Impact (7 page)

I stay as still as I can.

The animal lets go of Syria, its growl extending and twisting into a snarl. There's a gap in the clouds, enough to let in a little light from a hidden moon. I can't stop looking at the creature's mouth. Its teeth are a dull white, and saliva drips from its bottom lip.

A small part of my mind, walled off from the terror coursing through me, is fascinated. Outside of those in pictures, this is the first animal I've ever seen.

As my eyes adjust further, I pick out more details. Its two ears lie flat against its head, and its eyes have a lethal, primal shine. It's low to the ground, waist height, no more, with spiky, ragged hair–or is it fur?

The growl comes again, and that's when the fascinated part of me disappears. It might be the first animal I've ever seen, but it definitely isn't friendly.

Very, very slowly, I get to my feet. The beast takes a quick breath, interrupting the growl, but then it comes back at an even higher pitch. A tongue darts out from between the teeth, liquid and agile.

Terror has a way of sharpening my senses. How many times have I felt it on Outer Earth, and how many times has it made me a better tracer? It works now, because that's when I see the other two.

One of them is on the edge of the depression, almost invisible in the darkness. It's standing stock still, its head tilted to one side. The third is on my right: smaller, its fur darker than the others, opening and closing its mouth.

I raise my hands. The white vapour of my breath is coming in quick, trembling bursts. I'm speaking quietly, nonsense words, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

I take a single step back, and that's when the first animal attacks.

It's shockingly fast. One moment it's motionless, and the next it's crossed the space between us and buried its teeth in my leg.

There's a frozen moment where I feel its teeth crushing through the leaves in my pants. Then they pierce my skin.

I lash out with my other foot. I'm already falling backwards, my arms whirling, but my shoe takes the animal in the head. It squeals–an oddly human sound–and lets go of my leg, its head twisted sideways.

Wolf.

The memory comes from nowhere. I was once ambushed by the Lieren, an Outer Earth gang intent on jacking my cargo. One of them had a tattoo on its neck. A red wolf.

I scramble to my feet. I don't know how fast a wolf can run, but right now speed is the only weapon I have. Ice crunches under my feet as I scramble into a sprint, hyperventilating, pumping my arms.

Behind me, the wolves give chase, their barks echoing across the plateau.

There might be a little moonlight, but it's like running through a black hole. Picking out details on the ground is impossible. I barely make it twenty yards before the wolves are on top of me.

And I'm not even close to fast enough. The wolves' speed is unbelievable. One of them lands on my back: a huge, hot, horrible weight knocking me to the ground. I feel its breath, burning against my skin. I twist and roll, shaking it off before it can get its teeth into me.

I spring onto my feet, legs apart, in a fighting stance. I'm surrounded–the three wolves have me in a loose circle, with a boulder at my back. The smaller wolf was the one I threw off; it's getting to its feet, its eyes never leaving mine. The bite on my leg is itching and burning. I'm trying to remember if wolves have poisonous bites, if that was something we were taught in school, but I can't marshal my thoughts.

All at once, the terror is gone. So is the hunger, and exhaustion. All of them burn away to nothingness, replaced by that seething anger.

I glance down. There's a loose rock, nudging up against my foot. I reach for it, eyes locked with the lead wolf.

It snaps at me, darting forward, but the anger strips away all hesitation. I bellow as hard as I can, swinging the rock in a massive sideways arc. The wolf drops before I smack it in the head again, twisting its shoulders as it skips backwards. Its legs are bent, quivering with energy.

Movement, on my left. This time, the rock connects, and the second wolf gives a pained howl as I smash it to the ground. My hand is buzzing from the impact, but I bring it back, driving it down into the animal's skull.

There's a
crunch
. Hot blood soaks the back of my hand, and the wolf's body jerks, its legs beating the air. It gives one final, piteous whine, then falls still.

I look up at the other two. They're backing away slowly, their teeth bared. Their growls fill the air.

I put my arms above my head, still clutching the rock, and scream at them. I don't even know what I'm doing. It's as if the anger has tapped into a part of me that I didn't know existed–something fundamental, a survival instinct buried deep in my DNA.

The wolves take off. The big one gives me a last look, and then they're gone, slipping into the darkness.

I'm still standing there, frozen to the spot, when there's a voice from behind me. “Guess you ain't such easy prey after all.”

Mikhail is panicking.

He's rocking back and forth, trembling like a leaf. Okwembu stares at him. How did she ever think he would be useful?

If he wants to stay here, fine. She may not like Prakesh Kumar and Aaron Carver, but she's a lot safer with them than she is with him. But which direction did they go? They've long since vanished into the trees. Okwembu tries to remember. Her thoughts come slowly, the cold sapping her energy.

I have to get out of the wind.

She strides back to the table. “Move,” she says to Mikhail. When he doesn't respond, she climbs on top of it, barking her knees against the wood, then puts a hand on his back and shoves. He falls forward, crying out in surprise, the sound whipped away by the wind.

Okwembu doesn't wait for him to get up. She clambers off the table, dropping back to the ground. She's not used to this amount of physical activity, and her arms are already aching. The wood is soft and rotten beneath her palms, but she pushes hard, using every ounce of strength she still has. If she can lift the table upright, she can make a windbreak. It's far from ideal, but it's the best she can do.

The table lifts an inch, then thumps back down. Okwembu tries again, leaning into it.

No good. She's going to need Mikhail's help. But when she turns to find him, he's walking away, hugging himself, head down.

“What are you doing?” she yells after him. No reaction. She abandons the table, shielding her eyes against the biting wind.

By some miracle, she manages to get in front of him. He doesn't look at her. His eyes are fixed on a point in the distance. He keeps walking, as if determined to get as far away as possible.

“Mikhail, no,” she says, putting a hand on his chest.

He shrugs her off. “We have to go back,” he says.

“What?” She can barely hear him over the wind.

When he doesn't answer, she plants herself in front of him. He finally looks at her, and that's when she sees what's really happening. The panic she heard in his voice, back at the lake, has taken over completely. It's the panic of someone who finally realises that all their plans are utterly useless.

“Listen to me,” she says. “We—”

Mikhail puts a hand on her neck, and shoves her to one side. She goes down hard, twisting her ankle, bruising splayed fingers on the hard dirt.

“It was a mistake,” Mikhail says, raising his voice so that it cuts above the wind. Tears are streaming down his face. “All of this. We should never have come.”

He starts walking again, and that's when Janice Okwembu decides she's had enough.

No matter what she tries to do, no matter how well-meaning her intentions, she is met with stupidity and cowardice. She is confronted by people who hate her, who want her dead, who would take everything she's worked for and smash it to pieces. None of them realise how much she's sacrificed, how much she's put on the line for humanity. They're weak. All of them.

And she is tired of weakness.

She doesn't know how she finds the rock, but suddenly it's in her fingers, almost too big for her hand. She gets to one knee, then to her feet. Mikhail is almost at the trees.

Okwembu sprints after him. He doesn't look round as she approaches, and he doesn't see her raise the rock.

She swings it into the side of his head. He goes down, his legs crumpling, sprawling on his stomach in the dirt. Okwembu doesn't wait for him to roll over. She plants a knee in his back, and brings the rock down on the base of his skull. Then she does it again. And again.

Blood spatters her upper arms, dots her face. She barely feels the wind now.

After a while, Mikhail stops moving.

Okwembu takes a long look at what's left of his head.
I should feel something
, she thinks. Guilt, triumph, sorrow. He saved her life, pulled her out of the freezing lake. He should mean something to her.

But for all that she's done, for all the lengths she's had to go to ensure her survival, Okwembu has never killed anyone. Not directly. Not before now. And as she stares down at Mikhail's body, she feels nothing but quiet satisfaction.

She met weakness with strength. Cowardice with courage.

She tries to rise, but the wind is so strong now that it almost knocks her over. She saves herself by grabbing hold of a tree trunk. Her back is to the wind, and it cuts through her thin, damp clothing, turning her skin to ice. Strength and courage got her this far, but if she doesn't get shelter soon, she's not going to live long enough to reap the benefits.

She drops to her knees alongside Mikhail, wedging her hands under his torso. Gritting her teeth, she rolls him onto his side. Then she lies prone, curling her knees to her chest, pushing herself into the gap. The thought of being this close to his body is revolting, but Okwembu finds herself regarding the feeling at a distance, like it's someone else's problem.

She's not completely out of the wind, and she's still bitterly cold, but it's a vast improvement. They're low down on the ground, and she doesn't think a falling tree or snapped branch will hit them. She can feel the last residual heat from Mikhail's body leaching into her. Nothing to do now but wait for it to stop.

Janice Okwembu closes her eyes.

She's still lying there when bright lights illuminate the clearing.

“What the hell is happening?” Carver shouts.

Prakesh can barely hear him. It's not just the roaring wind: it's the trees. The trunks are creaking, the branches grinding together. The cacophony is unbelievable. The air is a swirling maelstrom of twigs and dead leaves, scratching at his face.

Microclimates
, Prakesh thinks.
Extreme weather. We should have expected this. We should have prepared for it.
He wants to shout all of this to Carver, but there's no point. They have to find shelter, and they have to find it soon.

All three of them–Prakesh, Clay and Carver–are bent over, leaning hard into the wind. Prakesh glances back at Clay. The man's eyes are screwed shut, his mouth set in a thin line, like he's trying to pretend this isn't happening. Prakesh takes a step, then another, willing his frozen muscles to work. How strong is this wind? Sixty miles an hour? Seventy?

Carver is the first to lose his footing. He skids backwards, his feet sliding along the ground as if it's turned to ice. Then he tumbles over backwards, somersaulting, face frozen in surprise. Prakesh throws himself to the ground just before Carver smashes into him–he feels Carver's feet thump across his back, a hand scrabbling at his jacket.

He looks up to see Carver slam headlong into Clay. Somehow, Carver manages to hold on, grabbing him by the ankle. It stops him moving. He motions Clay to stay put, so they expose as little as possible to the wind.
Smart
, Prakesh thinks. If they don't freeze to death, then they might just make it through this storm. He makes himself stay down, too, tries to control his shivering.

There's a
crunch
. Prakesh raises his head a fraction, squinting against the icy rush of air.

A huge branch is tumbling towards them. It's coming end over end, ripping up the ground, and it's heading right for Carver and Clay.

They haven't seen it. They've both got their heads down. Prakesh shouts a warning, but it's lost under the wind. The branch is bouncing off the other trees, gaining momentum, smashing its way towards them.

For a second, he's amazed that they can't hear it, that they haven't noticed the presence of something that big and that destructive. Then he's moving, staying low, leading with his shoulder. A second later, he connects with Clay, his numb body barely registering the impact. Then he and Clay collide with Carver, and all three of them tangle up, a chaotic mix of limbs and dirt and wind. The crunching and cracking is deafening now.

The last thing Prakesh sees is the branch, rushing towards them. He closes his eyes, waiting for it to hit.

A bough rips across Prakesh's cheek, scratching his skin, drawing blood. Then the air rushes back into the space above them. The branch crashes further into the forest, finally wedging itself against another tree, ten feet off the ground.

The wind drops a fraction, just enough so that Prakesh can raise his head without feeling like the muscles in his neck are going to snap.

“Come on!” he shouts. He doesn't know if the other two can hear him, and he doesn't wait to find out. The ground is still a gentle slope, and Prakesh propels himself down it, the wind at his back. It's all he can do to keep his balance. There has to be a dip in the landscape, a large rock,
anything
that will get them out of the wind. Carver and Clay have caught up, running alongside him.

Abruptly, the ground levels out. Prakesh looks around, and for a moment he doesn't understand where they are. The uneven forest terrain has given way to hard-packed ground. It's a strip, around ten feet wide, stretching away into the darkness on their left and right.

Prakesh's body is firing on all cylinders, his heart hammering in his chest. He knows the strip is man-made, but he can't seem to think beyond that. Doesn't matter. They won't find shelter, not here, not out in the open. He yells for Carver to keep going.

Lights explode out of the darkness.

Two huge yellow circles, four feet off the ground, heading right for him. It's such a strange sight, so
alien
, that all three of them freeze. It's only in the last instant that Prakesh moves. He throws himself to the side, his hands out in front of him, but he's much too late. It's going to crush them.

There's a grinding screech. The lights swing to the side, and whatever is behind them turns sideways. Prakesh sees wheels spinning, kicking up huge clouds of dust which are instantly whipped away by the wind.

The thing comes to a skidding halt, rocking gently from side to side. It's solid enough to resist the wind–Prakesh can almost see the air skating over the top of it. It's like the vehicle that Carver put together on Outer Earth, only bigger. This one has a fully enclosed body, squat and boxy, with a slightly angled back. The wheels are enormous, resting in the tracks the thing made when it skidded sideways.

One of the doors on the side of the vehicle flies open. The figure in it is silhouetted by the interior lights.

“Get in!” the figure shouts.