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'Time's ticking away, ticking away, 
 In my beautiful- balloon!'

              Doc Oc
              Doctor Octogynecologist


 So back to our two-months after Christmas Past school 
 play, 'Vegas Star Dust', staring Maynard both as Satan and
 Satan's Lecherous Uncle, Trent Reznor as Tiny Tim, and
 Billy Corgan voice-acting as 'Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo.'



 www.geocities.com/aescension









    8

  Chris Dais hit the ground with expertise learned from long 
nights of running over in his head just how mind-bendingly Vogueist 
and dry he really was, the smallest guilty pleasure. His hands went 
behind his head, and covered his neck while burning fragments 
of the concrete ceiling rained onto the floor, scattering his 
other men. Then, out of the cornerof his eye, he scanned the 
area around him and found it free of intrusion. The intruders 
must still be working their way through the ground level. A 
listless two seconds later he rolled to his feet, and thick 
black smoke parted as he ran confidently to the back of the 
five million square foot garage. He found the intercom 
switch next to a stairwell door and turned it on.

  "Listen up, my friends! This is it! D-Day! All drivers to their 
vehicles and the rest of you into the trucks! Gather your weapons 
and whatever else you can find!! We are proceeding directly out 
the back entrance--"

  Another explosion sounded from the front gate and chunks 
of steel reinforced concrete flew inward. Everything but the floor 
had been once painted white, now all was matted with ash and 
char. Overhead, the fire was probably liquefying all that bronze, 
and it would start leaking down through cracks any minute. That 
would not be attractive. He had to make sure this floor and all 
those below it were evacuated immediately. Chris paused to shield 
his eyes with his palms, and continued.

  "-Out the back entrance, and directly to targets two and 
three. Do not let them bottleneck you upstairs! They'll be using AP 
rounds, so watch yourselves! Regroup at the target areas. Leave 
your--"

  A third gate exploded and the intercom line went dead. 

  Unable to complete his warning, Chris threw the receiver to the 
floor, picked up his weapon, and ran in the direction of his idling 
Ford Cobra 727. The other cars and trucks around him roared to 
life as well, and headed out toward the back entrance. Two stories 
under Ventiss Business Park they would be protected from the 
majority of any shelling the Special Forces Tank Division might be 
able to spit out. Still, he had to swerve around falling chunks of the 
building above him, and it was getting harder. Seeing one of the 
few faces he was looking for in the confusion, Chris pulled his car 
over and stuck his head out the sunroof.

  "Cohen!"

  "Sir!" said the other. "Take your toon and get the fuck out of 
here to area two. Ghast is on his way out to number three. I'm go
ing with Mr. Cane upstairs to find the rest of the Cabal. I'll 
take them to the observatory and meet back up with you in one hour."

  "What about the rest of the men, sir?"

  "I already told you. Take anyone you find with you. It's a good 
thing you were geared up early. Nice work, John."

  Cohen jumped in the passenger side of his Jeep and threw his 
rifle into the back seat. He wiped his brow with his sleeve as 
he tried to hide the fact that his hands were shaking visibly. 

  "Sir?" he said over his shoulder with a bark. "How did they 
find us, sir?"

  "I really don't know." Chris tried to speak audibly over the 
sound of machine guns, ones he had been grimmacing not to let 
catch his attention. "This had either been in our cards all along, 
or one of us is receiving a paycheck every month. Get outta 
here; they'll breach the first basement any minute now."

"Yes sir!" Cohen turned around and started radioing the other
cars on the CB while his driver peeled out. 

  Chris wiped sweat away with his sleeve and looked around. Shock 
Troops. He sat back down in his seat, gunning the nitro-diesel
engine. The clutch springed unexpectedly and he shot 
ahead. Steering around the mushroomed hulks of fallen roof 
supports, Chris saw to the right an angry Zigwell Cane kicking 
down a mangled door. As soon as he pulled up Chris vaulted 
himself over the armrests, and ran toward the other man. He was 
greeted with a shout.

  "Fuck, Chris! Get over here! This fucker's bent!"

  Zig was jerking at the handle like mad, wincing noticeably 
everytime a shot was fired. He down right hated to see things
done this way, all at once, a mob of police and a mob of
gangsters. It was not how he would have handled either side
of this dispute. But who listened to him.

  There was nothing at hand but his G79. He emptied half a 
magazine into the stubborn metal bolts and the door finally fell 
inward with a crash. He ran through, and took the steps three at a 
time. Zig followed close behind.

  "Who's left up there? Besides the old woman and Screw?" 
he asked between breaths.

  "Well Alethea for one, and a few other members of the 
Cabal. They had just retired to their rooms for the night, and will 
probably still be on the upper levels. I'll get them out of there 
through the southwest elevator. You go up to the lab and grab 
anyone else you can find. Then go back to the garage, take one of 
the empty cars, and meet me at target one."

  "Gotcha. The keys are in the ignition?"

  Chris did not turn his head as he ran. "Always." he said.

  The pair split up on the fifth floor, and each took a different 
elevator. Zig punched in '33' and the doors closed in front of him. 
He waited impatiently.

  It was a rainy Wednesday night, at around eleven-thirty. 
When he had arrived earlier in the day, and Chris had taken him 
into confidence after laying out a general plan of attack, he had 
been told that nothing was scheduled until Friday when the civilian 
riots that were supposedly being engineered would come to a head. 
The Special Forces had figured out what was going down 
ahead of time, and had paid Eichenger Industries an unexpected 
visit. The same thought was buzzing around inside Zig's mind 
as was on the minds of all of Das' brethren. Who had done this?

  The building's steel structure rocked under the barrage of 
artillery fire coming from the front parking lot. Zig did not know 
whether the Special Forces ground troops had invaded the 
building, and even their high powered guns would not be able to 
rise above the din that the tanks were making. He wondered if 
taking the elevator had been such a hot idea.

  Finally the doors dinged and opened, leading Zig into a 
hallway full of plaster wreckage. Obviously a few shells had found 
their way up into the Laboratory. He ran through the debris to the 
large double doors, and tested the handles. They were bent askew. 

  He kicked through; then stopped when he saw the degree of 
destruction the spacious room had undergone. Computers and 
medical instruments littered the floor as did ones of other varieties, 
and he saw no one. Then another tank shell came spiraling through 
the far bay of tinted windows and exploded a hundred feet away. 
The shock wave threw him to the ground, but he got up again. He 
was seeing yellow and purple stars. 

  "Screw!! Alie!! Is anyone here?! Answer me!!"

  He heard nothing but the sound of fire and crunching glass.

  "It's me, Zig!"

  He worked his way around the room, coming to the center 
where a large slab of granite sat undisturbed. Wide yellow pipes 
littered the floor around it, and leaked trickles of cold steam. He 
stood on the thing, and scanned the wrecked room again. No signs 
of life. This was where Chris had said they would be, Alethea and 
Screw, but no one was here now.  

  Then he spotted something a few feet away under a fallen 
drywall panel. Making his way quickly over, it turned out to be a 
blue windbreaker. Exactly the same kind Alethea usually wore 
when she went out. So she had been here. If she was smart, she 
would be long out of the building by now and heading to the 
Stadium, or one of the target areas. Since the attack schedule had 
been moved up, that is where everyone else would be. His job was 
done apparently and he turned to leave.

  Climbing over the huge stone box once again, he saw that 
there was a small square hole in one end of it and that steam was 
rising from here too. Last second curiosity gripped him, and he 
looked inside. He almost pissed himself.

  "Screw!! Oh my god!"

  He saw the cracked white body through the hole, staring 
back at him with dead eyes. He reached in and touched the face, 
and it dented under the tiny pressure.

  "What the hell have they done to you?"

  Zig scrambled off the lid and searched for a button which 
would open it. His rear end bumped into the shattered remains of a 
terminal. This must have been it.

  "Shit, shit, shit!!" he screamed at the junk around him. 
"Hold on..."

  His foot kicked out and knocked away the broken door of a island 
cabinet. Inside was a bucket with a label reading: A5T6NL3. It had
a red rim around the edge that signified it was flammable in large
amounts. It was the closest thing to explosives he had. 
Simultaneously drawing his gun and kicking the heavy plastic bucket
toward the chamber, he got back and took a shot, shielding his eyes.
The usual thing happened, and when Zig looked up again, there were
large cracks in the lid.

  He was able to remove some of the smaller pieces without 
letting them fall inward, and levered the larger ones off with the 
butt of his Mauser machine-gun. Inside was Screw's stone cold 
body, cracked all the way to the wall through in certain places. 
Frozen blood stuck to the sides where his body heat had caused his 
muscles to explode outward. The sight was easily the most horrific 
thing Zig had ever seen, magnified because it was the body of his 
friend. He gasped, and stepped back. Screw was dead. 

  "..."

  And my own body was lying curled up at his feet.

  "..."

  "Fuck!" Zig yelled again when he saw me there naked, in 
the fetal position. My skin was shriveling due to the cadaver's cold 
remains pressed into my back. IV bags that had been in the space I 
now occupied were gone. All together, my living body was almost 
as wretched as my dead one, an empty shell where I had been. Zig 
threw the windbreaker over my shoulders and pulled me out. I fell 
to the floor with a smack.

  "Screw! For fuck's sake! I thought that was you in there! 
What's wrong?"

  I didn't move.

  "Screw, what happened?" he said. "Who is that?"

  I answered his question by lack of example.

  "Well, shit. You're getting out of here. They're 
shooting the place down. Come on."

  When I still didn't move, Zig realized that more was wrong 
with me than it appeared. As to why there was a duplicate body 
still in the chamber, and why that body was very dead, he had no 
answers. He had heard of the kind of things that went down in this 
building, and this just happened to be the worst yet. But talking to 
me the whole time, he went searching for clothes, and came back a 
minute later saying he had found a bag in the corner with my name 
on it. Hurriedly dressing me, he threw my bulk up on a wide 
African shoulder and left the lab. He made for the elevator and hit 
the button for the basement floor. It was dangerous, but was also 
the fastest way. Behind him, another shell exploded in the lab.

  He set me down on the floor, and I flopped into the corner. 
Zig checked my breathing, and found it to be shallow and eratic. 
Shaking my arms he tried to get me to respond, but was 
unrewarded. In my racing jacket he found my Beretta and shoved it 
down the front of his jeans. No good to an invalid, and his Mauser 
was only packing small hollow points which wouldn't do enough 
against a Trooper. Zig rested his frame against the gray-green 
walls of the elevator car, and wiped the sweat off his face. Getting 
out was beginning to get clumsy.

  When the doors finally opened, he grabbed me by the arm 
and belt, and hoisted me back up. He walked out into the small 
hallway of bare concrete walls which enclosed the rear stairwell. 
The door he had kicked in was now completely missing and he 
could see out into the massive expanse of the gray walled central 
basement level.

  There was a firefight going on at the ramp which led up one 
level. Apparently the Special Forces had infiltrated the building 
from both sides and caught some of Das' force in a ring. Gang 
boys dressed in black leather and gray kevlar screamed obscenities 
while shooting guns they had stolen from the organization they 
were attacking. But the action was on the other side, and Zig 
figured there was at least one empty pickup truck he could make it 
to. Shifting the position of my unconscious body, he ran out of the 
stairwell, and into the garage.

  In the enclosed area, the echo of gunfire was deafening. 
Tank shells came whistling down the ramp sporadically and 
exploded on the floor sending up clouds of debris. Zig tried to stay 
low as he jogged in a beeline for the unattended truck. Out of the 
corner of his eye he saw that the Special Forces units were driving 
the group of scattered men further into the basement and were now 
firing into the depths of the room. Zig had originally figured that if 
he could at least get into the truck, that he could break his way 
through the road blocks. But now, with the garage's one entrance a 
nest of squatting men with guns, the chances were looking worse. 
Still he kept running, my body weight starting to slow him down.

  Finally he reached the dented passenger side door, and 
opened it with his free hand. Dumping me haphazardly inside, he 
cocked the Mauser and turned to go around the back of the truck. 
Glancing behind him, he saw finally saw what the back of his mind 
had been trying to hide from him.

  So the Mandate was serious this time. Shock Troops in full 
riot gear advancing easily down the ramp. Woah shit.

  Thinking he could use cover fire, Zig took aim, and pulled 
off a burst at the nearest one. The man took three bullets in the side 
and went down. But the other officers turned toward him and held 
up their glass shields. So he shouldered the gun, and got in the 
driver's seat.

  There were no keys in the ignition. Nor on the dash or the 
seat. It was empty.

  Zig looked back up at the ramp three hundred yards away 
and caught sight of the rest of the troops now running toward him. 
And even worse, a full size tank had rolled half way down and the 
return fire was spraying off its armor like hose water. Zig spat. 
Chris had failed him, and now nothing was going right.

  He jumped out of the truck, and ran around the back end 
for the second time. Throwing open the other door, he grabbed me 
again, and yanked me out by the legs. My back and head fell hard 
to the pavement. 

  Behind him, the tank's eleven-foot cannon jerked in 
recognition and the forward motion ceased. It paused. It slowly 
swiveled to a right angle. The attendant loaded an eight inch wide 
shell into the tube, and waited with his hands to his head for a 
firing signal. 

  Zig hurriedly grabbed me around the shoulder, too 
exhausted to carry me fully. He was not nearly far enough away 
when the blast sounded behind him and the blue pickup truck 
disintegrated. Again he was thrown down, again he got back up, 
and again he swore as he dragged another body along behind.

  What do you do when you're being shot at, burnt in 
explosion fire, are covered in blood, and have two hundred pounds 
of dead weight holding you down? Put it aside.

  Zig backpedaled as fast as he could while shooting at the 
Shock Troopers following him with one hand. They could not 
move fast and stay completely hidden behind their shields, and 
certainly couldn't fire back. But Zig was running out of ammo, and 
the distance was closing. With a glance over his shoulder he saw 
the doorway to the stairwells, and figured he had another fifty feet 
to go. Changing his last magazine mid-stride, he kept up the 
protective fire we needed.

  At last my head bumped against the fallen door, and Zig 
said, "Oops!" sneaking a look in my direction.

  He yanked me through and let go of my sleeve, letting me 
sink to the floor behind the lower part of the doorframe, still 
unconscious, and looking worse. He began firing the rest of his 
rounds at the feet of the six officers approaching, hit one pair, and 
the man fell to the ground. Zig emptied his gun into his exposed 
body, and then there were five. Pulling out my Special Forces issue 
Beretta, he got ready to make his stand.

  Then a slender hand touched his arm from behind. Zig 
whirled around and almost shoved his gun down the throat of a 
small oriental woman in a beautiful kimono. She was alone, and 
was very pretty in a formal way; fittingly unmarred despite this 
battlefield.

  "Who the fuck are you?!" he yelled above the roar around 
them.

  "Linn Naga. Don't point that thing at me, Mr. Zigwell. 
Grab him, we're retreating upstairs." She looked serious.

  "Where?"

  "To the upper basement on the opposite side of this 
building. There is a motorcycle there, and a free way out. Come 
on, hurry, okay? Grab your friend now."

  "What about them?" and he pointed to the squad of armed 
officers advancing slowly, but now less than a hundred feet away.
"I'll take care of it. Go."

  "What? How the-"

  "Would you just trust me, please? Now go!"

  Zig replaced his weapon into his pants, and hefted me up 
on his shoulders one last time. The bones in his back ached with 
the recent exertion, but he held on. Taking one last look behind 
him as he made for the stairs, he had time to see the geisha pulling 
a long, thin rifle out of the sleeve of her robe. Zig didn't know 
what that was going to do against Shock Troops, but she had 
sounded confident. Tough little rice-eater, her.

  Up the stairs, around a turn, and out a door onto the other 
side of Basement Level One. The place was clear, and mostly quiet 
except for the echoes filtering down from above. But not empty. 
Thirty feet away to his left, a large bald man with arms covered in 
soiled bandages attempted to kick start a parked racing cyc. Zig 
stared. Shit, maybe it was true. He thought that it might be the man 
that had described to him as Wierham, but wasn't sure. He was 
more concerned about the fact that there was only one motorcycle 
there, and it was mine.

  "Hey! What are you doing!?" Zig yelled as he jogged over.
The man looked up, and almost fell over backward. "Who 
are you?? Is that Screw you have under your arm?"

  "Yeah and he's pretty fucking tore up. You're 
Weirham?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're not a cop, right?"
 
  "Certainly not. Who are you?" Weirham asked.

  "I'm Zig Cane. Food and Service Delivery employee since 
eleven-oh nine. That's his ride; get off it."

  Weirham slid off quickly but asked in a high, worried 
voice, "But how will I get away?"

  "I don't know," Zig said as he sat down on the seat. He laid 
me out across the back of the seat, where my legs and head 
dangled an inch off the ground. "But it ain't on this motorcycle."

  "But they will kill me! Shock troops are under orders to 
slaughter everyone they come across!"

  Weirham was shaking slightly, and Zig paused as he saw 
the man's bandages grow dark with blood. They started dripping 
over the ground, and yet he held his hands in front of his face.

  "What the hell is wrong with your arms?" Zig said with 
widening eyes.

  "I'm bleeding! I'm dying! I need to get out of here!" he 
shrieked. He reached a bloody palm towards Zig, but the smaller 
man knocked his arm away.

  "Just step the fuck back, will you?!"

  Zig started the engine, and threw it into gear as Weirham 
staggered back and fell to the ground. Obviously there was 
something dangerously wrong here. He just kept screaming and 
flailing his twisted limbs about, leaving trails of blood spots on the 
ground. Under the bandages, something was moving, writhing, like 
snakes. Then the door Zig had come through opened, and the 
oriental woman came out, holding a smoking rifle.

  "I held the five of them off but more were hastily sent. 
What are you still doing here?"

  "Waiting for you. No one gets left behind." 

  She frowned for an instant while she considered. Zig 
motioned hurriedly toward himself with his hand, and the woman 
finally glanced to her left, dropped the empty gun on the ground 
and said, "Alright then do it." 

  Zig drove up beside her, and lifted her small body onto his 
lap. He grinned and jammed the started. Wasting no more time he 
sped out of the garage into the bright street-lit night.

  Far behind them, Weirham dragged himself to his feet, and 
stared at his flesh. It moved of its own volition, and he began 
tearing at the dressings, thinking they were oxidizing him. What he 
saw afterward terrified him into disbelief. Long black chains were 
wrapped around his arms, biting into, and coming out of his flesh. 
They wiggled and squirmed while their sharp edges cut out slices 
of muscle and fat which shook and fell their way to the floor. He 
screamed so hard that his ears popped and he didn't hear the door 
open, where a full squad of Shock Troops come running out. The 
point man grimaced in disgust, pumping his automatic shotgun at 
point blank range, parting Weirham like the sea. Shaking his head, 
he didn't lag a step, and they all made it screaming down to the 
end of the garage, looking for their lost opposition.






------------






  It was eight miles to the Turbine's inner wall from the 
Special Forces hot zone, and Alethea was making good time. The 
storm that had been culminating throughout the week was reaching 
its full gale, and she could see through the rain that clouds were 
concentrating above Capital Plaza in the town's center. The larger 
swirling winds the Turbine's spokes produced always added to 
this, and if the weather computers did not properly disrupt the 
storm formation in time, a tornado would touch down. In such a 
densely populated area as the city's uptown district, it would be 
disastrous. She didn't care a bit at the moment.

  Cold, wet, and tired, she frowned, remembering that her 
blue jacket was sitting by itself on a couch in the thirty-third floor 
lab. There was probably not even much left of the building by now, 
and she couldn't blame herself for being in too much of a hurry to 
dress properly, or arrange better transportation. For now it was the 
back of an overcrowded bus, and a window to keep her mind off 
the fearful symbols on three boys jackets, sitting a few rows up the 
aisle.

  The bus finally reached its last stop, and she was led out 
under a covered (thank god) walkway with the rest of the 
passengers. She followed the crowd to their mutual destination: the 
Ring. A system of twelve stations secant to the six story Inner 
Wall, which formed the city's third form of mass transportation. A 
steel track set into the basalt carried passenger cars around the city 
at Turbine speed, which was fast enough to get anyone where they 
needed to go beyond a certain radius. Since it intentionally did not 
lead into the business districts, the Ring was used primarily for 
civilians traversing large distances, and for going to the races. 

  There was only light congestion filing in, and Alethea was 
able to buy a ticket and find a passenger car without problem. She 
had been surprised by the shear number of young men tonight, all 
striding around in public view and looking like they were up to no 
good. She had been told that rioting was soon expected to take 
place, and from the look of the characters around her, she started to 
believe it too. But there was no time for that. She found a dirty 
looking seat; frowned as it felt wet under her bottom. Ninety 
seconds until departure, a speaker above her crackled out.

  "I wasn't meant for this," she thought bitterly to her self. 

  Nearby, though traveling in a different direction, and 
suffering from a much different kind of distraction, Chris sat in the 
passenger side bucket seats of his 727 Cobra, and spoke directions 
to the older man driving. He had been pierced and seared in the 
side three times with Special Forces issue red hot 'safety' bullets 
while breaking a road block on the path out of Ventiss. The 
wounds were deep, but the pain and blood loss was light and kept 
him from being lightheaded. And he needed his wits, because the 
imminent battle would be almost entirely under his call.

  "Get on the parkway and hang west. We've got a small 
change of plans."

  "Sure, but what about your toon?" said Fly, a Das Uberdog 
man for most of these last two years, and one of Chris's ex-bounty 
hunters.

  "I gave them the orders to hit target two and meet up with 
Cohen's camp. And I'll call into them soon. But we have to
stop in south Capital Plaza first, we'll be there in minutes.
This will really be the last miscellaneous job on the list." 

  Chris paused. "As long as I wasn't too far off my mark."

  "Who's pleasure?"

  "Definitely hers. And you're sticking to the back streets. I 
don't want to announce our arrival."

  "But see what I don't understand is, is why she would ever 
let Linn--"

  "Don't start questioning her. She wouldn't do anything 
without a reason."

  He snorted. "Nobody is, bro." Fly got off at the parkway 
exit, and turned east toward Veteran Bridge, away from the 
spinning mountain of black.

  Chris took a deep breath, and then regretted it. I'm gonna 
get reincarnated as a tampon, I just know it.

  And still further inside the city, an over-laden red 
motorcycle passed under the Veteran Bridge, and turned off the 
road into a gas station. And there was an even worse kind of pain 
being felt; that of a slow infant death. Zig lifted the small woman 
off his lap, and then turned in his seat. I was still very unconscious, 
and my face and skin had turned even whiter. Zig got closer, and 
examined my eyes.

  "Is he alive?" was her question.

  "Yeah, but not for long. What the hell did you people do to 
him? He looks like he OD'ed." 

  "I don't know, I was not involved. I work for the legal 
business that Eichenger Industries keeps up for government 
cover."

  "So you just type on a computer all day?"
 
  She shot a glance at him. "Not at all. I'm a liaison to the 
other Gold-100 firms we do business with. I act as an envoy to the 
Independent Business Director, and wine and dine our mutual 
potential investors."

  "Do you know anything about the big plan, or why the keys 
weren't in the truck Chris Dais told us would be there?"

  "Of course not, you'll have to talk to him yourself about 
that. Did anyone tell you where they would be rendezvousing?"

  "Yeah, he said 'target one.' It's the new IMHR facility 
setup on the southwest side of the capital. They moved in a few 
days ago. I think Chris was planning to burn it up or something."

  Linn did not look surprised. "Then shouldn't we head there 
immediately?"

  "Probably, but what about Screw? I think he's about to die, 
and obviously can't do anything." Zig waved his hand in front of 
my slitted eyes. "He might need an adrenaline shot for all I know. I 
was thinking the first hospital we found."

  "But the police are still looking for him over the subway 
shooting; he would be arrested and shot before they even finished 
scanning him in. If we go to the target area now, we can let Chris's 
field medics take a look at him."

  Zig raised an eyebrow, and said lower, "Why do you want 
to get there right now?"

  "I just want to help your friend," said as she backed off.

  "So do I, I'm just thinking of the fastest way." 

  "Zig, they really can help him," she said.

  Zig looked around and then jerked me up by the arms, and 
propped me against a pole while he attached the bikes fuel cell to 
the trodes. While it charged, he went in the restroom and relieved 
himself. Looking in the dirty mirror, he thought about what Chris 
had said to him earlier about the riots. Those in power who would 
be sympathetic had been contacted in order to coordinate the 
disturbance. The public outcry was being shaped and molded into a 
sharp dagger that would strike two days from now in Capital Plaza, 
the surge would continue throughout the week. The Cabal would 
not make a sound until Friday, and then use the rest as cover. Chris 
was never conservative, but it was unlike him to risk even medium 
sized losses like this. Yet there had been an full fifty-nine floors of 
men mobilizing, and they moved comfortably. He shook his head 
in the mirror, and walked out.

  The woman was sitting behind the drivers position holding 
me up on the cyc right against her back. Zig lifted his leg over the 
leather seat, and kicked off the trodes.

  "You got any money?" he said to her.

  "No. Oh, don't you?"

  "Not a buck." For a second small grins escaped. The gas 
station attendant, a big greasy looking Italian, came out of the 
office, and yelled to them.

  "Hey! You didn't pay!"

  Zig gunned the engine, and waved goodbye as he sped out 
into traffic. He said over his shoulder, "If this is the worst thing 
that happens to his place tonight, he'll be real lucky."

  Rain was coming down hard, and getting harder as the 
three of us got closer to the capital building, in the exact center of 
the city. Zig noticed that there were more than the usual number of 
cops out, and they were driving around looking for trouble. More 
cops meant the Special Forces were off doing the dirty work. As 
long as he got to a medic soon, he didn't care. He kept his head 
down, and wiped the water off his visor. It was only a few minutes 
more, now. 

  Finally he slowed down, and put a leg down to stabilize the 
cyc. There was a large road block ahead cutting off a gathering 
crowd, and Zig could see the target building ahead. The new 
residence of the IMHR headquarters, a giant hexagonal stone 
building that loomed alone at the center of a wide grassy lawn. A 
monument in its own right. It appeared unmolested but there were 
even more cops here than he had seen outside the Cabal's building 
in Ventiss. The security was tight, and there was no sign of Chris 
or any real gang activity.

  "What do we do now?" said the lightly fragrant scented 
oriental woman from behind him. She had this air of having made 
these decisions herself a thousand times, but for some reason was 
actually demanding he choose.

  "We get inside that building," Zig replied. "And then we 
wait."

  "How? They'll never let us through."

  Zig shrugged and gazed around at all the police cruisers 
parked around the area. "Diversions. Blow up a tank, shoot a cop, 
something. Who knows? Got any ideas?"

  She looked so thoughtful. So interested. To Zig, she was 
quickly becoming the physical embodiment of instant visual 
obligation.
 
  "Yes."










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