"We're low on explosives. Frances and I have been working out a plan for a raid on the Hillsboro Metro sub-depot-it has the least security. But that having been said, no plan has shown even a moderate chance of success."

Tony stuck his hand up.

"Yes, Tony. This isn't school-you may speak without raising your hand."

Tony smiled. "Why raid a building when we can have them Fed-Exed to us?"

Everyone exploded almost simultaneously.

"Wha' ya chomping at?"

"Nonsense. No one ships explosives, it's too hazardous!"

"Should we just call them up and request them?"

"Why don't we just invite the Metros to our executive meetings?"

"HOLD!" Sonya's voice cut through the ma.s.s of hubbub with the power of a chainsaw. "Let him speak."

"I wasn't kidding. It's actually shipped in special protective containers. When I worked for Down Put, we used to order our demolition explosives-up to a quarter kilo-and have it shipped overnight, sometimes even couriered."

"So how in the farg we gonna ge' them to ship 'o us?"

"We have an ice jockey, don't we? It shouldn't be hard at all. We just ship to fict.i.tious demolition companies we inject into their own databases. We use random addresses and make sure we're there for the pickups. Tenth kilo here, quarter kilo there, fifth kilo elsewhere, and pretty soon you have enough to blow this city off the map."

Sonya smiled at him.

"I'm making this report to keep you apprised of the development of phase four," Nanogate reported quietly to a recording device in his private office, this one decorated in wood and warm earth tones. A real polar bear rug lay at the hearth of a slate fireplace that crackled merrily. The fire was real, but the wood wasn't.

"The subject was positively identified as the perpetrator of the Mercy Hospital bombing, and an audacious bit of improvisation at the Portland Metro Precinct. The simulations show a near unity chance he's now ensconced within the ranks of the Green Action Militia. The odds that the GAM killed him, or he committed these acts on his own, are each on the order of one part in ten thousand.

"As a result, we should antic.i.p.ate an increased tempo of GAM operations with increasing effectiveness. Projections now indicate a fifteen percent increase in losses, plus or minus three percent, before the weapon begins culling the membership.

"This is a full five percent higher than the original projections. However, we didn't antic.i.p.ate just how effective this perfect weapon would be."

Nanogate paused the recording and pressed one of his call b.u.t.tons. A meticulously dressed butler entered the office s.p.a.ce. "You sent for me, sir?"

"Yes, Williams. In five minutes I'd like you to send in the natural redhead I purchased in Cairo."

"Very good, sir. Should she be attired as usual?"

"No. I don't feel like being bothered tonight. Nude will be fine."

"Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?"

"No. Please make the arrangements." Nanogate waited until his servant closed the door behind him before resuming the recording.

"In spite of the higher than antic.i.p.ated losses, the project is proceeding down the most likely course to fulfill our desired end result.

"Signed, CEO Nanogate."

As he shut off the recorder, the door opened almost as if on cue. A young girl edged in, just old enough to have spouted pubic hair and the barest roundness of breast, shaking and as unsteady as a newborn fawn, and wearing less.

"Come over here to the fire, dear. You should be comfortable."

A sound like sheet metal being ripped in two reverberated through the abandoned bas.e.m.e.nt. Mold and other less savory materials clung to all but one of the graffiti-covered walls.

"At least aim in the general direction of the target!" Jonah barked through Tony's ear protectors. "How can you possibly be able to take down muggers with your finger and not even touch a target twice the size of a man at 20 meters with a gauss gun?" Jonah pointed off toward the wall with the big red target. A trio of 30 centimeter circles of scoured clean ceramcrete, 3 meters to the left of the target and not a single one within a meter of the other two, marked Tony's shots.

"I think it's because they were always within a meter and I never had to aim," Tony said sheepishly. At least none of the other GAM members witnessed his lackl.u.s.ter marksmanship. "Just get my finger in the general direction and it blew a hole large enough to never have to worry about aiming."

"Holy..." Tony watched Jonah's freckled face go nearly as red as his hair. "I thought you'd be proficient with the gauss. I've had raw recruits that never held a gun before do better than that."

"Sorry, but I wasn't even good with first-person shooter hologames."

The redness in Jonah's face actually increased to a dark maroon. Jonah opened his mouth to say something but closed it unsaid. In fact, he didn't say a word, but wandered around in circles ignoring Tony for the better part of five minutes.

"OK. We don't have time to train you from scratch here." He checked his watch. "The blue bellies could be here as quickly as ten more minutes. We'll have to put you in the simulator for the basics. And we don't have the time for even much of that before the op.

"Just for the record, what are you good at?"

Lightning backlit the floating fortress like a photo negative. Sonya realized they'd picked an exceptional night for their work. Rain poured down from the Ohio sky like some angry water G.o.d revisiting a flood upon the earth. The torrents of October rain, barely above freezing itself, scoured through the light dusting of snow, making the earth dark. Floating 10 meters above the ground, the fortress protected a 60 meter triangle of white crystals from the deluge.

Another bright flash in the sky preceded four almost simultaneous crashes that sounded at least a little like nearby thunder, if one wasn't aware of their more sinister origin.

Sonya activated her wrist countdown timer, marking the best case response from Dayton Metro.

"Sniper Team reports guard towers neutralized. Explosives Team, you're up," came Colin's crisp, businesslike voice over the sub-dermal links. "a.s.sa.s.sin Team, prepare."

Sonya motioned to Tony to take the lead. She wouldn't let him out of her sight on his first joint mission. She knew his mind and heart were in the right place, but she couldn't read his abilities the same way. Some things relied on the old fashioned methods-observation and a.n.a.lysis.

Sonya eschewed the multi-spectral night mission contact lenses the rest of the team wore. A few simple mnemonics, and her vision nearly equaled theirs without the technology. She watched as he moved well against the dark, wet ground, even at a dead run. She couldn't tell if he consciously moved around the noisiest of the puddles or whether it came naturally. Even in a pounding run, Tony's breath barely showed, even to the enhanced. His feet never slipped underneath him, even in places Sonya found herself taking tiny skids. Through the downpour's sound, which swallowed up their noise and that of any pa.s.sing herd of buffalo, Sonya watched Tony's skills and up-ticked his value.

Sonya followed as Tony dodged to the left of a runoff waterfall twice the width of a bus and into the shadow of the building. In spite of being a hardened guerilla, Sonya sighed in relief from the continuous sheet of rain.

Sonya watched as Tony put a little bit of separation between them, leaving more of their muddy brown footprints in the white facade covering the earth. With 30 meters between them, Tony slapped at the grav belt activation switch and missed. Sonya read the curse that fell from his lips. He didn't miss the second time, but overcompensated and leapt much too fast into the sky. Before she could radio anything, he modified his ascent to something more reasonable.

Sonya chanted a mnemonic to herself as she traced a single tattoo line down over each shoulder beneath her poncho. Spreading her arms she indulged in a spiral lift-off. For a brief uncharacteristic moment her mission awareness faded. Wind tickled her long lashes and caressed her cheeks. She never lost her joy for flight. She spent nearly a week in the air when her mentor finally beat this skill into her thick skull. She then spent nearly a month recovering.

As Sonya caught up to Tony's height, her mind reengaged with the deadly mission. They both approached the underside of the floating citadel on either side of the faint golden aura that marked the boundary of two large grav fields impinging on one another and the characteristic ozone smell of the grav drive. She pulled explosives from beneath her poncho as she fought the urge to rub away the tickle in her nose.

Sonya could just make out Tony's form pressed up against the roof on the other side of the distortion. Immediately, she realized that Murphy had bollixed up their mission. Instead of ballistic steel reinforced ceramcrete, a mesh of interlaced monofilament held the entire fortress like a giant net. Their explosives couldn't possibly penetrate the monofilament that distributed everything done to it over its entire length.

Sonya tongued for her mic to abort the mission when Tony crawled upside-down in her direction, waving at her. She paused long enough for him to get close.

"Don't abort. I can still bring this down."

"How long do you need?"

"Ten to twenty minutes."

"Too long. The blue suits could be here in twenty-three."

"Then I'd better make it in ten. Let me get to work."

Sonya just gave him an odd look. She realized moments later that no one in her team had ever brushed her aside so completely before.

Tonguing her mic she said, "Mission hold. Hold positions." She watched as Tony, with the proper handling gloves, took three small filaments of the same material as the mesh from his pack and tied them each in a bow, one right atop the other. He then placed a very small bit of explosive on each of the exposed ends and loops.

"Monofilaments distribute all forms of energy at a remarkable speed throughout its entire length and width," he explained. "I have to create a surge through each of these extra filaments that hits the same point at the same time. If I'm successful, there'll be too much energy for it to dissipate quickly enough.

"I've done it twice before, but never without calculations and computer control," he said, attaching the last of his bits of explosive. "Move back about 3 meters."

Backing up himself about a meter, Tony flattened against the building and triggered a remote. A small crack and flash about the same magnitude as a pistol shot resulted. As she crawled up with Tony, Sonya saw he'd severed the junction of two of the monofilaments, their ends straining downward. Between the severed ends stood a 1 centimeter-deep hole in the ceramcrete.

Sonya couldn't say she saw exactly what happened until Tony described it later one step at a time because now his hands were a blur as he spoke. "We don't have time to rupture the entire net," he explained, whipping out his own primed explosives and pulling them apart, a task Sonya would've done only with the greatest of care. Tony seemingly cared only about speed.

"So we're going to have to destroy the grav generator in place," Tony concluded. He tore open the nearly sealed end of the explosive, throwing the lid away into the dark before ripping the entire a.s.sembly out of the case. He squeezed the detonator out of its gelatin capsule, and the capsule from the plastique itself. Packing the box again with the moldable explosive, he hollowed out one corner.

Sonya started to object, because more was always better, but he interrupted her.

"Here, hold this." He held out the excess explosive putty, wiping it into her open hands. Then he stuck the completed device into the gap in the monofilament web, keeping the open face against the bottom of the citadel with the hollow corner just touching the tiny divot.

"Give me your explosives." While juggling, upside down, the putty in her hand, Sonya handed the two 25 centimeter cubes over to him.

"I'm building a quartet of shaped charges I hope will be powerful enough to blow directly through to the generator and turn it to slag."

Sonya watched his hands fly through a repet.i.tion of the same motions. Each time the clump of explosives in Sonya's hand grew larger and each time he stuck the completed box with the hollowed corner at the tiny dimple until, with the final one in place, he ended up with a two-by-two grid of boxes. If they had been one unit the boxes would have a hollow cone-shaped depression in the center.

"Give me back that extra plastique. Now for the hard part." Tony broke the explosive into four blobs, rolling them into rough spheres. Each one he jammed onto the four farthest corners from one another on the underside of the boxes.

"I hope this works," Tony said. "Time to make like a drum and beat it."

Sonya spread her arms and swooped straight down. She beat Tony to the ground by about two seconds as she pulled up hard at her landing. Sonya counted out loud. Out from underneath the building they sprinted, once again covered by the cloudburst. On the count of thirty they both threw themselves into the muck.

She tongued her mic. "Fire in the hole." Tony looked up enough to toggle his detonator. A flash preceded two sharp gusts of wind and a gout of expanding flame from a half-meter hole. Like a three-legged table with one leg suddenly yanked away, the entire mammoth complex began to tilt downward.

"You did it, Tony." Sonya checked her timer. Five minutes remained. Not enough time, she thought, but they had to try. "a.s.sa.s.sin teams, execute."

The ponderous structure hadn't even struck the ground when an even dozen dark-clad figures, in two loose groups, erupted from the mud and muck sprinting toward the falling corner.

Sirens began to wail and klaxons to bellow. "Yell and complain all you want, beast. You took one in the belly and you're going down," Tony said as the ma.s.s slammed into the ground with enough force to make every one of the a.s.sault force bounce almost 5 centimeters off the ground.

Sonya herself rolled during the impact, clogging her nose with mud. She spit and snorted as she watched a 10 meter corner of the platform actually snap off. This alone caused the closest tower to break free of its remaining moorings and continue the fall.

After she cleared her nostrils of the silt, she called out, "Good sim, Augustine. Fell within 3 degrees of your prediction." Because of this, both the a.s.sa.s.sin teams closed safely on either side of its deadly swath.

The platform, now canted at almost fifteen degrees, showed only sporadic areas still with lighting. Electrical shorts of blue-white flared out in random locations. Alarms continued to make useless noise. Loose material still slid around on the unnatural tilt. Sonya could pick up no deliberate movement by any of the internal response teams.

"Sniper Team, switch to covering fire mode."

The first of the a.s.sa.s.sin Team grav jumped up to the top of the first line of wreckage.

"Team lead, we have Dayton response team inbound," Augustine called over the link. "ETA six minutes. Response team is heavy. Repeat-response team is heavy in Sierra, India, X-ray minutes."

"Roger, Overlook. a.s.sa.s.sin teams, abort. We can't hold off a heavy weapons squad. All teams fall back to rendezvous point Bravo. Explosives Team will supply retreating cover and extract at Charlie."

"Overlook en route. Extraction Bravo forty-five. Extraction Charlie ninety."

"We didn't get the prize, Tony, but you did well."

"The Greenies once again perpetrated an outrage in a cowardly attack on a low-level computer training facility just outside the Ohio town of Fairborn." The action committee of the GAM sat huddled around the tiny solido projector. From the large "LIVE" at the bottom, the feed presumably showed the listing and broken platform as it appeared right now. It looked different in the daylight. Firefighters helped injured people out of the wreckage as others sh.o.r.ed up the rubble to make sure there were no other accidents. A line of ambulances waited off to one side. "The outlaw group butchered sixty-three, and wounded seventeen others."

"What the fark?"

"Shhh," several said in unison.

The picture switched to one man wearing the blue coveralls of a computer tech. His face bore red splatters of blood and wept even more from a bandage covering his left eye. "They didn't even give us a chance. First there was this horrific bang and the world tilted. Next thing we knew, they charged in with flechette rounds flying. I saw one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds fire into my buddy Ron after he put up his hands to surrender."

"What is he blathering on about?"

"Shhh!"

"If it weren't for the private security force SecWest," the announcer continued as the view switched to show the tan and red uniformed gunmen keeping watch over the rescue operations, "the death toll would've skyrocketed."

The screen changed to an overly beautiful reporter questioning one of the SecWest officers, who wore a bandage around his shoulder. Without prompting, he said, "We were only able to apprehend two of the suspects and we were forced to kill four more as they open fired on us even when we had them surrounded."

"What a load of-"

"Shhh!"

"Captured? Are they barking mad?"

"Will you shut up, too?"

"...of our force lost their lives: Benjamin Anderson, twenty-five, and Celia Pauls, thirty. There will be a memorial in their honor Sunday at noon. At least their devotion to the sanct.i.ty of life and their ultimate sacrifice wasn't in vain." The view panned briefly to a grav litter, where the sheet pulled back to show what had once been a beautiful woman, now horrifically mutilated and torn apart across the throat. The image flashed back to the officer's wounded shoulder.

"And what about your injuries?" inquired the reporter.

"Oh, this is nothing but a scratch. Not even worth worrying about. Honor Ben and Celia."