Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley Page A

treated: she had disappeared, a nurse lay unconscious in the pod, and something had shut down the hospital’s surveillance system. Soldiers and drones had set up a perimeter and were going from pod to pod, room to room. Loc found the captain in charge and told her that the little girl was very dangerous but under no circumstances should lethal force be used.
    By now, Loc’s aide had transmitted a video clip from the shoulder camera of a member of the salvage crew. There’d been a clear shot of the girl’s face through the faceplate of the helmet of her pressure suit, and Loc had recognised her at once. Avernus’s daughter, Yuli.
    The captain was a sturdy, competent young woman who listened calmly to Loc’s brief explanation about who the girl was and where she had come from. ‘She could be anywhere in the city now,’ he said. ‘Patch me in to your superior. I want to call an immediate curfew, lock down every possible exit, and flood the place with drones.’
    ‘She knocked out the hospital’s system, but the cameras on the streets were still working,’ the captain said. ‘I had an AI process their footage. It found no trace of her.’
    ‘Then she used the service tunnels. There’s a maze of them under the city.’
    The captain shook her head. ‘We have good surveillance down there, too. Ever since we found a posse of rebels hiding in one of the pump rooms. Fixed cameras, bots and autonomous drones. So far, none of them have picked her up. She’s still in the hospital, sir. Be patient.’
    ‘Evacuate the patients and staff. Seal it up, flush knock-out gas through the air-conditioning, then send drones in to look for her.’
    ‘We’ll find her, sir.’
    ‘She’s no ordinary little girl, Captain. She’s a monster.’
    They stared at each other. Then the captain said, ‘I’ll need to get authority from my CO.’
    ‘I’m in charge,’ Loc said. ‘If anything goes wrong, I’ll carry it.’
    He would be in a bottomless amount of trouble if he fucked up, but he didn’t care. He needed this prize so very badly.
    The captain, Bethany Neves, was young but wouldn’t be intimidated, and insisted on contacting her commanding officer before she began the evacuation. Her soldiers sealed off the building and escorted staff and patients out through the main entrance one by one, past a gauntlet of drones and armed marines. It took more than an hour. The lieutenant colonel who had command of city security arrived and tried to take charge, but by then Loc had managed to talk briefly with Arvam Peixoto and the general had given him control of the operation, telling him, ‘Find her and bring her to me. Alive or not at all.’
    At last, the evacuation was complete. The doors were sealed and a narcotic gas was introduced into the air-conditioning system. Loc had a bad moment, picturing the girl calmly putting on a breathing mask and attaching it to an oxygen cylinder. He told Captain Neves, and she said that the gas worked very quickly.
    ‘One whiff and you’re out cold. She won’t have time to realise what’s happening, let alone do anything about it.’
    ‘She could have guessed what we planned to do.’
    ‘We’ll find her and bring her out alive,’ Captain Neves said.
    It took thirty minutes for the gas to infiltrate every part of the converted warehouse. Drones moved through rooms and corridors, and located a heat spot in a service duct close to the entrance.
    Loc insisted on going inside with Captain Neves, a squad of marines, and a medical technician. He didn’t want to do it but knew he must or else lose his authority. Parched by booze, caffeine, and adrenaline, he had a bad case of the shakes as he crept after the others. They were all wearing full-face masks and white nylon oversuits. Three marines aimed pulse rifles at the duct while a fourth cut into it with a power saw. Peeling back a big flap of plastic, exposing the girl huddled unconscious amongst water bottles and ration packs. No doubt she’d