Pursuit r-7

by Andy Mangels

  Max didn't look too sure about that. And Michael appeared utterly unconvinced. "A lot of people think aliens are impossible too," Michael said quietly.

  "Relax, Michael," Kyle said, grinning, as Michael moved toward the door, looking suspiciously across the quiet open-air mall outside for perhaps the hundredth time. "We're safe as houses here. “

  "You know, I never understood that expression, “

  Michael said. "Houses blow apart when it gets windy enough outside. We need to get out of here soon." Looking up at the digital clock over the door, he added, "It's 2:02. You guys have five minutes to wrap this up and settle the check. Max and I are going to get some snacks for the road over at the tacqueria. We're almost completely out of Tabasco sauce. “

  "Who died and made him king?" Maria said sullenly, as Max and Michael departed the cafe and went outside into the mall courtyard.

  Liz gave her friend a look, cocking an eyebrow. "He's your boyfriend. You should be able to tame the wild beast. “

  "Oh, we've all had so much time for beast-taming, living in the back of the van together and driving across the scenic wilds of the Southwest," Maria said. "I bet Max will start getting just as cranky as Michael if the two of you keep getting as little, um, quality time together as Michael and I get. “

  Isabel made a pained face and put her hands up, palms out. "Ewwww, okay? I don't need to hear about it. I haven't even seen my husband for four months, so your problems seem minimal compared with mine. “

  "I don't want to hear about it either," Kyle said with a mischievous grin. "Why do you think I'm surfing the adult sites? “

  Isabel smacked him in the back of the head as she walked past. "Come on, guys, let's pay up and get out of here. “

  Maria turned back to her computer and her mouth shaped into an O of surprise. "Whoops, forgot to log off." Liz gave her a scolding glance as Maria clicked around on her terminal, exited the e-mail program, then erased the temporary files, cache memory, and history from the machine.

  "You girls go ahead. I've got three more minutes on my card," Kyle said. He turned back to the computer.

  Liz joined Isabel up at the counter, where she noticed that Max's sister had put on her "flirty" face. She smiled engagingly at the male clerk and said, "Hi," in a singsong voice. "How much do my friends owe for their time on the computers? “

  The clerk, a skinny, bespectacled, computer-geek type who appeared to be in his late teens, blushed and stammered slightly. "Ummm, six dollars each. “

  Isabel fished in her small pocketbook, pulling out two twenty-dollar bills. "We need some ones. Would you mind changing this for me? “

  The clerk took the two bills and punched numbers into the cash register. He looked up at Isabel. "Anyone ever tell you that you look like Lara Croft? “

  "Only when I wear my hair like this," Isabel said, running her hand under the long French braid into which she'd fashioned her newly darkened hair. "Thanks for noticing." She flashed him a toothy smile.

  Liz turned away, rolling her eyes, as the clerk counted out change for Isabel. She looked toward the front of the store, where Maria was standing and looking outside.

  Maria turned quickly toward Liz, who saw the alarm on her friend's face immediately. "Liz, we've got trouble! “

  Liz rushed over toward the window. Kyle got to his feet and moved forward as well.

  Maria pointed down to the lower level of the mall which lay beyond the balcony. There, Liz saw several men dressed in dark suits… as well as several police officers and security guards… moving quickly through the crowd of afternoon shoppers.

  "Oh no," Liz said under her breath. She looked down the balcony toward the coffee shop and saw Max and Michael waiting in line, oblivious to the looming danger. Three stores down, the wall opened up, making way for an escalator. An "up" escalator, Liz observed.

  As Isabel came toward the group, Liz said, "We've got to get out of here. And we have to warn Max! “

  Then Liz saw a mixed quartet of federal agents and cops coming down the balcony, heading directly toward the Cybernet Cafe. All of them had already drawn their guns.

  Liz turned quickly and looked toward the rear of the cafe, searching for a rear exit that wasn't immediately apparent. Her heart lay leaden in her chest.

  We're trapped!

  3 New York City. Fall, 2002.

  V et another bullet whined near Rath, singeing his spiky Mohawk haircut as it passed just an inch or so from his partially shaved skull. The shell's impact sprayed plaster dust through the darkness, making him cough. He dove for cover behind a tall metal rack that was covered with discarded boxes, the mortal remains of automotive parts or plumbing fixtures, or whatever this abandoned warehouse had trafficked in during better days. He knew the flimsy, collapsing shelves and old packages wouldn't provide much protection against the heat those freaks were packing.

  He couldn't see them, but he knew they were closing in. Come on, Lonnie, he thought, using the name Vilandra had chosen on Earth. Find the gadget that brought them to Earth, blow it up, and let's all get the hell out of here.

  Rath wanted nothing more than to hit the nearest exit… assuming he could find it with the lights off… and run like a rat for the safety of the Manhattan sewers. But if the information Lonnie had given him after her last dreamwalk could be trusted, then they were in the right place. If we can just find the right thing to blow up, he thought, then we can send these bastards back to wherever they came from.

  He wondered how the freaks had found and cornered them so quickly. Surely they hadn't traced Lonnie's dreamwalk. As far as he knew, nobody had ever done that before.

  Ava had to be the one at fault, he realized. She had never been as good at covering her psionic tracks as Lonnie was. And although Ava had a real knack for reaching inside individual minds and "nudging" them into seeing the world her way, she had always had a tough time handling large, hostile groups. On top of that, Rath couldn't help but wonder whether Ava was still on the same side as he and Lonnie. Ever since Lonnie and 1 tossed Zan in front of that truck, Ava's been harder and harder to keep in line, he thought. Letting her get close to that Evans guy, that other Zan, was a huge mistake.

  Or perhaps letting her come back to them months later had been his real mistake.

  A moment later, Rath found Ava, nearly tripping over her in the darkness. In the brief illumination of a muzzle flash, he saw her crouching behind one of the metal storage racks, her usually immaculate platinum-and-blue hair now thoroughly mussed and covered with a dusting of white plaster debris from the nearby bullet impacts.

  Rath snarled at her. "How fabulous is this? You led them straight to us! “

  He felt plaster dust against his skin as she shook her head. "Evil Emperor Zurg's minions are doing their damnedest to blow us away and you're blaming me for it? “

  "You must have set off an alarm when you brainwiped those guards outside," he said, crouching close to the floor himself. Fortunately, the sun hadn't yet risen, and darkness had always been his friend. But Rath knew they wouldn't stand a chance of escaping if they were still pinned down inside this warehouse after daybreak.

  "No way. Lonnie must have set us up," Ava hissed.

  Rath didn't want to think about that. After all, Lonnie was his lover as well as his accomplice in Zan's murder. He and Lonnie had no choice but to trust each other. Ava, though, had spent enough time away from both Rath and Lonnie over the past year to place her loyalties in doubt.

  "You're a walking bull's-eye, Queenie," Rath said, his jaw set into a hard line. "These bums must've locked onto your latest Jedi mind trick somehow." Whether she'd intended to or not, Rath was certain that Ava had gotten the three of them into a lot of trouble… maybe more than even they could handle.

  Another bullet chewed up the wall immediately behind Rath and Ava, coming even more uncomfortably close than any of the others.

  "These 'bums' are about to blow great big holes through us, Rath-man," Ava said. "Think we could boo
kmark this argument for later? “

  Rath had to admit that she had a point. Their attackers, of course, were anything but "bums." There were any number of warring political factions back home on Antar, many of whom temporarily occupied the bodies of Earth humans in order to parley on neutral ground with their adversaries. Some of these Antarians liked to take over the bodies of derelicts or street criminals… people who, like the East Coast Royal Three, weren't likely to be missed by the locals.

  A few of these individuals had little reason to surrender their now heavily armed host bodies to their original owners… and even less restraint about placing those bodies at risk.

  Strange how these freaks didn't start coming after us until after Ava came back from the desert. She found a whole new kind of trouble out there, and let it follow her home like a bunch of stray cats.

  At the moment, Rath guessed that at least a dozen alien-possessed street-folk had them cornered.

  Been through worse, he told himself, though at the moment he was hard-pressed to recall just when that was. Though the darkness concealed him from the freaks, it also prevented him from finding a specific target onto which he could focus his powers. My zappers work way better as a rifle than a shotgun, he thought, and those bastards out there know it.

  He clenched a fist in frustration, and it began glowing a dull red. They want me to fire blind. They want to tire me out.

  Another bullet tore through the drywall nearby, only narrowly missing his glowing fist. He shoved his hand into a vest pocket as he pulled Ava along with him. They had to keep moving.

  "If anybody's a 'walking bull's-eye' around here, Rath, it's you," Ava said, looking at his hand, whose glow was still slightly visible, even through the leather vest.

  "Shut up," Rath said, though he knew she was right. He continued hustling her along, hoping they'd come upon a door or a window soon. "You seen Lonnie? “

  Ava laughed bitterly. "Let's hope she's not cutting a deal of her own right now with those nice people shooting at us. It's happened before, you know. “

  A familiar voice cut through the intermittent staccato of gunfire. "All right! Hold your fire! I'm gonna give you what you want! “

  Rath recognized the voice immediately, despite the creepy echo that the huge, darkened warehouse imparted to it.

  Lonnie.

  "1 knew it," Ava whispered. "She's gonna sell us out to the freaks. “

  "Shut it," Rath said. "Lonnie has a plan. “

  "Come on out where we can see you, Vilandra," came the response, a harsh, gravel-coated voice, speaking in perfectly inflected High Antarian. "You can't hope to stand against us all. “

  Rath saw shadowy forms moving ahead of him. He wondered if dawn was already breaking, or maybe his eyes were simply adapting to the darkness. With no way to tell the exact time, he hoped for the latter.

  Then another shape began to move. It was bathed in a faint glow that the freaks surely had to be able to see.

  Lonnie.

  At that moment, Lonnie spoke inside his mind, using the lover's bond they shared as a communication channel. Rath, can you hear me? Rath scowled. Her mental voice was faint, as though something were interfering with her thoughtcast. What's wrong, Lonnie? I haven't heard anything blow up yet, and our "friends" are still here and hostile.

  They've protected their machines from our powers somehow, Lonnie thought to him.

  Rath felt despair engulf him, threatening to drown him like that time the riptide had nearly killed him off the Jersey Shore. Great, Lonnie. If we can't blow up their machine, we can't send these guys back to whatever planet they came from. And they're gonna kill us.

  No, Lonnie thought back at him. He felt an almost playful undercurrent in her psionic "voice." I found a boiler room in the basement. They've got an oil furnace down there. These guys didn't bother to protect that. It might take a few minutes, but it's gonna go boom really soon.

  Rath grinned, imagining valves being turned and flash-welded temperatures cranking up and up, fuel tanks igniting. That's my girl, he thought. Mass destruction and fireworks, the old-fashioned way.

  Buy us some time, Rath. I can't see them with my eyes yet, but I can feel 'em moving toward me.

  Lonnie came to a stop a short distance away, her body still glowing with focused, barely contained power. Rath could hear weapons cocking in the darkness, instruments sounding metallic notes that echoed back and forth across the cavernous space.

  "I can give you Rath and Ava," Lonnie said aloud, her voice projecting far and wide. "But not if you shoot me. “

  "I knew it," Ava muttered. Crouched beside Rath behind one of the shelving racks, she started to rise.

  Rath restrained her with a hand to the shoulder. "No. We wait. “

  Ava tensed, forming a psionic connection of her own with Rath, just as she had done with them all so many years before, after the Royal Four had first emerged from the gestation pods. All at once, Rath could see into Ava's mind, as well as the images Lonnie was sending him.

  Rath felt as if he were suddenly floating invisibly near the warehouse's high ceiling, and from this vantage he could mentally "see" each of the armed men and women… all of them apparently malnourished drug addicts or other assorted street people… who had surrounded them.

  Touch Ava, Lonnie said inside Rath's mind. Let her see what I'm showing you.

  Already done, sweetcheeks, Rath answered silently, grinning in the darkness. There were exactly fourteen of the freaks, and as of this moment he knew exactly where they were standing. He knew that Ava did as well.

  To Ava, he thought, How many freakazoid brains can you jry at once? Answering inside his mind, Ava seemed ashamed of her earlier distrust of Lonnie. I guess we're about to find out, General. Through the hand he'd placed on Ava's shoulder, Rath felt her body tense as the alien power gathered and built within her.

  "So do I have a cease-fire, or what?" Lonnie said, speaking to the darkness, where the armed street people stood in tense silence.

  The rough-voiced man who had called out to her earlier answered: "Your 'queen' is trying to pierce our mental defenses. Given that, it seems a truce would be a spectacularly bad idea. “

  Oh, crap, Ava thought to Rath. Their machines aren't the only things they've built shields around.

  Thanks to Lonnie, Rath could "see" the man in the dark as he strode forward and raised his weapon in Lonnie's direction. Rath released his grip on Ava's shoulder and felt the three-way thoughtlink collapse. Now the universe contained only himself, Lonnie, and the freak who was trying to kill her.

  Swept along on a wave of fear and rage, Rath lifted his hands. The power surged and churned within him for a split second before he released it.

  The gravel-voiced man with the gun blew apart into countless pieces.

  "Move!" Rath shouted at Ava, already on the run. He could hear a fusillade of gunfire as it tore up the space where he had been moments before.

  Rath looked toward Lonnie, who still stood in the center of it all, glowing in fury, her arms extended like those of an angry goddess. By some miracle, none of the freaks had managed to shoot her. Then he saw how her image wavered and rippled, like a mirage they'd seen a couple years back after they'd stolen that yuppie's car and headed out to Roswell.

  Shields up, he thought, suddenly realizing that his lover could do a pretty convincing impression of her dead brother's powers.

  The first rays of the sun were slicing through the skylights, and Rath saw Ava dive for cover as a pair of armed thugs… strung-out junkies, from the look of them, all bone and gristle… chased her. He raised his hands and released twin flashes of energy, pushing the two men swiftly backward and impaling them both on a nearby metal rack.

  Ava looked horrified. "We don't have to kill them, Rath. They're possessed. They're not responsible. “

  But Rath knew he didn't have time to make distinctions between the hostile aliens and their innocent hosts. These bodies were carrying lethal weapons, aimed at him and the
girls.

  "Let the old gods of Antar sort 'em out," Rath said as a red haze swept across his vision while he and Lonnie went to work in earnest.

  Rath wasn't certain how long the battle lasted; time seemed simultaneously to speed up and slow down during the fighting. He realized it hadn't gone quickly when he noticed the bright daylight streaming in through the broken windows. He looked straight up and saw the bright cerulean blue that lay beyond the shattered skylights.

  He surveyed the now well-illuminated room, which was strewn with upended shelves, wrecked masonry, and lifeless bodies. He saw Ava, standing in goggle-eyed silence. Only then did he realize that his powers felt spent and that he was holding a blood-spattered metal bar. An equally gruesome body lay at his feet.

  In an oddly debris-free spot near the center of the warehouse, Lonnie sat on the floor, looking as dazed and exhausted as he felt. Rath suddenly realized that he was looking at what could only be described as ground zero of the battle they had just fought. She's not used to going up against a whole homeless infantry battalion, he thought, running toward Lonnie. None of us is.

  "Looks like they're all dead or fled," Rath said gently as he helped her to her feet. He realized that Ava was now beside him as well, concern etched across her pretty but careworn face. "Come on," he said to them both. "We've gotta get out of here, before even more of 'em show up. We're all way too wiped to deal if that happens. “

  Lonnie nodded, then stumbled. Rath and Ava both caught her. Finally regaining her footing, Lonnie turned and looked straight at Rath. As always, her eyes were deep and beautiful.

  And very frightened, he realized. "It's too late," she said. "I can feel more of them coming in the back way. They're almost on top of us already. “

  Rath, hearing angry shouting behind him, turned toward the sound. At least another dozen street people, several of them drawing guns, were heading toward them at a flat-out run.

  "Bitchin'," Rath said, already pushing Lonnie toward cover as Ava followed. "Let's go. “