Path of the Tiger, стр. 438
Despite Kimiko’s mastery of meditation, which allowed her to separate her body from her consciousness and to detach herself from the twin quagmires of emotion and attachment, her brain was awash with turmoil and guilt, and this ate continually at her, chewing at her innards with the voracious hunger of a churning mass of maggots. What she was doing went against everything she believed in, everything she stood for, everything that she had fought for over the course of a long life dedicated to justice and righteousness – yet she felt as if, at this point in time, there could be no other path to take but this one. What the Rebels stood for had finally been revealed to her as an illusion, a hopeless dream grounded in idealistic fantasy. The world of mortals stood leaning over the edge of a great abyss, feeling the irresistible suck and relentless pull of vertigo, and tethered to this population of lemmings, which was on the cusp of plunging with suicidal abandon over the cliff, was a spiderweb network of millions of cords, tied to each and every other lifeform on the planet. When humanity toppled into the abyss they would drag everything else along with them, and this tragedy in the making had to be averted.
Her Rebel friends – former friends, now – had remained obstinate in their belief in the essential goodness of humanity, clinging like petulant children to the fictitious delusion of good ultimately triumphing over evil, of humankind rising above the age-old dogmas, tribalism, self-interest, greed, addictions and superstitions that had kept it chained thus far, believing in the innate certainty that, left to their own devices, people would always choose the greater good over individual selfishness, if only a few bad apples could be weeded out.
Kimiko, however, understood this to be folly, bald and complete. Over the past few decades a terrible sense of frustration and resentment had built with a mounting pressure within her, like a head of superheated steam in a reinforced tank. And one by one the rivets that had held the integrity of the chamber tight had begun to pop out, weakening the structure to the point of catastrophe. With each successive failure of the Rebel leadership to address the problems in the mortal world that were spiralling ever faster out of control, yet more cracks had begun to appear in Kimiko’s resolve and her commitment to the age-old cause. Furthermore, the more doggedly William, Zakaria and the rest of them had clung to the teachings of the old Council masters, the more Kimiko had begun to question the veracity of these teachings and their relevance to the twenty-first century, with its global population of almost eight billion humans and their seventy billion enslaved animals, the trillions of fish hauled from the oceans every year, and their voracious annihilation of the natural world in their lust for minerals and treasures, all of which was leading to a looming cataclysm of globally apocalyptic proportions.
The solutions needed to avert a disaster the likes of which had never before been seen in the history of humankind were harsh and uncompromising, and beyond what soft-hearted people like William and Lightning Bird were willing to contemplate.
This was a betrayal, oh yes, this was shoving jagged blades right into the backs of everyone she had loved and cared most about for so many lifetimes, but she had reached the point where an epiphany had come to her – an epiphany that stated that personal happiness, old connections and loyalties could no longer tip the balance in favour of inaction. No, she had to put these relationships aside and instead act for the benefit of billions of living souls and the future of all life. This was the only way.
With tears burning her eyes Kimiko gritted her teeth, forcing all sentiment, guilt and softness from her heart, and she gripped the bowstock tightly with her left hand as she edged forward.
On another floor, at the front of the group of soldiers, Hrothgar held up his hand to signal a halt. A distinct electrical tingling was buzzing through his nervous system; other beastwalkers were close, very close, and they had most certainly discerned his presence as well.
‘Combat positions,’ he hissed in a harsh whisper.
The vanguard of the gunmen mobilised, arranging themselves into a defensive formation, with three men lying on the floor and two kneeling at the flanks, their firearms all aimed at the top of the flight of stairs up which the Rebels would shortly be coming, ready to unleash a murderous hail of lead at the first sight of a head cresting the top of the steps. Death would come swiftly and brutally to the invaders.
As Hrothgar, Joao and their men prepared for their ambush, another set of beastwalkers was also experiencing the telltale tingling in their nerves; Zakaria, Ranomi and Njinga tensed their muscles and prepared to commence their own attack, one that would take Hrothgar and his troops by complete surprise, because it was about to come from directly above them.
Zakaria’s Plan B had involved ascending a few floors via climbing up the inside of the elevator shaft, and then getting into the ceiling above the main corridor of this floor to wait for Hrothgar, who would almost certainly be heading this way to lay his own trap for the Rebels. Adriana had been left perched on a ledge inside the elevator shaft, out of danger from the battle that was about to erupt, and also, conveniently, unable to escape or move.
Hrothgar and his men had laid their