"Yeah, you're probably right," said Steiger. "It would be much too risky."
He straightened up, turned, then quickly snatched the corporal's autopulser rifle and, holding it close against his body, hopped into the open case.
"Steiger!" Forrester shouted, but it was too late. The border circuits of the chronoplate flashed and Steiger was briefly bathed in the eerie, bright green glow before he disappeared from sight.
"A chronoplate?' said Andre, glancing down at the softly glowing border circuits assembled on the floor. She looked up at Drakov. "Don't tell me the Network couldn't spare you any warp discs, Nicky. I thought you were on such good terms with them."
Drakov gave her an acid look. "I detest that name," he said. "And if you are seeking to provoke me, Miss Cross, it won't work, no matter how irritating you become."
He jerked his head toward the desk and chairs on the far side of the room. Savino pushed her over to one of the chairs and roughly shoved her down into it.
Drakov pulled back his sleeve and glanced at the warp disc on his wrist. In relatively modern industrial time periods, it was simplest to disguise a warp disc as a pocket watch or a multifunction wrist chronograph, which it most resembled.
More primirive time zones demanded that a warp disc be disguised as some piece of ornamental jewelry, such as a pendant or a bracelet, with its face and control studs concealed.
"It's almost time," said Drakov.
"We going somewhere?" Andre said.
"Eventually, Miss Cross, eventually. And for your information, you may be interested to know that I still have a plentiful supply of warp discs of various size classifications left over from that shipment I hijacked from Amalgamated
Techtronics." He smiled at the expression"'on her face. "You thought you recovered most of them, didn't you? Shall we bet that acrording to the invoices you were given by the factory, most of the missing warp discs were accounted for?"
"How could you know that?"
"You would be surprised, Miss Cross, at how often there are so-called 'accidental overruns' on Temporal Army contracts.
Very inconvenient for the management. It upsets the accountants no end and creates a problem of cost efficiency, especially since the Army will only pay for what it ordered and no more.
Fortunately, there are 'independent contractors' who are quite willing to assist in liquidating accidental overruns."
Andre stared at him with astonishment. "Are you telling me they sell restricted ordnance under the table, on the black market?"
"Yes, rather amusing, isn't it? I discovered that quite by accident. Imagine, I went to all the trouble and risk of hijacking warp discs when all I had to do was buy them direct from the manufacturer." He chuckled and consulted his disc once again. "In any case, a chronoplate was precisely what I needed in this particular instance. I required a temporal transit field linked through two terminals. each of which would be destroyed as it fulfilled its function. And that sequence is due to be initiated any moment now.. "
The border circuits of the chronoplate began to flicker brightly, then they flashed with an emerald glow and tiny soldiers wearing miniature floater paks started to materialize just above the border circuits. They rose up into the air, still within the transit field, and as more flying lilliputians appeared below them, the ones rising up toward the ceiling peeled off and flew in a counterclockwise circle around the room. Drakov watched them, smiling to himself, then his smile abruptly faded as the last Lilliputian peeled off from the formation.
"What is it?" said Savino, seeing the expression on his face. "Where are the rest of them?" said Drakov. "That's only a fraction of the number I sent through."
They waited, but no more Lilliputians came through. The ones already in the room continued to circle just beneath the ceiling, like bees buzzing around a hive.
"Maybe they didn't make it," said Savino. "We figured there'd be losses, didn't we?';
Drakov shook his head, frowning. "Yes, but not so many." He licked his lips nervously and checked the time again. "Come on, come on, where is it? That damn plate should have blown by now!"
He was watching the glowing border circuits, waiting for the glow to disappear, which would mean that the link on the other end had been broken by the chronoplate being destroyed.
Andre couldn't take her eyes off the circling Lilliputians, flying round and round just beneath the ceiling like miniature airplanes in a holding pattern. Circling around the chronoplate, almost as if they were waiting for something.
"Damn those little bastards!" Drakov shouted. He looked up at them with fury.
"You were in full retreat! And you forgot to blow the tenninal, you miserable, little …"
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a plasma pistol. He raised it, aiming at the chronoplate, and at the same instant, the border circuits flashed once more and Steiger came tumbling through, onto the floor.
"Creed! Look out!" Andre shouted. She eame out of the chair and launched herself at Drakov in a running dive.
Drakov fired.
The band had set up on the stage and the musicians were running through a final sound check with all the instruments and mikes. There was a massive wall of amplifiers stacked behind the band and everything was turned up full. There was a bank of synthesizers, two electric guitars, an electric bass, a gargantuan clear plastic drum kit with two huge basses, rows of accoustic and electric tom-toms, cymbals and an array of gongs and bells, and the ensemble was rounded out by the lead singer, an androgynous young man with snow white hair down to his shoulders and a strut a 7th Avenue hooker would have envied.
He paraded back and forth across the small stage, prowling like a panther in a cage, shrieking into the mike with such abandon and such force that Lucas winced, wondering how he could possibly sing like that and not scream himself hoarse. The sheer volume of the band was deafening. With his roadielike appearance, no one bothered to approach him. And with the volume of the music, conversation would have been impossible…
This was where it started, he thought in passing as he quickly scanned the club.
The heavy metal sound, which over the years became the dominant form of music, absorbing both the fringe and mainstream styles, always on the cutting edge of technology until it eventually metamorphosed into cyberpnok, the ultimate union of the musician and his instrument, where the synclaviers and percussion circuit boards were actually hardwired into the musicians' bodies.
The band stopped playing for a moment to make some minor adjustments, and the silence after such an auditory barrage was almost a shock. Lucas took advantage of it to approach one of the club's employees, a beautiful young woman in a black
Lycra miniskirt and a T-shirt emblazoned with the club's logo.
"Excuse me," he said, and the aftereffects of the band made him speak much louder than he needed to, but she seemed used to it. "I'm looking for those people who just came in here, two guys, and a girl-"
"You with the band'?" She gave him a cursory glance and went back to applying black fingernail polish to her nails.
"Yeah, and so's the girl. I'm supposed to get-"
"Upstairs."
"What?"
"Upstairs, they went upstairs."
"Oh. Thanks."
He headed for the staircase, but as he got there, the big bouncer stood in front of him with his beefy arms folded across his chest.
"Where do you think you're goin'?"
"Upstairs," said Lucas.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah."
The bouncer shook his head and rolled his shoulders back, flexing his lats and chest muscles. "I don't think so."
Lucas tried to go around him, but the bouncer stepped in front of him, putting his hand up against his chest and shoving him back. At that moment, the band started up again. Lucas didn't waste time trying to argue. The music was too loud, in any case. He simply kicked the bouncer in the groin with all his might and then swung the rolls of cable hard across his face as he doubled over with pain. Then he ran up the stairs two at time, taking advantage of the noise. He reached into the pocket of the leather jacket, took out the switchblade and flicked it open.