"You too." She leans forward, and I hug her briefly, then she's off, walking down the library path toward City Hall.
"Where's Sam?" I ask.
"Oh, he had something extra to do down there," Liz says, a trifle sniffily. "Last-minute nerves." A moment later he comes up the stairs. "Come on, Sam, want to miss the show?"
I open my mouth. "Time to move!"
Fragments of memory converge on a point in time:
Five of us, three males and two females, walking along the front of Main Street toward City Hall. All in our Church outfits, with subtle changesSam's vest, my shoes, Martin's bag. Discreet earbuds adding their hum to our left ears, flesh-toned pickups parallel to our jawlines. Businesslike.
"Merge with the crowd, then when they head for the auditorium doors, break left under the door labeled FIRE EXIT. Meet me on the other side."
Purpose. Tension. Beating heart, nervousness. A faint aroma of mineral oil on my fingertips. The usual heightened awareness.
Cohorts and parishes of regular citizensinmatesare gathering on the front steps and in the open reception hall of the biggest building on Main Street. Some I recognize; most are anonymous.
Jen looms out of the crowd, smiling, converging on me. My guts freeze. "Reeve! Isn't it wonderful?"
"Yes, it is," I say, slightly too coldly because she stares at me, and her eyes narrow.
"Well, excuse me ," she says, and turns on her heel as if to walk away, then pauses. "I'd have thought you'd be celebrating."
"I am." I raise an eyebrow at her. "Are you?"
"Hah!" And with a contemptuous smirk, she wheels away and latches on to Chris's arm.
A cold sweat prickles up and down my spinesheer relief, mostlyand I head toward the FIRE EXIT sign, which is conveniently close to the rest rooms. I pause for a second to glance around and check my watch (T minus three minutes) then lean on the emergency bar. The door scrapes open, and I step through into a concrete-lined stairwell.
Click. I glance round. Liz lowers her gun. I'm too slow today , I think hopelessly. I mute my mike. "Two minutes," I say, backing into the corner opposite her niche. She nods. I reach into my bag, pull out my gun, stuff the spare magazines into my pockets, and drop the bag. Click. That's me.
One minute. Sam and Greg and Martin, the latter looking slightly harried. I key my mike. "Follow me."
A couple of weeks ago, wearing Fiore's stolen flesh, I explored this complexextremely cautiously, taking pains to be certain that Yourdon was occupied elsewhere at the time. The first floor contains the lobby and a big auditorium, plus a couple of things described on the building map as "courtrooms." The second floor, which we pass without stopping, is wall-to-wall office space. The third floor... well, I didn't spend much time there.
We reach the door and pause. "Zero," I say, tracking the sweep of my watch hand.
A second later there's a chime in my headset. "Go!" says Janis.
"Now."
Greg opens the door fast, and Martin and Liz duck through, then pronounce the bare-floored corridor clear. I lead us along it, then there's another door, and Greg forces the exit bar from our side. Carpet. A short, narrow passage. Yourdon must have left by now, surely? I rush forward and find myself in a boringly mundane living room, furnished in dark age fashion except for the smooth white bulge of an A-gate in one corner. "Here," I say. "Spread out."
We're not experts at house searches. Doubtless if there was armed resistance waiting for us, we'd be easy prey. But the house is empty. Three bedrooms, a living room, an officethere's a desk and an ancient computer terminal, and booksand a kitchen and bathroom and another room full of boxes. It's empty . Empty of personality as well as anachronisms like a longjump gate.
"What now?" asks Sam.
"We check out front." I walk up to the front door of the apartment, then Greg squeezes past me and unlocks it. He pulls it open and steps out, then I follow to see where we are, and the ground leaps up and whacks me across the knees with a concussive jolt too deep to call a noise.
"Panic one," Janis says in my ear, a prearranged code for Team Green. That was a bomb , I think dizzily.
There's a click behind me, then a scream of pain. I whip round and that saves my life because the short burst of gunfire hammers past me and catches Liz instead, bullets slapping into her body as she spins round. I keep turning and drop to one knee, then fire a continuous burst that empties the magazine and nearly sprains my wrists.
"* * *," says Janis, in my ringing ears.
"Repeat." I'm staring at Greg. What used to be Greg. Someone behind me is making horrible sounds. I think it's Liz. "We have a code red, two down."
"I said, Panic two," says Janis. "They've got a Vorpal"
Pink noise fills my ears, and her voice breaks up: cognitive radios meet heuristic jamming. "Come on!" I yell at Sam, who's bending over Liz. "Follow me!"
We're on a landing at the top of the stairs. Yourdon's apartment covers one side of the building, but on the other sidethere's a door. I dash toward it, reloading on the go. Greg tried to kill me , I realize. Which means he warned them. So ...
I pause at one side of the door and wave Sam to the other. Then I brace myself and unload the entire clip through it at waist height.
While my ears are ringing, and I'm fumbling the next magazine into place, Sam kicks the door in and quickly shoots the police zombie slumped against the side of the corridor in the head. (That one was still moving, hand creeping toward the shotgun lying in the floor; the two bodies behind it aren't even twitching.) Seeing how efficiently Sam steps in gives me a momentary chill of recognition. No hesitation. Behind us, Liz is still moaning, and Martin won't be good for anything. "What is this place?" I ask aloud.
"More offices." Sam kicks a door open and duck-walks through it. "Modern offices." I follow him. The next door is more substantial, opening onto a glass-fronted balcony above a room with open floor space, an office-sized assembler at one side, and a row of glassy doors... "Is that what I think it is?"
Bingo. "Gates," I say. "A switch hub. How do we get down"
"Hello, Reeve," says my earpiece, in a voice that sets my teeth on edge. "This isn't going to work, you know."
Where did Fiore get a headset from? Greg? Or have they captured one of Team Green?
Sam looks as if someone's poleaxed him. His jaw is literally gaping. Too late I realize he's on the same chatline.
"You've lost, Reeve," Fiore adds conversationally. I can hear noises in the background. "We know about your plot. There are guards outside the switch chamber, and if you get past them and make it to the longjump pod, you'll diethere's an active laser fence in there. I'm most disappointed in you, but we can still work something out if you put down your popguns and surrender."
I touch my index finger to my lips and wait until Sam nods at me, to show he's got the message. Then I walk toward the door onto the staircase leading down into the switch chamber and its bank of shortjump gates.
I don't want Sam to see how sick I feel.
"You don't know shit, Fiore," I say lightly.
"Yes I do." He sounds smug. "Greg's unfortunate death makes further concealment irrelevant. Bluntly, you've failed. You can't"
I rip my earbud out and throw it away, frantically miming at Sam to do likewise. He pulls it out of his ear and stares at it. As he's about to toss it there's a dual bang. He doubles over as a thin reddish mist sprays from his left finger and thumb, retching with pain.
"Sam!" I yell at him. He cradles his damaged hand, panting. "Sam! We've only got a few seconds! Fiore can't stop us, or he'd already be up here! Sanni's got him pinned down! We've got to blow the longjump pod before he gets away! Give me your jacket!"