In which secrets are revealed, loyalties are tested, and some Guides show their mettle.
Enjoy!
"We're just coming around the bend now," Jessie reported to Joel. "And I think – oh my god!"
"What? What is it?" Joel shouted on the other end.
Jessie stared at the sight before her. "Joel, there's been a landslide. The road is gone, both lanes, and there's a ton of debris in the ravine between the mountains. Looks like at least a couple hundred yards wide at the base."
"Jessie, you've got to get your people out of there! The mountain won't be stable!"
"That," Anya said in her Hungarian-accented English as she reached for the door handle, "is why we can help."
"Of course," Jessie said, thinking out loud. "The Sentinels will be able to feel or hear the ground shifting before it gives way. And they can look for survivors." She scrambled out of the car.
"Hang on," Joel said. She heard him cup the phone against something and start repeating the situation to Simon.
Jessie watched as the Sentinels formed up in a group in front of where Dmitri was perching on the roof of a car. Between the pouring rain and the gathering darkness of dusk, she was blinking to see anything, but the Sentinels didn't have that problem. However, she remembered that every single SELF vehicle was equipped with an extensive emergency kit. While the Sentinels gathered, she flung open the nearest trunk and started pulling out supplies.
"Jessie? You there?" Simon said into the phone.
"Yeah, I'm here." She was glad she'd grabbed her coat, but she thought there might be something better than that in the kit. She started digging around, pinning the phone between her shoulder and her ear so she could use both hands.
"No one's officially reported the incident yet," Simon said. "I can call it in, but it'll be a while before anyone is out there to clear the area for rescuers. And when they get there…"
"They'll see the Sentinels," Jessie finished. She let out an aggrieved breath. "Does it matter? If there's people down there, we have to act now!"
"Of course we do," Simon answered. "Joel and I are mobilizing as we speak and we'll be there as soon as we can. If we're in time, we can help redirect any questions while you and the Sentinels clear out." He paused. "Will it do me any good to tell you not to go climbing around in an active landslide zone?"
Jessie grinned as she spotted the helmet with a flashlight attached. "Nope."
"Figures." Then, "Jessie, we might have to tell a few people about all this."
Before Jessie could respond, the Sentinels suddenly began shouting. She caught more than one pointing into the debris flow and heard the word "survivor."
Turning her attention back to the phone she said, "I don't think it matters, Simon. Tell who you have to tell. We've got people we need to dig out now and we can't wait. I'm going in. Make sure someone calls Agent Fritz."
"Jessie!"
She hung up the phone and slammed it into her pocket.
"Break into teams of four," Dmitri's voice boomed even in the dense rainfall. "Spread out. And I want at least ten of you to join me in listening to the mountain for more danger."
"I've got supplies!" Jessie shouted, drawing the Sentinels' attention. She held up the kit in her hands. "There's one in every car, with everything from medical stuff to blankets."
"Good," Dmitri nodded sharply once. "We will find and rescue the people, you get them to safety and take care of them. We will watch over you."
Jessie gave him a thumbs-up. While the Sentinels started forming into their teams and gingerly making their way down the slick, muddy slope of dislodged earth, she opened the other cars, pulling out other kits and arranging her supplies. She looked up when someone appeared at her elbow. It was Luka.
"Do you have rope?"
"Tons," she nodded, gesturing to a coil from one of the huge 16-passenger vans. "No harness, though."
"Good enough," Luka approved. He grabbed the coil and began tying a series of loops with one end. In a few quick twists he had a crude safety harness with a long rappelling rope. He ran to the edge of the road before where the landslide had broken up the cement and looped the other end around one of the still-upright guard-rails. Then he started down the slope.
Jessie found one set of night-vision goggles in a slightly beefier kit and added them to her get-up. She peered over the edge to see Luka, a small shape in the distant darkness, reach the limits of the rope and simply climb out of his harness. Only then did she realize another pair of Sentinels had rooted around the other cars and found coils of rope of their own. They took Luka's rope and used it to slide down to his level much more quickly. Then they found some way to anchor the next rope and repeated the process until they had a series of guidelines almost to the bottom.
Jessie tore herself away from watching the preliminary rescue activities and focused on her own task. She decided to move the cars, creating a roadblock before the bend with one and flipping on the emergency lights and lighting a few flares to prevent anyone else coming up the road and ramming into all of them. Then she swiftly took the remaining vehicles the Sentinels had appropriated and got them into a more useful formation. The pair of vans she set across from one another with their backs open inside which someone could take shelter. Then she brought one of the cars near to where the slide had happened and parked it with its headlights on to leave as a beacon. The remaining two cars she moved to the side of the road nearest the edge, positioned to keep someone, either overwhelmed Sentinel or non-Sentinel, from accidentally going over in the dark where the railing was weak.
She got her supplies organized between the two vans, with water, rations, and blankets in one and medical stuff in the other. Then, with a sudden inspiration, she grabbed the tarps that had been folded up with the supplies and managed to rig a tent in the space between the vans where the rain and wind couldn't reach.
Jessie was just tying off the last flap of her tarp tent when Dmitri strode to her side.
"Someone approaches," he said. "You must turn them back."
"I'm on it," she promised, pulling off the goggles but leaving the helmet in place. Jogging back around the bend, she blinked at the headlights that were rapidly closing on her roadblock car. She started to wave her arms and shout.
"Stop! You have to turn around! The road's out!"
The vehicle came to a halt and three doors opened. "Jessie?"
"Oh no...Daryl?" she called to the familiar voice.
Daryl, Lai, and Eric moved into the light, shielding their heads from the rain.
"What's going on here?" Eric asked.
"A landslide," she answered, thinking fast. "I was getting a ride with some friends and we came upon it. We've already called it in."
"Do you need help?" Lai pointed to Jessie's helmet. "What can we do?"
"Uh," Jessie hesitated. On the one hand, she'd told Simon that some people would have to learn the truth because what mattered was the people who needed rescuing. On the other hand, she hadn't expected it to be her college friends. Members of the police or the fire department or the search and rescue teams was one thing.
Daryl saw her moment of hesitation and stepped forward, grabbing her shoulders. "Let us in on this. Please, Jess. Trust us."
"Okay," Jessie decided. "Get the jeep behind the roadblock and grab anything you have that might help."
"Will food help?" Lai asked. At three annoyed looks, she shrugged. "Even if the landslide just happened, it'll be hours to find and dig out any bodies. Whoever your friends are will need calories to keep going, right?"
"Bring it all," Jessie decided. "Right down to the floormats if you can. We're going to have a lot of cold, possibly hurt people on our hands." She glared at Lai. "Not bodies. We'll save them."
Eric jumped back into the jeep to edge carefully into the road beyond Jessie's roadblock before the other three descended on it. In a few moments the four had stripped the jeep as bare as they could and were lugging armfuls of things back around the bend.
"Listen," Jessie said as she led the way to her little staging area and dropped her load in the open back of one of the vans. "My friends…you have to understand…"
Suddenly Dmitri roared. "To the north!"
There was a rumble that grew to a roar like the sound of a train and a portion of the hillside above them broke away. The Sentinels scattered, and Jessie grabbed her friends and dragged them backwards into the shelter behind the nearest van. But they were lucky – it was on the far side of the landslide and only a few bouncing rocks made it to them. Jessie dashed for her night-vision goggles and sprinted as near to the edge as she dared.
"Looks like the worst of it missed everybody," she sighed in relief. "But there was definitely a house down there that was in the path of the new wave." She realized her college friends had followed her.
Eric looked out, squinting at what he could see in the dark. "How many friends have you got climbing around down there?"
"Uh," Jessie did a quick count. "Probably thirty, with another ten up here," she gestured to where Dmitri's team was spread out listening to the hillside.
"It's like a needle in a haystack down there!" Daryl exclaimed. "Without heat sensors or dogs or something, they'll never find anybody in time!" And then he stopped and turned to her. "Or will they?"
"They will," Jessie nodded. "They can."
"Okay. Questions later," Lai said decisively. "Action now. What can we do?"
"I should get down there," Eric said. Jessie opened her mouth to object but he held up a hand. "Look, I'm strong and I've done some climbing before. If your friends are busy finding people, they're going to need someone who can haul whoever they find all the way up here where we can help them. And I can dig, too."
"You're right." Jessie considered. "I'll go, too. Now that there's someone up here to help out." She turned to Lai. "You know some first aid, right? All the stuff is over there – use whatever you need."
"Yeah. I'll handle the basics," Lai agreed.
"Daryl," Jessie turned to him. "Your dad is on his way, probably with help. Tell him what's up and let him know he can call us back if he needs to." Then she pointed to where Dmitri stood. "That guy's in charge until Simon gets here and they work it out."
"Okay," Daryl nodded. He wanted to be going down into that morass with Jessie and Eric, but, while he was proving to be tall like his father, he was rail-thin and not particularly strong. Jessie was built like a rugby player and Eric was all muscle – both could handle this in a way he couldn't.
"Dmitri," Jessie said softly, leading the three over. "These are my friends. They want to help."
Dmitri turned and studied them. He narrowed in on Daryl. "You are Simon's son."
"Yes, sir."
"Good," Dmitri smiled grimly. "It is about time. But for later. I heard your plan, Jessie. It will do." He gestured to an area of the slide nearest the edge on their side. "The van down there is close to the surface. Three people within."
"Understood," Jessie nodded. She turned back to the vans and dug out one last coil of rope, much shorter than the previous two, and tied a loop around her own waist. "It's not much, but it'll work as a lifeline," she handed the other end to Eric. While he tied his own knot, she found one more helmet and some flashlights. Eric strapped on the helmet and she passed the flashlights to Lai and Daryl.
"One thing," she said urgently. "Don't ever, ever point the lights at my friends. Not without warning them first. You could hurt them." Not leaving time for anyone to react, she turned, tugging Eric with her.
As they started sliding down the slope, using Luka's guide-rope as much as possible, she wondered if she had done the right thing involving the others. But then she arrived at the muddy lump Anya and a few others were working on and all other doubts vanished as she started to dig out the van. She never even noticed when the four Sentinels moved away to identify another site, leaving Eric and Jessie alone to unearth the survivors.
-==OOO==-
"So, anybody want to let me in on why we're going to the scene of a mudslide? And not the good kind with alcohol?" Henri asked. He skillfully dodged a sharp elbow inbound from Brian who sat beside him.
Simon was watching the road so Joel turned to face the pair in the back-seat. "It's a really long story," he said.
"Shorten it," Brian suggested with a shrug. "Thirty-second elevator version."
"That organization of Benton's and Blair's? SELF? It's their people who responded first and are digging out survivors. And they're not here…officially."
"Are we talking 'unofficial' in terms of illegal immigrants or are we talking 'unofficial' like covert off-the-books stuff?" Henri asked.
"A bit of both," Simon answered tightly. "And let me put it this way to you boys."
They heard the sound in their captain's tone that meant trouble. Not 'oh, my coffee is too hot' trouble or even 'we're in the Sandburg Zone again' trouble. This was real 'I would shoot you if I could come up with a good enough excuse' trouble.
"You're about to be brought in on a secret that, literally, has international security implications, not to mention possibly risking the lives of some very good friends and allies. If either of you let me down in any way, so help me I'll bury you so far down in legal trouble even the president will never find you and that's a promise, gentlemen."
Henri and Brian exchanged glances. Henri actually gulped.
"You hear me?" Simon growled.
"Loud and clear, captain," Brian said. Then, "This has to do with Jim being a Sentinel, doesn't it?"
Simon almost skidded the car off the road. But Joel beat him to the yelling.
"WHAT?"
"Pretty obvious," Henri said casually. "After all that stuff with Hairboy's dissertation and now this SELF thing, I mean. We are detectives, you know. So who are these people? Feds?"
Joel actually laughed, earning him a Simon glare of doom usually reserved only for Ellison and Sandburg at their very worst. "Not even close," Joel shook his head. "But friends."
"Good enough for me," Brian said. "Hey, so, how long have you guys known?"
"About the Sentinel thing?" Joel asked. Brian nodded. "They told me just a month or two ago."
"Ha! Pay up!" Henri cheered.
"What about you, captain?" Brian asked, ignoring his partner's grin.
"Since the very beginning. Since the kid started riding with Jim."
"Ha! I don't owe you a dime!" Brian pumped his fist. "We're tied."
"Okay. Tiebreaker." Henri leaned forward. "Did Connor know?"
Simon snorted. "She found out when we were in Mexico."
"Inconclusive," Brian shook his head. "I guess we're down to the tiebreaker tiebreaker."
"Yup," Henri nodded. "So…we know Rhonda doesn't know. Which means Carolyn Plummer didn't know, and we'd have heard the explosion if you had to tell the commissioner. Which just leaves one person." He paused for dramatic effect. "Does Daryl know?"
"No," Simon shook his head. "No, nobody's talked to Daryl about any of it. He's totally in the dark."
"Uh," Joel pointed as their headlights lighted on a figure next to a line of flares on the ground, "I'm not sure that's true anymore."
"Daryl?" But Simon's confusion was lost in the explosion from behind them.
"HA! That's it! I win! Pay up, buster!" Henri Brown stuck a finger in his partner's chest and jabbed.
"Aw, c'mon, man. Daryl's here, so he just found out," Brian whined.
"Nope. Doesn't count and you know it."
Simon was occupied by carefully steering the car around the flares and figuring out what to do about his son, so Joel turned to the pair of detectives.
"Did you really bet about who knew Jim and Blair's secret?"
"I figured everybody was kept in the dark for some kind of good reason. Rafe said that probably they only kept the two of us out of it so we'd have some objectivity if anybody ever challenged Ellison's cases on the basis of some of his nonexistent forensic evidence." Henri looked away. "I didn't think you all'd keep a secret this big from your friends."
"We'll talk about it later," Simon said, parking the car. "Right now we have a real emergency. So put away your hurt feelings and get ready to get out there."
Daryl met his father. "Back this way, dad. It's really bad. Jessie and Eric are bringing up the first people now. She said you'd come. What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Later," he pinned his son with a glare, "we're going to talk about how you got here and what you think you know." He sighed. "For now, fill me in."
Daryl began detailing the conditions as they rounded the bend. "The landslide took out the whole road and buried a bunch of stuff down there," he gestured. "Jessie's…friends, I guess? They're able to locate survivors under all that stuff. They're digging fast, because the hill looks like it could go any time and they don't want anyone in a car to suffocate."
"Not without us to retrieve them first," came the deep voice. Dmitri strode forward. "Simon, it is good to have you here."
"No problem. Last I heard, search and rescue were scrambling, but their chopper was delayed due to something mechanical. We'll have company within the hour, but not sooner than that. I did put in a call to Fritz, but he might not be able to intercept them. It could be dangerous for your people, Dmitri."
"It does not matter. We have identified all who still live and are digging now." Dmitri paused and cocked his head to one side.
Rafe and Brown nudged each other – that gesture was familiar. Jim did it all the time before coming up with something totally impossible and always dead-on accurate.
"They could use a hand," Dmitri said, gesturing. A thin beam of light appeared from what must have been a flashlight just beyond the edge of the road.
"Brown, Rafe, get to it," Joel said.
The pair scurried off, but not before they heard the man called Dmitri say, "I will focus on the mountain. More will slide, and soon. My people will not take commands from you, but…"
"Don't worry," Simon interrupted. "I'll take care of the official end. Joel can go help out Lai in the first aid tent. You do what you've gotta do."
Then Brian and Henri were at the edge of a slope that seemed on the verge of giving way. They could make out the rope that stretched down into the darkness, and the two people with helmet-mounted flashlights almost to their level. They knelt down to get a better look.
"Are you okay?" Brown called.
"Yeah," said the voice of Jessie Bannon. "We've got some people coming, though."
A few moments later, they emerged into the dim light provided by all the vehicles' headlights on the road above. Jessie and two men were crawling against the muddy ground, hauling themselves up the side of the mountain along the length of rope. For a moment it seemed that Jessie and the huge man at the back of the line were each wearing a heavy backpack until the nearer backpack moved.
"Daddy!" cried a frightened little voice.
"It's okay," came an exhausted voice from the middle climber. "They're here to help you."
"We're with the police, sweetheart," Brown said. "We'll get you clear in just a second."
Jessie gave a momentous shove upwards and Henri and Brian both reached for her at once. Brown grabbed her arms to steady her while Rafe leaned down to grasp the trembling child clinging to her back. With the grace of much practice, he plucked the little girl from Jessie and smoothly pulled her to safety.
"Just relax, kid," Henri said to Jessie. "I've got you."
She nodded and allowed him to take her weight, hauling her up the rest of the embankment in one quick motion. She stumbled into Rafe, who was holding the little girl close.
"Jessie!" Lai and Daryl rushed to her side.
"Get the kids," she said breathlessly, scraping mud from her forehead.
Brown had already pulled the girls' father to safety and was just lifting up the last kid when there was an arm around Jessie's shoulders, steering her to the tent between the vans. Daryl realized she was coatless and glanced back. Sure enough, Jessie and Eric had both stripped their coats off to give to the two kids. As soon as he got her under the shelter he ran for a blanket to fling around her.
"I'm okay," she said, still breathing hard. "Just give me a minute."
"You just climbed halfway up a mountain with a kid on your back!" he said. "You're going to sit there until you stop shivering."
Jessie looked up. She'd tossed the helmet off when the blanket had appeared, and the beam of light from its flashlight was bouncing off the vans and making the whole area weirdly lit. Daryl leaned over her with a face full of worry.
"Listen to him," Lai suddenly appeared. "He's a smart man."
In her wake was the man who had been in the van with his two daughters, plus the detectives with the little girls. Joel came with blankets and a doughnut for the children and they gratefully huddled in the shelter while Lai and Joel checked them over.
Eric was still standing outside with the detectives. He stuck his hand out. "Hi. I'm Eric. Jonny Quest's roommate."
"Detective Rafe, Detective Brown, Captain Taggart, and I guess you've probably met Daryl's dad, Captain Banks," Brown pointed as he named each.
"Don't suppose you know what's going on here," Eric said with a wry smile.
Brian grinned. "Not a clue. Other than a rescue."
"Good enough for me," Eric nodded.
"Then get back to it!" came Simon's shout. "They've identified all the survivors and they need as many diggers as we can get!"
Jessie got to her feet, shaking off her tiredness. Daryl stood before her. "Are you sure…?"
"Oh yeah," Jessie nodded. She moved towards the little family they had rescued, the man already anticipating her need and pulling the sodden coats from his daughters to return to their owners – even wet and loaded with mud, they would be some protection against the cold. Then Jessie turned back to Daryl to say, "Joel can stay here with Lai. Come on. Like your dad said, we can use all the hands we can get now."
Daryl nodded grimly and joined Eric, Brown, Rafe, and Jessie as they strode out into the disaster.
-==OOO==-
In the end, there were no fatalities from the unexpected landslide, and twelve very, very grateful people were pulled to safety, including an elderly couple whose house had been partially collapsed after the second slide. Simon and Joel managed to coordinate with their friends in the different agencies to explain away the presences of the Sentinels as some kind of caravan of wilderness explorers. By the time anyone on the actual search and rescue teams really got organized, the Sentinels had located and at last partially excavated all the people under the mud – not that the officials would believe it, of course.
But Simon managed to extricate the Sentinels as well as his own people and the kids once the twelve survivors were safe; until that point, the forty Sentinels had refused to clear the area, developing selective deafness whenever someone tried to give them orders. But when they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the people were safe, they allowed the officials to hustle them into their cars and send them on their way. They cared not a bit if the search and rescue crew wanted to dig through the debris for days on end to find nothing – those who needed saving had been.
Throughout it all, Simon had watched Daryl, his two friends, and Rafe and Brown. And nobody had let him down, to his delight. So, as the last of the Sentinel cars took off back around the mountain, Simon gathered together his own people and the kids.
"Good work, all of you. I'm proud of you." He smiled particularly at the four young people. "Very proud. You all handled yourselves like pros."
"I'm glad you were here with your friends," Lai said to Jessie. "Those people would have died otherwise. Nobody would have found them in time."
"And speaking of that," Eric said. But then he paused. "Never mind. There'll be another time."
Simon was impressed at the kid's restraint. Even Daryl – who had reminded him yet again that he would figure out all the secrets eventually – was cowed and subdued by the night's work. That deserved something in return, Simon felt sure.
"Come on," he said, catching Jessie's eye and nodding. "There's a good place we can all clean up a lot closer than Cascade."
Everyone blinked at that. They were so heavily covered in mud they looked like monsters from some creepy lagoon, and Eric had a rock stuck fast to the mud in his hair on one side. Brown seemed to have a branch sticking out of his ear. But in the chaos and urgency of the situation, they'd all forgotten that the mud wasn't a permanent extra layer of skin.
"And then," Simon said, "it seems like there's a bit of a story to tell."
He led the way back to the lodge.
-==OOO==-
Jim stumbled out of Miss Yi's lab, his head clear but his body apparently still reacting to everything that had been done. He bypassed the barracks and went straight to the storage room where he knew Jonny would be with the old Guide.
Jonny jumped to his feet when he entered, quick to catch him and help him into the chair.
"What happened?" Jonny asked, aghast at Jim's pallor and shakiness.
"Miss Yi…she knows. About both of us. She'll sell you out to whoever's running this operation unless I play test subject." Jim rubbed his forehead and willed the weirdly colored spots to stop teasing at the edges of his vision. "And she'll kill everybody if I act against her."
"Then we have to move up our plan," Jonny decreed. "Get out of here now – today. Before it's too late and before she really hurts you."
"I agree," Bai Ming said unexpectedly. Jim blinked open an eye to look at the man.
"Why do you think so?" he asked. He'd obviously already made that decision for himself, but he was curious about this Guide's unusual opinions.
"Because it is our way to know things. And the time has come for you to leave. For many reasons."
"For many…oh, god. I forgot. Hasna." Jim looked at Jonny. "She's close. If we don't get out now, she'll have that baby here and those goons will take it away."
"Then we go immediately," Jonny decided staunchly. "No matter what, we leave before that happens."
"Agreed," Jim nodded. He smiled approvingly at his partner, his 'battle buddy' who had proved to be good under the pressure. Not that he'd had a lot of doubts to start with, knowing Jonny as he did. But it was good to see the kid flourishing under these circumstances. "Now, here's what I think we have to do."
So caught up in their plans were the pair that neither Sentinel noticed Bai Ming's soft smile.
-==OOO==-
It was pure accident that Blair discovered the alternate switch on the bottom of the white noise generator. He'd been trying to find a better way to carry it than in his hands and, while working it into the broad coat pocket of the guard's coat, a red button on the side was depressed. Blair felt the little tingle of something, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
When they reached a lower landing in the stairwell and spotted a camera whose red light was blinking, he thought it might be coincidence.
Two more landings down, another inoperative camera.
At that, he pulled it out and handed it to Hadji, gesturing to the switch and the camera. Instead of hitting the switch as a test, Hadji instead pried the case open enough to peek inside. As soon as he spotted the capacitor attached to an electromagnetic coil and the shielding for the rest of the case, he had his answer.
"It's an electromagnetic pulse generator," he whispered, handing it back. "It should short out any electronics we pass."
"Which helps with security but also might give us away if they notice the rolling blackouts following the pair of guards who never look at the cameras," Blair concluded. "Let's go fast."
They sped down some more stairs, stopping abruptly when there were no more to descend. Instead, a metal door with a heavy handle greeted them. Hadji approached it cautiously, testing the door first and looking for wires to see if it was fitted with an alarm. It opened without triggering any screeching noises, so he peeked his head out.
"Our luck continues to hold, my friend," Hadji said softly. "We have reached a garage, and I can see daylight through the gate at the far end."
"Good. Let's get out of here," Blair said eagerly.
They moved into the garage slowly, ducking behind huge piles of construction debris littered throughout the low space. After several tense yards, they crouched under a table backed up to a stack of drywall.
"I think you have to turn it off now," Hadji gestured to the device in Blair's pocket. "We cannot afford for it to short out the garage door or we will have a difficult time getting through."
"Right." Blair agreed. He reached into the pocket and hit the switch, feeling with his fingers to make sure the other switch – the one controlling the white noise output – was still on. "So, tell me. Can you hot-wire a car?"
"Unfortunately, no," Hadji shook his head. "But perhaps it will not be necessary."
"Of course!" Blair shook his head at himself. "This is like the car pool at the station. Keys will be kept centrally so people can take out vehicles as needed."
"Precisely."
"Well, let's go sign out a car," Blair grinned.
Carefully, the pair worked their way across the garage to a small booth where they could see many sets of keys hanging on the wall, each meticulously labeled. There appeared to be no one in the booth so they crept to the door, all senses alert.
But the instant Blair put his hand on the doorknob, he felt a chill. He turned back to Hadji to whisper urgently, "Something's not right. We should go back."
Hadji nodded, but then his eyes traveled upwards. Blair turned, almost losing his balance in his awkward crouch as he spotted the tall woman rising from her own hiding place within the booth, gun in hand.
"Don't move," came a voice from behind them. Blair glanced over his shoulder to see the other twin appear from behind a support pillar. "We can't let you borrow one of daddy's cars, I'm afraid."
"You could have asked," said the one in the booth, opening the door while both Hadji and Blair backed up and stood, very, very slowly, raising their hands. "You could have anything you wanted as my Guide, Hadji."
"Never," Hadji spat the word.
"Oh, it is inevitable," Anaya said as Melana joined her. "One way or another, I will have you as a Guide and my sister will have Doctor Sandburg." She smiled. "Only the very best Guides of the world for us."
"You missed your deadline," Blair said, suddenly brave. "You gave us an hour to decide. That was, like, way more than an hour ago."
"We were distracted," Melana scowled darkly. But even the flickering dim light didn't hide the very slight color that crawled up her face.
One of them zoned. Maybe both of them, Blair guessed to himself. We were right. Not too in control after all.
"Please do not entertain any further ideas of escape," Anaya said. "You are quite outnumbered."
There was an ominous metallic rolling sound. Blair looked up expecting a tank and blinked, twice, at the three strange things moving towards them. They were shaped rather like an oversized beach ball, black metal, and totally spherical. Beside him, Hadji sucked in a sharp breath.
"Indeed," Melana said with a twisted little smile. "You know how this ends, Hadji Singh."
"What are those things?" Blair asked.
"Robots," Hadji answered. "A miniature version of Zin's robots. Almost impenetrable to weapon fire."
As Blair watched, the three rolling balls stopped and suddenly sprouted legs as joints opened in their round shells. Each sphere also unshuttered a single red lens and a pair of odd antennae that pricked in various directions. They moved like four-legged spiders, the black sphere looking uncomfortably like a monster's eyeball.
"Man, you have the worst friends sometimes," Blair commented to Hadji.
"Doctor Zin is an evil, unconscionable madman," Hadji nodded, "but he does have very advanced technology."
"Now," Melana said, "you will return with us to your room and you will begin your duties to help us. You do not have a choice other than whether you are injured before you surrender."
Suddenly Blair remembered what was in his pocket. He glanced to Hadji, who couldn't nod without the pair of Sentinels noticing, but his eyes shone with agreement. Blair just needed enough of a distraction that they wouldn't notice him putting his hand into his pocket. He only hoped the little device was powerful enough for the three robots.
He decided to go with straight-up truth. "Even if you do get us to agree, you know that Doctor Quest won't give up on us."
"Doctor Quest will be too busy with his own problems to even remember about you."
Hadji looked sharply at Anaya. "What do you mean by that?"
"Even as we speak, your stupid Jonny Quest has entered one of our father's facilities in some foolish attempt to learn our plans," she answered. "But the decision has been made to teach him, and his father, a lesson."
"What are you going to do to him?" Hadji demanded.
"That particular facility was an experimental base in many ways, both its construction, its cover, and its use," Melana said with a superior air. "In sevearl respects, it has failed. Particularly its structural integrity."
"Once we have the last of the data we require from the ongoing work there, father will activate the hidden charges deep in the fissures that opened underground during the construction of the site. Some of those fissures are connected directly to the sea, so whatever remains of the facility after the explosions will be flooded. When he finds that his son has drowned in Arctic water six levels down from the surface, your precious Doctor Quest will think nothing of your absence." Anaya leaned to Hadji. "Come be where you are truly wanted and cherished, Hadji."
Blair's mind raced, including some oddly disinterested part of himself making a mental note to ensure Hadji didn't think too much about that crazy statement that Benton wouldn't care about him if Jonny were gone. But most of his focus was much more immediate. Oh god, they're going to drown. No. No way. No way no way no way, I am NOT putting Jim through that! We're getting out of here and we're going to get them out safely no matter what it takes! My word as a Guide on it!
"Yeah, I think he can get a better offer from a nematode than that," Blair sneered. In one swift motion, he jammed his hand into his pocket and hit the switch.
At once the three robots froze up, their legs going rigid and the red lens fading to black.
Anaya and Melana didn't hesitate, charging the pair, though both lowered their guns in the process. Hadji met Anaya head-on and began to fight her hand-to-hand. Blair knew he was out of his depths for combat and sped off to one side looking for anything he could improvise as a weapon. He came up with a tire iron and swung it hard at the Sentinel closing in on him. He knocked the gun from her hand completely and she clutched her wrist with a cry at the sudden pain.
But that chill returned and Blair knew somehow that they had to wrap this up fast or meet reinforcements.
And then inspiration struck.
He dodged Melana and dropped the tire iron. Instead he grabbed for two large pails of nails and other small metallic parts. He darted back towards Hadji, who was still fending of Anaya. As soon as he was close, he upended one bucket on the floor, then chucked the other at Melana.
The racket was almost deafening.
Blair had realized he still had the white noise machine turned on, so both Sentinels must have their hearing turned up quite high to compensate. The instant his hands were empty, he hit the switch in plenty of time with the cacophony still going strong. Both Sentinels screamed and clapped their hands to their ears.
"My friend," Hadji cried, flinging out a hand. Blair didn't think; he just grabbed on.
And then Hadji did something – something Blair couldn't describe but could feel. There was a rush of energy and both Sentinels slumped to the ground, completely zoned.
"What was that?" Blair asked even as he dashed into the booth and grabbed keys for a big boxy all-terrain truck near the garage door.
Hadji slammed the button on the desk to open the door to the outside and took off running as he answered, "You zoned them with sound. I zoned them with spirit."
"That is cool, man," Blair approved as he flung himself into their getaway vehicle. "Now come on. We've got some Sentinels to save."
They took off into the daylight.