The Peace War

Della looked up at him and smiled a strange, friendly smile; strange because no one else was looking to be taken in by the lie. When will she make her move? Would she try to signal to her bosses, or somehow steal the equipment herself? Last night, Wili had thought long and hard about how to defeat her. He had the self-bobbling parameters all ready. Bobbling himself and the equipment would be a last resort, since the current model didn't have much flexibility — he would be taken out of the game for about a year. More likely, one of them was going to end up very dead this day, and no wistful smile could change that.

He dragged the generator and its power cables and camouflage bag close to the ragged edge of the balcony. Under him the decaying concrete swayed like a tiny boat. It felt as if there was only a single support spar left. Great. He centered his equipment over the imagined spar and calibrated the mass- and ranging-sensors. The next minutes would be critical. In order that the computation be feasibly simple, the generator had to be clear of obstacles. But this made their operation relatively exposed. If the Authority had had anything like Paul's surveillance equipment, the plan would not have stood a chance.

Wili wet his finger and held it into the air. Even here, almost out of doors, the day was stifling. The westerly breeze barely cooled his finger. 'How hot is it?' he asked unnecessarily; it was obviously hot .. enough

'Outside air temperature is almost thirty-seven. That's about as hot as it ever gets in L.A., and it's the high for today.'

Wili nodded. Perfect. He rechecked the center and radius coordinates, started the generator's processor, and then crawled back to the others by the inner wall. 'It takes about five minutes. Generating a large bobble from two thousand meters is almost too much for this processor.'

'So,' Ebenezer's man gave him a sour smile, 'you are

going to bobble something. Are you ready to share the secret

of just what? Or are we simply to watch and learn?'

On the far side of the room, the Alcalde's man was silent, but Wili sensed his attention. Neither they nor their bosses could imagine the bobble's being used as anything but an offensive weapon. They were lacking one critical fact, a fact that would become known to all — including the Authority — very soon.

Wili glanced at his watch: two minutes to go. There was no way he could imagine Della preventing the rescue now. And he had some quick explaining to do, or else — when his allies saw what he had done — he might have deadly problems. 'Okay,' he said finally. 'In ninety seconds, my gadget is going to throw a bobble around the top floors of the Tradetower.'

'What?' The question came from four mouths, in two languages. The Alcalde's man, so mild and respectful, was suddenly at his throat. He held up his hand briefly as his men started toward the equipment on the balcony. His other hand pressed against Wili's windpipe, just short of pain, and Wili realized that he had seconds to convince him not to topple the generator into the street. 'The bobble will... pop... later... Time... stops inside,' choked Wili. The pressure on his throat eased; the goons edged back from the balcony. Wili saw Jonque and sabio trade glances. There would have to be a lot more explanations later, but for now they would cooperate.

A sudden, loud click marked the discharge of the Julians. All eyes looked westward through the opening that once held a sliding glass door. Faint 'ah's escaped from several pairs of lips.

The top of the Tradetower was in shadow, surmounted and dwarfed by a four-hundred-meter sphere.

'The building, it must collapse,' someone said. But it didn't. The bobble was only as massive as what it enclosed, and that was mostly empty air. There was a long moment of complete silence, broken only by the far, tiny wailing of sirens. Wili had known what to expect, but even so it took an effort to tear his attention from the sky and surreptitiously survey the others.

Lu was staring wide-eyed as any; even her schemes were momentarily submerged. But Rosas: The undersheriff looked back into Wili's gaze, a different kind of wonder on his face, the wonder of a man who suddenly discovers that some of his guilt is just a bad dream. Wili nodded faintly at him. Yes, Jeremy is still alive, or at least will someday live again. You did not murder him, Mike.

In the sky around the Tradetower, the helicopters swept in close to the silver curve of the bobble. From further up they could hear the whine of the fixed-wing patrol spreading in greater and greater circles around the Enclave. They had stepped on a hornets' nest and now those hornets were doing their best to decide what had happened and to deal with the enemy. Finally, the Jonque chief turned to the Ndelante sabio. 'Can your people get us out from under all this?'

The black cocked his head, listening to his earphone, then replied, 'Not till dark. We've got a tunnel head about two hundred meters from here, but the way they're patrolling, we probably couldn't make it. Right after sunset, before things cool off enough for their heat eyes to work good, that'll be the best time to sneak back. Till then we should stay away from windows and keep quiet. The last few months they've improved. Their snooper gear is almost as good as ours now.'

The lot of them — blacks, Jonques, and Lu — moved carefully back into the hallway. Wili left his equipment sitting near the edge of the balcony; it was too risky to retrieve it just now. Fortunately, its camouflage bag resembled the nondescript rubble that surrounded it.

Wili sat with his back against the door. No one was going to get to the generator without his knowing it.

From in here, the sounds of the Enclave were fainter, but soon he heard something ominous and new: the rattle and growl of tracked vehicles.