02:00

Goliath pushed the doors of Destine's office open and stepped back
to allow his companions to move out into the hallway. Returning to the
ventilation shaft, he helped the returning mice down. They would remain here
in the office but when the time was right they would meet the rest of the
team down the hall and help carry the goods out. Closing the doors behind
him, he hurried to catch up with the rest of the team.

The large gargoyle moved quietly down the hallway to the left and
turned right at the next intersection. Passing two small offices on his
right side, he ducked into the next doorway, which was the ladies room.

04 was busy cutting a hole through the concrete-reinforced floor with
the laser on his arm. As soon as he finished outlining what would become the
opening, Brenda and Lyath moved forward and helped him lift out the excised
piece of flooring. They couldn't afford to drop it - the noise could bring a
security guard. They left the slab on the floor next to their new entrance-
way and Todd got on the com.

"04. We are dropping in."

Liz's voice immediately came on. "01. Copy. Dropping in at 02:15."

Brenda jumped through the opening, carrying mouse 3 in her arms.
Lyath was the next one down, with Todd bringing up the rear.

The room into which they dropped was identical to the one they had
just left - it was the eighth floor ladies room. On the ceiling near the
rear wall there was a small vent.

"Thailog, if you please?" Todd stepped out of the way as he spoke.

Lyath moved under the vent and with a yank had the cover and some
of the surrounding plaster off. It was quickly obvious to all of them that
mouse 3 wouldn't fit through the small opening.

Brenda raised her wrist laser and began cutting into the air duct,
enlarging the opening considerably.

When she finished, Todd lifted mouse 3 up so that she could scramble
into the duct. She moved straight ahead through the shaft.

"04 Reporting a mouse escape."

"01. Check. Mouse escape."

If one were to step out of the eighth floor ladies room, turn
left and then enter the door next to the ladies room, they would find them-
selves in a large office. That office contains dozens of desks and computers
as well as several copy machines, fax machines and telephones. In the back of
the office, on the left-hand side is a doorway. That doorway opens into a
anteroom which runs behind the ladies room. It contains two cameras, both of
which monitor the room's interior and the vault set into the back wall.

Mouse 3 would get to the first camera in the same way that the other
two mice had neutralized the hallway cameras. The second camera would be the
real challenge, as it was not located near the air duct.

Todd spoke to his companions. "She's going to be a while. There's
something I need to check on in Dominique's office. I'll be back in fifteen
minutes tops. Keep me informed of any change."

"Careful out there, 04," Brenda responded as he climbed back
through the ceiling.

Goliath frowned. Todd hadn't said anything about this before and to
suddenly change anything about the operation...he had a feeling that Todd
was up to something.

02:30

"Shit!" Talitha didn't know what to do. She had been listening to
the rest of the team make their way through the building as she scanned the
skies. Suddenly, she had seen movement out of the corner of her eye. After
increasing the magnification of her helmet's screen and switching to
nightscope, she was able to identify the approaching object as a female
gargoyle.

The gargoyle had red hair.

Talitha had tried to raise 01 with no success. She then tried
raising the other team members but without any luck. There seemed to be no
way to warn them of the visitor. She had only one option.

She would have to try to stop Demona herself and hope that Liz saw
them fighting. She ignited her rockets just as the gargoyle passed overhead.

Before the gargoyle could react, she was on her.


Liz was getting ready to switch off her radio and go after 05 when
she saw 05's rockets. What was she doing? Liz fine-tuned her visuals and felt
her heart skip a few beats when she realized that Talitha had just tackled
Demona.

She immediately tried to raise Todd.

"01. 04, I've just spotted 05 intercepting Demona."

There was no response.

"04, do you copy? 00, do you copy!"

Her com was dead! She turned back towards the battle raging in the
air near the restaurant. Talitha had not raised her on the radio when she
spotted Demona. Was her com out too? Perhaps they were all out? There was no longer any time to mull it over. She got ready to ignite her rockets and help
05 trash the devious gargoyle.

Her suit suddenly stiffened in place.

"What the..."

The synthesized voice of the suit's computer interrupted her.
"Master control engaged. Local control overridden. Suit disabled.">

"Hello, 01." It was Todd's voice. "I'd guess that by now you know
that you're in a bit of trouble."

"You're wearing the 01 armor!"

"Of course. Changing a 1 into a 4 and vise-versa is not that
difficult. By the way, none of the other team members can hear our little
conversation."

"Why are you doing this? Wait, let me guess. You've decided to get
rid of as many of us as possible, ruin Destine and try to get control of the
company yourself."

"Bzzt. Wrong. I plan on working for Thailog and I can't afford to
take the chance that he'll make you his business partner, after all, you two
are pretty close already."

"Daniel, listen to me. Demona is on her way. She'll be here any
minute. You're gonna need every hand you can get to get out of that building
in one piece."

"I know that Demona has arrived. I was able to listen in as Talitha
attempted to alert the rest of the team. I'm the one who invited Demona to
join us here tonight."

"You're insane!"

"Not really, you see, Demona thinks that I'm the one wearing suit 01
and as you can imagine, she is pretty ticked off with me right now. She knows
that I'm the one behind this break-in. When she finds you up on that roof...
well, I'm sure that there won't be much of you left for Thailog to identify.
Anyway, he'll blame Demona for your death, not me."

"Demona will slaughter the rest of you when she's done with me and
Talitha!"

"Oh, I doubt that very much. After all, we'll still have three armed
powersuits and Thailog. Wish I could talk longer, but I have business down-
stairs. Sorry Liz. For what it's worth, I did like you."

Elisa heard the com go dead. Her suit was frozen in a crouched
position at the corner of the roof. She couldn't seem to budge it. Raising
her eyes to the air above the restaurant, she saw the form of suit 05 begin
a plummet which ended with a large explosion on a rooftop below. Talitha could
not have survived. Neither would she if she didn't do something fast. Demona
was on her way!

02:45

"00. Mouse 3 is going after more cheese." Goliath found all the code
phrases corny and having to use them himself embarrassing, but at least it
was a way to communicate with Elisa. She had hopefully taken out both
Talitha and Tara by now. The way she phrased her response to his announcement now would let him know, since they had managed to come up with a few subtle codes of their own.

There was no response.

"01, do you copy?" Goliath's heart began to race as he awaited her
response. When there was no answer, he looked over at Brenda. Through the
small eye-slit of her helmet, he could barely pick up on the fact that she
was frowning.

"01, this is 02. Check in now. 01, do you read me?"

Lyath decided to have Talitha give him a report on what Liz was
doing and then realized that Elisa might not be able to respond if she was in
the midst of neutralizing Talitha or Tara. He decided to try raising Talitha.

"00. 05 check in now," he said into his mike. "05 respond."

There was no answer. Goliath prayed that he was right about what was
going on. He could hear Brenda swear softly over the com and raised an eye-
ridge at her. "04, did you copy all that?" he said.

"04. There is little we can do now. I'll stay up here in case we
have a visitor. 03, do you see anything?"

"03. So far I've seen nothing. I cannot see either 01 or 05 on any
of my monitors. Do you want me to take a look outside?"

"04. Negative 03. Do not open the door. Be alert. Over."

Goliath's tail began to twitch with the anxiety he was feeling. He
felt an overwhelming need to get out to the roof and check on Elisa himself,
but could think of no plausible excuse to leave his assigned area.

'Elisa please be careful. Be safe...' he spoke silently in his head.

02:50

Demona allowed an updraft to carry her high up above the Nightstone
building. She wanted a chance to scan the roof while remaining unseen herself.
She had noticed a figure perched in the corner as she made her approach and
now that she was hovering in a nearly stationary position she could see that
it was another bio-suit. Her keen gargoyle eyes were able to make out the 01
on the suit's right shoulder.

"Todd!" she snarled just before going into a steep dive that would
take her on a collision course with the betrayer.

In a split second, an enormous amount of force was brought to bare
on the bio-armor as its velocity instantly went from zero to nearly sixty m.p.h. It
flew across the roof and smashed into low wall formed by the edifice,
sending gravel, tar and bricks from it flying in all directions. It came to
rest on its back with the head and shoulders protruding over the edge of the
roof where the wall had been only seconds ago.

Several moments went by. All was quiet on the roof.

Finally there came a groan and a winged figure got unsteadily to
her feet.

Demona was dazed from the impact, but her magical link with MacBeth
allowed her to recover quickly. Already her nose had stopped bleeding and
the black bruises which had started forming on her upper body had vanished.
She let out an ear-splitting howl as she spotted the suit and began moving
in its direction.

Todd was not moving.

The human was probably jello inside the suit, but she hoped that
she was wrong. She wanted him to know who was about to end his sorry excuse
for a life.