“No,” I said. “Close and delete file. I’m going off-line now, okay?”

“I understand,” Joker said. “Signing off.”

So. The self-diagnostic check had come up clean, and the IM wasn’t a prank. I pondered these mysteries while I wadded up the earphone and tucked it back into my jacket pocket. Why had a message obviously intended for John reached me instead, even though I was in the right place at the right time?

I had no recourse except to go to the meeting place. Walking around the column, I bumped my way through the wet, hopeless crowd, heading for the amphitheater’s rear entrance gate.

That was how it all began.

2

(Wednesday, 8:10 P.M.)

People were still shuffling through the back entrance by the time I got there. According to the message Joker had received, I was ten minutes late for my appointment … or rather, for John’s appointment. I hung around for a couple of minutes, leaning against the fence near the gate and watching people go by, and was about to chalk off the message as some sort of neural-net glitch when a short figure in a hooded rain jacket approached me.

“Are you Tiernan?” she asked softly.

I gave myself a moment to size her up: a middle-aged black woman, her face only half seen beneath the soaked plastic hood, her hands hidden in the pockets of her jacket. She could have been anyone in the crowd except that her raingear looked a little too new and well made to be government issue. Whoever she was, she wasn’t a squatter.

“No,” I said. She murmured an apology and started to turn away. “But I’m a friend of his,” I quickly added. “I work for the same paper. Big Muddy Inquirer.”

She stopped, looked me over, then turned back around. “What’s your name?” she asked, still speaking in a low voice.

“Gerry Rosen.” She gazed silently at me, waiting for me to continue. “I got an IM on my PT to meet someone here,” I went on. “I mean, it was intended for John, but-”

“Why isn’t John here?” she demanded. “C’mon, let me see some ID.”

“Sure, if you insist.” I shrugged, unzipped my jacket, and started to reach inside.

“Hold it right there,” she snapped as her right hand darted out of her rain jacket. I felt something press against my ribs. I froze and looked down to see a tiny stun gun, shaped like a pistol except with two short metal prongs where the barrel should be, nestled against my chest. Her index finger was curled around the trigger button; I hoped she didn’t twitch easily.

“Whoa, hey,” I said. “Easy with the zapper, lady.”

She said nothing, only waited for me to make the wrong move. I wasn’t eager to get my nervous system racked by 65,000 volts, so I held my breath and very carefully felt around my shirt pocket until I located my press ID.

I gradually pulled out the laminated card and held it up for her to see. She looked carefully at the card, her eyes darting back and forth between the holo and my face, until she nodded her head slightly. The stun gun moved away from my chest and returned to the pocket of her jacket.

“You ought to be careful with that thing,” I said. “They’re kinda dangerous when it’s raining like this. Conductivity and all that-”

“Okay, you’re another reporter for the Big Muddy,” she said, ignoring my sage advice. “Now tell me why you’re here and not Tiernan.”

“That’s a good question,” I replied, “but let’s hear your side of it first. How come you tried to IM something to John but got me instead?”

She blinked a few times, not quite comprehending. “Sorry? I don’t understand what you’re-”

“Look,” I said, letting out my breath, “let’s try to get things straight. My PT told me about ten minutes ago that I had a message. It was addressed to John but somehow got sent to me instead, and it told me … or him, whatever … to meet somebody right here at eight o’clock. Now, since you’re obviously that somebody-”

“Hey, wait a minute,” she interrupted. “You got this message just ten minutes ago?”

“Yeah, just about that-”

“Ten minutes ago?” she insisted.

I was beginning to get fed up with this. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Who’s counting? The point is-”

A couple of teenagers, ripped to the tits on something they had bought off the street, staggered through the gate and jostled me aside. I nearly fell against the woman; she stepped out of my way, then grabbed my jacket and pushed me behind a column.

“The point is, Mr. Rosen,” she said quietly, staring me straight in the eye, “I didn’t send any IMs today, but I received e-mail from John Tiernan this afternoon, telling me to meet him here at eight. Now I’m here, but I instead find you. Now you tell me: where’s your buddy?”

The conversation was getting nowhere very quickly. “Look,” I said, taking off my cap for a moment to wipe soaked hair out of my eyes, “you’re just going to have trust me on this, okay? John ain’t here. If he was, I’d know it. And if you didn’t send that IM to me-”

“If John didn’t send e-mail to me …” Her voice trailed off, and in that instant I caught a glimpse of fear in her dark eyes.

No, not just fear: absolute horror, the blank, slack-jawed expression of someone who has just gazed over the edge of the abyss and seen monsters lurking in its depths.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s started …”

It was then that I heard the helicopters.

At first, there was nothing except the background rumble of the crowd in the amphitheater below us, mixing with the subtle hiss of the rain and the not-so-subtle screech of electric guitars from the stage … and then there came a low droning from the dark sky above us, quickly rising in volume, and I looked up just in time to see the first chopper as it came in.

The helicopter was an MH-6 Night Hawk, a fast-moving little gunship designed for hit-and-run night missions over the Mediterranean. Something of an antique, really, but still good enough for ass-kicking in the U.S.A.; with its silenced engine and rotors, it wasn’t noticed by anyone in the Muny until it was right over the amphitheater, coming in low over the walls like a bat.

I caught a fleeting glimpse of the two men seated within its bubble canopy, the letters ERA stenciled across its matte black fuselage; then light flashed from its outrigger nacelles as two slender canisters were launched over the crowd toward the stage. The rock band dropped their instruments and pretended to be paint as the RPGs smashed through the heavy wood backdrops behind them, breaking open to spew dense pale smoke across the platform.

The Night Hawk banked sharply to the right, its slender tail fishtailing around as the chopper braked to hover above the amphitheater, its prop wash forcing the milky white fog off the stage and across the orchestra pit into the front rows. I caught the unmistakable pepper scent of tear gas, but many of the squatters, thinking they were only smoke bombs, didn’t flee immediately, even when the first few who had been caught by the gas began to choke and gag.

That’s the mistake everyone makes about tear gas; its innocuous name makes it sound like something that will only make you a little weepy. Few people are aware of the painful blindness it causes when the hellish stuff gets in your eyes, how much you choke when you inhale it. Then, it’s pure evil.

The fog was billowing toward us even as the squatters, now realizing the danger, began to stampede toward the rear entrance. People all around us clawed at one another, trying to get out of the amphitheater, as they were caught in the throes of gas-attack panic.

“Get out of here!” I grabbed the woman’s hand and dragged her toward the gate. “Move it! Move it!”

We shoved and hauled our way through the mob until we managed to squeeze through the jammed gate. Still clutching her hand, I turned to make a getaway through the parking lot, only to find that we were far from being out of danger.