"Always good to see friends," Mike echoed.

"REPORT, AND KEEP IT short," Rollins hissed into the hand comm unit. Around him his remaining backup man and Ryan and the others cast nervous eyes into the darkness around the roof of Freedom Mall.

"The roofs on fire over here. Going up fast," the frightened voice replied through the unit. "And we're pinned down by high-powered blasterfire. Can't get through the access hatch. Where'd they get the blasters, sir?"

"Where doesn't matter. Dealing with it is. Regroup your party. You'll have to move over and above to get to where we are. We've secured this end. In fact we'll try and meet you halfway if possible. Rollins out." The big man terminated the communication and returned the radio to his belt.

"They need backup," Ryan said.

"I know."

"Is it possible to go from one end to the other by roof?" Krysty asked.

Rollins leaned down to tighten a lace on his combat boots. "That's the idea. We'll use the stickie fires to guide us."

Ryan took off at a measured sprint, Jak and Krysty both at his heels.

STILL IN A CROUCH, Rollins followed Ryan's lead. Both men stayed low until reaching the outcropping of the built-up skylight area used to provide natural lighting to Freedom during daylight hours. Ryan continued to squat, his knees protesting from being forced to support his full body weight for so long.

Each of them held their breath, waiting, listening for any type of noise to come.

Rollins had attempted another communication with Jameson's sec team, but had gotten nothing back in the way of an answer but static.

Ryan eased out of the crouched position and turned to look beyond the elevated skylight edge. The air was still. He looked down through the skylight and saw even more fires burning within Freedom, along with looting and destruction from a panicked populace. The unmistakable smell of smoldering embers and burned bodies hung in the dead air.

"No sign of anything out there. Inside is another story," Ryan whispered.

He turned to Rollins, who was also standing. The man had removed the radio from his belt once more. He turned down the sound of the device before thumbing the Send b.u.t.ton.

"This is Rollins. Anyone else on this frequency?"

Silence.

"Dammit, Jameson, answer me!"

"You didn't say 'please,' Mr. Rollins," a new voice said, distorted by a poor connection linking the two units.

"Who the f.u.c.k is this?" Rollins demanded.

"Does it matter? No, wait, stop. Don't answer that. I'm sure you'll make a point of yammering on and telling me it does. I'll make it quick since I've got a mall to take over. All of your sec boys on the roof of the south side of Freedom are dead. We used their heads for some extra burning fun. My new friends have been showing me all sorts of clever ways to kill a norm. Hair burns quick if you pour on some black powder or charcoal fluid."

"Jameson! Where are you?" Rollins demanded, talking over the bragging voice.

"Can't help you there, buck. I don't know which one of those crummy excuses for a norm was the late Mr. Jameson."

Ryan took the radio from Rollins and asked a question of his own. "Like the man said, who is this?"

"I know that voice! How's it hanging, One-eye?"

"Why don't you meet me and find out?" Ryan replied, surprised at hearing the old nickname.

"Sorry. Can't do that. I'm not on the roof anymore. None of my stickies are on the roof. Like me, they're already down and inside the mall."

Ryan listened closely. The voice sounded oddly familiar somehow, but he couldn't place it.

"See you there!"

RYAN HEFTED his SIG-Sauer in a two-handed grip as they came upon the rooftop ma.s.sacre. The sec squad on this end of Freedom hadn't been able to repel the invaders nearly as effectively as Ryan's team. Five men and one woman were effectively scattered around, their corpses ripped into gory pieces or burned beyond recognition.

The killing muties appeared to be long gone, except to Krysty's advanced means of perception.

Everyone else felt it, too, a feeling of unease.

"Not right," Jak observed.

"I know," Ryan replied, and then the stickies were on them, giggling like demented children as they leaped from their hiding places, coming out from the stairwell access or hanging down the walls of the front of the mall and using their fingertips to adhere to the edge of the roof.

Ryan was impressed, and slightly surprised. These were tactics he would have bet a stack of jack with a clip of ammo chaser to be beyond a stickie's mental capacities.

Muties. Who could predict them, really? He'd met stickies like Charlie back in Colorado who were so intelligent and crafty, they could give Trader a run for the proverbial money. Or mutants with charisma such as Lord Kaa and his hypnotic third eye, or even their most recent tussle with the formidable self-styled Pharaoh Akhnaton in the Barrens. All of them were crazy, dangerous and gifted with mental abilities and insights that made them more of a threat than the traditional human foes he was so frequently thrown up against.

Now here was another batch of stickies showing off, using hide-in-plain-sight tactics of combat. It was as strange as h.e.l.l, not to mention disturbing, since while their tactics were something to behold, their hand-to-hand combat skills were as poor as ever. A few were holding long blasters, but instead of firing them, the stickies were using them as clubs to swing and bash. Ryan's internal musing was interrupted when a short stickie slithered out from beneath an air-duct vent's bottom slat and grabbed him bodily by the legs, the long thin fingers adhering instantly to the leather of his thigh-high combat boots.

The one-eyed man toppled over like a empty bottle, dropping his blaster to the roofs pebbled surface. The SIG-Sauer skipped away, landing out of reach near a burning patch of tar as he struggled to free himself from the mutie's deadly embrace.

Its hands slid higher, feeling his legs and crotch, oozing the secretions that allowed their sucker-covered fingers to stick to almost any known surface.

"Stop moving or I'll rip it off, norm," the stickie grated.

Ryan decided he'd take that chance. Twisting onto one side, he drew his panga from its sheath, the keen blade sliding out with practiced ease. Swinging the razor-sharp edge from the elevation of a high arc, Ryan brought it down on the unprotected back of the stickie's neck. There wasn't enough leverage of weight behind the blow to totally decapitate the mutant, but the blade still sunk down into flaky, yellowing skin with a satisfying thunk.

Hot blood sprayed out from the bite of the blade as the attacked mutie yowled in shock and pain, reaching back with one hand at the injured area. Feeling the sucker-enhanced grip loosen around his lower legs, Ryan pulled himself and the panga free, rolling on his back now and kicking out explosively, shutting up the mutie's cries of agony with the heel of his boot.

The creature's head snapped back like a sprung trap, breaking its neck. A sharp crack was the only sound heard as the shrieks from its throat were cut off sudden and quick by the killing force of Ryan's blow.

Behind Ryan, Jak danced lightly off to the right, hurling out a series of leaf-bladed throwing knives. The starlike blades zipped forward, one after the other in a rapid succession as quick as shots fired from an automatic weapon. The albino's keen, ruby-red eyes were designed for this sort of fightingin near darkness with the only light for illumination coming from the crackling fires.

Like a feral creature, he was obviously delighting in regressing to a near animal state as he threw the blades. Like an arcane form of magic, a blade would appear in his hand, only to disappear with the flick of a wrist, then instantly reappear in the face or throat of one of the marauding stickies.

Still, more of the muties were coming, this time by rope ladder as far as Ryan could tell. Another smart move on the part of whoever had planned this attack.

And some of the muties seemed to have a brain between them since they were actually starting to lay down a covering of automatic-weapons fire, chilling Rollins's last sec man quickly and effectively.

"s.h.i.t," Jak spit from between clenched teeth, his Colt empty. "All out."

"We're getting outnumbered and outgunned," Ryan bellowed. "We've got to retreat. There's not enough cover to try and save the roof."

A shot rang out, explosive and loud, a single burst of man-made thunder that broke into the stillness. Krysty was taking time to aim and shoot, conserving the ammunition for her hand cannon as she chose her targets.

Off to one side, Rollins had one of the stickies by the neck. The mutie had used its uncanny adhesive-tipped fingers to return the murderous caress as both of them screamed into each other's face.

"Rollins, watch it!" Krysty screamed just as the two of them fell over the raised edge of the mall's roof, struggling all the way down into the darkness.

"NICE BLASTERS," Mike said.

"Thanks," Mildred replied.

"They for sale?" Ike asked.

"Nope," J.B. retorted.

"I didn't ask you, four-eyes. Besides, I owe you anyway for bashing me over the head."

"You deserved it. Just wish I'd hit you harder."

"Seems to me, I'm the one with the bargaining power here." Mike said, gesturing with his blaster.

"Seems to me, the two of you can't come up with half a brain between you. So what?" J.B. replied, giving as good as he got.

"So mebbe I'll take your blasters and chill the three of you."

"Not too bright, even for you clowns," Mildred replied, shaking her head, the beaded plaits of her hair swaying back and forth with the movement. "Have you been out in the mall? Triple-bad scene."

Ike smiled in agreement. "I know. Things have gotten pretty hot up on the roof, as well. Muties popping up like f.u.c.king rats. Falling around up there like rain."

"Ohh" Doc moaned.

"Doc! What's wrong?" Mildred asked, turning to the older man.

"My blessed heart, my heart," Doc said, clutching at his chest with both hands and staggering forward a single step before entering an unsupported free fall with a one-way plummet down flat on his hawklike face.

A close listener would have heard an additional sound. As Doc fell forward in a very convincing collapse, there was the light, deadly snick of the steel blade hidden within the ebony sheath of his lion's-head swordstick hissing free. The sharp weapon came sliding out, and the old man slashed fast and hard with the revealed blade of the rapier as he allowed himself to continue his fall facedown and out of harm's way.

Doc wasn't worried about fair play. He used the blade and aimed for the two men's faces and eyes, carving out red rivulets as he fell like the strike of a plummeting eagle.

Backing his distraction, Mildred and J.B. each chose a target.

Mildred's face was set like a carved piece of onyx, her dark eyes narrowed and bright as she took aim along the barrel of the Czech target pistol.

J.B. peered impa.s.sively from behind his new specs as he flipped the scattergun into position in a fluid movement of death.

The resulting sounds of the twin triggers being pulled in the corridor were like the release of tightly bottled nitro.

Later, after all was said and done, Doc was very grateful the resulting splash of crimson blood and entrails had found its way out of the backs of the traitorous sec men and onto the floor. Not a drop landed on his long white hair or faded black frock coat.

"I didn't like those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds the first go 'round," J.B. said. "Told Ryan we should've chilled them then."

"You okay, Doc?" Mildred asked, lifting him up carefully and bringing the spindly man first to his knees, then to his feet.

Doc took a step and winced. "Other than my poor bruised knees, I shall live."

"Crazy move." J.B. grinned. "Crazy, suicidal move."

"I am afraid you are the worst of influences, John Barrymore."

"You two can compare notes on being heroes later. We've got to find Ryan," Mildred said, swinging open the heavy sec door that allowed access to the rooftop.

"No need," Ryan said as he, Krysty and Jak came in.

"Where are the other Freedom sec men?" J.B asked in surprise.

"The ones worth a d.a.m.n are probably dead. Rollins bought the casket upstairs. His backups did the same."

The friends quickly greeted one another with exhilaration that all were still alive and relatively safe, as safe as could be inside the rapidly deteriorating conditions inside the mall.

"What next?"

"First we get Dean," Ryan said.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

The cell block attached to the Freedom Mall sec force was known as the Wings. Why was a mystery, although Doc suspected the slang term might have origins in either the prevention of the prisoners from being "as free as birds" or that it was more theatrical in nature, keeping troublemakers in Freedom offstage and out of the public eye by being locked away in the wings, the wings being a reference to the areas off the main stage to the right and the left.

Either way, the reunited group of friends were lacking one of their own, and that was Dean Cawdor, who had been shut away, awaiting release when their terms as hired guns had paid his freightand Jak'sfor the damage to the vid arcade.

Retracing his steps of the daily visit he paid Dean, Ryan walked past the deserted admittance desk, through a half door, into a back-hallway annex. He looked in the empty visitor's center and waved his friends along to the rear section, where a heavy steel door with a U-shaped handle was closed.

"This must lead to the cells," Ryan said.

"Yeah," Jak confirmed.

Mildred drew her pistol. "We going in?"

"Might have to blast if the door is locked," J.B. said.

"Try it and see, Ryan. Open the portal and let us see what awaits," Doc added.

Ryan took the handle and pulled. Then he pulled harder, feeling the veins in his arms start to pop out against his tan skin.

"Try pushing, lover," Krysty suggested.

"Getting to that." Ryan pushed, and the steel door swung inward.