The Iron Swamp (11 page)

We started to slow. My heart began to race. I wasn't ready to die.

I should have been thinking of an escape plan. It was only ever too late when you gave up. Maybe I could dive into a pool, find a reed, and stay under until they got bored of waiting. Maybe I could steal one of their guns. They wouldn't be expecting it, not from me. I wasn't even sure I knew how to fire it. Pull the trigger. I would have to kill all six of them quickly.

I looked down as slyly as I could to see if the one next to me had a holstered gun. He did, but my best chance was still to run and hide. Kaeroshi swamps weren't safe even if you were an armed SP agent. Even the smaller ones contained dangers. If I could stay alive for long enough, they might be forced to retreat.

The slider stopped gently in a place still obscured from view by a hood.

I wasn't ready.

I needed more time to think. My legs were shaking uncontrollably with adrenaline. I was about to go for the gun when the one with the darkest stubble moved his head forward so I could see where we were. This wasn't a swamp. We hadn't even left Las Hek. We were at window security with lines of sliders either side. The van moved forward slightly as someone was let through.

It didn't make any sense. There were plenty of swamps near the city large enough for them to bury my corpse. There was no need to take the risk of transporting me through a security checkpoint.

The van moved forward another few mets. No one spoke. They all just sat there facing forwards as if the doors were about to open on the front lines of a battle.

"Where are we going?"

"Classified," said the bald chin.

"Can you tell me anything?"

"We're moving you to a safe location."

I shook my head. It was all lies anyway.

The window we were heading for was a huge square frame of thick metal reinforced with the transparent blue calamite strong enough to survive a nuclear explosion. It was filled with a purple mist that disseminated from the worm hole mechanism allowing us to go anywhere in Cos as if it were a footstep away.

Passage took less than an instant. No sooner had the purple mist covered the van than I could see the window security station the other side. The scenery looked much the same, though the hood was sitting straight again and my view was largely obstructed. At a guess it seemed like we were still in The Kaerosh. There was no queue at the exit side, so we picked up speed quickly, and my heart began to race, wondering how and why I was still alive.

"Lisidia Vins wants you dead," said a hood.

"That isn't news."

"Because they found Vos Peti," said another.

"What's that got to do with me? I'm not even a policeman anymore."

The hood looked at one of the others. "He's been dead for over a cycle."

I shrugged. "I've been drunk for over a cycle."

"You lost your job three weeks ago."

The implication was like lightning down the spine. "He couldn't have killed Kenrey then. Vins is worried people might use my report against him, so I have to die."

The hood nodded. "He's under house arrest, but we know he sent people to kill you. We found one of them on the way up to get you. If we were a few minutes later, you wouldn't be sitting here right now."

That was more confusing. "What do you mean he's under house arrest?"

"Clazran's orders. Vins is wanted for murder."

I had no idea what was going on, but the alcohol made me bold. "So you're here to protect me from Vins?"

He nodded.

I sputtered nervous laughter. "I have as much reason to trust you as the houthar queen to trust her mad brother."

"We don't care if you trust us as long as you don't do something stupid like run away." He lent towards me so that his hood almost touched my nose. "But if we wanted you dead, you wouldn't still be sitting here."

I said nothing. My abduction was sobering me faster than I liked. If I was about to die, then it seemed preferable to do it drunk.

"President Clazran wants to see you," said a hood.

"Frak off!" I almost smiled. "I'm not near drunk enough to believe that."

The nearest one sounded angry. "You're not nearly informed enough to disbelieve anything we say."

"What does he want to see me for?"

"You'll be given new clothes and some time to sober up," said another.

"And shower," added another, as if this had paramount importance.

There was no further elaboration. When the van finally stopped again I was relieved to see that we were not in a swamp but a village. Like most populated zones in The Kaerosh, it was adjacent to a swamp, and the cold, wet air cut to the bone. Despite this, the quaint line of houses had a feeling of tranquility, bunched together like a line of candy houses in a diorama. The road and all the buildings were elevated above the ground to survive the expansion of the swamp during the wet season. The nicer houses even had flotation devices above their supports for the more severe cycles.

The hoods walked me up the pathway of wooden slats to the front door of one of the houses without flotation devices and gestured me inside.

Tree houses were better furnished, and I was just about drunk enough to care. The living room contained a chair and a table, the kitchen a single microwave, and the bedroom was exactly as the name described. I turned on the light, pleasantly surprised to find it working, and sat in the provided chair. A quick lie on the bed, and I would have done everything there was to do.

One of the hoods with a bald chin and gentle face walked into the room and laid a pile of clothes on the table. "There should be something here that fits. All the adult stuff is the smallest size it came in. There's also some children's stuff if that doesn't work."

Despite the fact that none of the adult stuff would fit, the sight of the clothes was still a relief. It was evidence that I was not going to be murdered by these men. After being walked into a shower and watched as I stripped, the hood took my clothes and left, satisfied that I wasn't going to make a naked escape. Though I considered it, the hot water was too tempting, and the stench of booze and vomit was beginning to make me nauseous. I only realized how long I'd spent beneath the falling water when a hood came to check I hadn't squeezed through the window.

I tried on the adult stuff first, but as expected the legs of the trousers went well past the end of my shoes. The rib vest was far too large, and my hands ended before the elbow in the dry-tops.

My clothes were specially made. Store bought stuff, except socks, never worked, though the children's stuff was better. A few of the kids' dry-tops and coats fit ok. I didn't bother asking for privacy after the shower, trying everything on in front of the bald hood who seemed to find it hilarious. I was used to being laughed at, and his guilty chuckle wasn't overly sadistic. Far from making me uncomfortable, it added to the feeling that I wasn't about to be tortured or murdered.

By the time one of them brought me some food, it was dark. Another one handed me some hangover pills to take when I went to sleep. Outside, lamps were alight between the houses, and several rooms shone yellow light out into the dark lane. The view was quite pretty from the window once the heating had got going. The village seemed reassuringly alive; not some ghost town used to stash people in witness protection.

My head was throbbing as if someone had been using it to beat a drum, so I ate my microwaved meal and went to bed. There was no question my body needed rest. My eyes were full of gravel, and my eye lids were lifting bags of flour, but the idea of meeting Clazran was enough to keep me awake for a century. I turned from back to side to front like a spin dryer. Every time I was close to sleep I pictured him accusing me of treason or getting lost in his palace which became a prison. Clazran was
the
monster on the hill, and tomorrow I was going to meet him.

*

I awoke to the sound of a gunshot and shattering glass. Within moments, one of the SP was pulling me out of bed in the dark.

"Keep your head low." He pulled my arms one at a time through a bulletproof vest. "Keep to the ground. Don't get up until I say." With that he was gone.

As the door shut behind him, the room went from dark to black. My heart was beating so fast, and the ache in my skull so severe, I thought my head might explode into a fountain of blood.

The shattering glass meant only one thing. Someone was firing into the house.

Two more shots were fired, this time much closer. I considered crawling under the bed, but I wasn't a child.

I pulled myself along on my stomach towards the door and creaked it open. The lights were off, leaving the rest of the house as dark as my bedroom. In the room with the table, I could see the faint shapes of people standing at the walls, barely more than blurs in the blackness.

With increasing frequency, the crack of pistol fire echoed around the house, but just as often the sound came from outside, followed by glass shattering or a dull pat as the bullets hit a wall. I crawled to the entrance of the living room, recognizing the black heap was a man's body. I didn't stop. Two fingers on his neck, I felt nothing. The puddle of blood seeping away from him across the floor began to wet my legs.

I was about to crawl back into the hall just as another man catapulted backward onto the table which collapsed under the force, four legs splintering outward.

The man dribbled blood as I reached him, grabbing me by the collar and breathing heavily as he attempted to speak, but his words were incoherent. His grip loosened, allowing me to ruffle through his cloak until my hands felt wetness around his abdomen. I grabbed some clothes from the pile and pressed them hard against his wound, but he spasmed upward with a look of mad panic as he punched me in the face.

I slumped forward, the tip of my head touching the wall, now keenly aware that pressing a bullet into someone's gut was probably painful.

I got to my knees again and pressed another few items of clothing more delicately onto his wound. This time, he barely flinched. Not a good sign. I needed to wrap something tightly around him to keep pressure on the wound, but he was a big man, and I was not. I tried anyway, pulling him into a sitting position just as the final standing hood crashed backward into the wall. He slid down slowly, as if he knew when he hit the floor he wouldn't rise again.

In shock, I dropped the man I was holding, and he fell back to the floor as limp as a corpse. I winced as I picked him up again, half expecting another punch in the face that might be the end of me as well as him. I threw the arms of a dry-top around his waist and let him drop back gently before tying the arms together as tightly as I could.

Cos erupted in a single all-encompassing noise. Bits of debris as big as my torso launched towards me. I was thrown into the outer wall by a gust strong enough to turn me inside out. For a few clicks I couldn't breathe. Then I vomited. It was too dark to see properly, but it looked crimson, the color of blood. I wretched again, but nothing came up, though my stomach was attempting to eject itself.

The only sound was ringing. One unwavering high pitched screech like the wroth of a deity. The room was so full of dust it was like breathing sand. Smoke filled my eyes with water, all the enzymatic crap making them sting like bitches.

The explosion came from the bedroom, which meant it was intended for me. At least three of my six guards were dead or dying, and I couldn't see or hear properly to check for the others. All I could do was feel around for something that might help. The cold steel of one of the hood's guns was recognizable even through my shattered senses. I picked it up by the barrel, my whole body pulsating with adrenaline.

I wasn't built for this.

The shots inside the house sounded like bubbles popping against the bloody siren in my ears. If there were any hoods still alive, they were in the kitchen or at the front door, so if anyone came from the remnants of the bedroom, it was an enemy. I slouched over trying to look dead, covering most of the gun with my body.

The shooting went on for a few more clicks before silence returned. I readied my finger on the trigger, my throat thrusting blood and acid back into my mouth as I tried to breathe. A black figure appeared from the bedroom firing a shot into the head of the dying man who slid down the wall.

I fired. The bullet caught him in the torso, and he staggered backward raising his weapon to return fire. I fired again, and then again holding the weapon in both hands to lessen the recoil. One of the shots buried in the wall under his arm, but the other cut deep into his abdomen. He squeezed off one shot before he fell sideways, embedding a bullet into the floor a finger's width from my head. Above the ringing the shot sounded like someone flicking a tin can with a knife.

I held the gun out, waiting for another one, but none came. My arm shook so wildly that the gun was slipping from my hand. As police sirens began a new cacophony, I let it drop. If they were here to help or hurt me, I didn't care.

The building filled with lights as people with torches crowded in the hallway. They pulled the hood off my attempted assassin, revealing a woman so beautiful that the red stains on her face looked as if someone had murdered an angel. As the sea of human faces filled the room, I felt an exhausted ecstasy that whatever was about to happen, at least I was no longer alone.

Chapter 8

15/09/2256 FC

I could hear voices over me before I opened my eyes. Two nurses looked at me with surprise as I took in my surroundings. Both short with all knowing faces, neither looked pleased by my awakening.

Memories of the ambulance and the sirens came flooding back to me; the paramedics poking me and pressing on my arms and chest, the needle that jabbed into my flesh as Cos darkened and the pain vanished.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Nidess?" said the black lady.

"Fine, I think." I clenched my fists and felt the tension in my knuckles and forearms. I flexed my toes, legs, and arms and everything seemed to be working. The eternal ringing was gone. "I feel good."