by Simon Hawke
Techtronics." He smiled at the expression"'on her face. "You thought you recovered most of them, didn't you? Shall we bet that acrording to the invoices you were given by the factory, most of the missing warp discs were accounted for?"
"How could you know that?"
"You would be surprised, Miss Cross, at how often there are so-called 'accidental overruns' on Temporal Army contracts.
Very inconvenient for the management. It upsets the accountants no end and creates a problem of cost efficiency, especially since the Army will only pay for what it ordered and no more.
Fortunately, there are 'independent contractors' who are quite willing to assist in liquidating accidental overruns."
Andre stared at him with astonishment. "Are you telling me they sell restricted ordnance under the table, on the black market?"
"Yes, rather amusing, isn't it? I discovered that quite by accident. Imagine, I went to all the trouble and risk of hijacking warp discs when all I had to do was buy them direct from the manufacturer." He chuckled and consulted his disc once again. "In any case, a chronoplate was precisely what I needed in this particular instance. I required a temporal transit field linked through two terminals. each of which would be destroyed as it fulfilled its function. And that sequence is due to be initiated any moment now.. "
The border circuits of the chronoplate began to flicker brightly, then they flashed with an emerald glow and tiny soldiers wearing miniature floater paks started to materialize just above the border circuits. They rose up into the air, still within the transit field, and as more flying lilliputians appeared below them, the ones rising up toward the ceiling peeled off and flew in a counterclockwise circle around the room. Drakov watched them, smiling to himself, then his smile abruptly faded as the last Lilliputian peeled off from the formation.
"What is it?" said Savino, seeing the expression on his face. "Where are the rest of them?" said Drakov. "That's only a fraction of the number I sent through."
They waited, but no more Lilliputians came through. The ones already in the room continued to circle just beneath the ceiling, like bees buzzing around a hive.
"Maybe they didn't make it," said Savino. "We figured there'd be losses, didn't we?';
Drakov shook his head, frowning. "Yes, but not so many." He licked his lips nervously and checked the time again. "Come on, come on, where is it? That damn plate should have blown by now!"
He was watching the glowing border circuits, waiting for the glow to disappear, which would mean that the link on the other end had been broken by the chronoplate being destroyed.
Andre couldn't take her eyes off the circling Lilliputians, flying round and round just beneath the ceiling like miniature airplanes in a holding pattern. Circling around the chronoplate, almost as if they were waiting for something.
"Damn those little bastards!" Drakov shouted. He looked up at them with fury.
"You were in full retreat! And you forgot to blow the tenninal, you miserable, little …"
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a plasma pistol. He raised it, aiming at the chronoplate, and at the same instant, the border circuits flashed once more and Steiger came tumbling through, onto the floor.
"Creed! Look out!" Andre shouted. She eame out of the chair and launched herself at Drakov in a running dive.
Drakov fired.
The band had set up on the stage and the musicians were running through a final sound check with all the instruments and mikes. There was a massive wall of amplifiers stacked behind the band and everything was turned up full. There was a bank of synthesizers, two electric guitars, an electric bass, a gargantuan clear plastic drum kit with two huge basses, rows of accoustic and electric tom-toms, cymbals and an array of gongs and bells, and the ensemble was rounded out by the lead singer, an androgynous young man with snow white hair down to his shoulders and a strut a 7th Avenue hooker would have envied.
He paraded back and forth across the small stage, prowling like a panther in a cage, shrieking into the mike with such abandon and such force that Lucas winced, wondering how he could possibly sing like that and not scream himself hoarse. The sheer volume of the band was deafening. With his roadielike appearance, no one bothered to approach him. And with the volume of the music, conversation would have been impossible…
This was where it started, he thought in passing as he quickly scanned the club.
The heavy metal sound, which over the years became the dominant form of music, absorbing both the fringe and mainstream styles, always on the cutting edge of technology until it eventually metamorphosed into cyberpnok, the ultimate union of the musician and his instrument, where the synclaviers and percussion circuit boards were actually hardwired into the musicians' bodies.
The band stopped playing for a moment to make some minor adjustments, and the silence after such an auditory barrage was almost a shock. Lucas took advantage of it to approach one of the club's employees, a beautiful young woman in a black
Lycra miniskirt and a T-shirt emblazoned with the club's logo.
"Excuse me," he said, and the aftereffects of the band made him speak much louder than he needed to, but she seemed used to it. "I'm looking for those people who just came in here, two guys, and a girl-"
"You with the band'?" She gave him a cursory glance and went back to applying black fingernail polish to her nails.
"Yeah, and so's the girl. I'm supposed to get-"
"Upstairs."
"What?"
"Upstairs, they went upstairs."
"Oh. Thanks."
He headed for the staircase, but as he got there, the big bouncer stood in front of him with his beefy arms folded across his chest.
"Where do you think you're goin'?"
"Upstairs," said Lucas.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah."
The bouncer shook his head and rolled his shoulders back, flexing his lats and chest muscles. "I don't think so."
Lucas tried to go around him, but the bouncer stepped in front of him, putting his hand up against his chest and shoving him back. At that moment, the band started up again. Lucas didn't waste time trying to argue. The music was too loud, in any case. He simply kicked the bouncer in the groin with all his might and then swung the rolls of cable hard across his face as he doubled over with pain. Then he ran up the stairs two at time, taking advantage of the noise. He reached into the pocket of the leather jacket, took out the switchblade and flicked it open.
He reached the top of the stairs and looked around quickly.
There was no sign of Andre or Drakov or the other man. But Manelli, sitting at his table in the corner, looked up and saw him, spotted the switchblade in his hand. quickly tapped
Vincent on the shoulder and pointed at Lucas. Vincent and the other man quickly got up and started coming toward Lucas, reaching inside their coats. Lucas didn't think that they were reaching for cigars. He took the rolled cables and slung them hard at the man furthest away from him. Instinctively, the man threw his hands up to protect his face. The cables struck him and he staggered back against the balcony railing, lost his balance, and the wailing of the electric guitars drowned out his scream as he went over.
Lucas didn't stop. He continued moving forward fast after he threw the cables and just as Vincent cleared leather with his big, black Beretta, Lucas was on him, grabbing his gun hand with his left hand and with his right hand, driving the knife deep into his solar plexus and up underneath his ribs.
Vincent's breath hissed out of him and his eyes opened wide in shock, as if he was unable to believe that someone with a knife had actually kept coming when he had a gun. Then he was collapsing to the floor and Lucas had the gun. Manelli was coming up out of his chair, the girl beside him was screaming, the sound drowned out by the band, and then her scream suddenly became sharply audible as the band stopped, having seen the first gunman fall from the balcony. There were more screams coming from downstairs now and Manelli was reaching inside his coat.
Lucas raised the Beretta and shot him in the chest.
And then all hell broke loose.
The yellow cab pulled up in front of the entrance to Il Paradiso, and the moment they stepped out, the terrified driver mashed the pedal to the floor and peeled out into traffic, fishtailing and nearly causing a collision between two other cars, whose drivers blew their horns in loud, prolonged blasts of protest.
"Nervous fella," said Hunter. "He didn't even wait to collect his fare."
People were starting to queue up outside the club, waiting for the doors to open.
Their costumes ranged from the casual to the outrageous. Spikey hair in shades of blue and purple, studded and fringed leather, cheeks dusted with glitter, young men wearing eyeshadow and black lipstick, girls with their heads shaved bald. A sign advertised that a band named Flesh was playing there that night.
Hunter glanced at the kids on line, then at Gulliver's green transit fatigues, the black base fatigues that Delaney was wearing, the holstered laser on Delaney's belt and the plasma pistol strapped to his upper thigh.
"Think we're too noticeable?" he said.
Darkness suddenly appeared beside them.
"Unless you expect me to take care of everything for you, you'd better get in there right now," he said..
"Wow!" shouted a longhaired young man in a headband, faded jeans and a camo fatigue jacket festooned with military pins. and insignia. He. pointed at Darkness, standing there and flickering like a ghost on a television screen. "Check him out!".
A gum-popping black girl in spike heeled boots and Dan-skins nudged Delaney with her hip. "Yo, Rambo," she said, touching her tongue to her upper lip, "can I play with your big gun?"
"Come on," Delaney said, grabbing the bewildered Gulliver's arm and pulling him along toward the entrance to the club.
"We'll take a raincheck, honey, “ Hunter said to the black girl, then hurried after Delaney.
Darkness had disappeared again and the bewildered young longhair in the camo jacket kept pointing at the spot where he had stood and insisting to his friends on line, "He was right there, man! Seriously. Then he beamed out, just like on Star Trek!"
Two large club employees who looked like bikers stood at the door. They saw
Delaney and Gulliver coming, looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Christ, look at this," one of them said. "It's Chuck Norris and Buckaroo Banzai. "
“Aweight, hold it right there!" the other one said, pointing at them. "Look, you can't bring those sci-fi toys in here, Mac, somebody might think that it's a real-"
Delaney unholstered his laser and shot a beam straight at the sidewalk between the biker's legs.
"Ho-ly Shit!"
The biker leaped backwards. and as Delaney continued resolutely toward the door-, the other one swallowed hard and hastily opened it for him. The sound of the band making its final sound check came through and the kids on line shouted gleefully ilnd started to push through after them. As Delaney, Gulliver and Hunter pushed past a startled cashier, a body fell from the balcony and landed on the dance floor. The band fumbled to a stop and somebody screamed.
Above them, on the balcony floor, someone fired a shot. And almost simultaneously, there was the unmistakeable whump of a plasma blast. Holding his laser pistol in one hand and the leather satchel in the other, Delaney ran for the stairs.
"Hold it!'" gasped the white-faced bouncer, hunched over and clutching his groin.
Delaney slammed into him with his shoulder and sent him crashing to the floor, not even slowing down as he ran up the stairs.
"Unnnh!'" groaned the bouncer, huddling on the floor. "That's it. I quit!'"
Steiger hit the floor and rolled just as Andre struck Drakov. Drakov's shot slammed into the chronoplate, destroying it. He kicked Andre away savagely and raised his pistol once again.
Steiger fired.
Drakov threw himself to one side as the plasma blast struck the door and burned right through it, but before Steiger could fire again from his position on the floor. filament-thin laser beams came lancing down at him, striking him in the shoulder. grazing his left ear, hitting his leg and nanowly missing his groin. He cried out with pain and looked up, seeing the flock of lilliputians circling above him like tiny vultures.
"Jesus!"
He quickly rolled across the floor as a webwork of fine beams came stabbing down at him. Andre was trying to crawl out through the burning doorframe. People outside were screaming. Steiger kept rolling, following Andre out the door as the LiIliputians came swooping down after him.
Delaney reached the top of the stairs just as Steiger came rolling through the burning doorwiay with Lilliputians swarming after him. Delaney opened the leather sachel.
"Go! Go! Go!" he shouted.
The ragtag lilliputians came rising up out the bag like fighters off a carrier deck, darting up at the lilliputians swooping down on Steiger. Drakov came through the burning doorway and Delaney fIred at him with his laser. The beam struck Drakov's shoulder. He cried out and returned the fire.
Delaney leaped to one side, hit the floor and rolled. Lilliputians were swooping through the air like miniature airplanes dog-fighting. Some of the liIliputians who had been marooned back on the island spotted Drakov and swarmed after him.
Drakov sprinted for the balcony. As Delaney aimed, Drakov dove over the railing headfirst, activating his warp disc. As the astonished band members watched, a dozen laser beams pierced him as he fell, and then he suddenly vanished in midair.
Lucas dragged Andre underneath a table, pressed the barrel of the Beretta up against the chain linking her handcuffs and shot it off. Steiger stopped rolling and got to his knees in time to see a figure standing in the burning doorway of Manetti's office, leveling a gun at him. In an instant of shocked recognition, he hesitated, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Savino!" he said.
Three shots cracked out, one after the other, and Savino jerked, then toppled backward into Manelli's burning office. Gulliver stood at the bead of the stairs, his semiautomatic gripped tightly before him in both hands.
"Nice shootin', pilgrim," Hunter said, clapping him on the shoulder, "but I'd keep my head down if I were you."
Pandemonium reigned inside the club. Fine beams of deadly coherent light crisscrossed in midair, creating a lethal lattice-work of laser fire that filled the balcony floor and lanced down at the stage below. The musicians fled the stage as their amps were struck by laser beams and starting arcing, sparks shooting out from them. Smoke filled the club and the fire alarm went off. The young people who had pushed into the club were milling about below in panic, trying to fight their way back to the door while those behind them continued trying to push their way in until shouts of "Fire! Fire!" turned them around as well and sent them streaming back out into the street.
Lueas crawled over to wpere Manelli fell, took his gun and handed it Andre.
"Where's Drakov?" he shouted.
"I don't know! He must've clocked out!'"
"Damn it!"
"Gulliver!" shouted Andre, pointing to where he was huddling underneath a table, clutching his gun and looking up uncertainly, not knowing who to shoot at as the lilliputians
fought and died above him. "We've got to get him out of here!"
"Him?” said Lucas. "Hell, we've got to get out of here!"
As they scrambled over to where Gulliver was taking shelter, Hunter crouched down over Savino's body amidst the flames in Manelli's office.
"All right, you son of a bitch, where is it?" he said through gritted teeth as he pulled back Savino's right sleeve. Was he left handed?
He pulled the warp disc off Savino's left wrist. Now all he had to do was figure out if it was failsafed. The flames were getting very close. He could feel his hair crackling.
"Hunter!" shouted Delaney, from the doorway. He squinted from the smoke. The office was a conflagration. He could not get through the door. Flames licked at
Hunter's clothes. "
Hunter, are you crazy? Get the hell out of there!"
"I'm workin' on it, pilgrim." He defeated the failsafe function and quickly punched out a transition code and activated the warp disc.
"Hunter!"
The ceiling fell in.
Hunter materialized in the middle of the living room floor 'of his elegant Upper West Side townhouse. He immediately started rolling around to put out his flaming clothes. Gasping, he tore off his jacket and then rushed, still smouldering, into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and jumped in. His clothes hissed and steamed as the cold water soaked them down. He stayed there for a long time, breathing heavily as the cold water beat down on him, then he stepped, dripping, out of the shower and stripped off his soaked and ruined clothes.
He'd just barely made it. He expelled his breath and inhaled deeply, trying to calm down. That had been close. As close as he'd ever come. He'd have to move now.
He could no longer remain in this time period. Even if the Time Commandos didn't find him once again, there were still people in Manelli's organization he'd have to be on the lookout for. He'd made too many contacts. Too many enemies. He had been in a rush to establish himself and had become too visible. That was a mistake he would not repeat again..
As he changed into a fresh suit of clothes, he quickly ran over in his mind what his next few steps would have to be.
How many of his assets could he liquidate quickly? If he converted some of his wealth into precious stones, he could take them back into the past with him, but if he was able to make a few astute investments, they could mature while he clocked ahead into the future and pretended to be his own descendent. No, he thought, far too complicated and too risky and not enough time to set it up, in any case. That was another mistake. He'd not prepared an escape plan in advance. Foolish, very foolish. He'd become overconfident and it had almost gotfen him killed.
The hell with it, he thought. Be smart. Take what you can get your hands on now, cut your losses and get out while you still can. But first, there was one last thing he had to do.
He knotted his silk necktie and slipped into a brand new jacket. He quickly opened his safe and took out his important papers, domestic and Swiss accounts, stock portfolios, emergency eash, standby forged documents and several different passports. Then he picked up the Browning Hi-Power he had dropped on the carpet when he'd clocked in from the club. He jacked out the magazine and checked it, then he slapped it back in and racked the slide.
