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  “Ali, your heart rate’s gone right up—you’re going into shock. Get a hold of yourself and tell me what happened.”

  “Raven.” Ali bent her head and murmured the words into her folded arms. “I saw . . . I saw one of the test subjects for the memory experiments. . . . It was, it was so horrible. . . .” She cut herself off abruptly as Tom and Luciel emerged from the room. Luciel bent to help her to her feet.

  “Are you OK?” he asked with concern.

  “I think so,” she said shakily.

  “Then you want to go on?” Tom asked and grimaced a little in response to her nod. “It won’t do any good,” he said. “We asked Mikhail about your friend. He didn’t tell us anything. He doesn’t speak anymore.”

  “This is pointless, Ali.” Luciel looked distressed. “The other two won’t be able to tell us anything either. Mikhail won’t talk, Esther can’t, and Revenge is incomprehensible.”

  Ali hesitated and heard Raven speak softly into her ear:

  “Say you want to go on.”

  She sighed, wondering how the others would react if she told them she heard voices in her head telling her to continue. Rejecting the impulse she said only:

  “I want to see them.” Tom and Luciel exchanged glances, but set off again in search of the next patient.

  • • •

  If the gangers hadn’t known that Raven was a Hex when they got into the flitter, they must certainly know by now. Wraith frowned when he realized that Raven was making no attempt to disguise her abilities. But he rationalized that the Countess had assured him they would be discreet, and that he would be trusting these people with their lives anyway. However, Raven’s use of her Hex abilities made him uncomfortable. Her preference for working in seclusion meant that he had not exactly been aware of what her connection with computers entailed.

  Now he found it slightly alarming to see her sitting in the pilot’s seat, one hand resting lightly on the controls, her eyes defocused. The flitter weaved past the buildings at high speed, avoiding the rest of the aerial traffic, but the sight of Raven’s blank eyes made him tight with tension. The gangers seemed to be similarly affected, if the care with which they had fastened themselves into the vehicle was any indication. The only person who seemed at ease was Kez, who hadn’t fastened his own belt, and was grinning with every evidence of enjoyment at the high speeds the flitter was attaining. His absence of alarm seemed to increase his status in the eyes of the gangers. Wraith leaned forward with a deliberate ease to speak to Raven.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  “Naturally,” she replied somewhat caustically. “But there’s a limit to how many things I can do at once. I’m not really in the mood for conversation.”

  “Are you in contact with Ali?” Wraith said, ignoring her tone.

  “Yes.”

  “If you want to concentrate on your link with her, you needn’t pilot as well,” Wraith suggested.

  “I think I can handle it,” Raven said, a shade of amusement in her voice, although her eyes remained blank. “If there’s a problem I’ll hand over to Kez.”

  “Very well,” Wraith agreed, reflecting to himself that, given Kez’s propensity for speeding, the exchange would hardly make much difference. As he sat back he caught Melek’s gaze and the ganger gave an almost rueful shrug. Wraith acknowledged it with the barest flicker of his eyes, but he sensed the mood in the flitter become less antagonistic.

  • • •

  The second of the patients was no more communicative than the first. But Ali found herself more able to handle Esther’s vacuity than Mikhail’s consciousness. The girl was one of the oldest patients. According to Tom she had been in her late teens when admitted and was now in her early twenties. He had added, almost without interest, that test subjects rarely survived that long. Ali wondered if Esther’s state could be called surviving. Her mind had been damaged by the experiments, leaving her with the mental abilities of a small child. She smiled lopsidedly at a point somewhere behind their heads as Luciel questioned her, and it was obvious to Ali that there was no way she would be telling them anything about Rachel. Raven obviously concurred. After only a few minutes of questioning Esther, her voice came over the comlink again.

  “We’re accomplishing nothing here.”

  Ali tried to conceal her frustration. The presence of the others meant that she couldn’t point out to Raven that this had been a useless exercise from the beginning. Instead she turned to Luciel.

  “Can you show me the third test subject?” she asked.

  “Revenge?” Luciel sighed. “I guess so. I suppose you won’t be satisfied until we do.”

  “Come on then,” Tom said gruffly, heading for the door. “Let’s get this charade over with.”

  He led the way down the corridor and through three more sets of doors until he halted before a shut door. He moved to open it and then paused, the hum of his machinery dropping to a low purr as he cautioned Ali:

  “Revenge is under permanent restraint because she often becomes violent. If she starts acting up, we had better get out of here. I don’t want them to turn up and start asking us what we’re doing here.”

  “OK,” Ali agreed and Luciel added his assent, obviously equally unwilling to come into contact with the scientists. Tom turned back to the door and pushed it open.

  A girl was lying on the bed, metal cuffs holding her wrists to the sides of the bed and a heavy over-blanket buckled tightly over her so she couldn’t move her body. She had been sitting as far up the bed as the restraints allowed, leaning back against the pillows. But as the door opened her head snapped round and she fixed them with a piercing stare. She looked more like an old woman than a child. Her features were gaunt and her eyes sunken. Her hands clutched the sides of the bed like claws and her wrists were flecked with blood, lacerated by the cuffs. Her hair would have been waist length if it was brushed, but instead it was matted around her head in a dirty mess. Her skin was grimy, and there was dried blood from the scratches on her face and bruises on her neck. In a facility where everything else was clinically sanitized she seemed incongruous. Looking at her injuries Ali felt convinced they were self-inflicted.

  Tom approached the bed hesitantly and the girl focused on him with a fearful intensity, her lips drawing back to show her teeth in an animal snarl. Luciel looked nervous and Ali found herself holding her breath as Tom spoke.

  “Revenge?” he said soothingly. “It’s Tom. . . . Will you talk to me?”

  There was a growl. If the girl had been an animal she would have flattened her ears; as it was she flinched back, looking as if she would bite if Tom came any closer. Ali jumped when a human voice rasped from Revenge’s torn mouth.

  “You are poisoned,” she hissed. “Infected. Get away from me!” Her voice rose to a scream and both Tom and Luciel retreated. Luciel glanced sideways at Ali.

  “You wanted to talk to her,” he said. “Good luck.”

  She wet her lips nervously and prepared to speak, wondering what it was Raven expected of her. But before she could say anything a voice spoke in her ear.

  “Relax, Ali,” Raven told her. “Repeat exactly what I say.” Ali couldn’t respond, but Raven took her assent as read and began softly: “Ask her name.”

  “What’s your name?” Ali said obediently and the cadaverous face turned to regard her.

  “I am Revenge,” she said, looking through Ali in a way that was eerily familiar.

  “Is that a name or a threat?” Raven’s voice was chilling.

  “Uh . . . is that a name or a threat?” Ali asked uncomfortably.

  “It’s what I am,” Revenge whispered, leaning forward ominously. Ali resisted the urge to flinch back as she added: “There is nothing else. . . .” Her bloodied lips parted in a terrible smile, and Ali found herself staring into the eyes of insanity.

  • • •

  Raven’s attention was almost entirely concentrated on the link. Lacking Ali’s physical presence, she was blind to what th
e other girl saw. But the words that came through the link resounded in her ears. She perceived the flow of a thousand streams of data as she searched databases all over Europe, concentrating on one word:

  > revenge <

  > revenge <

  > revenge <

  The test subjects in the memory experiments had been linked up to a computer database. Which one? What had it contained? Raven was hardly conscious of Ali transmitting her words as she spoke directly to the shattered figure on the bed.

  “Who are you?”

  There was no answer, but the transmitter reported a rise in Ali’s heart rate. And then Raven heard the girl’s voice:

  “You speak out of the dark. . . .”

  She froze. It was impossible for the girl to know that she was speaking through Ali. Impossible, but her words suggested that, somehow, she did know. Raven felt the pressure of that darkness, fought against the urge to throw off her contact with the computer network, and just then one of the myriad tendrils of her awareness caught hold of a piece of information and brought it to her consciousness.

  > re-venge {ri′ven(d)3} I. v/t. 1. et,. a. j-n rächen ([up]on an dat.): to ~ o.s. for s.th. sich für et. rachen; to be ~d a) gerächt sein od. werden, b) sich rächen; 2. sich rächen für, vergelten (upon, on an dat.); II. s. 3. Rache f: . . . <

  The association that had lodged somewhere in Raven’s eidetic memory had been located. She focused on the dictionary entry for a heartbeat, an eon in the virtual time of the network. Whatever twisted logic had led the girl through the Germanic association of her name to a deadly statement of intent was lost now. But from a chain of half-formed clues Raven had unraveled the truth. She directed a new message to Ali’s comlink and as she spoke she acknowledged the reality of what she had discovered.

  “Hello, Rachel.”

  9

  THE MORTAL SWORD

  “Rachel?” Ali exclaimed. Luciel and Tom turned to stare at her, but before they could say a word they were interrupted by a raw scream. Revenge had lunged for Ali, fighting to escape the cuffs, her body thrashing with effort.

  “Raven! Raven, where are you?” she screamed. The two boys looked baffled. But Ali knew that this was the most rational thing Revenge had said so far.

  “We’d better go,” Tom urged and Ali looked from him to Revenge, uncertain of what to do.

  “Ali, speak to her,” Raven ordered. “Repeat after me . . .”

  Ali listened, memorizing Raven’s words. Grabbing Revenge’s arms she held her down on the bed and lowered her voice to repeat what she had been told:

  “Be still . . . Raven comes . . . wait for her. . . .”

  “Yes,” Revenge hissed, her eyes burning with anticipation. “Tell her, soon . . . she must come soon, or it will be too late.”

  • • •

  Raven blinked. The flitter had reached the edges of London. The towering skyscrapers were thinning out. The concrete jungle continued in a line across the countryside, a tangle of roads curving on top of and around each other, bordered by the towering skyrises. Raven guided the flitter out over the highway, careful not to deviate from her course into the no-fly zone over the agricultural lands. As she did so, she slowly drew her mind back from the computer connection, severing both it and the link with Ali.

  She took a breath slowly. She wasn’t certain of why she was unwilling to speak. But she doubted that her reticence came from anything so basic as a consideration for Wraith. The fact that Rachel was still alive bound them to their purpose, impelled them to break into the laboratory, but the things that Ali had discovered there made Raven extremely unwilling to move any nearer the reach of the CPS. Her right hand clenched into a fist on the controls and the flitter leaped forward with a lurch, shifting into a higher speed. She refused to accept the fear that threatened to control her. Instead she savored the roar of the wind rushing past them and said without emotion:

  “We’ve found Rachel.”

  “You have?” Wraith sounded tense and Raven turned to meet his eyes. “Is she . . . How is she?” he asked, trying to preserve his mask of control.

  “Her mind has been severely affected by the testing,” Raven said dispassionately. “But she appears to retain some measure of sanity.”

  “Some measure of sanity?” Wraith looked frozen and Raven heard Kez’s soft gasp of distress. She felt distanced from both of them, identifying herself with the three disinterested gangers in the back of the flitter rather than with her anxious brother.

  “Be thankful she’s not brain-dead or flatlined,” she stated. “Her condition is better than I thought it would be.”

  • • •

  Kez tried to stretch his cramped muscles and frowned. Large as the flitter was, the passenger seat was not the most comfortable place he’d been, especially after the long flight. The gangers and Wraith had room in the back to stretch out, even with the packing cases. But, cramped as he was, Kez hesitated to join them. Melek had been antagonistic to his presence on the operation and he didn’t want to provoke the gangers into making their disapproval more immediately felt. As it was he tried to make himself comfortable in his seat and alternated between dozing and looking out of the window.

  The latter of these two alternatives was easier to accomplish. Raven had been obliged to keep below the speed limit, since they didn’t want to attract the attention of the Seccies with a cargo of armaments, and had therefore increased the volume of her rock music to painful levels. Kez suspected that this was also a function of her wish to avoid conversation. Wraith was clearly concerned about Rachel’s condition and Raven just as obviously wanted to avoid the issue. However, every now and then the music paused as Raven changed disks and Kez took advantage of one of these breaks to engage her attention.

  “You’re still not piloting manually?”

  “As you see.” Raven shrugged. Her seat was tilted back and her legs stretched out on top of the bank of controls, only one hand resting lightly on a set of controls to her left.

  “What would happen if you fell asleep?”

  “I’m not certain,” Raven said slowly, and then grinned. “Want to find out?”

  “I don’t think so.” Kez shook his head but he was smiling as well. Raven’s good humor relieved a little of his anxiety about what they were doing. “Are you tired, though? If you are I can take over.” He made the suggestion a little hesitantly, but Raven didn’t seem annoyed by it. She shrugged again.

  “I’m OK,” she said. “There’s not much point in changing places now—we’re almost there.”

  “We are?”

  “Look outside,” Raven suggested, and Kez turned to the window.

  It was almost dusk and it was hard for him to make anything out in the dim half-light. Raven seemed to have left the main roadway, and the lights of the buildings that surrounded it were nowhere to be seen; gone also were the running lights of other flitters. But Raven had kept their own lights on and Kez could catch glimpses of the dark countryside, a town or city in the distance lighting up the sky, and below them the black ribbon of a minor road and the streaks of light as skimmers sped by. Up ahead were the darker masses of hills and Raven gestured toward them.

  “That’s where the lab is. But, according to the transport database, everything on either side of this road is restricted airspace.”

  “Isn’t there an approach road?” Wraith asked.

  “We’d hardly use it if there was,” Raven pointed out. “But no, there’s nothing indicated.” She considered. “I expect there is one though, and it’ll be in the government databases so their operatives can reach the lab.”

  “Pull that database,” Wraith told her. “We don’t want to use that road, but we don’t want to stumble across it by accident either.”

  “Better cut the running lights,” Melek added. “Since this is a covert op, best not to get seen.”

  “I can’t cut them while we’re still over the main roadway,” Raven pointed out, her eyes already defocusing as she connected to the net
work. “If a Seccie monitor caught us flying without lights they’d order us to halt. But I’ll swing off the road in about thirty minutes and cut the lights then. If anyone does catch us entering restricted airspace, we’ll send a com message saying we had technical problems.”

  “A power loss?” Kez suggested. “That would explain why you’d cut the lights.”

  “With any luck the eventuality won’t come up,” Wraith said. “Any luck with that road, Raven?”

  “Found it,” she stated. “There’s an exit from the main roadway. Blink and you’d miss it. Then there’s about a kilometer from the turn-off to the outer perimeter of the facility.”

  “Break off from the road before you reach it,” Wraith ordered. “Then bring the flitter down behind trees or something. I don’t want us to make the run on the lab until later tonight. We can catch a couple of hours sleep while we’re waiting.”

  • • •

  Ali lay flat on her back on the bed trying to stay calm. The revelation that Rachel was Revenge had shocked her. She was still trying to come to terms with its significance. The girl’s grip on sanity seemed so tenuous that she doubted if even Raven could understand her. But Raven had seemed to know the right things to say to calm her sister down, without arousing Tom and Luciel’s suspicions.

  Ali sighed. The thought of the two boys was what troubled her most. She was surprised at how confident she was of Raven and Wraith’s ability to rescue her. Her only doubts concerned what that escape would mean. She and Revenge were not the only prisoners in the facility. The idea of leaving the others trapped in the lab while she saved her own skin was rapidly becoming unpalatable. Ali could hardly imagine that Raven would take well to her altruistic impulse, but she had to try.

  She rolled over to bury her head in the pillow and whispered almost under her breath:

  “Raven. Raven, are you there? I have to talk to you.” There was no reply. Ali waited, then repeated herself, but still there was nothing. She felt icy fingers grip her heart and had to force herself not to panic. Raven had said that the link was unbreakable. They’d been steadily in contact for hours with no mention of danger. Nothing could have gone wrong. She paused in her rapid calculations as a new thought hit her. It was only logical really. She could hardly be surprised if Raven proved herself human and succumbed to a human weakness like falling asleep. But this was hardly the best time. She sat up, frowning. Then she blinked in surprise at the sight of a face peering through the glass panel on the door.