TW09 The Lilliput Legion NEW (23 page)

"Oh, God damn it to hell," said Forrester, his voice breaking slightly. "All this just because of me."

"Don't do that to yourself, Moses," Steiger said. "This is war. And the Network has a lot to answer for."

"And they're going to answer for it, believe me," Forrester said grimly.

"We were lucky this time, but the entire top part of this building will have to be evacuated. Christ, how many of them were there?"

"I don't know," said Steiger. "It seemed like hundreds. But we stopped 'em. We stopped 'em cold."

"Yes, for now," Forrester said. "But I can't risk another attack like that. I can't stay here. It's too dangerous to the other patients and the hospital personnel."

"But you haven't been released for duty—"

"After this, I don't think you'll get any arguments from Dr. Hazen or any of the staff," said Forrester. "Get me out of here Creed. I'm going back to headquarters. We've got a lot of work to do."

Lucas materialized in the middle of Washington Street. For a moment, he did not know where he was; then a blast from a diesel truck's air horn caused him to leap to one side, narrowly avoiding being run down.

"Get outta the road, asshole!" the trucker yelled out the open window as he rumbled by.

Lucas looked around. The area he stood in resembled a war zone. The street was pockmarked with pot holes. The sidewalks were cracked and buckling. The warehouses all around him were shuttered and boarded up and covered with graffiti. An abandoned car was rusting on its wheel hubs, the wheels long since stolen. The rest of the car had been stripped, the windows shattered and an uprooted traffic sign had been hurled through the windshield, like a harpoon transfixing a whale—an eloquent commentary on the mindless fury and frustration of the scuttle fish who crawled these streets at night.

And it was getting dark.

"New York City," Lucas said, realizing where he was. "Damn. I've done it again."

He groaned and brought his hands up to his head, pressing them flat against his temples. His head felt as if it were about to burst. The pain rivaled the worst hangover he'd ever had. It kept fading in and out, as if someone were flickering a switch and off.

He cursed Darkness and his damned telempathic chronocircuitry—although without his interference, Lucas knew he wouldn't even be alive. Still, it was a mixed blessing. Each time he thought he had a handle on it, he'd somehow lose control and flip through time and space like some sort of leaf blown on a temporal wind. And the more often he did it, the greater the strain seemed to be. Obviously, he required a period of recuperation after each translocation. Darkness had warned him about that.

Curiously, the amount of time and space he covered during each translocation seemed to make no difference. Whether he translocated from one side of a room to another or from 'Darkness's secret laboratory headquarters all the way to Earth, it seemed to feel the same. The sensation upon arrival was not altogether unlike what most people felt upon making transition via the old chronoplates or the warp discs that superseded them, although the vertiginous feeling was minimized somewhat with the warp discs. The initial translocation—the departure—took place so fast that it was impossible to notice it happening. It occurred literally with the speed of thought. But immediately upon arrival, there was the unpleasant sensation of vertigo and a curious coldness, as if a chill mountain breeze were blowing through his body, whistling in between the bones and organs, making every single nerve fiber shiver. And he had noticed that the effects seemed to be increasing every time.

He often wondered if Darkness even had a clue to what he was doing. That the man was a genius on a level beyond anything that anyone had ever known was indisputable, but at the same time, and perhaps because of that, he was also utterly -incomprehensible. He often agonized over the ethical implications of his work, yet the rights of individuals meant nothing to him. This was not the time to be concerned about such things, Lucas realized. He was in a dangerous neighborhood and it was getting dark. Somewhere nearby, Andre and Gulliver were being held prisoner by the Network. And Lucas had no weapons.

Where the hell was Darkness?

The shadows lengthened as night fell on the city. This wasn't the kind of darkness that I had in mind, thought Lucas. Why hadn't Darkness followed him? He looked up and down the street. He had absolutely no idea where Andre and Gulliver were being held. There were warehouses and old factory buildings along both sides of the street. They could be in any one of them.

Then he saw a sleek black Cadillac, a stretch limousine, turning slowly into the street. It was definitely not the sort of vehicle one expected to encounter in this area of town. He quickly translocated behind the abandoned car. The limo pulled up in front of an old brick warehouse building with graffiti all over the doors and two men got out, dragging a third between them. The front door on the other side of the car opened and another man got out. Even at that distance, Lucas recognized the massive figure of Nikolai Drakov.

He watched Drakov and the others go into the building. The limousine waited at the curb, its motor running. Lucas gasped, slumping down behind the wrecked car as the pain washed over him again, coming and going, coming and going, like waves crashing on a shore. Everything started to spin around. He sagged against the car and slip down to the street.

"Hey, mah man . . ."

"He's wasted."

"Yo, got any money, my man?"

He felt hands on him, turning him around, patting down his pockets.

"Yo, man, check out the boss threads, man! I gotta get me them threads!"

"Fuck the threads, where the hell's the
money?
Hey, dude, where the hell's the money, dude?"

"Get away . . ." Lucas said, clumsily pushing at them, desperately trying to focus and ignore the pain.

Something went
snik
and he felt the sharp point of a switchblade pressed up beneath his chin.

"Awright, muthafucker, where's the bread? I
cut
you, man. C'mon, where you got it stashed?"

"Maybe in his boots."

"Check his belt."

He felt their hands fumbling at his clothes and he tried to resist, but the knife blade pressed up against the underside of his chin again. He struggled against the pain and dizziness, trying to focus in on his attackers. They were little more than just a blur, but he could tell that there were three of them.

Slowly, they resolved into distinct figures. One was white, two were black, dressed in tatterdemalion, street-punk style— studded and fringed leather, motorcycle jackets with chain trim, patched jeans, engineer boots or brightly colored, high top sneakers and T-shirts or bright tank tops with printed designs.

They had pierced ears, spiked bracelets, chains, studded choker collars. One wore his hair in a short Mohawk, another had a crew cut and the third had shaved his head completely. Lucas felt his boots being pulled off, then his trousers. One of them started opening his shirt.

Sheeit,
man, he ain't
got
no money!"

"Ain't got no damn watch, no rings,
nuthin,
man! Someone musta already rolled 'im!"

"I'm gonna do him," said the one with the knife.

"Shoot, forget it, man. C'mon, least we got the clothes."

"I wanna cut him."

Lucas felt hot, stinking breath on his face.

"So cut him and c'mon, man, I ain't got no time for this shit!"

The one with the knife knelt over him, his eyes glittering wildly.

Lucas suddenly reached out and his fingers closed tightly around the hand holding the knife. He struck out hard with his other hand and smashed the punk's windpipe. The punk's eyes went wide with pain and sudden terror as he made gagging, choking noises and sagged down to the sidewalk, gargling on his own blood.

"Hey, what the—

Lucas came up with the punk's knife in his hand. "Son of a bitch!"

The punk with the shaved head reached up and unsnapped the leather epaulet on his motorcycle jacket, pulling down the steel chain he wore around his shoulder. The other one dropped the clothes they took off Lucas and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a butterfly knife and opened it with a quick flick of the wrist.

They moved apart and came at him from two sides. Lucas hefted the switchblade, found its balance point, shifted his grip and flung it with a quick, underhanded motion. It struck the punk with the butterfly knife, sinking into his torso, right under the rib cage. He grunted with surprise, clutched his chest and collapsed onto the street. The remaining punk snarled and brought the chain down hard. Lucas took the blow on his upraised forearm, wincing as the shock traveled up his arm. He twisted his wrist, grabbed the chain, yanked sharply and smashed the punk in the face before he could regain his balance. The punk lost his grip on the chain and staggered backwards, bleeding from his broken nose. He gave Lucas a terrified look as he scrambled back, then stooped, snatched up the black fatigues and took off down the street at a dead run.

"You bastard! My clothes!" shouted Lucas, throwing the chain after him furiously. Only his boots remained lying on the street. "Great! Just fucking great!" –

There he was, alone in one of the worst areas of 20th century New York. Andre and Gulliver were being held prisoner by Nikolai Drakov, and he was standing in the middle of Washington Street in his underwear with two dead bodies at his feet.

All he needed now was for a police car to come by. Although that wasn't very likely. The police knew better than to cruise a neighborhood like this.

Lucas glanced down at the two dead punks. They looked none to clean, but the one with the Mohawk was just about his size. With a grimace of distaste, Lucas stripped off the punk's clothes. He slipped on the tight-fitting black jeans and the motorcycle jacket, after wiping some of the blood off. He hoped he wouldn't get lice, but if he did, it wouldn't be the first time. He walked over to the other corpse, pulled the switchblade free and picked up the butterfly knife the punk had dropped. As serious weapons, they left a lot to be desired, but they were better than nothing.

He glanced back toward the building Drakov had gone into just in time to see him coming out again. The man with him had to be the Network man Darkness had described. He was pushing Andre ahead of him into the limousine. There was no sign of Gulliver.

"Darkness, damn it, where the hell are you?" Lucas said, watching as they got into the car. "Delaney . . ."

But there was no sign of them. He had to do something. The limo was pulling away from the curb and making a U-turn in
the
middle of street. His gaze fell on the trunk.

All right, he thought, here goes nothing. Desperately hoping that his telempathic chronocircuitry could compute the time- space coordinates and the trajectory from the input of his senses, Lucas stared hard at the trunk of the departing limousine,
willing
himself into it.

He tached.

Gulliver shook his head, backing away as the two gunmen came toward him.

"No, please," he said. "Don't . . ."

The men grinned, aiming their guns. Suddenly, both guns flew out of their hands and disappeared.

The gunmen stared, dumbfounded, and then a voice spoke from behind them.

"Are you gentlemen looking for these?”

Dr. Darkness stood behind them, flickering like a stroboscopic ghost. He held out his hands. A gun rested in each palm.

"Hey!" said Finn Delaney.

Both gunmen spun around to see Delaney, who had materialized within a foot of them. He reached out quickly and slammed their heads together. They both collapsed to the floor.

”That was a little tight there, Doctor," said Delaney. ”Another foot closer and it would've gotten messy."

Darkness shrugged. "How was I to know that they'd be standing there?"

Gulliver shut his eyes and almost sobbed with relief. "Delaney!"

Finn glanced down at the figure sprawled out on the floor. "Well, well," he said. "Look what we've got here. I believe we've recaptured an escaped prisoner."

"Damn you, Delaney, get me loose," said Hunter.

"You know this man, Delaney?" Darkness said.

"I knew his twin," Delaney said. "Dr. Darkness, meet Capt. Reese Hunter, of the Counter Insurgency Section of the Special Operations Group." He bent down over Hunter and cut his bonds with his commando knife. "You look like hell," he said.

"I feel like hell," said Hunter. He got up to his feet and winced.

"Where's Andre?" said Delaney, using his laser to burn through Gulliver's cuffs.

"Drakov took her," Gulliver said.

"Yeah, you just missed 'em," Hunter said.

"Damn! What about Lucas?"

"Lucas?" Hunter said, rubbing his sore wrists.
"Lucas Priest?
I thought he was dead."

"It's a long story," said Delaney. "I don't suppose you have any idea where he took her?"

Hunter shook his head. His gaze fell on Darkness and he stared. "Say, pilgrim, am I still punchy or am I actually seeing
through
that guy?"

"Yeah, well, that's a long story, too," Delaney said, taking the two guns fro m Dr . Darkness . One was a Browning Hi-Power, the other was a Czech CZ-75. "Premium hardware for this time period," said Delaney, examining the pistols. He glanced at Hunter. "You know how to use these?"

"9-mm semi autos?" Hunter said. "Yeah, I can manage. Why, don't tell me you're actually going to arm an escaped prisoner?"

"I'm going to take a chance," Delaney said, handing him the Hi-Power. "Now you can shoot me in the back with that thing or you can help. It's up to you. Drakov isn't just our enemy, he's yours as well. I figure any business we've got between us can wait till this is finished. What do you say?"

"All right. I'm in. I've got a score to settle with that man."

"Truce?" Delaney said, offering his hand.

"Truce," said Hunter. They shook.

Hunter hefted the Hi-Power in his hand. He jacked out the magazine and checked to see that it was full, then slapped it back in. He tucked the gun into his waistband in the small of his back.