dropped the hose and span round, grabbing Franklin by the arm. ‘GET OUT!’
In his mind he was already sprinting back to the entrance, dragging Franklin with him, but the world had gone into slow motion.
How long left before the counter hit zero? Not long enough and he dared not turn to look. Say ten seconds at most. Ten seconds to get as far away as possible.
Something tugged on his arm, holding him back. He looked back and into Franklin’s face, confused and angry. ‘RUN!’ he screamed, pulling him towards the door. No time to explain. No time for anything.
He counted every step, imagining each one corresponding to the countdown on the laptop.
… nine …
… eight …
Until now, Shepherd had not been fully committed to the idea that his old Professor was in here somewhere, sabotaging key components of Hubble’s successor.
… seven …
… six …
But everything was so deliberate and planned. He made it to the door and yanked it open, heaving Franklin through and charging after him.
… five …
… four …
The roar of the air shower kicked in and for a second he thought he’d got his timings wrong. He carried on running, straight through the second door with Franklin right next to him.
… three …
… two …
So clever.
Evacuate the building so no one gets hurt … flood the upper part of the chamber with freezing gas … lift a reserve tank of coolant into it with the arm so the gas keeps it cool … until the countdown tells it to drop the tank onto the hard, relatively warm floor …
… One …
In front of him, Franklin was halfway through the final door and Shepherd threw himself forward, bundling him out of the scrubbing station and down onto the floor of the entrance lobby.
Down.
Stay down. Helium is lighter than air. Helium rises.
… Zero …
Shepherd heard a muffled crump then the percussive wave of the explosion ripped through the building, turning the world into torn metal and broken glass.
And then darkness.
What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle
Deuteronomy 20:5
EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER
Old Town, City of Ruin
Southeastern Turkey
Gabriel died shortly after noon on the same day he rode into Ruin.
A man in a HazMat suit appeared over him, his visor fogging with hurried breath, drawn by the cardio alarm.
‘Over here!’ His voice was muffled by the hermetic suit, lost amid the wail of the alarm and the howls of other patients. ‘HERE!’ He reached out a gloved hand and placed it on Gabriel’s chest, pumping hard on the breastbone to massage the still heart beneath it, cursing the fact that his other hand was strapped tight to his chest by a sling.
Another suited figure looked up from another bed and started to walk over, any urgency blunted by the now commonplace nature of death. It was the third time a cardiac alarm had sounded that day and, with so many infected and suffering so hideously, it was hard not to see the release of death as something of a blessing.
‘Do something,’ the man at the bed said, still pumping rhythmically on Gabriel’s chest with his one good hand.
The new arrival glanced at the monitor, the heartbeat flat-lining. He looked down at the still form, bound to the bed. ‘He’s gone,’ he said, flicking a switch to silence the alarm.
The man at Gabriel’s side looked up, anger lighting his face, his breath fogging his visor as he spoke. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Dr Kaplan, I’m the senior physician in charge, why do you ask?’
‘Because I want to spell it right when I write up the charge of medical homicide by neglect.’
The doctor’s eyes dropped to the ID displayed in the clear pocket on the front of the man’s suit and read the name: Chief Inspector Davud Arkadian, Ruin City Police. Pushing Arkadian’s hand away he moved up to the bed and continued the CPR on Gabriel’s body. His bulky helmet turned back towards the other doctors. ‘Over here,’ he shouted, loud enough to be heard above the din. ‘Make it fast and bring the crash unit with you.’
Gabriel felt like he was floating upwards, flying in a bright sky. Below him he could see fields and rivers rushing past, flitting between clouds that grew thicker the higher he flew. He felt weightless, peaceful – free.
Through the clouds he saw the land fall away and the vast mirror of the ocean stretch out. Huge flocks of birds flew past him, all heading in the same direction towards land. Even at this great height he could see other things moving across the water below. They left lines behind them, long straight, white wakes like scratches on the surface of the sea. Ships. Thousands of them, all heading back to land, the lines of their wakes slowly converging the closer they got to port.
He continued to rise, as if some force was pulling him up to the bright sun that warmed and welcomed him. No. Not the sun, more vast somehow and indistinct. It continued to grow the closer he got, bigger even than the ocean below though he could not see the edge of it. Moving towards it required no effort, it was as easy as falling. But there was something about the ships and the birds that plucked at something inside him. They were all going in a different direction to him, and it made him feel uneasy. He felt like he should be going the same way too, back to the land, away from the soothing sun that filled the sky.
He tilted himself downwards, his head pointing back towards the earth and swept his arms through the air, pulling himself down and away from the light. The steady rise stopped, just a little, then started again, pulling him up like he was a cork bobbing in water. He fixed on a spot of dry land far below him, reached out with his arms again and pulled forward, kicking hard with both legs.
‘Clear!’
Two of the three HazMat suits stepped back from the bed. The third held the defibrillator paddles to the smears of conductive gel on Gabriel’s chest and pressed the twin fire buttons.
Gabriel arched upwards, his bound hands twitching into claws at his sides.
Dr Kaplan stepped forward, checking the ECG monitor and resuming CPR. The line on the screen jumped then settled back to nothing. ‘Nearly had him. Give him another milligram of epinephrine and get ready to try again.’
The second suit fumbled a syringe into the cannula fitted to Gabriel’s arm, the urgency and his gloved hands combining to make this simple task ten times more difficult. He emptied the plunger and sent a