They were too close now for the punch pistol. He dodged one madman who was swinging a chair at his head. Another broke a bottle across his shoulder; ragged glass spikes slithered uselessly over the Skin carapace.
Jones screamed. Lawrence saw his grid turn red. Graphics swirled madly as the AS tried to make sense of the data. Visual sensors locked on. Jones was falling, arms waving slowly. He hit the pavement, and his fists cracked the stone slabs.
"Jones!" Lawrence yelled. "Status?"
"Okay," Jones gurgled. "Electric. Electric shock. I'm okay. Motherfuck. They zapped me with a charge. Goddamn, it was a brute."
"Amersy," Lawrence ordered. "Dart them."
Amersy held his arm up high. Nozzles slid out through the carapace around his wrist. Fifty darts puffed out.
It was as if God had reached down and switched people off. The front ranks of the mob crumpled with startled expressions that swiftly faded to the neutral face of the deep sleeper. Within seconds, a fifteen-meter logjam of inert bodies surrounded Lawrence and the platoon. Beyond that, the remainder of the crowd stared down at their comatose compatriots in numb horror.
Amersy fired another salvo.
Screams broke out as more people fell. The remainder began running, vanishing down side streets at an incredible rate.
"One for the good guys," Edmond said.
"They're crazy," Hal whined. "Totally fucking crazy. Is it going to be like this the whole time?"
"One sincerely hopes not," Odel said.
"Jones?" Lawrence walked over to the trooper, who was now sitting up. "You okay?"
"Shit. I guess so. The insulation blocked most of it Bloody thing scrambled half of my electronics. Systems are coming back online. E-alpha fortress is rebooting the full AS."
Lawrence didn't like the sound of that at all. The suit should have shielded him from just about any kind of current, and the electronics were EMP-hardened. He looked round the deserted street. A lot of the unconscious bodies were bleeding, and he could see several who'd been caught by the Molotovs. The burns looked bad.
Rocks. Molotovs. Shotguns. Electric shock.
We were being tested, he thought Someone wanted to know our Skin capability.
"Dennis, check Jones over, please."
"Yes, Sarge."
"Did anyone see who hit Jones with the shock?"
"I was busy," Karl said. "Sorry."
"That's okay, we can run the sensor memories."
"Newton?" Captain Bryant said. "What the hell's happened?"
"Crowd got out of control, sir. I don't think..." The display grid with Nic Fuccio's video and telemetry flickered and turned black. A medical alarm began to shrill in Lawrence's ears.
"Sarge!" Lewis cried. "Sarge, they shot him. Oh Jesus. Oh fuck. They shot him."
"Dennis!" Lawrence yelled. "With me." He was sprinting, moving at incredible speed over the sprawled bodies, then powering down a narrow side street. Bright indigo navigation displays scrolled down, guiding his feet. Left turn. Right turn. Curve. Right turn. Clump of people across the narrow road, standing staring. He slammed them aside, ignoring the pained protests.
A Skin was lying spread-eagle on the cobbled road. Dark red blood was spreading out from it in a thick glistening puddle. A fist-sized hole had ripped into the carapace between Nic's shoulders. It was bad, but his Skin could have sustained him. The suit's circulatory system was still plugged into the jugular and carotid splices; in such extreme damage situations the AS would keep the brain supplied with blood until the field medics arrived. Whoever the sniper was, he must have known that. The second shot had been fired when Nic was down. It had taken off the top half of his head, leaving nothing from the nose upward.
Lewis was kneeling on the road beside him. Emergency disposal valves had opened on his lower helmet, allowing a stream of vomit to splash down his chest.
"He's dead," Lewis wailed. "Dead. Never had a chance."
Lawrence glanced around. The civilians were backing off fast. Heads vanished into windows, which were slammed shut.
"Where did it come from?" Lawrence asked.
"Oh God. Oh God." Lewis was rocking back and forth.
"Lewis! Where did the shots come from?"
"I don't fucking know!"
Lawrence looked up and down the nearly empty street, reviewing the last of Nic's telemetry. He was running eastward, so judging from the impact he had been shot from behind. There was no obvious window or balcony for the shooter. When Lawrence raised his view, he saw a church tower standing above the roofs. The whole street was exposed to it. But it must have been over a kilometer away.
Myles Hazeldine's single quiet hope that the governor would be a shrewd political operator open to compromise vanished into the air before they even met. He stood outside the main doors of City Hall, watching the Skin-suited invaders march across the main square. The few locals who stubbornly stood their ground were shoved violently out of the way. Z-B's goons never bothered to modify their suits' strength, so the victims really did tumble backward to land awkwardly on the hard slabs.
The three leading the column trotted up the broad stone steps to the doors. At the last minute Myles realized they weren't going to stop. He hurriedly stepped aside as they barged in, nearly breaking the heavy glass-and-wood doors.
It wasn't their strength that made Myles's heart sink, but the deliberate arrogance. "Hey!" he began.
"You are the mayor?"
It was an unnecessarily loud voice booming from one of the Skins that had stopped in front of Myles and his people.
"I am the democratically elected leader of Memu Bay Council, yes."
"Come with us."
"Very well. I'd like to—"
"Now."
Myles shrugged to his aides and went back into City Hall. The Z-B goons were spreading out through the large entrance hall. Their tough heels made a clattering noise like hooves on the marble tile flooring. Nervous staff peering through open doorways moved aside briskly as the big, impassive suits started to check out all the offices. Several of them were jogging up the twin looped stairs to the first floor.
The main group made their way directly to the mayor's apartment. Myles had to take fast steps to keep up with them. Nobody asked him directions. The layout would be in their suit memories, of course.
I should have changed the architecture around inside, he thought. That would have pissed them off and spoiled the know-it-all effect.