Bad Dreams (43 page)

He answered the questions, and they had let him go to bed.

He was still worried about his essay. Sometimes, he tried hard to tell the nurse that he had to go back to his room to finish it, but she did not understand.

He would have to retype the bloody pages if he were to get it in by four-thirty. He wanted to get to the dean before Bloody Basil.

They had given him a room of his own. And a pretty nurse to sit with him all the time.

He was okay.

But Something was growing in the back of his head, Something dark and clawed and hungry and confused. That was not okay at all.

In his head, he tried to talk to the Something, to be reasonable with it. He was supposed to know about Reason. It was his field of expertise. He told the Something to be quiet, to stop playing Heavy Metal inside his brain, stopping him from doing his essay and going to sleep. It did not listen. It did not care about the Age of Reason, or his post-graduate plans, or the cotton wool.

He could not think what the Something was, but he could imagine what it was like. A little black bud, opening into a poisonous flower, blooming dark and blotting out the whiteness of the wool.

When he tried to sleep, he found he could not. He was perpetually groggy, but not tired enough to nod off. But he could dream while he was awake. He dreamed he was the Something inside himself, a confident predator certain of his First, intent on making everyone take him seriously.

He imagined taking the RG apart, pulling him limb from limb. And he felt a warm, pleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then, he imagined tracking Basil down to his book-lined, fresh coffee-smelling den and dragging him out of the circle of worshipful catamites with which he had surrounded himself. He saw Basil’s skin coming apart under his hands, and Basil’s heart and lungs working their way out of his body.

He nodded awake, hungry, mouth dry.

Pete was okay. For now.

* * *

Cazie knew the car could take it. The man in white who got in the way bounced off the bonnet, twisted in the air, and was behind her. The wooden fence things parted in the middle, scratching the bodywork probably, and were out of the way. She left the road and drove on the lawn and the paved parts.

A man carrying a kid got out of the way. Smart move. There was something familiar about him. Brian Connors, right? The clever prick from a long time ago, yesterday.

She put the car in a pond, and vaulted out of it. A couple of guys eating their lunch looked surprised and reached out instinctively for guns they were not carrying. A few kicks took them out.

She felt great, as if she were dancing, or making love. But she had to calm down, to get herself under control.

She left the two men down and walked away. Some gaping loon asked her what was happening, and she shrugged.

‘Whose car is that?’

‘No idea,’ she told the man in white.

‘Fuck!’

‘No thanks,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe later.’

There were enough people around, and she was fast enough for everyone to be mixed up about what they had seen.

Someone was calling her name.

‘Cazie!’

There it was again, a man. She wanted a man. But she could wait. There were more important things.

‘Cazie, it’s me. Brian Connors, remember?’

He was panting, and holding a struggling little boy. The boy from yesterday, Jason.

‘Oh hi,’ she said, smiling easily, ‘what’s happening?’

‘I don’t know… Cazie,
what happened last night
?’

‘It was cool. It’s dealt with now. No worries, see.’

She held out her empty hands.

‘But Rote…’

‘Rote’s out of it. It’s a different game now. My game.’

‘Cazie, look…’

She took a thumbnail between her teeth and bit. Damn, but Brian was a temptation.

And the boy. Jason had stopped struggling so much, and was staring at her chest, licking his teeth.

‘Can’t talk now. Must dash. Catch you later, right?’

His mouth fell open, in disbelief. Why was everyone so slow? Mentally, he was not yet out of the starter’s gate.

She stroked the child’s tender cheek, and met his gaze. She could tell he was a smart kid.

‘That’s a very good-looking young man you have there. Bye-bye now.’

She left him, and started walking towards York House. She needed to see Thommy and Clare.

They needed to get their show together and put it on the road.

There was a fuss outside the Hall of Residence, with lots of the men in white suits milling around. From a student she knew, Cazie learned that Clare and Thommy were in the Infirmary. The story was that one had tried to kill the other.

* * *

They had given Clare some drugs, but she had only pretended to get high. There could not be any high like the one she had had when she had turned the tables on Thommy.

Her boyfriend had been getting on her tits for months now, and this business with Rote had made it worse. Clare did not see why she should be the only one to get bruises.

She did not know why yet, but she got the feeling that suddenly she was Special.

So, when Thommy had woken her up after she had slept the morning through, she had decided to put his head through the floor.

There was nothing he could do about it.

Last night, she had been hurt. But she was better now. Better than ever.

She did not know if she had killed Thommy. She hoped so. Putting his head through the floor was the best thing she had ever done.

When the people had come for her, she had not done anything to them, although she was sure she could have shoved them into walls or folded them up and put them in briefcases. She did not see any point in spoiling the effect by overdoing it.

They brought her to the Infirmary, and gave her drugs, and strapped her down on a bed. She knew she could break the straps as if they were woven straw. They should have used something stronger.

She had told them so, but they did not pay any attention to her. That just went to show how stupid everyone else was.

Randy Preston had been just going off shift when they brought her in. She had gone out with him in the first year. Quietly, as they passed, she had bitten his hand. That was for dumping her and chasing after that slagslut Kathy Riel. He had looked meanly at her, and taken off, not even bothering with a bandage.

Now, she just looked at the white ceiling and waited for the Next Thing to happen.

There was a man in white in her room. He was not a nurse. Nurses did not have guns. And this man had a gun that looked a bit like a black T-square. She had seen them before, on TV.

It was funny. Him thinking a gun would make any difference.

Doctors had been to see her. Dr Hind, who was the campus quack, and a couple of others. They had looked at her hands, and felt her arms and legs, and asked her to open her mouth. They looked puzzled. Silly bastards.

Someone came in to check her straps. He gave new orders to the man in white, whispering. Her ears were fine-tuned. She could hear every word as if it were clearly shouted at her. She gathered that Thommy had croaked. Shame, she thought. She would have liked to hurt him some more. Nobody had said anything, but she supposed she would be in trouble about that. Police trouble. Somehow, that did not worry her too much.

The only thing that bothered Clare was her skin. It was working loose in some places. Her back felt like an itchy vest and she thought that if she broke the straps and sat up in bed it would stay on the sheet behind her. Things were bubbling inside her body.

There was a knock at the door. The man jumped, and held on to his gun.

‘Who is it?’

‘Visitor,’ said a girl’s voice. Clare recognized Cazie at once. It was like her to visit in hospital.

The man opened the door.

‘How did you get in here? You’re not supposed…’

Then Cazie punched him in the throat, sinking her fingers into him there, and lifted him up off the floor.

From the bed, Clare could see the man’s back, covered in white. Cazie’s hand came out of it, holding something red and squelchy between her fingers. Blood leaked out like thick soup from a holed tin. Cazie dropped the thing, which hung from the hole in the man by a mess of spurting purple tubes and fatty substances. It must be his heart.

Clare saw Cazie pull her hand free, and drop the man. She had rolled up her sleeve so as not to get messy. With a towel that had been hanging by the washbasin in the room, she wiped her forearm clean, licking at the fiddly bits between her fingers to finish off the job.

‘Hello, Clare, you look terrible. What happened to your face?’

‘I think it’s coming off.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘I know. I’ve got a funny tummy too.’

Cazie pulled the blankets away and looked down at her. Clare looked too. It was not pretty. Under her skin snakes were writhing. She was swelling up like the time when she thought she was pregnant.

‘I can see your insides.’

‘Will I die?’

‘No. Course not. You’re my friend.’

‘My friend.’

Cazie bent down, below the bed, and came up again with a handful of something. She tugged, and it came free. It was the heart. She took it to the sink and washed it off.

She pinched a chunk of meat and popped it into her mouth like a grape. Cazie smiled and chewed. She sat on the edge of the bed, and took another pinch, which she put to Clare’s lips.

‘Here, eat this. It’ll make you feel better.’

* * *

Lynch had a couple of men dead.

‘…a blow of tremendous force. Stone’s ribcage was literally pushed in. The broken bones worked like knives inside him…’

Matthew Gail had been medical back-up on Lynch’s last few situations. He was good, dispassionate, and fast to make a diagnosis.

‘A skilled fighter, then?’

Gail tugged his moustache, working his way up to saying something he thought would sound silly.

‘No. The blow was way off the killpoint. It should just have dented his shoulder a bit. Nothing serious. It was the
force
that proved fatal, not the aim.’

‘Shit. And Gwydion?’

‘Skull. Same thing. If there weren’t traces of rubber heel, I’d think it was done with a bench press.’

Lynch paused a moment, tapped his fingers against the desk. The sheeted bodies were side by side in the back of the lorry.

‘Okay, okay, screw the “softly, softly” approach.’ He turned to Fassett, whose four breast-pocket pips marked him as the rank equivalent of a Sergeant-Major. ‘Break out the guns, get the men armed. Put Bosworth in charge of distributing ordnance. Tell the teams to give a warning shot, if possible. If not, we’ll cry tomorrow.’

He took out his own gun, and checked the clip.

* * *

Carson had put all the specs on 125 through the computer, and given Anderton the read-out.

It was bad news.

Anderton felt sick. He looked again, and the same conclusions came to him.

Carson stood at his elbow, waiting for a verbal report. Finch was still fiddling about with 125 dishes. Tripps, Lynch’s man, was looking bored, but standing alert.

They could still walk about, but Anderton knew they were dead people.

Like him.

He had been chain-popping aspirins all day, but the headache had not gone away. The churning in his stomach got worse every half hour or so, in perceptible lurches. Anderton had seen Finch take off her glasses and rub her temples too many, times. Carson’s acne was starting to dribble.

‘We’ve got it,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes?’

‘125. It doesn’t die with the host. It’s communicable. Highly communicable.’

Carson hit him in the stomach, savagely. Anderton doubled over and was sick. Tripps levelled his gun.

Carson, his trousers stained with Anderton’s bile, whirled like a dervish, sweeping a benchtop clear of retorts and dishes. Glass broke. A patch of skin dislodged from Carson’s cheek and splattered on the tile floor. Bone shone yellow in the raw hole. He had a triangular wedge of broken glass in his hand.

The glass slashed in front of Anderton’s face. The scientist flinched, and banged his head against the bench. Carson raised the glass again, and a neat row of holes opened in his chest. Anderton did not hear the noise of Tripps’s gun until seconds later, when Carson was already pitched forward on top of him.

He felt teeth go in somewhere below his collarbone. The body was pulled roughly off him, and he stood up.

Tripps had put his faceplate on, and looked like something from outer space. Anderton held up red hands.

‘It’s in the blood,’ he said.

Inside his mask, Tripps’s face burst. His Perspex eyeholes went red, as if his entire head had turned liquid. He stayed standing for a long moment, then crumpled like an empty suit. The seals were good, there was no leakage, but he did not keep his manshape. The chest fell in, and the limbs ballooned.

Anderton had a nasty desire to step on the suit, to see if it would squelch open like a slug.

He was bleeding himself, from somewhere. He had had 125 for over a day now. Probably caught it from Skippy’s remains. The incubation period must be erratic. Tripps could not have been exposed for more than half an hour.

Even without the break-in, he would have caught 125 and Lynch would be here with Unwin’s gladiators.

‘Fuck UCC! Fuck everything!’

Finch helped him up.

‘Fuck me,’ she whispered.

Her blouse was open, and her third teeth were coming through. She kissed him. He could not feel anything. She permanently put his lips out of shape. Strange flesh.

Anderton pushed Finch away, and looked at his hands. The skin was mostly gone. He saw muscles sliding off bone. He would not have the use of them much longer.

And he had something to do.

Pain shot up from his fingers as he prised Tripps’s gun free.

He shot Finch once, in the heart. He had always liked her.

‘Fuck me… me… me…’

She ran down like a talking doll as her brain died on her.

Anderton found that his forefinger had come off in the trigger guard. It was stuck. He felt as if his hands were being eaten by army ants. He could not use the right at all.