The place where it had me firmest against the wall was at my knee. The upper part of my body could still move. I still had a good reach. So I did what I came to do. I didn't let myself think what would happen if I failed.

I pa.s.sed the webbing four times around the leg. My heart froze each time. I was in Girl Scouts once; the only thing they taught me that I still remember was how to tie a square knot. I tied the best buggin' square knot of my whole life!

Great. What next? Next you die, girl.

I thought I would cry, but my eyes were dry. My mouth was parched and my heart raced, but that was all. When I thought about all the stupid things we cry about, like boys and grades and losing a best girl- friend, it seemed strange I didn't cry then.

Then something happened inside. I felt calm for the first time since I saw the monsters. I didn't mind dying if I could take one b.a.s.t.a.r.d with me. A big one.

I unslung the grappling hook and let it dangle between the cars. Pinned against the wall, I wouldn't be able to duck down. Once I dropped the hook, the spider would be yanked to a stop as the train kept moving, and I would be crushed to a grease smear.

Thought about my new friends. Thought about what if Fly had kissed me. Thought about wishing I was anywhere else. Then I let go of the hook.

24.

I didn't know what was going on with Jill, couldn't see a thing. She fell and screamed, and I'd popped around and seen her half under the track; then the spidermind shifted and I had to leap back.

Now I didn't dare show myself-I'd get us both killed.

I thought Jill would have finished by now. I'd bet money she wouldn't lose her nerve. Either she was still waiting for an opening, or something had gone wrong.

Then I heard the heavy thud and metal-sc.r.a.ping sound that could only be the hook dropping under the train. It bounced up and down, over and over, while I waited and waited and waited for that big motherwith the brain and the legs to be yanked into oblivion.

What happened next was so stupid and unlikely, it was like c.r.a.pping out ten times in a row: the d.a.m.ned hook bounced up and hooked onto the train itself!

The little voice in the back of my head I hadn't heard from recently chose this moment to speak to me in the voice of an old kids' science show: So, Flynn, what have we learned from today's experiment?

Well, Mr. Wizard, we've learned that if the train is moving at the same speed as the spider-b.a.s.t.a.r.d, abso- lutely nothing will happen!

I humped back hand over hand, ducking down to check under the train, looking for the hook. Saw it! I slid through the train's shock absorbers. Time for more help from the nuns. If we hit a b.u.mp, the shocks would slice me in half. Suddenly, the train itself seemed like one of the monsters.

I made it through, then slid along the undercarriage on my back across the covered axles, under the train, until I could reach the flippin' hook. The d.a.m.ned thing was caught on an Abel.

I reached for the sucker and succeeded in touching it. Yep, there it was. Touching it was a cinch. I could touch it all I wanted without falling onto the track and being ground to hobo stew.

Getting it loose was the problem.

Once upon a time, I won a trophy in junior high gymnastics; there were only five of us, but I was the best in that cla.s.s. I thought I was pretty hot stuff that day. Looked to be the moment for an encore perfor- mance.

I went looser with the legs, increasing the possibility of falling but giving me a longer reach. I didn't want to perform this trick more than once.

Not only did this stunt run the risk of my becoming part of the track, there was the extra worry of losing the duck gun dangling precariously from my back.

Not having my weapon could be as close to a death sentence as getting run over by the Little Train that Could.

I got my hand around the hook, heaved, and yanked it free. I did a war whoop worthy of a Comanche . . .

then I shut my eyes-I hate the sight of my own b.l.o.o.d.y, mangled corpse-and dropped the thing to the ground.

This time the law of averages was enforced by the probability police. The hook caught on a spar and held. I gripped my perch and braced for impact.

I clenched my whole body as the webbing tightened-then the freaking stuff broke. It wasn't supposed to do that! The end whipped like an enraged snake, lashing across my back. But I didn't let go.

I waited for the sound of that ma.s.sive body being yanked to its doom. Still there was plenty of nothing.

This was becoming irritating. But there was some- thing: despite the howling of the wind and the ma- chine pounding of steel wheels on steel rails, I heard a high, piping squeal. It sounded like a scream from h.e.l.l.

As I began clambering back through the shocks andup the side of the train, I heard explosions. Something was happening. I climbed faster ... to be greeted by the scene of the steam-demon shooting its missiles at the spidermind. The latter was at a disadvantage, listing as it moved, badly off balance.

The webbing had torn one leg off the monstrosity. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. Losing a leg would put the spidermind in a bad mood. It wouldn't be philosophi- cal about it. No, it would fire a burst from its guns at the only target in sight: the steam-demon.

For all their power, these guys had a weakness as deep as the ocean. Conquerors and masters need some self-control.

My primary goal now was to find Jill and get her out of here; but I didn't see her from this angle. She was probably still hugging the other side of the flatcar where she had la.s.soed the spidermind's leg.

The train hit a bad b.u.mp, exactly the impact that would have left me beside myself when 1 was doing my Tarzan of the shocks routine. The two monsters took the b.u.mp personally and increased the ferocity of the battle. I realized the high piping sound was from the spider-it probably made the noise when it lost its leg. The steam-demon emitted more human- sounding screams.

The wind seemed to be picking up, but neither contestant paid any attention to the weather. As I watched the spidermind tear up the steam-demon with a nonstop barrage from the Gatling gun, I remembered how difficult Arlene and I had found taking one of these down before. The demon was nothing compared to the other.

But if there were a cosmic bookie keeping tabs on this one, the final decision was still in doubt. The steam-demon followed the optimum strategy for his position, firing missile after missile at the robot exterior to the spidermind's brain. Cracks were begin- ning to appear.

I stayed put, praying for the best possible outcome.

By the time the spidermind's brain case finally ex- ploded, the steam-demon was so ripped it could barely stand. Under the circ.u.mstances, things were working out better than the original plan. After all, if the spidermind had been eliminated as intended, we would still have had to contend with the problem of the steam-demon.

While I was congratulating myself on the turn of events, the train took a sudden turn and the tottering, cybernetic creature nearly fell off the flatcar. That would have been the perfect climax to the duel of the t.i.tans.

Dawn started to streak the horizon with a sickening shade of green. The improved light made it much easier to pick out details of the local terrain; such as the high rock gorge we were just then pa.s.sing over, thanks to a narrow bridge. This would be a splendid place for the steam-demon to take its final rest. The perfect end, as I'd already thought, to the perfect battle. Then I could find Jill and congratulate her on amission well done.

The only flaw in this scenario consisted of a single claw-the claw the steam-demon used to grab hold and save itself as it fell right next to me. Right next to me!

It was bad enough seeing the demon this close up.

Far worse . . . it saw me. As weak and near death as the thing was, it recognized a living human a few inches away. Very slowly, it raised its missile hand.

It was slow; I was a whole lot faster. I back-drew my double-barreled shotgun and fired both barrels, one- handed, squeezing both triggers simultaneously.

Quite a kick. The blast tore off its entire hand at the wrist... the gripping hand.

The steam-demon plummeted off the car to the ground, exploding noisily as it got off one last missile shot that went straight up through the track ahead of the train, in between the rails, right on a curve in the bridge.

The train didn't bother slowing as it rolled over the missile-damaged point. I could imagine a cartoon demon with an engineer's cap, throwing back a shot of the good old hooch and not worrying about the condition of the track ahead.

As we pa.s.sed, I saw in greenish daylight growing brighter by the minute that part of the inside rail was bent up from the blast. If it had been the outside rail instead, we would have plunged into the gorge. The President of the Twelve would've needed to audition a new act.

"Jill!" I howled. "Jill!" Climbing up to the flatcar was easy, but I suddenly had a cramp deep in my back. It was so bad that it paralyzed me for a moment.

I wouldn't let something like that stop me now. I twisting around trying to loosen up, still calling, "Jill, Jill!"

Where the h.e.l.l was that kid? I was starting to worry.

I reached the end of the flatcar, looked down . . .

and saw her there, gazing up at me with wide eyes.

"You all right?"

She nodded, but not a word came out. Maybe she was suffering from shock. I reached down and she took my hand. I didn't care about the twinge in my back now. I hauled her up.

"Great!" I said.

"Alive?"

"Of course!"

"Oh." She still seemed not entirely sure.

I grabbed and hoisted her. Now my back felt fine, and for a crazy moment the sick-o green dawn looked beautiful.

I put her down. The mummy and we were alone on the flatcar now.

A warm glow spread through me, not unlike the warm jet of a hot tub. My old voice spoke, something good for once: The debt is nearly paid.

What debt? Oh. The debt of my stupidity in bring- ing a.s.sault onto the enclave.

That debt."Wait here." I could have sent her up the ladder to signal the others to join us, but she had earned a rest as far as I was concerned. Her vacation from h.e.l.l might not last longer than a few minutes, but I wanted her to enjoy every second before I ordered her to face death yet again. I got them myself, bringing them to the cacophonous flatcar.

Arlene and Albert looked as exhausted as Jill, and as tired as I felt. Next time, we'd fly.

Arlene bent over and began unwrapping, revealing the face of another human in a world where being human was something special.

Huddling against the forty or fifty kilometer per hour wind that leaked around the engines and air dam ahead of us, remnants of the 300 kph hurricane two meters either left or right, we crouched over our mummy, staring. We saw the features of a black man, mid-thirties. As we shifted him around on the plat- form, I estimated his weight at about sixty-four kilos.

Not a bad weight for 1.7 meters.

"What done him?" Jill shouted. A good question, though I could barely hear her small voice over the roar of train and wind. Computer and electronic jacks were all over his flesh, stuck like pins into a doll. He was unconscious. There were so many jacks, he'd probably be in extreme pain if awake.

Arlene pulled the lid back from his right eye, revealing a cloudy white orb, so completely glazed over that you couldn't make out a pupil. Even after encountering a who's who of monsters, fiends, and other denizens of h.e.l.l, something really bothered me about seeing this helpless man before me.

He didn't reek like sour lemons, thank G.o.d. He was no zombie.

I still hadn't discussed with Jill or Albert what Arlene and I had mulled over-namely, the possibili- ty that the Bad Guys were trying for more perfect human duplicates. Practice makes perfect. We had no idea how the zombies were created. Sometimes I thought they really were the reanimated dead; but other times I could buy the idea they were trans- formed while still alive. However the enemy was doing it, the lemon stink was a by-product of dealing with real human bodies.

If the enemy ever made perfect human copies from scratch, there would be no lemon smell, or anything else to give them away.

Arlene tried various methods of waking up the man, even slapping him in the face, but nothing worked. She looked at me and shrugged.

Jill reached out and gingerly touched one of the jacks sticking out from the man's flesh. She managed to look crafty and thoughtful, even with her red hair whipping around her face like a brushfire.

She fingered the jack again and scowled.

Then Jill looked at me and mimed typing on a keyboard. She raised her brows. What. . . ? I blinked; light finally dawned on marblehead. She wanted to hack this guy's brain?

Well why the h.e.l.l not?We all crowded around the mummy, making a windbreak for Jill. Leaning so close, I could actually make out a few words. "Need-jack-find out what-wants to fight-can't promise it'll-might be the break . . ."

I couldn't hear everything, but I got the gist.

The real question was what on earth was inside that brain that was worth the protection of a spidermind and a handful of steam-demons? Back on Phobos and Deimos, the alien technology we had seen was differ- ent, biological somehow. They used cyborgs, combi- nation biological-mechanical, like the spidermind it- self. Was that what this dude was, some sort of link between humans and alien technology?

Or the other way around?

Well, whatever. We weren't going to find out any- thing in a wind tunnel. . . somehow, some way, we simply had to get this guy off the d.a.m.ned train.

Somehow I doubted we could just ring the bell and say "Next stop, conductor."

I hoped the cybermummy would be enough of a son of a b.i.t.c.h to join us when we unwrapped him.

"Vacation over!" I bellowed over the gale. "War on!" Arlene gave me a dirty look, so I knew that the awesome responsibility of command still rested on my shoulders.

The man seemed physically manhandled and bruised, but not seriously damaged, except for their attempt to transform him into an appliance. The question was, how would we get him off the train?

If we waited until we rolled into the station in L.A., I could imagine a slight difficulty in persuading a large contingent of, say, steam-demons into helping us with our cargo. The absence of the spidermind from the flatcar would take a bit of explaining as well. We lacked the firepower to make our argument com- pletely convincing.

"Suggestion," rumbled Albert. It was hard to pick out his words; the timbre of his voice was too close to the throb of the engines, and he wasn't a good shouter. No practice, probably. I only caught some of what he said and wasn't too sure about what I did catch.

"Father-trains! Trick or treat-Jill's age- incorrect car-aggravates-emerging break . . . !"

I stared, trying to pa.r.s.e the incomprehensible "plan." Trick or treat? Jill's age aggravates the emerg- ing break?

Or was that brake-emergency brake! Something about an emergency brake.

He tried again: "Couple of cars!" he hollered.

"Couple-car!"

Couple of car. Cars? No, car ... couple-car.

I smacked my forehead. Decouple the car. Which must activate, not aggravate, the emergency brake.

Jesus and Mary! What a nightmare; a loud one!

That seemed like a plenty good plan to Yours Truly.