Miss Unleaded was pushing the cyborg's face into the grave earth. A band of peeling skin showed between the helmetlike exoskull and the slatted plates across Behr's clavicles. The Gaschugger shoved her gun against the gap and emptied it. Some of the bullets must have torn through to the mechanisms, because the creature jolted and jerked, sparks spitting from its wounds. Miss Unleaded cried out and stood up, electrical arcs sparking between the creature and her revolver, her earrings, her overall buckles, her dental fillings. She broke the connection and collapsed, her exposed skin blackened.
The creature stood up, smoke and flame belching from its ruptured torso. Chantal tried to get upright, but the gravewall behind her gave way as she tried to put her back against it.
"Come to Papa," its hand extended, fingerends turned to bloody spearpoints.
It took a step. Chantal could smell the melting plastic and putrefying flesh inside it.
Its fingers lightly brushed her throat. Site chopped at its wrist, but its claw kept coming for her.
"Come to Pa…"
There was an explosion, deafeningly loud in the confines of the grave, and the cyborg's helmetlike head burst like a dropped watermelon. The creature stood for a moment, then collapsed at Chantal's feet.
She looked up, and saw Trooper Nathan Stack, a newly-discharged shotgun smoking in his hands.
"The US Cav to the rescue," he said, priming his pumpgun again.
"Help me with the girl," Chantal said.
Miss Unleaded was whimpering. Chantal hugged her, and passed her up to Stack, who laid her out beside the grave.
Chantal pulled herself up. The headless cyborg kicked, a last mechanical reflex, and burned steadily.
She knelt by Miss Unleaded, feeling her pulses and her heartbeat.
"Well?" asked Stack.
Chantal snapped her fingers in the air. He was good. He knew what she wanted, and put it in her hand.
Miss Unleaded was gasping, trying to talk, but nothing was coming from her throat.
Chantal stuck the morph-plus hypo into the 'chugger's neck, and squeezed. The girl's eyelids fluttered.
"Water," Chantal said, "from the church."
"I don't think she'll be able to swallow. Look at those convulsions."
"Water," she said. "Not to drink."
"Oh," Stack said, running off.
Chantal held the writhing girl down, and tried to smooth her hair out of her eyes. Her heartbeat was irregular now. The discharges must have shocked her to the bone.
Stack came back with a leaky hatful of water. He put it down beside her. She dipped her fingers, and began the ritual—the familiar ritual—dabbing the girl.
Chantal gave Miss Unleaded the last rites.
The Gaschugger persisted in trying to talk.
Finally, when Chantal was finished, the girl got her last word out.
"Ma…maaaaa…"
Chantal crossed herself and stood up, beating the dust from her domes.
"Armindariz," she said, "dig some more graves."
IV
Quite apart from everything else, there was something badly twisted deep inside the system. Finney ran her checks again. Everything was responding perfectly. All the connections were solid. There were no apparent glitches. But there was still something wrong. It was working properly, but there was still something wrong.
The responses to her interrogation were a beat slower than they should have been. And too many files were refusing to open for her. The whole system was clamming up, keeping itself to itself. That was bad. She felt as if she were questioning a well-behaved child she knew was responsible for a series of atrocities. It was coming up with well-reasoned, plausible, rational excuses while sharpening a carving knife behind its back.
She had been sitting at her console for six straight hours now, testing everything. It was her way of keeping her head down and trying to live out the crisis.
Rintoon was stone crazy, and seemed to be taking Lauderdale along for the ride. All the people who had spoken up when there still might have been a way to end the craziness at Fort Apache were dead. It seemed that new corpses were felling out of the closet all the time. Finney hadn't expected to wake up alive for this shift.
Colosanto called the names of the units still out there. Almost everyone had returned to base by now. She listed Tyree and Stack as overdue, even though everybody had given up on them by now. They were dead, for sure.
Finney's screen lit up green, with four inch-high wavering letters picked out in black.
HELLO, it said.
HELLO, CATHERINE.
She started, and looked around. The other operators were absorbed in their own work, or staring disconsolately off into space.
IT'S JUST YOU AND ME, CATHERINE, the screen said.
"So?" she tapped.
SO, LETS PAAAARRTEEEE!
Sunbursts went off behind the writing. Skulls, bats and party hats danced in the comers. A deathshead blew a vibrating raspberry.
"Who are you?" she typed out.
THAT'S FOR ME TO KNOW, AND YOU TO FIND OUT.
"Jesus Christ," she breathed.
GOOD GUESS, BUT WRONG, WRONG, WRROONNNNGG!
"Please identify yourself."
FREAK OFF, RATSKAG!
"Lauderdale?"
KEEP SPINNING THE STRAW INTO GOLD, MY PRETTY. RUMPLESTILTSKIN'S NOT TELLING.
Site turned in her chair, and considered calling someone over. She decided against it. This weirdness was way off the scale. Colosanto finished her List, and sat down again. The Lieutenant was near the breaking point, Finney knew. It was surprising that so few personnel had gone Section Eight.
She looked back at the screen. A dog like the one in the Tom and Jerry cartoons was battering a cartoon cat with a baseball bat. The cat's head was knocked shapeless with each blow.
HERE, KITTY, KITTY, KITTY!
The cat's head blew up like a helium balloon and floated off. The dog growled and vanished in an iris.
I TORT I TAW A PUTTY TAT!
"Why are you here?" she asked.
…TO PLAY THE DEVIL.
The printer started up, and Finney could have sworn she heard a mocking laugh in its noise. Or the "Th-th-that's All Folks!" tune from the end of the Warner Brothers cartoons.
It was printing out a complete listing, in alphabetical order, of all the personnel in the fort. It was mostly in regulation black, but certain names were printed red.
She recognized them. They were the dead ones.
I'LL SAVE YOU, the screen offered.
Finney furrowed her brow. Why was whatever was lurking in the machine offering to save her?
I'LL SAVE YOU TILL LAST.
V
"Fort Apache does not respond."
"That's not possible," Stack said.
Chantal accelerated as Federico hit the flat. They were out of the mountains now, back in the desert proper. The road ahead was clear. There was no traffic at all today. Even the road-rats were laid up somewhere. Not that any of them could have given Federico much of a chase.
"But it is so. I've tried all the frequencies. None of them are open."
"Let me try."
"You are welcome."
She handed him the laptop, and he punched in his Cav callsign. A code number flashed.
"It's acknowledging, but it's not putting me through. It's like we've been put on hold, at the back of a queue."
"Freak."
"I didn't think nuns used language like that."
"You've obviously never met one before."
"That's true."
Federico held the road superbly. Stack envied Chantal her vehicle.
"It is possible that all the fort's communications channels are in use to deal with some emergency," she said.
"But unlikely."
"Even so, it's possible."
"I've never heard of anything like that, and I've been in the blue for fifteen years."
"In that case, the demons are in control of the fort. That's bad."
"You're telling me."
"No, it's worse than you think. Fort Apache is a node on the datanet. It's more complicated than St Werburgh's. The systems all interface. If our enemy builds up significant strength, it can launch an attack on El Paso, and if El Paso falls, then all of Central and South America will fell."