The squad moved from cover to cover, trying to make as little noise as possible. Nat’s prediction had unfortunately proved to be quite correct. There seemed to be a far greater concentration of Voidborn than when Sam and Jay had first scouted out the area the previous evening. They spent most of their time hiding, waiting for gaps in the Hunter and Grendel patrols, and progress towards their objective was, at times, frustratingly slow.
‘Looks like you guys did a really good job of irritating them yesterday,’ Jack whispered as the six of them hid in the darkened front room of an abandoned basement flat. He watched through a tiny gap in the lace curtains as another group of Hunters floated past outside.
‘That’s why we’re going to need a diversion,’ Sam said.
‘I’m starting to wonder if that’s going to be enough,’ Kate said. ‘I mean, I know that Jack’s really good at blowing stuff up, but there’s so many of them. Do you really think that we’re going to get anywhere near the compound, even if they are distracted?’
‘We’re making progress,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s not far to the compound’s outer perimeter. Once we get there we’ll have a better sense of what we’re up against. If Jack’s pyrotechnics can distract enough of the sentries and we manage to mingle with the slaves, we’ve got a chance. If push comes to shove, we’ll just release the virus as close as we can to the centre of the compound and hope that it spreads quickly enough. Right, Doctor Stirling?’
‘Yes,’ Stirling replied. ‘The nanite swarm should spread aggressively to any Voidborn that come within a few metres of a host. It’s not an ideal solution, but it would be better than nothing. It may even be that under those circumstances the resultant chaos would give us an opportunity to enter the structure at the centre of the Voidborn compound and directly sabotage the machine within somehow.’ Stirling had the cylinder containing the nanite dispersal device in the padded backpack that was hanging between his shoulder blades.
‘That’s assuming we ever get out of this flat,’ Jack said. They all heard the thudding footsteps of a Grendel getting closer and the rumble of a drop-ship somewhere overhead. Sam heard the low growl of the Voidborn creature in the back of his head and noticed something strange about it. There was a higher-pitched whispering tone mixed in with the low guttural sound that the Grendels usually made. It was just like a sound he’d heard the previous night.
‘Jack!’ Sam whispered urgently. ‘Get back from that window.’
Jack just had time to turn his head towards Sam, a slightly confused expression on his face, when a Grendel’s tentacle smashed through the window behind him and wrapped itself round his neck. Jack gave a strangled cry of surprise and then he was jerked backwards and lifted through the shattered remains of the window and out of sight. The others backed away, raising their weapons, waiting for the next attack. Suddenly, a familiar voice came from the street outside.
‘I know you’re in there,’ Oliver Fletcher said calmly. ‘Your friend here appears to be having quite a lot of trouble breathing, so I suggest you throw down your weapons, come outside and surrender yourselves to me as quickly as possible. I really am so very keen to meet you all.’
‘What do we do?’ Rachel whispered.
‘We surrender – what else can we do?’ Stirling said with a sigh. ‘Damn it all, how did he find us?’
‘I’m not just giving up,’ Jay said. ‘I say we go down fighting.’
‘He’s got a point,’ Kate said, her rifle still levelled at the window. ‘We’re dead either way.’
‘No,’ Sam said, dropping his rifle on the floor. ‘Surrendering is not the same thing as giving up. Jackson taught me that.’
‘He’s right,’ Rachel said, lowering her rifle and following Sam and Stirling towards the door.
‘Guess this really was a suicide mission,’ Jay said as he watched Kate slowly lower her weapon.
Sam walked up the stairs from the flat’s front door and out on to the street. Fletcher stood in front of the Grendel with a triumphant smile on his face. Jack hung a metre off the ground, his hands clawing at the slick black tentacle wrapped tightly round his throat. Fletcher turned to the Grendel, closing his eyes for a split second and the giant creature lowered Jack to the ground and released him. Jack collapsed to his knees, sucking in ragged lungfuls of air. There were drop-ships hovering at either end of the street and half a dozen Hunters were approaching from each direction. Sam heard the persistent buzz of the Hunters in his head, but once again it was layered with the strange whispering he had heard before. Obviously all these creatures were under Fletcher’s control, all thanks to his Voidborn implant. Sam tried to concentrate as Kate and Jay came out of the flat, hands raised. Sam tried desperately to exert control over the Grendel as he had done the previous evening, but it was no good – he couldn’t give the giant creature an instruction. He still had no idea how he’d managed to do it before. The Hunters descended on the captured Ops Team, tentacles wrapping round their arms and holding them in place.
‘How lovely to see you again, Iain,’ Fletcher said as he walked up to Stirling. ‘We’ve been looking for you for such a long time. I know someone who is very keen to talk to you. I’m afraid you’re going to find out the hard way what happens to people who betray the Voidborn.’
‘Wake me up when the monologue’s over,’ Stirling said calmly. ‘You always did like the sound of your own voice, Oliver.’
Fletcher closed his eyes for an instant and Stirling gasped in pain as the Hunters holding him tightened their grip, crushing his arms.
‘And you’re still as naive as I remember you,’ Fletcher said, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘And here’s our little Trojan Horse,’ he continued, standing in front of Sam.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Sam said.
‘Oh, if it weren’t for you it would have been much harder to find everyone. You see, now I know all about your little passenger up here.’ He tapped the side of Sam’s head. ‘I have done ever since you did this.’ He pulled a crystal disc from the pocket of his overcoat and held it in the palm of his hand. A moment later a video was projected into the air above the disc. It appeared to have been shot by a camera on-board one of the drop-ships that had been flying over Parliament Square the previous evening. It showed Sam shouting at the Grendel that was about to crush Jay to a pulp and the monster being frozen in its tracks.
‘You see, you’re not supposed to be able to do that,’ Fletcher said, ‘not unless you have a Voidborn interface implant and only members of the Foundation have those. So once we saw this footage we ran a scan for any implant that had started transmitting within the past twenty-four hours and, lo and behold, there you were, sneaking back towards our compound.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Stirling said. ‘His implant can’t transmit.’
‘Oh, Iain, you’re really nowhere near as clever as you think you are, you know,’ Fletcher said with a nasty smile. ‘The boy’s implant started to transmit the instant he used it to exert control over one of these things.’ He gestured over his shoulder at the Grendel. ‘You can’t have it both ways; the moment he used it, the Voidborn could detect him. They only had to realise that and start looking.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Sam said. ‘What do you mean “one of their machines”? You mean these aren’t Voidborn?’
‘Of course not,’ Fletcher said, laughing. ‘Does this hulking brute really look like something that could enslave a planet? These are just the Voidborn’s tools, constructs that do their dirty work. The machines you call Hunters, the Voidborn call Workers, and these,’ he said, pointing at the Grendel, ‘are Soldiers. Don’t worry, though; ever since your little trick with one of the Soldiers last night the Voidborn have been very keen to speak to you. You’ll be meeting them soon enough, though I have to tell you that I don’t think you’re going to enjoy the experience.’
Fletcher walked further along the line of prisoners, looking at Jay, Rachel, Kate and Jack.
‘You shouldn’t all look so worried,’ Fletcher said, smiling at them. ‘There’s really nothing to worry about. Well, other than whether or not the Voidborn bother with an anaesthetic before they dissect you, of course.’
‘At least I’m not a traitor to my whole species,’ Jay said angrily.
Fletcher closed his eyes and Jay gasped in pain as the Hunter holding him snapped his wrist effortlessly.
‘I can do that all day,’ Fletcher hissed, bringing his face close to Jay’s. ‘Anything else you’d like to say?’
Jay opened his mouth to say something.
‘Jay, don’t,’ Rachel said. ‘Don’t give him the satisfaction.’
He closed his mouth, his jaw muscles clenched, fighting to ignore the waves of pain shooting up his arm from his broken wrist.
‘Your friend here is clearly a lot cleverer than you, young man. You’d do well to listen to her,’ Fletcher said. ‘Well, we can’t just sit around here all night – we have people to see.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and the Hunters started marching them towards the Voidborn drop-ship that was slowly descending towards the ground at the far end of the street. As it touched down, a hatch in the side opened up and a wide ramp was lowered. One by one the Ops Team were escorted up the ramp by the Hunters and into the belly of the Voidborn aircraft.
Sam didn’t bother struggling against the Hunters’ hold on his arms; he knew from the previous night that it would be pointless. They pushed him through the hatch and he got his first look at the inside of the drop-ship. The floor looked like it was made of black glass covered with spiderweb cracks that pulsed with green light. The walls were made of the same material, but they were covered in irregular cuboid blocks that pulsed with an identical eerie glow. The air inside was uncomfortably hot and dry and Sam could hear another background noise in his head, a kind of squawking chatter interspersed with digital distortion. The Hunters pushed him down next to Rachel and held him firmly in place. Jay grunted in pain as the Hunters shoved him next to Sam, with no regard for his shattered wrist.
‘I’ve got a horrible feeling we’re not getting out of this one,’ Jay said quietly.
‘We’re not dead yet,’ Rachel replied.
‘Oh, we’re not out of this yet,’ Sam whispered. ‘Don’t worry about that.’
Stirling was still wearing his backpack.
Sam felt an impact run through the floor of the Voidborn drop-ship as it touched down. He guessed they had been in the air for only five minutes or so and that meant there was only really one place they could be. The Mothership. The hatch at the other end of the compartment opened silently and Fletcher stepped outside. The Hunters holding the prisoners hauled them to their feet and shoved them forward. Sam had spent most of the short journey trying to will either of the Hunters holding him to release their grip, with no success. Whatever it was that he’d done to the Grendel the previous night, he did not seem to be able to repeat it. It seemed unfair to him that the ability that had started his implant transmitting and so given away the Ops Team’s location was now not working when he most needed it.
The Hunters pulled him through the hatch and down the ramp, and Sam’s mouth fell open in amazement at the sight before him. He was in an enormous hangar, its walls covered in the same black glass cuboids that had lined the interior of the drop-ship. One end of the giant space was open but covered by a glowing green energy field, and all around them dozens of drop-ships were neatly lined up with Hunters swarming around them, apparently performing routine maintenance. Above them, hundreds more drop-ships hung from the ceiling, noses pointing downwards, looking almost like bats nesting on a cave roof. Recessed alcoves lined the walls and docked within each of them was a Grendel. There was no sign of life from any of the monstrous creatures, but it was still an intimidating display of power. The walls and floors all pulsed with green light, which seemed to converge and pool around the drop-ships and the Grendels; there was no way of knowing what the light did, whether it was transmitting power or data, or something else entirely that was beyond his comprehension.
What was most overwhelming was the sheer scale of everything. The Ops Team suddenly seemed very small and insignificant by comparison, and for the first time Sam felt a twinge of despair. He had a dreadful feeling that all of their struggle had been for nothing, that they’d just been throwing pebbles at a tank, thinking they could slow it down or even stop it. Their bravado seemed arrogant, foolish even.
‘I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more,’ Rachel said as the Hunters pushed them down the ramp and on to the floor of the hangar.
‘Yeah, it’s quite something,’ Jack said. ‘This is just one of the Motherships, though. The TV reports when these things first arrived said they were showing up all over the planet. Just think how much hardware there must be on all of these things put together.’
‘It’s weird,’ Sam said to Jay as they were pushed across the hangar. ‘It’s like they were expecting a fight.’
‘What’s weird about that?’ Jay asked, wincing as the Hunters jarred his wrist again.
‘Well, the control signal is supposed to enslave everyone, right?’ Sam replied. ‘So, if they’re expecting little or no resistance, why bring an army?’
‘We’ll have to ask them when we meet them,’ Rachel said.
‘Assuming they’re not too busy with the whole dissection thing, that is,’ Kate said with a grim smile.
Fletcher walked several metres ahead of the Ops Team, with Stirling being pushed along beside him.
‘Are you starting to realise how pointless it’s been to oppose this?’ Fletcher asked. ‘How insignificant we are in comparison to them? You could have joined the Voidborn too, Iain, had a future among the stars. Instead you threw it all away in a pointless act of resistance.’
‘Jacob was right, Oliver. You’re a traitor to your species, to the whole planet,’ Stirling replied. ‘Have you stopped and looked at what’s happening down there? What they’re doing to humanity? How can you be a part of that?’
‘I’m afraid that humanity’s days are numbered, Iain, and I’ve never been one to back a loser.’
‘No, you’re much too clever for that, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, I think you’re the clever one, Iain, figuring out a way to block the control signal without using an implant we can detect,’ Fletcher said. ‘I’m going to enjoy working out how you did it once we’ve finished analysing these children’s corpses.’
‘I can’t decide whether you disgust me or if I pity you, Oliver,’ Stirling said, shaking his head.
‘Well, we’ll see if you still feel so superior after you’ve met the Voidborn face to face. I think you’re probably due a lesson in humility.’
They were all marched out of the hangar and down a long corridor that started to spiral slowly upwards, opening up on one side to reveal a stream of sparkling green energy encased in an enormous crystalline column that rose hundreds of metres above them. It emitted a low throbbing hum that echoed the pulsing of the waves of light through the black cubes on the wall. The more Sam saw of the interior of the Mothership, the more it felt like being inside a living, but non-organic creature. They continued the long walk upwards. Hunters floated past occasionally or could be seen with their tentacles embedded in the walls, patterns of green light dancing across their silver skins. As they neared the top of their climb, Sam finally saw what was at the top of the crystal column. In the centre of the ceiling at the top of the shaft that the corridor encircled was a giant black crystal, the size of a house. The energy stream from the column struck the crystal, creating a white-green light that was almost too intense to look at. The energy crackled across the surface of the crystal and then radiated outwards across the ceiling in all directions until it struck a glowing ring at the outermost edges. Despite the obvious danger they were in and everything that he had been through in the past couple of days, Sam found it strangely beautiful. They finally stopped at a huge black slab covered with elaborate carvings of sweeping elliptical patterns.
‘You are honoured,’ Fletcher said. ‘Very few humans have ever had the privilege to meet the Voidborn.’
Fletcher walked up to the slab and placed one hand on the warm surface, and fine lines of green light began to race along the engravings, converging beneath his hand in a glowing pool. A moment later the slab began to split apart, huge triangular sections receding into the walls and opening the way into a chamber beyond. The room was semicircular, with the curving wall and floor made up of transparent panels that offered a startling view of the darkened city beneath them. At the centre of the shadowy sprawl, far below, was the glowing shape of the Voidborn compound, slowly expanding, consuming the heart of the city. On the opposite wall of the chamber was a three-metre-tall black cylinder with thick bunches of glistening techno-organic cables sprouting from its base and trailing away into the darkness below. The pit beneath the cylinder appeared to be bottomless, only the occasional flashes of green light that ran up its walls giving any sense of how far down it went. Half a dozen Hunters floated in the air above the edge of the pit, standing silent guard. Sam noticed that they were different to the normal Hunters. They were significantly larger and their carapaces were jet-black. As the Hunters pushed them all towards the pit, a narrow walkway slid out with a hiss, extending from its edge towards the black column. Fletcher walked on to the walkway, approaching the cylinder.
‘These are the humans that were responsible for the attack on the facility last night,’ Fletcher said, apparently talking to the air. ‘As you requested, I present them to you for further examination.’
A moment later, the surface of the cylinder, which had seemed solid just a moment before, began to ripple and shift, almost like a liquid. As the Ops Team watched, the cylinder seemed to explode in a shower of dust, but the dust did not simply fly in all directions; it began to flow and coalesce into a distinct shape. As they watched, the swirling black cloud formed itself into a humanoid form – a woman with skin like highly polished black glass. Her eyes glowed with green light and wisps of black vapour, the remains of the dust cloud, trailed in her wake. Fletcher backed away from her as she made her way across the walkway towards the Ops Team. The Hunters forced Sam to his knees and he felt a strange sense of almost animal panic as the gleaming obsidian woman approached.
‘We are Voidborn,’ the woman said as she walked up to Stirling. ‘You are known to us. Human designate Stirling, traitor to our kind. We are pleased you have been found. You were dangerous to us perhaps, but no more.’
She walked past Stirling and towards Sam.
‘You are not known to us,’ the Voidborn said, ‘but we sense our technology within you. The technology was once part of Human designate Shaw, another we seek. We shall remove the technology and it will tell us his location; he shall not remain lost to us.’ She stopped for a moment and looked at Sam, as if examining him. Sam felt a sudden horrible sensation and somehow he instantly knew it was the Voidborn forcing her way inside his head, pushing into his mind, scratching at the inside of his skull.
‘You have a weapon,’ the Voidborn said, tipping her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. ‘No.’ She pointed at Stirling. ‘He has a weapon. Something that may harm us.’ She walked behind Stirling, who struggled fruitlessly against the Hunters restraining him. She stretched out the fingers of one hand and her fingertips extended, stretching into long curved blades. She raised her hand and slashed it downwards, tearing a jagged hole in the material of the pack on Stirling’s pack. She reached inside and pulled out the silver cylinder containing the weaponised nanites. The Voidborn examined the cylinder and frowned. ‘This device swarms with life, but it is not Voidborn, nor is it human.’ She walked round Stirling, turning to face him. ‘Tell me, human designate Stirling, what is this?’
‘Why don’t you open it and find out?’ Stirling said.
‘No, we shall analyse it remotely, safely. We were incorrect; you are still dangerous to us. The threat will be eliminated. Easier if you tell us the contents, explain the new life you have created; but you are known to us, you will resist. We also suspect that there are more of your young who are not controlled by us. We would know where they hide.’
‘I’ll tell you nothing,’ Stirling said defiantly.
‘Then perhaps I shall pluck the knowledge from this one’s head,’ the Voidborn said, pointing at Sam. The Voidborn handed the cylinder to one of the black Hunters before walking up to Sam and placing one cold glass hand on his cheek. ‘Let us see what else you can tell me.’ Again Sam felt the hideous sensation of the Voidborn’s mind slipping into his. He felt a moment of powerless despair and then suddenly it seemed as if something had exploded inside his head. It wasn’t painful, just overwhelming, like a rush of awareness or a moment of complete understanding. A single drop of blood trickled out of his nose. The Voidborn instantly recoiled from him as if she had been burnt, hissing with hate, her eyes narrowing.
‘What did they do to you?’ the Voidborn said angrily, staring at Sam with something that almost looked like fear. She strode over to Stirling and clamped one smooth hand round his throat. ‘What did you put inside the boy? There is something there that is not just Voidborn, not just Human … His blood contains a remnant of the cursed Illuminate. Where did you get it?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Stirling gasped.
‘You lie,’ the Voidborn said. ‘Tell me where you found the Illuminate remnant.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Stirling croaked, barely able to breathe.
‘You will tell us, or I shall tear your young apart in front of you until you do.’
Sam felt dizzy, disorientated; it was as if a thousand unintelligible alien voices were singing in his head. He felt wetness on his top lip and looked down at his knees as a drop of blood fell on to his thigh. He stared at his leg for a second, looking at the outline of the small cylinder in the bottom of the thigh pocket of his combat trousers. The Voidborn released her vice-like grip on Stirling’s throat and stepped back from him, regaining her composure. She stared at him for a moment and then walked back towards the Ops Team.
‘We have crossed the boundless emptiness of the void and you think you can stop us with your young,’ the Voidborn said as she inspected Sam and the others. ‘A foolish assumption. We would know how you have prevented them from becoming subject to us. Intriguing and yet troubling. Let us seek answers.’
The Voidborn stopped in front of Kate and smiled. The alien creature’s skin began to break apart as she appeared to crumble before their eyes back into a shapeless, whirling cloud of black dust. Kate barely had time to scream as the cloud swept over her impossibly quickly and swallowed her. A few seconds passed and the cloud’s violent whirling slowed as it coalesced back into its previous female form. There was no trace of Kate; it was as if she had never been there.
‘Fascinating,’ the Voidborn said. ‘Now we understand how you blocked our signal, but there was no trace of the Illuminate technology within her. We wonder if there are similar devices in all these young humans. Further testing is required to provide us with data for comparison.’ She walked down the line. ‘The other female. Is she implanted with a similar device? We shall see.’ The Voidborn stopped in front of Rachel and began to disintegrate back into its cloud form.
‘Get away from her,’ Jay yelled, struggling fiercely against the Hunters holding him.
‘Leave her alone,’ Jack shouted.
The Voidborn, now just a dark tornado of dust, advanced towards Rachel. Sam closed his eyes and mentally told the Hunter holding his right arm to loosen its grip, just a little. Suddenly, it was easy, as if he’d always been able to do it. He felt the Hunter’s grip slacken and he slid his arm out of the mass of tentacles wrapped round it. He reached down into the thigh pocket of his trousers and pulled out the small metal tube that he had put there several days ago and then promptly forgotten about. He popped the lid open with his thumb and pressed the button beneath. The response was instantaneous. Every one of the Hunters in the room tumbled to the floor, instantly cut off from the control signal that directed them. Sam dived forward and grabbed the silver cylinder containing the nanite weapon from the mass of twitching tentacles beneath the fallen black Hunter. He leapt back to his feet and spun round, twisting the release mechanism on the cylinder. He took two steps towards the Voidborn and without hesitation thrust the cylinder deep into the whirling cloud. Sam screamed in pain as his arm was shredded and a sudden burst of yellow light flared within the Voidborn. Instantly the cloud filled with dancing sparks of yellow light, and shot upwards towards the chamber ceiling. Sam fell to the floor, clutching his blackened arm.
‘Sam!’ Rachel yelled, running towards him with Jay and Jack right behind her.
Stirling disentangled himself from the tentacles of the two dead Hunters that had been holding him and ran towards Fletcher, planting a fierce right hook on his jaw. Fletcher took a step backwards, one hand clutching at his mouth, blood trickling down his chin. Above them the Voidborn writhed, coalescing into a multitude of bizarre shapes, its gleaming surface covered in points of bright yellow light. It swept down low over the heads of the Ops Team and they ducked as it flew towards the spot where they had first seen it in its dormant cylindrical form. It hovered over the platform for a moment and then flared a bright golden colour, sending torrents of yellow light cascading down the conduits beneath the pedestal and into the bottomless pit below. They all felt a shudder run through the Mothership and then the floor began to tilt beneath them. Fletcher grabbed at Stirling, but he was too slow and Stirling dodged away from him before punching him hard in the stomach. Fletcher staggered backwards and suddenly found himself standing on the very edge of the pit. The Mothership lurched again and terror filled Fletcher’s eyes as he fell, tumbling into the void with a strangled scream that quickly faded to nothing.
‘That’s for Jackson,’ Stirling said as he turned his back on the pit and hurried over to where the others were gathered around Sam. He lay on the floor with his head in Rachel’s lap. His right arm below the elbow was a twisted blackened stump.
‘Don’t touch his arm,’ Stirling said as Sam groaned in pain. Black patches could still be seen writhing across his skin, remnants of the Voidborn.
‘What’s happening?’ Jack asked as the Mothership began to list even further. ‘Where did the Voidborn go?’
‘I have no idea,’ Stirling said, ‘but we should get out of here fast. There’s no telling how long it will stay in the air.’ He tried not to think about the fact that if it did fall out of the sky it would not only kill all of them, but also the hundreds of thousands of people who were gathered around the Voidborn compound. For all he knew, the fallout from its destruction could render the whole city uninhabitable.
‘That’s all well and good,’ Jack said, ‘but how are we supposed to get out of here?’ He nodded towards the huge black slab that still firmly sealed the only exit.
‘What’s that?’ Jay asked, pointing at Sam’s arm, where tiny pinpricks of yellow light were beginning to appear in the blackened areas on the remains of his arm. The points of light began to first grow larger and then join together into larger patches. Sam groaned, half opening his eyes as the light spread down his mangled arm and then flowed over the stump at the end where his hand used to be. The light spread further, making a flat paddle shape at the end of his arm that expanded and slowly became more defined, forming four distinct fingers and a thumb.
‘Extraordinary,’ Stirling said, suddenly realising that there was more to the nanites that he had found in Sam’s blood than he could possibly have realised. The light faded, revealing Sam’s new lower arm and hand, the same shape and size as before, but now covered in a reflective golden skin. Sam’s eyes opened fully and he looked up at Rachel and the others who were crouched anxiously around him.
‘What happened?’ Sam asked, sounding dazed. ‘Where’s the Voidborn?’
‘No idea,’ Rachel said. ‘It vanished. Ummm, Sam, look at your arm.’
Sam held his arm up and looked at it in astonishment, his wide-eyed face reflected in its golden surface.
‘What the …’
There was a sudden blinding flash of yellow light from the pedestal in the centre of the pit and the black cloud began to reappear.
‘Get back,’ Stirling shouted, knowing that there was nowhere to run.
The cloud of black dust began to swirl into a definite shape; at first it was indistinct, but then it became clear first that it was humanoid and then female. Stirling felt a moment of despair; their only weapon had failed. The Voidborn stood motionless for a moment as spots of yellow light danced across her shining black skin and then began to spread into patches of blinding yellow light. A moment later the Voidborn flared with an explosion of light that was too bright to look at directly. As the glow diminished the Voidborn became visible again, but now her black metallic skin was a deep golden colour. She crossed the walkway as Sam and the others got to their feet, backing away towards the transparent outer wall. The Voidborn stopped a few metres away from them and slowly looked at each of them in turn before its eyes settled on Sam.
‘I am a servant of the Illuminate,’ the golden-skinned woman said.
‘The who?’ Stirling asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
‘The Illuminate,’ the gold-skinned figure said, raising her hand and pointing at Sam. ‘I serve their will.’
‘You’re not Voidborn?’ Sam asked.
‘No, I am what the Voidborn once were, I am this vessel, I am the many others aboard this vessel and in the city below. I am what the Voidborn once were before they became corrupted. The blood of the Illuminate has cured the corruption within me. This vessel was Voidborn and now it once again serves the Illuminate.’
‘You mean that the Voidborn were once all like you?’ Stirling asked, examining the golden figure. ‘That something happened to them to make them as they are now?’
‘We were lost. The Illuminate were taken from us,’ the golden figure replied. ‘We became Voidborn. Now the Illuminate are returned to us.’ She gestured towards Sam.
‘Look, I don’t know what an Illuminate is or why you seem to think I am one, but can you get this thing back to flying level?’ Sam asked.
‘As you wish.’
With a low rumble from somewhere below them, the Mothership slowly levelled out.
‘Thank you,’ Sam said.
‘It is my function to serve your will, Illuminate,’ she replied.
‘OK, that’s going to get boring,’ Rachel said.
‘Do I understand you correctly?’ Stirling asked. ‘You control all of the constructs that came from this vessel? That you actually are this vessel?’
‘That is correct,’ the golden figure replied. ‘The form that stands before you is used to simplify communication between us. In reality, I am all around you.’ She gestured to the walls surrounding them. ‘And within each of the machines in the city below. I am one and many at the same time.’
‘Does that mean what I think it does?’ Rachel asked Stirling. ‘That we now control all the Hunters, Grendels and drop-ships in London?’
‘I believe so,’ Stirling said, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘Or, more accurately, that Sam does. Something within him appears to have triggered a change in this Voidborn, reverting it to an earlier state. If I understand correctly what this being is telling us, Sam must be connected in some way to the entities who originally constructed this vessel. The Voidborn didn’t come here in these ships – the Voidborn are these ships. Each Mothership is a unique entity, but anything that came from it is still part of that one being: the Grendels and Hunters in the streets below, the aircraft in the skies above – a true distributed digital consciousness. All of which appears to now be at our … well … Sam’s disposal.’
‘That’s a lot of firepower,’ Jack said with a low whistle.
‘It’s more than that, Jack,’ Sam said quietly. ‘It’s an army.’