Be My Enemy (5 page)

“Fly!” Captain Anastasia shouted into Sen's earpiece. Sen did not need telling twice. She spun the hedgehopper in midair, yanked the throttle cable, and swung dangerously in her harness as the four fan engines kicked in. Captain Anastasia slid in alongside Sen. Her voice spoke in Sen's ear through the wind shrill, the whine of the fans, the clatter of the helicopter-coffin. “Sharkey. Get the ship airborne.” No
Mr. Sharkey
. No
airship-shape
or
Hackney-fashion
. Sen was scared now. She glanced over her shoulder.

“He's coming for us.”

The pilot had dipped the cockpit of his strange craft and angled the rotors; he was beating down on them at terrible speed. Sen could not take her eyes off the threshing death of those rotor blades.

“On my mark!” Captain Anastasia said, looking over her shoulder. “Three, two, one. Go!”

Sen peeled right, Anastasia peeled left as the gyrocopter came barreling through in a roar of engines and rotors. Sen looped high, looking for Captain Anastasia. She was the navigator. She knew the way home to
Everness.
The gyrocopter went into hover and pulled itself upright. Machine arms, needle tipped, unfolded from grooves in the shell.

“Oh the Dear,” Sen whispered.

“Sen,” Anastasia said. Her voice was clear as a blade of ice, clean through the clatter and fear. “Get the pictures back to Everett. You must do this. Keep on this heading. Sharkey will find you.” Then she went looping high into the sky and Sen could see what she was doing, like a bird decoying a hawk from a nest. “He's gasoline powered. He can run our batteries into the ground. I'll buy you time.”

“Ma, no!”

“I order it so, Miss Sixsmyth. Steer for home.” The hedgehopper soared away until Captain Anastasia was an orange fleck beneath it. Sen checked the little compass Mchynlyth had glued to the underside of the drone's body. It was their only navigation instrument. The needle jumped and quivered in the constant vibration, but it held true to north. Sen looked around her. There. At the peak of its climb the hedgehopper seemed to hang in the air. For a long moment it hung, the air frozen around it. Sen's earphone crackled. “I'll be bona, my love. There's not a ground-pounding E2er can outfly Anastasia Sixsmyth.” Then the crazy little flying machine spun and went plunging down in a dive, straight for the gyrocopter. And the gyrocopter answered, arms unfolding an array of claws and cutters and fingers as complex as an insect's mouth. They charged at each other. It was a game of midair chicken.

“Ma!” Sen screamed.

At the last minute the gyrocopter dived under Anastasia's hedgehopper. The E2 pilot was good. He skimmed the ice, pulled up to a safe altitude, turned instantly, and charged again. Sen saw Captain Anastasia glance over her shoulder, see the gyrocopter behind her, and pull the throttle cable hard down. Sen though she saw her raise a hand as the fans swiveled in their mounts and threw the hedgehopper away. The brass machine leaned into the wind and followed. Anastasia would never get away. She was in a rickety kite bodged together by Mchynlyth with a welding torch, some wiring, and a glue gun. The pursuer was in a fast, clever piece of E2 engineering, built to hunt. She had batteries. He had oil.

Sen watched them dwindle into the huge white. She understood lonely now, Everett-lonely. The compass told her one course to follow. Her heart told her another. Then she saw the thing beside the compass, a red bulb the size of her fist. The monofilament, the weapon of choice when the hedgehoppers were twin slice'n'dice attack drones.

“Ma!”

“Save your power,” Anastasia hissed.

“Ma, no. We can beat him. We's not helpless.”

“Get to
Everness
.”

“Ma, I's got the line. The cutty line. The one what cuts through everything.”

A pause, filled with wind in the wire and the shrill of blown ice.

“I'm coming in.”

It was silly and it was obvious and the last thing that should happen when you are engaged in desperate battle with an implacable enemy, but Sen's heart leaped in her chest. She felt the glow of warmth spread through her, to her face, fingers, frozen toes. Way out, where ice and sky met, she saw the orange speck that was Captain Anastasia stop getting smaller and start getting bigger. But the gyrocopter was behind her and it was bigger and it was stronger and
it was faster. Anastasia would never make it. Sen swung in her sling, tilted the steering bar to the left, and banked toward her mother.

“Cut you!” she screamed into the protecting scarf, stiff with ice crystals. “I's gonna cut you to pieces, you bastard! I hates you, you needs to die!” All she had seen of the gyrocopter pilot was a glimpse of goggles and helmet but she hated him. She hated that his flying craft was bigger and stronger and faster. She hated that he kept coming and coming and coming, that he would never stop, that he would never go away. She hated that he did not care who Sen or her mother were, that he did not care to care, that to him they were just targets. She wanted to cut him. She wanted to wrap him in monofilament and snap it tight. She wanted him to fall from the sky in bloody, quivering chunks to the ice. “I hates you more than anything!” she screamed.

Anastasia was coming in low and fast. Sen pulled the red handle free and felt the weight of it in her hand. She swung the steering bar and put herself on a course that would take her past Anastasia, fan blade almost to fan blade. This was the difficult bit. She would have one shot, one only. No. It wasn't difficult. It was impossible. The closing speed was terrifying. Behind Anastasia was the gyrocopter, closing fast, and the wind was snatching and shaking Sen's hedgehopper. She squinted through her goggles, hefted the handle. Closing. Closing. And now. She threw the handle and caught a glimpse of Anastasia swerving to catch it, then Sen was past, the gyrocopter in front of her. She pushed hard on the steering bar, making the hedgehopper climb. Sen pulled her feet up. Her boot toes barely cleared the gyrocopter's rotor blades. She looked up. The monofilament was shrieking off the reel. Anastasia had it. Sen pulled the hedgehopper round into a slow curve. Out in the sky she saw Anastasia mirror the same maneuver. They weren't prey any more. They were armed. They were the hunters. But Sen could see how she was in danger from her own weapon. Steer wrong, cross the line of the monofilament, and it would carve her as readily as it would carve
the gyrocopter. The two hedgehoppers looped around in the sky until they were in formation, side by side, a hundred yards apart, the gyrocopter dead ahead.

Sen snarled with rage as she bore down on the gyrocopter. On this course the monofilament would hit it dead center, cut metal and man and machine clean in half through the waist. Her earpiece crackled.

“Sen. Go high.”

She ignored the voice and pulled on the throttle cable. She wanted him dead. She did not care who he was. He had no name, he had no face, he was just a part of the machine. But he had tried to kill her, he had tried to kill her, and now Sen could kill him, kill him a way he would never guess, he would never know, kill him so fast he wouldn't realize how stupid he had been, how clever Sen had been.

“Sen. Go high. Take the blades!”

The aircraft leaped toward each other. One moment they were half a sky apart, the next they were staring at each other.

“Sen!”

She saw the pilot. She saw his eyes. She imagined him leaping apart in two neat halves, the gush as all the blood and all the bowels and organs and bones of his body dropped out into the air. She saw herself kill a man.

“No!” she cried. At the instant of contact she pushed the steering bar forward. The hedgehopper climbed. The monofilament sheared clean through the rotors blades without even a jolt. She heard engines scream. A shard of carbon-fibre blade shot past her, fast and deadly as a missile. The gyrocopter, shorn of its rotors, dropped. She saw the pilot's eyes go wide and wild. Sen raised a hand to him. Then the front of the gyrocopter blew open. The pilot ejected in a burst of launch rockets, and a parachute opened above him. The dead gyrocopter beat him to the ground. It exploded in orange flame. Fire on the ice. The wind caught the pilot and carried him away.

“Reel it in Sen,” Anastasia said. “Reel it in and set course. We're going home to
Everness
.”

T
he gate was a ring of neon, green inside blue inside red. Through the gate and he was out, and the last soldier was down. There was nothing between him and the white light. He didn't know how he sensed the soldier pop up behind him. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, but he knew the soldier was there, and he spun, rolled, came up on target all in one thought. The paint ball whistled past his ear and splattered in mashed-insect green on the maze wall. He used a single thought to fire a dart from the gun that emerged from an open hatch in his arm. The dart took the model soldier clean between the eyes. Everett held the dart gun on target, swept the maze with it, once, twice. Clear. Up and out.

Charles Villiers waited in the antechamber. He applauded softly. The hand claps were very light and dry in the huge white room. A woman stood at his side. She was so like Plenipotentiary Villiers that they could be twins. Everett M suspected they were closer than that. She was dressed in what looked to him like 1940s-style clothing—tight skirt, fishnet tights, jacket nipped at the waist but wide at the shoulders, a small, dapper hat with a lace veil that covered her eyes. Her lips were very red, vampire red. She could only be from E3, that weird parallel earth with no oil.

“My alter, Charlotte Villiers,” Charles Villiers announced.

Alters creeped Everett M. They were the many yous that Prime Minister Portillo had carefully avoided talking about. Sometimes they were the same sex, sometimes, like Charles and Charlotte, they were not. Everett M knew the urban legends about alters—that they could share thoughts across universes, that many famous people had been replaced by evil alters without anyone ever knowing, that they should never meet because if they did they would annihilate each
other in a colossal explosion that would destroy everything inside ten kilometers.

Charlotte Villiers extended a gloved hand. With a flicker of thought Everett M retracted his weaponry. The hatches in his arms closed without a seam. He took the offered hand. Charlotte Villiers's grip was strong, but with the Thryn enhancements, he could crush it like an origami bird. He could crush any hand. He hardly needed to think about the weapons Madam Moon had put inside his hands and forearms, the grip she had put in his fingers and the agility in his shoulders, the speed in his legs, the sight in his eyes that went way beyond normal vision, the super-sharp hearing, the new sense that was not quite sight and not quite hearing, more like a radar in his head. They were as much a part of him now as the lungs and heart and brain he had been born with. But could he even trust those? Just because he couldn't see them didn't mean they had not been touched by Madam Moon. There might be no part of him that had not been rebuilt by Thryn technology.

“Impressive, Mr. Singh,” Charlotte Villiers said. “It's almost second nature to you. Thought and action one seamless whole. I think you'll soon be ready for what we need you to do. Soon.”

“I don't quite understand what you mean ma'am.” Everett M had learned that Plenipotentiaries expected to be addressed respectfully. Shake their hands. Bow to them. Call them ma'am and sir. He did so, even though he mistrusted Charles Villiers and mistrusted his cool, arrogant alter even more.

“Paintballs, Mr. Singh. Really, what are they? A small sting and a stain that quickly washes out. The real world does not fire paint, Mr. Singh. The real world fires lead. Dare you face a live-fire run, Mr. Singh? Safeties off. No paint. Lead. Hot lead. That's a test worthy of what we've had done to you.”

“That's a big ask, Ms. Villiers.” Despite the veil, Charlotte Villiers could look Everett M clear and straight in the eye in a way that her alter, Charles, could not. Everett M could look straight back.

“Yes it is, but I couldn't ask it if I were not prepared to do it myself. A race, Mr. Singh. First out of the gate wins. Live fire. Are you up to it, Mr. Singh?”

“Ms. Villiers, I don't mean to be rude, but I've been fitted with Thryn technology.”

Charlotte Villiers snapped open her bag. She took out a small gun. It was as pretty as jewellery, with an ivory handle, a barrel engraved with twining flower patterns.

“St. Xavious's School Shooting Champion 1996; Cambridge Ladies Sporting Pistol and Revolver 1997, 1998, 1999; All-England Women's Small Arms 2000, Empire Games Gold Medal 2001. Charles, be a darling, set up a doubles course.”

“Ms. Villiers, I don't think…” her alter said.

“Charles, my mind is set.”

Charles Villiers went to the control panel, a black oval on the top of a white cylinder that was the only feature in the white antechamber. White on white was the colorless color of the Thryn, but Everett M knew by the tug of gravity that this training facility was not on the Moon. Where it might be, he had no idea. He had walked through a doorway, and in one step he'd felt the weight on his bones grow six times. Charles Villiers's finger hesitated over the touch panels. His alter snapped him a freezing look. Charles's fingers danced over the glowing lights. Everett M heard subtle machinery whir beyond the big, white wall with the glowing exit portal. The floor trembled. He was learning this about Thryn tech: it consisted of massive transformations hidden behind perfect, seamless surfaces.

“Thank you, darling.”

Everett M's eyes went wide as Charlotte Villiers shook loose her skirt, let it fall, and stepped out of it. She unbuttoned her jacket and slid it off. Beneath she wore a leotard and fishnet tights. Her body was as lean and wiry as a whippet. From her bag she took a pair of light ballet pumps, kicked off her shoes, and pulled them on. Last of all she removed her hat, straightened the veil, and handed it to her
alter. She kept her gloves on. Charlotte Villiers shook out her curling fair hair and glanced over at the control panel. Again, that glare of ice. “Charles. I said, safeties off.” A fingertip skimmed a switch. A light went from green to red. Entrance gates opened on either side of the exit portal, black holes in the white. Charlotte Villiers walked up to the gate on the right, moving as lightly and confidently as a hunting animal, her gun easy in her hand.

“Will you play, Mr. Singh?”

Everett M gave her a small bow and took his place in front of the left gate.

“Whenever you're ready.”

Charlotte Villiers smiled.

“Count us down, Charles.”

A thirty second clock appeared over the gate. Everett M looked down deep into himself, felt the depth of the Thryn technology inside him, touched it, woke it. Strength, speed, alertness gushed through him. He felt the weapon systems under his skin come to life. He willed away the tranquilizer darts, the concussion field. Live fire was live fire both ways.
Nano-missiles and finger lasers online
, he thought, and he felt them stir inside him.

The counter ticked down, twenty to ten to five. Klaxons blared. The gate was open. Everett M leaped forward. Beside him, Charlotte Villiers sprang like a pouncing cat.

When the first soldier sprang up straight in his face within two strides of the entry gate, Everett M knew this was not the same maze. He ducked under the targeting laser, pointed his fingers, and swept it across the machine. His own laser sliced the dummy into two smoking halves. Melted plastic dripped from burn line as the severed top half wavered and then fell to the floor. It hadn't even had time to pull its gun.

Cold gripped Everett M but he pushed on. The fingers lasers drew on the energy of his own body. Each shot drove the cold deeper into him.

The corridor doubled back on itself in a sharp S-shaped bend. An obvious and easy place to defend, with pop-up soldiers, one in each corner, covering the approaches and the angles. Running the mazes had taught Everett M to notice hairline cracks in the floor, the edges of the trapdoors and hatches from which the soldiers sprang. He edged carefully around the corner. Too far and the sensors would spot him and the soldier would pop up and shoot. It would not be paint they were firing this time.

He heard a muffled gunshot. That would be from the other maze. He didn't think it was the dummy soldier. A television-screen-sized area of the corridor wall blurred and turned into an image: Charlotte Villiers in her maze, pressed up like Everett M against the same corner. Her gun was pressed against her cheek, ready to swing on to the next target. Everett M didn't doubt that Charlotte Villiers was watching him on a similar screen.

But I can see things that you can't
, Everett M thought. With his new Thryn sense, he looked into the hairline cracks in the floor and felt out the mechanisms in there, the ones he could see and the ones he could not see directly. He could sense how they were connected together and how they would operate.
I see you now
, Everett M thought, willing power into his finger lasers. He took a breath, then rolled. The soldiers at each end of the corridor came up, their guns swinging. He took their heads clean off, one with the left laser, the other with the right, before they could take aim. Again he heard gunfire, but he followed the roll through, underneath the arc of fire of the third soldier at the far end of the double-back. As the soldier tried to track him, Everett willed the panel in his forearm open. The nano-missile he fired took out the soldier instantly. The blast was deafening in the confined corridors of the death maze. His Thryn-augmented hearing moderated the noise to a safe level.

Did you hear that, Charlotte Villiers?

Everett M moved into the next section, a screen that was clearly Thryn technology following him as he moved. He watched Charlotte
Villiers take the pop-up soldiers cleanly out, one shot each. She walked like a cat down the corridor, calmly and efficiently reloading her gun.

The next section was a long, straight run of corridor. It was clearly a big, obvious trap. Everett M scanned it with his Thryn sense—he had come to think of it as
longsight.
He longsaw nothing. But that didn't mean that there was nothing there. There could be traps inside traps, traps beyond the range of his longsight. Maybe there were no traps, and that was the trap. Maybe the maze was designed so that you would edge forward, always expecting something to spring on you, but nothing would, until you were so tense with expectation that when the real trap sprang, you would fall right into it. Everett M armed weapons, slid them out of the hatches in his arms, and walked forward. And walked. And walked. The screen kept pace with him, Charlotte Villiers matching him step for step. His evil twin, his alter. This section of the maze, Everett M thought, was that last kind of trap.

At the end of the corridor the maze turned sharp right. Here was where the trap would be sprung. Everett M willed power into his legs. Accuracy and firepower are good, but speed is best. Speed is life. He launched himself forward. And walls, ceiling, floor opened up in soldiers and turrets and swivel-guns. A sweep of his left-finger laser took out three soldiers, pin-point shots with the right took out the turrets springing out of the floor. As he ran and jumped and dodged, he launched nano-missiles from his forearm and sought out and killed the ceiling guns. He hated using the missiles. They were single-shot weapons that could not be replaced. But there was so much, coming from everywhere, all at once. He made the next turn of the maze. Behind him the corridor was a mass of burning, smoking, melting plastic and circuitry.

Everett M was panting. He was freezing. He had pumped a dangerous amount of energy into the lasers. And he did not know how much more of this there would be. He looked at the floating screen.
He had been too occupied with the cacophony of gunfire and explosions on his side of the maze to pick out the pistol shots that rang out from Charlotte Villiers's side. On the screen she stood calmly, steadily reloading her gun. A single bead of sweat ran down the side of her face.

A section of wall opened. A new corridor curved out of sight. Everett M clenched his fists and felt the power channeling into the Thryn biotech lasers. And again. And again. He darted through tunnels that switched back on themselves and went over and under themselves and perhaps even through, each turn guarded by soldiers. He fought through a maze of panels that slid and rearranged themselves, sometimes opening false corridors, other times exposing entire batteries of automatic weapons. He slid down shafts that suddenly opened under him, fired between his feet at the gun turrets opening up deadly iron flowers before him. And every time he looked, Charlotte Villiers kept pace with him—cool, elegant, and relentless. Not a blonde curl was out of place.

Behind him, Everett M Singh left smoking wreckage. He was shaking with the cold now, and he'd grown ravenously hungry. His own lasers could kill him just as surely as any soldier's bullet, sucking the heat out of him until hypothermia came creeping into his bones, with its sly, evil suggestions:
Slow down, lie down, rest a little, go to sleep.
But he kept pumping energy into the lasers. He had to keep the nano-missiles in reserve for when he really needed them. Adrenaline burn kept him going, kept his Thryn senses sharp and fast and deadly. He seemed to have been running this maze for hours. He thought it might be rebuilding itself behind him, turning him back on himself and sending him through the same loop again and again—the same, but rebuilt into something different every time. He might be on Earth, but this was not human technology. He was sure of that. And then he saw it, a glimmer of neon. The exit gate. He paused to lock his longsight on the glow. Suddenly, a ring of soldiers sprang up around him. Everett M crossed his arms and yelled. A
spread of nano-missiles shredded them. The gate was in sight. He could afford to use missiles now. Everett M willed power into his legs and charged for the circle of white light. Soldiers leaped up in his path. He cut them apart with laser fire even before they had completely deployed and unfolded. He glanced at the moving screen. Charlotte Villiers was three paces behind him. The Thryn technology had turned Everett M's natural body sense—the same body sense that had made him such a good goalkeeper at Bourne Green—into something almost like a super power, but Charlotte Villiers moved like a trained athlete. Senses, thought, action amounted to one thing—
instinct.
Everything was instinct, every move the minimum effort for the maximum effect. And her little evil gun never missed.