by Greg Cox
Prince Charles nodded at Ross Perot, who locked the front entrance and turned the CLOSED sign toward the outside. Satisfied, Charles let go of Roberta and shoved her down into her seat behind the desk. “Silence,” he warned her, closing his fist around an imaginary throat to illustrate what would happen to her if she raised a fuss. “Upstairs,” he instructed his masked accomplice. “You take the old man.”
Realizing Seven was in immediate danger, Roberta desperately surveyed the disorderly desktop, looking for a weapon to use against the intruders. Her gaze—and hand—fell upon the small pile of fireworks she’d put aside for later that evening. A ten-inch Roman candle, with an exposed wick, bore the useful warning: DO NOT POINT AT OTHER PEOPLE. Hoping there was a good reason for that cautionary note, she snatched up the firework with one hand, her scented candle with the other, aimed the tip of the former directly at her assailant’s face, and lit the fuse.
A geyser of white-hot sparks erupted from the end of the Roman candle, only inches away from Prince Charles’s face. The enemy agent cried out in pain, the cheap plastic mask bubbling and blackening as he tore the burning disguise from his features. He reeled backward, clutching at his blistered face. Smoke rose from the scorched shoulders of his tweedy overcoat.
“That’s for Princess Di!” Roberta quipped, before taking advantage of the imposter’s distress to alert Seven via the glowing green pyramid. “Three-six-eight to 194!” she shouted at the pyramid, using her and Seven’s respective code numbers. “Condition red, Rubicon scenario. Repeat: Rubicon scenario.”
A compliant beep indicated that her warning had been transmitted upstairs. Roberta darted out from behind the desk, only to see the second invader, the one posing as Ross Perot, charge at her from his post by the door. The exaggerated ears and ratlike contours of his disguise reminded Roberta of those trespassing Ferengi she and Seven had chased out of Wall Street a few months before. Somehow, she didn’t think this guy was going to be discouraged quite so easily—especially since her Roman candle was already sputtering out.
“American witch!” he snarled, lunging at Roberta. The cramped layout of the store worked to her advantage, though; Perot had to maneuver around the former Prince Charles, who was still flailing about in agony, before he could get within reach of Roberta, giving her time to look around for another weapon. The “New Arrivals” shelf beckoned, and she grabbed for the biggest, heaviest hardcover she could find—a first edition of Chicago Mobs of the Twenties, published by Simon & Schuster just that month—and swung it like a club at Perot’s head. The massive tome slammed into her attacker’s face, cracking the grotesque plastic mask. Hah! she thought triumphantly. Who says hardcovers aren’t worth the money?
The hefty volume would have knocked an ordinary man out cold, but merely staggered Khan’s latest supergoon. Not waiting to see how quickly he recovered, she raced up the stairs to the second floor, then ran down a short, carpeted corridor and threw open the door to Seven’s office. “Fire up the transporter!” she gasped, only slightly winded by her sprint up the stairway. Defending humanity all around the world definitely provided plenty of exercise. “They’re right behind me!”
Gary Seven, a.k.a. Supervisor 194, had already begun the evacuation procedure. He was a tall, lean man whose austere countenance had only grown craggier with age. His once-brown hair was now completely silver, but his icy gray eyes remained as intense and alert as ever. Years of selective breeding on an unnamed planet light-years from Earth had blessed him with impressive longevity; although in his sixties, he looked fifty at most.
“Khan’s found us again?” he asked her, swiftly but efficiently stuffing crucial documents into a black attaché case. An immense map of the world was mounted to the wall behind him, with small red pins marking the most recent known locations of all the surviving Children of Chrysalis. The pins were grouped in clusters all over the map; Roberta’s gaze briefly gravitated to the mass of pins centered around northern India, Khan’s current base of operations.
“Looks like it,” she said, slamming the office door and bolting it shut. That’s not going to stop them for long. She already heard angry footsteps pounding up the stairs. “We’ve got to vamoose, pronto!”
Seven’s office resembled his former headquarters back in New York City, albeit with newer furniture. A silver pen and pencil set on his antique walnut desk activated the futuristic equipment hidden behind a mundane-looking bookcase, which now swung outward to reveal the sealed entrance of their transporter vault. A dauntingly solid steel door, which looked like the entrance to a bank vault or airlock, prevented access to the vault, until Seven manipulated the pen-and-pencil set again, causing the metal door to open automatically, exposing the apparently empty chamber within. Electronic switches and buttons, installed on the inner side of the door, clicked and whirred as Seven activated a preprogrammed escape sequence. A gleaming chrome control wheel rotated 180 degrees.
Roberta held her breath, hoping that there was still time for Seven to get away. If only this were just a drill, she thought plaintively, recalling all the times she and Seven had rehearsed this and other scenarios. And just when I was starting to feel at home in London . . .
Footsteps racing down the corridor gave way to the sound of fists hammering against the sturdy, reinforced oak door. Irate curses came from right outside, as Khan’s superpowered minions tried to force their way into the office. Roberta threw her own weight against the door, lending the deadbolts whatever help she could. “I can’t hold them back much longer,” she warned Seven. “These guys were literally built for breaking and entering.”
“Almost set,” Seven assured her. A standing silver frame, holding a color portrait of a sleek black cat, occupied a position of honor on Seven’s desk. He carefully added the photo to the vital papers collected in the attaché case, then snapped the case shut. Throwing on a gray tweed jacket over a navy-blue turtleneck sweater, he took the case by its handle and hurried toward the open vault, where, even now, a strangely luminous blue mist was forming, seemingly out of nowhere.
He paused at the threshold of the vault, looking back at his longtime friend and colleague with concern. “Roberta?” he asked, visibly reluctant to leave her in jeopardy.
“Go!” she urged him. The office door trembled against her straining back with each savage blow upon its opposite side. The sound of cracking wood detonated in her ears. “I know what to do.” Someone had to stay behind to make sure their extraterrestrial technology didn’t fall into Khan’s hands. “Your servo,” she requested succinctly.
Seven tossed her his own pen, even as, case in hand, he stepped into the swirling azure mist that now appeared to fill the entire vault. She sighed in relief as his rigidly upright figure literally dissolved into the eerily phosphorescent fog. At least one of them was making a clean getaway. . . .
A gloved fist smashed through the door, nearly snagging Roberta’s honey-blond tresses. She hurled herself away only seconds before the whole door exploded in a shower of splinters, allowing Khan’s two henchmen to invade the office, intent on finishing their sinister mission, at least where Roberta was concerned.
They had both discarded their mutilated masks, but she could tell them apart by the damage she had inflicted on each of them. The Australian, who had suffered fireworks in the face, had blisters and burns on his cheeks, while his partner-in-crime, who looked to be of African descent, had a bloody nose where Roberta had forcibly introduced him to the history of the Prohibition era. She wanted to think that she had actually broken his snoot, but feared that his genetically augmented cartilage was tougher than that.
She glanced longingly at the transporter vault, where the glowing mist was already dissipating, taking Seven with it. Too bad her own escape could not be effected so easily. No Blue Smoke Express for me, she lamented, taking aim at the scarred Aussie with her borrowed servo. A pair of delicate antennae sprang from the sides of the slender device. Blue energy crackled briefly between the tips of silver filaments
. A hum filled the air as the invisible tranquilizer beam, set at maximum strength, zapped the Aussie, who tottered uncertainly upon his feet, the murderous expression on his face momentarily supplanted by a look of groggy confusion. Half-lidded eyes struggled to focus, while his jaw dropped open slackly.
The zap should have sent him straight to dreamland, but, to Roberta’s dismay, he seemed to be fighting the ray’s narcotic effect. Was it his souped-up DNA, she wondered, or simply the stinging pain of his facial burns that gave him the ability to resist the beam? Either way it took a second zap to render the man’s limbs as limp as soggy French fries, costing her valuable seconds she could ill afford to lose.
The delay gave the second invader a chance to use his incapacitated companion as a human shield. He shoved the off-balance Australian from behind, propelling the man’s sagging body at Roberta, who had to backpedal clumsily to avoid being knocked to the floor by her victim’s headlong trajectory. She fired her servo at the hostile African, but the hastily aimed beam missed its target, who tore a jagged plank of wood from the sundered door and hurled it at her like a spear. “You cannot escape!” he shouted furiously, blood still leaking from his nostrils. His accent sounded East African. Kenyan, maybe, or Rwandan. “None can defy the will of Khan!”
Roberta ducked quickly, the timber missile grazing her shoulder as it narrowly missed her head, slamming instead into the pin-infested map on the wall, which fell onto the carpeted floor with a resounding thud. Her servo hummed again, but the African’s reflexes were once again better than her aim. He seized the edges of the polished wooden desktop and effortlessly hoisted it off the floor, shielding himself with the upturned desk, whose carved legs now menaced Roberta like the antlers of some freakish, genetically engineered beast. With a bellicose roar, he rushed at her, trampling over his own fallen comrade as he sought to pin Roberta against the nearest wall.
She ran for it. He’s stronger than I am, she realized, and faster, too. Even with her servo, the odds were against her, leaving a rapid getaway her best option. Firing wildly back over her shoulder, without much success, she made tracks for the narrow doorway, to the left of the open vault, which connected the office to Seven’s private living quarters.
Unlike Roberta’s own perpetually cluttered boudoir, across the hall, Seven’s room was immaculately clean and tidy, the bed neatly made, all personal effects securely lodged in the appropriate closet or drawer. For once, she was grateful for Seven’s neat-freak tendencies, because it meant there was no chance of tripping over a mislaid shoe, cell phone, or moon rock, while she dashed for the window at the rear of the room. That’s the only way out, she recalled, diving and rolling across the width of Seven’s tightly tucked sheets before landing on her feet on the other side of the bed.
She heard the uprooted desk crash to the floor in the office behind her, as the determined African shed the unwieldy piece of furniture in order to follow her through the connecting doorway. Roberta tried to zap him as he came through the portal, but he moved too quickly for her, somersaulting into the room with superhuman speed and agility, then ducking behind a heavy wooden wardrobe. “Run while you can, inferior sow!” His voice held the strident ring of a true fanatic. “Your time is over!”
Roberta didn’t wait for him to turn the wardrobe into a weapon. Hastily resetting the servo, from Tranquilize to Disintegrate, she dissolved the glass straight out of the window frame and started to clamber out onto the fire escape beyond, only to feel a powerful hand clamp hold of her ankle. “Got you!” he grunted. “I told you you couldn’t get away!”
Oh yeah? Roberta thought defiantly. Grabbing on to the rusted metal rungs of the fire escape for support, she kicked backward, driving her heel into his chin—hard. It wasn’t enough to make him let go entirely, but his grip loosened enough for her to free her foot by sacrificing her boot. Hopping awkwardly, favoring her merely stockinged foot, which froze whenever it came into contact with the icy iron grillework, she scrambled to her feet and edged away from the open window. Looking down at the seldom-used courtyard behind the store, she saw another masked figure, this one impersonating Sting, waiting at the bottom of the rusty steps. Figures Khan would have all the exits covered, she thought acidly.
There was nowhere to go but up. Shivering in the frigid November air, she climbed toward the roof, knowing her pursuers were bound to be close behind her. A stray memory, of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke dancing atop the skyline of London, brought a rueful smile to her lips. I wonder if it’s too late to disguise myself as a chimney-sweep?
When she reached the top of the fire escape, however, she found not Mary Poppins waiting for her, but Hillary Clinton. Or, rather, a laboratory-bred female assassin wearing a Hillary mask, standing, arms akimbo, upon the flat, black-tar surface of the roof. A maroon leather catsuit showed off the woman’s genetically perfect physique. “Surrender at once!” she declared, swinging a pair of weighted nunchucks with what looked like expert skill.
Give me a break, Roberta thought irritably. The election was over days ago. Barely remembering to reset the servo to a nonlethal setting, she dropped the bogus First Lady with a single zap, then pulled herself onto the roof.
Despite her easy victory over Hillary, which she figured she was entitled to the way her night had been going, Roberta knew she couldn’t afford to relax for a second. Rapid-fire footsteps on the fire escape told her that the bloody-nosed African and/or Sting were on their way up. Now what? she asked herself.
Improvising shamelessly, she stepped over Hillary’s sprawled body and limped toward the front of the store. From her hard-earned new vantage point, two stories up, she watched a holiday procession make its way down Charing Cross Road, between the rows of ubiquitous bookshops. Costumed marchers brandishing blazing torches escorted a hay-filled cart bearing a papier-mâché replica of the villainous-looking Guy, infamous for attempting to blow up Parliament nearly four centuries ago. Laughing men and women pulled the loaded tumbrel down the street, chanting in unison:
“Remember, remember,
Gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason,
Should ever be forgot!”
At the moment, Roberta was less interested in the sacrificial Guy and his notorious scheme, than in the generous layers of straw upon which the dummy rested. She watched anxiously as the procession neared the shop, while glancing frequently over her shoulder at the upper rungs of the fire escape on the other side of the roof. C’mon, hurry up! she silently urged the jubilant Londoners pulling the cart along. Firecrackers exploded in the street below, sounding unnervingly like gunshots. I haven’t got all night!
“There you are!” a familiar voice snarled, as the African sprang from the fire escape onto the roof, only a few yards away. A brick chimney, badly in need of repointing, shielded him from her servo as he called out to Sting and who knew who else, “She’s up here! We have her trapped!” He scowled at the sight of Ninja Hillary, snoozing contentedly upon the roof. “You’ll pay for assaulting a servant of the Great Khan!”
Not tonight I won’t! Kicking off her remaining boot, she balanced precariously at the very edge of the roof, watching the Guy’s cart draw ever nearer. The African was unarmed, she knew, but what about Sting and whatever other reinforcements Khan might have sicced on her? Time to get out of here.
She glanced down, suddenly flashing on that time she bungee-jumped off a hundred-foot jungle cliff to get away from that hungry allosaurus. This time, there wouldn’t be a safety cord.
“Watch out below!” she shouted hoarsely. The cart was as close as it was ever going to get. Stepping backward to get a running start, she launched herself off the top of the building into the empty air above Charing Cross Road. Adrenaline kept her warm as she arced sharply toward the street below, the chilly night air rushing against her face. Gravity, showing no mercy, speeded her descent.
Oomph! The bales of hay piled high in the cart broke her fall, just as she’d hoped, but the
sudden landing still knocked the air out of her. Spitting straw from her lips, she found herself face-to-face with the leering, mustachioed visage of the Guy. “Sorry to drop in unannounced,” she told the dummy, after catching her breath. “But don’t think this means I’m falling for you.”
Her precipitous arrival in the cart unavoidably startled the previously carefree crowd packing the street. The boisterous shouting was cut off in mid-chant, abruptly preempted by startled exclamations and queries. A mob of concerned and curious faces, some masked, some not, peered at Roberta through the slats of the wooden cart, peppering her with questions she couldn’t begin to answer.
Besides, she had something more important to do. Rolling onto her back, she aimed the servo at the second floor of Aegis Fine Books, Ltd. and pressed down on the controls. A controlled implosion began inside the bookshop, consuming the entire building as the brick walls tumbled inward, destroying every last trace of Seven’s office and the high-tech hardware it concealed. Roberta spared a second to worry about the fate of Khan’s various minions, trapped in and about the self-destructing edifice. Would their incredible strength and resilience allow them to survive the building’s collapse? She found it hard to care all that much.
A tremendous cloud of dust and debris rose up from the ruins of the bookstore, shrouding the rubble from sight. Not much of a bonfire, Roberta appraised, noting the conspicuous lack of soaring flames, but infinitely easier on the neighbors.
Despite its controlled nature, the implosion of the bookshop caused a panic. The interrupted procession broke apart into a flood of fleeing individuals, many of them screaming in fear as everyone raced to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the demolished bookstore. Tumbling out of the cart, whiskers of straw clinging to her jeans and flannel shirt, Roberta joined the chaotic exodus, trusting the crowd and confusion to hide her from any of Khan’s agents that might have escaped the explosive demise of Aegis Fine Books.
