Shad's heart lifted as he saw the lights of Manhattan rising above the sensible frame buildings of the Coast Guard facility. Freedom was that close ...
Shad saw two figures take to the air - one a man who flew silently into the sky like Modular Man, another who flapped on mantalike wings.
Where are they going?
Will assassinate Governor Raney and CO Shannon. Death of Sharks not necessary to plan, but may sow confusion and cover our retreat.
Shad thought about it Solid, he decided.
The Governor's Island Ferry was docked, closed for the night but brightly lit. Keeping to the shadow of Fort Jay's rough stone walls, Shad slipped his people past, to a motor launch in another slip.
All-mentalities inside Commander's gig.
Shad dropped his cloak of darkness so the others could find their footing on the dock. Racist was first in the boat, heading for the ignition.
Then there were shots. Three distinct shots, bang-bang-bang, and as Shad's nerves leaped in reaction he heard an alarm, a furious urgent buzzer, endlessly repeated. Floodlights came on automatically, and suddenly the dock was lit brighter than day; a hot white glow that pinpointed the refugees, caught frozen in their tracks by the sudden onset of light.
Apparently one of the assassinations hadn't gone well.
Shad turned to where Racist was still bent over the gig's controls. "You doing all right there, speedy?"
"Shut the fuck up."
Shad turned at the sound of running feet and saw guards with guns, assault rifles held at port arms as they ran from the complex, heads swivelling as they looked for escapees.
Shad called more darkness to him, dropped to a crouch. He was going to have to stop those people before they started unloading automatic weapons at the packed escapees in the boat.
"Wait!" It was the dark-haired white woman, jumping to the dock. She threw out her arm in the direction of the pursuers, her fingers crooked slightly - and then a giant bloom of white light encompassed the guards. Shad eyes dazzled, thought for a moment that there had been an explosion - but no, it was silent, and when it faded the guards were unharmed, just fallen, hands over their dazzled eyes.
The gig's engine caught, boomed loud in the night. Shad threw off moorings fore and aft, then followed the white woman into the boat. She held out a hand.
"Lady Light" she said. Her voice was small and feminine.
"Black Shadow." Taking the hand. "Pleased to meet you."
They lurched as the boat took off toward the towering lights of Manhattan, dead ahead.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Lights are on," Herzenhagen reported as he peered into his telescope.
"About fucking time," piped Battle.
They and Mademoiselle Gerard - Herzenhagen couldn't quite bring himself to call her Mam'zell, as everyone else did - stood on the roof of a building across from Gregg Hartmann's apartment. They'd been there for hours, since Battle's joker form had scaled the building, opened the roof door, and let them all in.
"Is he alone?" Battle asked. With his poor eyesight he couldn't see for himself.
"Apparently." Herzenhagen peered into the scope once more, saw Hartmann clearly as the former senator stood by his window, staring moodily at the night while he took off his jacket and loosened his tie. Herzenhagen turned to Gerard.
"Viens ici, s'il vous plait."
"Bien."
She was a tough-looking French girl, maybe sixteen, in jeans and a leather jacket. Brainy, too, because she'd trusted the government amnesty and left the Rox before it was destroyed.
Now she worked for Herzenhagen. Maybe she believed the Shark allegations, maybe not. It didn't seem to matter to her. She had the life she wanted - she was jumping, and living well, and had all the protection the government could give her.
Jumpers. Herzenhagen had the only three jumpers still active under his control, and his only conclusion was that it made him remarkably like God. He could decide who lived, who died, and more importantly, who got to be who. Who got scrambled. Who got a new chance at life in a new body. Who was condemned to old age and death.
Who got to be Gregg Hartmann.
Lux fiat, he thought.
Roofing gravel crunched under Mademoiselle Gerard's boots as she approached the telescope and put one dark eye to the eyepiece. Herzenhagen reached into his pocket for his Browning Hi-Power, ready for what would come later. Gerard concentrated for a brief moment ... and then her body came unstrung, fell to the roof like a puppet with its strings slashed.
Battle reared himself up on his hindmost pair of legs, and thumbed on a large flashlight to illuminate his absurd face from below so that Mademoiselle, in Gregg Hartmann's body, could see him from the window. Then there was another shock - Battle dropped the flashlight and fell to all six limbs - and then Mademoiselle's body gave a start, and she sat up with a little cry of satisfaction.
Triple jump. Leaving Battle in Hartmann's body, Hartmann in the ridiculous yellow joker, and Mademoiselle back where she started.
Now all that remained was to finish off Hartmann. Since people were normally paralyzed after being jumped, Herzenhagen planned simply to shove the spastic six-limbed body off the roof - though he did carry the Browning Hi-Power just in case things didn't go according to plan.
But what he didn't expect was that the joker would give a whoop and run like a mad six-legged racehorse, kicking up gravel as it scuttled to the roof parapet, yellow rump flashing as it went up and over, all before a stunned Herzenhagen could raise his gun to the firing position....
Just as the joker had done when Battle had tried to do his stunt with the lighter. Apparently it was some kind of automatic defense mechanism.
Herzenhagen moved quickly to the parapet, looked down, and saw the joker body already on street level, zigzagging madly along the street, screaming all the wnile. Herzenhagen raised his gun, then decided against it. He'd probably miss, and shots would only call attention to what had just happened.
He'd have to move faster, he thought. Get the Hartmann business over with, accelerate the viral test on Governor's Island, head to Washington to try to move the Quarantine Bill through Congress....
Herzenhagen turned to leave. Mademoiselle Gerard was watching him, hands in her jacket pockets, a quizzical expression on her face.
Herzenhagen shrugged. "Quelle affaire," he said, and offered her his arm.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Above, the shattered span of the Brooklyn Bridge stretched across the night sky. Underneath, in the shadows of the great arches beneath the bridge approaches, Shad paced along, followed by figures in prison coveralls who scuttled from darkness to darkness.
The jokers were making their way deeper into Jokertown. Most were following Witchy, who had promised them that the Twisted Fists would help smuggle them to one of the Jokertown havens, Jerusalem or Guatemala or Saigon ...
That, Shad realized, was why she hadn't had cosmetic surgery. She was an ideological joker as well as a physical one, and accepted her deformity as part of her joker identity.
The aces were left on their own. Racist had chosen to keep the Coast Guard boat and take it over to the Brooklyn side, where he had friends. Shad hoped that would confuse and divide any pursuit.
You still there, Croyd?
This-unit is monitoring.
Can we talk? We might have business to discuss - you want Rudo, and I want certain other people.
Your-mentality may accompany me.
Good. You wait here, I'll get us transportation.
Shad stole an old Pontiac on Pearl Street and brought it back under the bridge approaches. Croyd waited there. Shad leaned across the front seats and opened the passenger door.