prolonged assault, Sammy feared that his hands would stiffen to an extent certain to affect his handling of the assault rifle and the shotgun. Consequently, instead of sitting with the rifle ready in his grip, he propped it against the parapet and kept his hands in the flannel-lined pockets of his jacket.
He anticipated that the replicants would have one of two strategies: either a fearless assault on the doors, with the intent of storming the place and killing everyone therein, or an attack on the broadcast tower immediately behind — and attached to — the station.
If they controlled the power company, as Deucalion insisted they did, they could black out this entire square block, but that would not put an end to Mason Morrell’s clarion call for strong resistance to the revolution. The station had emergency generators housed within the building, fed by a large gasoline tank buried under the parking lot, and they could remain on the air for at least twenty-four hours on their fuel supply, perhaps twice that long.
The open-girder steel tower was of strong construction, its four legs sunk in eighteen-foot-deep concrete pylons that anchored it to the earth and that were themselves anchored in bedrock. This design ensured the tower would ride through the worst projected thousand-year earthquake that might rock the area related to a volcanic event at Yellowstone. The weakest point was the transmission cable that came out of the rear of the building in a conduit. The tower might be toppled with enough explosives, and the precious cable could be obliterated with a smaller charge. Sammy would be shooting down on any team that tried to approach the tower, and with the rapid- fire semiauto Bushmaster, he should be able to take them out long before they reached their objective, even if they were tough enough to take four or five mortal hits before succumbing.
From Ralph’s home bunker, or whatever it was, he had brought not only weapons but also additional equipment that might prove useful, including four Motorola Talkabouts, walkie-talkies about the size of cell phones but an inch and a half thick. These allowed Ralph, Burt, Mason, and Sammy to speak with one another in a crisis. Sammy kept his in a jacket pocket.
The Talkabout chirruped, and when he pulled it from his jacket, he heard Burt Cogborn say, “Sammy, are you there?”
Sammy held down the transmit button, said, “In place and ready for action,” and then released it.
From his post in the reception lounge below, Burt said, “If something happens to me and you take in Bobby, never ever give him any of those rawhide treats. He loves them but dogs can choke on them too easy. Over.”
Sammy replied, “No rawhide treats. Got it. Over.”
Before Sammy could return the Talkabout to his pocket, Burt said, “You’ll want to take him out to pee first thing in the morning, again around eleven, also after he eats at three-thirty, and a fourth time just before bed. Over.”
Sammy was about to respond when Burt transmitted again:
“Bobby pees four times a day, but he rarely ever poops four times. What he does is he poops usually three times a day, so if on one of his outings he doesn’t poop, don’t worry about it. That’s normal. Over.”
Sammy waited to be sure that Burt was finished, and then he transmitted: “Four pees, three poops. Got it. Over and out.”
Burt wasn’t finished. “Just to be sure you got it right, tell me which bunny is his favorite. Over.”
“Light-green, fully floppy bunny, not just floppy ears,” Sammy replied. “Over and out.”
Anyone on the channel whose Talkabout was switched on could hear their exchanges. The device chirruped before Sammy could pocket it, and Ralph Nettles said, “Good thing you aren’t obligated to take me in, Sammy. With this prostate, I have to pee like every half hour. Over and out.”
Sammy waited for a while before stuffing the walkie-talkie in his jacket pocket once more.
As if somebody opened a door in the sky, a breeze came down to chase off the stillness. The snow seemed to fall faster, which was probably an illusion. Instead of spiraling in a waltz with the air, the flakes hurried through the darkness, bright slanting skeins in the parking-lot lamps.
Instantly the air was colder than before, and Sammy fisted his lightly gloved hands in his pockets.
Chapter 42
Jocko was going to screw up. Didn’t know when. Didn’t know how. But Jocko would screw up because he was Jocko.
He sat on the floor. At the living-room coffee table. Wearing one of his fourteen funny hats with bells. Not his hacker hat. This was his please-don’t-let-me-screw-up hat. It had never worked before. But it had to work this time. It just had to.
With a book, Erika sat in a chair by the fireplace. She smiled at him.
Jocko didn’t smile. As a former tumor and a current monster, his smile was terrifying. He had learned the hard way how terrifying his smile could be.
Erika wasn’t terrified by it. Erika loved him. She was his mom, adopted. But his smile frightened everyone else. Then they screamed or stoned him, or beat him with sticks or buckets, or shoved him in an oven and tried to bake him to death, or shot at him, or tried to set him on fire, or tossed him into a pen with three big, hungry hogs, or literally threw him under a bus, or tried to strangle him with a prayer shawl.
Kneeling on the floor, across the coffee table from him, was his new friend. Chrissy.
Because he was a few inches taller than the average dwarf, Jocko was shorter than almost everyone. He wasn’t shorter than Chrissy, who was five years old. He was the
On the table were two cups and saucers. A little plate on which lay four plain-looking biscuits and six cubes of sugar. Two spoons. Two fancy linen napkins with embroidered pink roses that Jocko would have liked to make into a hat for Sundays. And a teapot.
Chrissy said, “How very nice of you to come visiting, Princess Josephine.”
Surprised, little bells jingling, Jocko looked around. For the princess. Royalty. He’d never met royalty before. He might need a different funny hat. He might need shoes. But no one new had come into the room.
When he cocked his head at Chrissy, perplexed, she said, “Now you’re supposed to say, ‘How very nice of you to invite me, Princess Chrissy.’ ”
Deeply impressed, Jocko said, “You’re a princess?”
“I’m the princess of Montana. My father is the king.”
“Whoa,” Jocko said. He began to sweat. Just a little. In his ears.
“And you,” said Princess Chrissy, “are Princess Josephine of a faraway kingdom.”
“I’m Jocko.”
“This is tea with princesses. Princess Jocko sounds dumb. You’ve gotta be Princess Josephine.”
Jocko smacked his mouth flaps, thinking about it. “You mean her stand-in because she couldn’t make it at the last minute?”
“Okay, sure.”
Jocko asked, “Why couldn’t the real Princess Josephine make it?”
Princess Chrissy shrugged. “Maybe she met a handsome prince and they’re gonna get married.”
“Or maybe,” Jocko said, “a sinister contagion has swept her father’s kingdom.”
Princess Chrissy frowned. “What’s a … that thing you said?”
“A sinister contagion. A plague. A horrible, disfiguring disease. Your nose can rot off, your ears, like leprosy. Your tongue can turn black and shrivel up. Thousands dead. Thousands more scarred and deranged and crippled for life. Bodies piled up in gutters. Mass graves. Catastrophe.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s the handsome prince. Now will you say it so we can go on?”
Because he wanted this teatime to be a great success, Jocko smacked his lip flaps and thought some more. To be sure he did just what she wanted. To be very sure. Then he said, “It so we can go on.”
Princess Chrissy cocked her head at him, the way he had earlier cocked his at her.
From her chair by the fireplace, Erika stage-whispered to Jocko: “How very nice of you to invite me, Princess
