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tucked her legs up and shrieked, "Do something! It's electrocuting me!"
"Fireblast!" Ryan crashed the SIG-Sauer over Doug's skull, and even as he hurled the
unconscious man away, he centered the blaster's sights on the beetle and fired five rounds
in such rapid succession, the shots sounded like a single report.
The device fragmented under the 9 mm assault, metal and circuitry flying in shards. Its
power pack flared in an orange halo of flame. Spinning crazily on an invisible axis, the
beetle listed to the left, then clattered to the floor, the red light of its photoreceptor eye
fading. The Klaxon still whooped.
Bending, Ryan pulled Mildred's arms away from her face. A red welt showed against the
dusky complexion of her right cheek. She shook her right hand in irritation and pain.
"Are you all right?" he asked, helping her to her feet and handing her the ZKR. It was
undamaged.
She took a long, shaky breath. "I think so. Electric shock, considerable voltage. Good
thing I protected my eyes." She kicked the shattered, smoldering remains of the beetle.
"Goddamn nasty little toy. Like a flying stun gun."
The lights over the lift door were blinking. "We're going to have company," Ryan said,
tugging the badge from Doug's lapel.
They sprinted back toward the storage area, hearing the hydraulic hiss of door panels
sliding open behind them. Ryan reflected that the prospects of their surviving inside the
complex were moving from poor to zero. All the odds were stacked against them, but that
was nothing new.
The explosive report of a gunshot sounded from the rear, and a bullet whipped between
them, spinning end over end from the sound of it. The slug chewed off the corner of a
varnished, ornately carved table on Ryan's right.
"You idiot!" bleated a male voice from somewhere behind them. "Don't shoot in here!"
Ryan and Mildred exchanged tight grins. The freezies wouldn't shoot out of fear of
damaging the relics, but since they were under no such obligation, they unlimbered their
autoblasters. Spinning, Mildred and Ryan triggered the Heckler & Koch MP-5 and the
Walther MPL at the same time. The blasters roared into the trio of armed, business-suited
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men dogtrotting toward them in a flanking maneuver. A crate filled with light bulbs
jumped and blew apart under the leaden hail. They didn't bother to gauge the accuracy of
their shots. They fired, whirled and ran among a collection of life-size statues.
They changed direction twice, then sank down in the shadow of a giant television screen
and electronics console. Male voices filtered to them, but they were too distant to be
understood. The tones were undeniably petulant, like children ordered to perform an
unpleasant task.
"There's got to be another way out of this rat's maze," Mildred panted.
"Speak for yourself, Mildred," Ryan replied.
"No, not us. Them. They're the rats. Hear them?"
"Yeah. They sound like bratty kids. And neither Doug or Bob were afraid of us, almost
like they couldn't believe what was happening."
"Exactly," Mildred said. "John likes to say, 'crazy as a shithouse rat' to describe mental
illness. I think we're dealing with the equivalent here. If you pack rats too closely
together for too long, you get homicidal rats, suicidal rats, cannibalistic rats, insane rats.
Not too different from the people in this place."
They stopped whispering when the sound of the voices grew louder.
"How's Doug?"
"How should I know? I'm not a medic. Where's Bob?"
"He was supposed to check out the merchandise. Somebody go look."
The voices drifted away, becoming distant and incomprehensible again. Ryan, suddenly
realizing that he was very cold, repressed a shiver. It felt like he was squatting in the path
of a frigid blast of wintry air. Wetting a forefinger, he held it up in several directions.
"Air movement that way," he whispered, nodding ahead of them. "Bastard cold air
movement."
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They crept in that direction and saw the shadowed, circular mouth of a hole in the floor
about fifty yards away. Rising, they raced toward it, casting glances over their shoulders
every few feet. It was more of a shaft than a tunnel. Icy wind blew up through a thickly
meshed metal screen, stinging their faces, bringing water to their eyes and ruffling their
hair. The frame of the hatch cover had a combination lock, but no handle or knob.
Beneath it they saw ladder rungs affixed to one circular wall.
Ryan took aim with the SIG-Sauer and emptied the clip at the lock. He stood fast as
ricochets whined and screamed around him. The 9 mm rounds smashed and shattered the
combination lock, blasting the steel catch to scrap. He wrenched the hatch cover up and
gestured to Mildred. "After you."
She didn't protest, but quickly climbed into the opening. Ryan followed her, not bothering
to shut the cover after him. The men would have undoubtedly heard the shots, so as he
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