Maybe he’d have a better chance with one of the News
services. He tried to switch his PCS to one of the Newsfeeds, but the Terrs
were jamming those, as well.
Well, it looks like I’m gonna havta do this the
hard way, Pres thought to himself. As he carefully made his way to the
window, he spotted a woman’s purse by one of the workstations. Seeing an
opportunity, he rifled through the handbag, and found a makeup compact, no
doubt with a mirror in it. This makes things easier, he thought, I
guess pressure brings out the best in me.
He carefully approached the window and scanned the skyline
of the buildings across the water. It occurred to him that if the Newsfeeds
caught on that he was at large, they’d air it, and the Terrs would also
immediately know it, seeing as how the Newsfeeds got paid for having ratings,
and teenagers getting shot live on the air was a guaranteed ratings booster.
Okay, let’s see if the snipers are any safer...
Pres spotted what appeared to be several people
intently looking through some sort of surveillance rig. He caught the sun in
the hand-mirror and angled it at the side of the building. When he had it
located, he maneuvered it over to where they were. There was a reaction, and
when he was sure that they were looking at where he was, he waved a hand, and
started flashing an SOS.
Then he waited for them to do something intelligent
and professional. Well, they were the professionals, right? They dealt with
this sort of thing all the time, right? Damn, he wished he knew Morse code or
something...
*****
The man in the command chair at the Tac-Ops center
snapped into his mike, “Well, are you in position NOW? Everyone ELSE-”
“Yo, Skipper!”
“WHAT?”
“The Observation Team on the Old FBI building says
they have a loose cannon on the third floor.”
“Loose Cannon? Security Guard or what?”
“No, they say it appears to be an unidentified
civilian minor, probably one of the school kids, who managed to avoid getting
rounded up with the rest.”
“Just him?”
“Sorry, Skip, but Best Guess Thermographics say that
there are at least three groups of Bogies - probably between 5 and 10 in number
in each group - at large inside the building.”
“Shit. Just what I don’t need. Okay, the first set
of hands that are free, we’ll send them in to get the little fucker out before
it gets itself shot up on our watch.” He shifted his attention again. “Are you
in position NOW? It’s about fucking TIME!”
*****
Pres was still waiting for the professionals to DO
something, when he heard the door. He scooted away from the window, and got well
hidden in one of the cubicles. SHIT! How could he have been so STUPID? Of
Course, they’re sending patrols around to double, maybe triple check these
offices! The offices were such an obvious place for stragglers to try and hide
in! They probably left these offices unchecked, just to sucker in stupid kids
like him, as a matter of SOP!
But, instead of beginning a methodical sweep of the
cubicles, Pres heard a voice with a crisp British accent saying, “Very well, we
have exactly Three Minutes to get everything collected and verified,
starting--- NOW!”
From where he was scrunched up hiding, Pres could
just barely see through the chair and office equipment. He saw three figures in
‘monks robes’ walk up to one of the old-fashioned doors and open it. The hoods
were pulled back and the gas masks were off, so he could see that they were two
men and a woman. The woman was the dark, sleek sort of attractive that tended
to put you in the mind of some sort of hunting cat, who could either purr or
claw your face off. She was definitely on the prowl now.
The first man was definitely her counterpart, with a
long, narrow, rather European face and well trimmed, short, blonde hair. He
oozed a sort of relaxed focus, like a martial artist waiting for the first blow
of a set to begin. The other man was the odd one out. He had a soft face that
was set in a counter-productive tension, the sort that made people snap if it
wasn’t relieved.
The soft-faced man opened the door, and the woman
and the first man went in, then Pres heard the sound of lockers being opened.
One of them handed the soft-faced man a beige plastic case the size of a
hard-bound book. "Well, is that it?” the woman’s voice said, with a clipped
British accent.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, Idiot, don’t THINK so - Make Sure! We can’t
very well come back and get the right one, now can we?”
“Oh, of course not, of course not...” He opened the
case and took out an odd metallic device that was the size and shape of a
paperback book. There were cogs set along the sides - two each on the top and
bottom, and three along either side - and Pres could see an ‘E’ and and ‘F’ in
large letters at the corners.
“Well, IS it?”
“Just a second, making absolutely sure...” the
soft-faced man replied as he took a fold of paper from the case. He read
something intently, his lips moving silently. Pres could see the man’s fingers
moving, touching the thumb to various fingers. It was a common mnemonic device
for remembering long figures or statements that you didn’t have any context for
remembering otherwise. He was memorizing something.
He ran through his mnemonic device five times, and
then placed the strange object back in its case without the paper. “Yes, I’m
absolutely sure, this is the proper unit.” As he spoke, he quietly tore up the
paper.
Pres pulled back and held his breath as the soft
faced one came toward the cubicle that he was in and leaned down.
But he didn’t spot Pres - he was just looking for a
paper recycling bin. He casually tossed the scraps in, and returned to the
door, as if he’d done nothing. “Well? We ARE on a schedule, as you keep telling
me!” There was a sound of a drawer shutting, and the man and woman came out,
carrying four long cardboard tubes and a folder.
“Of, you noticed, did you,” the blonde man said
dryly, in a soft polished British accent. He handed the soft faced man the
folder.
The soft faced man hurried through the dossier.
“Yes, yes, yes, wait... yes. It’s all here.” He checked the writing on the
bands on the ends of the tubes. “Yes, Yes, Yes... and... Yes.”
The blonde man hit the button on a stopwatch. “Two
Minutes, 36 Seconds. Adequate.”
As one, they turned, pulled up their masks and
hoods, and went out the door. Well, what was all THAT about?, Pres asked
himself. He waited a few seconds for the footsteps to disappear down the hall,
and went rummaging in the recyke bin. He couldn’t find all the bits of paper,
but he did find one that he knew was important. It was a set of numbers headed
by a large capitol ‘C’, on a strip of Foto-Proof© finish. The Foto-Proof©
refraction finish was a security treatment to prevent what was printed on it
from being scanned, photographed, or copied in any way. Highly secure
information, like Combinations and stuff like that were printed on Foto-Proof©.
Pres thought that, as bad as it would be for him to
get caught in this office at all, it would be a thousand times worse if he were
caught with this on him. He memorized the combination, using mnemonics similar
to what the soft faced man had used. Then he shredded the Foto-Proof© finish
with his pocketknife and tucked the shreds in his shoe. Then he went and poked
his head over the bottom of the window and tried to see if anything was
happening.
*****
In the Tac-Ops center, the Media Monitor said,
“Skipper, they’re broadcasting their message. They say that they’re Tribulation
Saints.”
“Is it a live cast, or are they showing a re-run?”
“Just a sec. Yep. Cloud patterns match what we have
flying today.”
“Are they saying anything interesting?”
“Not really. The usual Fire and Brimstone crappola.”
“Are they showing the hostages?”
“Yep, right behind the Spokes-head.”
“Well, it’s about damn time.” The Tac-Ops skipper
lifted a cover and hit a red button.
*****
All the figures waiting underwater on the skips
heard a single *Clack!* As one, they all leaned to and hit a button on
their skip handlebars. Matched sets of Ionic Thrusters mounted on the Jet-Ski
like vehicles thrust them up, out of the water and high into the air, well over
the top of the dikes that rose twenty feet above Sea Level. Or at least, where
Sea Level was this year.
As the skips crested over the tops of the dikes,
their drivers widened the repulsion fields to their widest dispersal, and all
the riders let out an ear-splitting, nerve-rattling ululating shriek. The
Erinyes War Shriek is a Ki technique that was designed to cut past the rational
mind’s defenses and kick in a primordial fear response. The Erinyes War Shriek
could reduce the average man to incontinence. Of course, the Erinyes were not,
as a rule, deployed against average men, so soiled underwear was rarely an
issue. But even hardened veterans were usually startled by it, and as anyone
who’s ever been in a firefight knows, that moment of hesitation and distraction
can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
As the skips began a minimally reduced descent, each
skip’s pilot fired a pistol-launched grenade, and the Erinys riding behind
kicked off into the air.
*****
On TV, the viewers were watching a man dressed as a
rather sinister Inquisitioner, right down to the large silver crucifix that he
wore on his chest, harangue the North American Federation for ‘betraying the
Holy Nation of Gideon’, and proclaiming that the End Times were here. He was
only getting the airtime because the networks had agreed, as a term for the
safety of the hostages. Most of the people watching were only doing so in hopes
that it would be over soon, and their regularly scheduled programming would
continue. Suddenly, the diatribe was cut short by a loud shrieking that was
disorienting, even over the TV.
There was an explosion near each of the Gauss Guns.
But instead of a hail of shrapnel, the grenades erupted in a shower of
Scatterballs©. Scatterballs are pea-sized pellets of memory plastic used as a
non-lethal anti-riot measure. When they are fired, the pellets store the
kinetic energy inside the plastic, priming a change of form. The second impact
triggers the shift into a rigid hollow sphere about the size of a grapefruit.
The resulting strike is painful, disorienting and often bruising, but not
lethal.
And, more to the point, as the Scatterballs hit the
‘Tribulation Saints’, they hit Reflex Armor’s big flaw. Reflex Armor diffuses
impact by becoming rigid and spreading the impact over an entire region. But,
in protecting the wearer, the armor also becomes a form fitting prison, until
the impact has dispersed and the memory plastic becomes flexible again. The
Tribulation Saints’ Reflex armor was cut along its ‘monks habit’ lines, down to
the Capuchine-esque capelet, to minimize that restriction. But the barrage of
Scatterballs hit almost every part of the armor, trapping the ‘Saints’ in their
own armor and scattering them like ten-pins. And, most importantly, the Saints
couldn’t start firing into the body of hostages.
Then gloriously female figures dropped to the
ground. They looked as if they’d been dipped in liquid latex. Their only
feature that wasn’t covered by the glossy black bodysuits where their faces,
which were concealed by tac-helmets. They touched down lightly and immediately
began firing assault pistols at the Saints. The assault pistols were loaded
with sabot rounds containing more Scatterballs, so though the terrorists scrambled
among the hostages, all the hostages received were some bruises. Then the skips
came down, bowling over the Gauss Guns with their suspensor fields.
A few teams of Saints who had been on open patrol
began to run in the direction of the battle. There was another ululating yell,
and figures in more conventional Hardsuit armor came over the wall. Some were
carrying personal assault systems, but some where carrying what looked to be
oversized scrolls. The pairs carrying scrolls pulled them apart, stretching a
length of fabric between them. One pair held their screen between the on-coming
Saints and the hostages, while the others erected their screens around the
huddled body of hostages. The screens were more mono-flex memory plastic, and
while they weren’t bullet-proof, they provided as much protection from small
arms fire as the Myrmidon hardsuit squads could offer under the circumstances.
*****
The teams of Erinyes assigned to the hostage sledges
used a different tactic. The lead skip pilots for Team B fired grenades at the
base of ‘Sledge B’, but the grenades weren’t Scatterball rounds. They were EMP
grenades, and they heterodyned with the nascent repulsion fields on one side of
the sledge, tipping it over, and sending everyone inside sprawling. One of the
skip pilots shot down, shed her two passengers, and wedged the suspensor field
of her skip between the ground the sledge, keeping it from flipping back right,
as it was designed to.
The other skip pilot shed her passenger high up and
came down slowly. The jumper landed directly on the side of the sledge near the
door. She instantly slapped a small demolition packet on a hatch near the door
and vaulted back off the sledge. The explosion knocked the Erinys in mid-vault,
but she used the force to carry her further, and was ready with a large caliber
LMG ready when she landed on her feet.
As soon as the explosion cleared, the two Erinyes
that had come down with the skip jumped up to the sledge door. The one with the
smart-rigged .45 Colt 1911A at ready kicked in the door, and the smaller one
with the Mono-Edge© glass-edged ‘katana’ dived in the door on top of the Saint
who had been assigned to watch the front end. His Reflex Armor was great for
stopping high velocity rounds, but the near mono-molecular edge of the sword
cut through it like it was soft leather. The swords-woman cut his throat and
then positioned her blade over his heart. She pushed in, and made a ‘coring’
motion that made hamburger of his heart.
As the front guard gave a gurgling scream, the
Erinys with the Colt .45 ducked upside down through the sledge door and waited,
her cybernetic eyes already painting a tactical targeting overlay on the scene.
Sure enough, the guard in the middle managed to struggle up from where he’d
fallen into the seat cavity and looked toward the sound of his comrade. The
gunwoman let fly with two shots, very close apart, that sounded like thunder in
the cramped and piled up sledge. The two rounds hit him squarely in the
faceplate, and threw him back.
At the sound of the gun, the skip pilot who had come
down slowly and landed at the rear of the sledge opened the Emergency Door, let
the hostages there pour out and grabbed the struggling Rear Door guard by the
head. She pulled him halfway out, pushed back his hood and gave his head a
quick vicious twist that did not snap his neck, but did render him instantly
unconscious.
As soon as the middle guard went back, the gunwoman
snapped, “Chai! Confirm!”
Chai, the swords-woman, hauled her lithe form up
onto handgrips on the empty seats above and spider-climbed over the hostages
who were still reeling from the dumping and the small explosion. She was
halfway there, when the Erinys at the rear door yelled, “Down!”
The gunwoman looked at one of the hostages who was recovered
enough to look afraid. The gunwoman said in a calm, level voice that was
pitched in just the right way to be comforting while still conveying authority,
“How many guards are there on this sledge?”
“aahhh... Three...” the hostage answered, still
groggy.
“Good. Then you’re safe.”
Chai got to the middle guard and pulled his
faceplate off. It was thick and supposed to be protective, but when you’re
talking about a Colt .45, ‘bulletproof’ is more wishful thinking than truth in
advertising. “Woof! Vangie, you punched his lights out! One in each eye! You’re
getting extravagant! You used up two whole bullets!”
Vangie checked the ‘stopwatch’ readout in her Tac
helmet. “Forty-eight seconds, from Launch to Last Kill Confirm.” Then she said
in a firm, carrying voice, “People, listen up! You are safe now! We are from
THEMIS© Investigation and Enforcement Services, a division of INFAX™. We were
contracted to get all of you out of here safely. We are going to right the
sledge now.” She hit the comm button. “Ayumi, set this thing right-side up
again.” She addressed the hostages again. “Now, please, while your guards have
been taken care of, the situation has not been declared SAFE yet. I know, you
want to get off this sledge right now, but please stay in here! We have our
Rescue and Evacuation corps en route, even as we speak. But, if you leave
before they get here, you could be vulnerable to a stray shot or a revenge
sniper. When Ajax, that’s our Rescue & Evac guys, gets here, you will be
taken out in bulletproof vans. But until then, stay in the sledge!”
The hostages seemed to be listening and were busy
coping as the sledge began to right itself, so Vangie shifted her comm-link to
the Tac-Ops center. “Ops, this is Team B leader. Last Kill Confirmed, no
hostage casualties.”
The Ops Skipper called back, “Team B leader, we have
a situation in the Museum. We have an unknown civilian minor at large on the
third floor, last seen west side - your side. Passive Thermographics suggest
three groups of roving patrols inside. Get the kid out before he gets himself
shot.”
Vangie opened her link to helmet-to-helmet. “Okay,
kids, you heard him, we have overtime. Ayu-” Then Chai was out the door even
before the sledge was leveled back, and Vangie could see the lanky Erinys who
had blown the hatch moving toward the building at top speed. “Kait! Chai! No!
oh, shiiiiitttt... Okay, Ayumi, Margo, you stay with the hostages
until Ajax gets here, then come in to reinforce. I’m going after them. I am NOT
gonna let those two loose in the Smithsonian without a leash!”
*****
The Tac-Ops Skipper paused as he heard this. “Marco?
Who’s on Team B?”
“Just a sec. Ah, yeah, Ariyanundataka,
Chaimaia; Blake, Evangeline; Lane, Margaret; Marksbury, Kaitlyn; Matsu-”
“Ariyanuntaka?” A
chill ran down his normally temperate spine. “Chai Ariyanuntaka?
And Kait Marksbury? You mean, I just sent the Apocalypse Twins
into the Smithsonian Institute?” He tried to raise them, but they
were already outside of the effective range of the ultrasonic link. “Oh,
Christ...” he whimpered.
“ah, Yeah. Well, at least Blake is going in to ride
herd on them.”
“Oh, wonderful. She’ll be able to keep the
collateral damage down to a billion. DAMN! There goes our profit margin,
straight down the tubes!”
*****
Vangie managed to catch up with them with a
springboard jump off a parked sled up to a ledge on the third floor. Chai had
just unlatched the window from outside, and Kait was raising the sash. “Damn
nice of you to wait for my order,” Vangie snarled.
You could tell Chai’s dismissive smirk, even through
the featureless Tac-helmet. “Ayah, give the round-eye a Team
Leader slot, and she thinks she’s in charge of everybody!”
Vangie went in first, her Colt at the ready. Despite
her lip, Chai waited for Vangie’s go-ahead before slipping through the window,
followed by Kait.
When Kait was all the way in, Vangie stopped her
with a hand on her chest. “Hold it. Gimme your ammo.”
“WHAT?” Kait clutched the gun to her breast like a
newborn baby.
“This is the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, the Old Museum
of American History! There are pieces of paper and gimcracks in there more
valuable than all three of us put together! If you destroy ANYTHING, we’re ALL
in Debt for the rest of our lives! If we run into anything where that thing’s
needed, I’ll hand you the ammo. But, dammit, if there’s any damage, I want it
to be THEIR fault!”
Kaitlyn was a good six inches taller than Vangie,
and had an impressively valkyriene build to go with it, but she looked for all
the world like an overgrown eight-year-old being forced to hand over her doll.
She removed the magazine from the LMG and slung the now empty gun over her
shoulder.
“Good girl. Now, your backup ammo.” With hunched
shoulders, Kait handed over her backup ammo. And her reserve ammo. And her
reserve backup ammo. And her backup reserve ammo. And her emergency ammo. And
her backup emergency ammo. And --- well, you get the idea.
“Okay, melee weapons only, unless we
really NEED firepower.” Vangie reached into her boot sheath, pulled out a Jin
Ren Sho™ OmniStaff© combat system, and extended it into a full length staff
with an expert flick of her wrist. Chai didn’t bother with her sword (too
clumsy in tight places), but settled for a matched pair of long knives, with
similar glassy edges. Kait produced a set of grenades, which she pinned to her
harness.
Vangie gave Kait a look that practically melted both
of their tac-helmets. She tapped in impatient foot.
“These are Scatterball grenades,” Kait said
exasperatedly. “Do you honestly think that I’d set off high explosives in the
Smithsonian Institute?”
Vangie kept tapping her foot. Kait handed her the
two frag grenades that she’d been keeping, Just In Case.
Vangie tucked away the grenades and pulled her
tac-helmet off. “Helmets off. Our brief is to find this kid and get her out,
not shoot it out with the perps. I figure that the kid is either grade school
age here with her parents, or a teener here with one of those high school field
trips. Either way, she’s gonna want to see a human face, not a scary helmet.
We’re gonna have a hard enough time finding her, if she’s actively hiding, we
don’t want her getting freaked out and running. So, standard quick search formation
- Chai down low, Kait on high in case she bolts, and I keep an eye out for
hostiles. Keep your helmets with you.”
“And what do we do if they already bagged her,
Gramma?” Chai asked over-sweetly.
“We get her from them, as quickly and quietly as possible.
Let’s go.”
*****
When the SWAT teams started to attack, Pres figured
that the upper floors of the museum were safe. No matter what the terrorists
were really here for, they’d either head down to the lower levels to fight off
the SWAT teams or up to the roof to take out any Skopter based units. Maybe if
he looked around, he might find something to give him an idea of what this was
all about.
He concentrated, trying to tell which sounds were
coming from down the marble lined hallways, and which were coming from outside.
He was able to pick out the sound of heavy-duty linear motors working, through
the sound of gunfire from outside. Cautiously moving, he followed the sound from
the office area to the mail area. Even in an era where electronic data transfer
was the norm, there were still messages that, for reasons of need of
confirmation or security or simple formality, had to be delivered on hard text.
The Smithsonian mail room was large and full of packages, bundles of letters,
and a man inside was using an odd-looking linear motor power frame that looked
kludged together from chrome pipes to bring in a large reinforced cardboard
crate. The fox-faced blonde man was looking irritably at a stopwatch. “Is that
the last one? We ARE on a schedule here, you know!”
He was talking to a group of six men, who had peeled
out of their ‘monks robes’ (which lay in a pile beside the table), and were
furiously taking bundles of paper out of paper crates. One was taking the
bundles out and handing them to the man next to him. He was giving them a
hurried but practiced once-over and either putting them into a box in from of
him or handing them on to the next man. That man was packing those bundles into
another box, and the final three where busily sealing, labeling, metering and
putting other crates on the Outgoing pile of mail. They all looked like they’d
been in a firefight; their clothes were full of holes and looked like they were
soaked with blood. Pres checked, and he saw the fox-faced man and the woman,
but where was the soft-faced man?
*****
The soft-faced man was back in the offices,
furiously checking the recyke bins. How could he forget the sequence? Goddamn
twenty digit sequences! He could remember the orienting letter, but he couldn’t
remember the last three digits! And he couldn’t let those two know it! Hell, he
couldn’t make his real move until they’d got rid of the fanatics, and he had
his hired men in place. At the moment, the only reason they didn’t just shoot
him where he stood was that they couldn’t afford to do anything like that in
front of the Saints. As it was, his only real protection was being the only
person who knew the sequence. But for that he needed the goddamn piece of paper
with those last three digits!
At last! He found the recyke bin with the pieces of
paper. But no piece with the Foto-proof© strip. Then he spotted a few pieces of
paper on the carpet next to the bin. Someone had taken the Foto-proof© strip
out of the bin! He got to his feet and ran to the door. Damn! Why was this
happening to him?
*****
Vangie, Chai and Kait watched as the man in Reflex
Armor bustle out of the office without even bothering to pull his mask back up.
He ran down the corridor without looking back. Vangie held Kait back, and shook
her head. She mimed walking stealthily along with two fingers, and then jerked
her head in the direction of where the soft-faced man had run.
The three Erinyes silently went down the hall in a
staccato staggered formation, each covering the others.
*****
Pres watched closely from his place of concealment
as they finished up the last packages, and started shredding the original
crates. The fox-faced man and the feline woman where doing something to the
power frame. Pres pulled back just in time as the woman turned to look at the
corner. Pres heard her mutter, “Where IS that fat fool?”
*****
The soft faced man raced down the hall, and spotted
someone lurking further down. It was a small, frail-looking boy with straw
colored hair, wearing what the man took to be a Private School uniform. With
the clarity of desperation, it struck him that the boy had been hiding. He must
have been hiding in the office, and those two fools who were SUPPOSED to be
such Professionals, didn’t think to search it first! The boy must
have seen him tear up the paper, picked the Foto-proof© strip out of the recyke
bin, and had it on him! Of course, that was more desperation and wishful
thinking than reason and objective logic, but even a blind toss hits the
bulls-eye occasionally.
In a desperate panic, he tackled the boy and yelled
in his face, “I know that you have it! You’re the only one who could have it!
Where IS it?”
*****
“Sheee-iiiittt…” Vangie
muttered to herself as she pulled her helmet back on. They had the kid. Time to
stop being quiet.
*****
“What ARE you doing?” the fox-faced man said as he
and his partner walked out into the hall. He saw the boy. “Oh, this is NOT
good.”
“Tell me!” the soft faced man yelled as he furiously
rummaged through Pres’ pockets. The woman began to say something, but was cut
short when a thick, blunt disk landed near them.
The Scatterball© grenade went off, sending the woman
and the fox-faced man sprawling. But the soft-faced man pulled his protective
mask down, grabbed Pres and used the force to spin Pres on top of him as he
pulled a gun. “BACK! Back, or I’ll...”
The Erinyes’ Fury armor didn’t have that glossy
sheen just for the jazzy effect (though it certainly didn’t hurt);
except for the palms of the gloves, some of the anchoring points for utility
belts and the soles of the traction slippers, the armor was covered with a
frictionless surface. This slick surface prevents opponents from getting a good
handle on them, or for various entangling weapons to work. It also allows for some
rather unorthodox maneuvers. As Vangie covered them, Kait grabbed Chai’s hand
and slid her like a curling iron at the two.
Chai didn’t plow into them. Instead, she used one
hand to cut at the captor’s gun arm, the other hand to grab the boy and her foot
to kick them all free. As soon as the kid was free, Vangie took out the
soft-faced man with a single shot through the faceplate.
Kait and Vangie rushed up to cover Chai and the boy,
just as the packing men recovered in time to get to their guns. Kait thrust out
a hand at Vangie. “Ammo!”
“No! Top Priority: Get the hostage to safety!”
“aaawww... Maaaannn...”
Kait chucked her last Scatterball grenade at the
Saints. While it didn’t lock them up, as they weren’t wearing reflex armor,
since they had NO form of protection, there was a very satisfying amount of
them being knocked around.
As the two figures that were in reflex armor got to
their feet, Vangie whipped out her Omni-Staff©, flicked it into full staff
configuration, and used it to sweep them back off their feet in one smooth
motion. Kait swept Pres up in her arms, and the four of them hustled down the
hall.
Vangie checked the secure radio link. The hypersonic
link that they’d been using while the Saints were jamming all EM frequencies was
useless indoors, but maybe the Myms finally got around to taking out the area
jammer... “Ops! Ops, this is Team B!”
She got a firm, if rather stressed reply, “Team B?
Blake, report!”
“We have the hostage, but encountered armed
resistance-”
“Oh, Christ, what did you trash?”
Vangie scowled into the pickup. “No collateral
damage. YET. We have to get the hostage out. What venues are secure?”
“Oh, right. The hostage. Venues. The way you went in
is currently invalid - the Saints brought BFADs [Bipedal Firefight Assistance
Drones] in from somewhere, and the Power Frames are dealing with them. But you
should be able to get out through a fire escape on the southern face, second
floor. That area is secure. Now, Blake, this is important - DO NOT SHOOT-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I KNOW! I’ll try and keep
Vesuvius and Krakatoa from doing anything too devastating.”
“HEY!” Chai complained, “Kait’s the trigger-happy
one!”
“You’re an enabler,” Vangie muttered back. “Ops, are
there any other hostages in here?”
“No, passive thermographics show heat clusters, but
they’re all moving in groups that suggest roving groups of opposition.” That
makes no sense, Vangie thought to herself; the interior of the Smithsonian
makes for ideal hostage taking conditions. The walk-through conditions make
keeping an eye on your hostages easy, while exhibits make most rapid forced
entry methods nearly impossible. They should have broken up the hostages into
mixed groups, kept them hustling from place to place, and set a few anti-entry
bombs.
Vangie killed the link (who wants the ossifer
joggling their elbow while you’re in a situation?), and brought up the
Smithsonian schematic. “Okay, we have a stairwell in this direction. Chai, take
point. Kait, you cover the kid. I’ll cover the rear.”
When they were halfway down the stairwell, Vangie
called a brief breather. She took her helmet off and looked at Pres. “Kid,
while you were running around in here, did you see those men herding bunches of
people around, like they were keeping them busy?”
“No, but I did see something weird.”
“Something that looked like a bomb or a nanite
disperser?”
“No, they broke into one of the locker rooms and
they took some files and some tubes and this weird looking gadget.”
“Files? How many cards worth of files did you see?”
“No, not that kind of files - hard text folders,
like you see in old movies. And, now that I think about it, the tubes looked
like the kind they kept blueprints in, in old movies, too.”
Vangie blinked. Hard Text? The only reason to keep
files on hard text anymore was if it was too sensitive to keep on a computer,
even an isolated system, so... Vangie hit her comm link. “Ops? Blake. Patch me
out to the main office, Erinyes division, Case Manager Wendy Hookes.” There was
some clicking and Vangie got her connection.
“Erinyes Division, Case Manager Hookes speaking, how
may I help you?”
“Wendy, this is Vangie Blake-”
“Vangie? I thought you were busy on that kafuffle
down at the Smithsonian.”
“I am. Taking five. Anyway, Wendy, I wanna put an
option down on an investigation for the Smithsonian, regarding the theft of
files and an unidentified object from the Smithsonian offices.”
“Sorry, Vange, but Burgess & Whitehead have the
Smithsonian contract. You’re only there because B&W’s Crisis Intervention
division opted out, ‘cause they couldn’t reliably deploy in the half-hour
required in their contract.”
“I know, but I think it’s connected with this bogus
terrorist strike, so we have a claim to the investigation.”
“Aaahhh... Vangie, I don’t see anything listed for
any theft from Smithsonian offices.”
“It hasn’t been discovered yet. That’s why I’m
taking out this option.”
“That’s cutting it pretty thin, Vange.”
“Blake’s Law: Carpe Diem, before the diem carps
back.”
“Well, okay, the Smithsonian’s carrier has posted
your offer and verified your option on the next such case that arises,
recompensation commensurate with the value of what’s recovered. Better hope it
ain’t missing office supplies.”
“I have a good feeling about this. By the way, Wendy
- what’re the odds on Kait’s Mayhem Pool for this operation?”
“Pretty low - no real time to set up a line, and
from what I heard, they made damn sure that they stuck her on one of the
outside lines of attack.”
“Well, I have an inside line that she’s INSIDE the
Smithsonian right now, AND she has ‘Sarah Jane’ with her.”
“YOU’RE KIDDING! They let her inside the Smithsonian?”
“Yeah, and I wanna put a hundred on her keeping her
overhead to less than $50,000.”
“Vangie, we’re talking KAIT - inside the SMITHSONIAN
- with ‘Sara Jane’!”
“Hey, I have a good feeling about this one!” Vangie
silently hefted the ammo clips in her carryall sack.
“Okay, you’re down for a hundred, but what makes you
think-”
There was a sound at the bottom of the stairwell.
“Sorry! Back to work!” She crammed her helmet back onto her head.
Pushing Pres flat against the wall, the three
Erinyes prepared. When the sound of the cautiously approaching feet was right,
Vangie sprang out, cart-wheeled over to where she had a blank section of
reinforced wall behind her and drew a bead with her pistol. As she expected,
she was immediately hit by a hail of gunfire. While the bullets weren’t enough
to penetrate her Fury armor, it was still like being pummeled by an equal
number of fists, and it was NOT pleasant. Vangie covered her facemask - the
only vulnerable part of the armor - and leaned into the storm. Chai emptied her
hands of the knives by putting them into the gun hands of two of the Saints.
As Chai drew her sword, Kait came roaring in, picked
up one of the Saints, and hefted him over her head. With a hearty shriek of the
patented Erinyes War Cry, Kait hefted him into a pair of his fellows, knocking
all three to the ground.
With the relief from her backup, Vangie brought her
staff into play again, and vaulted over the heads of the Saints, effectively
containing that cell. Dealing with men in reflex armor can be a hassle,
especially if you don’t particularly want to kill them. But Vangie had a remedy
for that. She tapped the back of her off hand and deployed a GladiCorpa™
Retarius© capture system. The monofilament ‘net’ not only entangled the man she
threw it on, but it worked on a ‘cinch-up’ principle, using the prisoner’s own
movements to tighten itself more closely around him. Not only did his reflex
armor not do anything against it, since the Retarius used his own movement and
reflex armor only guards against external force, but the constant pressure of
the Retarius turned his own armor into a form fitting prison.
However, the Retarius© is a single shot device, so
she unclipped a MnemoPlast™ DermaDhesive© restraint system from her belt and
started ‘taping’ the Saints into submission as Chai and Kait put them down.
When the last of the seven ‘Saints’ was down, Vangie
hissed, “Kid! Any sound of the guys up on the Third Floor?”
Pres shook his head ‘no’. “I think they’re finishing
up with the packages.”
“Packages?” Vangie started at the non sequitur.
“Yeah, they were taking a bunch of hard text
documents from one set of crates and puttin’ ‘em into mailing crates.”
Things began to click - at least some of them did -
in Vangie’s head. “Later. First, we get you out.”
Chai and Kait stripped one of the Saints, who was
unconscious and not restrained, of his reflex armor and pulled it on Pres, as
Vangie wrapped the Saint up like a mummy.
Once their charge was reasonably safe from stray
rounds, they set off down the museum corridor.
“Damn!” Vangie muttered, “We’re in an exhibition
area! Do-” Before she could finish her order, a group of ‘Saints’ came charging
around, guns at ready.
Kait opened up a full-auto volley, knocking the
Saints back into a glass-faced display, and shredding a display of elegant
ladies’ gowns on dummies. Then she shifted over to shotgun, sending more of
them sprawling, and then the grenade launcher, which splatted them with
compressed adhesive ‘globs’.
“WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?” Vangie screeched at Kait.
“I took them off the Terrs.” Kait held up one of the
Personal Assault Systems that the Saints had been using, as if explaining to a
rather slow child.
Vangie wiped the metaphorical egg off her face
through her Tac-helmet and let out a long, slow breath. She looked at the
display plaques. It was a display of the Inaugural Gowns of American First
Ladies. One elegant gown was almost completely shredded. The plaque said that
it had belonged to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Jackie Kennedy. It couldn’t belong to Hilary Clinton
or Pat Nixon; no, it HAD to be Jackie Kennedy.
Vangie took another deep breath, took the PAS from
Kait and threw it next to the Saints. Then she took two of the other PASes, and
plastered the exhibit with fire, to confuse the ballistics. “Okay, this never
happened. When we write our reports, WE were going along THIS side of the
corridor, and the Saints shot at us from that angle. THEY shot at US,
destroying the display _IS _THAT _UNDERSTOOD_?”
Chai and Kait snapped to, saluted, and as one
responded, “Yessir! We were coming along that side, and they shot
at us from that angle, GOT IT!” Never mess with Vangie when she’s cooking reports.
“Okay - now, drag them over there, so this will
fly.”
As they were busily straightening Vangie’s frame-up,
another squad of Saints came along and decided to help them by confusing things
more with a cross-fire of Gauss-gun fire. They managed to bracket the four and
prevent them from reaching the fire escape.
The Gauss-guns were chewing up the ‘bullet-proof’
display that Pres and the Erinyes were using as cover, when the nerve rattling
Erinyes War Shriek sounded from the outside. Ayumi and Margo came crashing in
through the fire escape window and sent the Gauss-gun crews flying. As the
Saints collected themselves enough to try and handle Ayumi and Margo, Chai and
Kait peppered them with adhesive globs from the PASes they’d liberated.
When the Saints finally fell, Ayumi brightly
chirped, “Did anyone call for a cab?”
Vangie gave a loud, martyred sigh. “No, we wait for
an armored Ajax van. You just added at least $15,000 to our overhead, so we
can’t afford any ‘reckless endangerment’ fines.”
The Ajax van powered up to what was left of the fire
escape, and Vangie and Pres stepped into the van. Vangie assigned the other
four to help the Myrmidion hard suit squads sweep the buildings for any lone
suicide shooters or spoilsport bombs. Kait visibly brightened at the mention of
bombs. *High Explosives! YEAH!*
Vangie pulled her helmet off again and watched as
the Ajax EMT/PTS counselor fussed over the kid.
Pres, no longer in immediate threat of being shot,
gave the woman his full attention. She was a trim, athletic woman, and her
skin-tight outfit left no question as to her curves or endowments. She had the
rectangular, regular features of a Hollywood beauty, with killer cheekbones, a
full lower lip and a nose that turned up ever so slightly. There was something
slightly off about her dark blue eyes, but he couldn’t peg it. Her dark hair
was pulled back in a French braid for the helmet. Then he saw the emblem on her
shoulder. It was a logo done in the art nouveau style of Aubrey Beardsley, with
the face of a scowling woman with hair of writhing snakes, framed by a pair of
wings. Two ribbons above and below the face declared, ‘The Wicked Flee/Where No
Man Pursueth’. He flickered his gaze back to her face. “You’re an Erinyes?”
Vangie quirked a smile. “No, I run around in a
skin-tight outfit, shooting guns as Performance Art.” But she relented. “Yeah,
I’m an Erinys. By the way, ErinYS is the singular, ErinYES is the plural.
You’ve heard of us?”
Pres blushed. “uhm, Yeah. I’ve been to a few of your
web-shrines.”
“Oh, one of THOSE.” Vangie smirked. “Well, if you
wanna, when you’re declared fit to live your own life again, I’m sure that I
can talk a few of the girls into joining me in a few snapshots with you. Oughta
make your rep on the combat-porn sites.”
“Don’t tease him!” the Ajax EMT/PTS snapped. “Hasn’t
he been through enough as it IS, without you making fun of him?”
“Oh, his day isn’t over, not by a long shot,” Vangie
blandly assured her. “He’s a material witness. After you’re through with him,
there are going to be a LOT of questions.”
The van didn’t go very far. SOP required that all
Minors involved in a hostage situation be accounted for by the Adults
responsible for them, face to face. The van touched down at the landing dock,
and the Erinys went looking for Mr. Vasquez, Pres’ teacher at Milken Academy.
Pres glossed over the EMT/PTS’ soothing blither. He was too jazzed by the
experience to listen to what she was saying. Needing something interesting to
focus on, that wasn’t about ‘deep rooted fears’ or ‘shattered paradigms’, Pres
took in every part of the scene at the landing.
They were stacking up what was left of a bunch of
combat robots, with CSI types swarming over them for some reason. There were
media types all over the place. A few of them tried to get a look inside the
van, but one of the utterly humorless guards stopped them. There were a few
ambulance sledges, loading seriously wounded victims. But there was something
about one of the gurneys - it didn’t look right...
Then Pres spotted one of the female EMTs as she
secured a rather dead looking man with a facial wound. Then it clicked! She was
the woman from the office, with the fox-faced man and the soft-faced man! And
there! The other EMT was the fox-faced man!
Pres tried to tell the Ajax EMT/PTS, but she just
soothed him, telling him that it was perfectly normal to start seeing terrorists
in every corner. Finally, when the ambulance only had three more gurneys to
load, the Erinys team leader came back with Mr. Vasquez. “LOOK! See that
ambulance? The EMTs! They’re part of the terrorist team! I saw them without
their gas masks in the office!” Pres furiously gestured at the ambulance.
As the EMT/PTS started to say something, Vangie
paused, considered and turned. “You! In the ambulance! Hold on!”
The two ‘EMTs’ gave Vangie a hard look, and chucked
the gurney that they were loading. Vangie immediately started loading eye shots
from her optics into her RAM implant, drew her gun and advanced through the
crowd. “TROJAN HEARSE!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, “STOP THAT
SLEDGE!”
The female ‘EMT’ threw a few Flash/Bang grenades to
confuse the already jittery crowd, and the sledge leaped out of its cradle. A
pair of non-regulation and totally illegal ‘afterburner’ pods popped out of the
sides, and the sledge went soaring over the traffic control barrier. It
screamed down the Mall for a block or so, and then there was another explosion.
When the spray cleared, there were two bubbling wakes, one going straight
forward, and one veering off to the left.
Vangie snarled at the wake of the escaping sledge,
pistol drawn but useless. Pursuit Skopters were already in the air, but Vangie
knew that the foxes were already out of the hen house, and no doubt halfway to
their hole. She pushed through the throng and touched her headset. “Ops? Blake.
Get me Legal.” A few seconds later, “Legal? Erinys Field Agent Blake,
Evangeline, X., on-site at the Smithsonian sub-contract. I have a rush order
for you; I need restraining orders on one Vasquez, Arnold Schwartzeneggar, a
teacher at Michael Milken Academy Private High School, and the Field Trip List
for that school to the Smithsonian. I also need a Material Witness Holding
Warrant for one Wyecross, Preston Giles, age 15, a freshman at that school, a
student of afore-mentioned Mr. Vasquez, and should be on that Field Trip List.
I need to be able to hold the kid for 48 hours at least, 96 would be better, in
Protective Custody. It’s possible that our perps don’t know who the kid is, and
I’d like to keep it that way. Also, I don’t want the media getting to the kid’s
parents and turning them into 15-minute celebrities, so do whatever it takes to
keep the wolves from their door. Get that stuff signed and sealed ASAP. SOP
says that they gotta do a stint of PTS therapy, but after that, I need to ask
the kid a LOT of questions.”
That done, Vangie walked back to the van. She told
the guard, “You, stay with the kid. I don’t want ANYONE except the PTSes and me
to talk to him. He’s a material witness in MY case, capise?” The guard
nodded. She pointed at Vasquez. “I have a restraining order for him in the
works, ordering him to keep shut about what just happened here until my
investigation is complete. Until the ink is dry, nobody talks to him, either.”
Then Vangie gave the van pilot the go-ahead, and the van lifted off with an
armed skip escort.
Vangie let out a cleansing breath and looked at the
Smithsonian. If she got there soon enough, she might be able to do something
before anyone mucked things up too badly.
Nobody stopped her as she walked through the main
door of the Old Museum of American History. ‘Spoilsport’ squads were swarming
over the place, but they weren’t fool enough to challenge an Erinys. Or at
least not one still carrying a gun in her hand. Vangie noticed their looks at
her hand, realized that she was still carrying her .45 in the open and
holstered it.
Using the Ops report on the first sighting of the
kid as a guide, Vangie checked the office that he must have been in, in
violation of CSI SOP. She checked the ‘No Admittance Confidential Files’ room
door. Unlocked. Sloppy. Someone was in a screaming hurry.
Well, no sense contaminating the scene any further,
at least until Smithsonian Security got here, so she could nail this gig. She
strolled down the corridor, to the mailroom. If the kid was right, then...
In the mailroom, Vangie looked over the packages
stacked for mailing. She discarded most of them, but still had a rich selection
to choose from. But then...she started checking the time/date stamps. Yes. She
snapped a few more internal shots, and paused. She looked at the postage meter,
and quirked a pussycat smile to herself. If she had enough time...
*****
The Burgess & Whitehead team came in with all
the officious disdain that they were famous for in the Police Service Provider
industry. B&W fancied themselves as heirs to the tradition of J. Edgar
Hoover’s FBI, and they never let you forget that. The two B&W agents, who
looked like they’d been stamped out by a machine, glowered at Vangie in her
clinging Fury armor as she lounged against a marble clad wall, with puritanical
disapproval. But then, they’d have glowered at her in disapproval if she’d been
wearing an all-concealing burkha; it was part of their act. “What are you still
doing here? This is a Burgess & Whitehead investigation. We don’t need any
more showboating.”
‘Showboating’ is a B&W term for anything that
isn’t covered in the famous B&W 3,450 page Manual of Procedures.
Vangie smiled at them. “Oh, don’t mind me, I have to
hang around for Smithsonian Security to get here and confirm a case for me.”
The B&W men stiffened. “Case? This is OUR case.
We have the Smithsonian contract.”
“Which you defaulted on, by not being able to deploy
in time.”
“We already have the contract to investigate the
Tribulation Saints attack.”
“That’s not what I’m here about. My team was sent in
to retrieve a loose minor who was in harm’s way. While in here the
aforementioned minor saw what appeared to be an opportunistic grab of several
hard text files from office lockers.”
*****
It took some doing, but the Smithsonian Security
Chief confirmed that something had been stolen from the Confidential Files, and
that INFAX (by way of Vangie) had the option on the case. Morgan and Webb, the
B&W ramrods, didn’t like it. Burgess & Whitehead had a rather stringent
corporate culture, and ‘losing’ a contract, even a single case contract, was
regarded as an abject failure. Morgan and Webb ‘allowed’, in their ‘stay out of
our hair, you bumbling amateur, WE are Professionals’ way, Vangie
her ‘trivial matter’, as long as it didn’t get in the way of B&W bringing
the terrorists to justice.
And yes, they really did use the term ‘bring the
terrorists to justice’.
The Burgess & Whitehead forces had ‘secured’ the
Smithsonian and told the Themis forces that ‘their services were no longer
needed, the First Line Team was there’. So, none of the Themis vehicles were
available, not even the Skip that she’d arrived on. So, Vangie had to take a
taxi back to the Themis Washington Office. Which was a pain, because that meant
that instead of being ‘pinged’ through the Georgetown dyke-gate and being
allowed directly into the Themis garage, she had to slog through the regular
security measures. In her skin-tight, latex-appearing Fury suit. Carrying a
gun.
All of which meant that by the time that she got out
of that skin-tight, latex-appearing Fury suit and had a much needed shower, the
post-mission de-briefing was almost over. The Myrmidons were grousing again
about the fact that the Erinyes got more On-Air time than they had. “Hey, we’re
just more fun to watch,” Chai summed up.
“Damn nice of you to join us, Blake,” Velikovski,
the Mission Honcho, drawled, as Vangie found a chair beside the rest of Team B.
“I needed take care of a few last minute details,”
Vangie returned, “I hadda nail down my option on a case for the Smithsonian.”
“I thought that was B&W’s gig.”
“Side job that I wrangled.”
The Honcho gave her a respectful look. “You wrangled
a contract right out from under B&W’s noses?”
“Blake’s Law: The earlier the bird, the juicier the
worm.”
Velikovski shrugged. “Okay, to sum up, this mission
was a qualified success. First, we deployed in under Ten Minutes, from First
Alarm to Last Man In Place, on a Default Option Call. That’s an automatic $500
bonus for everyone.” There was a general ‘all right!’ all around on that.
“Next, all known hostages were recovered. There were
four injuries and two fatalities, but that happened before we hit the button.
We have been cleared for $1,000 ‘clean slate’ bonuses all around.” There was a
heartier ‘Yeah!’ for that one.
“Team B, you finished first. There were two broken
arms, and a raft of bruises and such, but nothing actionable. $1,000 bonus for
you girls.” There were high-fives all around.
“Also, Team B, you went in and recovered an
endangered minor, in the face of repeated attack. There’s a $5,000 bonus in it
for you, IF it can be proven that a certain exhibit worth $12 million and
change was destroyed by the opposition.”
“It’s in the bag,” Vangie breezed. “Ballistics will
prove that the damage was done by the Saints’ PAS.”
“Assault Systems that YOUR team appropriated for
use,” Velikovski pointed out.
“From two guns that we set aside as evidence, after
we took them away from the thugs who shredded the exhibit. The guns that my
girls used were promptly turned over for examination against any damage done,
as per SOP.” Vangie, Kait and Chai all smiled, the very image of virtuous
innocence.
The Honcho raised one eyebrow. “Yeah, right. At
least there’s nothing that can conclusively be tracked back to Themis™.”
“Oh, ah, just for the record,” Vangie asked
innocently, “how badly DID we chew into our overhead?”
“Well, for a change, you actually managed to keep
the carnage to a minimum. $18,000, and most of that was the window which
Matsuyama crashed through.”
“YES!” Vangie gave out a victorious yelp.
“By the way, exactly how DID you keep Marksbury from
wreaking her usual havoc?”
Vangie grinned and cocked a thumb at Kait. “First
thing in, I ordered ‘Boom-boom’ to hand over all of her ammo.”
“Anyway, the Determination Board is on your side on
that one. The Smithsonian’s insurance is kicking about it, but it’s up to them
to prove that you did the damage.”
Velikovski reviewed Kait’s performance with the bomb
squad, and then gave the kicker. “So far, an excellent job. But then, we let
the Bad Guys GET AWAY! This is a MAJOR disgrace, people! Yes, only a handful of
them got away, but Themis was on the job, so exactly ZERO of them should have
gotten away! Yes, it was a pure fluke that we even know about it
at all, but that makes it even worse! So, no ‘Perfect Performance’ bonuses, and
a unilateral $1,000 ‘boy, did YOU screw up’ penalty will be levied.” He let out
a heavy sigh. Then he gave the assembled hoard a sly look. “Of course, if we
found these bad boys and dragged them in by the heels, that would go a LONG way
toward perking our stock up. Both the Company’s - and yours. Now, technically
the Saints are Bozos & Wussoid’s contract, but, hey, that’s just the Smithsonian
contract. There are multiple bounties out for the Tribulation Saints, both as
an organization and for many specific individuals.” He grinned evilly, his
trademark stainless steel teeth glinting in the light. “Which makes them fair
game. Still, we’ll have to be careful on this one. B&W will be cracking
heads left and right, so the Saints will be laying low.”
“I don’t think so, Boss,” Vangie said.
“Oh? You know something, Blake?”
“The Smithsonian job wasn’t the Saint’s usual gig.
Usually, they try to set it up so that they can play up the ‘decadence of
modern society’ angle and make their ‘the Last Days are here’ noise. The
Smithsonian was a straight up grab, with the hostages as window dressing. They
went in for something, and whatever it was that they got, is the key to whatever
it is they’re gonna do.”
“So, any ideas, Sherlock?”
“Not just yet. But I’ll get more information, when
B&W does.”
“Oh, you’re dating a B&W goon?”
“Better. My contract with the Smithsonian
specifically states that they give me access to all information that they have
dealing with the case. B&W SOP requires that they give their clients
regular, detailed information on what they’ve learned. The case involves the
Saint’s raid, so any information the Smithsonian security goons have will be
shared, as a matter of course, with us. Hell, I’ll probably be the only one
actually reading the damn reports.”
Velikovski arched an eyebrow. “Any way to keep the
data-bleed one-way, if B&W starts asking things?”
“Only if you allow me to alter our client update schedule.
To, like, when we feel like it.”
“Consider yourself allowed. So, since there’s
nothing else...” The Honcho started handing out Bonus Chits.
“Suh-weeet!” Chai breezed. “$7,500 for
an afternoon’s work! I love picking up Butt & Wipe’s fumbles!”
Kait blinked her large green eyes at the chit. “Oh,
so THAT’S what a bonus looks like!”
“Yeah,” Ayumi grinned, "maybe now you’ll be
able to dig yourself out of the coffins, and into a REAL dorm room.”
“Why?” Kait asked, “I never sleep in them,
anyway.”
“Yeah, well, ask for a bigger space anyway,” Chai
said snippishly, “I getting tired of cluttering up MY space with all your
toys.”
“Hey, where you goin’, Snake-eyes?” Ayumi asked.