Ryan spun, clicking into high gear as he scanned for escape routes.

Rows of parked cars. Pillars and low roof of gray duracrete. Not a lot of room to maneuver.

Twelve men seemed to melt from the shadows. Coming at him fast. They were heavily armored, packing Ares military weaponry, and they moved like complete pros. If it hadn't been for the small Knight Errant logo on each Kevlar Ill-covered chest, Ryan could have taken them for high-paid assassins.

Frag! I've underestimated Knight again.

He looked to the metal door that led to the staircase, fifteen meters away. Too far.

The twelve armored men formed a wide circle around him. One of them spoke. "If you would be so kind as to drop to your face, Mister Mercury, it would be greatly appreciated. We have orders not to kill you unless we really feel like it."

Ryan shook his head. He might get three, maybe four of them, but there were too many. By the time he got his gun out, they'd have cut out his knees. Unless…

Ryan held his hands up in surrender. "I don't want trouble," he said. "I'm unarmed."

"On the ground!"

Suddenly, and without warning, Ryan dove for the Eurocar, flattening himself to slide under the belly of the vehicle.

His would-be captors were caught off-guard, moving as if in slow motion. They fired, but too late. Ryan heard bullets ricochet off the car as he rolled, reaching into his calf holster for his pistol as he crossed the narrow space between the Eurocar and a Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit.

A plan formed in his mind as he moved. He almost had his gun and would use it to…

Sharp pain erupted in Ryan's chest and the side of his head as a burst of gel-pack bullets hit home.

Drek, he thought, and for a moment blackness threatened to engulf him.

Several seconds must have passed because Ryan found himself being dragged out from under the Jackrabbit. Drifting in and out of consciousness.

The man who had spoken stepped forward, quickly and decisively. "This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me," the man said with an abrupt laugh.

Pain exploded behind Ryan's right ear, and everything went black.

32

The Federated-Boeing 3800 arched down from the darkening sky, coming closer and closer to the sea of twinkling lights that seemed to stretch past the horizon. As the 3800 touched down, tires smoking on hot tarmac, Burnout rolled from the wheel well, hit the pavement in a shower of sparks, and skidded to a stop as the 3800 shot past him.

In less than a second, he was on his feet, running for the lightly wooded area just to the side of the landing strip. "So far so good."

"Yes, so far so good. Remind me not to travel with you very often." Lethe's tone was dry and sardonic.

Burnout grinned. "Hey, you made a joke. And here I thought you were hopeless."

"I was not joking."

Burnout laughed as he dashed between thin maple trees and made for the long-term parking structure. A mammoth four-story building constructed of five slabs of duracrete stacked on top of each other, the long-term parking was full of cars, but otherwise completely deserted.

Burnout skirted the building until he had the positions of all the surveillance equipment scoped out. He found the vehicle he wanted, a late-model Ford Americar. It was situated perfectly between two of the cameras' blind spots, and the third camera only covered the car once a minute.

Plenty of time, thought Burnout.

Just as the camera made its sweep, Burnout rushed from his hiding place, leapt over the low duracrete wall, and hit the Americar. It took him less than five seconds to open the door, another eight seconds to disable the car alarm, and twenty more to hot-wire the big sedan.

As the engine roared to life, Burnout swung his chrome elbow in a vicious arc, smashing it into the back of the driver's seat.

With a tortured whine, the seat snapped off at the base of the upright, allowing Burnout to sit comfortably, without being cramped against the windshield.

Burnout backed the car out of its space and pulled up to the automated gate. He found the parking stub on the dash, fed it into the machine, grinned his metal smile into the surveillance camera, and waited as the gate electronically deducted forty-six nuyen from the account of Elizabeth Farley.

As the long arm levered upward, Burnout accelerated out into the night. The streets were crowded, despite all the violence that had occurred recently, and Burnout had to keep his head down to avoid frightening the other drivers on the George Mason Bridge.

As traffic thinned out coming into the city, Burnout began to feel uneasy. It wasn't anything specific, just a vague tightening of the chrome parts where his gut should have been.

Lethe's voice dropped through his IMS. "I sense you are ill at ease. Is there a problem?"

Burnout didn't answer for a moment. It was strange how close he and Lethe had become. The spirit was becoming uncannily good at reading his moods, at sensing his thoughts. In a way, it was comforting. He shared a bond with Lethe that he'd never experienced with any other creature in his life. Still, it was spooky at times. He shrugged. "Nothing I can pin down. Maybe I'm just having a problem with there not being a problem."

Lethe sighed. "Your statement is as cryptic as usual, but I think I follow. You are wondering why Ryan hasn't been dogging your every footstep, why he hasn't been hiding behind every tree, every doorway."

Burnout nodded. "Yeah, I guess that's it. This all seems too easy, like we're walking into a trap."

Lethe chuckled. "In a manner of speaking, we are."

"What?"

"Do you think Ryan doesn't know we're here?"

Burnout's voice was bitter. "Well, I was kind of hoping. I thought maybe you were clouding my trail so he wouldn't know we're coming."

Lethe laughed. "Don't you see? We want Ryan to know we're coming. He left you that note in hopes of drawing you out. He wanted you to come for him. Every time he's tried to track you, you have defeated him, and the cost was becoming very high for him. He needs to get you on his home ground, in a place where he controls all the elements. He wants you to come for him."

Burnout frowned. "Why doesn't that make me feel any better? I've been letting you call the shots since Pony Mountain, and suddenly, I have a feeling I'm fragged."

"Not by any stretch of the imagination. I thought the logic here would be self-evident."

"Well, it's not," Burnout snarled.

"All right, my friend. Let me explain. You are walking into a trap. Mercury thinks he's got you. I'm sure we've been under astral surveillance since we left the mountain. That's how he works. However, he's failed to take a few things into account."

"Like?"

"Like the fact that you aren't coming for him."

"I know that." Burnout was feeling some of his old rage resurface. "We're coming for the Daviar slitch. So how exactly does that help us?"

Lethe sighed again, a deep, tired thing. "You have been under so much pressure, I think you are over-analyzing the situation. It's quite simple. Mercury thinks you are coming for him. He'll be ready, prepared. If we cared to look, I'm sure we could easily dig up clues as to where Mercury is to be found. He wants you to find him. But he doesn't realize that you know about Daviar. He won't be near her, and so doesn't comprehend that she's in danger."

Suddenly, the tight knot in Burnout's stomach disappeared. "Damn, you're right. This is so simple, it's almost child's play, but you're right. Ryan seems to be a straight-on fighter, and from what he knows of me, he expects me to be the same."

Lethe's voice was soft. "Feel better?"

"Much. You've used Ryan's own smarts against him. If he'd tried to stop us from coming, he probably could have whittled us down bit by bit. This way…"