"It can if it has its own chip set and special programming," muttered Arlene.

"The program that shuts off his brain must have a 'front end' somewhere in his brain," Jill said-to herself, I presumed. "If I can find it, I can disable it, or I'm not Jill h.o.e.rchner."

"Are you?" asked my pal.

Jill glanced over at her and added, "I'd need a quiet place where I can be undisturbed for several days.

Days, not hours."

There were several hundred questions I wanted to ask Ken; but we heard a loud noise from upstairs. It didn't sound like more of the headbanger music. It sounded like heavy feet thumping around upstairs.

Maybe it was aliens coming to pick up their supply of zombie brew.

I was p.i.s.sed that the chems hadn't warned us when these "guests" would pay them a visit; then I realized that the aliens wouldn't stick to any kind of set program. All the more reason for the captain and the doctor to maintain their act.

Very quietly, Arlene flicked off the one light in the bas.e.m.e.nt ceiling. We sat in the dark. We heard raised voices; the chems were denying that they'd seen a human "strike team" or a human wrapped in ban- dages.

I heard the telltale hiss of imp talk; I held my breath . . . there were a lot of feet tramping around up there.

A new kind of voice spoke next, a grating, metallic monotone. It sounded like a robot from an old sci-fi movie, or something speaking through a vocoder.

Once this voice entered the conversation, our hu- man allies sounded frantic. I had a bad feeling about this. Good agents would put on a believable act. Good agents would stick to the part, right to the point of death. But were they?

The next sound we heard was all too familiar: a powerful explosion shook the house, followed by the smell of fire from above. Before we could even think about acting, there was another explosion, and now smoke began to drift down the wooden steps to our hiding place.

We listened to the alien storm troopers start tearingthe place apart. They'd convinced me of their sinceri- ty in trying to find us. I huddled the others and said: "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds will find the bas.e.m.e.nt. Our only hope is if the cooks dug an escape tunnel, one that exits from here."

Keeping the light off didn't make it any easier, but I hadn't noticed a tunnel when we could see. If my pipe dream produced a real pipe, the opening would be hidden anyway. We rummaged through spare equip- ment, desperately trying not to make noise. The stuff was mainly metal, so the process wasn't easy.

The chems had stored their chemical stuff in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Tanks of volatiles, gla.s.sware, a fire extin- guisher, jars and jars of chemicals (and I was grateful the gla.s.s was thick). There were plenty of shelves and books. And nowhere behind any of this did we find a secret opening.

We hunted the walls, shaking bookcases that might be doors, checking fireplaces for hidden holes, any- thing at all! I was about to give up when my hands came to rest on a bookcase that seemed bolted down, unlike the others.

I started tugging on various books to see if one of them was a trigger mechanism. Two things happened simultaneously. First, I found a book that wouldn't move. Never had I been happier to find something stuck.

Second, with a triumphant howling, the imps found the trapdoor and flung it wide, letting light pour into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

We froze; I was a statue holding up the bookshelf; Albert stood nearby, holding the naked Ken in a fireman's carry; Jill was part of that tableau, holding her CompMac ultramicro, still jacked into Ken; and Arlene was on the other side of the bas.e.m.e.nt room, in the gloom. Of the five of us, Ken did the best job of playing dead, but he had an unfair advantage.

A thing dropped down the open trap.

This baby looked vaguely humanoid-oh, they were keeping at it-but definitely alien. The yellow- white, naked body maintained the h.e.l.l motif so popular with the invaders. No obvious genitalia. The arms and legs were unusually small and thin. The most outstanding feature was the way the skin rippled like bubbling marshmallows over an open fire. I wondered if this might be one of their enslaved races.

As it came closer, it dawned on me why the spindly limbs were irrelevant to its effectiveness in battle. The new monster was hot. I mean, fires-of-h.e.l.l-make- your-eyeb.a.l.l.s-pop hot. No wonder the skin rippled from the amazing heat. He was like a mirage in the desert made into burning sulfur-flesh, the most "h.e.l.l- ish" creature yet.

There were books on the shelf right next to it. They burst into flame from his proximity, lighting the room, and the wood of the shelf charred right before our eyes. Maybe it was an optical illusion, but it appeared that actual flames danced along the thing's skin. The little voice in the back of my head started shrieking: Saved the best for last! The trouble with thelittle voice was that it was so d.a.m.ned optimistic.

As the living torch moved closer, I saw its eyes weren't really eyes-more like a ring of flaming dots so bright that it hurt to look at them. I wondered how we might appear to this creature; I also wished I had a barrel of ice water to throw on the uninvited guest.

The others were as confused as their fearless leader.

Arlene was able to fire off a short burst from her AB- 10. The thing didn't even react, but Arlene's machine pistol became so hot she had to drop it. Then the fire- thing moved between the others and Yours Truly, focusing on me.

Having cut me off, the monster put on a little magic act. It was so bright, I couldn't turn away, no matter how painful. . . and I watched its body actually con- tract, becoming brighter as it squeezed together-like it was about to explode.

Training took over, the healthy respect we were taught for all kinds of explosives. I had no desire to become Marine flambe.

I dove to the side, screaming inarticulately; every- one got the idea, falling flat, trying to cover himself.

Fireboy exploded, a blast lancing out and disintegrat- ing the bookshelf where I had stood a moment before.

Albert threw himself over Ken's body, then left Ken on the floor and grabbed his Uzi clone. We had all the light we could use.

The big Mormon opened fire. The big gun actually sounded soft compared to the horrific explosion from the alien, but the result was the same as with Arlene.

Did the thing generate a heat field around its immedi- ate body surface, heat so intense that bullets dissolved before getting through?

One good plan was growing in my head: run away!

This was a much better plan than it sounded. Rising shakily to my feet, I could see quite clearly the tunnel we'd been trying to find. The shelf I'd been exploring had indeed covered the exit, and the explosion had done a superb job of open sesame. I considered how to rescue the others, or at least Jill and Ken. The mission wasn't a burnout case yet.

For some reason, the fire monster seemed to have a thing for me; it targeted me again. I recognized the telltale signs. Looking right at me (if those black dots counted for eyes), it began to contract, powering up for another burst.

Before I ended my career as a piece of toast, Arlene came to the rescue. She got right behind the monster and opened fire from behind. Having learned her lesson about wasting bullets on this guy, she used the fire extinguisher.

Never discourage initiative, that's my motto!

She sprayed the thing, snarling, "G.o.dd.a.m.ned fire- eater!" It was the best name she'd invented in quite a while.

The monster screamed. The fire extinguisher was actually extinguishing the fire! This suggested a whole new approach to dealing with the monsters: properly labeled household appliances could restore Heaven on Earth.Arlene kept pouring the foam on the fire-eater, who was making a sound somewhere between a screeching cat and sizzling bacon. If the Marine Corps were around after we'd saved the world, I'd recommend a special medal for Arlene as master of unconventional weaponry: first the chainsaw, now the safety equip- ment.

I have the highest possible regard for women who save my life.

"Move out!" I bellowed to one and all, issuing one of my favorite orders. Everyone liked the idea just fine. Except for one imp, that is, without the brains to avoid tough Marines who had just stopped a monster compared to which an imp isn't fit to light cigars.

Imps aren't generally all that bright, of course, so I don't know why I was surprised. The ugly little sucker dropped through the hole and threw a flaming wad of snot that I refused to take seriously. On the other hand, one of those wads cashed the chips of Bill Ritch. The thought made me doubly mad, so ...

I returned fire with my double-barreled, thinking how I actually preferred an honest, ail-American duck gun like this one to the fascist, pump-action variety.

Yeah! The imp split down the middle, the guts making a Rorschach test. Better than a riot gun, no question about it.

We hauled a.s.s down the tunnel as I ran our list of liabilities. There was only one, actually, but it was big.

If we'd gotten the shelf open and closed behind us, we'd have a decent chance right now. However, all the monsters in the world knew where we'd gone, and the hordes would be hot on our heels.

Reinforcing this idea was the hissing, growling, slithering, wheezing, roaring, shlumping, and thud- thud-thudding a few hundred meters behind us.

There was nothing to do but run like thieves in the night.

Arlene brought the fire extinguisher with her; G.o.d knows why, unless we ran into another of our brand- new playmates. Albert and Jill were strapped, so their hands were free to carry Ken. Poor Ken. The way he was getting knocked around, bruised, and cut, he would have been doing a lot better if the bandages had been left on. If we got out of this, I promised to buy him a whole new body bandage.

The tunnel, winding snakelike, was terribly narrow, lined with raw earth and occasionally propped with wooden braces. The little voice in the back of my head insisted we were perfectly all right, so long as the pa.s.sage wasn't blocked. This was the same voice that always told me to leave the umbrella home right before the heaviest rainfall of the year.

Now, it's not like we hit a real cave-in. If we had, we'd simply have died right there. But a partial cave- in we could deal with.

Albert threw his ma.s.sive frame at the wall of dirt, and it shifted. We were slowed down by Jill and Arlene pushing Ken through, while Albert yanked from the other side. I guarded the rear with the shotgun loaded, ready for bear. No bears.A few feet ahead, we hit the outside of a huge pipe and found a hole buzz-cut right through it. We opened it, and I wished I'd left my olfactory senses back on Mars.

"Ew!" said Jill, another unsolicited but insightful commentary.

Sewer main. We were a.s.sailed by the odor of methane.

"Dive in, the offal's fine!" said Arlene cheerfully.

The sound of our pursuers only fifty meters back made the idea a lot more appealing. We could hear their raspy breathing.

We ducked into the sewers, very careful that Ken shouldn't accidentally drown. We'd come this far together, and he was starting to feel like a member of the family.

As we ran we heard the last sound anyone wants to hear underground: the roar and whoosh of a rocket. I crashed into the others, making Albert drop Ken.

Something heavy, smelling of burnt copper, whizzed over our heads; a nasty little rocket that just started to curve, heat-seeking, but couldn't quite make the turn.

It blew a hole in the pipe instead.

And I'd thought the tunnel smelled bad before!

I shook the dust out of my eyes and coughed, then lifted Jill from the ground. Tears were pouring down her face, but she wasn't crying; my eyes were watering too. Albert jerked Arlene to her feet, and they both checked on Ken, who was lying facedown with a pile of dirt on his head.

Jill opened his mouth, shoveled the dirt out, and made sure he hadn't swallowed his tongue. He coughed, and Jill got to her feet, handing Ken off like a sack of wheat. I loved watching a fourteen-year-old do what was considered criminal in the previous world: act like an adult.

"Over here," yelled Albert, pointing to a small hatch leading to a cramped corridor. The monsters were big; they'd have a hard time following.

Albert went first, probably not a good idea. I preferred Jill and Arlene in front. If we were am- bushed from behind, the girls might still get through, and Albert and I could hold off the Bad Guys; the mission would go on.

But it was too late to do anything about it now. At least we knew that anywhere Albert went, the rest of us could easily follow. I brought up the rear, hanging back to delay, if necessary.

The corridor walls were lined with pipes. When I caught up with the others, they were trying to open a pressure hatch at the far end. I brought bad luck with me-the sound of another rocket.

Albert and I dived left, Arlene and Jill right, taking Ken with them. Our actions confused the heat-seeker: it turned partially starboard, exploding and rupturing several pipes. Again we had the fun of choking and gagging on a huge burst of methane.

Albert grunted as he turned the difficult pressure hatch; we heard the gratifying sound of metal grinding against metal. He didn't open the portal a momenttoo soon.

Looking back, I saw imps, zombies, and one bony.

That answered the question of who'd been firing rockets. Bringing up their rear was either another fire- eater or the one Arlene had sprayed with the foam. If the latter, he'd be looking for payback.

Arlene stepped up, fire extinguisher pointed, ready for round two. I suddenly remembered something from my raucous high school daze. "No!" I shouted.

"Get back! Get through the hatch right now!"

She got.

Coming out last, I slammed the hatch shut and spun the wheel. "That's not going to last," said Albert.

"Won't need to," I said, backing away. "Everybody, get way back!"

Albert's face was a mask of puzzlement; then it dawned on him what was about to happen.

"Hope you all really like barbecue," I addressed the troops. "Hey, Arlene. Remember when they built the L.A. subway?"

"Yeah . . ." she said, scowling, still confused.

The mother of all gas explosions rocked us off our feet, blowing the hatch clean off its hinges; the flying metal could have killed any of us in the path.

1 staggered to my feet. It didn't take a lot of nerve to go over and check on the results; just a strong stom- ach. Nothing survived that explosion, not even the fire-eater.

As I peered into the maw of h.e.l.l, I saw nothing left of the alien pursuers except shreds of flesh and a fine mist of alien blood. And of course the lingering odor of sour lemons.

"What happened?" asked Jill, stunned. At least, I a.s.sume that's what she asked; all I could hear was a long, loud alarm bell.

I'd counted on the fire-eater; thankfully, it was hot enough to set off the methane.

Jill was completely recovered from being stunned.

She jumped up and down and shouted something, probably some contemporary equivalent of yowza.

We old folk were still a little sh.e.l.l-shocked as we continued along the sewer. After several twists and turns, it dawned on us we were lost.

Arlene had a compa.s.s, and now was the time to use it. "We've got a problem," she said; I was just starting to be able to hear again. "It shows a different direc- tion every time."

"Electric current in the pipe switches," I said.

"Take averages, figure out a rough west."

No matter where we were and what was happening, the watchwords must be "Go west, go west." We'd find the computer in L.A., so the President had told us; hope he knew what he was talking about. There, we guaranteed a reckoning the enemy would long remember.

31.

We continued westward until we finally emerged several klicks from where we'd entered.

Night was falling again. We'd had a busy day."Transportation," Albert pointed out. We beheld an old Lincoln Continental, covered in some kind of crud halfway between rust and slime, making it impossible to determine its original color. It probably had an automatic transmission; the mere thought made me shudder.

Albert went over and opened the unlocked door.