Thuy and Jil's beezies didn't work so well in here, and the orphidnet views of the local objects were choppy and uncertain. The huge room's ceiling was so high that even Azaroth fit; he scouted ahead of Jil and Thuy, peering this way and that, checking for ambushes. So far, so good.
Thuy grinned over at Jil as they marched down the subfab's broad central aisle, their reflections like sour-colored shadows on the slick floor. Picking up on Thuy's happy mood, Jil began stretching her legs and walking on tiptoe, miming how stealthy they were. Thuy began playing cartoon-style pizzicato sneaking music in her head, messaging the music to Jil. This was fun.
But now suddenly something heavy dropped across Thuy's shoulders: a blue, snake-shaped shoon that had been disguised as a pipe. It wrapped around Thuy like a boa constrictor. Thuy managed to pump some submachine gun fire into the snake's free end, but the bullets had little effect on the piezoplastic security shoon.
With remarkable presence of mind, Jil ripped loose a hydrogen fuel line, ignited the cloud of gas with a sparking bullet off the floor, and used the flexible tube as a flamethrower to set the snake shoon's tail alight.
The flames guttered up along the shoon. Its grip loosened; it slid to the floor, freeing Thuy. Wonderful-but somehow the writhing snake ended up beneath the hydrogen tank that fed Jil's handmade flamethrower. The heated tank's hydrogen spewed at an accelerated rate; the flame got huge; Jil lost hold of the blazing fuel tube. The uncontrolled fire-bloom licked the side of a great plastic carboy of liquid ether.
"Run!" cried Jil.
The tank blew. Further explosions trailed after them, a whole series of blasts, each one louder and closer than the one before. The subfab filled with smoke. Water poured from the ceiling's sprinkler systems. A girder overhead gave way, spilling down an avalanche of concrete and machinery from the fab. Sparks crackled; more tanks exploded; vats of biochips spilled into the sizzling flames; the fires were reflected in acid colors on every side. The scene was a gorgeous opera of violence, with Tawny Krush's orchestral heavy metal playing in Thuy's head.
Thuy and Jil reached the stairwell and leaned against the wall, coughing and catching their breath, dizzy from the fumes they'd inhaled. As they mounted to ground level, they heard rhythmic thudding sounds from the admin building's extremely thick front door. A battering ram. Screams and the sounds of gunfire filtered in from outdoors; endless sirens wailed.
Azaroth's big bright face peered down the staircase. "Hurry up to the second floor," he said. "I've found Sonic!"
Once up there, Thuy could hear Sonic yelling. Her friend was locked into a windowless inner office. She shot apart the lock.
"Chica loca!" said Sonic, embracing her. He was wearing his black wool tights and red T-shirt, the same as usual. "You bring any food? I been penned up in here since yesterday afternoon when I finished programming that pelican."
"Right after Luty pretended to shoot you?"
"He wasn't pretending, he really was gonna shoot me, but Topping happened to pop through the teleportation grill just then, and he talked Jeff out of it. Said it'd be better to kill me in front of you and Jayjay when you got here. Sweet guys, huh? They were so sure you'd come. Hi, Jil. Whoah, you look whipped. Where's Jayjay and Craigor?"
"Guarding the rear," said Jil, all business. "They'll catch up later. The front door's about to give way. Let's hurry across the lobby to the lab. We have to go down to the first floor and then back up."
"Can I have one of those bitchin' tubular submachine guns?" asked Sonic. "You got no idea how I'm jonesin' for combat. It's been over two months since I played Doodly Bug."
"I'm keeping my P90," said Jil. "It makes me feel safe."
"Same here," said Thuy.
"So I'll go medieval on their ass," said Sonic, picking up a leg he'd already pried off a chair to use as a club.
"I can give you this at least," said Jil, handing him a grenade she'd clipped to her belt.
"Yum," said Sonic, stuffing the grenade into the pocket of his intricate leather coat.
As the three reached the ground floor, the building's heavy front door buckled. Thuy, Jil, and Sonic paused in the pastel-mirrored stairwell, peeping out to see what happened. Now that the door hung open, they could pick up the orphidnet. Among those trying to get into the building were: fake cops, real cops, fake real cops, real demonstrators, and fake demonstrators. But before any of them could make it inside, a truckload of National Guard soldiers opened up with a water cannon, scattering the besiegers like autumn leaves. Uniformed soldiers surged forward, forming a cordon blocking off access to the entrance, the troops standing with their weapons leveled toward the rioting crowd, firing at will. Had Lampton ordered up the National Guard on Luty's behalf?
Whatever. Jil showed them a way to get to the other side of the lobby without exposing themselves to gunfire. She seemed fully into the adventure, enjoying the distraction from the problems of her messed-up personal life. She was even moving with something like her old grace. They crawled behind counters and couches and cut through a back room. It felt like it took forever. Behind them in the fab, fires roared and collapsing structures screeched. Finally they were heading up the lab stairs toward Luty's lair on the third floor.
Thuy was starting to feel optimistic enough to play the happy sneaking music again, but as they crossed the second floor landing, she heard a click and a clatter behind her.
"Freeze!"
She peered back, oh no, it was Andrew Topping with a second dough-faced bully at his side, both of them wearing, ugh, business suits. Each held a heavy pistol at arm's length, showily bracing their wrists with their free hands.
"Drop it, Thuy!" intoned Topping. "Now!"
Thuy might have tried to whirl and take him down, but even as she thought of this, he fired at her, the bastard, the bullet actually passing through her skirt. Slowly, sullenly, Thuy, Sonic, and Jil laid their weapons on the floor, and then they turned to face their captors. The two men had popped out of a quantum-mirrored broom closet.
"We're screwed," said Sonic. Thuy had a brief hopeful thought of the grenade in Sonic's coat, but Topping spotted it in the local orphidnet. His assistant impounded the grenade and put it in his suit coat pocket.
Azaroth's head appeared through the wall, alertly regarding them.
"Thanks a lot," Thuy told him. "You missed the ambush. Space cadet."
"Stay vibby," said the Hibraner and disappeared.
"My man Ed and I are here to escort you to meet our CEO," said Topping. He twitched his pistol. "Go on ahead of us. Sonic first, then Jil, then Thuy. I enjoy watching Thuy twitch her miniskirt under that plaid coat. Want some more cheap sudocoke, Jil?"
"You're going to pay for that," said Thuy in a level tone.
Topping's helper Ed snickered. He picked up the P90s and brought them along.
Silently they mounted the stairs, Thuy walking as stiffly as she could. She kept hoping there'd be a chance to whirl and kick Topping's pistol from his hand, to snatch his gun and shoot him in the gut-but the right moment didn't arise.
And then they were in the lab. It looked about the same as when Thuy's head had gone through the Armory teleport grill. The lab's grill was still right there on the wall. Ugly fluorescent lighting glared off a long white table and the darkly mirrored walls. Sitting at the table was a man with a full beard of plastic ants, the ants scrambling over each other, ceaselessly active. Jeff Luty. A smooth-curved white box sat on the table before him, a box like a picnic cooler with a red button on one side. The Ark of the Nants, with a fancy ExaExa beetle logo on it. Luty was toying with the Ark, sliding it a little to the left, then a little to the right. Next to the Ark rested a beaker with brownish-purple fluid.