Kaleidocide (48 page)

I hoped that his dream thing was real in this case, if only because he could provide more time for me to get Lynn away to a safe place. At the very least, it certainly gave the little man a lot of confidence.

“I'll take the roof,” Min said, and when Ni asked why, he responded, “Because you can't do this.” He fired one of his arm guns at a skylight directly above him, then jumped thirty feet up and through the hole he had made. The broken pieces of transteel cascaded down to where he had stood, and the others had to move away to avoid being hit by them. Ni merely grunted in response to Min's display, pulled her own two guns out and strolled toward the main entrance. She was much more realistic than Stephenson about her chances of surviving this, and was much less eager than he. But as always, she did her job without complaining, and I admired that.

I told Jon and Lynn to head up the stairs, and spent a moment preparing the best visual strategy for managing this in a way that could save Lynn and the baby's lives. I transferred the double's view from the screen to the net room, opening it up in front of me as big as I could with a high enough resolution. The holo stretched out in all directions around me so that I could take advantage of Jon's peripheral vision and see everything that he was seeing. I opened three small views toward the bottom left on the bigger view so I could see what was happening through Min's and Ni's eyes, and Stephenson's glasses. I toggled off their audio for now so I could concentrate on talking to Jon and Lynn, and I opened two more views on the bottom right of the big one. One was the aerial view of the Center so I could see the enemy movements—at least those outside the buildings—and the other was one a blank one that I wanted to be ready in case I could get Lynn into an aero and fly her away from the scene. So when I looked straight ahead with my own eyes, I saw exactly what Jon was seeing, but I could move them down and watch the smaller views if I wanted to, while still being somewhat aware of what was going on with Jon and Lynn.

I did watch the smaller views for a few moments, as Jon and Lynn were being ushered into the prisoners' corridor by a jail guard. In the aerial view on the bottom right, I saw the assault force arrive at the Center, the light blue helicopters dropping the light blue SUVs at four different spots around the jail, and the mercenaries with light blue armor rushing out of the trucks and toward the exact spots I had predicted. The scene gave new meaning to the term “kaleidocide,” because I knew that a lot of people, including my protection team members, were probably going to die from this swarm of light blue attackers, at a building covered with the same color. I did take some heart, though, when I saw the squad enter the big Hall of Justice building on the ground floor, which hopefully meant they would encounter Stephenson on their way in, rather than my wife and my double. And I took even more heart when I saw Min leap from the top of the hill toward the two helicopters that were about to fire into the jail as I had predicted. The big cyborg fired a couple small but powerful rockets from his arm at one of the birds on his way up, and grabbed onto the legs of the other when he reached it, directing some armor-piercing bullets into its cockpit.

The helicopter that was hit by Min's rockets exploded in an orange and red ball of flame (my kind of colors!), and the one he held onto started to spiral toward the ground, its dead pilot slumped over the controls. Min let go and fell to the ground, only to be fired upon by the squad of attackers who had been dropped off near the top of the hill to assure no one escaped that way. The big cyborg had to jump back up to the crashing helicopter and use it for cover from them, but another one was now hovering nearby and drawing a bead on him, so there was soon no place for him to take cover. I glanced over to Ni's view to see that she was engaging the mercenaries outside the main entrance to the jail, in a similar fashion—valiant yet ultimately futile. Stephenson was running through his hallway in the direction of the enemy, but he hadn't encountered them yet.

I couldn't worry about those team members for one more moment—I had to turn my full attention to Jon's view and protect my wife and baby as best as I could from thirty miles away. As they moved down the empty prisoner's corridor, I was still worried that the attackers might know about or find the hidden tunnel, so I told Jon to take the safeties off my boas. But I had him leave them in the holsters, because I didn't want him to use them unless he absolutely had to, for fear that his amateurism might cause him to shoot Lynn by mistake.

All three of us were suddenly terrified by a loud and jarring concussion that shook the whole corridor. But then I realized it was an explosion on another floor, and calmed Jon and Lynn down by telling them that it was a good sign because it meant that the attackers were probably engaging Stephenson on the floor below, and didn't know where they were.

For confirmation, I looked at the little man's view on the bottom left of mine. At first I thought he was dead, because it was blank, but then I realized that his view had been obscured by the blast, and he had survived it somehow. He was now hiding in the rubble of a room next to the hallway, where the wall had been blasted away, and he had his rifle trained on the path that the attack squad would be taking on their way to the jail. As I watched, the first few of the blue-suited soldiers came into view, and Stephenson opened fire on them.

“Where to now?” said Jon's voice in my ear. I jerked my attention back to my big view and saw that he and Lynn had arrived in the part of the prisoners' corridor that provided access to the courtrooms in the Hall of Justice. I sent them through one of the rooms, into the beautiful, long atrium that ran through the center of the building, and then to the foyer by the exit on the north side of the building, which was on the other side from the fight going on at the jail and the lot where we had parked our aeros. A glance at Ni's view showed that she was still occupying the enemy force there, but it was way too hot for me to get Lynn to one of the aeros. I told them to stop where they were and take a break, partially because Lynn was huffing and puffing, but also because I was concerned that an enemy copter was circling high enough in the air and close enough to that far side of the building, and it might see them if they exited.

I thought about hiding Lynn somewhere in the building, which had by now been emptied of all the county employees, for the fifteen to twenty minutes until our Firehawks arrived. But I hesitated because I was afraid that the mercs might be scanning the property and would see her heat signature, think she might be me, and hit her location with grenades or rockets. I was soon glad that I didn't go that route, because my fear was confirmed when Terrey's voice came over the comm.

“They must have detected Lynn and your double,” he said, “because the squad in the court building just turned around and headed their way.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Looks like about six,” Terrey said, which meant Stephenson had taken out almost half of them, and now would be in the clear because they had left his location. I hoped he would follow and distract them further, but I couldn't count on him slowing them down, and then Terrey made it very clear that Lynn and Jon had to run. “The fourth squad, which was not being engaged, is also moving in their direction.”

That left me with no choice, so I told Lynn and Jon to run out into the parking lot behind the building, and head toward a huge auto transport truck that was parked there, presumably because the driver was visiting the DMV inside the building when it was evacuated. I wanted to put them in something more secure and powerful than a car, and an idea had come to me about how we could use the big carrier to our advantage. Incidentally, I also noticed that the truck was the most colorful object in the parking lot, since it had ten new cars of different shades secured to the top and bottom racks behind the big cab. I didn't know if Terrey would think the colors were good or bad luck, but I didn't have time to worry about that, because two of the enemy helicopters were now swinging around the building toward them. Lynn and Jon would be easy targets for the guns and rockets on those birds in about twenty seconds, whether they made it to the truck or not.

 

43

THE BRIDGE

Lynn and Jon were running hand in hand—even she didn't mind doing that with a “monstrosity” when her life was on the line.

I was about to tell them to separate from one another in the hopes that the enemy aircraft would only fire on Jon, when two aeros suddenly appeared from the east over their heads and flew directly toward the helicopters. These were two peacers who had been nearby and came when they heard what was happening, and since our aeros were armored but not armed, they had to be creative in how they engaged the sikersky Primes. So both of them used their aeros as missiles, hurling them toward the enemy, and one of the peacers even extended half of her body out of the open driver's side window and fired both of her handguns at the helicopter as she approached it. That pilot swerved out of her way rather easily, but had to evade her gunfire as she passed. The other aero was still being steered by the peacer inside, and so collided directly with its fast-turning target, lodging its nose in the side of the helo and sending them both into a spin that would take a while to recover from. Soon a third aero with another peacer arrived and joined the fray, and now I was more confident that Lynn and Jon could make an escape in the car carrier.

I thought briefly again about sending the two of them in different directions, in different vehicles, but it was the Wild West on that property right now, especially with the two squads of attackers swarming out of the building into the parking lot. I made a quick judgment call that I would rather have Lynn with me, or with my other me at least, so I told them to get in the truck and walked Jon through hot-wiring the engine. He was a quick study, and soon the powerful vehicle was pulling out of the parking lot with all twelve tires screeching. If the SUVs were able to pursue them, the cab would likely take some gunfire, so I told Lynn to curl up in the sleeping compartment in the back of it. If the helicopters were able to pursue them, however, and they had any rockets left, it wouldn't make any difference where Lynn was when the whole truck got incinerated.

“Min and Ni,” I shouted after noticing their windows in my holo were still active. “We're on the road, so focus on taking down the three remaining Primes, or at least keep them too busy to follow.”

They both acknowledged my order, and I watched briefly through their views and the overhead one as they disentangled themselves from battles with the foot soldiers, some of whom had already left to clamber into the SUVs and pursue the car truck. Both cyborgs had run out of ammo long before this, so Ni dropped the rifle she had taken from one of the attackers and liberated a guided RPG launcher from another. With amazing speed she moved into a position where she could fire it at a couple of the helicopters.

Meanwhile Min, who had been flashing in and out of cover brandishing the two deadly blades that were stored in his back, stopped hacking at the other group of mercs and made two massive leaps toward the Prime that had eaten the aero and was struggling to maintain altitude near the ground. He climbed in the hole on the side of the helicopter and took a flurry of bullets from the pilots while he used his massive strength to push the damaged aero back out. The Prime immediately stabilized and gained altitude, but the pilots wouldn't be saying thank-you to the big Chinese man, because he leapt upon them and threw them out of the same hole. He took control of the bird and turned its weapons on the others, which I knew would definitely occupy them for a while. I also knew, however, that Min's built-in Atreides shield only had enough power to function for a limited time, and it was probably close to the end of its battery life. And Ni had only so many RPGs to fire at the Primes, so I knew that before long one or more of the helicopters would be able to catch up to the truck that Jon and Lynn were fleeing in. I just hoped that the truck could make it to our approaching Firehawks before that happened, so they would have some protection. I was sure, however, that the enemy SUVs would overtake them before the cavalry arrived, so they would have to protect themselves from that danger.

With that in mind, I told Jon to head south on the 101 freeway and to acquaint himself with the special controls between the two seats in the front of the cab. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic on the freeway because it was the middle of the day. There were, however, too many hills to climb for the huge vehicle to maintain a high speed, and I knew the enemy SUVs would be catching it too soon. So I told Jon to veer off to the left onto 580 East, since that was a flatter road, and mostly downhill to the bay.

“That's good,” Terrey said, obviously still watching all this with great interest, while speeding north from the city. “The Firehawks are coming across the bay from the west, so you should cross their path on or near the bridge. They'll take care of anything that follows you.”

Despite myself, I couldn't help thinking about Stephenson's other dream when Terrey mentioned the bridge we were now heading toward. It certainly was big enough for someone to fall to his death from it, but there were heavy railings on the sides to prevent such an eventuality, at least while inside a vehicle. Terrey didn't say anything about the dream thing, but he did mention the other weird metaphysical theory that we had been hearing about too much.

“I like your choice of transportation,” he said. “Very colorful.”

“You
would
think of that,” I said.

“And you're telling me you didn't?”

I didn't have a chance to respond, because San interrupted us to tell me that the four armored SUVs were now approaching fast behind Lynn and Jon. They had obviously been souped up inside as well as outside, and most of the others cars on the road in front and in back of us moved to the side of the road or stopped when they saw them speeding up to the rear of the car carrier.