The Burn Zone (57 page)

“
Thirty-six and 103rd!
”
I called. Vamp straddled the bike a few spots down, and signaled back.

I opened the emitters, and my stomach dropped as I rocketed up through the stream of wind and ash howling over the top of the lot. Black grit
and soot chaff stung my arms, raining against the side of the bike until I cleared the worst of it and was out into the open air where twilight had fallen. The city blazed with light past the wall in the distance.

Off to my right, I saw Vamp and Nix appear in a plume of gray ash. Behind them, the force field glowed faint blue in front of the great wall of the ship
’
s north face.

I didn
’
t know how long it would take for security at the wall to detect us, but I guessed not long. I brought the bike around and locked on to the gate hub
’
s location with the GPS.

Please let this work....

I leaned forward and held on tight as I gave the bike everything she had. Below me, the sea of ruins and rubble became a blur of gray and black.

Less than a minute later, something flashed up ahead. I shielded my face with one forearm, squinting into the light as one of the floodlights found me. A red warning message appeared on the windscreen
’
s heads-up display.

Stop your approach and wait for security to escort you back to the wall.

There wasn
’
t time to worry about what Vamp and Nix were doing. The message flashed as I cut the wheel and the bike spun around 180 degrees in the air. The wave of dust and ash kicked up in the wake blotted out the worst of the blinding light, but the engine sputtered and when I tried to breathe in I choked on it.

I opened up the emitters, and the nose of the bike lurched upward. Hard flecks of rim sediment rained over me as I rocketed up out of the cloud and into the clear night air above. The bike threatened to go over, but I locked my feet in the metal stirrups and held fast as I tried to aim the nose back down.

The floodlight swept back in my direction and found me again as I cranked the throttle, but when I tried to turn, the bike hesitated. Rim dust had clogged up the cooling vents, causing one side to drag. As I dove, I went into a spin.

The skyline streaked by in front of me, and I caught a flash of Vamp and Nix
’
s bike as a warning shot boomed through the night air. I began to slip off the edge of the seat, and struggled to right myself while more warning messages flashed on the windshield
’
s holoscreen:
Stop the bike or you will be fired on.

I wrestled the spin into a wide spiral. I
’
d intended to head back down on the other side of the cloud before they could find me again, but I was still way too high and totally exposed.

Don
’
t shoot,
I broadcast. I had no idea if they were listening or not.
Don
’
t shoot. We escaped from—

You are wanted by Hangfei security. Stop your approach to the wall and await a military escort.

I can
’
t, I—

This is your last warning.

I pushed back my heel on the right pedal, killing the emitter that had lost its partner.
The bike steadied about ninety feet in the air and below I could see the big, lazy swirl of dust beginning to lean in the night breeze. A shower of grit streaked diagonally through the beam of the floodlight as it zeroed back in on me.

A bright light began to flash from somewhere ahead, and something whipped by on my left like a stream of giant, angry hornets. A beat later I heard the low, rhythmic thumping of automatic gunfire.

Last chance.
Stop the bike—

I cut the channel and pegged the forward throttle. As I picked up speed and the wind began to roar in my ears, the turret opened up again. Tracer rounds spat through the darkness below as they struggled to adjust the angle.

There was a break in the shooting and I killed all the emitters at once. The inertia carried me forward, and then my stomach fluttered as the bike began to fall like a thrown stone. I began a free fall down toward the wall where a turret spat out an arc of shell casings. Rounds whistled over my head as I dipped below the line of fire.

Almost there
...

Red emergency lights lit up all along the wall, and a klaxon began to sound, echoing off into the night as the wall of buildings ahead rushed forward to meet me.

Another turret opened up as I turned the emitters back on, stopping the bike fast enough to make my tail-bone bang onto the seat cushion. More rounds whined past and now I could actually see the guards stationed along the wall below, one pointing up in my direction as
two more fought to
reposition the turret. One soldier pulled out a handgun and aimed it toward me as I closed in.

I heard the pops as the row of red lights flashed past beneath me, the klaxon so loud now that it hurt my ears. A bullet punched through the windscreen, leaving a single hole in the middle of a web of cracks. Two more rounds hit the bike
’
s underbelly as I cleared the wall and then plunged in between two buildings on the other side.

The street below was filled with a cheering, waving mass of people. As I rocketed past a building face, I saw rows of parade-goers lined up on the fire escape there, shouting as I passed. Masked faces turned upward to follow me as I came in way too fast, and the crowd surged as people scrambled to get out of the way. Up ahead, a set of blue lights flashed and a siren chirped, changing in pitch as I streaked past.

In the rearview display I could make out a sliver of the rim wall between the towering buildings. Red lights still flashed there, but I couldn
’
t see the other bike. The klaxon was still going, but they
’
d stopped firing.

I sailed over the sea of bodies, whipping out of the side street and into an explosion of colored neon lights, flashing signs, and dancing, singing, screaming people.

The main strip was alive, all four lanes filled with a parade of multistoried floats, marching soldiers, dancers, stilt walkers, and fire-breathers, all moving through a polyethylene blizzard of confetti. Above the procession, enormous balloons depicting the different forms of jiangshi lumbered between the buildings, staring down at the crowd with their huge iridescent eyes.

I banged a left, and my turn went wide as I veered toward the parade line. I banked, just clearing the side of a massive balloon being towed down the street below by a large utility vehicle. Trailing streamers that made up the jiangshi
’
s seaweed hair slapped against the bike
’
s
windscreen as I tried to peel away, thumping along the balloon
’
s outer skin. The bike bucked underneath me as I pushed through, cracks from the bullet hole splitting along the length of the windshield until it finally snapped. Half of it broke loose and hit me in the shoulder as it spun off into the air behind me. I bumped the balloon again, then pushed off it with one foot and dove down over the heads of the cheering crowd.

Up ahead, the parade trailed off like a giant, electric caterpillar, the floats and balloons crawling forward down the length of the strip. Floodlights crisscrossed through the sky above while bottle rockets and bags of red dye jumped up out of the blanket of parade-goers like bubbles popping over the top of a soda glass. Designs of sparkling light paint covered the surfaces of the
behemoths as they lumbered, venting waves of streamers and confetti in their wakes.

The thumping beat of music swelled as I closed in, so loud that it managed to drown out a crowd that covered every inch of sidewalk below as far as the eye could see. Masks of monsters grinned up from the blanket of bodies, while fists pumped in time with the music. As I passed, costumed dancers writhed and stomped on the tiers of a gaudy float temple, shaking the grave markers above them. Another siren whooped briefly before the techno beat snuffed it out. Blue and red flashing lights were piling up down the street behind us, angry strobes against the frantic light show.

I slipped around the street corner between the face of the building and the temple float next to it. On my left, people were hanging out of the windows hooting and hollering, while on the right a row of skull-masked dancers at window level were writhing, shaking tasseled bronze pasties at guys who leered and whistled across from the building next to them.

The bike
’
s main emitter sputtered out with a series of
loud, electric snaps. Dropping down past two more rows of dancers, I leaned on the horn as the crowd tried to make a hole below.

When the last guy was clear, I killed the engine. The bike dropped the last six feet and crashed down onto the sidewalk.

~ * ~

Chapter Twenty-four

03:46:11 BC

A packet of dye struck my chest and exploded in a cloud of red powder. Another came right behind it as the crowd surged back in around the crashed bike.

I tried to see through the sea of flailing bodies, but between the costume streamers and the shower of plastic bits, it was hard to see much of anything. I stood up on the airbike
’
s seat and squinted into the bright parade lights that shone down from the massive balloons above, cocking my head to bring up the 3i display.

Vamp, where are you?

Here.

The underbelly of another bike veered out over the street above while people cursed at it from the windows. It banked back around to the corner about thirty meters away, and I caught a glimpse of Vamp riding on top, Nix tucked in behind him, as he signaled down at me. He brought the bike down, buzzing the crowd in a tight, descending circle to try and clear them out of the way so he could land. As he dropped down toward the street, he pointed back behind us.

Behind you.

I turned and looked up in time to see a security vehicle coming in fast from above. Its lights were going full tilt, and in seconds the siren wail rose over the cacophony of music, fireworks, and screaming. The car
dove
down at a sharp angle, and the crowd around us back-pedaled into one another, trying to scatter as the aircar closed in.

When I turned back, Vamp had the bike down. I could make out the headlamp shining through the crowd across the street. He and Nix were struggling to reach me while a second security vehicle zipped out from over a side street and disappeared behind the giant parade balloon that filled the sky above us. Its enormous, leering face gazed down over the procession of floats below it, light paint flashing in brilliant patterns down the sides of its serpentine body. Long feathery fins trailed from both sides, rippling in the wind as it swam through the air.

People scrambled as the sirens grew louder, shoving each other to try and get out of the way. The ship
’
s floodlight snapped on and a cone of bright white light shone down over the parade-goers. Bits of paper and other assorted road trash were caught in the gravity field and formed a cresting wave in the air before sprinkling back down over the crowd below.

“
Coming through!
”
I yelled, pushing my way through the crowd toward Vamp. All I could see was a wall of sweaty chests and armpits.
“
Move!
”

This is a madhouse. We
’
ll never even make it to the gate.

I chanced a look back and was able to spot the vehicle
’
s flashing lights through the crowd. A uniformed man stood up on the side of my abandoned airbike, pointing in our direction.

Pushing on, I managed to reach Vamp and Nix and signaled toward the opposite side of the street. Vamp signaled back to me as he tapped the side of his head.

Check eyebot.

I brought up the 3i map and saw that the security team that had just landed back behind me was now visible as a cluster of red markers on the map, and there were two more growing at each of the block
’
s street corners.

A path between them was clear, at least for now. I pointed again, then squeezed through the crowd and ducked under the street barrier as a group of stilt-walking ghouls approached through the falling plastic flakes. Firecrackers popped overhead as I dashed out across the street, Nix and Vamp hot on my heels. A forest of rhythmically swaying stilts began to close in, towering in front of a pair of giant, glowing, googly eyes that stared out of a monster face behind them. I darted between the moving stick legs and made for the sidewalk as one of them lurched to try and avoid me. The crowd
oohed
as the guy perched up on top almost lost his balance.