"Oh, hell!" Messerling snarled, grabbing the gas mask hanging from his belt. "Incoming!"

Powell fumbled for his own mask and got it free. Then, on sudden impulse, he shoved it into Fierenzo's hands. "Here," was all he had time to say. He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut—

The canister hit the balcony and burst into a roiling white cloud of stinging gas. Staying as still as he could, trying to conserve his air, Powell felt his eyes begin to tingle as the gas worked its way beneath his eyelids.

For him, he knew, the battle was over.

It wasn't until the hand closed on her wrist and someone began to haul her upright that Caroline realized that she had in fact been lying on the wheelhouse deck. "What happened?" she murmured through dry lips, blinking as she tried to focus on the chaos outside.

"Stun grenades," Sylvia said, her voice sounding distant through the ringing in Caroline's ears.

"Sound and flash. You must have been looking at one when it went off."

Caroline blinked some more, trying to see around the purple blob floating in the center of her vision.

Even with the blob in the way, she could see that the Plaza was inexplicably empty. "Where is everyone?" she asked, a sudden, horrible thought cutting through her. "Did the police—?"

"Kill them?" Sylvia snorted. "Hardly, though I do have to give them points for restraint. No, the Warriors have simply gone to ground." She pointed past the bow end of the yacht. "Many of them are in that row of trees along the north of the boat basin. Others were able to get into the trees on the south side, over by that grassy park area. Others swam out to the river and are heading farther north and south."

There was a sudden sound of commotion from somewhere. "And others worked their way to that other park over by the building," Sylvia added dryly. "Lots of nice trees there to pop in and out of.

The police will never even know what hit them."

Caroline looked that direction; and as she did so, she caught a glimpse of a thin trail of white as it arched into the sky and then tumbled back down onto the balcony to explode into a flat cloud of thick white vapor. "Excellent," Sylvia murmured. "One balcony out of commission. One more to go."

Caroline looked over at the balcony on the other side of the Winter Garden, where she could vaguely see dark helmets and guns poking over the railing. "You're not going to hurt them, are you?"

"Not unless I have to," Sylvia said. "But it may come to that. They're quite good." She paused briefly. "As are you, Caroline. I see now that I missed your hidden message completely. What exactly did all those X's signify?"

It took Caroline a moment to shift gears. "I was using Roman numerals," Caroline told her. "The

'roaming Warriors' line was meant to point Roger in the right direction." She felt her lip twitch. "It was also supposed to refer back to a conversation we'd had Wednesday night that should have told him everything I'd said before had been a lie. I guess he missed that one."

"And I'd seen Roman numerals, too," Sylvia said, sounding slightly disgusted with herself. "Very clever." She shrugged, dismissing her failure. "But no real harm done. Our observers confirm that nearly all of Torvald's troops are still gathered in Upper Manhattan, awaiting our arrival there. With Halfdan's forces scattered with equal pointlessness on sentry duty, that means that once we've bypassed this little obstacle, we'll have free run of the island."

Caroline took a deep breath. "You don't have to do this, Sylvia," she said, trying one last time.

"There has to be another way."

"There," Sylvia said, pointing.

Caroline followed the direction of her finger to the balcony still awash in the wayward tear gas. A

pair of Warriors had emerged from the now quiet trees and low hedges of the park below, running across the ground toward a position beneath the balcony's edge. As they braked to a halt, each flung something upward toward the railing. Caroline braced herself for an explosion or another burst of tear gas; instead, the Warriors suddenly rose off the ground, pulling themselves upward hand over hand through the drifting mist on invisible lines. "Of course," she murmured. "Trassks as cables and grappling hooks. Tear gas doesn't bother you, then?"

"Yes, but not to the same extent as it does you Humans," Sylvia said. "In this case, these two Warriors are merely holding their breath and keeping their eyes closed."

They reached the balcony, ducking down into the drifting cloud, and Caroline caught glimpses of quick movements as they beat back whatever opposition was still left up there. One of them partially emerged from the cloud with something that looked like an oversized shotgun and pointed it past the Winter Garden at the other balcony. There was the jerk of a recoil, and another tear-gas canister flew across the open area to wrap the balcony in a white cloud of its own.

"And now we complete the neutralization," Sylvia said calmly. From one of the trees lining the walk another pair of Warriors appeared and sprinted toward the balcony with their own grappling hooks in hand.

"And they're doing all this blind?" Caroline asked.

"Not entirely," Sylvia said. "Their eyes are shut, true, but the Farspeaker currently floating beside one of the docks can put some of what she sees into their minds, giving them a fair idea of what's around them. The rest of the details they fill in with hearing and touch."

Caroline watched in silence as the two Warriors made it up onto the second balcony and disappeared into the tear gas cloud. A minute later, they reappeared, rappelling to the ground and then twitching their grapples to free them. There was a shout from somewhere, and Caroline winced as a burst of gunfire ricocheted off the building behind them.

The Greens didn't wait for their attackers' aim to improve, but turned and raced back across the plaza, bullets chewing up bits of the pavement at their heels as they ran. Caroline tensed, wondering if they would make it back to the trees in time and wondering how they would get back inside without any of the cops seeing them. They were nearly there when another short Shriek split the air, rocking her back on her heels and startling her eyes momentarily shut. When she opened them again, the two running Warriors had vanished.

"And now only those on the south side of the boat basin remain," Sylvia commented calmly.

"They're already masked against the gas, so the Warriors are having to approach with a little more prudence. Ah."

"What?" Caroline asked, turning and peering to the south.

"No, not there," Sylvia said, pointing her back the opposite direction. "There. The police backup forces have arrived."

Caroline turned again. "Where?"

"They've just come around the sides of the buildings," Sylvia said. "Moving in very carefully." She shook her head. "Not that that's going to help, of course. Whatever information Roger gave them, he seems to have failed to mention who and what we truly are."

Caroline felt her stomach tighten. "He just wanted the police to keep you from attacking the Grays," she murmured. "He didn't want the government hauling you off somewhere to be studied like lab rats for the rest of your lives."

"More likely he didn't want to end up in a psychiatric ward," Sylvia said cynically. "At any rate, half a tale is going to buy him exactly nothing. In fact, unless they have something more impressive in reserve, we're hardly even going to be inconvenienced. Here they come."

Caroline looked again across at the buildings. Sylvia was right: she could see shadowy figures moving stealthily along the sides of the buildings. "They can search the buildings all they want,"

Sylvia told her. "Sooner or later, they'll come close enough to the trees."