He winced at the thud, and towed Rowan down the corridor. “Where are the generators?” he yelled over his shoulder at her. Other Duronas, alarmed, were appearing from all directions. A pair of green-clad Fell guards burst into the corridor’s far end and pelted toward the penthouse lift-tube. But what side were they on? He pulled Rowan into the nearest open doorway.
“Lock it!” he gasped. She keyed the door shut. They were in some Durona’s residence suite. A cul-de-sac made a poor bolt-hole, but help seemed to be on the way. He just wasn’t sure for whom. Something just dropped your force screen… . From the inside. It could only have been dropped from the inside. He half-bent, mouth wide for air, lungs on fire, heart racing and chest aching, a dizzy darkness clouding his vision. He stumbled to the dangerous window anyway, trying to get a handle on the tactical situation. Muffled shouts and thumps penetrated from the wall by the corridor.
“How t’hell’d those bastards get your screen down?” he wheezed to Rowan, clutching the windowsill. “Didn’t hear an explosion—traitor?”
“I don’t know,” Rowan replied anxiously. “That’s outer-perimeter security. Fell’s men are supposed to be in charge of it.”
He stared out over the icy parking lot of the compound. A couple more green-clad men were running across it, shouting, pointing upward, taking cover behind a parked vehicle, and struggling to get a projectile-weapon aimed. Another guard made urgent negative gestures at them; a miss could take out the penthouse and everyone in it. They nodded and waited.
He craned his neck, face to the glass, trying to see upward and to the left. The armored aircar loomed, still hovering at the penthouse window.
The assailants were withdrawing already. Damn! No chance with the force-screen. I’m too slow. The aircar rocked as the troopers hastily re-boarded. Hands flashed, and a thick little grey-clad figure was dragged across the gap, six heart-stopping flights above the concrete. A limp trooper was dragged across too. They were leaving no wounded for questioning. Rowan, teeth clenched, pulled him back. “Get out of the line of fire!”
He resisted her. “They’re getting away!” he protested. “We should fight them now, on our own turf—”
Another aircar rose from the street, beyond the old and obsolete compound wall. A small civilian model, unarmed and unarmored, it fought for altitude. Through its canopy he could see a blurred grey-clad figure at the controls, a white flash of teeth set in a grimace. The assailants’ armored car yawed away from the window. The Dendarii aircar tried to ram it, to force it down. Sparks sprayed, plastic cracked, and metal screeched, but the armored car shook it off; it pinwheeled to the pavement and landed with a terminal crunch.
“Rented, I bet,” he groaned, watching. “Gonna have to pay for it. Good try, it almost worked—Rowan! Are any of those aircars down there yours?”
“You mean the group’s? Yes, but—”
“Come on. We’ve got to get down there.” But the building was crawling with security by now. They’d be nailing everyone to the wall till identified and cleared. He could scarcely leap out the window and fly down the five flights, though he longed to. Oh, for a cloak of invisibility.
Oh. Yes!
“Carry me! Can you carry me?”
“I suppose, but—”
He raced to the door, and fell backwards into her arms as it opened again.
“Why?” she asked.
“Do it, do it, do it!” he hissed through his teeth. She dragged him sack out into the corridor. He studied the chaos through slitted eyes, gasping realistically. Assorted agitated Duronas milled behind a cordon of Fell security now blocking the entry to the penthouse. “Get Dr. Chrys to take my feet,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Temporarily too overwhelmed to argue, Rowan cried, “Chrys, help me! We have to get him downstairs.”
“Oh—” Given the impression that this was some kind of medical emergency, Dr. Chrys asked no questions. She grabbed his ankles, and within seconds they were forcing their way through the mob. Two Doctors Durona carrying a white-faced, injured-looking fellow at a run—green-clad armed men stepped hastily aside and waved them on.
As they reached the ground floor Chris tried to gallop toward the clinic area. For a moment he was yanked two ways, then he freed his feet from the astonished Dr. Chrys, and pulled away from Rowan. She gave chase, and they arrived at the outer door together.
The guards’ attention was focused on the efforts of the two men with the projectile launcher; his eyes followed their aim to the shadowy form of their retreating target, being swallowed by the snowy clouds. No, no, don’t shoot … ! The launcher burped; the bright explosion rocked the car but did not bring it down.
“Take me to the biggest, fastest thing you can make go,” he gasped to Rowan. “We can’t let them get away.” We can’t let Fell’s men blow it up, either. “Hurry!”
“Why?”
“Those goons just kidnapped my, my … brother,” he panted. ’Gotta follow. Bring ’em down if we can, follow if we can’t. The Dendarii must have reinforcements of some kind, if we don’t lose :hem. Or Fell. Lilly’s his, his liegewoman, isn’t she? He has to respond. Or someone does.” He was shivering violently. “Lose ’em and we’ll never get ’em back. They’re figuring on it.”
“What the hell would we do if we caught them?” Rowan objected. ’They just tried to kidnap you, and you want to run after them? That’s i job for security!”
“I am—I am …” What? What am I? His frustrated stutters segued into a confetti-scramble of perception. No, not again—
His vision cleared with the hiss of a hypospray, biting cold on his arm. Dr. Chrys was supporting him, and Rowan had one thumb pressed against his eyelid, holding it up while she stared into his eye, while her other hand slipped the hypospray back into her pocket. A kind of glassy bemusement descended upon him, as if he were wrapped in cellophane. “That should help,” said Rowan.
“No, it doesn’t,” he complained, or tried to. His words came out a mumble.
They had dragged him out of the lobby, out of sight near one of the lift tubes to the underground part of the clinic. He had only lost moments to the convulsion, then. There was still a chance—he struggled in Chrys’s grip, which tightened.
The snap of women’s steps, not a guard’s boots, rounded the corner. Lilly appeared, her face set and her nostrils flaring, flanked by Dr. Poppy.
“Rowan. Get him out of here,” Lilly said, in a voice dead-level in tone despite its breathlessness. “Georish will be downside himself to investigate this one. He has to never have been here. Our attackers seem to have been one of Naismith’s enemies. The story will be that the Dendarii came here looking for Naismith’s clone, but didn’t find him. Chrys, get rid of the physical evidence in Rowan’s room, and hide those files. Go!”
Chrys nodded and ran. Rowan took over holding him on his feet. He had an odd tendency to slump, as if he were melting. He blinked against the drug. No, we have to go after—
Lilly tossed Rowan a credit chit, and Dr. Poppy handed her a couple of coats and a medical bag. “Take him out the back door and disappear. Use the evacuation codes. Pick a place at random and go to ground, not one of our properties. Report in on a secured line from a separate location. By then I should know what I can salvage from this mess.” Her wrinkled lips peeled back on ivory teeth set in anger. “Move, girl.”
Rowan nodded obediently, and didn’t argue at all, he noticed indignantly. Holding him firmly by the arm, she guided his stumbling feet down a freight lift-tube, through the sub-basement, and into the underground clinic. A concealed doorway on its second level opened onto a narrow tunnel. He felt like a rat scurrying through a maze. Rowan stopped three times to key through some security device.