‘Defned Area Suppression,’ Saul replied, flicking his gaze towards the robot that had carried him here. ‘The entire planet has been segmented up into a grid whose smallest area measures about a kilometre square. Feed a square number of the grid into the system, and the satellites will burn anyone found inside it. Even now, data is being uploaded from the surface to define those places on Earth that are being sectored: five square kilometres here, seven there, and ten over there. In fact, sectoring has been worked on the basis of the grid already present in the computer system here – which means they’ve been planning to depopulate those sectors for some time.’

Hannah absorbed this in silence and looked away. She wasn’t sure why he felt the need to repeatedly drive home the murderousness of the Committee. Perhaps to justify the actions he himself intended to take?

Saul turned to Braddock. ‘Agricultural land is also covered, as are large areas of the sea, since government vessels broadcast their position on a particular frequency and won’t be targeted. Someone has also been feeding in masses of data related to tenement and office blocks, houses, reservoirs, universities, schools, specific streets . . . basically any area or structure that can be comprehensively “defined”.’ He almost spat the last word. ‘I guess this ensures that the Inspectorate can more easily call in a strike.’ He paused, his gaze swinging back to Hannah. ‘They’ve gone one step up on the pain inducers. With this system up and running, the next riot would end quickly – and that burning pain would be real.’

She could see his anger, which seemed to flare out of his red eyes. She might have felt that such human emotion should make him appear to be more human, but it seemed to expose something unhuman in him, instead. Noise behind, then, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the construction robot back up on its feet, turning round in the corridor and heading away.

‘What happened with Smith?’ she asked.

‘I think he is definitely stronger than me, but I managed to catch him by surprise.’

‘But then he surprised you?’

‘Yes.’ Saul pressed a hand against his side.

‘Can you defeat him?’

‘I don’t know. I stuck his own knife back in him, and he ran.’

‘That’s not the answer I was looking for.’

‘It’s the only one I can give.’

14

Scrap Mars