think…” he tugs on it. “I can’t get it apart.”
This is usually Kayla’s cue to break something, but instead she’s standing very still, her head cocked to one side. “Why,” she starts, “would three feckin’ trucks pull up outside?”
Everything in the room stops. And I suddenly become aware that there very definitely is something large rumbling outside the front door.
“Three?” Clyde says. “I have to say your sense of hearing really is quite remarkable. One day we really should sit down and test the limits—”
“Shut the feck up.”
It’s not quite how I would have worded it, but I agree with the sentiment.
Hannah is shaking her head. “I bloody told you lot.” I can hear her, not speaking quite loud enough for it to be intended for everyone, but not quite quiet enough to be intended just for her either. “Just bloody trusting bloody Nazi robots.” Her gun is out, knuckles white on the grip, finger poised on the safety.
“Hold up,” I say. “We don’t know anything for sure yet.” My message may be undercut by the fact that I’m pulling my pistol while I’m talking.
“Look,” Hannah points her free hand at me. “I know you think this is my first day, but it’s not. I am
good
at this. This is supposed to be a position I have earned. So if you could stop treating me like some beat copper pulled off the streets and start treating me like a trained government bloody agent, that would be appreciated. Those robots were suspect as fuck, and I told you, and now there is going to be violence.”
Violence. I can feel the familiar hum of adrenaline in my veins, and yet something is off. Instead of the urge to smash heads I am looking to the door and trying to calculate how fast I can reach it. I am more flight than fight.
I take deep breaths, too conscious of Hannah’s eyes on me, of the good impression I am failing to make. The hand holding my pistol is shaking. I press it to my thigh.
“Violence.” I force my voice to be calm. “Yeah, probably. But we cannot jump to conclusions.”
“We can make some pretty bloody educated guesses.” She is pressed up against the edge of the door, peering into the landing, trying to get an angle down the stairs and to the front door.
OK, I need to stop this catfight and concentrate. Head of field operations. Hannah is in good position. “Kayla,” I say. “Any other rooms up here give you eyes on the street?”
Like that, she’s gone, a swirling cloud of paper fragments left in her wake.
“Clyde, help me move this desk. I want you to have cover but line of sight on the landing. And Tabitha,” I put my finger to my earpiece.
“Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” she monotones.
“Find something that’s going to seriously dent metal.”
Then Kayla’s voice comes through the earpiece. In a hushed, decidedly un-Kayla-like whisper. Almost tremulous, she hisses, “Oh, holy feck.”
14
“There’s feckin’ tons of them.”
Hannah is shaking her head more. And is she right? Is this just a set-up? But Volk and Hermann knew where MI37 was. They could have gone there en masse and taken us out. Why bother to lure us here to do it? There’s fewer of us here, I suppose. But it doesn’t really make sense.
How Hermann and Volk even knew the location of a ridiculously secure British government agency headquarters is a problem I’m going to leave until I have less pressing concerns.
“It’s Uhrwerkmänner?” I ask, taking hold of one side of Lang’s desk and starting to heave. I wince at the scraping it raises as we drag the thing’s bulk across the floor.
“Either that or there’s another group of giant clockwork feckin’ robots running around Oxford today.” Then, with an intake of breath, “Jay-sus feck. One of them is feckin’ huge.”
So it is Uhrwerkmänner. Not a wonderful moment for the Trust-Hermann-and-Volk team, but on the other hand they did mention another faction working against them.
“The big one
This is usually Kayla’s cue to break something, but instead she’s standing very still, her head cocked to one side. “Why,” she starts, “would three feckin’ trucks pull up outside?”
Everything in the room stops. And I suddenly become aware that there very definitely is something large rumbling outside the front door.
“Three?” Clyde says. “I have to say your sense of hearing really is quite remarkable. One day we really should sit down and test the limits—”
“Shut the feck up.”
It’s not quite how I would have worded it, but I agree with the sentiment.
Hannah is shaking her head. “I bloody told you lot.” I can hear her, not speaking quite loud enough for it to be intended for everyone, but not quite quiet enough to be intended just for her either. “Just bloody trusting bloody Nazi robots.” Her gun is out, knuckles white on the grip, finger poised on the safety.
“Hold up,” I say. “We don’t know anything for sure yet.” My message may be undercut by the fact that I’m pulling my pistol while I’m talking.
“Look,” Hannah points her free hand at me. “I know you think this is my first day, but it’s not. I am
good
at this. This is supposed to be a position I have earned. So if you could stop treating me like some beat copper pulled off the streets and start treating me like a trained government bloody agent, that would be appreciated. Those robots were suspect as fuck, and I told you, and now there is going to be violence.”
Violence. I can feel the familiar hum of adrenaline in my veins, and yet something is off. Instead of the urge to smash heads I am looking to the door and trying to calculate how fast I can reach it. I am more flight than fight.
I take deep breaths, too conscious of Hannah’s eyes on me, of the good impression I am failing to make. The hand holding my pistol is shaking. I press it to my thigh.
“Violence.” I force my voice to be calm. “Yeah, probably. But we cannot jump to conclusions.”
“We can make some pretty bloody educated guesses.” She is pressed up against the edge of the door, peering into the landing, trying to get an angle down the stairs and to the front door.
OK, I need to stop this catfight and concentrate. Head of field operations. Hannah is in good position. “Kayla,” I say. “Any other rooms up here give you eyes on the street?”
Like that, she’s gone, a swirling cloud of paper fragments left in her wake.
“Clyde, help me move this desk. I want you to have cover but line of sight on the landing. And Tabitha,” I put my finger to my earpiece.
“Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” she monotones.
“Find something that’s going to seriously dent metal.”
Then Kayla’s voice comes through the earpiece. In a hushed, decidedly un-Kayla-like whisper. Almost tremulous, she hisses, “Oh, holy feck.”
14
“There’s feckin’ tons of them.”
Hannah is shaking her head more. And is she right? Is this just a set-up? But Volk and Hermann knew where MI37 was. They could have gone there en masse and taken us out. Why bother to lure us here to do it? There’s fewer of us here, I suppose. But it doesn’t really make sense.
How Hermann and Volk even knew the location of a ridiculously secure British government agency headquarters is a problem I’m going to leave until I have less pressing concerns.
“It’s Uhrwerkmänner?” I ask, taking hold of one side of Lang’s desk and starting to heave. I wince at the scraping it raises as we drag the thing’s bulk across the floor.
“Either that or there’s another group of giant clockwork feckin’ robots running around Oxford today.” Then, with an intake of breath, “Jay-sus feck. One of them is feckin’ huge.”
So it is Uhrwerkmänner. Not a wonderful moment for the Trust-Hermann-and-Volk team, but on the other hand they did mention another faction working against them.
“The big one
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