The botflies, undeterred, were heading right for Vive.
Oh shit. Surge pushed her backward. Her feet tangled in the carcass of the dismembered floater. The opening in the crowd had completely collapsed; bodies pressed close on all sides, kept her from falling. Vive lifted her feet off the ground. The crowd carried her as though she were levitating. The wreckage passed beneath.
Still the botflies came at her. We weren't fast enough. It got off a signal, it sent a picture-
She could see their electrodes. She could see their gunports. She could even see their eyes, staring coldly down at her behind their darkened shields…
Right overhead.
Past.
They're after Jen and Linse. Vive twisted around, following the flies in their pursuit. Shit, they just left, they don't have enough of a lead, they're gonna—
Right out of left field, another botfly charged into view and rammed the leader.
What—
The head of the phalanx skidded sideways, out of control. The attacking botfly spun and charged the next in line. It came down from above, hitting its quarry and knocking it down a meter or so.
Far enough. The crowd surged up and engulfed it in a hungry, roaring wave.
Bad move, that. A surveillance 'fly was one thing; but those other ones were armed.
Yelps. Screams. Smoke rising. The submerged botfly ascended triumphant from the crowd. The crowd tried to pull back from that epicenter, ran into its own seething resistance; a wave propagated out across the riot, the panic spreading even if the panic-stricken couldn't.
The rogue botfly was charging again. Its targets were starting to regroup.
What the hell is going on? Vive wondered. Then: lucky break. Don't waste it.
Ten or fifteen meters to the medbooths. Solid chaos in the way. Vive started pushing. There were still people nearby who were in on the plan; they moved back as much as they could, trying to part the Red Sea for her passage. It was still start-stop all the way—too many out of the loop, too many simply gone rabid on the battlefield. Even half the people who had grabbed the bone had dropped it again.
"I saw her."
A K voice, calm but amped loud enough to hear over ambient. Vive threw a glance back over her shoulder.
The rogue botfly was talking. "I saw her come out of the ocean. I saw what—"
One of the assault 'flies fired. The rogue staggered in midair, wobbled dangerously.
"—I saw what they did on the Strip."
The medbooth slid open. Clarke stood framed in the doorway.
Vive leaned close, handed over the necklace. "Keep this up near your chest!" she shouted. "It'll mask the signal!"
The rifter nodded. Someone spilled between them, shouting and swinging indiscriminate fists. Lenie hammered back at that panicky face until it disappeared beneath the surface.
"They sent a tidal wave to kill her. They sent an earthquake. They missed."
Lenie Clarke turned to the voice. Her eyes narrowed to white featureless slits. Her mouth moved, framing words drowned in the roar:
Oh, shit…
"We gotta go!" Vive shouted. Someone pushed her right up against Lenie's tits. "This way!"
"They're burning the whole world to catch her. She's that important. You can't—"
Squeal. Feedback. The sound of sparking circuitry. Suddenly the rifter seemed rooted in midair.
"—You can't let them have her—"
The four horsemen cut loose. The rogue spun down into the crowd, gushing flame. Fresh screams. The horsemen regrouped and resumed their original course.
"Come on!" Vive yelled. Lenie nodded. Vive led her away along the wall.
The next alcove led into a public washroom. It was jam-packed with rifter wannabes and trapped pedestrians desperate to wait out the party. They were still for the most part, huddled like refugees under a bridge, listening to the muted pounding coming through the walls.
Two friendlies held one of the stalls. They'd already knocked out its ceiling panels. "You Aviva?" one of them asked, blinking rapidly over fake eyecaps.
Vive nodded, turned to Clarke. "And this…"
Something indefinable passed through the room.
"Shit," said one of the friendlies, very softly. "I didn't think she was real."
Lenie Clarke tilted her chin in a half-nod. "Join the club."
"So it's true then? The burnings and the Big One and you going around raping corpses—"
"Probably not."
"But—"
"I don't really have time to compare notes," Clarke said.
"Oh—right, of course. Sorry. We can get you to the river." The friendly cocked her head. "You still got a diveskin?"
Lenie reached behind her own shoulder and tapped the backpack.
"Okay," said the other friendly. "Let's go." She braced on the toilet, jumped, caught some handhold in the overhead darkness and swung up out of sight.
The first friendly looked around at the assembled huddlers. "Give us fifteen minutes, you guys. The last thing we need is a whole procession banging around in the crawlspace, right? Fifteen minutes, and you can make all the noise you want. Assuming you want to leave the party, that is." She turned to Vive. "You coming?"
Vive shook her head. "I'm supposed to meet up with Jen and Linse over by the fountain."
"Suit yourself. We're gone." The remaining friendly stirruped her hands, held them out to Clarke. "Want a boost?"
"No thanks," the rifter said. "I can manage."
Aviva Lu was a veteran of civil unrest. She rode out the rest of the action against walls and in corners, the low-turbulence areas where you could keep your bearings and your balance without being trampled. Les beus brought out the heavy artillery in record time; Vive's last view of freedom was the sight of a botfly crop-dusting the crowd with halothane. It didn't matter. She went to sleep smiling.
When she woke up, though, she wasn't in Holding with everyone else. She was in a small white room, windowless and unfurnished except for the diagnostic table she awakened on. A man's voice spoke to her through the walls; it was a nice voice, it would have been sexy under happier circumstances.
The man behind the voice knew more about Vive's role in the riot than she'd expected. He knew that she'd met Lenie Clarke in the flesh. He knew that she'd helped trash the botfly. Vive guessed that he'd learned that from Lindsey or Jennifer; they'd probably been caught, too. But the man didn't talk about Vive's friends or anyone else. He didn't even seem all that interested in what Lenie Clarke had said, which surprised Vive quite a bit; she'd been expecting a real third-degree, with inducers and neurosplicers and the whole shot. But no.
What the man seemed really interested in was the cut over Vive's eye. Had she got it from Clarke? How close had the contact been between the two of them? Vive trotted out the obvious comebacks with their obvious lesbian overtones, but deep down she was getting really worried. This voice wasn't playing any of the usual intimidation games. It didn't threaten, or gloat, or tell her how many synaptic rewires it was going to take to turn her into a good citizen. It just sounded very, very sad that Aviva Lu had been dumb enough to get involved with this whole Lenie Clarke thing.
Very sad, because—although the man never actually said it aloud—now there was really nothing he could do.
Aviva Lu sat trembling on a table in a white, white room, and pissed herself.