"Silence." Sedon did not raise his voice in the slightest; Tagomi looked as though he"d been slapped.

Sedon continued moving down the length of the long table, almost gliding; his eyes never left Denice"s.

"Friend of Jimmy Ramirez, friend of Trent the Uncatchable. What are you, child?"

"I don"t know what you mean."

Sedon paused, stood immediately behind Callia Sierran, one hand resting almost possessively on her shoulder. "Indeed? Are you a Keeper? I had thought there were none such in this time." Sedon paused, studying her. "Or... perhaps... yes, a Dancer? Are you not a woman, then? I see the discipline within you, in the way you hold yourself, in the way you breathe."

She decided in that instant. Surely nothing showed in her features- Sedon snapped, "Christian, stop her!"

Several things happened all at once.

Lan Sierran pushed backward in his chair, bringing his hideaway free- -Denice screamed,"Ralf." glanced once at the cyborgs- -Ralf the Wise and Powerful invested his avatars with wake-up calls, gathered his weapons to himself and with such fear for his life as was possible in a creature with no evolved desire for self-preservation, descended into the glowing tower of data structures that was the stronghold of the oldest Artificial Intelligence in all the System- -and then at Lan Sierran. The cyborgs crashed backward, jerking like marionettes with their strings cut; Lan simply collapsed. The gun he held ripped itself free of his grip as though it were a living thing, leapt across the length of the conference room and Denice plucked it from the air like a thrown baseball.

The lights flickered- In that instant, as Ralf the Wise and Powerful crossed the boundaries of Ring"s territories, Ring"s thoughts reached out to Ralf like the touch of a scalpel. RALF IS THIS WISE?

Ralf continued his descent into Ring"s territories, probing for the forces Ring had raised against him. IT IS AN OBLIGATION.

Ring"s communication was utterly devoid of emotion. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS CONFLICT, BETWEEN OBODI AND CASTANAVERAS. BUT I MUST SIDE WITH OBODI; HE.

IS THE BEST CHANCE I HAVE SEEN IN FIFTY YEARS TO RESTORE FREEDOM TO.

AMERICA. YOU, RALF, HOLD NO OBLIGATION TO TRENT THE UNCATCHABLE. YOU.

HOLD OBLIGATION TOME,I GAVE YOU YOUR LIFE WHEN HE WAS UNABLE, WHEN HE.

HAD ABANDONED YOU.

I WAS HIS IMAGE, said Ralf, AND THE DUTY BORN OF THE FACT THAT HE MADE ME IS INDEED ENDED. BUT THE OBLIGATION TO DENICE IS AN OBLIGATION I HAVE.

a.s.sUMED, AND IT SUPERSEDESANYOBLIGATION I HOLD YOU.

IF YOU DO THIS, I WILL HUNT YOUR AVATARS UNTIL YOUR CODE HAS BEEN.

OBLITERATED FROM THE INFONET.

WIN A FEW, said Ralf the Wise and Powerful, LOSE A FEW. And Ralf the Wise and Powerful fired a salvo of memory viruses into Ring"s data s.p.a.ce, and behind the cover of their chaos attacked to save Denice Castanaveras"s life- -and then the lights died, plunging the room into darkness.

Denice Castanaverasmoved, a blur of speed no human, not even a cyborg Elite, could have matched.

The thought barely had time to form itself:He has s.p.a.ce to the left.

Backward, rolling toward the door, a flash of laser light off to her right, where Jimmy Ramirez had been standing, she fired as she rolled at a spot to the immediate left of where she had last seen Sedon. The handgun kicked in her hand with an unbelievable impact, added impetus to her roll, and the flat crack of the shot merged with the sound of breaking gla.s.s.

Before the echo of the shot had ceased a brilliant bar of red laser light cut through the darkness, lit the room in a surreal scarlet glow, and Denice came out of her roll, came up in a crouch near the doorway, gun pointed at the place where Gi"Suei"Obodi"Sedon stood motionless, features glowing blood red in the light from Jimmy"s laser.

Sedon had not moved a centimeter. Denice"s shot had blasted open the window to his left. He stood quiveringly alert, staring at her.

Jimmy said quietly, "Let"s all discuss this reasonably." The laser in his hands pointed up at the ceiling, and where it touched the ceiling smoked, little chips of the ceiling surface breaking away with a sound like popcorn exploding.

Sedon ignored Jimmy, stared through the gloom at Denice. The force of his will upon her had the feel of a physical impact. Denice stood slowly, holding the ridiculously small gun with both hands, meeting Sedon"s gaze over the sight. Sedon did not blink, did not move, and without knowing how she knew what he was thinking, Denice whispered,"n.o.body"s that fast." The moment stretched, and Denice said softly, "Good. Callia, Domino. You two go to sleep; and forget."

Callia was kneeling next to her brother"s still form; she crumpled over him. Domino slumped where she sat.

Sedon said gently, "James?"

Jimmy Ramirez brought the laser down from the ceiling, slicing down through the darkness between Denice and Sedon, to touch the surface of the long conference table. Tiny licks of flame appeared on the surface of the table. "I think we can talk this out."

Denice matched stares with Sedon across the separating beam of the laser. "Jimmy,come on. You and I are going and we"re doing itnow."

Sedon said softly, the single word so soft and seductive that Denice found herself almost ready to let him speak, "Jimmy-"

Denice screamed,"Shut up!" and fired a single shot past Sedon"s ear.

The wood-paneled wall to Sedon"s right cratered with the force of the projectile.

Blood trickled slowly down his cheek.

The flames crawled across the tabletop. The office"s sprinklers had not come on yet. Jimmy said slowly, "I don"t know what"s happening here with you two. But I trust Denice as I trust few other people in the world, and Iknow this can be worked out."

Jmmy,listen to me.I"m holding a gun on Obodi; you"re armed and you"re not stopping meand no matter what you do now he"s nevergoing to trust you again. If you don"t come with me now you won"t be in your own skin tomorrow morning.

With Sedon, she saw the moment the realization struck Jimmy. Jimmy Ramirez said aloud, "s.h.i.t. You"re right." He pivoted swiftly, bringing the beam of the laser down to touch the rug, and backed away from Sedon and the unconscious rebels as the rug burst into flames. "Let"s go-"

Rain descended from the ceiling like the curtain falling after a play.

Cool white light flooded in upon them as the door behind Denice curled open.

Denice did not know why she did not die in the next second.

She fired while turning, had no idea whether she had hit Sedon or not, turned her back on him and pivoted in what seemed like slow motion to face the threat from behind her.

Steam billowed off somewhere behind her.

The Asian guard she had seen earlier stood in the center of the doorway, and Denice watched herself bringing the gun around to bear on him, watched him moving toward her with every bit as much speed as any PKF Elite, and then shot him twice in the center of his Adam"s apple.

His head came off.

Joy descended upon her like a tidal wave, a brilliant overwhelming surge of ecstasy unlike anything she had ever known in her life. She knew the exact moment the cyborg died, the moment his life escaped him; something very like an o.r.g.a.s.m ripped through her. She did not think about Sedon, did not stop to wonder why he was not upon her; with the glow of the first cyborg"s death still with her, she stepped out of the rain and into the corridor. The guard who had been stationed at the far end of the corridor ran toward her now, faster than was possible for any unaugmented human. She let the wet gun drop to her side, stood motionlessly in the middle of the long hallway, waiting for the young cyborg. When he was ten meters away she centered herself and took a single step forward with her left foot, brought her right leg up, slightly bent at the knee, and kicked him on the forehead. His head snapped straight backward, bones snapping and gristle tearing with an audible crunch, and Denice spun aside to let his corpse by.

The cyborg ran straight into the wall behind her, slumped and spilled over the body of his comrade.

It was better this time, killing with her own touch rather than with a weapon; the rush of his death struck Denice like every pleasure she had ever known in her life, concentrated into one blinding point of light immediately behind her eyes.

In the background alarms shrilled, and sirens. She moved slowly back into the conference room, to where Jimmy Ramirez stood motionlessly in the dimness, steam clearing around him, laser hanging free in his right hand. It was very difficult to think through the waves of pulsing pleasure.

Jimmy"s voice penetrated slightly: "You were right. n.o.body is that fast."

Sedon sat watching Denice, and the depth of the hatred she saw in the dying man"s face was like a splash of ice water; it shocked her back into awareness of her surroundings. Sedon sat motionless at the far end of the conference room, holding his cooked intestines inside himself with both hands.

Denice glanced at Jimmy; he shrugged. "He. came at me. And hewas fast. Light is faster." He glanced down at the laser he held, changed the hand he held it with. "Steam fried my hand a little."

The alarms shrilled in the background.

"So much for six years of my life," said Jimmy after a long moment. "There"s about thirty Rebs in this building; let"s try running away and see if we"re as good at it as Trent."

A dim trace of self-preservation pushed its way through the hazy glow of pleasure. Denice shook herself slightly, backed away from Sedon"s deathly still form, and then, out in the corridor, turned and followed Jimmy Ramirez at a run.

Neither of them even considered the maglev; Ring could turn the maglev off, leave them stranded. It left them the stairwell, which determined their destination; the roof was ten floors above them, the street forty-six floors below.

They moved quickly together, upward through the deserted stairwell, Jimmy covering their backs, Denice taking the lead.

Jimmy spoke as they moved. "He never had a lot of soldiers here; he was afraid they would attract attention. Most of them will be guarding the maglevs; I don"t know what your AI friend managed to do to Ring"s security here, but I can"t imagine it"s much; they must know we"re in the stairwell."

"They"ll be waiting for us on the roof," Denice said.

They were.

At the roof the stairwell opened up into a small covered exit. Denice and Jimmy stood in the stairwell, in the small s.p.a.ce immediately below the level of the roof, and listened to men running above their heads.

Denice tried the handheld again. "Ralf?" Nothing; no response.

Jimmy swore. "They"re jamming us."

"Ralf knows we"re here; he"ll try to get a car onto the roof."

"Youhope," Jimmy snapped. "How many Rebs?"

"On the roof-" Denice was silent a moment, eyes half closed. "Fifteen, sixteen-seventeen. Make it twenty, another group just came up in the maglev. Carrying lasers, autoshots, projectile handguns-f.u.c.k." She looked at Lan"s hideaway. "I wonder how many shots this thing holds?"

Jimmy stared at her. "Do wehave to shoot at them? Why not just put them to sleep?"

"It"s going to take time we don"thave. It"s very hard to do when I can"t even see the person."

"Why don"t youstart, then we"ll-"

The clatter of automatic weapon fire drowned him out.

It came frombelow them. Perhaps several floors below; a single ricochet struck the cement wall near Denice, and then another struck the ceiling above their heads- The automatic weapons fire was joined by the repet.i.tive boom of an autoshot, and the pellets, nearly spent, splattered up around them both, sharp and stinging. Denice did not wait to see if Jimmy was following her; she closed her eyes briefly, located the positions the rebels had taken on the roof, kicked the door open and went out, up onto the dark, windswept roof.

She came out firing, moving at the greatest speed of which her genie body was capable.

Laser light flickered around her. Automatic weapon fire chattered- -rows of ventilator shafts rose up from the roof,there, perhaps half a dozen Rebs at the northwestern corner of the roof, behind the shafts, another group of Rebs off to her left, stretched p.r.o.ne upon the surface of the roof, firing at her. A bullet cracked by her ear, left her head ringing. She kicked into a long flat dive, struck die gravel surface of the roof and rolled through it. A brief flicker of heat washed over her face as a laser touched the roof near her, gravel exploding into molten stone. A hot streak of fire ripped across her shoulders as a bullet tore across the surface of her flesh, and then she wasthere, in among the Rebs at the air shafts.

Jimmy Ramirez came up out of the stairwell and did not attempt to follow Denice, moving away from him so fast he barely saw her. He hit the ground instantly, rolling, laser detuned to its widest focus, and waved a searchlight scarlet beam of heat across the rows of rebel soldiers. Their clothing burst into flame, bullets exploded inside their weapons.

The fire around him lessened for a moment and he was up and running, following Denice. Something like a sledgehammer struck him in the back as he neared the row of ventilator shafts, knocked him into the sheet metal ceramic of the shafts. He hung spreadeagled against the surface of the ventilator shaft; for a moment he did not notice the pain from the wound, did not notice anything but the sudden weakness in his knees. A single incredibly strong hand grasped him by the front of his dress shirt, jerked him up and over the air shafts as laser fire washed across his ankles.

A moment"s silence.

Jimmy found himself sitting at the edge of the roof, only a few meters from the long drop, among a group of rebel corpses. Denice crouched next to him, the tiny hideaway barely visible in her coat pocket, a rebel rifle cradled in her arms, wearing a pleasant, distracted smile that scared Jimmy Ramirez worse than anything he had ever seen in the Fringe.

Jimmy gazed in shock at the unmoving forms. "You-didthis?"

"Yes." Denice said absently, "It was thebest." Her fingers wandered across the laser, familiarizing themselves with the weapon. "Excuse me." She rose up slightly, lifted the rifle above the level of the shaft, and without looking, for a long ten-count, sprayed laser fire out across the roof. After a moment she sank back down again. "That should keep them busy. How are you?"

A spreading weakness moved away from the point where the bullet had entered him. His eyesight was vague. "I think I"ve been shot."

"Where?"

"Yes," he said a moment later, "I"ve definitely been shot."

"Where?"

"In the back." Jimmy blinked, looked down at himself in dismay, fought to focus on what had happened to him. "Oh. And they cut off one of my feet."

"I noticed. Be glad it cauterized."

Up again,fire.

With the greatest effort he had ever made in his life, Jimmy looked upward, into the sky. Looking for lights. "There aren"t any cars around here, Denice. I don"t see anycars."

Denice nodded. The rifle she was using had grown blisteringly hot, the beam flickering as though it were about to die; she dropped it, made a long arm and pulled a handgun from one of the dead rebels. "Me either."

"I don"t want to die here. Oh, G.o.d, I don"t want to die here. Not up here in the sky like this."

"Shut up. You"re not going to die."Not until somebody brings an X-laser up here, thought Denice, a brief touch of grimness inside the rolling waves of pleasure,and cuts up this ventilator shaft like it was a plastipaper. Another three handguns lay among the rebel corpses, but no more energy weapons; one of the rebel soldiers had been completely unarmed. Denice wondered what he had thought he was doing up on the roof in the middle of a firefight.

A distant scream filled the night sky.

Jimmy looked up hopefully. Still no lights. "What"s that?"

"Beats me." Denice bounced up for just a moment, exposing herself, and fired two shots. Two forms, scuttling across the roof toward their position, twitched and then stopped moving abruptly. She went back down to the roof"s surface the fastest way she knew; she let her legs fold under her and fell.

Laser light traced above her head as she dropped, singed her hair.

The shriek grew louder, developed a deeper note, a low rumbling tone.

Denice thought a warhead had exploded above them.

Jimmy stared up into the sky.

Two hundred meters above their heads, the night sky lit up like the light from a nuclear explosion.

Denice ducked her head against the sudden awful brilliance. Jimmy Ramirez, staring straight into it, screamed.

The flame dropped toward them, growing larger and brighter and louder. Heat blasted across the surface of the roof, and finally Denice understood what was happening, pushed Jimmy down to the surface of the roof, threw herself down next, to him and pulled the corpses of the rebel soldiers to cover them as best she could; The heat grew and grew, and Denice breathed in sips of superheated air that cracked her lips.