A message flared across the bottom of his vision. MARK, IT’S MAJ. NEED INFO. IN UNDERGROUND UTILITY TUNNELS UNDER CONVENTION CENTER. CAN YOU TRACK?
Holding his position in the crashsuit, Mark lifted his arm and brought up the schematics he’d uncovered for the building, located the service tunnels, and sent them along. Then he added, DON’T GO ALONE.
Maj ignored Mark’s final comment and sent a quick thank-you. She pulled up the schematics he’d sent and examined them for just a moment. The blood drips on the tunnel floor had gotten farther apart, as if the bleeding had slowed or Peter was traveling faster.
After a moment spent orienting herself, Maj took off again. More confident now, and her vision adjusted to the dim lighting, she stepped up the pace to a trot.
According to the schematic, the tunnel she presently followed opened up in a storage area that was right off the main lobby. From there it was just a short distance to the street in front of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.
Gaspar monitored the building through the security sensors he’d rendered accessible only by him. Most of the network was devices Heavener had instructed her people to install. He stood inside the convention center, maintaining the holo as the chaos continued.
When he punched the menu for the utility tunnels beneath the convention center, he was surprised to find an extra presence. He accessed the nearest vid buttoncam Heavener’s people had installed along their last-ditch escape route. The vid buttoncam had photo-multiplier capabilities and scanned through the dark easily.
When the girl came into view, Gaspar easily recognized her as Maj Green. How did she find out about the tunnels? He didn’t let his mind dwell on the questions that filled it. He opened the audlink to Heavener.
“One of the Net Force Explorers is in the tunnels,” he told her.
“He will be taken care of.”
“She,” Gaspar said automatically.
Heavener’s only response was to shut down the audlink.
Watching the girl run through the tunnels, Gaspar felt a pang of guilt. She was running to her doom, and he had no way to warn her. But what made him feel really guilty was not knowing if he’d try even if he had a way.
In the Space Marine battlesuit, Andy waded through a stream, marking it instantly as an attack zone. The hillside on the other side of the stream went almost straight up. Even as skilled as he was in the battlesuit, Andy had trouble negotiating the climb. At the top, peering down sixty feet to the stream, he knew he was in a good place.
“We’ve stopped,” Catie said.
“Yeah,” Andy said. “These guys are creeps and amateurs, and I don’t have time for them. We need to get back to the convention center and figure out what’s going on. But we’re going on our terms, not theirs.”
“It’s two against one.” Catie huddled against the bulkhead, compacted into a ball.
Andy gave her a grin. “I know. I feel kind of guilty.” When the two pursuing Space Marines plunged into the stream, Andy fired his laser at the water, instantly creating huge clouds of steam. “I figure these guys more for line-of-sight operators rather than guys who are used to instrumentation.”
The steam clouds rose from the stream, turning the world white, rising to cascade over the hill where Andy stood as well. He shifted over to thermal imaging, the scene suddenly shifting to a patchwork world of reds, oranges, and yellows with a few spots of blue and purple. The battlesuit’s interior cooling systems jerked into action, whining and rattling.
“What’s that?” Catie asked.
“We’re blowing up,” Andy teased.
“What?”
“Psych.” Andy tracked the two battlesuits stumbling through the streambed. Both of them acted as if they’d lost their way. He readied the short-range missiles and fired a salvo at each.
The missiles struck the two Space Marines and started breaking them down at once. They shivered and shook like tin cans strung together.
Andy opened the comm-channel. “And that’s all, Blue Leader. Game over. Thanks for playing.”
The battlesuits exploded, showering the nearby terrain with shrapnel.
Andy lifted the HUD helmet and glanced at Catie…“We’re about done here, I’d say. Ready to see if we can get off-line?”
“Very,” Catie said.
“Detective Holmes.”
Maj glanced at the vidphone screen on her foilpack and saw that the LAPD detective was getting out of his car. The vid pickup swirled crazily, pulling the man and the alley into conflicting views as Holmes ran. “It’s Maj.”
“I’m kind of busy here.”
“Me, too,” she replied tautly. “I’m in an access tunnel under the convention center. The people who’ve got Peter Griffen are escaping through it.”
“How’d you find that tunnel?”
“History,” Maj said, her breath coming shorter from the excitement and the exertion. Her feet slapped against the tunnel’s stone floor. “We’re working on current events.”
“Do you know where it lets out?”
“The front lobby. There’s a storage area the tunnel accesses around the corner from the main desk. If they get out onto the street—”
“They’re gone,” Holmes said in agreement. “Got it. Keep this connection open.”
Maj ran harder. She leaned into the running, regretting the stale, still air around her because it wasn’t what her body needed for sustained effort. Her lungs started to burn.
At the next corner turn Maj folded her arms protectively in front of her, bumped into the wall, then pushed off with her hands to change directions rapidly. Wounded or being carried, she didn’t think Peter could move along as quickly as she was. She was certain she was cutting his lead.
The tunnel ended abruptly two turns later. Light glinted off the rungs of the ladder built into the wall. The hatch above was open. She scrambled up the rungs. The air felt cooler in the storage room.
A woman screamed out in the lobby, quickly echoed by other screams and hoarse warning shouts.
Maj opened the door and paused, looking through. The lobby was filled with people from the convention who looked lost and confused. But fear was catching on quick because three men drove a flying wedge through them, knocking bystanders aside with fists, knees, and elbows. Two more men trotted easily behind the wedge, holding Peter in a come-along grip.
None of the men said a word, but the big black pistols in their gloved fists spoke volumes.
“Detective Holmes,” Maj said over the foilpack. “They’re in the lobby.”
“I’ve got men there,” Holmes promised.
At that moment the crowd separated and four uniformed policemen ran toward the group with Peter. “Halt!” one of them ordered in a loud voice.
The three men forming the flying wedge raised their pistols and fired without hesitation. Dulled splats like a hammer driving home a nail echoed in the hallway. The four policemen fell without firing a shot.
Controlling her fear, Maj dashed forward. “Your officers are down, Detective Holmes!”
“How many?”
“All of them.” Maj pulled up short and looked at the bodies while the crowd continued to scatter around her. Natural light filtering in through the polarized windows fronting the hotel gave her plenty of illumination. Yellow-feathered tranquilizer darts stood out against the dark colors of the uniforms. The gunmen hadn’t fired for the center of their targets, choosing arms, legs, throats, and faces.