Chen shrugged. "I'm assuming there would be no way to prove it was anything but lab equipment?" she said.
Lafarge nodded. "Not until it was fired up. Then the neutrino flux would give it away, even to your equipment . . . but that would be too late."
"It would?" Chen said.
"I'm presuming the drakensis wouldn't activate the power source until the last set of tests needed on the signaling equipment."
He shrugged. "I'm also assuming it'll get the signaling device right—but under the circumstances, we'd better take the pessimistic interpretation." His head came up. "I'd better go make sure you're not interrupted. I think . . ." He turned and strode away.
***
Looping back on your own trail was good tactics. Although now I wish I'd just outrun those ferals, Gwen thought as she trotted southward, holding her speed carefully down to that of a human jogger—unusual in this neighborhood at night, but not totally bizarre. Her playfulness had gotten the better of her.
"This is war," she reminded herself. Not recreation, not hunting goblins or grizzly bears for the fun of it.
She slowed, walking through the night streets. There was a gathering of cars at the spot she had turned on the muggers; their heavy chemical stink made it hard to pick up individual scents, even downwind and as close as half a kilometer. Gwen looked around. The buildings were not too high here, mostly flat-roofed and built of brick. She crouched, leapt ten feet upward to clamp her hands on a metal bracket, then swarmed up the side and flipped over the parapet to land on the flat graveled-asphalt surface of the roof. Ventilator shafts and the square man-high covering of a stairwell dotted it. She bent over until the fingertips of her outstretched hands almost brushed the gravel, ran across the roof and leaped again to land atop the stairwell cover with her weight resting on fingers, thumbs, and toes.
Ah. She willed her sight into telescope mode, letting herself sink lower until only the top of her head and her eyes showed. Yes, that's the policeman. Her mind enhanced the images, branding close-ups of the faces into her memory and that of her transducer. Odd about the policeman. He may know about me, but Jennifer certainly doesn't.
Yes, that's him. The Samothracian was walking away from the flashing lights and huddled humans.
She snarled silently, a thread of saliva dangling from one lip. Rush them? She could be down from here in a few seconds, then charge out of the darkness faster than a racehorse, kill, vanish. Cut off the Samothracian's locally-recruited limbs. Literally; the layer knife was ready in the knapsack at her back.
No, too risky. Not while the cyber-warrior was nearby; and besides, there were too many humans there, too many videocameras. The last thing she needed was incontrovertible proof of her own existence flashed out over the news services.
Now, which way had the Samothracian gone? Ah. Along her original trail. The problem was that molecular machines could track the drifting particles of scent just as well as a gene-engineered nose. Better, in some respects. And she suspected that the Samothracian would have at least a small faber with him to manufacture what he didn't already have in his covert-operative kit.
Two can play at that game, she thought, reaching into a pocket and pressing the control stud of a small metal oblong. There was no audible hiss, even to her ears, but the molecules drifting out would bind to hers and blanket her scent very effectively. She wrinkled her nose slightly; it was a little like being invisible, the same sort of mental jar you would feel looking down and not seeing yourself.
Gwen leopard-crawled forward to the edge of the roof, filtering the noise background. There. That was the pattern of his walk, two streets over. It was only about ten meters from roof to roof, across the narrow intervening alleyways. She backed halfway across, braced, ran and leapt. The soaring was like being in zero-g again, but better, with the wind in her face. The thump of landing was soft as she used legs and arms to spring-cushion the impact, and the background noise was high. This time she kept well back from the edge, relying on nose and hearing and the knowledge of her own path the first time. She'd been high-scent then, sweating from fight and rut; easy for the enemy's sensor to follow.
Wait. Another leap. This time there was a human on the roof, cigarette frozen halfway to his mouth as he stared at her with a yokel gape. She came soaring down out of the night and landed next to him, twitched the tobacco out of his mouth.
"Those things are bad for you. And you didn't see me."
The Samothracian was disappearing into the darkened space beneath a highway, the river just visible to her right. She stuffed her shoes into the knapsack and then turned, slipped her legs over the edge and went down the face of the building in a controlled fall, breaking her momentum with snatch-grabs at cornices and window-ledges. The impact at the bottom was enough to bring a slight grunt, and then she was running lightly on the balls of her feet. Accelerating to full speed, fifty kilometers per hour, arm going back over her shoulder to take the hilt of the layer knife. Downwind from him to her, the slightly off scent filling her nose.
Time slowed, awareness expanded. The target was in local clothes, jeans, windbreaker, walking with his hands in his pockets. Undoubtedly wearing the softsuit under the clothes, but not covering his extremities. One strong cut to the back of the head. Reinforced bones or no, that would open his skull like topping a hard-boiled egg.
Something, the soft touch of her feet on the pavement or her breathing or the cloven air of her passage itself, warned him. She shrieked a long howling cry of frustration as the layer knife slammed into an upraised arm that shed it with a long clang-hisss. Shreds of fabric spattered for yards around, and the jarring impact shuddered up her arm and into the shoulder-joint with a force that would have shattered human bones. The momentum of her 195 pounds threw them both spinning, him backward. She turned the motion into a flying leap that ended behind a concrete barricade.
Crack. White fire lanced into the surface, and light battered her eyes as lime and steel burned. Ozone and combustion products clawed at her nose and throat, burning at her lungs.
Gwen skittered backward in a spider-crawl, over the asphalt, underneath a parked car, further back behind another lip of concrete at the edge of a parking lot. Possibly I was slightly hasty, she thought.
Crack, as the car she'd passed under took a bolt of blue-white light. Steel vaporized, the vacuum of superheated air sucked fuel out into a mist of droplets and exploded. That turned the automobile into a fuel-air bomb of impressive size. Gwen tumbled backward like a scrap of paper in the breeze, twisting to keep the supernal sharpness of the layer knife's edge away from her own skin, thudding painfully into stone and concrete and metal. Her hair singed and stank; cars near the one struck by the energy bolt exploded, and then more in a chain-reaction across the parking lot. A pillar of fire was rising into the night sky, and sirens wailed in the distance. Lights swept up the Hudson under the whirring blades of a helicopter.
A lake of fire and twisted metal lay before her. Gwen spat blood to clear her mouth and resheathed the layer knife, willing away pain. Nothing really damaged, she decided after a brief check. Hearing slightly stunned, abrasions and burns that would heal, a little scorching to her upper lungs and bronchi.
Drawing the plasma gun from its sheath would expose it to the Samothracian's sensors, but right now she wanted a weapon with a little more distance effect. She set it to needle-beam and waited, with the water to her back. Earth was cool beneath her.
The enemy came walking through the fire like an eyeless statue of living metal, his armor covering him in a fluid surface the color of mercury lit from within. Scraps of cloth flickered away from the softsuit's perfectly reflective surface in flame and ash. Her first shot struck the ground at his feet, lifting and toppling him backward. The second struck at the weapon in his right hand. The Samothracian curled around it protectively and rolled backwards into the fire, hiding himself in its heat and glow.
Damn. She keyed her transducer:
We've got to stop mee
ting like this.
A bolt out of the fire, gouging earth into steam near her face. She scuttled down the embankment and snapshot back at the transducer's triangulation-point of where the Samothracian was. He'd have moved too, of course.
The humans will be here momentarily, she went on. Shall we call a temporary truce? Their government is more likely to believe my lies than your truth.
Something small and dense arched out of the spreading pool of burning gasoline. Her wrist moved in a small, precise movement and her finger stroked the trigger, even as her other arm came around to shade her eyes.
The air picked her up and slammed her down again on the ground. The light was bright enough to hurt even through clenched eyelids and the flesh of her arm; that must have been visible all over the city.
Gwen fired again before the flash had died; this time into a large truck still intact at the edge of the lot. The liquid inside was heavy heating oil; it ignited and began to burn as it gushed out, a sweeping wave of thick black liquid four inches high as it poured over the shattered lot. The fire flared up higher, this time spreading a pall of thick tarry smoke.
Have you no concern for your fellow humans? she asked, slithering backward.
The mental impression of a voice answered her, cold with rage: more than you.
Then you must have realized the precautions I could take.
better the planet be depopulated than domesticated.
Perhaps I’ve readied a kill-plague, she answered. Perhaps not. I've already started improving the place; check their fertility rates over the last two years.
While she spoke silently she had been hyperventilating. I'll leave him to think about that, she decided, stripped off the hampering clothes, broke contact and slid backwards into the water.
The dirty liquid closed over her head. Her weight pulled her downward; she sculled gently with the current, heading out deeper and keeping her motions languid to conserve oxygen. If she was careful she had fifteen or twenty minutes before she had to surface to breathe, and he couldn't be sure where she'd entered the river.
Slap. Concussion jarred at her, a huge fist that squeezed at her chest and tried to force the precious air out into the water. She swam deeper and faster, lunging hands forcing the water behind her. The Samothracian was throwing minigrenades into the water. Slap. This time her vision blurred. Slap. Effort was draining her reserves of oxygen. If she surfaced, he might be in a firing position with the energy gun . . .
A huge dark shape loomed up out of the river's blackness. Lights blazed out from it suddenly, showing the teardrop hull and the Reiver stenciled across the bow. Her arms strained out and hands clamped onto a bracket as the bow-wave buffeted her aside. The hull turned and drove southwards, wrenching at her shoulder-joints. Gwen could hear her heart straining to beat faster as the last oxygen was scavenged out of her blood; when the vehicle surfaced she lay panting for a long minute until the strength returned to her body.
"That was close," she muttered, crawling over the upper curve of the hull and undogging the hatch.
"You all right, ma'am?" Lowe asked.
One of the Haitian crew brought towels and a first-aid box. Gwen waved it aside as she dried herself off; no point in bandaging, when you couldn't get infected and wounds clotted quickly.
"Never better," she said. "Just a little singed and scraped. Jacques, fetch clothing. Lowe, back to the dock."
She looked upward with a slight smile as the Reiver canted and turned, imagining her enemy's rage and frustration. Still, that had been too close for comfort. It was time to tighten up a little.
***
"I hope this isn't what you call subtle tactics," Carmaggio said grimly.
They were all sitting in a booth, and like nearly everybody else they were watching the TV. Every news channel in the city and the nationals besides were focusing on this one; it wasn't all that often that a section of the West Side went up in a giant ball of flame. The view from the helicopter had been on loop since he got up this morning; so had the interviews with dazed passersby, most of them swearing that ray-guns had set the cars on fire. Of course, a lot of them were also swearing that they'd seen the aliens with the ray-guns getting out of flying saucers, or into submarines in the Hudson.
The helicopter loop came on again. The beginning showed cars exploding across the lot, merging into a single pillar of flame that buffeted the aircraft until the picture jiggled with the updraft. And there were the little straight-line flashes of light that had everyone talking, flashes ending in explosions.
A talking head came on, some retired military type, pointing to a freeze-frame:
"Definitely rocket launchers," he said. "Or rocket propelled grenades . . ."
"If that dickhead ever saw an RPG fired, I'm the Queen of Siam," Carmaggio said disgustedly.
He had seen RPG's fired, far more often than he'd liked, back when.
I want a smoke. If it weren't for Jenny, he thought, he'd bum one right now.
"Firefights with energy weapons are like that," Lafarge said. "I suppose the observers need some sort of explanation to account for what they saw."
"Oh, that's all right then," Carmaggio said. The other man nodded, then looked back at the policeman sharply.
"It attacked me," he said. "I had to take the opportunity." His fist clenched. "I nearly got it. Damn, damn, how did it get away underwater?"
On the screen a tiny metallic figure dashed through the flames. A jerky close-up showed it hurling tiny objects into the Hudson. Each time a shock-fractured hemisphere billowed out of the surface as the underwater explosion punched the surface of the river. Then the living statue dove into the water itself . . . .
Someone from a nearby booth blew a raspberry. "Hell, I saw better'n that in that Terminator flick. Who'd they think they're shitting?"
"I nearly got it," Lafarge repeated.
Which gives me a better sense of your priorities, Carmaggio thought. The warnings about biological weapons had been real enough, but if this character got a chance to off Ms. Ingolfsson, he'd go for it.
"And I learned that it has already begun bio-bombing," Lafarge said.
"She what?" Carmaggio said, freezing with the beer halfway to his mouth. He felt his stomach twist and sweat break out on his forehead.
I am getting fucking sick of this sensation.
"Launched a biobomb. Not a lethal one; aimed at fertility. It probably feels the planet is overpopulated. Which it is, but that's no excuse for . . . never mind. I checked. Numbers of third and fourth births have started dropping all over the Earth, in the last two years. The pattern indicates an initial aerosol seeding at major airports in 1997, every continent, followed by rapid spontaneous spread. At a guess, it's a modified rhinovirus—common cold."
"It sterilizes people?"
"Women. After the second birth, for about seventy, eighty percent. Most of the rest after the third, and a very small percentage would be naturally resistant. It works by sensitizing the immune system so that it treats spermatic cells as foreign matter. Very subtle, by your standards. Nothing visibly wrong with the ovulation cycle, and the eggs could be fertilized in vitro."
"Urk." Henry finished the beer. He had been a fourth child himself. "Wait a minute; virtually nobody has more than a couple of kids these days. Except the Amish, maybe."
"Not here, but this virus is spreading everywhere. In areas with high infant mortality, population growth could go into reverse in a few years."
There was a choked sound from the other side of the table. Henry looked up sharply; Jesus had turned a muddy shade of gray, and his grip on the edge of the table was turning his fingernails white and pink. Wait a minute, the older policeman thought. Yeah, he and the wife were planning on more kids. He looked away for a moment; there were times when a man needed privacy.
"Now you see what we're dealing with," Lafarge said. "Something that looks at humans as domestic animals—or as wild game to hunt for pleasure."
"Yeah," Henry said ca
refully. The flush faded from his ears. He'd known this sort of thing for a while now, but for some reason that news brought it home. "You okay, Jesus?"
"Si," Jesus said tightly. "I think."
"Goddam," Henry said. We're probably going to have to go for a straightforward attack. The risk was insane, but so was waiting.
"Well, if you'll excuse me," he said. Amazing how the rituals of daily life continued. "I've got to get some sleep today; hard night's work ahead tomorrow. And I've got a date."
Lafarge reached out and touched his arm. That was extremely rare with the Samothracian; Carmaggio stopped.
"Is that Miss Feinberg you're speaking of?" Henry nodded. "I don't want to . . . Please be extremely careful."
"Yeah, I won't let anything drop."
"Not just that. Nobody who's been in the drakensis's presence for more than a few hours can be completely trusted. The dominance mechanisms . . ."
Carmaggio freed his arm with a slight jerk "Thanks," he said flatly. "I'll certainly keep that in mind."
"And here's the list of subcontractors and component manufacturer's it's dealing with."
Chapter Seventeen
Gwen looked down from the newly-installed overhead office, onto the floor of the warehouse, through air thick with a haze of dust. It was a maze of cables and sections of equipment now; her nose caught the heavy scents of ozone from arc-welders, smells of metal and oils and plastics, underlain with sweat and the omnipresent gasoline stink of the city. Behind her were several thousand feet of pastel-colored post-modernist office space, plus a suite for herself and rooms for staff and guards; all nearly complete.
Very different from the dusty abandonment she'd smelled that first night here. She remembered dropping into the midst of the humans and growled slightly.
The contractor looked at her and frowned. Gwen schooled her features and nodded at him to continue.
"Ms. Ingolfsson, I can build this," he said, tapping the computer screen, "but I'm damned if I know what it'll do."
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