'I don't know which is healthier,' said Ditto. 'Winning or losing.'

Mona pressed the ignition b.u.t.ton, revving the car in neutral. 'I'm not waiting around to find out.'

Ditto gripped the dash nervously. 'Don't do anything foolish, Mona. I'm just a baby.'

'Just hold on. And buckle up.'

The gates rose slowly, cascading sparks on the audience below. Honcho was punching the roof of his car, denting the panelling. If he got any more excited, he might just short out his bulbs.

Mona shifted into first gear. The manual gearbox had been added by the Sweethearts, though there would hardly be time to shift all the way to sixth; she would have to skip a few gears. The Z12 lunged forward like an eager panther; she held it with the clutch.

There was a metre gap between the gate and the surface now. A waterfall of dancing white sparks obscured Mona's vision. Bulldogs fired rounds into the air. The Parasites were closing in, perhaps for her. Whatever was coming, was on the way.

Ridiculous as that sounded.

The gates jerked upwards another notch.

'Go!' screamed the Sweethearts in one voice. 'Go! Go!'

Mona revved, but did not go. 'Not yet.'

Honcho had no such reservations. He floored the accelerator, shooting out under the gate. It was too soon: his rear spoiler caught the gates. But there was no explosion, no conduction of thousands of volts through his cha.s.sis. Instead, the spoiler melted into black slop, half coating the rear window. Honcho raced on.

'Rubber,' said Mona contemptuously. 'That cheat.'

'Go,' howled the Sweethearts almost tearfully. Honcho was already a kilometre down the track and he hadn't even fired his nitrous yet.

'Not just yet.'

Ditto pounded her shoulder with tiny hands. 'What are you doing, Vasquez? Are you insane?'

'One more second.'

Honcho was two kilometres gone. Two and a half.

Doing at least three hundred kilometres an hour, his tyres billowing black smoke.

The Sweethearts were converging on the car, drawing weapons from their pockets.

Miguel's lips were drawn back from his teeth.

'Time to go,' whispered Mona, dropping the accelerator and lifting the clutch. The Z12 shot forward like Thor's Hammer across the sky. The nitrous injection slammed Mona and Ditto back into their seats. If the headrests hadn't been padded, their craniums would have cracked like eggsh.e.l.ls. Vision was distorted, colours ran and blended. Nothing was clear, except the track.

Mona locked her wrists, keeping the wheel steady. Everything on either side dissolved into speed trails, but ahead the track was a solid black strip, with Honcho's charger growing ever larger in the crystal windscreen. Compared to the Z12, Honcho's car may as well have been in reverse, though the Bulldog could not have known that. He was already firing victory flares out the window.

Check your mirror, lame brain, thought Mona. See what's creeping up on you.

It seemed as though Honcho did just that, because his twin exhaust pipes flared blue as he injected the nitrous into his engine. The Bulldog charger lurched forward, another fifty kph added to its speed. It was too late, the Z12 was an automated bullet burning down the track like lightning from the belly of a storm cloud.

'Amazing,' said Mona, the word jittering between gritted teeth. 'This thing is an animal.'

Ditto grinned at Honcho as they cruised past. An irritating smug grin that would make anyone on the receiving end want to do him severe injury. Quite possibly Honcho couldn't see the other car, never mind the Bartoli Baby's grinning head, but it made Ditto feel better.

They flashed across the finish line, activating victory fireworks. Five kilometres in under a minute. The factory wall loomed large before them.

'You forgot to brake,' shouted Ditto over the engine roar. 'Your old boyfriend said to brake early.'

Mona floored the accelerator, heading towards a sonic boom.

'He's not my old boyfriend, and do you really want to stop for a chat with Honcho?'

'Ideally, no. But what choice do we have?'

"We can go through that gate.'

Ditto held his nose and blew until his ears popped, just in case the pressure was interfering with his hearing.

'Go through the - Are you completely insane?'

'Think about it. We go off the end of the ramp at about three hundred. The gate is only plastic polymer, the car is toughened alloy. We have a good chance of making it.'

'There must be another way.'

'I'm all ears: you have three seconds.'

'Mona, don't make me hit you.'

'If you have a sledgehammer in your pocket, I'll start worrying.'

Ditto adopted the crash position, head between legs.

'We're dead,' he muttered.

The pig-iron wall loomed before them, seconds away. A speeding procession of gang autos raced up the factory floor. Overhead the Parasites scurried ever closer to ground level. And there was one more factor, something no one could have antic.i.p.ated. Something rarely seen in Booshka: paralegals.The Z12 cut out.

'What?' said Mona.

All four wheels locked simultaneously and two mini braking parachutes shot out of the rear spoiler.

'Not good,' muttered Mona, fighting the frozen steering wheel.

The Z12's dash flipped to reveal a backlit read-out. A message flashed up on the remote. Remote Myishi Z12 lockout, the message read. Step away from the vehicle.

The car spun to a halt, one wheel dangling over the track's edge.

Ditto peeped up from his crash position. 'Are we dead?'

'No, we're locked out.'

Ditto sat up gingerly. 'Thank G.o.d for that.'

Mona climbed from the car, shaking the speed buzz from her head. The situation was fast approaching critical and could only get worse. The gangs would be here any second and Miguel could not save them again even if he wanted to. She turned to the heavens. Stefan was their only chance, up there watching over them like their own private guardian angel. He would come, she knew he would.

But there was something else. Above Cosmo and Stefan's perch. Several somethings.

Ditto stumbled from the Zl 2.

'A thought, Vasquez. If we're locked out, who locked us out?'

Mona pointed to several dozen shadowy figures free falling towards the solar panel frames.

'They did.'

Overhead in the Krom factory gantry, Cosmo and Stefan watched the race with a mixture of terror and fascination. At one point Stefan's phone vibrated. He checked the screen.

'What does it say?' asked Cosmo.

Stefan deleted the text. 'Everything's fine. See you soon.'

'OK, I get it. Don't ask.'

Stefan watched the race's conclusion through field gla.s.ses. 'Strange.'

'Strange?' asked Cosmo. 'What's strange?'Stefan pa.s.sed across binoculars. 'They've stopped. An emergency stop too. I was sure Mona would punch out through the gate. Why would she stop on the track like a sitting duck? Unless -'

Cosmo felt a chill across his brow as the blood drained from his face. Unless what?

He waited for Stefan to complete the thought.

'Unless someone else stopped the car for her.'

Through the field gla.s.ses, Cosmo saw Mona point to the ceiling above them. He flipped on to his back, squinting through the huge panels into the night sky beyond.

Dozens of shadowy figures were hurtling through mid-air towards the holes in the roof.

'Are those things real? Or are they some other creatures that only we can see?'

Stefan grabbed the gla.s.ses, pointing them towards the ceiling. Several black-clad figures swam into focus. Combat-chutes trailed behind them and directional gas jets were attached to each heel. Cradled in the figures' arms were chunky a.s.sault rifles.

There was a company logo emblazoned across each helmet. The same logo that flashed from the Satellite.

'Myishi Corp,' said Stefan. 'Para-legals. They're here for the Z12.'

'What? All this for a car?'

Stefan clambered to his knees on the grating, hoisting his greatcoat over his head.

'That car cost billions of dinars to develop. Losing it was a real kick in the teeth for Myishi. This is probably the first time it's been out from under a lead sheet long enough to trace.'

Stefan lifted the flap of his coat. 'Quickly, under here, and pray we're not spotted.'

Cosmo crawled under the leather, beneath Stefan's armpit. The coat smelled of hard work and lightning-rod flash. Through a gap in the coat, he watched the paralegals swoop gracefully through the gaping slots in the roof. With guiding bursts of gas from their boot jets, they avoided being snared by jutting girders, and descended towards the gangs a.s.sembled below.

One ripped a mini-woofer radio speaker from a Velcro patch on his arm and dropped it to the factory floor below. It bounced a full ten feet in its plastic casing before rolling along the track to settle at Honcho's feet. He picked it up quizzically.

The para-legal's voice blasted from the mesh.

'The Z12 Nitrous Charger is the property of the Myishi Corporation. Step away from the car or you will be sanctioned. This is your final warning. You have ten seconds to respond.'

The gang members did not need ten seconds. Most spun their cars through a one- eighty skid, heading back towards the doors. Halfway there they noticed the three-storey a.s.sault tanks blocking the exits. Myishi were pulling out all the stops on this one. The gang leaders began firing whatever they had at the descending paralegals.

By then the ten seconds were up, and the Myishi lawyers were legally ent.i.tled to open fire. Which they did, with the most advanced weapons in the world. The first phase was to lay down a cellophane blanket. Fleeing gang leaders were wrapped as they attempted to escape. Every second sh.e.l.l was a Shocker, the charge of which ran across the surface of the cellophane, blasting everything beneath the sticky surface into oblivion, or beyond it.

The Parasites pounced like iridescent wolves, sinking through the cellophane coc.o.o.ns to settle on gang leaders' chests. The charge from the Shockers was too dispersed to do them any real harm, in fact it seemed to add to their enthusiasm.

The para-legals fell like deadly missiles, spitting pain and death. They hooked on to stairwells and lower gantries, picking off their prey from above. The gang members never had a chance. Most were unconscious before they had time to draw a weapon.

The rest were herded into corners by lumbering a.s.sault tanks and glued to the walls by cellophane slugs.

Stefan poked his head out from under the coat.

'This is all my fault,' he moaned. 'The Parasites are feasting and it's all my doing.

I gave the Z12 to Miguel.'

Cosmo peered down at the chaos below. 'You couldn't have known. No one could.'

Stefan's eyes flashed in the light of electric sh.e.l.ls. 'I should have known! For three years I've been running from Myishi police. I know how they operate.' He pointed his lightning rod at a group of Parasites. 'Too far. We don't have the range. We need to get down there.'

Cosmo searched the melee of fleeing bodies. 'I see them. They're going under the track. They'll be trapped.'

'I need to get lower,' Stefan muttered. 'I can't help from here.'

Cosmo smacked the grille with his fist. 'Why can't it ever rain when you want it to?'

Stefan looked at him strangely. 'Rain? Of course, we need water to drive away the Parasites. We can do that much at least.'

'Now you're telling me you can make it rain?'

Stefan was on his feet, scrambling towards an access ladder.

'I can't, but they can.'

'They?' shouted Cosmo, racing after the Super-naturalist. 'Who are they?'

'There. In the doorway. You get back to the Pigmobile; try to hook up with Mona and Ditto if they make it out.'

Cosmo still didn't get it. The only thing in the doorway was a thirty-foot-high a.s.sault tank. Surely Stefan didn't intend taking on one of those? Cosmo followed Stefan down a ladder. He had no intention of going back to the Pigmobile. If Stefan was going after an a.s.sault tank, Cosmo was going with him. He was, after all, one of the team.