burns. But its back was straight and its head erect, and the blistered hands held gun and sword securely. The eyes were pale slits in the dark face, but white teeth flashed suddenly in a disturbing smile.
'I don't die that easily,' said Jack Random.
The guards stood where they were for a long moment, paralyzed at the sight of something that should have been dead and still, but instead had risen up to challenge them again. But they were trained Tower guards, conditioned to serve their Family unto death, and the moment passed. They threw the fear off with a cold shrug and started forward, swords raised to carve the burnt specter into a hundred pieces and see if it rose again. Random aimed his disrupter carefully and took out three of the guards with a single shot. They fell silently, and the rest came on. Random put his gun back in its charred holster, took a firm grip on his sword, and wondered how many he might take with him before they finally pulled him down. Even he had his limitations, and he could feel how close they were. Surviving the crash had taken a lot out of him, and he wasn't going to be given enough time to recover. He would have shrugged if it hadn't hurt so much. He'd always known he's die alone, overrun at last by too many enemies. And that was when Ruby Journey's voice suddenly grated in his ears.
'Hit the floor, Random!'
He threw himself down without questioning, and the room was immediately full of the roar of gunfire as Ruby opened up with the heavy projectile weapon mounted on her gravity sled, hovering outside the shattered windows. The guards jerked and convulsed as the bullets tore through them, falling helpless before a weapon they had never been prepared for. The few shots they got off went wild, and soon they were all dead, lying in tangled bloody heaps on the expensive carpeting. The gun finally shut off, and the sudden quiet in the room was almost deafening. Thick trails of smoke curled lazily on the air. Ruby ripped the heavy gun from its moorings, jumped easily through the shattered window, and hurried over to Random, who raised a tired hand in greeting. Ruby stared at the charred and blistered hand, then at his red raw face.
'Jack… you look awful.'
'Thanks a whole bunch. I think it probably looks worse than it feels, though it feels pretty bad. But I'm healing. I can feel it. I'm still in the game.' He looked down at the projectile weapon she had cradled in her arms. 'Guess you were right to bring that thing along after all. Is it as much fun as it looked?'
Ruby chuckled. 'Bet your ass. Hold it for a while.' She dropped it into his arms, and moved purposefully toward the dead guards. She knelt beside them and began going through their pockets with professional speed and skill. Random frowned.
'Ruby, what are you doing?'
'Just looking for valuables. Credits, jewelry, anything going.'
'We don't have time for looting!'
'There's always time for looting. When I joined up with this rebellion, I was promised all the loot I could carry, and this is the first down payment. Though I have to say we're talking lean pickings here. Cheap bunch. Still, by this time tomorrow, I fully intend to have stripped this entire Tower bare. If it's small and valuable and can be carried somewhere on my person, I'm having it.'
Random shook his head sadly and moved over to the stairs. No point in trying the elevator; it was bound to be booby-trapped. It was what he would have done. The Family would be on the next floor down, no doubt barricaded in, and surrounded by a small army of protectors. Not that it would do them any good. Random grinned like a wolf, and felt the skin of his face crackle. He reached up automatically and rubbed at his mouth. Black flecks of dead skin fell away. He peered at a small mirror set on the wall by the stairs. Fresh new skin showed where the dead had peeled away. He was healing. He still felt like shit, but he didn't have time to bother with that. He pushed open the stairway door and peered down the brightly lit metal stairs. Quite deserted and utterly quiet.
Random smiled again. He had no doubt Clan Chojiro had all kinds of unpleasant surprises lying in wait for him. But they wouldn't stop him. Nothing was going to stop him now, not all the armed forces in Golgotha or all the loot in the world. He'd chosen Tower Chojiro for his target quite deliberately. He had long acquaintance with the treacheries of the Chojiros, and now he was finally here, he was going to send all their souls shrieking down to Hell, whatever it took and whatever it cost him. He called sharply to Ruby, and she paused just to pull a few more rings from a few more fingers, then hurried over to join him, her pockets bulging with all sorts of expensive items. She took the projectile weapon back from him, cradling it tenderly in her arms. She'd have a few sharp words with him later, for having dared snap at her as much as for interrupting her looting, but for the moment she was content to follow wherever Random led, secure in the thought that the journey would no doubt involve satisfactory amounts of blood, savagery, and general mayhem. She took the lead when Random indicated, and started down the stairs, Random right behind her.
They hadn't got far when a determined band of elite troops came hammering up the metal stairs to meet them. Ruby opened up with her gun at once, the sound horribly loud in the confined space, but the guards had already turned on their personal force shields, those at the rear holding them over their heads. Bullets ricochetted harmlessly from the shields, and Ruby had to stop firing as her own bullets came flying back at her from the walls of the stairwell. She dropped her gun and drew her sword, expecting the guards to lower their force shields and charge with drawn swords. But instead, the shielded guards moved slowly forward, filling the stairs, forcing Ruby and Random to back away before them. There was nowhere else they could go. It was a simple tactic, its only function to keep the rebels from getting to the Clan. With anyone else it might have worked, but Ruby and Random had been touched by the Madness Maze. They reached out to each other mentally, linked their thoughts, and pyrokinetic fire roared away from them, filling the stairwell with a heat so extreme the metal steps and walls began to twist and bubble. The brilliant white flames swept around and over the guards' force shields, blasting them out of the way, and incinerated them all in a few moments. Some had time to scream, and a few turned to run, but the fire was everywhere, and when it finally disappeared, the stairwell was full of charred and blackened bodies and the thick heavy smell of burnt meat. Ruby and Random broke their mental link and looked dispassionately upon what they'd done. There was no room in them for quarter or mercy anymore. Ruby winced back from the heated air, and scowled at the twisted bodies blocking the stairway.
'I suppose we're going to have to shift them out of the way before we can go any farther. Maybe we should have let them run after all.'
'No,' said Random. 'A foe you let run away is a foe who might come back to fight you another day. Let's get to work. All these obstacles are making me impatient.'
Ruby pulled on a pair of gloves to protect her hands, and they set about lifting and pushing the charred bodies to one side. Ruby wrinkled her nose at the smell, but Random didn't seem to notice. He'd smelled worse in his time. Thick black specks fell away from his face and hands as he worked, revealing pink new skin underneath. And though he started out looking much like the bodies he was shifting, by the time they'd finished he looked much like his old self again. His clothes were still a mess, but there wasn't a lot he could do about that.
He and Ruby were just manhandling the last of the bodies out of the way when they heard a single set of footsteps coming hurriedly down the stairs from above. Ruby quickly grabbed up her projectile weapon, and Random drew his disrupter. They stood back-to-back, looking up and down the stairs, just in case the footsteps were a feint to draw their attention away from the real attack. The footsteps seemed to take a long time to arrive, and then Alexander Storm rounded the corner of the stairwell, stopped, and blinked mildly at the gun Ruby was training on him.
'If you were a man, I could make a very damaging psychological remark about the need to carry such a large gun,' he said calmly. 'But as it's you, Ruby, I don't think I'll bother.'
Ruby looked back at Random. 'Is he saying what I think he's saying?'
'We'll discuss it later,' Random said diplomatically. He lowered his gun and grinned up at Storm. 'About time you got here, Alex. I was wondering what was keeping you.'
'Traffic was murder,' said Storm. He sniffed the air and pulled a face. 'I see you two have been raising hell again.'
'Just doing what we have to,' said Random. 'Fall in behind us, Alex, but don't start dragging your feet, or we'll leave you behind. We're right on the Chojtros' heels now. I can feel it.'
'Yeah,' said Ruby. 'Time for all fate's revenges to come home.'
'You've been reading those Gothic romances again,' said Random.
Storm sniffed. 'It's a revelation to me that she can read.'
'Keep talking, Storm,' said Ruby. 'There's still room for another spare rib on the barbecue.'
'God, I swear it's like being in charge of children,' said Random. 'Shut it, both of you, and follow me. I don't
