Coldbrook(108)

‘You don’t seem moved by this,’ Holly said. She hit another website, where a French reporter was filming herself standing at the head of a street somewhere in Toulouse. Smoke rose in the distance, and people streamed past her, their flight fuelled by terror.

‘I’ve seen it all before,’ Moira said.

‘This is my world,’ Holly said. She felt numb, bitter, scared.

‘Yes,’ Moira said, ‘and you see why we have to do something.’

‘Do what?’

‘Whatever we can.’ Moira closed the laptop cover gently, leaning in closer to Holly. The warm aroma of whisky hung on her breath.

‘I’m concerned only with survival,’ Holly said. ‘And with trying to stop this before it gets worse.’

‘There’s a bigger picture,’ Moira said. Anger simmered beneath her calm, gentle voice. ‘Much bigger.’

‘Really?’ Holly said. ‘Then God help us.’

Moira froze. ‘You dare mention Him?’

Holly stood and went to the back of Secondary, where she’d dropped two toolkits before checking over the computer systems. She picked one of them up. The Internet had drawn her in, compelled by the need to know, but now she felt was chilled by a fear of something closer. We don’t know these people at all, she thought.

‘Jonah’s already gone,’ Moira said.

‘What do you mean?’ Holly spun around to confront her. The woman was standing closer, frowning uncertainly as if she regretted what she’d said. She held both hands behind her back. Holly stared, but Moira gave nothing away.

‘What have you done?’ Holly asked, advancing on her. Moira backed up against the desk. The screens on the wall behind her showed a silent, unkempt Coldbrook, and Holly had a brief but startling thought: I wish nothing had changed. If they’d never succeeded with the breach the original team would still be down here together, working, debating, arguing. And Vic would still be here, his gentle flirting with Holly a constant thrill for both of them. Any flirting could become a match to touchpaper, and she had always lived in hope.

‘Holly, I need you to sit down.’ Moira nodded at one of the chairs, then brought her left hand around from behind her back. She held a rough-handled knife.

‘What?’ Holly asked. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Not a threat.’ The other woman brought her right hand around, holding a tight coil of thin, strong twine. ‘Sit down, Holly. Please. It’s only for a while, just to ensure you don’t try to—’

Holly snatched at the twine. Moira pulled it away, and while doing so she lifted the knife in her other hand, its gleaming point catching the light from the viewing screens.

‘Please don’t fight!’ Moira said, uncertainty in her voice for the first time.

Holly lowered the tool bag slightly, swinging it by the handle and bringing it around swiftly towards Moira’s head while stepping to the left and reaching for the twine again. Moira leaned back but the bag struck her across the left cheek with a metallic clunk, and she grunted. Holly felt something punch against her stomach.

She gasped and dropped the heavy bag. It struck her right foot, and for a moment that pain was dominant. Then she felt a warm flush across her hip, and the chill wash of real agony. And blood.





Part Three



THE SOUND OF WHITE NOISE


Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

Epicurus





Thursday



1


JONAH’S HEAD THRUMMED and the world swayed: someone was doing something to him, and he thought, He’s back.

Jonah wondered whether the Inquisitor had ever left. That first time had been before the plague came through, and perhaps Jonah was back there now, waking from a nightmare of the End of Days and succumbing to whatever had struck him down in his sleep. The dreams had been realistic – a culmination of his secret fears and concerns over what they were doing down in Coldbrook.

But it was not the Inquisitor kneeling above him. Drake was sweating as he manipulated something on Jonah’s chest. Behind him were the casting-field generators, the network of suspended pipes glowing and sparking slightly. How does that work? Jonah thought – and then he remembered Drake and the crossbow.

He drew a deep breath and the pain seared through him.

‘I’m almost done,’ Drake said. He knew that Jonah was awake, but he hadn’t even glanced at his face. ‘Keep still, or you’ll kill us all.’

‘Almost done . . . what?’ Jonah breathed. But Drake ignored him.

Jonah closed his eyes again and tried to remember: the heat and humidity of the generator room; Drake’s insistence that something had to be done, something had to stop the Inquisitors’ crusade.

And then the man’s sad expression as he’d shot him in the chest.

My heart! Jonah thought, and though he still felt the familiar thuds of heartbeats and heard the whisper of blood through his ears, they seemed different. Strained – like a car that had burned off all its oil and was grinding its engine parts.

‘What have you done?’ he said.

‘I’ve made a trade,’ Drake said. He sighed and leaned back from where Jonah lay on the floor. He was looking him in the eye at last.