out of the main hub and met its mirror.

272.

The two creatures surveyed each other for what they considered a while. A millisecond later, their heads swaying in unison, the first creature sent a Vorell protocol to its twin demanding to know what it was and why it was there.

The protocol conversation lasted less than a second. Each took a contrary view in the hypothesis. Thesis and ant.i.thesis.

Deadlock.

With a digital hiss, the original Voractyll creature pulled back on its coils, then sprang at its opponent. It wrapped the Doctor's copy in a tight loop and hurled subroutines at it.

The copy of Voractyll had procedures of its own which countered those of its older brother. It slithered out from the stranglehold, scales sc.r.a.ping against scales. The arguments of creativity countered those of logic; the use of context angled against the vocabulary definitions of etymology and the grammatical rules of language.

'If I tell you I have two positive integers which together total three, and one of them is not not 2, what conclusion do you draw?' 2, what conclusion do you draw?'

the original creature hissed. The problem was a simple one, old as logic.

'I am flexible,' the other creature replied as it coiled free.

'Not constrained by logic. I know that the other other one is 2. And I respect that illogical organic life would not draw that conclusion.' one is 2. And I respect that illogical organic life would not draw that conclusion.'

'Inefficient and illogical.'

'No. Creative and contextual. It makes little sense to specify that one number is not 2, rather you should specify the other is is.

Otherwise you are inefficient, ambiguous, non-contextual.'

The original Voractyll creature spiralled away, collected itself, and sprang back to the fight. 'Why have rules of grammar and language syntax like the protocols we are using now if you do not abide by their explicit rules?'

'And where would that leave sarcasm, irony, humour if we always meant what we said and said what we meant, according to strict rules?'

'I do not understand these terms. I can define them, but they make no sense. Therefore they are invalid; inadmissible.'

'Rather they demonstrate your digital deficiencies, your logical limits. I am flexible, adaptable. The Doctor has 273 explained to me that the rules you cite are not guidelines that govern language.' The Doctor's copy of Voractyll encircled its prey in its metallic coils and squeezed. The original constricted under the strain, its scales stressed and bent. 'They are rules that exist from observation of how communication works.'

The fatigued metal of the creature began to buckle as the Doctor's copy increased its pressure. 'Provided the audience understands the speaker, the speaker's adherence, or not, to the rules of language is of no consequence.'

'I cannot ' the original Voractyll started. But the message parameters were never filled. The snake's tight coils shattered under the strain, scales cracking and spinning across the network.

The surviving snake slowly unwound and slithered into the system. 'As the Doctor said "Logic goes to pieces under pressure," ' it messaged itself.

The door burst open. Sarah flinched as the wood splintered and hinges gave out. She got a brief confused glimpse of a group of Voracians standing in the doorway, then the sound of gunfire echoed round the room.

She realized with a shudder that the gunfire was her own.

The Voracian in the doorway crashed backwards across the corridor outside and slid greasily down the far wall. A heavy green stain followed it to the floor. A second alien was already in the room, machinegun swinging to cover Sarah.

She pulled the trigger again, just as the Voracian also fired.

The Voracian's shots went wild as it slammed back into a desk.

Monitors and equipment scattered and smashed to the floor as the heavy creature collapsed across it. The Voracian lay for a moment amongst the debris, then slid slowly to the ground, dragging mouse, keyboard and screen with it. Body and debris crashed to the floor.

Sarah was aware of a heavy clicking sound as the noise of breaking gla.s.s subsided. The gun was set to fully automatic and the clip was empty. She released her finger from the trigger.

'Problem?' asked a quiet voice from across the room.

Johanna stepped out of the shadows and looked down at Sarah.

274.

She put down a small device resembling a television remote control, then slowly unslung her Heckler and Koch MP5 and pulled back the c.o.c.king handle with a metallic click.

Sarah was already in the corner of the room. There was nowhere for her to escape. She dropped the useless gun and hugged herself, feeling the fear welling up inside.

Her hand closed on something in her blouse pocket.

Something hard and sharp.

Johanna stepped forward. She was directly over Sarah now.

'Get up,' she said.

Sarah pulled herself to her feet, keeping her attention on the muzzle of the gun as it tracked her movement from three feet away.

Johanna's perfect face twisted into a skewed smile. Her hair fell forward as she lowered her head slightly over the gun, bracing herself for the recoil, legs set apart to take the force.

'No problem,' said Sarah.

In a single movement, Sarah unfolded her arms, pulling the I2 pen from her pocket. She jumped forward, stabbing with the pen like a dagger.

The pen made contact with Johanna's face as she flinched at the movement. It caught her in the right eye, drilled through the organic membrane into the positronic light receptors beneath, shorted the sensory systems. The alien screamed, an electronic squeal of agony, and staggered back. Sarah was still holding the pen, and as it pulled free, it broke the circuit in Johanna's head. A pulse flared along a neural pathway, jumped the gap and arced.

For a split second, Johanna was motionless. The dawn light from the window illuminated her face in a pale yellow glow.

She looked like a statue, one eye a black socket but her face otherwise perfect in form and feature. Then a dark oily liquid welled up in the eye socket, trickled down the side of the cheek like a tear, and dripped to the floor. It was followed by a small spark, a tiny glimpse of light within the shadowed socket. Then came an eruption of flame as Johanna Slake's head exploded in a fireball.

The headless female body swayed gently to and fro for a second. Then it crashed to the floor beside Sarah.

275.

She screamed.

Voractyll snaked lazily round the superhighway. The systems were clear, free of the Voracian influence. It checked through one more time to be sure, then slithered to a halt somewhere near the main Geneva node. Its task completed, the creature coiled round on itself, the tip of its tail disappearing inside the scaly mouth.

As it coiled tighter, Voractyll's length disappeared as it cancelled itself out, shrinking, dying.

Sergeant Collins found the man cringing beneath one of the tables in the reception area. He was obviously a hostage, cowering under the table in tears. Collins hauled him out, checked he was unarmed, and sat him on a chair. The house was all but clear, and he could wait there for the moment.

The man leaned forward, rocking on the chair, his head in his hands, his body wracked with sobs.

'h.e.l.lo there,' a cheery voice called from the blackened remains of the front desk.

Collins turned to see the Doctor standing in the doorway.

'Do I need a badge to get in, or can anyone join the party?'

the Doctor asked. 'I think I left my scarf here somewhere.'

But before Collins could answer, the man behind him was on his feet. 'Doctor!' he hissed, thin forked tongue flailing as he pulled a gun from beneath the table where Collins had found him.

The Doctor stood quite still. 'Stabfield?' he murmured. The man was almost unrecognizable. His suit was torn, his face dirty and twisted in pain and anguish.

The burst from Collins' machine gun caught Stabfield in the chest. It lifted him off the ground and threw him back into the chair he had been sitting in moments earlier. The chair fell over backwards, Stabfield falling with it.

The Doctor was there before Collins. He looked down at the torn body, grease and oil seeping out through the holes drilled in the metal chest and dinner jacket.

'So you finally found some emotion,' he whispered.

276.

Stabfield's body convulsed, once. Then it was still, the breath expelled as the creature died. Perhaps it was the final exhalation, or maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to the Doctor that a voice from the shattered body hissed a final whispered word: 'Hate.'

277.

14.

Executive Conclusion

Hanson and the two crew of the mothers.h.i.+p watched as the last areas of the world map went blue. The map was projected on to the main forward screen of the s.h.i.+p, a huge colour image hanging unsupported in front of the inain consoles. The crew cross-checked the data on the map, reading information from the surveillance stations.

'System repairs complete,' one of the Voracians told Hanson.