"A nurse."

They crouched in the room as the machinelike rattle of feet could be heard approaching. Gary spotted a key and turned it, just before the nurse tried the handle. He held his breath until it stopped moving, breathed out slowly as he heard the feet move away, then he turned and inspected his surroundings. All around the room were gla.s.s tanks filled with fluid in which sheets of something ridged and lumpy floated. On a table in the middle of the room lay a man who had been skinned from head to foot. There was skin on his lower legs but it was not human skin. The man sat upright and grinned at them with bright white teeth in his raw red face.

"It's a new technique," he explained. "Crocodile skin is the best." He wiped a raw hand over the k.n.o.bbly green skin on his legs.

Gary managed to get the door open just as the skinless man began to get off the table. He and Derek stepped out into the corridor and kept going. When Gary glanced back, the nurse was there, then the man without legs, propelling himself down the corridor like an ape, pursued by the woman who served meals. She had a saw in one hand.

"It can't be much farther now!" said Derek, panicked.

"I don't know where I am!" yelled Gary.

Just then an explosion flung him to the ground. As he pulled himself upright with his ears ringing a rip in the air opened out, exposing a damaged hospital corridor beyond. Figures in bulky grey overalls ran towards him brandishing guns and other devices that baffled him. Mirrored visors were down over their faces. Glancing back, Gary saw the corridor closed up and deformed into a sphere with hospital beds imbedded in the walls. The skinless man was close. A magnificent woman raised a mirrored visor and studied the instrument she held.

"Pseudo, left! Take it down!"

Four Uzis opened up like a motor starting. The skinless man flew apart. His grinning head thudded to the ground.

"Right! The nurse."

Gunfire hit her, but it took a while to stop her. When she finally did fall she was smoking and sparks were crackling inside her. She hit the floor like a sack of tools and geared wheels rolled out of splits in her skin.

"You, move over here!"

The woman was addressing him, Gary realised. He stared at her in shock.

"Move it! You're off the line! An Outsider is trying to use you to get in!"

He had no idea what she was talking about, but he moved forward anyway. A hand caught hold of his arm.

"Take me with you, please!" begged Derek.

Gary stared at the artificial stomach and had sudden misgivings. Gunfire took down the man without legs. He seemed quite happy about it all.

"Look, it comes off."

Derek reached inside himself and pulled out wads of fouled cotton wool, then tracked up the pipes to the stainless steel disk they all fed into. Half a turn unplugged from a socket in his upper body. Putrid fluids ran out, and Gary retched at the smell. Just then something glittery flew past and hit one of the soldiers. The man dropped, yelling, a dinner fork imbedded in the Kevlar over his upper arm. The skinless man seemed to be oozing back together on the floor. He winked up at Gary. Suddenly the woman was beside him, pointing a gun at Derek.

"You're it," she said, and fired.

Derek slammed back against the wall with the top half of his head spread all over the paintwork. He reached up and stuck a finger through an empty eye-socket until it came up through what was left of his brain. He advanced.

"How unfriendly," he said.

Taking hold of Gary's arm and dragging him back towards the real hospital she fired again. Derek hit the wall again. Advanced again. The third shot did not knock him back at all. The bullet just knocked part of his shoulder off.

"Thirty seconds!" another woman yelled. They were hitting the dinner lady continuously as she tried to turn herself into a sabre tooth tiger. The big woman emptied her gun into Derek as she pulled Gary back. All the team stepped back through, firing as they went.

"Gary!" Derek called, holding his arms open.

They emptied clip after clip into him, depleted clips. .h.i.tting the ground one after another. Gary sat on a tiled floor covered with broken gla.s.s as Derek was turned into mincemeat then an advancing b.l.o.o.d.y fog.

"Gary!"

The rip zipped itself shut.

Gary continued to shiver. Line? Outsider? His leg hurt, his head ached, and he felt it likely he would soon puke up. The big woman squatted down next to him and inspected him with her gorgeous blue eyes. She patted him clumsily on the shoulder. "You're okay now. You're going to be all right."

Gary peered at her with infinite suspicion.

Deciding she had not said enough, Anne added, "Everything's fine."

Gary giggled. He'd heard that one before.

[Originally published in Kimota 8, Spring 1998].

THE CLOSING HAND.

by Christopher Kenworthy.

Stuart wished there was some traffic on the A82, to distract him from the landscape. Most of the trees had been torn down by weather, their trunks split and shattered amongst those left standing. The leaves were curiously drained, as though autumn had come a month early. They hadn't crisped, so much as withered.

Storms were forecast, but the sky was featureless white. That was a relief, because he didn't want to put his Face-tank on. It only held an hour's worth of air, and the last inhabited village was more than an hour behind. The next one might be as far again. If it came to that, the tank would only put off the suffocation, no matter how fast he drove. There were other cottages in the surrounding hills, but he doubted they would welcome him in an emergency.

Approaching Loch Gar he saw the tip of an acceleration tower, shining like gla.s.s between the Ceann Mountains. The rest of the structure came into view, rising from the loch bed where the water had steamed off. It looked like a studded tube of granite, the anchoring b.u.t.tresses chalked with mud. The parched ground around it was limy, darkened by cracks like black lightning.

The clouds were moving, becoming thicker. It could be the time of day, he thought, or it could be a storm. His hands were sweating, gripping the steering wheel too tightly, and he glanced at the tower, wondering if it was still active. He was close enough for the magnetics to churn his emotions. That probably wasn't the case though, or the valley would be camped out with travellers. Jenny would be with them, up to her knees in blissful filth, dancing in its vibes.

Jenny had a four day advantage on him, which meant she could be anywhere in Scotland. The main towers were being ignited in the Torridon range, so she would head there. Since leaving Bath eight hours earlier, Stuart's only thought had been finding her. Now that time was approaching, he wondered what he could say to convince her to come home.

Something flashed in the dark area of sky, then sparked again. The engine misfired twice, steadied itself. He couldn't hear thunder, but knew the storm would soon be underway, and he would have to drive beneath it. If he kept his speed up, the engine should keep firing no matter how much EM fouling the weather caused. The real worry was how much oxygen the storm would steal. It might only last twenty minutes, half an hour at the most, but the winds that came after it would make driving impossible.

The road turned sharply left, going uphill, and if he remembered rightly, the next few miles would be spent heaving the car around slow bends, at awkward angles. There were barriers up, where the drops were severe, but it was still too dangerous to go fast. It would be a struggle to keep the engine revving on the tight corners. More flashes pa.s.sed through the clouds, and the engine stuttered out for more than a second.

Holding the steering with his knees on the last straight length of road, he strained for the map book and found page 93. It was an old atlas, lots of areas hand-shaded out with pencil to show lost ground, but the road markings were accurate. The map confirmed his suspicion, so he threw it back down, and turned into the first corner, the camber slewing him towards the barrier. The valley was darker than the last, the road arcing in and out of blind corners. It brightened in a steady flicker, as the storm built, the engine responding with grumbles.

He could smell magnesium and something like cinnamon, before the rain hit. The first drops on the screen looked like sand, until they spread. Fatter drops followed, milky and thick, slowing the movement of the wipers.

Stuart pulled the Face-tank onto his knee and primed the valve. He slowed for the next corner, but revved hard again to get through it. The headlights were coating with white, the beam from them now short and yellow; it didn't reach the tarmac or the barrier, and only showed up the rain, making it more difficult to see. He refused to slow down, knowing he had to keep the engine active.

The stone banking to his right overflowed with snow coloured water, which smacked against the side window. The steering went slack and useless.

When the back wing of the car hit the barrier it made more of a thud than a bang, and he braked. The engine chuddered and stopped. The car was still rolling, so he dropped the clutch, but it didn't respond.

The windscreen wipers froze, the screen matting with rain. He didn't feel an impact, but knew he must have hit the barrier, because his chest creased in pain, and the windscreen flew out like powder. The salty rain covered his hands, stinging.

With the mask on and the valve released he could breathe again, but his ribs felt torn, every breath sharp. He got straight out, and set off downhill, his right hand constantly wiping mucky water from the visor.

For the first time he heard thunder, a sucking roar of sound, followed by booming. There was so much electrical activity, it was impossible to tell which flash matched which sound. There was still some delay, which meant it still wasn't overhead.

Walking downhill was easier than expected, so he jogged, eventually finding a rhythm that let him run. The road was clear of rocks, the only problem being puddles, which were sometimes deep enough to make him trip. Even though the visor was drizzled and sticky, it was easier to see than it had been from the car.

The map had shown a property area no more than two miles forward, but there was no way of knowing whether it was inhabited. If the storm pa.s.sed, it wouldn't matter. Any building still standing in the Highlands could protect him from the coming winds.

It didn't take long for the buildings to come into view; a two storey cottage, and several stone barns, none with lights on. There were no cars or wagons that he could see. The rain had stopped, and the clicking on the valve in his mask meant the oxygen was balancing. He ripped it off, his attention now moving to the burning in his skin, itching from his scalp, down his neck, around his ankles, but mostly on his hands. The trickling of the water around him was soon replaced by the first shrieks of the wind.

The road levelled out, but he kept up his speed with the aid of the wind. The windows in the ends of the cottage were boarded up, but those in the side were intact. It was a good sign, but then somebody moved inside, rushing towards the main door. It was flung open, and a figure backed away. She was holding her hands up against him, as though afraid. He didn't understand why she had opened the door. The wind was too loud to hear anything she said, but it looked as though she was screaming. As she backed off, she stumbled down to her knees.

The wind made it difficult to breathe, so he stepped inside and leaned against the door to close it, snapping two bolts across to hold it. He could hear her voice now, not frightened, but pleading.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she chanted.

He didn't know what to say, so looked in to the next room, to see what she might have done. There was nothing there, except two wooden chairs, a small rucksack.

"I didn't know you were coming back," she said, her hands open in a rigid claw-like gesture. Her chin was dribbled with spit, and her eyes blurred by tears.

"I don't know who you are," he said.

She sat back, slumping against the wall.

"I don't know who you are."

"Do you live here?"

For the first time she looked as though she understood. "No. Don't you?"

"No. I was trying to get out of the storm."

He expected her to smile, realising her mistake, but she put her hands together as though praying, and pressed them against her mouth in jerking movements.

"Do you mind if I shelter here?" he asked.

"There are two rooms upstairs," she said, eyes still closed. Her expression changed then, squinting as though she was struggling to picture something. "Do you want food?" she asked.

"I haven't brought any."

"I'll cook."

She went past him, through the first room, and he heard he swilling tap water, arranging pans. He went upstairs briefly, to wash the worst of the filth from his hands and face, then ached his way back down. Too tired to help or question her, he sat in one of the chairs, moving his attention between her actions and the humming windows. Outside, the wind was fierce enough to lift dirt into the air, scouring the gla.s.s.

The soup only took a few minutes to warm from the can. She handed him his bowl, then sat on the floor by the window.

Once she had a mouthful of the food, she asked, "What's your name then?"

"Stuart. I'm heading up to the Torridons. Looking for somebody."

"Yeah, me too."

She told him that she was called Rachel, and that she was trying to catch up with her friends.

"I thought I'd be able to hitch up here, but there's hardly any cars in the afternoons. It's taken me days to get this far. The last driver was an oxygen stinge. He was going to kick me out at the first sign of a storm, but he dropped me here for shelter. I had to jump out while his car was moving - he wouldn't even stop. There was hardly any air down here. I nearly died."

She finished her soup, despite talking so much.

"I'm going to bed," he announced, unwilling to go into more detail, too tired to risk a long conversation.

He chose the quietest room. There were no beds, but woolly blankets were piled in the wardrobes, and the floor was carpeted. At first he was comfortable, nested in a corner, and resisted sleep because he enjoyed the lingering tiredness. The floor was too hard though, and the sound of wind soon annoyed him.

The night was a process of turning, waking, moving in and out of exhaustion, too tired to wake up properly but too riddled with energy to sleep. His dreams were never clear enough to be anything other than anxious. Then he saw the colour orange.

He dreamed of standing in front of a wide window at sunset, the light dyeing the gra.s.s and rocks, shredded on the wet tarmac. It was a windless evening, one star showing above the mountains. The star went out as he watched, and he heard knocking, a door opening. Rachel was in the room with him.

Looking back at the sky he worried about the star.

"Morning," she said, then frowned, seeing his confusion. "Are you all right?"

He licked his lips, tasting sugary traces of the rain.

"I thought I was asleep," he said, touching his ribs. "I don't know how long I've been awake. I thought it was night again."

"You must be tired," she said, and he thought she had missed the point.

It was still early, but he didn't want to lose time, so explained about his car, and asked if she wanted to come with him. Her rucksack was already packed, leaning against the door. He drank directly from the tap, gulping down more than was comfortable in case he wasn't able to find water again today.

Outside the light was bright, giving everything outlines and shadows. The wind had catalysed the rain, so the gra.s.s and heather looked glazed rather than flaky. There was more blue sky than he had seen in a week, but it was unlikely to be stable. Even as they walked, he saw trails of white condensing.

When he saw the car, a black hole where the windscreen should be, he looked around for the gla.s.s, but it had all been taken by the weather. The car itself hadn't moved, and was lodged against the barrier. The key was in the ignition, and it started first time. He drove tentatively down the hill, but was soon confident that nothing had been damaged. His eyes watered, because of air blasting through the gap, but it was relatively quiet. Once they were past the cottages, Rachel asked who he was looking for.

"Somebody called Jenny. She was my girlfriend. We were living together."

"She left you?"

"I thought so. She left a note in our flat, said she'd gone. I thought that meant she had left me. It took me a while to find out that she'd come up here, with most of her friends."

"She came for the towers?"

"I think so."

"So you're getting back together then?" He shrugged, so she added: "You think the vibes will bring you together?"

"No, no," he said, about to explain, but Rachel held up her hand.

"Don't worry, it'll work. She'll love you."