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 Hello again. Spring break's finally over (both of them,
 if you, like me, didnt get enough time off the first week
 and were able to squeeze out a second). Why do all colleges get
 different weeks off? Inability of the state to handle 
 the traffic? The alcohol? Maybe they dont want
 too great a number of young people to see what terrible
 television they've been showing all day lately and compare
 notes. I dont know. I'm sure you've heard about the 
 record setting drought we're supposed to get this summer,
 man, that will be fun. June Second is hug your local 
 construction worker day, I'm serious. Do it.

 This chapter's a little different, a little dark maybe, 
 like the last, but no worries. The usual is just around
 the corner. Like the two issues of the Barjack Chronicles 
 without Alita (I'm not making any comparison.) The rest 
 should be self explanitory.

 By the way, the ascii nonsense at the end of the last post
 looks kind of like an urn if viewed in notepad or 
 similar character spacing. Note the position of the words,
 one a floater, and one a sinker.









    9


  "Put this on."
  
  "Okay I'll- Woah! Where did you get this?!"

  "I got a friend who buys and sells trade-ware. Anything 
that's worth the cash to steal."

  "You have to give me his number sometime."
If he's still around, Chris thought, and said nothing.

  "You know, you can be executed for wearing these. As in 
like, on the spot. Police Chief sees this, Pop! we're dead."

  "Yeah, well I don't think impersonating cops is the worst 
thing on either one of our records. You know, I was in a post office 
this morning and my warrant has been raised to code-five."

  "Five? I thought it only went to four."
  
  "That's how it usually goes. People who make it to code-
four don't last very long. God damn next-door neighbors rat em 
out or they get caught in a subway audit. It's always some stupid 
shit, if not getting bounty hunted. But I was code-four for fifteen 
months and I did fine. Then I guess someone pegged me for the 
subway thing a few nights ago."

  "So what does code-five mean? They gonna raise the 
bounty to an even billion?"

  "No," Chris said, and grinned a little. "It means it is now 
illegal not to kill me. You could be prosecuted for sitting there, and 
not trying to attack me. That some shit, or what?"

  "Fuck. So any old lady on the street would have to start... 
I don't know, throwing shit at you?"

  "Yeah, it's part of a citizen civic-duty clause. Children 
included. I'm a code-five, baby."

  Fly thought about this until his brain stalled. "Damn. I want 
to be a code-five..."

  Chris, like Zig, was genuinely undisturbed when he looked 
that way. While the rest of us were considering our own mortality 
and wondering if life would ever be the same, Chris had taken the 
recent events like it was finally his chance to glow. For him, this 
war was going to be the Rest Of His Life, only now it was out in 
the open. The stakes had been raised a little. The rewards also. If 
he persevered, the social order would naturally form a new system 
without a Mandate. Humans don't need central authority in times 
of rebuilding. An acquiescence to loss (not defeat!) meant he killed 
a lot of cops, but nothing really changed. Defeat was an honorable 
death, of course. He had not been afraid of death before and saw 
no reason to start thinking about it now. He was a man, and it was 
in his contract to die.

  Not everyone harmonized with this idea, but they didn't 
mention it while Chris was around. Ideals like that were what the 
Cabal used to let its men keep returning to the same conclusions on 
their own, that loyalty and honor were the only tangibles in life, 
next to death. Be a martyr, serve your species; the people who 
share your vision of acceptable beauty. It was also how Chris was 
able to rationalize the ends justifying the means, even when the 
two were not exactly equivalent. He hated wasting anything; men, 
weapons, time, and to a lesser degree, money. But if he thought he 
could advance his cause, and put the hurt on the Mandate just a 
fraction harder, there was not much he wouldn't do.

  Donning their black-market blues, Chris and Fly pulled up 
to a camouflage tarp-covered checkpoint and waved badges which 
let them pass into an outdoor parking garage. The shear number of 
cops meant that their supposedly 'undercover' dark green Ford 
Cobra would probably go unnoticed. Maneuvering around Special 
Forces agents in combat armor, they made their way to the top 
level, which sat in open air, five stories above the street. The spot 
offered a perfect view of the government building it faced, and 
they would be relatively out of the way if fighting did break out. 

  Chris reclined his seat, and pulled out binoculars.

  After a minute he said, "I see them. Over there by the 
urban-green tank. Linn is with them too and they have Screw 
propped against a mailbox. I had doubts that Zig could even make 
it out of Ventiss by himself." Or Screw for that matter, Chris 
thought. That bastard better not have slowed down in his old age. 

  "So what now?" asked Fly, looking through his own pair. 

  Slightly to the left of the mailbox was a wood plaque on a thick 
concrete base. Adjusting the focus, he could see the words 'DE 
Pluribus Unum,' though the 'D' looked like it had been added 
afterward by knife. Under it was a profile of the Cardinal Doge, 
carved in bronze relief. Come to think of it, Fly couldn't remember 
ever having seen the face of the Mandate's Prime Minister in 
person. 

  "We wait. The only medical supplies for miles are in that 
building, so that's where they will head. Plus, they probably think 
we're in there too. All we have to do is wait for Linn's signal and 
we can leave."

  Fly settled further into his seat, and flipped through radio 
freqs. A news anchor got out a few sentences about the Aeronaut 
but was drowned out by acute static. Continuing, he found one 
with raw Industrial noise and scanned the skies above distractedly. 

  There weren't any Shock Troops around, but then they rarely 
appeared in public. It was just a lot of heavily equipped Special 
Forces officers and a few armored vehicles. Unhappy looking guys 
with deadly weapons. Maybe when this was over, he wouldn't 
have to see this every time he went to work.

  "Hey, Chris," Fly said after a while, bobbing his head in 
time to the beat.

  "Yeah?"

 "In case you hadn't noticed, half the crowd down there are 
carrying guns."

  "I'm aware."

  "This mean they knew we were going to show up?"
Chris nodded.

  "And since you had routed everyone to the other two 
targets before we even got here, you knew they knew?"
Chris looked at Fly with lowered eyebrows. "That's right," 
he said. 

  "Well then? What's the deal?"

  "You mean why did I train a third of you to hit a target we 
knew would be crawling with pigs? Or why are we here, if we 
aren't going to act?"

  "Either. This little trip sucks." Fly turned off the radio, and 
sat back.

  "Between you and me, all I have to say is that we knew 
there was bound to be more to the war than bringing down the 
Doge. More to us, I mean. Don't worry about it yet. I'll let you 
know when you can help. As for now, just keep your eyes open. 
Our little Linn has the ball."







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







  Zig sat back, wiped the rain out of his face and eyes, and 
tried to light a cigarette. The crowd had become considerably more 
dense, and he could not quite tell why they had showed up. But 
they certainly were loud. A block away from the large government 
building that was supposed to be a target for Chris's 
insurrectionists, Zig could not see much besides the seething mass 
of people. He checked his shoulder holster to make sure it was still 
occupied, and scanned the building again.

  The moon was out, not in view, but reflected off of some of 
the building's higher windows. It was a bare crescent, almost ready 
to disappear, by tomorrow or the next night for sure. That might be 
interesting. With no moon, the lunatics out here would have lost 
their solid beacon of deranged rapt attention. The wolf who cries at 
an empty sky is scarier than the one that is sometimes its own man.

  Then the entire mass yelled out at once. The wave-like 
shriek swept over him and out into the straggling lines still 
approaching the scene as they all looked up. All of them, with open 
eyes and mouths. It was almost deafening, but not loud enough to 
cover up the sound of something large exploding about a hundred 
yards away. When it was apparent that there was not going to be a 
stampede, Zig shoved someone taller out of his way and craned his 
neck to see what had happened.

  Then Linn suddenly appeared to his right and ran up to 
him, looking excited.

  "-The fuck did you do?!" yelled Zig over the sudden roar of 
guns and car engines.

  She gripped his arm. "Nothing! I saw two spiderbats land 
on the roof of a parking garage! The tank already got one of them, 
but the other, a very large one, has torn up all the police units on 
the upper floor. It pushed a cruiser over the edge of the building!" 
She took a breath. "That was the explosion a minute ago."

  "Well god damn, this'll work. They have pretty much 
cleared and vacated the south wall of the building, so we'll sneak 
in that way."
 
  "And you are going to bring Screw?" she asked in her 
slight accent.

  "Yeah, I figure I can carry him a few hundred more yards. 
Have to hide the cyc first, though. Watch him for a second, I'll be 
back."

  Zig walked the motorcycle away from the IMHR building. 
The structure had been constructed from stone hexagonal prisms 
mined outside the city. Standing about twelve stories tall, it was a 
similar hexagonal prism in shape. Three of the walls had windows, 
alternating with walls of artistically carved patriotic scenes in 
relief. The mosaic stretched all the way up the walls, and to a point 
beyond at the apogee of a hexagonal based pyramid, which shaped 
the building's roof. Just about inviolable.

  On the other hand, the five story concrete parking garage 
that opposed it was not such an accomplishment. Being enclosed 
by low ceilings and high volumes of cars, yet open to the air, it was 
a perfect play place for a twenty-foot flying freak of nature. Zig 
parked my cyc in an alley, and keyed in the code which folded it 
into compact form. This he hefted into a empty dumpster, thinking 
it would be a few days before the incinerators were activated. 
Energy costs money, and no one but the government left 
incinerators running all night. Then he stood back for a second and 
watched the commotion forty feet above and a thousand across 
from him.

  A gray and black tank rumbled past a tightly locked group 
of boys burning a public access screen, aimed its cannon, and let 
loose a cloud of noxious smoke. A whistle and a loud sonic boom 
staggered the closest civilians. The shell put a fifteen foot crater in 
the wall of the garage, but Zig could still hear the spiderbat 
thrashing around, bleating with intensity. He pushed through the 
mass of cops and civilians to a better vantage point where he could 
see its great black frame smashing entire cars with insectile legs. It 
bit a Special Forces officer in half when he started firing his 
handgun, and swallowed most of the upper body. More officers 
fired from behind the cover of cars, but fled as soon as it came 
whiffling their way.

  Zig figured he and Linn had better move soon, before the 
spiderbat was killed, and the pigs returned to their riot lines. This 
was a pretty random thing, and Zig could not remember the last 
time he had seen one land in such a crowded area. It was some 
coincidence, but was stacked in his favor, so he didn't question it.

  Turning around, he picked his way through the swarming 
civilians and made his way back toward us. At one point, someone 
bumped against him and put an arm around his shoulder. He turned 
around to see a transvestite prostitute, high on something fierce 
and holding a cardboard peace sign, about to grab him. Zig 
remained expressionless and asserted himself.

  "If you really wanted to be a woman, you'd thank me for 
that," he said, and walked away.

  Moving through the crush was getting difficult, and Zig had 
to circumvent a wider area where a trio of riot cops were 
sporadically beating and being beaten by the civilians closest to 
their tight ring. He stepped over a barricade and walked along its 
outer edge with his head ducked low. Punching an officer was one 
thing, but breaking a fully erected control perimeter was another. 
Trying to stay completely out of sight brought him close to the 
IMHR's new main door. It was encased in hardened caution-tape 
and wore a single dimly lit sign:


               By Order of The Doge:
  This facility and all others retaining federal employees with
  less than Class 3 security clearances have been closed until
  further notice. Please do not try to access it for any reason.
  To determine your Vacation Pay Status, contact your work
  administrator at his or her home number. The base rate of
  work during Vacation is one quarter of your base pay 
  salary.
  (No, this does not mean alternate temporary employment is
  authorized.) This facility will be reopened one day after
  martial law is rescinded.

  A note had been added in perfect handwriting at the 
bottom:

  Unhappy about lowered pay? Time off is its own reward.
  Remember, Vacation is not necessary when the law is
  adhered to. Not in a gang? Think it's not your fault?
  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.


  *Christ,* Zig thought. I'll never complain about my life 
again.

  Behind him, the rioting civilians screamed at the tops of 
their lungs as the police turned away from, and temporarily 
ignored them. They threw bottles, jumped on cars, broke down 
signs and some openly inhaled illegal drugs. A woman who had 
taken off all of her clothes and was being pulled up onto the 
second story of the garage by other men. She was vomiting. Zig 
blinked twice and kept moving. This was not high on his list. 

  The rest of the gang, they were on it. They were all around 
him and helping him move quietly and composed. Their faint 
smiles and occasional voices telling him exactly what to do with 
no interruptions. Zig had often wondered why it never seemed to 
be this easy for Screw or any of the other white's he knew. He did 
not know what it meant to have conflicting goals. Why not let 
them all work together, he asked? They want to on their own, for 
god's sake. 

  Grinning imperceptibly he recited: Finding Chris means 
finding Alethea, and the old woman, and then figuring out what the 
hell they were going to do.

  He had the desire to smoke.

  An attack had to be out of the question for now, since the 
Special Forces obviously had a damn good idea of what was going 
down. But he thought it would be completely unlike Chris to not at 
least make an attempt, however vain.

  In the meantime hiding out was the only reasonable thing to 
do. Somewhere inside the upper floors of the building. Granted, in 
the middle of the world's highest cop-to-Zigwell ratio was not the 
safest place, but crowds like these provided another kind of 
privacy. With so many people around, no one could pay any 
attention to one thing for long. The swirling mass was a constant 
incontestable distraction, even for the search lights above. He 
picked his way between wrenching bodies with his face toward the 
ground, and found Linn and myself on the street corner where he 
left us, unmolested.

  "Come on," he said. "We only have a few more minutes." 
She followed quickly.

  Zig picked up my body, put me over his shoulder, and 
started walking around to the building's south side, where the 
fewest people were. Linn followed close behind, with a hand on 
Zig's arm. After a minute, they had cleared most of the crowd, and 
crossed the street where they were up against the stone wall. 
Luckily this one had windows in it. Zig looked over his shoulder to 
make sure the coast was clear. Not quite.

  A fat, bald cop walked quickly over to him with a small 
pistol in one hand, and some kind of bread in the other. He had 
gotten it all over his mustache, and was sniffling. "What you doin 
there, son? You can see the barrier over there, can't you?"

  Zig gimaced, but his face was in the shadow. "My friend 
here passed out, and I want to get him on a bus home. The stop is 
over there, past those hot dog stands."

  The cop paused, and licked his fat fingers. "I know where it 
is."

  "You're always supposed to take the injured to safety. I'm 
doing that."

  "You tryin to do my job?"

  "No." Zig said. 

  "You got any ID on you?"

  "I don't carry any."

  "Where's you're wallet?"

  "Can't afford one."

  "Well then, Shaft, you're shit out of luck!" he said, 
laughing out loud.

  "Shaft?" Zig said slowly.

  The cop reached into his pocket, and started to pull out a 
set of steel fetters, when Linn slipped up behind him, and nailed 
him on the head with the pommel of a small blade. The man cried 
out and clutched the spot, before falling onto the ground. There 
wasn't any blood, though the donut was crushed between his 
fingers.

  Zig looked from the cop to Linn, half laughed, and said, "I 
knew I liked you!"

  "We'll see. Here-" she said, and then broke the window 
they were standing under. "I'll climb in, and you can pass Screw 
up to me."

  "Okay, hold on." Zig kicked the fat cop in the gut, but the 
figure remained unconscious. "Bite it, Friday," he muttered. 
Bending down, he also took the wallet and sidearm. Police issue 
anything was gold on the market, and all of that, profit. 
Recompense for the slur. He stood up, and saw Linn leaning 
against the wall.

  "By the way, where do you hide that toy sword?"

  "It's an ancient antique wakazashi, and I'm not telling. 
Now, help me up."

  "Sure thing, doll."

  Zig lifted her up to the sill, and she cleared the glass with 
her blade. Then, climbing through, she turned around and held out 
her hand. Chris set me down against the wall, and shook me by the 
shoulders. I made a gurgling sound, but did not open my eyes. It 
was something, anyway.

  "He's still out. Here, grab his arms."

  He lifted me up, and Linn pulled me through the window. 
Zig jumped up, and followed me through. He then lowered the 
window shade, making sure to get rid of any broken glass, and 
surveyed the surroundings.

  The three of us were in an office, unoccupied, and mildly 
posh. Middle management. And this was the first floor. The 
Director's office must be a damn palace. Zig considered this, then 
turned to Linn.

  "So where would the medical supplies be?"

  "In the Infirmary," she said. "Most likely on one of the top 
floors. But there will probably be a scheme around here 
somewhere that will tell us. Look on the walls out in the hall."

  "What if someone sees me?"

  "Try to hide."

  He frowned. "I can't hide in an empty building from watch 
dogs. Maybe you don't realize it, but this place could be thick with 
all sorts of security devices the government only brags about."

  "You'll be fine."

  "And what if I'm seen? Are you just gonna continue on by 
yourself?"

  Linn set her small jaw. "That isn't an issue, because it isn't 
going to happen. You're going to be better then they are and make 
it back here in five minutes so we can move our friend." 

  Zig raised his lip.

  She turned back. "I know it sounds strange, but I owe him a 
finger."

  "You know Screw?"

  A nod.

  "The old bastard never mentioned you. Either way, since 
I'm gonna be doing all the work here, I want to how your plan 
deals with me getting caught. For my sanity's sake, huh?"

  "I don't know, Zig. When did I get put in charge?"

  He scratched the stubble under his chin. In the silence, 
the people were already shaking hands in agreement. "Alright, sit 
tight. I'll be right back."

  Zig went into the hall, and tried to look like he was 
supposed to be there. Which was hard, since it was now after 
midnight, and he was dressed in formal Zig dress: ironed canvas 
jeans, light leather jacket, unlaced shit-kickers, and a bulge under 
his left armpit. If a security guard caught him, one of them was 
likely to get shot. Zig was tired, and in a bad mood for that. The 
place reeked of upper class ignorance which he abhorred. He was 
not against wealth, or the spending of it. But short, fat, squinty 
eyed north-siders who wasted their money on solid gold pens and 
diamond-studded toilet paper really pissed him off. Usually, he 
refused to even look at them. 

  Money was made for the moment, thus Zig had no qualms 
about stealing it.

  Eventually, in the front lobby he found a large framed 
schematic of the whole building. Exits in red, entrances in green. 
The Infirmary was on the tenth floor, and it had its own elevator. 
He jogged back to Linn, and told her what he had found. Then he 
lifted me up, my head drooping on my chest, and took me out to 
the service elevator. We rode up to the tenth floor, and followed 
the signs.

  Coming quickly to the white Infirmary doors, Linn peeked 
through the small window, and did not see anyone. "This place is 
really dead," she said. "Usually there are night watchmen. I guess 
we can just go in."

  Zig took me into the room, and laid me out on a freshly 
cleaned gurney. Then he and Linn went about looking for anything 
they thought might help. She came back with an IV plug, and a 
pair of bags.

  "He is terribly dehydrated, and probably hasn't eaten in 
many hours," she said.

  Zig brought a bottle of Pepto and a bottle of Codeine. He 
ground up a few capsules of each, and dumped the powder into one 
of the IV bags. "For when he wakes up," he grunted.

  They found a small fridge in the kitchen, but it was empty. 
Zig said he had remembered seeing on the building scheme that 
there were penthouses on the top floor. Any suite would have food 
and drink, and might be the best place to hide out until they came 
up with a plan. Wheeling me out into the hall, Zig and Linn got in 
another elevator and hit the button for the top floor. A small 
electronic message appeared, and stated that they needed the 
password to get to that floor. So Zig punched the keypad out of its 
housing, and the elevator complied.

  When the doors finally opened, they stepped out into some 
of the nicest private living quarters either one had ever seen. There 
was a pool, pool tables, a bar, and an expansive veranda outside. 
Lots of other doors doubtlessly led to bedrooms, bathrooms, and 
maybe an office or two. 

  Now this was something worth throwing your money at, 
Zig thought, blinking his eyes again.

  "You got to admit, Linn. There are worse places we could 
have been stuck for the night." 

  She agreed. They were finally out of the uproar 
surrounding them outside. He exhaled deeply and stretched his 
aching back, also cracking his knuckles. She was staring at the 
pool, a little mesmerized.

  He walked up from behind and put his hand on her 
shoulder, thinking she might be starting to feel some of the stress. 
There was nothing exceptional about that, the strange thing may 
have been that he wasn't. Not quite yet. Zig searched his jacket for 
a cigarette while he thought about this. It was like the real danger 
felt long over to him.

  "Are you okay?" He asked, innocently.

  She didn't shy away from his touch at all, but simply said, 
"Yes. I'm fine, Zig."

  He looked around at the place, dead quiet and pristine 
clean. Some Sub-Director's weeknight getaway, no doubt. He 
imagined turning on a little music and having a decent night after 
all.

  "You want something from the kitchen?" He was getting 
hungry himself. From somewhere, there was the smell of flowers.
Linn suddenly turned around and said, "Why don't you go 
and find us drinks?"

  "Ha! Alright, coming up."

  Walking around the statue in the center of the main room, 
he strolled toward the kitchen. It was so quiet, since neither Linn 
nor myself were making any noise. Water lapped quietly under the 
small diving board, and he could hear the sirens in the distance far 
below. Or maybe his ears were just ringing.

  "Man," he said. "I'm turning into Screw."

  He opened the kitchen door. A thousand square feet at 
least. Dark oak wood cabinets and fixtures, even a potted plant 
with a Gro-Lite. Clean counters, clean floors, large fridge. He 
grinned at the sight of a wide satin divan on the other side, near a 
window.

  It really smelled an awfully lot like flowers, and not the 
traces of alcohol you expect to find when cleaners have been 
liberally used. The smells were almost real. Like from a bouquet.
Bobbing his head in time to the music he was already 
thinking about, Zig's legs carried him right in through the kitchen 
door. 

  Almost. Had the eyes but somehow missed the monstrous 
centerpiece which then filled his vision.

  A hideous face looked back at him.

  "Let's...hope...not..." the hideous voice said.

  Zig's shout of surprise choked half way out of his throat, 
and he fell backwards. He caught clear sight of the pair standing in 
the middle of the room, and felt bile rise into his throat. 
Characteristically, they stood rigidly still, waiting. One stood just 
shy of seven feet tall and the other was two heads taller than that. 
They were both sickly thin, hunched, and wore expensive white 
double breasted suits with large buttons; white shoes, hats, and 
ties. Their faces were those of old men, already deformed with 
hard age. And their hands; dead white skeletons with fingernails 
that cut off six inches from the tip, unquestionably sharp and 
synthetic. Together, the one smaller one mimicked the larger in a 
bizarre farce.

  "Are you the Director?" Zig got out, still shocked and 
recovering. The giants stood almost at attention, and stared with 
downcast eyes. But Zig knew they could see him. He felt in the 
sudden silence a pressure on his body, pushing him back to the 
door as if his body finally knew better. 

  The shorter one raised his eyes from the floor, and spoke 
without moving his lips or opening them more than a crack. 

  "Yes...Didn't anyone tell you...?" His speech was low and 
gravely, and broken by a wheezing cough. "My name is...White."

  Then the other one raised his face to Zig's; an ugly, lumpy 
face, and said in a clearer, deeper tone that shook him in his 
bowels, "Rufius."

  Absolutely nothing stirred.

  Zig didn't know what to do. They only time he had heard 
that name was in conjunction with that of Wells' and in the 
superlative. Supposedly, this freak from the graveyard could use 
the powers beyond what anyone else had seen or heard. He was 
behind all the killings and Taur gang activity. Even Wells and 
Weirham were scared of him. And Zig had no trouble figuring out 
why. These two looked evil--one of them even felt evil, from four 
god damn feet away. It was that feeling, the clench just above and 
behind his heart that made it hard to see and hear fully. But he 
failed to make out its source. 

  White shifted his awkward frame, not raising his head, and 
leaned forward, apparently constrained by different laws. Zig's 
hands were shaking from the bad vibes he was getting from these 
two. Physical contact looked frighteningly imminent. So he stood 
up and ran.

  Away from the kitchen, around a corner and out into the 
main room, he saw Linn standing by the pool. "Linn! We gotta get 
out of here! Run! I've got Screw!"

  Linn's expression stopped him, and she said in a small 
voice, "I'm really sorry."

  "What are you--Come on!" Zig grabbed the bar around the 
head of the gurney, and sent it flying toward the door. But Linn 
sidestepped, and kicked on the stopping brake which locked the 
wheels. Zig fell forward.

  "I am really sorry, Zigwell Cane," she said, "because I have 
to do this. Leave Screw, you will not escape with him. I need you 
to leave him with me. But you can get out. Go to the elevator, and 
I'll tell them you went the other way."

  "What?! Are you in on this?!"

  "Sort of." Behind her, Rufius and White rounded a corner 
and slowly approached, eyes to the ground but oh, so present. 

  "Please go now! Screw will be fine! Leave!" she cried.

  "Fuck no!! You bitch-" He couldn't finish. Then, turning 
to Rufius, he shouted, "Eat shit, you fucking corpse!"

  Zig reached inside his jacket for the Beretta he had taken 
off me earlier. Rufius remained motionless, but White raised his 
face. As Zig held it up to fire, the barrel suddenly twisted in the air, 
and tied itself in a knot. Zig dropped it, and White stared at him. 
He kept stepping forward.

  Zig cursed again, and growled at Linn who was backing up 
with widening eyes. He did not believe she would deliver him to 
the enemy just like that. But he also knew that he would never 
make it out of the building with me in tow. Handshakes and smiles 
all around. He ran again. Fast. This time, out the door and into the 
hall. It was a long hall that curved around the building's inner 
radius, and this was good. The elevator would be a trap, and he 
could not make it down stairs fast enough. There had to be another 
way. If he could only find Chris, he was sure that nut would have 
some way to kill Rufius. There was no question.

  There was only one other door on the hallway aside from 
the stairwell, and Zig ran through it without reading the sign on the 
handle. He busted into another similarly-embellished penthouse 
suite, and this one also happened to be occupied. By women, in 
fact.

  They shrieked, and ran behind furniture, as Zig ran through 
the rooms, but he ignored them. He thought he could feel White 
and Rufius right behind him, though he dared not look back. At the 
end of the suite was a door that led out onto another expansive 
veranda, and he raced out into the space beneath the night sky. 
Coming to the edge, he stared down, and his eyes adjusted to see a 
tiny crowd of tiny people eighteen stories below. 

  Whirling around, he was surprised and not surprised to see 
both White and Rufius standing in the doorway, still and 
expressionless. Their clothes were not ruffled, nor were they 
breathing hard. Yet they had come about three hundred yards in the 
time it took Zig to sprint that far. He was still too confident to look 
defeated.

  "We both know I'll take him over with me if I have to," he 
said with all the intention he was capable of.

  "That's...the idea," said White. Zig paused. 

  "Then let Screw go! He's just about dead, no good to you. 
Or anyone. I've seen him walk limp across the tarmac to the safety 
gates after crashes that killed the other drivers involved. I don't 
want to think about what could put him in a coma."

  "Coma?"

  "And Linn," he finished, "well, she's a woman."

  "Screwtape is...far more important than ...you or her."

  "I keep hearing that. Why?"

  "He's ...part of our family..." White's wheezing had grown 
worse. "He's going to help us leave... this city."

  As Zig stepped back against the low railing, one of the 
loose-looking women in the apartment suddenly ran out behind the 
other two, and swung a baseball bat. Needless to say, the bat did 
not connect. As it came toward Rufius' head, White lashed out 
with his right hand at an incredible speed. His nails slashed 
chaotically across and down, sinking so deep that he nearly 
decapitated her. The bat left her hands and flew up and over Zig's 
head, down to the street. She was sprawled even before he could 
whip his head back to see her fall.

  Zig yelled "No!" but was much too late to do anything. He 
could hear the other women in the penthouse, obviously strippers, 
shrieking and running out the front door. Strangely, no blood had 
sprayed onto either white suit, though it pooled around their feet. 
White's hand wasn't even that bloody. Zig was as far back against 
the railing as he could go.

  Linn appeared finally from behind, pushing me on the 
gurney. Neither Rufius nor White looked up, and when Linn 
stopped, she bowed in front of them. With lowered eyes, she said, 
"You have what you came for, and all that we promised. Zigwell 
Cane was to be spared. Let him leave with me."

  White was silent.

  "Please!" she continued. "Let us go!"

  White slowly turned to her. His eyes were barely there, like 
holes in a mask.

  "ALL of you die one day..." he said, as if he were choking 
out the words. "Today or tomorrow... Rufius cares not."

  With that, he raised his hand a second time, and before the 
image established itself in Zig's eyes, Linn was gone. Zig was 
stunned.

  "I...I..." he stammered, trying to speak over the rush of 
reaction in his body. "You fucking--when Chris get's here, he's 
gonna kill you! You hear that? Fucking ream you both!"

  The faintest trace of a smile played across White's pale 
dead mouth.

  "If you raise that hand again, you're finished, you son of a 
bitch."

  "I'll take... my chances." He nodded his head toward the 
edge of the balcony. Zig turned around, and looked down. Nothing. 
A crowd, cops, a few smashed cars, but nothing worth noticing. He 
turned around. White stepped forward and nodded toward the 
balcony again. He pointed over.

  When Zig looked again, he noticed a small light spot in the 
center of the throng. It was a fire, a gasoline fire on the street, and 
in the center was a familiar looking green car burning into black. 
Beside it, strangely clear despite the great distance, was the figure 
of Chris looking back up at him. He was standing there, looking up 
empty handed, and not just daydreaming. Their eyes met, and Zig 
finally saw the Chris that had survived prison, killed cops, made a 
deal and betrayed him. The Chris that would do anything to 
complete his goals, anything. Below, Chris shrugged, and turned 
his palms upwards. Zig could not breathe.

  He whirled around, and looked at the stark white forms in 
the dimly lit doorway. The moonlight gave them a ghostly blue 
glow that scared him even more. Zig's tongue ground against his 
teeth slowly as he grew dizzy, weakened by the sight.

  "He did do it." He said, defeated. "My boys sold me out."

  "What goes...around comes around...hmm?"

  White and Rufius walked slowly forward. White reached 
over, and picked up my unconscious body with one hand, ripping 
out the IV needles from my arms. He carried me at elbow's length, 
like a waiter carries a tray of drinks, to Rufius' side, and returned 
his gaze to the ground. Rufius' blank gaze shifted a degree to 
rested on Zig, near his feet.

  "What a sordid existence. That you would even beg for the 
lives of people who you have betrayed and have betrayed you 
angers me. I have news for you. Screwtape was the only one 
the little ants sold out; they, the collective Brutus. 
All of you do it one day."

  Each took a breath, one inhale, and one exhale.  

  He acted ambiguous, yet they both knew that Rufius
hated Zigwell's kind the most of all.










--------------
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next time: less confuzing!




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