Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

digging into his anus. The search ended suddenly and Volkov sat back on Peterson’s thighs. Now came the sound of a buckle unfastening, and the next thing Peterson knew, a long, black blade was pressed against his cheek. As the blade rocked back and forth against his skin, he could feel his own condensed breath moistening the steel.

“One last chance, Mr Peterson,” Volkov snarled, turning the narrowed point of the blade in towards his eye, “or I will start with your eyeball.”

Having kept his cool for so long, now Peterson began to panic. Sweat broke out across his brow. It wasn’t the pain, but the darkness that terrified him. As a child he had suffered temporary blindness after watching a solar eclipse with his naked eyes. His vision had not dimmed immediately, but suddenly and traumatically. For over a week, until sight had limped back to him, irreparably damaged, the world he had taken for granted the previous decade had simply disappeared, leaving him alone and scared and screaming.

He struggled weakly, in the grip of the memory. “Please, I don’t have it. You’ve got to believe me. I don’t have it—”

The blade teetered at the edge of his eyeball, the sharpened steel scratching at the lid.

“Have you destroyed it?”

“No,” Peterson whispered. And it was true. He was no longer making any attempt to lie.

Volkov seemed to sense this, and the control returned to his movements. He leant patiently forward until his face hovered beside Peterson’s cheek. “Where is it?”

“I gave it to… to…”

Volkov’s face crept even closer. “Who?”

Peterson bit his lip. His mind flailed desperately around, searching for something, anything that would keep him from making the admission on the tip of his tongue. Through his fear, he could feel that Volkov had relaxed his grip. Was he off balance? Not entirely, but maybe just enough. His heart pounded. It was now or never.

He bucked suddenly, as if a ten thousand-volt shock had cramped his spine up into an arch. With a growl of surprise, Volkov toppled over onto his back and Peterson rolled the other way and lashed out with his foot, catching him square in the groin. As the Russian doubled up in pain, Peterson sprang to his feet.

Adrenaline had full control of his functions. Without any sense of a plan, he bolted for the Centaur. He arrived at the open hatch and reached for the rim. His palms were slick with sweat as he seized his fingers around the edge of the cold metal panelling and went to haul himself into the cabin.

There was a loud bang. The strength left his arms, and he turned around just as another gunshot sounded. This time he felt a dull thump, followed by a pain radiating throughout his torso. His hands pressed against the flood of warmth welling up through his jacket, and his legs began to buckle.

The last thing he saw as his vision faltered to the top of the slope was Volkov, his pistol smoking and aimed towards him, his face like hell warmed up.

“You overestimate yourself, Mr Peterson.”

With a groan Peterson stumbled back towards the Centaur and then collapsed onto the edge of the harbour. Half sitting, half sprawled, his body teetered.

Volkov raised his pistol once more, but before he could fire off another round, Peterson folded like a ragdoll and tumbled backwards on an avalanche of rock.

3

Volkov lowered his pistol. Rage tore through him like never before. That American bastard! How dare he create such an obstacle! Why couldn’t he just do as instructed? Did he not understand what a delicate game Volkov was embroiled in? Did he have any idea how far up this thing went? Of the calibre of the players involved?

It was all supposed to have gone smoothly!

Unused to being defied, he threw his head back and roared out with frustration. The sound took off like a banshee around the cavern, echoing from wall to wall and back. With the taste of blood on his tongue, he strode towards the water’s edge. The American’s body was nowhere to be seen, buried under the fall of dislodged rock that had followed him into the water.

He took aim at one of half a dozen seals that had hung around in the inlet, curiosity getting the better of their instinct to flee. It had probably never seen a human before. Only its eyes and nose were visible above the surface as it stared up in evident confusion.

Volkov blew its brains out with a single shot.

He knew it was petulant and pointless, but he didn’t care. He craved catharsis. He needed to vent what he was fast accepting to be fear rather than simple anger. If seals were all there were to take it out on, then seals it would have to be. He took aim at another, firing off a medley of shots, all of which missed as the frantic creature dove for cover.

The American’s words chased round and round inside his head: the entire national gas infrastructure… bye bye on your watch! …entire national gas infrastructure… bye bye on your watch! …bye bye on your watch… bye bye…

And the bastard was right. Volkov couldn’t have cared less about the effect on Russia, not the sorry, spineless excuse for a nation that it had come to be. Soviet corpse. Europe’s energy fence. In truth, there was nothing left there to love but the pursuit of wealth, nothing to take pride in but power.

What he did care about was the effect of Mr Peterson’s meddling on the interests of his associates. He had promised them a minimum twenty billion-ruble saving, not a share in the worst national systems failure the country had ever seen. At this level, these were the sort of people that even he, Andrei Vyacheslav Volkov, was reluctant to disappoint. If the Harmsworth project went sour, the consequences would go way beyond his bank balance.

He reached into his pocket and removed the chrome-plated pill dispenser. He dropped four red and white pills into his