The Marriage of the Living Dark

“Chay Shal Chay SM’

The urgent whisper woke him. For once it hadn’t been in his dream. This time he woke surprised, not knowing where he was, nor even who it was who was calling him in so strange a manner.

“Wha...?” He sat and knuckled his eyes as a light came on in the room. “Quickly, Chay Shal” Zelic said, handing him his robe. ‘There’s no time to explain. We have to leave here now!”

He saw the guards at the door, their automatics drawn, and knew something was wrong. Maybe Rogers had had a change of mind about the incident Or maybe it was something else.

“Where’s Fei Yen?” he asked, as he slipped on the robe. “Don’t worry,” Zelic answered, watching as Chang gathered up Li Yuan’s essential belongings and bundled them into a bag, “my sergeant will make sure she’s well looked after.”

Li Yuan gave a little nod of understanding then, stopping only to glance around the room, followed Zelic out And stopped, staring down at the black-cloaked assassin who lay face down in the corridor, a loop of wire pulled tightly about his neck. He felt a jolt of surprise and looked to Zelic, but Zelic was already hurrying on.

“Come on, Chay Shal” he called back to him. “We’ve little time!” Zelic had stationed his guards at every junction along the way, the men joining them as they ran towards the monorail, falling in to form a tight formation about Zelic and Li Yuan. For a time it seemed that they had made it without incident, yet as they came to the last turn of the corridor that led directly into the terminal, they heard raised voices up ahead. There was a shot, and then a burst of rapid fire, followed by a single explosion. They had stopped at the first sound, the whole party dropping into a crouch. Now Zelic took control. “Green Two!” he barked, standing and waving six of his men through. “Go on ahead! Secure the entrance, then send a man back.” They waited, out of sight of what was happening, tensed in the sudden silence. There was a shot A second. Then footsteps hurried back. A visored soldier waved the all clear.

“Quick now!” Zelic said, sending two further men ahead. “Okay,” he said, looking to Li Yuan once more. “Let’s go.”

Around the turn of the corridor was a scene of carnage. There were great gaps in the walls, the edges scorch-burned. A dozen, maybe fifteen men lay dead, most of them mutilated by the blast From the look of it, one of Zelic’s men had run at the defenders with a grenade.

Li Yuan glanced at Zelic, reappraising things. Whilst he had always casually assumed their protection, he had never wholly trusted them. But now he knew just how seriously they took his defence. Serious enough to lay down their lives. The thought gave him strength.

They ran on, picking their way over the bodies and through the great entrance, out onto the massive concourse. The monorail was waiting, its doors open, a number of Zelic’s men kneeling inside the carriages, their guns raised. But as he made to go across, Zelic took his arm and pulled him back. “No, Chay Sm. Over here. We’re going up onto the roof.”

“The roof?”

Zelic nodded. “They’ll pick the monorail off in an instant. A cruiser makes a far more difficult target, neh?”

He followed Zelic across, into one of the RRs - the Rapid Risers - grateful that at least one of them was thinking straight “How did you know?” he asked, facing Zelic as the door hissed shut and the lift began to accelerate.

“I didn’t,” Zelic answered, watching the ascending numbers on the wall.

“Then you were lucky,” Li Yuan said.

Zelic smiled. “I guess so.”

Or damn good at your job, he thought, liking the young man more and more by the moment “Why did you do that, by the way?” Zelic asked, looking directly at him.

“Do what? FVpr

The smile came back. “You could call it that”

Li Yuan shrugged. “Because I’d had enough.”

Zelic nodded. “I thought so.”

As the riser slowed and weight returned to their bodies, Zelic took a large handgun from his belt He handed it to Li Yuan, then drew a second gun - a smaller stunner - from inside his tunic pocket “We may have to fight”Li Yuan nodded. The gun felt strange and heavy in his hand. Holding it, he realised that it was some years since he had held a weapon of any kind.

As the door hissed back, the cold night air hit them. They were on the roof, the darkness held at bay by the glare of arc lamps. “Sir!” someone yelled, to their right Looking that way, Li Yuan could make out the shape of a cruiser, its engines already warmed up and humming, its ramp open. Two guards stood at the top of the ramp, one with his arm raised. “Come on!” Zelic said, yet even as they began to run, an automatic opened up from somewhere close.

Li Yuan threw himself down. A moment later there was an explosion. “Shit!” Zelic said, from where he lay face down beside Li Yuan. “Crawl toward the cruiser. And keep going. My men will try to pin them down, whoever they are.”

There was a second rapid blast of gunfire, then the pop-pop-pop of a gas-launcher.

“Okay!” Zelic said. “Lef s go!”

He saw Zelic get up and begin to run, and began to do the same, but as he got to his knees, something warm and strong seemed to grab him from behind, lifting him up off his feet and throwing him forward.

Zelic woke and tried to sit up, but the pain in his head was too great. He could feel the vibration of the cruiser all around him, Wincing, he put a hand up to his brow. The bandage was wet “Soldier!” he called, keeping his eyes dosed. “ScMet?’ Someone came across. He felt a hand touch his arm lightly. “Ifs okay, sir.

You’re going to be all right.”

“Brevitt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are we?”

“In the cruiser, sir. Heading north-east towards Fort Worth.” “Ah ...” he swallowed painfully, his throat dry. As if sensing it, the young sergeant lifted his head gently, then held a cup to his lips. He drank gratefully. “And Li Yuan?”

There was a pause. “I’m afraid he didn’t make it, sir.” “Didn’t...” The enormity of it hit him like a hammer blow. He had failed. Better to have died back there than this. He groaned.

“Are you okay, sir?”

But Zelic didn’t answer, merely turned and lay, facing the wall as the cruiser flew on through the desert night.

CHAPTER-7

acts of kindness

Daniel stopped, his left hand raised. At once the patrol came to a halt, the younger boys looking about them nervously. It was midday and the town was directly below them, the river bisecting it like a line of molten steel. Behind them a wooded slope climbed to meet the lower slopes of the great range. A road led down toward the bridge. For the first few hundred metres it was merely a strip of tarmac, running through the untended scrubland, and then the houses began, only one or two at first, and then, as the ground flattened out nearer the river, a solid mass of buildings - traditional Han houses with red-tiled roofs and high walls - intersected by endless little alleyways. China on the Rhine.

Through the longsight of his visor, Daniel studied the streets alongside the river, noting how little activity there was down there. Normally those same streets would be crowded at this time of day, the traders’ stalls surrounded by bustling life, but today there was barely anyone about Something was wrong Rebels. It had to be.

Daniel turned, looking to his boys. It was hot in the suits and they were sweating, and not merely from the heat, but all eyes were on him now. He was their leader and they trusted him. Worshipped him, if the truth be told. “Come,” he said simply. “We’re going down.”

There was no need to tell them to be careful. They knew that And they knew as well as he that something was wrong.

You could tell that by the absence of the golden-eyed. They knew when something was about to happen - knew and got out of the way. As they started down, the boys fanned out, two at the front, four in the middle, two at the back, forming a broad hexagonal shape, as Daniel had taught them. Daniel himself was on the right at the front, Robbie, a twelve-year-old, to his left If they were going to be ambushed, it wouldn’t be here, it would be deeper in. The rebels would use alleyways and balconies and windows. Two, maybe three, of his patrol would be dead before they even knew they were in a fight Which was what made this worse, in many ways, than the Garden. There, at least, you knew that the threat was ever-present Here it was the longueurs that killed. You could only remain tensed and alert for so long, and then you would relax. Your attention would drift And at that moment they would hit you. Unseen assassins. Snipers.

They passed the first few houses. The town below them seemed deserted, but one could sense the people behind their shuttered windows, or lying on their floors, silent and fearful, listening as they passed by. Daniel glanced back. They looked good. Confident. Professional. More like men than the boys they were. That much he could be proud of. But they had yet to face a real fire-fight Tests. That seemed to be all there was to their lives. The thought brought back a memory, something from when Daniel had been in de-briefing. It was towards the end of the process when, his interrogation at an end, they had given him the freedom to exercise in the gym. Under the watchful eyes of the guards, he had spent that last month slowly working his way back to fitness. After the inactivity of the cells the exercise made him feel good; made him feel human once again. But there was another reason why he liked those sessions, for if he climbed to the very top of the rope he could see out through the narrow windows and glimpse the prison’s cobbled yard and the gate. That tiny glimpse of life - of a world carrying on outside -lifted his spirits after the long months of isolation. The world,for him, had shrunk to the length of a single corridor. Now it expanded again, hinting at unlimited horizons. It was at one of those moments, while he hung at the top of the rope, gripping it tightly, that he saw one of the young guards - a blue-eyed young man who, while he’d never spoken to Daniel, seemed somehow less hostile than the others - go to the gate and, putting his hands to the bars, appear to take something. For a moment Daniel hadn’t understood. What the guard held was small and white, yet he didn’t make any attempt to stash it away in a pocket. Only when the young guard lowered his mouth to it and kissed it did Daniel realise what it was. A hand. It was a young girl’s hand. And now that he knew what to look for, he could make out the shape of her on the far side of the barred gate. That moment’s tenderness had shocked him more than if the guard had put a gun into the girl’s mouth and blown her head off. Shocked him, because he himself had never known such tenderness. The nearest he had come was the comfort of another boy’s arm about him as he slept, the brief physical pleasure of another boy’s cock inside him. Nothing permanent Nothing ... deep. And certainly no love.

No love. Yes, that was what shocked him. The realisation that he lived in a no-love universe. That he existed ... and nothing more. He and several thousand boys like him. Surviving day by day in the camps. Again and again, he saw the young guard’s lips come down and kiss that tiny white hand. And each time the shock of it seared him for, like the tiny glimpse of the world outside he got each time he climbed to the top of the rope, it hinted at a great world outside of himself that he did not know. A world filled to overbrimming with love.

In another universe to this ...

“Keep tight,” he said quietly, reminding himself where he was. To either side the houses were dosing in. A high grey wall was to their left now, on their right a row of shops, their shutters down. Just ahead the first of several alleyways crisscrossed the road.

Daniel raised a hand. At once they stopped.

Why go straight down? Why not cut across?

He narrowed his eyes, thinking it through. They had to cross the river, for their orders were to report to the camp at Abendorf, and that was on the far side of the river, but that didn’t mean they had to go straight there. They could make for the great square beside the yatnen, then head back along the waterfront That way, at least, they’d have the river at their back and only one side to defend. If the rebels didn’t hit them before they got there. He decided he would take the risk.

Daniel gestured toward the left and made the signals which meant “form up tight” and “at a trot”. There were nods.

“Okay. Lefs go.”

The alleyway was deserted. As they came out into the next street, they had a glimpse of someone disappearing into a doorway, otherwise it too was empty. A single shot rang out. Distant. Down by the river, if he was any judge, though the echo from the surrounding hills made it hard to be sure. Daniel pulled the patrol up. They crouched there, their eyes searching the surrounding windows and balconies, their gun barrels searching for movement. For a moment nothing, and then another shot rang out Snipers, Daniel thought, a shiver going down his spine. A count of five, and then the rapid stutter of automatics opening up, followed by the booming concussion of a grenade. A patrol. There had to be another patrol down there.

“Come on!” he yelled, turning and heading down the street, the river directly below him. “Someone’s in trouble down there!”

As they came within fifty metres of the river, Daniel stopped. The gunfire had been heavy, but now, suddenly, it ceased.