"Sera!" Florian said sharply from behind her, and she stopped as he hurried to get the door himself. The Rule again. "I'll set supper out," he said quietly then, and with a little smile: "The shower's safe."
"I'm so glad." She started on her way, looked back as the door opened and Abban showed up with the catering staff.
As suddenly there was a pounding on the adjoining door from Justin's side. "Florian!" she heard him shout.
Then the whole wall blew outward, a sheet of bright fire, a percussion like a fist slamming against her; and she fell over a chair arm, complete tumble onto her knees and into the narrow wedge against the wall as flames shot up, as of a sudden a volley of gunshots exploded from her right, shells exploded to her left, and she stared in a split-second's horror, flinging up her arms as a flying body came at her, bore her over and cracked her head against the floor.
Second explosion, jolting the bones. "Sera!" Florian gasped into her ear, and she tried to move, cooperating by instinct as he tried to haul her along the floor behind the chair, with fire lighting the smoke and heat already painful. One more shot went off and exploded, and Florian fell on top of her, covering her with his body, protecting her head with his arms.
In a moment more there was a dreadful quiet, except the crackle of the fire that lit the lowering pall of smoke—then a sudden scrape of the chair pulled away and flung tumbling. Florian moved. She saw Catlin's stark, grim face upside down above her in the orange light, felt Florian's knee bruise her leg and his hand press her shoulder as he tried to get up and they tried to get themselves sorted out: he hauled himself up and got an arm around her with Catlin on the other side, Florian stumbling and catching himself on the wall.
A solid wall of fire enveloped the open door, a tumult of voices outside— Theirs or ours?Ari wondered desperately— The fire enveloped bodies on the floor, half-exploded, unrecognizable except the black Security uniforms—where Abban had been standing—and the heat burned her hands and her face—
Who's the Enemy? What's waiting out there? What's first? Can you run through fire that thick? Is it burning in the hall?
She felt the hesitation in Florian and Catlin, only a second; then Florian breathed, to someone not present: "Florian to Security Two—somebody's turned off the fire-systems. Re-engage, system two. That's an incendiary. Acknowledge."
"They're answering," Catlin said.
"Who's they?"Ari said, and choked on the smoke. The fire blinded, burned them with the heat, worse by the moment. "Dammit to hell, where's the hand extinguishers?"
As suddenly the fire-systems cut on with a wail of sirens.
There was fire: Justin was aware of that first, of blistering heat that drove him to move before he was fully conscious, of smoke that stung his nose and his throat and his lungs—deadly as the fire and harder to evade. He clawed his way up over debris of shattered structural panels and hot metal, felt one cut his leg as he went over, lost his balance and wormed through underneath the massive bureau that had come down onto the end of the bed—away from the fire, that was all he could think of at the moment, until his vision cleared and he could see the hallward door through the smoke, beyond the ruin of ceiling and wall-panels piled on the furniture.
There was a blank then. He came to on his knees, clinging to the door handle, trying to get to his feet again, finding fire on his left, the lights only clusters of suns in a universe gone to murk, to fire and shouts coming from somewhere. He pulled the manual latch, got the door unlocked, and pulled it open against the obstruction of debris around him.
Another blank. He was in the hall, dark figures rushed at him and one hit him, flinging him against the irregular stone of the wall. But that one stopped then, and hauled him up and yelled at him: "Get to the exit! That way—"
He felt the stiff material of a firesuit; felt a mask pressed to his face; felt himself dragged along while he inhaled cleaner air. Then he saw the emergency exit for himself, and tried to go under his own power—through the doors into clean air. The man yelled something at him, shoved him through—
Blank. Someone caught hold of him. There were people around him, in the stairwell.
"How far up is it?" someone shouted at him. "Where did you come from?"
He could not answer. He coughed and almost fell; but they helped him, and he walked.
x
"Kelly EK is dead," Catlin reported calmly, between listening to the net.
The rescue copters were still coming in at the pad outside Mary Stamford Hospital, and Ari angrily fended away the medtech who was trying to see if the lump on her head needed scan: "For God's sake, let me alone!Catlin, where,in the room?"
"In the hallway," Catlin said. "Alone. They identified him by his tags. —They're searching out on the far side of the building now, where the exit stairs let out: a lot of the guests went that way."
"God." Ari wiped a hand over her face—reflex: there was Neoskin on her hand and sweat stung.
The fire teams had it under control, the report ran. Explosions had gone off at several points on the floor, in the blue room and the white. The explosives were rigged in White,Florian had said, vastly chagrined. A periphery scan wouldn't pick them up, but we'd have found them if we'd run the check from the top. But Abban psyched us. He had the trigger: I saw the flash from the briefcase on the table; and that rig was state-of-the-art.
It had gone so fast, Justin's urgent shout through the connecting door, the split-second warning that had triggered Florian's something's-wrong reflexes and brought Catlin, armed, out that bedroom doorway the instant after the initial explosion, in a chain of thought that went something like: explosions-can't-happen-with-adequate-checks; there's-Abban-who-ran-the-checks; fire!—about a nanosecond before Abban's fire came back at her a hair off. A good shot with a regular pistol and a better one with explosive rounds, that was what it had come down to, while Abban had hesitated one fatal synapse-jump between target A and target B.
Giraud's orders, Ari thought. Giraud ordered me killed. . . .
Rescue teams had gotten into Justin's charred room. They were searching through the wreckage; but from the time they had said that the heavy display cabinet had crashed down beside the connecting door and shielded that area from the force of the blast, and that they had found the hall door open, then she had believed Justin had to have gotten out. There were two dead of smoke inhalation that they had found; Kelly burned, evidently, beyond recognition, notwith Justin, where he should have been; several severely burned trying to get to her—God help them; but Security from the floor below had gotten up there with emergency equipment and a unit captain with good sense had gotten Florian's advisement the fire systems were not operating and gotten to the control system to turn them on again—Abban had seen to that little detail too—while another had ordered all personnel who could not reach fire control equipment to get out, immediately ... a damned good thing, because the majority were azi, who might well have tried to help her without fire-gear and died trying.
"Damn!"Astringent stung the wound on her head. They had already pulled a finger-wide fragment of plastic out of her shoulder. Florian was in worse shape, having caught several, and having bled profusely, in no condition to be running check-in, but Florian was at one door and a reliable guard was at the other, making sure badges got checked and that Reseune personnel were accounted for.
Abban and the two with him were dead. I don't know if they were his,Catlin had said. There wasn't time to ask.