With Wiz in the lead the group made its way down the hall. Lannach had told them the computer was in the central tower and that meant they had to go to the center of the castle to reach it. That wouldn’t be easy, Wiz knew. Not only was the place enormous, Lannach said there were guards everywhere.
Don’t think of it as a problem, Wiz told himself. Consider it a challenge.
Their first challenges were just around the corner. Three of them, all nearly seven feet tall. Their faces were piglike with tusked snouts and red eyes that looked mean even as they laughed uproariously at something one of them said. They were wearing armor of fantastic designs and carrying an assortment of wicked-looking polearms. Curved swords and daggers hung from their studded metal belts, and nickel-plated machine guns were slung over their backs.
Wiz peered around cautiously and then jerked his head back before they could see him. Danny, Jerry and June also peeked around.
June laid a hand on Danny’s arm and looked at him quizzically.
"We’re going to sneak up on them and knife all three of them when they’re not looking," Danny whispered sarcastically.
Wiz signaled his companions into a huddle twenty feet or so back from the corner.
"We’ve got to go this way," he whispered to them. "Lannach says this is a blind corridor and there’s only this one way out."
"Can we distract them?" Jerry asked.
"Without them raising the alarm? How?"
When they looked back, June was halfway down the corridor. All three motioned frantically for her to come back but June ignored them. Then she whipped around the corner.
"Oh shit! Come on." Danny set off at a dead run with Wiz and Jerry pounding after him.
As they came around the corner June was walking back toward them, wiping her knife on her skirt. Behind her were three large steel-clad forms lying in a heap.
"Now what?" she whispered to Danny.
"Uh, now we keep going," Danny whispered hoarsely. Wiz and Jerry just goggled.
Just past the guards was an open door leading to a room with masses of wires running down the walls.
"What do you suppose all this is anyway?" Danny asked, looking around the room.
"Hard to say, but if I was to guess I’d say it was a wiring closet for their phone exchange."
Wiz looked over the mass of wiring speculatively.
"I’d say it was a good place to start sabotage then." He raised his hands. "Let’s see how long it takes this stuff to melt."
"I got a better idea," Danny said. "We’ve got a couple of minutes, don’t we?"
Wiz looked down at the bodies of the three guards. "Uh, yeah."
Danny grinned. "Good. Let’s see what happens when they get their wires crossed."
Wiz looked at the wall of hair-fine wires dubiously. "I said a couple of minutes, not a few hours."
"Oh, I’m gonna have help. Emac!"
Instantly one of the little demons stood before him.
"backslash," Danny commanded.
"?" the Emac responded.
"list spaghetti exe"
As Wiz and Jerry watched the demon scribbled furiously, filling the air with glowing symbols. Danny knelt down and began giving the creature commands in a low voice.
"You know," Jerry observed, "it’s kind of handy carrying your own software development environment with you wherever you go. Kind of like having the world’s niftiest laptop-except you don’t get tired lugging it through airports."
Wiz eyed his friend. "I think you’ve been here too long."
With a final whispered exe!, Danny stood up. There was a quick swirl of air and another little demon stood next to the Emac. This one wore a blue denim work shirt, jeans and construction boots-much like the one Danny had produced to connect up the computer. However this demon bore a striking resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman.
Danny pointed at the wiring panel. "Kill!" he commanded.
The demon grinned and swarmed up the panel, clinging with its feet while it swapped wires with both hands.
"That was fast work," Wiz said as the quartet left the wiring room. Behind them the demon was still furiously switching connections.
"It’s something I’ve been kinda working on for a while," Danny admitted.
Wiz shook his head. "I don’t think it’s ever going to be safe to let you go back to California."
A line of dwarves came out of the desert. They were footsore, dusty, travel-worn and thirsty. Glandurg was in the lead, limping slightly, and the rest were strung out behind him.
"Let us rest before the final assault," Glandurg commanded. His followers needed no second order. They threw themselves down in the shade of a red earth hillock.
While they rested, Glandurg and Thorfin crawled to the top and looked out at their target.
"Big enough," said Thorfin, craning his neck to try to see the top of the central tower.
"Our magic will let us locate our target no matter how big it is."
Thorfin looked ahead dubiously. The desert had been singularly unappealing and the castle before them looked less appealing than that.
"Not what I was thinking of," he muttered.
Glandurg started to say something but he was interrupted by one of the other dwarves.
"Hsst! Someone’s coming."
Quickly the party concealed themselves as only dwarves can.
What this time? Glandurg thought. More of those big metal walking things? Or the ones that roll over the ground?
Then he heard the crunch of walking feet. The walkers again; two small ones from the sound of them.
But it wasn’t the walkers. Instead it was two mortals and a dragon, looking as tired, dusty and footsore as the dwarves. While the dragon rested behind the hillock the humans climbed to the spot Glandurg and Thorfin had vacated just moments before to spy out the castle.
"Now," said Major Mick Gilligan, "we can see the whole place from here. Is this close enough for you?"
Karin frowned. The trickles of sweat down her face left clean tracks through the reddish dust. "But we cannot see clearly. We must move closer."
Gilligan licked his lips and tasted grit. "From here on the land’s flat as a pancake. We get any closer and we’re going to stick out like three sore thumbs."
Karin smiled. "You only have two thumbs, silly."
Mick leaned over and kissed her on her dusty, sweaty cheek. "Two sore thumbs and a sore big toe, then. Anyway, we’re not going to have any cover."
"I think we must risk it," Karin said seriously. "We won’t learn much watching from here." She shaded her eyes and scanned the plain before them. "Besides, there is some cover out there. Enough to hide a person if you are careful."
Gilligan glanced back at Stigi and didn’t say anything.
Karin scanned the plain. "At least there do not seem to be any robots out there."