Javier turned them around and lowered Mira to the counter beside the sink. Bent over her. Her squat legs poked up, tiny feet resting on his hips. Again they stared into each other's eyes. Her face was beautiful; anyone would say it. His gaze drifted down her smooth chest, perfect skin pulled taut across it. Back to her eyes again. Her head was at a slight angle. He saw the purple veins almost lost in the black hair at her temples. Remembered her gift. Was she reading his mind just then? It unsettled him. If so, what was she seeing? Because he wasn't sure what was inside there, himself.
Then she panted, "Patryk."
"What?" Javier rasped, working toward his orgasm. He flinched. There was a loud knocking at the door of the bathroom, and Patryk's voice on the other side of it.
"Javier, you in there?"
"Yeah, hold on!" he yelled, angry. "I've gotta finish my shower!"
"Okay. Um, I just wanted to show you something."
"I'll be right there!" In a softer voice he hissed, "Can't leave my babies alone for a second!"
Mira smiled up at him, embarrassed. And flushed. And with something else shining in her large dark eyes that made Javier uncomfortable, weirdly sick in his guts. Something that made his heart beat faster with more than just exertion.
Javier showered quickly so he'd reappear with wet hair, but from the looks that greeted him and Mira it didn't seem like the others were buying it. Satin, in his cybernetic pony, remarked, "Feeling all refreshed now, are we?" Javier ignored him, turning his attention to Patryk. Nhu pouted as Patryk extended the wrist comp that had been confiscated from her.
"I found blueprints for Steward Gardens on the net," he announced. "Filed with the Paxton Zoning Office."
"Good man," Javier told him. "What can we use?"
"There's a generator in the cellar, like she guessed." The tall youth nodded at Mira. "And a brainframe tied into all systems."
"An organic brain? A, what do you call it."
"Encephalon," Mira said.
"Yeah," said Patryk.
"Nhu." Javier turned to her. "You're the techie. You think you could tap into that? Shut off these Blank People?"
"I could try," she sulked, "but-"
"I think there's something better than that idea," Patryk cut in. He tapped the device with a finger to draw Javier closer. The gang chief positioned his face directly above the little screen. Suddenly, the connection with his brain made, the image there filled the much larger screen of his mind. Patryk explained what he was seeing. "There's a maintenance chute down there. It connects up directly with the town system." "Meaning?"
"It looks like we could get into the sewers. If we can do that, then we can pretty much go anywhere we want in the city."
Javier looked up at him, slipping his brain out of the wrist comp's enveloping sleeve. "Yeah?"
"It will be locked, I'm sure. The town doesn't want just anybody getting down into the sewers. But they do, anyway. So there's got to be a way in. If me or Nhu can't hack it, then maybe we can just force our way. Blast it if we have to."
Javier showed his sneer-like grin. "Man, I've gotta give you a raise."
"You've got to give me a salary first," Patryk replied.
Javier turned to address the others in the conjoined gangs. "Hey. Saddle it up. Looks like we're getting out of here, peoples."
At the rear of Steward Gardens's B-Wing, behind the central area which on the ground level had served as a function room, the five remaining Tin Town Terata showed the seven remaining Folger Street Snarlers to the elevators that gave access to the two floors above. And to the basement level below.
They had taken all their essentials. Patryk had his backpack with their scant food and collected communication devices. And everyone had their weapons. As they neared the elevators, Satin- moving along in his insect-like manner-said to Mott, "If you were smart you'd dissolve the body of your friend before you go. If the forcers find him here later, they'll come to Folger Street and question you."
"Blast you! I'm not melting my friend. Anyway, I don't have any plasma."
Satin held up his formidable Decimator .220 revolver. "I do. Green plasma, man, the best stuff. It won't leave anything. Eat his flesh, his bones, his clothes, his…"
Mott stopped and looked ready to go for his own gun. "I told you, freak, nobody's gonna melt my friend!"
"Hey." Javier looked back at them. "You two shut it and get over here."
"Anyway," the dreadlock-headed Choom grumbled, "our insignia is sprayed outside. If the forcers want to find us, they'll find us. Nothing we can do about that now. You got some bodies of your own back there in 5-B, don't forget."
"Yeah, but they don't have tattoos and gang gear like you punks do."
Javier contemplated the twin elevators. "I don't know. I'd hate to box myself in one of these and have it get stuck. If that brain down there is controlling the Blanks and the trash zapper, who's to say it won't purposely seal us inside a lift?"
"Didn't happen to us," slurred Nick, the mutant with the deflated-looking head.
"Well, you took a risk I don't wanna repeat. Come on."
Javier led them instead toward the stairwell and hoisted the metal door open. They began to descend, the metal steps clanging under their feet.
Struggling with them, Mira said, "I just hope we can get the basement door open. We haven't been able to before."
"I'll try my skeleton card," said Nhu, referring to the blank data card she had loaded with countless randomly generated key codes, using her home computer system.
Javier glanced at Mira as they tramped down the steps side by side. In a low voice, he asked her, "You okay?"
"Okay? In what way?"
"I don't know. You know. Just. okay?"
She smiled. "I guess."
"Sorry about the stairs. I'd carry you, but."
"Oh please. I'm not a baby, you know."
"So I can't call you 'baby,' huh?"
Mira smiled at him again.
They reached the basement level hallway. Aside from the elevators, just a single metal door faced them, and upon it were stenciled the words: RESTRICTED AREA. Javier gestured Nhu forward. She produced her card and skimmed it through the reader. Nothing. She swiped it again. Tapped a couple of buttons in the keyboard.
"Dung," grumbled Tiny Meat, perched behind his larger brother's shoulder like some foul-mouthed parrot, "this isn't going to work."
There was a beep, the red status button on the control strip turned green, the metal door slid open in its grooves, and two gray arms thrust out of the murk beyond in an attempt to seize Nhu by the head.
Another hand caught her by the arm and jerked her backwards, out of reach, with surprising force.
"Blast!" shouted Javier, firing his gun into the onrushing figure.
Nhu stumbled as she was whipped around, away from the open doorway. She spun in her savior's grip and looked into the skeletal face of Haanz, the spider-limbed Choom mutant. He had put himself between her and the door.
Javier's bullets had smashed back the first figure, but a second gray-skinned entity plunged out of the doorway and leapt at Satin. He lifted one of his robot-like prosthetic hands and caught the thing by the throat. He held it aloft, its limbs thrashing like those of a man at the end of a noose. Mott raised his gun and fired several shots through the dangling body before Satin could point his plasma-loaded revolver at it. The body went limp in his grasp.
A third creature leapt over the dead body of the first. Nick had a pistol, too, and he and Javier both hit the oncoming being-but its forward momentum caused it to crash into Javier nonetheless. The two of them went flying back to the floor. The gang chief struck his head against the opposite wall.