Mona pointed to several dozen shadowy figures free-falling toward the solar panel frames. “They did.”
Overhead in the Krom factory gantry, Cosmo and Stefan watched the race with a mixture of terror and fascination. At one point Stefan’s phone vibrated. He checked the screen.
“What does it say?” asked Cosmo.
Stefan deleted the text. “Everything’s fine. See you soon.”
“Okay, I get it. Don’t ask.”
Stefan watched the race’s conclusion through field glasses. “Strange.”
“Strange?” asked Cosmo. “What’s strange?”
Stefan passed across the binoculars. “They’ve stopped. An emergency stop, too. I was sure Mona would punch out through the gate. Why would she stop on the track like a sitting duck? Unless . . .”
Cosmo felt a chill across his brow as the blood drained from his face. Unless what? He waited for Stefan to complete the thought.
“Unless someone else stopped the car for her.”
Through the field glasses, Cosmo saw Mona point to the ceiling above them. He flipped onto his back, squinting through the huge panels into the night sky beyond. Dozens of shadowy figures were hurtling through midair toward the holes in the roof. “Are those things real? Or are they some other creatures that only we can see?”
Stefan grabbed the glasses, pointing them toward the ceiling. Several black-clad figures swam into focus. Combat chutes trailed behind them, and directional gas jets were attached to each heel. Cradled in the figures’ arms were chunky assault rifles. There was a company logo emblazoned across each helmet. The same logo that flashed from the Satellite.
“Myishi Corp,” said Stefan. “Paralegals. They’re here for the Z-twelve.”
“What? All this for a car?”
Stefan clambered to his knees on the grating, hoisting his greatcoat over his head. “That car cost billions of dinars to develop. Losing it was a real kick in the teeth for Myishi. This is probably the first time it’s been out from under a lead sheet long enough to trace.”
Stefan lifted the flap of his coat. “Quickly, under here, and pray we’re not spotted.”
Cosmo crawled under the leather, beneath Stefan’s armpit. The coat smelled of hard work and lightning-rod flash. Through a gap in the coat, he watched the paralegals swoop gracefully through the gaping slots in the roof. With guiding bursts of gas from their boot jets, they avoided being snared by jutting girders and descended toward the gangs assembled below.
One ripped a mini-woofer radio speaker from a Velcro patch on his arm and dropped it to the factory floor below. It bounced a full ten feet in its plastic casing before rolling along the track to settled at Honcho’s feet. He picked it up quizzically.
The paralegal’s voice blasted from the mesh. “The Z-twelve Nitro Charger is the property of the Myishi Corporation. Step away from the car or you will be sanctioned. This is your final warning. You have ten seconds to respond.”
The gang members did not need ten seconds. Most spun their cars through a one-eighty skid, heading back toward the doors. Halfway there they noticed the three-story assault tanks blocking the exits. Myishi was pulling out all the stops on this one. The gang members began firing whatever they had at the descending paralegals.
By then the ten seconds were up, and the Myishi lawyers were legally entitled to open fire. Which they did, with the most advanced weapons in the world. The first phase was to lay down a cellophane blanket. Fleeing gang members were wrapped as they attempted to escape. Every second shell was a Shocker, the charge of which ran across the surface of the cellophane, blasting everything beneath the sticky surface into oblivion, or beyond.
The Parasites pounced like iridescent wolves, sinking through the cellophane cocoons to settle on gang members’ chests. The charge from the Shockers was too dispersed to do them any real harm; in fact it seemed to add to their enthusiasm.
The paralegals fell like deadly missiles, spitting pain and death. They hooked onto stairwells and lower gantries, picking off their prey from above. The gang members never had a chance. Most were unconscious before they had time to draw a weapon. The rest were herded into corners by lumbering assault tanks and glued to the walls by cellophane slugs.
Stefan poked his head out from under the coat. “This is all my fault,” he moaned. “The Parasites are feasting, and it’s all my doing. I gave the Z-twelve to Miguel.”
Cosmo peered down at the chaos below. “You couldn’t have known. No one could.”
Stefan’s eyes flashed in the light of electric shells. “I should have known! For three years I’ve been running from Myishi police. I know how they operate.” He pointed his lightning rod at a group of Parasites. “Too far. We don’t have the range. We need to get down there.”
Cosmo searched the melee of fleeing bodies. “I see them. They’re going under the track. They’ll be trapped.”
“I need to get lower,” Stefan muttered. “I can’t help from here.”
Cosmo smacked the grille with his fist. “Why can’t it ever rain when you want it to?”
Stefan looked at him strangely. “Rain? Of course, we need water to drive away the Parasites. We can do that much at least.”
“Now you’re telling me you can make it rain?”
Stefan was on his feet, scrambling toward an access ladder. “I can’t, but they can.”
“They?” shouted Cosmo, racing after the Supernaturalist. “Who are they?”
“There. In the doorway. You get back to the Pigmobile, try to hook up with Mona and Ditto if they make it out.”
Cosmo still didn’t get it. The only thing in the doorway was a thirty-foot-high assault tank. Surely Stefan didn’t intend to take on one of those. Surely not. Cosmo followed Stefan down a ladder. He had no intention of going back to the Pigmobile. If Stefan was going after an assault tank, Cosmo was going with him. He was, after all, one of the team.
“Paralegals,” gasped Mona. “The baddest of the bad.”
Paralegals were a three-way cross between lawyers, paratroopers, and pit bulls. They were a corporation’s last resort, and were only unleashed when there was big money at stake.
Mona twigged immediately. “They’re after the car.” She grabbed Ditto by the collar, dragging him to the lip of the track.
“Myishi shut the car down. There must be some kind of tracker in the wiring. We need to take cover.”
“Cover?” croaked Ditto, half strangled by his partner’s grip. “They’re only after the car.”
“And anyone who’s seen it or worked on it. They can’t risk another corporation stealing Myishi ideas. Everyone here will be taken in for interrogation.”
“Interrogation? A few polite questions and a cup of simcoffee?”
Mona tutted. “Sure,
amigo
. A few Shockers and a cup of sodium Pentothal. We’ll be lucky if we can count to ten by the time they’ve finished.”
Ditto nodded. “Cover. Good idea.”
They jumped from the assembly line, worming their way between the girders that propped up the line. The asphalt was littered with juice pouches and gum. The stink of generations of assorted garbage was sharp in their nostrils.
Ditto slapped his sleeve as though that could dislodge the smell. “This jacket is ruined. I’ll never get the stink out.”
Mona crawled deeper into the shadows. “At least you’ll still have a nose to smell the stink.”
The shooting started. Huge blobs of liquid cellophane spattered the gang members and their cars. These were followed by searing jolts of electricity.
“They’re getting the tar-and-spark treatment,” said Ditto. “I almost feel sorry for them.”
Honcho pinwheeled past their hiding place, chest lights flashing furiously. A Shocker clipped his elbow, sending a charge jittering through his torso. The bulbs below his skin blew out like bullets. A Parasite was on him in under a second. Honcho fought on oblivious, screaming his rage at anyone in earshot. Eventually a paralegal casually plugged him with a cellophane slug. The Bulldog leader flapped weakly beneath a layer of rubbery liquid.
A low rumbling came from the back of the hall, like a wolf growling in a tunnel.
Mona knew every engine signature in the book. “Assault tanks. Here to mop up the mess. We have to get out of this place.”
Ditto’s head bobbed in mock happiness. “You don’t say?”
They crawled through years of debris, looking for a crack in the Myishi forces. But the paralegals were efficient as well as deadly. Obviously they had taken a while to survey the building before attacking. Every square inch was covered by a Myishi soldier. They clipped themselves onto railings on the upper levels, triangulating their fire to secure the building. In minutes, most had made their way to ground level and were herding any conscious gang members into the tanks’ holding pens.
Meanwhile the Parasites were sucking life force with horrifying gusto, glowing bright gold with swirling energy. It was almost too much to bear. A very large part of Mona wanted to crawl under a girder and go to sleep; she wanted to sleep and dream of peace and happiness. If I get out of here, she thought, I’m giving up for good. Maybe go to South America and earn a living diving for shells. Sure, she told herself, if there was an ounce of seawater left on the planet that wouldn’t bleach her skin.
“I don’t see a way out,” puffed Ditto.
Mona noticed Miguel being carted away, his features barely recognizable beneath a layer of cellophane. There was a Parasite clamped onto his chest. “Me neither. Stefan will do something. He wouldn’t just leave us here. Or maybe Cosmo can pull another miracle out of the bag.”
Ditto grimaced. “I like Cosmo, but he’s a kid. The Creeper thing was a fluke, he’s not going to save anyone.”
Mona rubbed her brow with a knuckle. “You’re wrong about him, Ditto. There’s something about that kid. He’s got guts, brains too. Cosmo will get us out of here. I know he will.”
Cosmo followed Stefan down a metal ladder surrounded by a tubular cage. Stefan heard his footsteps clanging on the rungs. “I thought I told you to go back to the Pigmobile,” he whispered, wary of the two paralegals forty feet below.
“Mona and Ditto are trapped down there,” Cosmo replied simply. “I have to help. No one else is running away, so why should I?”
Stefan lifted his fuzz plate for a moment. Some of the tension seeped from his shoulders. He was glad to have Cosmo with him.
“Okay, good, you’re a Supernaturalist. Pigheaded, just like the rest of us. I have to make it to that assault tank on the northeast corner. You can open a hole for me.”
“Open a hole?”
“We get down to the next level and borrow a few Myishi rods. I’ll make a run for the tank and you knock out anyone pointing a weapon at me.”
Cosmo swallowed. This was war. Stefan was talking about war. “What about you?”
Stefan settled his mask over his face. “They’ll probably get me, but you can go out the way we came in. A distraction is the only way to save Mona and Ditto.”
Cosmo summoned resolve from somewhere. “Okay. I’ll do my best. Let’s go.”
Stefan actually winked behind his red lenses. “Good. And if you happen to hit a few Parasites, I won’t be too upset.”
Cosmo swallowed, trying to dislodge his heart, which seemed to be jammed in his throat, and followed Stefan down the ladder. Stefan’s feet seemed to make no sound as they descended, but to Cosmo’s ears his own boots rang out like church bells on the rungs.
Below, the two paralegals were enjoying themselves, laying down a saturation cellophane blanket in one corner of the factory. Their rifles bucked as they sent cartridges arcing toward a group of Sweethearts.
“Fish in a barrel,” said one.
“Candy from a baby,” agreed the other.
Stefan dropped the final few feet, landing behind the lawyers. Without pause for a movie-hero quip, he bashed their heads together, and the two men slid to the stairwell without so much as a whimper.
“Lawyers,” grunted Stefan, unclipping their rifles. “I liked them better when they fought with briefcases.” He flipped one over, removing his rappelling rig. Stefan let the straps out to their limits, fastening the rig across his own chest.
“I’m going in as fast as possible. Hopefully by the time they realize I’m not Myishi Corp, it will be too late.”
Cosmo dropped onto the walkway. His stomach felt as though it were still halfway up the ladder. Stefan thrust a hefty rod into his arms. “It’s set on cellophane slugs. Aim higher than the target—these shells have a bit of drop on them. Two feet above the head should be fine. You have about twenty slugs in this rod, maybe thirty in the other.”
Cosmo studied the mystifying array of valves, barrels, and buttons. “I can’t work this.”
Stefan spun the rod jamming the butt against Cosmo’s shoulder. “Think of it like a computer; you don’t have to know how it works, or even use all the functions. All you need are sights, barrel, and trigger.” He pulled a circular optic from its niche in the barrel, using the suction pad to seal it to Cosmo’s right eye socket. “The sight gives you distance to the target, wind condition, and number of slugs left in the clip. Lie on the walkway and wrap anyone who casts a crooked look in my direction.”
Cosmo lay down. “But what if . . .”
“No time for what-ifs,” interrupted Stefan, securing the rappelling spike to a girder. “Do your best. Remember, Mona and Ditto are depending on us.”
No pressure, thought Cosmo glumly.
Stefan vaulted the safety rail, plummeting toward the factory floor a hundred feet below. Cosmo followed his progress with the rod’s barrel, the electronic sights feeding magnified images to his right eye. Stefan was descending into a world of madness. Assault tanks rumbled across the floor, bagging any stray fugitives with cannon slugs. Parasites sucked life force from the injured, and gang members struggled in cellophane balloons like souls trapped in hell.
The rappelling rig slowed Stefan’s drop, but the cord ran out when he was still twenty feet up. His weight popped the reel and the tall youth plummeted earthward. Fortunately a squad of paralegals broke his fall. Stefan was out of the rig and running before the moaning stopped.
One paralegal made it to his feet, staggering after Stefan. Cosmo moved the rod’s barrel and the eyepiece’s sight moved correspondingly. He centered the crosshairs on the paralegal’s head, then remembered Stefan’s advice and raised the barrel a couple of feet.