Skeeter drew a long, deep breath and slowly relaxed. "Well, we've got a decent spot. You're welcome to share."
"Thanks, this is a great spot." Rachel pushed back damp hair from her brow. "God, I hope we don't have another riot on the heels of that mess."
"Me, either," Skeeter muttered. "Because now I've got two ladies to look out for, if the fists start flying."
The slim surgeon smiled, dark eyes sparkling. "Skeeter, I'm touched, really. I didn't know you cared. What brings you out here in all this madness?"
"Me?" Skeeter shrugged, wondering if she'd believe the truth. "I, uh, was wondering how many pickpockets and con artists I might spot on their way in."
Rachel Eisenstein shot him a surprisingly intent stare. "I have been paying attention, you know, Skeeter. I'm not sure, exactly, what triggered it, although I suspect it had something to do with Ianira."
He flushed. "You could say that." Skeeter shrugged. "I'm just trying to make things better around here. For the down-timers." He glanced at Molly, whose eyes reflected a quiet pride that closed his throat. "Folks like Molly, here, they've got a rough enough time as it is, trying to survive, without some jerk stealing them blind." Skeeter shrugged again and changed the subject. "I've been keeping count of outgoing departures. I was up to nearly a hundred before you got here. Want to bet we get more inbound than we send back outbound?"
Rachel chuckled. "No bets!"
Skeeter grinned. "Wise woman."
The klaxon sounded again, blasting away at Skeeter's eardrums. "Your attention please. Gate One is due to open in one minute. All departures, be advised that if you have not cleared Station Medical, you will not be permitted to pass Primary. Please have your baggage ready for customs..."
The departures in line hastily gathered up their luggage. Those still at the customs tables scrambled to pay the astromical taxes demanded as a condition of departure. Then the savage lash of subharmonics which heralded the opening of a major temporal gate struck Skeeter square in the skull bones. A fierce headache comprised of equal parts low blood sugar, stress, and gate subharmonics blossomed, causing him to wince. Skeeter resisted the urge to cover his ears, knowing it wouldn't shut out the painful noise that wasn't a noise, and simply waited.
The sight was always impressive as Primary opened up out of thin air. A point of darkness appeared five feet above the Commons floor. It grew rapidly, amoeba-like, its black, widening center an oil stain spreading across the air. The outer edges of the dark hole in reality dopplered through the whole visible spectrum, with the spreading fringes shimmering like a runaway rainbow. A stir ran through the spectators. Every person in the station had seen temporal gates open before, of course, but the phenomenon never failed to raise chill bumps or the fine hairs along the back of the neck as the fabric of reality shifted and split itself wide open...
A flurry of startled grunts and a rising flood of profanities sounded behind them. Skeeter turned to crane his head above the crowd. "Aw, nuts..."
Literally.
The Angels of Grace Militia, at least the portion that had escaped arrest during the riot, was on a crash-course drive for Primary, shoving their way through by brute force.
"What is it?" Rachel asked, trying to see.
"Angel Squad, inbound."
Molly's comment was in obscure Cockney, defying translation.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Oh, God. Please don't tell me they're expecting reinforcements from up time, too?"
"Well," Skeeter scratched his ear, "scuttlebutt has it their captain was seen buying a ticket for some general of theirs who's coming in for a Philosopher's Gate tour. Wants to see the city where Ianira lived in subjugation to an evil male of the species."
"Oh, God, Skeeter, I told you not to tell me they were bringing in reinforcements!"
"Sorry," he grinned sheepishly.
Rachel scowled up at him and stood on tiptoe, trying to spot the onrushing Angels. Molly just thinned her lips and moved into a slightly aggressive stance, waiting for whatever might come next. Moving in a close-packed wedge, the Angel Squad drove through the waiting crowd on an unstoppable course, shoving and bullying their way through. One brief altercation ended with a tourist clutching at a bloodied nose while Angels burst past him on a course that would bring them out right about where Skeeter stood with Molly and Rachel. He braced for bad trouble for the second time in a quarter hour, wondering whether it might not be wiser to simply cut and run, taking himself, Molly, and Rachel out of their path, or whether he ought to stand his ground on general principles.
At that instant, an ear-splitting klaxon shattered the air.
Skeeter jerked his gaze around just in time to see it. Primary had opened wide enough to begin the transfer of out-bound tourists. Only they hadn't gotten very far. A writhing, entangled mass of humanity crashed straight through Primary, inbound.
Rachel gasped. "What in the world—? Nobody crashes Primary!"
But a howling swarm of people had done just that, shoving through into Shangri-La Station before the outgoing departures could get off to a good start. Klaxons blared insanely. The mad, hooting rhythm all but deafened. Nearly a hundred shouting people stormed into Shangri-La Station in a seething mass, rushing past medical stations, past screaming tourists and howling BATF agents, past everything in their path, as though they owned the entire universe.
"Has every nut in the universe decided to converge on Primary today?"
"I don't know!" Rachel shook her head. "But this could get ugly, whoever they are."
Skeeter agreed. Whoever the new arrivals were, they were headed right this way. And where were those damned Angels? He tried to peer back through the crowd where the Angels of Grace still plowed toward them, a juggernaut at full steam. At that moment, Montgomery Wilkes shot from his office at a dead run, driving forward like a hurtled war spear straight into the boiling knot of close-packed humanity crashing through Primary. The head of BATF wielded his authority like a machete. "HALT! Every one of you! Stop right now! And I mean—"
Monty never finished.
Someone in that on-rushing maelstrom shoved him. Hard.
The seething head of BATF slammed sideways, completely out of the swarm inbound through Primary. Wilkes careened headlong into the chaos of the departure line. Windmilling wildly, he inadvertently knocked down a woman, three kids, and a crate of sixteenth-century Japanese porcelain which had just been valued and taxed by Monty's agents. Its owner, a departing businessman, teetered for an instant, as well. Monty, staggering and stumbling in a half circle, caromed off the businessman and continued on through the line into the concrete wall beyond. They connected—Monty's face and the wall—with a sickening SPLAT!
Wilkes slid, visibly dazed, to the floor just as the Japanese businessman went down. He landed as badly as his irreplacable porcelain. That didn't fare nearly as well when it hit the concrete. Japanese curses—which followed the confirmation of utter ruin—poured out above the noise of yelling voices and screaming klaxons. Monty Wilkes simply sat on the floor blinking wet eyes. His agents gaped, open-mouthed, for a long instant, motionless with shock. Then they scattered, antlike. Some broke toward the gate crashers and others raced to their employer's rescue. Sirens and klaxons wailed like storm winds on the Gobi—
Skeeter abruptly found himself tangled up in the outer edges of a churning cyclone of vid-cam crews, remote-lighting technicians, and shouting newsies. Skeeter staggered. A long boom microphone attached to a human being slammed violently sideways. It very nearly knocked him off his feet. Pain blossomed down the side of his head and through his shoulder. Skeeter spat curses and tried to protect Rachel's head when a heavy camera swung straight toward her skull. Molly went spinning under a body slam from someone twice her height.
Then another jostling, shouting mob slammed into them from behind.
The Angels of Grace had arrived.
The seething chaos crashing Primary staggered as the juggernaut of black-clad Angels crashed into it, full speed.
Skeeter heard shouts and threats and screeches of protest. A fist connected with someone's nose. An ugly exchange of profanity exploded into the supercharged air...
"Armstrong!"
Hard, grasping hands forcibly jerked Skeeter around. A tall, powerful stranger yanked him forward. "Armstrong, you son-of-a-bitch! Where's my daughter?"
Over the shoulder of the gorilla breaking his arm, Skeeter glimpsed a living wall of newsies and camera operators. They stared right at him, eyes and mouths rounded. Skeeter blinked stupidly into a dimly familiar face...
One that darkened as sudden shock and anger registered. "You're not Noah Armstrong! Who the hell are you?"
"Who am I?" Skeeter's brain finally caught up. He dislodged the man's grip with a violent jerk of his arm. "Who the hell are you?"
Before anybody could utter a single syllable, the embattled Angels exploded.
"Death to tyrants!"
"Get him!"
For just an instant, Skeeter saw a look of stupefied surprise cross the stranger's face. The man's mouth sagged open. Then his whole face drained absolutely white. Not in fear. In fury. The explosion went off straight into Skeeter's face. "What in hell is going on in this God-cursed station?"
Skeeter's mouth worked, but no sound emerged.
"What are those lunatics"—he jabbed a finger at the Angels—"doing brawling with my staff? Answer me! Where's your station security? You!" The man who'd mistaken him for somebody named Noah Armstrong grabbed Skeeter's arm again, yanked him off balance. "Take me to your station manager's office! Now!"
"Hey! Take your hands off me!" Skeeter wrenched free. "Didn't anybody teach you assault's illegal?"
The stranger's eyes widened fractionally, then narrowed into angry grey slits. "Just who do you think you're talking to? I'd better get some cooperation out of this station, starting with you, whoever you are, or this station's jail is going to be full of petty officials charged with obstruction of justice!"
Skeeter opened his mouth again, not really sure what might come out of it, but at that moment, Bull Morgan, himself, strode through the chaos at Primary. The station manager moved with jerky strides as he maneuvered his fireplug-shaped self on a collision course with Skeeter and the irate stranger.
"Out of the way," Bull growled, shouldering aside newsie crews and BATF agents with equal disregard for their status. He puffed his way up like a tugboat and stuck out one ham-sized hand. "Bull Morgan, Station Manager, Time Terminal Eighty-Six. I understand you wanted to see me?"
Skeeter glanced from Bull's closed and wary expression to the stranger's flushed jowls and seething grey eyes and decided other climes were doubtless healthier places to take himself...
"Marshal!" the stranger snapped.
A red-faced bull moose in a federal marshal's uniform detached itself from the chaos boiling around them. Said moose produced a set of handcuffs, which he promptly snapped around Bull Morgan's wrists.
Skeeter's jaw dropped.
So did Bull's. His unlit cigar hit the floor with an inaudible thud.
"Mr. Clarence Morgan, you are hereby placed under arrest on charges of kidnapping, misuse of public office, willful disregard of public safety, violation of the prime directive of temporal travel—"
"What?"
"—and tax evasion. You are hereby remanded to federal custody. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—"
From somewhere directly behind Skeeter, a woman in a black uniform let out a strangled bellow. "You slimy little dictator! Take your trumped up charges and your Stalinist terror tactics off our station!"
Somebody threw a punch...
The riot erupted in every direction. A camera smashed to the concrete floor. Somebody sprawled into Skeeter's line of vision, clutching at a bloody nose and loosened teeth. Another black-clad Angel loomed out of the crowd, fists cocked. Molly's gutter Cockney scalded someone's ears. A newsie went flying and somebody screamed—
The tear gas hit them all at the same instant.
Riot turned abruptly to rout.
Skeeter coughed violently, eyes burning. Rachel Eisenstein staggered into him, bent almost double. A ring of uniformed federal officers materialized out of the spreading cloud, masked against the gas, spewing chemical spray from cannisters in a three-sixty degree swath. They surrounded Bull Morgan and the infuriated, cursing stranger, making sure the latter didn't collapse onto the floor. Moving with neat, deadly calm, more than a dozen federal agents took charge. Snub-nosed riot guns flashed into a bristling circle, muzzles pointed outward.
Newsies fell over one another as they tried to evade armed feds, livid BATF officers, residents trying to get away through the chaos, Shangri-La Security arriving too late to prevent disaster, screaming Angels, and panic-stricken tourists. As the tear gas spread, the inbound traffic arriving through Primary disintegrated into a shambles.
Skeeter grabbed Rachel's wrist and hauled her bodily toward Edo Castletown. They had to get clear of this insanity. Weird, distorted shouts and cries rose on all sides. He couldn't see Molly anywhere. He could barely see, at all. They slithered feet-first into a goldfish pond and nearly fell, then splashed through knee-deep water and ran into screaming, wailing tourists and floating timbers where one of the Edo Castletown bridge railings had collapsed. Skeeter scrambled up the other side of the pond, pulling Rachel up behind him, and half-fell through a screen of shrubbery, then they stumbled into a miraculous pocket of clear air. Skeeter dragged down a double lungful of it, coughing violently. He tried to keep Rachel on her feet, but was hardly able to keep his own.
"Let me help!"
The familiar voice rang practically in his ear. Someone got an arm around Rachel and drew her forward, then somebody grasped Skeeter's elbow and hauled him out of the chaos on tottering feet. Blinded by the tear gas, Skeeter allowed himself to be propelled along. Noise and confusion faded. Then someone else got an arm around him and a few moments later, he found his face buried in blessedly cool, running water. He coughed again and again, blinked streaming, burning eyes. He managed to choke out, "Rachel?"
"She's all right, Skeeter. Damned good job you did, getting her out of that mess."
He heard her coughing somewhere beside him and wondered with an anxious jolt what had become of Molly. Skeeter rinsed his eyes again, swearing under his breath, furious with himself for failing yet again to protect a friend in the middle of a station riot. He was finally able to blink his eyes and keep them open without burning pain sending new tears streaming down his face.
Skeeter was standing, improbably, in what looked like the bathrooms off the Neo Edo Hotel lobby. The mirror showed him a sodden mess that had once been his face. He shook his head, spraying water, and started to scrub his face with both hands. Someone grabbed his wrists and said hastily, "Wash them off, first. They're covered with CS." Slippery liquid soap cascaded across his fingers.
That voice sounded so familiar, Skeeter glanced up, startled. And found himself staring eyeball to reddened eyeball with Kit Carson.
Skeeter's mouth fell open. The lean and grizzled former time scout smiled, a trifle grimly. "Wash your hands, Skeeter. Before you rub tear gas into your eyes again." Behind Kit's shoulder, Robert Li, the station's resident antiquarian, bent over another sink, helping Rachel rinse tear gas out of her eyes. Belatedly, Skeeter noticed the floppy rubber gas mask dangling from Kit's neck. Where the devil had Kit Carson found a gas mask? Surely he hadn't bought one from that Templar selling them down in Little Agora? Wherever he'd stashed it—probably that fabled safe of his, up in the Neo Edo Hotel's office—there'd been two of ‘em, because Robert Li wore one, too. Well, maybe Kit had bought them from that Templar, after all. He was smart enough to prepare for any kind of trouble. Wordlessly, Skeeter washed his hands.
When he'd completed the ritual, which helped him regain his composure and some measure of his equilibrium, he straightened up and met Kit's gaze again. He was startled by the respect he found
there. "Thanks," Skeeter mumbled, embarrassed.
Kit merely nodded. "Better strip off those clothes. The Neo Edo's laundry staff can clean the tear gas out of them."
Well, why not? Skeeter had done stranger things in his life than strip naked in front of Kit Carson and the station's leading antiquities expert in the middle of the most expensive bathroom in Shangri-La Station while a riot raged outside. He was down to his skivvies when Hashim Ibn Fahd, a down-time teenager who'd stumbled, shocked, through the new Arabian Nights gate, arrived. Dressed in Neo Edo Hotel bellhop livery, which startled Skeeter, since Hashim hadn't been employed two days previously, the boy carried a bundle of clothing under one arm and a large plastic sack.
"Here," Hashim said, holding out the sack. "Put everything inside, Skeeter."
"Have you seen Molly?"
"No, Skeeter. But I will search, if Mr. Carson allows?"
Kit nodded. "I didn't realize she was caught in that mess, too, or I'd have pulled her out along with Skeeter and Rachel."
The down-timer boy handed over his plastic sack and ran for the door. Skeeter dumped in his dress slacks and his shirt, the one the irate construction worker had ripped not thirty minutes previously. The jingle of important things rattled in his pockets. "Uh, my stuff's in there."
"We'll salvage everything, Skeeter," Kit assured him. "There's an emergency shower in that last stall, back there. Sluice off and get dressed. This is going to get mighty ugly, mighty fast. I don't want you anyplace where that asshole out there," he nodded toward the riot still underway outside the Neo Edo, "can lay hands on you. Not without witnesses."
That sounded even more ominous than the riot.
"Uh, Kit?" he asked uncertainly.
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