Chapter 16

For a split second I panicked. My heart lurched up into my throat as a sudden sense of weightlessness took hold. I expected to see the floors whizzing by my head before we slammed into the ruined elevator car below, but as I opened my fear-clenched eyes, I saw something totally different. We were floating, light as a feather, down the elevator shaft. Diana's face was contorted into a look of extreme concentration. Her breathing labored as she softly settled us to the ground, sighing wearily at the magical effort.

I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but we didn't have time. I ran over to the elevator top hatch, and with some tugging, managed to get it open. "Let's move," I said to Diana, ushering her through the hole.

I glanced upward as she dropped through the hole to see a helmeted face peering down from the floor we had just come from. I snapped off a shot from my cyber pistol—not that I expected to hit him. I just wanted to give him a little something to think about before he got too brazen. By that time Diana was through the hatch, so I jumped down after her, wriggling through the narrow aperture just as something clanked off the top of the elevator car. I knew immediately what it was.

"Get down!" I shouted to Diana, rushing forward to scoop her up with both arms. I made it just outside the elevator before the grenade went off, tearing through the ceiling of the elevator car like a ravenous canine. I could feel the heat wash across the back of my neck as I toppled to the ground, shielding Diana with my back.

"Are you okay?" a worried voice asked.

I looked up to see Blitz, Sugar, and Rei standing against the glass front of the building's lobby . "Yeah, I'm fine," I groaned, waving them off. "Get to the van and get her started up. We'll be right behind you."

They took off out the front door as I picked myself up off the floor, helping Diana as I went. "You okay?"

She nodded, still gasping for breath. "Yeah. That last spell just took a lot out of me."

I hooked my arm under hers. "C'mon, let's get going."

She nodded wordlessly and staggered to her feet. With my help, we started for the door. I had just laid my hand on the handle when I heard a door bang open. I twisted to see the stairway door yawning open just as a trio of Ayanami troopers rushed through with guns blazing.

Glass shattered as bullets from the wide-angle spray struck the panes behind us, and a pair of rounds impacted against my shoulder and chest. The ballistic weave of my jacket didn't help as much as I would have liked. I did my best to ignore the pain—about as easy as ignoring it when a troll hits you with a baseball bat—but I didn't have any choice. I staggered and jerked Diana back behind me as I pointed my cyberhand toward the on-coming troops. The weapon implanted within that limb spoke, pounding three slugs into the chest of the lead man. He pitched backward, hitting the ground hard. I couldn't be sure if any of the rounds punctured his vest, but his fellows seemed to think better of headlong pursuit and fell back toward the doorway.

"Move!" I shouted to Diana, shoving her forward toward the door.

She staggered through what remained of the glass door, scrambling out into the street. I moved to follow, but as I turned to flee a truck hit me from behind—at least, that was what it felt like. In reality, a quartet of gel rounds slammed into my back, pitching me forward through the doorway and onto the ground. My face hit the pavement, shards of glass grinding into my cheeks and chest like a thousand monofilament pinpricks. I tried to shunt away the pain, willing my legs to keep moving—but adrenaline can only take you so far.

I scrambled forward on hands and knees, desperate to round the corner out of the Ayanami goons' line of fire. Suddenly, though, I found myself facing another pair of booted feet. I feared one of them had already circled around to cut me off, but as I looked up, I found it was Diana's face looming over me. The weary look from before had drained from her face, replaced instead with a visage full of resolute anger.

"Enough!" she shouted, raising her hands above her head.

With an enraged yell, she thrust them toward the apartment lobby. I twisted around to see the three Ayanami troopers poised in the middle of the foyer. An invisible force struck the ceiling above them, blasting apart plaster and ferrocrete in a shower of dust. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and then with a groaning shriek, several tons of girders, concrete, and plaster tumbled down from the ceiling right above them. There was a series of muffled screams, they were quickly overtaken by the sound of falling rubble.

Bricks and mortar were still trickling to the floor as I rolled over, gazing up at Diana. "Thanks," I breathed.

Her face was bathed in sweat, and her skin had lost all of its color. She looked physically and emotionally drained. I immediately knew what had happened.

Theoretically, individual magicians were capable of just about anything. But in practical terms, a magician's body was like a fuse—it could transmit and shape magical energy, or mana, up until a certain point. If too much current passed through the transistor, the fuse would trip—i.e., the magician would pass out from the strain of it all. At least, that was the way it was explained to me.

But right now, Diana looked as if her fuse was about to blow. She wavered uncertainly as she opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she teetered forward, collapsing to the ground.

I picked myself up off the pavement and staggered to her side just as the van screeched to a halt in front of the apartment. Sugar rolled the side door open, beckoning me forward.

"Come on, get in. We've got to get out of here!"

I pushed past the pains—all the bumps, bruises, and injuries—and stooped, picking up Diana's limp form from the pavement. I hustled over to the van as fast as my bruised limbs could carry me, gently laying her into the rear of the van before climbing in myself. Sugar slammed the door behind me, and Blitz peeled out of the parking lot, racing out into the city streets.

I lay back on the van floor, my breath coming in gasps. All of the adrenaline and fear that had been surging through my body finally began to recede, but as my pulse began to slow, it was replaced by something else. Pain. My chest hurt. My back stung. My lungs burned, and my legs ached. But I was alive. We all were. For that I could be thankful.

"Is Diana okay?" Blitz called back from the front where he was jacked into the vehicle's control rig.

I nodded wearily. "Yeah. She's just unconscious. She was slinging some serious mojo back there. She should be okay in a few hours. For now, worry about getting us out of here. And lose that chopper."

"You got it, P." Blitz spun the van through a series of expert turns, threading his way through the city streets as if he had a road map tattooed to the back of his hand.

Rei knelt by Diana's side, checking her pulse. "I think it's a little more than that. Her pulse is racing."

I groaned and sat up. "Blitz, we've got to get out of here."

The rigger didn't answer as he turned the wheel hard, whipping the van onto the Highway 515 overpass at breakneck speed. The van sped up the on ramp, seamlessly merging into the busy night-time traffic like an expert seamstress threading a needle.

Sugar collapsed on the floor beside me like a sack of potatoes. "I didn't think we were going to make it back there."

I nodded, too tired to speak.

"But we made it—thanks to your quick thinking."

I laughed, genuinely amused at the prospect of me doing anything quickly with my mind. "Yeah. Right."

"Uh, guys?" Blitz said. "I hate to break it to you, but we're not out of the woods yet."

"What happened?"

"Remember that chopper? Well, I guess I didn't shake him after all. He's still on our tail."

"Where?"

"Right fragging behind us. And he's gaining quick!"

Sugar and I moved to the back of the van, gazing through the rear window. Sure enough, the blue and white chopper was racing along above the eight-lane highway right behind us. Blitz was right. It was quickly gaining."

"Fraggitall!" Sugar swore.

"They're targeting us," Blitz warned. "Grab a hold of the 'oh-shit' handles, 'cos I'm about to try something.

I braced myself against the walls of the van as Blitz threw the van into evasive maneuvers, bobbing and weaving through traffic like a professional daredevil. I watched as a rotary machine gun deployed from the chin of the chopper and began to churn out rounds. They sparked off of the pavement behind us, and Blitz cut the wheel hard, dodging in behind a Nissan Jackrabbit that was poking along in the lane next to us. The bullets meant for our vehicle struck the Jackrabbit instead, shredding the rear tires and sending the small electric car skidding out of control.

"Don't worry," I said to the others. "I invested some money into run-flat tires and armor plating on this bad boy." I rapped the armored walls. "That should give us some protection."

Just then the back window shattered as a burst of lead from the pursuing chopper found its mark. I reacted instinctively, hitting the floor as several rounds blasted through the van's armored hide, making Swiss cheese of the armored plates as if it they were nothing but cardboard. .

"Unless they have armor piercing bullets," Rei growled over the whine of the engine.

I decided to ignore the comment and shouted to Blitz, "Lose this fragger, will you?"

"I'm trying P, I'm trying. The next exit isn't for another mile, and until I get there we're sitting ducks. I don't think I can evade him for that long."

Again Blitz yanked the steering wheel to the side. He cut in behind an automated cargo hauler, using the big truck for cover as rounds from the Ayanami helicopter slammed into the trailer. The vehicle's automated dog brain, aided by the Seattle Grid-Guide system, didn't even register the impact and kept on trucking, giving Blitz a moment's reprieve from the chopper's withering fire.

"You'd think Lone Star would have started to get a little ticked by now," Rei muttered.

"Yeah, well they may have, but we're going to be toast in a minute and that chopper is going to be long gone if we don't do something soon," said Blitz. "Those glorified rent-a-cops aren't going to be able to do a damn thing if we're a grease stain on the side of the road. We've got to do something, and quick."

He was right. I thought quickly, looking around at the jumble of gear and bodies strewn about the van's interior. "Blitz, are you sure that you left all of our gear in here? I mean all of it?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. What's that got to do with anything?"

I didn't answer as I tore through the weapons, gadgets, and crates of ammo piled up to the side of the vehicle. After a few seconds of desperate searching, I finally found what I was looking for. I grabbed hold of the rocket launcher's matte green barrel and pulled it out.

"What are you planning to do with that?" Blitz asked incredulously.

"What do you think?" I shot back.

"You'll never hit. With the way I'm moving and the way that thing is shooting, you wouldn't get within ten meters of it. Plus, the back-blast of that thing could fry us all."

"Then you're just going to have to slow down while I line up the shot."

"No way! If I stay in one place, that thing is going to blow us all to hell."

"Well if we keep going the way we are, he's going to blow us all to hell anyway."

A muffled boom split the night air. I glanced out of one of the windows to see the truck beside us wreathed in flames. The still-moving vehicle began to skew to the side, forcing Blitz to swerve away and pick up speed down the highway.

"If you've got a better idea, I'd like to hear it!" I shouted back at him.

"Fine!" he growled, jerking the steering wheel hard as another blast of armor-piercing rounds struck the pavement right beside us.

I hefted the launcher to my shoulder and used the barrel to clear away the rest of the broken glass from the back window. Then I got to one knee—which was a difficult feat given how Blitz was still swerving back and forth—and braced the launcher's muzzle where the glass used to be. I flipped out the targeting reticule on the weapon, focusing into the eye piece as I tried to line up my shot.

"Steady," I warned. "Steady."

"I'm fragging steady, okay? Just take the damn shot!"

"Okay, okay!" I took a deep breath as the crosshairs settled over the speeding helicopter, whispering a silent prayer to whatever spirits that might have been listening. Then I pulled the trigger.

The rocket flared, sending a backwash of white-hot fire blazing backward at the back of Blitz's chair. The rocket leapt from the muzzle like a shooting star, corkscrewing upward into the night air toward the oncoming helicopter. At first I thought it was going to sail high, but the chopper pilot made a fatal error—he zigged when he should have zagged. He tried to pull up and avoid the rocket, but he was too late. The warhead struck the helicopter's whirling rotor blades in a savage explosion that shattered the entire rotor assembly, sending bits of debris flying in every direction. The helicopter went into a flat spin and dropped like a rock. When it impacted on the roadway below, something ruptured in the huge craft, and fire blew outward from its cockpit and side doors, blossoming upward in a huge tongue of fire that licked at the night sky like a slavering wolf.

A cheer went up in the van, and I felt Sugar wrap her arms around me. She bent my head down toward her and pressed her lips against mine in a kiss. "You did it!"

But I didn't share the enthusiasm. My body hurt too much. The still-smoking rocket canister dropped from my hands, and I sagged to the floor under the weight of my ecstatic woman. It was as if my body had suddenly remembered all of the injuries it had sustained that night and every night before. As the wind whipped through the bullet holes and shattered windows, I heard none of it. I didn't even feel any of it. The only things I could feel were the pounding of my own heart and the bruises of my battered body

I started to close my eyes, but Sugar shook me awake. "Peaches. Blitz wants to know where we go now."

It took my brain a moment to register the thought, but I immediately knew. "I know the perfect place," I said with a weary smile. "Michelson will never think of looking for us there."