The Supernaturalist Part 20

'Idiot,' said Cosmo to himself, unclipping the cord.

He saw Stefan from the corner of his eye. Basic lip-reading told him the Supernaturalist heartily agreed with Cosmo's opinion of himself. Mona was slapping her palms against the plasti-gla.s.s screen. She wasn't too impressed with him either.

Cosmo used one hand to clip his bungee cord on to the handrail, being extremely careful not to let go with the other. It wasn't as if he was going to make a habit of this. A one-time only deal. Providing he didn't allow his concentration to lapse, he should be fine.

A mere two steps later he was at the linkup port. Cosmo threaded his arm through the handrail, locking his elbow. Two rhinos tugging at his boots couldn't force him to let go now. He ripped the conduit from the patch on his suit and screwed it into the port. Inside the conduit a power lead and modem cable locked into place. A light flashed green on a panel beside the portal. Contact. Now all he had to do was count to sixty.

Stefan was hunched over the laptop that he had wired into the on-board computer.

'Is it running?' asked Mona, hands and face pressed against the gla.s.s.

Stefan raised a finger. Wait!

'I can't believe he actually untied himself. Estupido. I hope he doesn't think this will impress me, because it won't. Is it running?'

Stefan clapped his hands. 'It's running. Now all we need are sixty seconds.'

Whereas Mona was pretending to be unimpressed, Ditto actually was. 'There goes another Spotter. We're going to have to take out an advertis.e.m.e.nt on TV. Wanted: crazy kid with a death wish. Robotix plates supplied.'

'Think positive,' snapped Mona. 'All he has to do is hold on for sixty seconds.'

Ditto chuckled. 'Sixty seconds. The way his luck's been going lately, it may as well be a lifetime. I wouldn't be surprised if a meteor picked this exact moment to strike the dish.'

Which, of course, wasn't what happened at all.

Cosmo was counting.

'. . . Fifty-eight elephant, fifty-nine elephant, sixty . . . elephant.'

An extra elephant just in case. Time to head back to the bungee cord. He was uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the conduit when a tiny tremor shuddered through the entire Satellite.

Cosmo glanced upwards. Overhead a residential unit seemed a little askew. Inside, people were tumbling past the windows. Another tremor. This time much larger.

Around him, dish jockeys were dislodged and floated to the end of their tethers. The residential unit was definitely not right. Two of its corners had come completely away from the main structure. A third tremor, a monster compared to the other two. The residential cube came away completely - and so did Cosmo.

With a surprised shout that only he could hear, the teenager's fingers were wrenched from the handrail and he floated off into s.p.a.ce.

All around him, emergency lights began to flash on the helmets of every dish jockey, alerting them to the danger. The residential unit drifted further from the main structure, driven by the gas venting from its torn life-support tubes. Cosmo could only watch and try not to panic. Panic would mean deeper breathing and his oxygen readout was already edging towards the red.

The rescue was fantastic. Dozens of dish jockeys hurled themselves into the void, latching on to the unit before it was out of range. They wrapped their limbs around any protuberances, clinging on like human anchors. Several more jumped repeatedly on one end of the unit, spinning it around, so the gas jets propelled it back to the Satellite. It was stupendous. These people were s.p.a.ce cowboys. Cosmo wanted to applaud. Then he remembered his own plight.

Something collided with his chest. Cosmo's first thought was fleeting and ridiculous. Alien! But no, it was a dish jockey. The man's face was red and he shouted spittle on to the inside of his visor.

Cosmo pointed to his ears, shaking his head.

The jockey took a sonic sucker from his belt, sticking the little speaker on to Cosmo's helmet. Contact was immediate.

'. . . the h.e.l.l are you doing, boy? Untying yourself like that. Are you soft in the head?'

'Er . . . sorry.'

'Haven't you read the company mail? The Satellite is unstable. We've been having more and more of these breakaways lately. Lucky for you I saw you. What company are you with?'

Cosmo wracked his brain. 'Er ... Krom. I'm with Krom.'

The jockey rolled his eyes. 'Krom. Typical. I bet you haven't had more than a couple of hours' s.p.a.ce time. Employ amateurs, save money, that's the Krom way.

You can't be much more than a boy. How old are you?'

'Twenty-two,' mumbled Cosmo hopefully. 'I drink a lot of water. It keeps me young-looking.'

'Twenty-two,' repeated the jockey, casually reeling them back to the dish. 'I must be getting old.'

The jockey completed a s.p.a.ce roll, depositing them back on the platform. He clipped Cos...o...b..ck on to his bungee.

'I'm going to have to write this up,' he said, stripping a pad from a computer on his wrist. 'What's your name?'

Just in time, Cosmo remembered the name on his suit. 'Er . . . Floyd. Floyd Faustino.'

'Well, Floyd,' said the jockey, typing on the computer's keyboard. 'This is going to mean a fine for Krom, and probably for you.' He printed off a card, stuffing it in Cosmo's s.p.a.cesuit pocket.

'You have fourteen days to pay that fine, or else your dish jockey licence will be revoked.'

'Yes, sir,' said Cosmo humbly. 'I'm sorry, sir.'

The jockey was unimpressed. 'Never mind the sorry sir, just pay the fine.'

And with that the jockey propelled himself across the dish to help secure the residential unit. Cosmo dragged himself shakily to the shuttle.

Mona was waiting inside the airlock.

'Moron,' she said, punching him on the shoulder.

'I know,' said Cosmo miserably, his legs wobbling inside the suit. 'Can we please go back to Earth? Please?'

Stefan was reading the results of the scan. 'I don't know, Cosmo. When you hear the results of this scan, you might want to stay up here.'

Cosmo took off his helmet. 'What is it?' he laughed. 'It's not as if the Parasite nest is under Clarissa Frayne?'

No one else laughed. Not so much as a smile.

CHAPTER 8:

PULSE.

ABRACADABRA STREET.

COSMO hadn't spoken much all the way back from s.p.a.ce. He wasn't sulking exactly, because there was no one to be angry with. He was just wondering when it was all going to end. How many times did one person have to escape death in a week? And now he was being asked to go back to the place of his nightmares. The place that he had spent the past fourteen miserable years trying to get away from. 'Will you do it?'

asked Stefan, when they were gathered around the table.

Cosmo studied the faces looking back at him. The Supernaturalists. He was one of them now; after all, he'd gone into s.p.a.ce for them. But it wasn't all about him, or even the group. This Energy Pulse had to be detonated for every human on the planet.

When you grew up an orphan, sometimes it was difficult to think about anyone besides yourself. But now he had Mona to think about, and Stefan and Ditto.

'It's a simple plan,' continued Stefan.

'Oh, like the last simple plan,' said Cosmo.

'That was a simple plan, until you began improvising. This time you will simply be pointing the way.'

'You make it sound simple, but something will happen, it always does. I've noticed that my new knee starts to itch when trouble is near, and it's itching like crazy now.'

'Trust the knee, Cosmo,' said Ditto in a spooky voice.

'Shut up, Ditto,' snapped Mona. 'This is important.'

'Sure, it's real important that we plant Myis.h.i.+'s bomb for them.'

'It's a pulse. An Energy Pulse.'

'So they say. Who knows what this thing really does?'

Stefan opened the briefcase, swivelling it to face the Bartoli Baby. 'It's a pulse, Ditto, OK? I checked it myself.'

Ditto ignored the device. 'Yeah, whatever. Did Myis.h.i.+ give you stock options too?'Mona lost her temper. 'Can't you say anything positive? I'm beginning to wonder whose side you're on.'

Ditto jumped to his feet, which didn't make much difference.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

Stefan put a hand on Mona's arm. 'Leave it.'

'No. I'm starting to think that you don't want us to catch the Parasites.'

Ditto's face was crimson. 'Maybe I don't want us to catch them for Myis.h.i.+.'

'Well then maybe you should find some other line of work.'

They stared at each other for several seconds, then Ditto broke eye contact, storming off to the elevator.

'You were out of line, Mona,' said Stefan when the echoes of the argument had faded.

Mona folded her arms stubbornly. 'So was he.'

Stefan stood, selecting a suit from a hanging rail. 'You're going to have to apologize before I get back.'

'Before we get back?' said Cosmo. 'You'll never get under there without me.'

Stefan threw him a smaller suit from the rack. 'Well done, Cosmo. I need you to lead me into the lion's den. You're going back to Clarissa Frayne, one last time.'

THE CLARISSA FRAYNE INSt.i.tUTE FOR PARENTALY CHALLEGED BOYS.

Ex-marshal Redwood wasn't unduly concerned when the two suits came in through the front door. The men were probably medical reps looking to test some new product. They looked a bit like a comedy double act. One tall one and one short one.

Thev could have been slave traders as far as Redwood was concerned. If they wanted to kidnap the orphans, Redwood would help them load the truck.

He didn't owe the Clarissa Frayne Inst.i.tute a single thing. Especially not since they'd stuck him behind a desk in the security booth pending an investigation. And all because of that slippery no-sponsor, Cosmo Hill. Apparently Cosmo had survived the dive he took from that rooftop and was now listed as a fugitive. If Cosmo had just been a good little boy and died when he was supposed to, then Redwood would not have to sit here with the other lame no-brainers watching CCTV eight hours a day.

Fred Allescanti, possibly the biggest no-brainer in Satellite City, was drinking sim- coffee in the security booth's only decent chair.'Hey, Fred. You want to give me a turn in the swivel chair?'

Fred took another annoying slurp of brown liquid. 'No can do, Redwood. My back plays up something terrible if I don't support it right.'

Redwood frowned. 'What if I just take the chair. Let's say I just go crazy and throw you straight through the window and just occupy the chair while you're getting your sutures?'

'Go ahead, big shot,' grinned Fred. 'I could use the compensation money.'

Maybe Allescanti wasn't as dumb as he looked.

'Well, at least stop slurping that sim-coffee. I swear, Fred, you're driving me demented. Who knows what I might do.'

Fred pointed at the camera over their heads. 'Make sure you do it on camera, Redwood. I can use the footage in my court case.'

Redwood's face burned red. Even Fred Allescanti was getting lippy since he'd been demoted. He needed to get back on the streets, back where he had some power.

If only he could somehow recover Cosmo Hill.

A red alert began to bip softly on a security computer. The icon was in the shape of a running man. One of the no-sponsors was on the move outside a designated area. At last, someone to vent his frustration on. Redwood activated the tracker-pattern program, running a match on the pattern. One by one the orphans were eliminated, as they were located in their beds or designated leisure areas. Who was on the move?

Who was left? The signal was very faint, as if most of the electronegative micro- beads used to track the orphans had been removed, or shorted out.

Shorted out? Redwood's heart rate speeded up. Only two orphans could have shorted out their microbeads. One was dead and the other was Cosmo Hill.

Redwood called up Cosmo's pattern. It was very faint, only the faintest pulse, but definitely active. The ex-marshal doubted if the scanners would have picked him up at all if he wasn't close by. Very close by. On his way down to the bas.e.m.e.nt by the looks of it.

Redwood consulted the security screens, checking the two suits he'd mistaken for medical researchers. The short one must be Cosmo. For some insane reason, Hill had actually returned. Redwood didn't know why and he didn't care. This was the ex- marshal's chance to redeem himself. He could bring in Hill and his accomplice. Of course he would need to talk to Hill alone first, to make sure they had their stories straight about the night of the crash. Redwood stood, taking a lightning rod from the gun cabinet.

'Hey, Redwood,' said Fred. 'What are you doing with a rod? You're not a floor marshal any more.'

Redwood didn't even look at him. 'I'm going on my rounds.''Rounds? What are you, a doctor? We're security, we don't do rounds here. That's why we have cameras.'

'Not in the bas.e.m.e.nt we don't. It's about time someone checked down there. You want to come?'