On Her Majesty's Behalf by Joseph Nassise

all working together toward the same goal, and knew instinctively that there was no way they would be able to withstand a charge like that. The very idea of it sent shivers up his spine.
    To get his mind off the image, he focused on another question that had been bugging him since the encounter on the pier.
    â€œWhat’s driving these things? Why the hunger for human flesh?”
    Graves frowned. “Initial tests seem to indicate that there is something in living tissue, particularly human tissue, that the shredder needs to maintain its current state of animation, but I’ve only begun my research so I can’t say for certain. I do know this, though—­deprive a shredder of living flesh for too long and it will begin to decay, just like any other corpse.”
    The comment caught Burke by surprise. “So are these things dead or alive?” He’d always thought of them as nothing more than reanimated corpses, but if they could think and reason . . .
    â€œI guess it depends upon your definition of alive.”
    Burke laughed uneasily. “You lost me, Graves.”
    The other man moved to stand at the head of the table, directly behind the shredder’s head. He reached over to a small tool stand next to him and picked up two metal rods. Each one was about half an inch in diameter and roughly six inches long.
    â€œThink of it this way, Major. Life is nothing more than a combination of physical states. Our hearts beat to pump blood through our bodies. Our lungs inflate to push oxygen into our blood. We eat, we think, we breathe, and as a result we call ourselves alive.”
    Burke could see Graves fiddling with something behind the shredder’s head, but from where he stood he couldn’t see what the other man was doing. Something about the activity bothered him, though he couldn’t have consciously answered what. He stepped forward, intent on getting a better look.
    Graves, meanwhile, continued his explanation.
    â€œStop our hearts from beating and we die. Stop our lungs from breathing and we die. Interrupt the electrochemical processes of our brains and we die. Or so I’ve always thought.”
    He gestured at the shredder on the table before him. “Since we haven’t had any reports of the London dead clawing their way out of their graves, we know this young man was alive when the bombs fell and the gas was released. He is clearly aware of us and is driven by an all-­consuming hunger, and yet his heart does not beat, his blood does not flow, and his lungs do not breathe. By our definitions, he is dead. And yet . . .”
    Burke’s motion around the table finally allowed him to see what Graves was doing. As Burke looked on, Graves carefully inserted the rods into two holes that had previously been drilled into the shredder’s head. Burke winced at the sight but the shredder didn’t react at all. It was as if he couldn’t even feel it.
    Once the rods were in place, Graves clipped a tin wire to the end of each one. Burke could see that the other ends of the wires were connected to the bottom of a light socket that was clamped to a nearby table. A small incandescent bulb rested in the socket.
    For a moment nothing happened, then . . . the lightbulb sparked and slowly grew brighter.
    â€œ . . . And yet there is more electrical activity going on in this shredder’s brain right now than in yours and mine combined.” Graves turned to face Burke squarely. “So you tell me, Major—­is this shredder dead or alive?”

 
    Chapter Seven

    B URKE WAS HALFWAY through his breakfast the next morning when a runner arrived with word that his presence was requested for a staff meeting at MID’s headquarters at 0900 hours. A glance at his watch told him that he had less than ten minutes to spare, so he shoveled another forkful of syntheggs into his mouth and then headed outside. A staff car was waiting to take