Shadow Creatures (28 page)

The heat was oppressive, and Gecko found himself covered in sweat almost instantly. The humidity was so high, however, that the sweat had no way of evaporating to cool him down, so it just
soaked into his clothes and pooled in his trainers, making them squish each time he took a step. Every few minutes he had to wipe a sleeve across his eyes to get rid of the stinging sweat. His
sleeve was already dark and dripping. His lungs were also labouring to pull the thick, wet, hot air into his lungs. It had been a long time since he had experienced conditions like this.

He knew he was going to get dehydrated very quickly. He and Natalie would have to stop and get a bottle of water from somewhere, if they could.

He glanced sideways as his feet pounded against tarmac and pavement, wondering how Natalie was holding up. She seemed fine, and he remembered that she had been a runner, back in school in
America. She obviously had a lot of stamina, and he found he had to exert himself to keep up. He was better at short sprints and long jumps.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason, no grid system to the alleys and streets that they ran through. The city’s layout appeared more organic than planned, like the veins and arteries in
some massive biological system.

Through the half-open doors of the buildings they passed, Gecko could see fragmentary flashes of life in the city: dried fish hanging on strings from the ceilings; women with bundles of steaming
noodles wrapped round sticks in their hands, which they pulled apart to thin and stretch the food; men crouched over paper rolls on which they painstakingly painted Chinese characters in thick
strokes of black ink; entire families crowded into single rooms, all talking or eating or sleeping at the same time. It was mesmerizing and confusing, a kaleidoscope of foreign life.

Natalie shouted across to Gecko. ‘Up ahead! We’re nearly there!’

‘Up ahead’ turned out to be a pair of ornately carved pillars that marked the entrance to a park. The two of them ran unhesitatingly inside. Paths led, twisting and rising, towards a
central low hill. Bushes and flowers of all colours lined the paths, providing plenty of cover.

Gecko indicated that Natalie should go left while he went right. Hopefully, if one of them didn’t find the giant centipede then both of them would converge on it somewhere near the top of
the hill.

As he ran across a narrow stone bridge that crossed a stream, Gecko checked his mobile. The centipede was only a little way ahead – and it was still motionless.

He diverted left, leaping over a bush covered in small red flowers, and found himself running across a clearing where elderly Chinese men and women were performing t’ai chi – a form
of exercise that looked to the idle observer like martial arts being performed underwater.

Gecko threaded his way between them and over another bush – to find the creature they were looking for curled round a pigeon that it had partially consumed. Its bright red exoskeleton,
mottled with blue rings, was stark against the lush green grass.

His heart, which was already hammering in his chest, suddenly speeded up. He could feel the
thud, thud, thud
of blood in his neck and his temples.

He reached into a pocket and removed a green string sack that Rhino had bought from a fruit-and-vegetable stall. Without pausing, he threw it.

The sack fell across the creature, which twisted round and reared up, trying to locate whatever was attacking it. Gecko could tell that it was the smaller of the two centipedes they had seen
back in the warehouse.

Its flat, blunt head weaved around like a snake’s. The scattering of black dots that acted as eyes glinted with anger and hunger. Its legs – many more than a hundred, surely, Gecko
found himself thinking – scrabbled at the taut strands of string that made up the sack, making strange plucking noises.

Gecko moved to grab the sack’s handles and scoop it up, intending to hold it well away from his body so that the thing couldn’t bite him. His plan was to dunk the giant centipede
into the water, assuming that it wasn’t aquatic, and wait for it to drown. He would then crush it with a large rock, just in case it
was
aquatic.

The centipede had other plans. Its scissor-like pincers closed on the string covering its head, and cut them with an audible
snick!
The strands parted. The centipede’s scrabbling
legs managed to pull the sack downward, along its segmented body, while its head bobbed around free. For a moment it seemed torn between wanting to attack Gecko and wanting to escape. Gecko could
hear a hissing noise coming from its head. Its black eyes fixed on him, transfixing him. Its feelers waved hypnotically.

It attacked. The giant centipede lunged through the hole in the sack, heading straight for Gecko’s face, pincers snapping in fury.

Something spun in from one side, hitting the centipede in the side of the head. It whirled around in mid-air, trying to locate the source of the sudden attack.

The thing that had hit the centipede fell away to the ground. It was a green string sack, just like the one Gecko had used.

Natalie’s sack.

Gecko looked sideways to see Natalie standing in a gap between flowering bushes. She was breathing heavily, and her skin was glistening with sweat, but her face was full of concern for
Gecko.

‘Run!’ she cried.

The giant centipede fixed on Natalie. It bunched itself up, and then it launched itself like a missile at the girl.

Gecko did the only thing he could. He grabbed its rear end and pulled it backwards.

The giant centipede’s pincers snapped shut just inches from Natalie’s face. She recoiled, horrified. The creature turned round, twisting muscularly in Gecko’s grip, and tried
to fasten itself on to him instead. He whirled it round like an Olympic hammer thrower, letting the centipede’s weight propel its body away from him. It felt heavy, like a duffel bag full of
wet clothes. He let go of it when its body reached the top of its low arc and watched it fly across the bushes . . .

And fall among the people doing t’ai chi that Gecko had seen earlier.

There were screams and curses, and volleys of rapid Chinese from the other side of the bushes.

Gecko grabbed Natalie’s hand and pulled her along, following the path of the giant centipede. The elderly Chinese were running in all directions. For a moment Gecko couldn’t see the
creature, but then he caught sight of a flash of scarlet heading through the bushes. He gave chase, with Natalie running behind him.

His palms were burning from touching the creature, and he could see Natalie brushing her hands against her trousers as she ran.

This wasn’t going the way that it had been supposed to . . .

Something large stood in the doorway of the operating theatre where Calum was strapped down. Something large and metallic, covered in wires and cables. It had a head, made up
of cameras and lights and other sensors. It also had six legs, four of which were on the ground while the front two were held up like those of a praying mantis. It had obviously used those limbs to
push the doors in.

It was ARLENE.

Calum had never in his life been so glad to see something that had once tried to kill him.

The robot advanced into the room. One of the orderlies rushed towards it. ARLENE lashed out with a single leg and he went flying across the room, crashing into the wall. The other orderly backed
away, hands up to protect himself.

The sensor head turned to look at Calum, and the raised front leg seemed to wave. Or maybe it was just a random electrical misfiring, like the one that had caused Calum’s leg to be broken
in the first place.

Or maybe . . .

‘Tara?’ he said.

ARLENE’s head nodded.

‘You’re OK?’

Another nod.

‘And you’re at my apartment, controlling ARLENE?’

If the robot had been fitted with speakers, Calum suspected he would have heard a very feminine ‘Duh!’, but all ARLENE did was nod again.

‘I bet you regret having ARLENE shipped over here with me,’ Calum said to Dr Kircher. He seemed to be transfixed by the robot’s menacing presence.

Dave Pournell stepped forward, hands raised. ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘we can talk this through like reasonable people, surely? There’s no need for violence.’

‘I’m getting out of here,’ Calum said forcefully, ‘and you are going to let me.’

‘Really?’ Pournell made a big play of considering Calum’s words. ‘I can’t really see
how.
I mean, yes, you’ve got a big scary robot which you managed
to take control of and get out of the warehouse we were storing it in – and, believe me, I’ll be asking some pointed questions about who exactly let that happen. But what are you going
to do now? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the robot can’t pick you up and carry you – it’s got six legs, but no arms. You might be able to pull yourself up on to its back, but
then what? You’re going to ride it out of here like a cowboy? Again, I think not. Where would you go? No, all things considered, I think you’re bluffing. Good card, I’ll grant
you, but it’s still a bluff.’

Calum’s mind raced. Pournell was right – he wasn’t in a position to ride away from Nemor Inc. on ARLENE the way that Natalie had done in Georgia. He was still stuck, except . .
.

‘Tara,’ he said to ARLENE, ‘come over here and get ready to smash the scanner.’

‘No!’ Kircher screamed, jumping forward with outstretched arms. ‘It’s one of a kind. It took five years to develop and build. Do you know how much it
cost
?’

‘I don’t,’ Calum admitted, ‘but I know how much it
will
be worth in a few minutes if you don’t release me and arrange for me to be flown home
right
now
!’ The last two words were shouted rather than said, but Calum forgave himself. It had been a stressful morning.

ARLENE stepped further into the room, its weight cracking the tiles on the floor as it walked. It came right up to the scanner and rested both front legs against it, very gently but very firmly.
Dr Kircher whimpered.

‘Remember,’ Calum said, looking at Dave Pournell, ‘you can stop this any time you want. Just raise a hand.’

Pournell at least had the good grace to smile at the words being thrown back at him. He glanced at ARLENE thoughtfully. ‘You know, I suspect that the fuel cell on that thing will need
recharging at some stage. We could all just wait here until it runs down, and see what happens then.’

‘Before ARLENE runs out of fuel, this scanner will be trashed,’ Calum responded, ‘along with any other expensive equipment we can find in this building. Just how much is the
Almasti DNA worth to you, Dave? What kind of loss can your superiors afford before they fire you?’

‘It’s a Mexican stand-off, kid,’ Pournell said, but he was looking concerned now. ‘And given how close we are to the Mexico border, that’s very apt. Even if we
agree to fly you home, you can’t get this robot on to the jet. The minute you’re away from the robot, you’ve lost your bargaining chips.’

‘Not if he gets on to
my
jet,’ a voice said from the smashed doorway. ‘He retains all his chips, and we get to take ARLENE home as well – disassembled and in
nicely wrapped boxes.’

Calum looked over to the doorway. Gillian Livingstone was standing there, as immaculately dressed as ever. She smiled tightly at him, and nodded. ‘Calum, we need to have a long talk, I
think, but not just yet. Let’s get you out of here first.’

‘Professor Livingstone, isn’t it? I’ve been told about you. I thought we were working to the same ends,’ Dave Pournell said, gazing in puzzlement at Calum’s legal
guardian.

‘There are times when the ends do
not
justify the means,’ she replied. ‘If I had known just how far you were going to go, I never would have agreed to this.’

Agreed to what?
Calum wondered. Yes, he and Gillian were going to have to have a long talk, but then they had a long flight ahead of them. He felt himself relax. He wasn’t exactly
out of the woods yet, but he could see a clearing up ahead.

‘And while we’re waiting,’ he said, ‘could I get a Coke? I’m parched.’

Having lost track of the centipede underground, Rhino left the gleaming glass, metal and black-tile air-conditioned heaven of the Tsim Sha Tsui metro station, took the
escalator up to the surface and emerged into the oppressive heat and humidity of Kowloon’s Nathan Road.

He was surrounded by square concrete buildings of various sizes, but it was the one directly ahead of him that was his target. Tungking Mansions. Seventeen storeys tall, consisting of five
separate blocks all connected together, it was possibly the most famous – or infamous – location in Hong Kong since the bulldozing of the lawless Walled City collection of accommodation
towers. Somehow, over the course of the fifty-odd years since it had been built, it had developed, changed and mutated to the point where it was almost a city inside a city, a separate environment
that had its own rules and laws, its own population and its own way of doing things.

The problem being that it was where Rhino’s giant centipede was located, according to the map display on his phone.

Rhino looked up at the complex in dismay. It was smaller and squatter than most of the buildings around it, studded with the blocks of ancient air-conditioning units. Mostly a dull, rain-swept
grey in colour, it stuck out in a way the other buildings didn’t. Not only did it have character – so much character that you could sense it spilling from the thousands of balconies,
running down the stained walls and dripping on the ground – but Rhino knew, from his research on the way over, and from his previous time in Hong Kong, that the place was home to some four
thousand people. Many of those were locals, large Chinese families crowded into one-room apartments. Some were workers in the small shops, restaurants and guesthouses that were located in and among
the apartments. The rest were international travellers taking advantage of the legendary cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong. Walking along a corridor deep inside in Tungking Mansions, far away
from natural sunlight, one was liable to pass restaurants, guest houses, apartments, electronics shops, clothes shops and food shops, all mixed together and all within a hundred metres. And this
was where his giant centipede was located.