Secret Histories 04 - From Hell With Love by Simon R. Green

Author:Simon R. Green
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2010-06-01T03:00:00+00:00

“No,” he said. “My investigations have cleared you of all involvement.”

“Well,” I said. “That’s nice. Now all I have to do is clear you as a suspect.”

It was worth it all, to see that look on his face.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Only Good Traitor

The Armoury had come alive again. Blazing bright lights, people running back and forth, lab assistants crowded round every workstation. Everyone was talking at once, when they weren’t shouting, and from the look of it every lab assistant from every shift was back on duty. The Armourer and I appeared through the Merlin Glass, and everyone immediately stopped what they were doing to point a whole series of really nasty-looking weapons at us. I stood very still, while the Armourer beamed happily about him.

“Well done, very good, nice reaction times everyone, but we are not the enemy. We have met the enemy, and he is dead. Now, everyone back to work! I want full reports on all exterior and interior defences, and in particular why most of them didn’t bloody work.”

The weapons disappeared, and the lab assistants went back to shouting at each other and bullying their computers. Some were clearly exhausted from fighting, while others were still yawning from being dragged from their beds. All of them were giving everything they had to the problem of why so many of our defences had failed us in our hour of need. The Armourer moved quickly among them, peering over shoulders and asking pertinent questions, like why had the robot machine guns and the automatic energy weapons been the only systems to kick in? I’d been wondering that myself. There should have been force shields, shaped curses, floating invisible incendiaries, nerve gas clusters and teleport mines . . . The Armourer kept reeling them off, and the answer was always the same. Someone had shut them all down, in advance, inside the Hall. Someone inside the family. No one else had the codes, or access to the security computers. The automatic weaponry had remained on line only because they were controlled by the Armourer’s personal computer.

I found an empty chair, by stealing it from someone else when they weren’t looking, and sank into it. It felt really good to be off my feet. I was aching in all my muscles and some of my bones. My clothes were soaked with sweat, like I’d run a marathon. The armour provides us with strength and speed, but it’s still all down to the man inside. Someone thrust a cup of hot tea into my hands, and was gone before I could ask for a splash of whisky in it. I burned my mouth on the hot liquid, and blew on it for a while. After all I’d seen and been through, I felt like I could sit there forever.

The Armourer didn’t look tired. He raged back and forth, striding up and down the length of the Armoury, driving on his assistants, constantly coming up with different approaches and new leads of inquiry.

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