on the left hand of the module. Already, he could hear the boys coming. He could hear jeering voices, hoots of delight. Getting closer . . . And the flickering glow of several flashlights arcing like light sabres amongst the pipes, gantries, junctions boxes, exhaust stacks.
‘You ready?’
Bushey nodded.
‘Just fire enough to make ’em duck for cover. Then we’ll scarper, too, okay?’
Bushey licked dry lips and pressed out a grim smile. ‘Right-o, sir.’
Adam aimed down the trembling sights of his assault rifle, waiting for the flash of enough orange jackets to appear to make his shots count.
Bollocks, I fucked this up.
He’d been banking on the boys turning tail and rabbiting at the first exchange of gunfire. Maxwell must have got them totally stoked up somehow, or got them all stoned on coke or something. Or maybe he was right. Maybe the boys really were convinced this was just one big computer game; that a shot landing home wasn’t actually going to hurt them.
‘Sir!’
‘I see ’em. I see ’em!’ replied Adam.
He caught the pale flicker of a baseball cap, a head poking around the corner of the module to check the lie of the land ahead, then ducking back. He saw more heads now, emerging from the maze of buildings, pipes and exhaust bells. Cautious steps forward towards the open area of deck and the walkway.
Bushey fired first. Half a dozen quick shots that appeared to find one of the boys. Adam joined in and all the heads and shoulders dived quickly out of sight.
A moment later return fire sputtered out from a dozen places, several shots whistling up the walkway between them. Adam hoped the others were all out of there now, although he thought he could still hear the distant rattle of feet on the mesh.
‘That’s it, I’m out!’ hissed Bushey.
Adam was on his last clip. ‘All right, fuck it, we’re done here. Go, Bush. I’ll cover!’
Bushey nodded, scuttling low out of his niche and across the open deck towards the walkway. Adam waited until he saw heads had begun popping up again, and fired another half a dozen shots to keep them down a while longer. Then he, too, was on his feet, a low loping sprint across a few yards of open deck, then his boots clanged all too heavily onto the walkway. He could see Bushey up ahead, jogging to catch up with the last of the civilians.
Adam ran sideways, like a crab, keeping his assault rifle hip-aimed backwards down the wire cage, waiting for one of the boys to be stupid enough to press the pursuit too closely.
Twenty yards along and starting to feel sure he was going to make it over without incident, his foot found something soft and he stumbled.
‘Shit!’ he gasped.
He looked down. It was that relentlessly cheerful black woman who was Jenny’s friend. She seemed to be alive, but whimpering pitifully.
‘You’re wounded? Can you walk?’
The woman moaned. ‘Can’t feel my legs.’
He reached down with his spare hand and grabbed a fistful of damp clothing. He tried dragging her along the walkway, but she shrieked with pain. ‘No! Please! Stop!’
‘Come on, love. You’ve to got help yourself!’
‘I can’t!’ she cried. ‘I can’t!’
He knelt down closer to her. He remembered her name now. ‘You’re Martha?’
She nodded. He looked down at what she was cradling in her hands; a mess of tattered skin around an exit wound and dark coils of soft tissue from inside. ‘Dr Tami can’t fix this sort of mess,’ she whispered. ‘You go.’
‘I can drag you,’ he said, shouldering his weapon and getting his other hand under her armpits.
‘No!’ she spat. ‘Please, no! Hurts!’
‘Just shut up and let me—’
‘I want to die,’ she sobbed. ‘My boy, I know he’s gone . . . I just wanna go an’ see him now.’
He could see her face; damned if there wasn’t something that looked like a smile on there. ‘He’s such a good boy,’ she whispered. ‘Did you hear him? He warned us.’
Adam nodded. He had heard the shout from the tugboat’s foredeck just before everything kicked off. ‘Your boy? That was brave.’
She grinned, grateful it seemed, that someone had noticed.
A shot rattled off the wire cage a dozen yards down, sending sparks onto the walkway.
‘Go!’ hissed Martha. ‘Go now . . . an’ you tell Jenny . . . say “sorry” from me?’
‘Sorry? Yes, okay.’
‘I let her down . . . so badly.’
Another shot rattled against the wire and he could see down the far end the boys were beginning to cluster