sorry, Becky. But it's our asses.'
Outside, the P.A. was blaring, 'Okay kids, let's really hear it.'
They moved to the very back of the set, smiling at the techs, just another group of extras waiting for their call, and started out between two grinding generator rigs. Behind them they heard the trailer door burst open and a shrill, hysterical voice. 'He's not the producer! He's just a goddam thief!'
Security moved in quickly on the screaming actress. By the Babylon set, music started, drowning out Becky's voice. Someone called out for them to stop. But Jonny and the rest were running then, out of the pavilion and across the wet street.
Near the van, Jonny sneaked a look over his shoulder, and saw a couple of overweight film company rent-a- cops in pursuit. He almost laughed. Spinning on the balls of his feet, he brought his Futukoro up level with the rent- a-cops' heaving chests. The nearest one saw him, momentarily misplaced his center of gravity, and went down in a puddle like an overstuffed sack. His partner did a little tap dance, hands thrust over his head, and started back toward the bright lights of the pavilion.
Jonny ran on to the van, arriving there just in time to see Skid hit the street under the hulked black back of a uniform. Ice went down on top of them. The bright flicker of her knife blade, and she and Skid were up. Groucho caught another uniform, whipping his bolo like a garrote, pinning the uniform's upraised arm to his throat, before dispatching him with a kick to the solar plexus. Very weird for rent-a-cops, thought Jonny. A couple of Futukoro rounds slammed into the scarred armor on the side of the van. Very fucking weird.
One of the uniforms scrambled by, illuminated by the flickering green florescence of a street lamp. 'Oh shit,' Jonny said.
He ducked and ran, hoping the Committee boys had not spotted him. Man Ray was already behind the wheel of the van, gunning the engine. Ice and Groucho had their guns out, and were giving Jonny covering fire. The three jumped in the back. Skid, however, remained outside, in maniacal pursuit of the Committee boy who had attacked him.
Man Ray ground the van into gear, accelerating past the Kid.
Jonny held onto one of Groucho's arms as he leaned out the back. The anarchist snared the Kid and they dragged him by his sleeves for a block or so before Ice got hold of his collar and pulled him inside.
A hovercar skimmed down low over the van, burning lights, manic shadows; hot fists of turbine wash forced them back from the door. Man Ray jammed through the gears. He took two corners, nearly overturning the van on one, but the hovercar just hung there.
Then it veered suddenly off to the left.
It seemed for a moment that they had lost it, but it dropped down a few feet in front of them, barely skimming over the puddles.
Man Ray stood on the brakes, sending the van wiggling down the street like a speared fish. When he regained control, the Guru ran them through a parking lot off Vine and out onto Melrose.
Gripping the doorframe, Jonny and the others shot at the turbine vanes on the underside of the hovercar with Man Ray's custom ammo. Pink and silver spheres impacted the polycarbonate surface; blue firework dragons pawed at the landing gear, before being sucked up through the intake ports. Skid pushed past them, and threw some of Man Ray's roses, knife-fashion, at the low flying car. They exploded behind the van, blistering asphalt and palm trees.
'Let there be light!' yelled Man Ray. He cranked up the short wave scanner, making adjustments to his own broadcasting unit.
'Listen'a that dumb fuck,' he said. 'Thinks he's calling us in. I got that boy jammed so hard, surprised he knows which end holds the mike.'
The hovercar let loose then with a burst of automatic weapons fire that hammered down on the roof of the van like a phospho-rescent avalanche, blue sparks dancing around the edges of the door.
Jonny and the others fell back. Man Ray steered them onto Wilshire Boulevard, dodging slow-moving low riders and pedicabs.
Jonny leaned up to the driver seat. 'How far are we from the underground?' he yelled.
'Almost there,' Man Ray said. He had slipped on a high-domed crash helmet.
'Can we take more of that fire?'
The Guru grinned through high-impact plastic. 'Don't insult me.'
The glass donut of Lockheed's office tower was glowing just a few blocks ahead. The Guru steered the van onto a side street, trying to lose their tail before heading for the clinic. The hovercar hung implacably above them.
'We're really eating it,' Man Ray said. 'There's no major turn-offs and the underground's just ahead. Any suggestions?'
'I got one,' said Ice. She pulled one of the Croakers' Kalashnikov rifles, retrofit with an M-79 grenade launcher, from the weapons bin. The van was running fast down a side street between long rows of grimed and decaying old geodesic greenhouses, some forgotten experiment in urban self-sufficiency.
Wind tearing at her corn-rows, Ice sighted in on the hovercar, tracking the subtle, massive glide of the machine as it positioned itself for another attack. When she did not fire, Jonny was tempted to pull her away from the door. Then, just as he was reaching for her, she pulled the trigger, sending the burning M-79 bolt at the aft section of the car. The explosion, when the shell hit, blew out windows in one old greenhouse dome, peppering the van with dead vegetation and fragments of glass.
Black smoke and guttering light above them. The hovercar tried to rise, but its remaining engine clipped a transformer tower, flipping the car onto its back. It hung there for a moment, as if undecided what to do. Finally, in what looked like an attempt to right itself, it slammed through a greenhouse roof, emerging from the far side in flames.
'Brace yourselves!' screamed Man Ray. He wrenched the steering wheel left, sending the van broadside into the hovercar just as it skidded to the ground in front of them.
The first thing Jonny was aware of was the constant blaring of a horn; then came shadows, flickering over his eyelids in frozen micro-second silhouettes; then a thick wetness on his face, across his chest and arms. He opened his eyes. Glycerin. It was everywhere, thick puddles massing on the floor and slopping out the back, ruptured padding going limp on the walls. He crawled to the open door and dropped a couple of unexpected feet to the pavement. The vehicle was resting at a severe angle, its three left wheels spinning in the air.
He walked on some stranger's legs; they refused to work together.
Around the side of the van he found the mangled hovercar, a skeletal mass of crumpled alloys and scorched plastic, two feeble red lights rotating out of synch; the fuselage had twisted itself thoroughly into the undercarriage of the van, merging with it.
Symbiotic junk.
A sleeve grazed his face, electric jolt sending Jonny down to his knees. Man Ray danced past him, his Medusa out and swinging over his head. Charged lashes flowered sparks as they touched, gilding the air above the Guru's head with spinning galaxies, ghostly landscapes of exploding stars, playing cards, cometary butterflies. He was easily holding three Committee boys at bay. There was an enormous stained-porcelain smile plastered across his face. Even groggy, Jonny could read it: Total fulfillment. Man Ray was in his element, writing sonnets with his weapons; the image of the artist at work.
The Guru froze and held out his arms, crystal geckos skittering from his sleeves. Light-footed, quick-tongued, they leaped to the ground at the Committee boys' feet, exploding into billowing, lavender clouds of CS gas. Jonny fell back on the van, coughing, eyes filling with tears, and saw Man Ray emerge from the cloud a moment later. Somewhere along the way, the Guru had slipped a respirator on under his kendo helmet. A Committee boy grabbed him and was jolted off by the electrical charge of the polypyrrole armor.
Then someone was pulling Jonny away, around to the back of the ruined van. It was Skid, blood ruining the white perfection of his teeth, rimming his lips. The hand he used to hold Jonny was glowing, pixels throbbing nervously, but offering no image. He was shouting something.
'We're fucked! They've blown it! We're on our own, man!'
The Kid started to pull again, but Jonny shifted his weight and held him in place. 'What are you talking about? Where's Ice?'
The Kid pointed with his gun. Pinned down with Groucho. 'It's the Committee, man. They've blown the
