He crouched down, taking advantage of the short grade of the hill. Machine-gun rounds whipped through the air above him as the other guys in the battlesuits responded to his attack. None of them had him in their sights yet.
“Release the hatch.” Andy slipped his hands and feet out of the control boots and gloves. Pushing himself from the cockpit console seat, he grabbed the emergency jetpack from the space under the seat and buckled it around his upper body. He slipped on a pair of aviator sunglasses from his jacket pocket.
The front of the battlesuit’s head folded open as the hatch released with a hiss of compressed air. He pulled the jetpack’s control glove onto his right hand and pressed the ignition. The resulting explosion from the combustible engine fired him from the open maw of the battlesuit’s head like a rocket.
Andy kept both hands stretched before him, his legs spread to avoid the jetpack’s fiery contrail and to help him control his flight. He maxed out his speed, hurtling toward the paralyzed battlesuit that stood still as a statue. Machine-gun tracer rounds burned the air above and ahead of him, but he was through the area before the shooter ever got the range.
While playing the game with his friends, Andy had also spent time repairing and beefing his battlesuit up. If the game was played correctly without cheats, a battlesuit warrior spent nearly ten hours working on his vehicle to every one he or she spent operating it. As a result, he knew intimately where all the battlesuits’ weak points were.
He also knew the battlesuit’s secondary systems were struggling to come online and restore mobile capability to the stricken suit.
Andy powered down at the last minute, twisting in the air so he almost stalled out when he reached the battlesuit. He grabbed the clenched fist that held Catie captive.
“Traitor!” the guy inside the paralyzed suit screamed. “I’m going to get you!”
“Andy?” Catie stared at him in disbelief.
“Me,” Andy said with a smile as he took in the frilly dress. “Going to a ball somewhere, Princess?”
“You’d think so,” she replied, only sounding a little tense. “I met a real toad.”
Andy drew the laser pistol from the cavalry holster on his right hip. “Step back.” He fired from pointblank range. The laser cut through the thinner plates inside the finger joint where they had to slide over each other. In seconds the tension cables beneath were bared. Another two bursts and the cable parted with high-pitched squeals.
Holstering his sidearm, Andy stood and grabbed the finger that was taller than and just as broad as he was. It took everything he had to move the finger, but when it opened, Catie managed to squeeze through.
Machine-gun rounds peppered the stationary battlesuit. Andy felt the vibrations shiver through the hardware that warned him the system was coming back online.
The huge hand they stood on jerked spasmodically. The three undamaged fingers closed a little tighter.
“Hold on,” Andy ordered as he wrapped his left arm around Catie’s waist and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, making it hard to keep his head up. He couldn’t walk heavily encumbered, so he chose simply to fall out of the battlesuit’s hand.
No sooner had they left the hand than it snapped closed, sounding like a deadly autobus pileup.
Catie screamed as they fell twenty of the thirty feet to the ground. Then Andy tightened his fist inside the jetpack control glove. The jetpack fired and immediately provided them with lift.
Andy rolled his body, getting them aimed in the proper direction, then fired a sustained burst from the jetpack. He ran close to the ground, no more than five or six feet off the ground. If we crash, we’re not going to have to worry about those guys, he thought.
He flew toward the open head of his battlesuit, cutting power early. He pulled Catie to him more tightly, covering her body with his.
His shoulder hit the upper lip of the access hatch opening, and they ricocheted into the cockpit. He skidded across the steel plate flooring and slammed into the console chair hard enough to drive the wind from his lungs.
“We made it!” Catie shouted in disbelief as she pushed herself up from him.
Andy concentrated on breathing again. Black spots swam in his vision. Getupgetupgetup! he shouted at himself mentally because he didn’t have the breath to speak. They’re not going to wait for you to get ready!
13
Dressed in his astronaut-style crashsuit, Mark Gridley jetted through the twisting maze that was the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel’s security system. Some of the time-savers he’d implanted in the system earlier had folded when the security system went down.
A small image remained at the bottom of his vision, flatfilm reproduction of the confusion filling the convention hall. He also maintained an open window for any IMs the other Explorers might try to send to him.
He rushed from the latest tunnel, searching for access to whatever security vidcams that might be operational after the latest attack on them. Three directions were open before him.
Pausing for just a moment, Mark shook his right hand twice, accessing one of the search utilities he used to crack and map a computer system’s programming. When he opened his hand, three armored butterflies streaked forward, each taking one of the optional directions.
“Passage blocked,” the first butterfly search program reported back.
“Passage leads to outside access,” the second butterfly informed him. “Data port presently unoccupied.”
“Data flowing fine,” the remaining butterfly radioed.
Mark kicked in his boot jets again and shot forward, making the hard S-turn to follow the circuitry path. He stretched out his left hand and sprayed a neon orange stripe along the entrance to let himself know he’d been that way. With the collapse of the security system and the virus that raged within it, a number of the circuits cannibalized themselves, creating endless loops as the programs tried to connect.
The system was a total and complete mess. Mark really didn’t think he could have done a better job himself, but he hoped he could unravel some of the mess in time to provide them with a few more clues.
“Miss Green.”
Maj glanced down at her foilpack and saw Detective Holmes centered in the view. “Where are you?”
“En route,” Holmes replied. “I went home and grabbed forty winks, not thinking we’d have trouble so early. Big mistake on my part.”
Maj trotted at the heels of the convention-goers who flooded into the Eisenhower Productions booth. Her eyes roved over the beautiful artwork lining the walls. Concept art for the Realms of the Bright Water decorated the interior, and the center of the booth contained a miniature model of the forest they’d seen on holo.
The lack of light and power made the interior of the booth almost creepy. But it didn’t slow the convention-goers, who oohed and ahhed over the displays of art, action figures, and clothing. Evidently Eisenhower Productions had kept their marketing staff busy.
“Even if you’d been here,” Maj said, “I don’t think you’d have managed to affect the situation very much.”
“Always loved a vote of confidence.” The sound of Holmes’s siren screaming echoed over the telecommunications connection. As he glanced over his shoulder, the traffic through his back window was briefly visible. He barked orders over his police wristcom.