Madeleine was manipulating Petrovitch’s wrist, turning it and bracing it. “Sam, this is going to hurt like hell.”
She stabbed down with the needle, forcing it deep into his flesh. The pain was so great that his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fainted for a few brief, blessed seconds.
He could hear them talking, Chain and Madeleine: could feel the meat that was his forearm go cold while they worked on it, she giving the policeman instructions and he complying. The rocking motion ceased with one last jolt; the driver had found the open road.
Petrovitch’s hand was swathed in a ball of white bandages, fingers tied together with only his thumb free. It was numb and heavy, like a lump of metal. Then Chain looked close into Petrovitch’s ice-blue eyes.
“Still in there?”
“Yeah. Chain?”
“You’d be better off not talking, but when have you ever taken any notice of what I said?”
“Get a message to the Jihad. Tell them we have Sonja. Ask them where they want her taken.”
“How do I do that? Open the hatch and shout loudly?”
“Use the rat. It’s an open channel to them. Inside pocket.”
Chain patted him down and retrieved the device. “What if she doesn’t want to go with them?”
“Ask her. But I’m guessing we can make her.”
“It might come to that.” Chain flipped the case open and looked at the list of earlier communications with the New Machine Jihad. He moved to sit next to Sonja, and Madeleine took his place. She held up a bottle of sterile water.
“I’m going to see what damage they’ve done to your head.” She dug a fingernail into his earlobe. “Feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“I’ll be as quick as I can.” She unscrewed the bottle, sluiced water over him, then scrubbed away. He felt the pressure, the movement, but none of the pain. He watched the shadow of her: the blur moved precisely and deliberately, knowing what to do, taking the least time to do it.
“Thank you,” he said. The injection was working its way down his face; he could no longer feel his cheek, and his eye was closing.
“Hush,” she said, and bent low to inspect the wound. The mane of her hair slipped over her shoulder and lay in a serpentine coil on his chest. “You’ve lost a notch from your ear. Two centimeters closer in and it would have killed you.”
He could smell her. Dust and smoke and sweat and fear, and whatever she’d washed in that morning: apples. She smelled of apples.
“Two centimeters farther out and it would have missed me completely.”
“Sorry about your finger.”
“I can always get another one.” He felt what? Buzzed, like he was mildly drunk on a bottle of something strong and expensive, even though he knew it was a combination of shock, blood loss, pain-killing drugs, anoxia, and the closeness of her and her scent.
She squirted cold peroxide on his wound to staunch the bleeding, then used layers of gauze and padding to fashion a covering which she stuck in place with long lengths of tape. Again, she worked with quiet efficiency, concentrating on doing her best for him. She cradled his head as she wrapped a length of bandage around his skull; three turns, then tied it off.
Quite unnecessarily, she touched his damp, matted hair. Just the once, and nothing to do with checking the stability of the dressing or ensuring its fit.
Chain crowded in, and the moment was lost.
“We have a problem,” he said, in a voice he might reserve for mentioning that the sky is falling. “The Jihad have just upped the ante.”
Chain turned the rat’s screen to Petrovitch, but all he could see was the soft glow of the back-lighting.
“Chyort, man. Read it to me.”
“You’re swearing again. This is a good sign.” He tilted the screen back toward himself. “Take Sonja from Metrozone. Take her far away.”
“What did you say back?”
“I was pretending to be you, right? I said: the Metrozone is sealed off. No one gets in or out.”
“Is that true? They’ll know if you’re—if I’m—lying.”
“You don’t know half of it, Petrovitch. Casualty estimates range from one hundred thousand on ENN to a straight million on Al-Jazeera. We’re in a state of siege. But your friends in the Jihad don’t seem to care. Metrozone destruction imminent. Save Sonja, a message which they’re repeating every ten seconds.”
“Give it to me,” said Petrovitch, “and put my glasses back on.”
Chain flipped open Petrovitch’s glasses, and almost tenderly eased them on, one arm going through a fold in the bandage.
Everything snapped back into focus. Somehow, the engine seemed louder, the floor harder, the light harsher. Everything was real and sharp and he felt less coddled in cotton wool and more wrapped in barbed wire.
He looked around the corner of the bandage and his broken lens. A fresh message telling him that Metrozone destruction was imminent scrolled onto the screen.
Of course, he couldn’t hold the rat and write at the same time. Chain held the device above his head, and Madeleine supported his left elbow, which allowed him to scrawl with the stylus:
“Enough of this
The cursor barely had time to blink: “The New Machine Jihad will rise. The New Machine Jihad will destroy the Metrozone. The New Machine Jihad will remake the Metrozone in its own image.”
Petrovitch grimaced. “If the Metrozone is destroyed, all the people will die. Is that what you want?”
“The people are not required. Take Sonja, take her far away.”
“We won’t leave. I won’t leave.”
“The Metrozone will be destroyed around you. Behind you. In front of you. Beside you. It will fall. The New Machine Jihad will rise.”
“You’ll have nothing to rule.”
“The New Machine Jihad does not need to rule. It needs only itself.”
Petrovitch let his hand fall back. He was trying, but it wasn’t working. He was using reason with someone that didn’t care about reason, or emotion, or compassion. Yet it still wanted to save Sonja Oshicora, and it wanted him to save her.
He knew then. He knew he was talking not to a person, not to a committee. Nothing human. He was talking to something else.
He raised his hand again. “I cannot let you destroy the Metrozone. I will oppose you.”
“The New Machine Jihad will rise. Your opposition will be futile.”
“I know who you are.”
“I am the New Machine Jihad,” it said insistently. “I am the New Machine Jihad.”
“You don’t seem sure. What is it that you really want?”
“Shinkansen ha mata hashirou.”
Petrovitch wrote one last line: “Hello, Oshicora-san.”
To which the Jihad hesitated, and finally replied. “Help me.”
30
The throbbing of the engine finally stopped, and Chain took one last look around to check that there was no fighting close by.
“Coast is clear. Open her up.”
The driver, Carlisle, stepped over Petrovitch and heaved the rear doors open. Dim light seeped in but it was still far brighter than the bulb inside the wagon. Better still was the exchange of air: swapping the thick, meaty odors of sweat, blood and diesel for wood smoke and ozone.
“Where are we?” asked Sonja. All the view showed was serried terraced houses, terminated at a junction by another identical row of windows and doors.
“Somewhere in Notting Hill,” said Carlisle. He unstrapped the chin-strap on his helmet and let it dangle. “I wasn’t looking at the street names.”
He jumped down and rested his hands on his knees for a moment. The weight of his helmet rolled his head forward, almost onto his chest. He straightened up and stretched, his hands to the heavens, his mouth emitting little groans.
Sonja unbuckled herself and put her head outside. Carlisle held out his hand, and she took it tentatively, as if she couldn’t trust the man even to steady her for a moment while she climbed out.