Free Bedlam by Christopher Brookmyre

lose focus for a moment, staring blankly like his face was lagging.
    ‘Incoming communication,’ he reported. ‘There are reports ofa landing force having made it through. They are attempting an incursion of the south perimeter. Cutlass squad, I need you
     to come with me.’
    ‘Yes sir,’ they responded.
    Kamnor turned to Ross.
    ‘You’ll have to find your own way to med lab. Best of luck with sorting that virus.’
    ‘Thank you sir,’ he replied, resisting the impulse to offer a warning about staying away from kitchen implements and heavy
     machinery just in case the
Final Destination
theory was correct.
    If it was, then Death must have noted Ross’s thoughts on an acceptable time-frame, as Kamnor didn’t make it five yards before
     being killed. His metal body was sliced into several pieces as though it was no tougher than a melon, julienned by a form
     of ultra-high-velocity projectile weapon with which Ross had become recently familiar.
    Because of their respective positions, he didn’t have line of sight on where the shots had come from, but he knew it was the
     card collector who had sniped Kamnor from somewhere out in the wastes.
    He decided he ought to have a word.
    Ross was about to venture out in pursuit of the assassin but was halted by two obstacles. The first was the timely realisation
     that, unlike during their last duel, on this occasion he was completely unarmed. The second was more literal: he couldn’t
     get through the gap in the wall anyway, because it had become rapidly choked with body parts previously belonging to members
     of Cutlass squad. They had gone charging out in immediate response to the attack, exhibiting the same battle prowess and tactical
     awareness of their comrades in Rapier and Dagger squads by proceeding into a narrow bottleneck and being picked off one by
     one, each apparently heedless of the fate that had just befallen the man in front of him.
    Kudos to Death, He had brought it home in about ninety seconds, tops.
    On the plus side, the second obstacle had at least negated the first. He had several identical rifles to choose from, none
     of them fused to their previous owners this time.
    Ross got down low and crawled cautiously through thenow-even-narrower channel, occasionally risking a glimpse over the pile of blood- and unidentified-yellow-green-fluid-spattered
     limbs, heads, legs and torsos. He spotted the card collector, his back to Ross as he scurried away, heading out into the disasterscape.
    Ross considered it safe to get to his feet, and hastened after his prey, zigzagging between rocks, wreckage and crates for
     cover. What the hell were these boxes made of, he wondered? Everything else that had fallen from above was in bits, but the
     crates were unscathed and unopened. He briefly tried prising the top off one, but got nowhere and abandoned the attempt, as
     his priority was pursuit.
    Having got a bead on where the collector appeared to be heading, he veered left, intending to come around and flank him a
     little further ahead: take him by surprise and he could get the bastard to talk before matters descended into another shooting
     match.
    Ross took up position beneath the head of a rocky spur and waited to make his move. Another thirty yards and they would converge,
     the collector seemingly oblivious to being stalked as he continued on a course that would take him right into Ross’s path.
     But just as he readied himself to spring, Ross felt his legs taken from beneath him and he was dragged into a narrow crevice
     in the rock.
    ‘Stay down,’ his attacker told him with urgency and concern.
    He was another cyborg, resembling Ross in terms of the dead-flesh/steel-and-glass balance, and similar also in wearing a hunted
     and confused look upon his circuitry-adorned face.
    ‘You don’t want to get into a fight with that one,’ he went on.
    ‘I’m not afraid of him,’ Ross insisted with frustration, pinned down as he was by his would-be rescuer’s