Read Online Halfhead by Stuart B. MacBride - Free Book Online Page A

Will scrambled up the escalator ramp, helping Beaton manhandle the SOC gear down onto the soaking carpet. They hauled the heavy metal canister along the corridor, following DS Cameron into Allan Brown’s flat.
    Will slammed the front door shut behind them, and keyed his throat-mike.
    ‘Sergeant Nairn? What’s going on up there?’
    The signal was crackly, the older man’s voice breathless and worried: ‘Escalator’s impassable. Some spragger’s brought down the ramp.’ Will could hear gunshots, like small pops of static between the words. The jarring roar of Dickson’s Bull Thrummer drowned out what was said next, but when the noise died down Nairn was saying, ‘…concussion, and Floyd’s been shot in the shoulder. We’re laying down covering fire, trying to keep the wee bastards’ heads down. Can you make the stairs?’
    Will watched Private Beaton clamber on top of Stein, rip open his chitin, and start chest compressions.
    ‘Don’t you dare die on me, Dick. You hear me?’ Keeping a steady rhythm on top of his heart. ‘Don’t you fucking dare…’
    DS Cameron had her lips clamped over Stein’s mouth, forcing breath into his lungs. There was no way they could carry him up all the way up to the roof and keep him alive at the same time.
    ‘Negative. We need another option.’
    ‘We can’t get down to you. Not without a lot of dead bodies.’
    And then the violence would spread and spread until the whole bloody building went up. Will swore.
    DS Cameron shouted across the room, ‘We’re losing him!’
    ‘What do you want us to do?’
    Outside in the corridor, the gunfire was getting louder. The locals were coming.
    Plan. Need a plan.
    Will scanned the room: he had two Network troopers—one on the verge of death—a traumatized Bluecoat, and a knackered set of scanning equipment. And none of the evidence they’d just risked their lives to collect.
    ‘Where’s the bag of halfheads?’
    ‘Sir? What should we do?’
    ‘Shut up and let me think!’
    He stuck his head out into the corridor: the evidence bag lay against the wall by the escalator ramp. He was halfway down the hall before he realized what he was doing and by that time it was too late to turn back.
    The wall lights were overflowing with stale water, casting wriggling snakes of dim light as Will splashed past. Now that the fire was out, the sprinklers were little more than an incontinent dribble. They’d probably done more damage to the building than the flames had.
    He slithered to a halt by the escalator, grabbed the discarded evidence bag and hefted it over his shoulder—staggering under the weight. He peered up the ramp. Half way up, it came to an abrupt end, dirty orange rebar sticking out of the fractured foamcrete. Sergeant Nairn was right: there was no way anyone could jump that gap. Not without a body-wire…
    ‘Fuck.’ It was like a kick in the goolies, but it was the only option.
    He reached up with trembling fingers and clicked on histhroat-mike, trying to keep his voice steady: ‘Lieutenant Brand, I need you to get that Dragonfly airborne.’
    ‘Forget it. We’re not leaving you behind!’
    ‘Just do what you’re bloody well told, for once.’ There was something rectangular and half-melted at Will’s feet: Stein’s Field Zapper—the one he’d kept fiddling with—its plastic casing blistered and cracked. As Will bent down to pick it up, the building went ominously silent.
    Not good. Definitely not good.
    Will splashed his way back down the corridor, lugging the heavy bag of severed heads. ‘I want that gunship outside apartment one twenty-six, forty-seventh floor—drop out five bodywires and a cargo net. We’re going for hard D.’
    ‘From inside a building? Are you mad?’
    ‘If you’ve got any better ideas, let’s hear them, because I’m all out.’ His earpiece went silent. And then,
    ‘Nairn, get your team back to the ship. Pickup in forty-five seconds.’ Static burst across the signal as the