Her thoughts stopped as the glass door opened. Her knees felt weak, and she felt absurdly happy that she could live a few more hours.
Out marched a slender man in a brown uniform. He smoked a stimstick, the tip glowing red, and he wore his cap at a rakish angle. He smiled at them, but his mean little eyes took in their lasers, their red uniforms.
He smiled to show her she didn’t frighten him. Major Orlov was certain of it, the arrogant prick! He probably relished his position. He no doubt delighted in cowing people when he knew snipers would back his every word. So she took a wide stance and put her hands on her heavy hips. She glowered at him with the PHC look.
It didn’t impress. He saluted, allowed himself another drag on his stub of a stimstick, then took it with his slim fingers and flicked it far. In fright, Major Orlov and her men watched the smoldering stub. It seemed too much like a signal. When the stub hit the bricks and broke into sparks they all winced. But nothing bad happened.
“It’s major, I believe,” he said, with a cursory glance at her epaulets.
Major Orlov maintained her glower, and she hated him more by the nanosecond. She wasn’t used to such disrespect and she silently damned him for scaring her.
He darted a glance at her killers, and the down turn at the corner of his lips said he saw something nasty about them that one shouldn’t really talk about. So he regarded her again. “This is a restricted area, as I’m sure you know.”
Major Orlov drew a plastic computer card from her side. It was her directive. She thrust it at him.
He made no move to take it. “You must move along now, Major, and, uh, take your men with you.”
“This is direct from Beijing.” The first hint of uncertainty entered his eyes, and oh, that thrilled her.
“This is Deep-Core.” He spoke reverently.
“The SU Directorate supersedes Deep-Core.”
Momentary awe flickered across his face—that she could bear orders stamped by a Director. He suppressed the awe, and then he snatched the card and dropped it into a scanner slung on his belt. He stared at the scanner longer than necessary. Finally, he glanced at her, murmuring, “This is highly unusual.”
“Notice the seal.” She couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice. “SU Directorate.”
“Hmm.” He spoke into his cuff. Then he drew a second stimstick from his uniform.
Her men stiffened, as if this slender officer would actually do the killing. He need merely twitch his finger and lasers would cut them down. He had no need to draw a gun, not out here.
The Deep-Core officer inhaled, and the end of his stimstick glowed into life. He blew narcotic smoke into the air. Suddenly he cocked his head as if he heard an inner voice. No doubt, an implant communicator had been embedded in his skull. He lifted his eyebrows, glanced at Orlov. It took him a moment to formulate the words. “This way then,” he said, “but your goons stay behind.”
“I beg to differ. My orders clearly state I’m to help defend your station.”
“You can’t mean inside?” he asked in outrage, finally shedding his calm.
“My orders are explicit.”
“But…. That just isn’t done.”
“If you need to, reread the directive,” she said.
He spoke into his cuff again, sharply. The answer returned faster. He blinked and took the longest drag of his stimstick yet, holding the smoke in his lungs. He exhaled as if sighing. Finally, he composed himself and muttered, “Very well then, follow me.”
Major Orlov marched across the plaza toward the Deep-Core Station, her squad behind her. Inside would be armored security. They would be just as suspicious as this man was. This was a delicate operation. The elevator down would be Security’s inner sanctum, the holy of holies for these officers. Deep-Core’s orders, training and special conditioning were to destroy the elevator rather than to lose control of it. Oh yes, this would be a very delicate operation, perhaps the greatest of her career.
A pain flared in her ponderous left breast. Major Orlov feared the end, yet…. The good of the many outweighed that of the few. She knew that. It beat in her brain until she wanted to retch. So she set her teeth and marched after the slender Deep-Core officer. At least she’d take all the bastards of Greater Sydney with her, there was that much to console her. And she’d take out the hated Highborn who had brought this awful fate to pass.
Hot molten metal would spew into Greater Sydney, slaying, searing and destroying all. No one could escape. It brought an odd smile to Orlov’s lips. Then the brown-uniformed officer opened the glass door into the Deep-Core building. She followed. Behind came her killers. The extra special operation was about to begin.
16.
The frenzied hordes appalled Marten. Faintly, from down the stairwells came the sounds of gunfire and plasma cannons. The sounds lashed the crowds, the masses, and they trampled weaker people, clawed and fought to get away. Illegal weapons appeared. Shots rang out. The moans of the dying mingled with groans of terror. Hundred-man fights raged. Big men with crank bats, wearing the uniform of a local sports team, waded through the mob. Their heavy bats rose and fell. People collapsed, their skulls crushed and their faces bleeding. Kitchen knives appeared in fists, were plunged into tightly packed bodies. An overturned car plugged one lane. People scrambled to get over it, trampling a knot of school kids underneath. The old hobbled, infirm and begging for help, to be thrown aside by stronger, younger people again and again. Some of the frail gave up. Others held up their arms, pleading. Outside a theater, chorus girls screamed offers to whoever would save them.
Where any of these people thought they could hide was a mystery to Marten. But that didn’t matter. Panic overrode logic.
The lights flickered as a dreadful quake caused masonry to rain upon the mob. Shrieks and bellows rose to a crescendo as trapped people turned, clawing those nearest them in the need to get away. The crank-bat wielders were attacked from all sides and the big men went down under an avalanche of screaming people. Waves of human flesh turned in any open direction and bolted for safety. Twenty office managers in tweed suits sprinted into a building, to come tumbling back out as a drunken mob bashed them with bowling balls. Crammed bodies jammed the nearest stairwell; several young men climbed atop that packed crowd and slithered over the heaving mass. One was pulled headfirst back into the throng, his screams lost in the noise as boots and shoes crushed the life out of him. A boy, his face pale with terror, refused to move as he stood there, ashen and silent.
To Marten’s horror, a mob charged them, led by a tall man with long hair. Inhuman fear stamped their features. Demented, they could not grasp that there was no way out in this direction. Marten and the Incorrigibles were sheltered in a small cul-de-sac. Once the mob reached them, they’d be trampled, perhaps to death.
Omi raised his assault carbine to his shoulder. Flames leapt from the short snout and he trembled from the vibration. Marten couldn’t hear the shots over the wild sounds around them. The lead man blew apart in a spray of blood and bone. Behind him, others plunged to the ground, gut and chest-shot. The survivors turned as they bellowed like maddened bulls.
Trembling, Stick led them to a nearby hole in the wall. An artillery shell must have created it earlier. They ducked into what looked like a hotel lobby. There they waited as if sheltering from a storm. The mob had become like a force of nature, this one particularly unpredictable.
“Why’d you do that?” Turbo roared into Omi’s ear. It was the only way to make himself heard.
Omi didn’t say why. Like Marten and Stick, he crouched with his back against a wall. He closed his eyes and pressed the hot barrel of his gun against his forehead. Perhaps he felt bad for what he’d done. Perhaps he merely rested.
“We gotta keep moving,” Marten said.