possible!”
“Except you didn’t,” I said. “You sent them to their deaths—and perhaps worse than that.”
“You don’t know that!”
“You don’t know that.”
Perrin gave me his best pathetic look. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t do that any more. I’m an agent, not an assassin.”
“Oh good,” said Perrin.
And he twisted suddenly, breaking free of my grasp with an effort. He ran for the exit door, screaming at the top of his voice for help and reinforcements. The door burst open just as he reached it, and a whole bunch of people came running in, armed with a whole assortment of weapons. I recognised Ms Smith and Mister Genuine Muscle among the many angry faces. Perrin fought his way to the back of the crowd and hid behind them, trying to explain to everyone what had happened, but it was obvious they already knew. I should have looked for more surveillance cameras. The crowd fanned out, to better cover me with their various weapons, but I wasn’t worried. All they had were guns. Perrin yelled for the others to kill me, to shut me up, to stop me from telling the world what they’d been doing here in the Departure Lounge. Most of the crowd took one look at my Drood armour and looked for someone else to tell them what to do. Some tried to hide behind others. Ms Smith stepped forward.
“Can we make a deal?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“Most of us just work here!”
“You knew what was going on. You all profited from the lie. From all the people missing, presumed dead. You’re all guilty.”
“Get him!” Perrin shouted urgently from the back. “Kill him! He knows everything; he’ll tell! For God’s sake, somebody get him!”
But nobody moved.
I grabbed hold of one side of the Door with both my golden hands and pulled hard. The Door made loud creaking sounds of pain and distress, almost like a living thing, and then it swung slowly open, unable to resist the sheer power of my armour. I stepped back, pulling the Door all the way open, and looked inside. There was nothing there. Just a blank blur that hurt the eyes to look at it. No sound came from behind the Door, not even a breath of moving air. There was nothing at all on the other side of the Door except a horribly empty gap.
I looked back at the people watching me from the other side of the room. Most of them were staring, fascinated, as though they’d never seen the Door open before. And most of them probably hadn’t. But that hadn’t stopped them from using it to profit from the fear of desperate people. The only one not looking at the open Door was Perrin. He’d eased his way back through the crowd, to face me again. He had a formidable-looking futuristic gun in his hand, pointed right at me. An energy weapon; alien tech, or at the very least, alien-derived. The odd metal thing glowed and shimmered and twisted in his hand, as though it couldn’t quite decide what it was supposed to be. I turned to face Perrin, and he fired the gun at me.
Howling coruscating energies flared up all around my armour, blasting the floor at my feet and scorching the ceiling above me. Harsh energies crawled all over me, spitting and sparking as they tried to force their way in. I stood my ground, trusting my armour, and soon enough the energies fell away, defeated. And then I advanced steadily on Perrin. Everyone else fell quickly back, out of my way, scattering across the room. Perrin swore savagely at his fellow businesspeople as they abandoned him to me. He kept firing his gun, but the energies had less and less effect. When I was finally close enough, I snatched the gun out of his hand, grabbed him by the shoulder again, and dragged him back to the Door. I think he guessed what I meant to do, because he kicked and fought every inch of the way, screaming shrilly to the others for help that never came.
“Did your clients call for help?” I said. “Did you listen?”
I turned Perrin round to face the awful emptiness inside the open Door. He didn’t want to look at it, but I made him.
“This is the last thing a lot of people saw in this world. Before you took everything they had and forced them through,” I said. “Did you force them? You must have;