time. None of the bullets found their target.
Boiled retreated a step. Balot ran faster toward the silver egg. She thought she heard the crack of another rifle shot, and then the Doctor was hauling her up into the egg.
“Get in and stay inside!” the Doctor shouted, and there were more rifle shots in quick succession.
Without warning the egg started rising. Noiselessly and so smoothly that she didn’t even feel the sensation of her body being lifted. All she noticed was the ground moving farther and farther away as she looked on.
Its Gravity Device Engine was evidently a powerful one, as they were up in the air in no time.
“Head as far inside as you can! If you’re near the shell wall then your blood will start moving around. If your eyes start blurring then you’ll need to lie down. Now, I’m just going to close the shell wall back up and—”
The Doctor stopped shouting. There was a
There were steady, rhythmic footsteps.
The Doctor’s expression changed, and he moved toward the entrance, readying his rifle.
Boiled appeared. Revolver in hand, he peered down at the Doctor. He was standing on the wall at a right angle, bisecting the entrance, a perpendicular line, muzzle pointed at the Doctor. At his feet, the wall closed back into place, as if it were mending a broken shell.
“Give it up, Boiled. In a few seconds we’ll be at too high an altitude for you to use your abilities,” the Doctor warned, almost as if he were giving him a lecture. “And I don’t particularly want to get into a shootout with you.”
But there was no reasoning with Boiled, who just raised his gun.
“Why did Oeufcoque leave me?”
Still pointing the rifle at Boiled, the Doctor’s face now showed a trace of doubt. “You were the one who left him.”
Then Boiled leapt, brandishing his gun.
“Stop it! Do you really want to be outlawed from the Commonwealth?” the Doctor shouted, but the blast from his rifle drowned the last part out. The rifle round didn’t even scratch Boiled, and Boiled punched the Doctor’s slender body, smashing him into the wall.
Having rushed into the egg, Boiled
And that was the moment. Rather than heading inside, Balot had been sitting there on the floor, waiting for the perfect shot.
Her gun was red. Blood was squelching out of the barrel.
The barrel vibrated. A red object came pounding out. The barrel spat fire, over and over, and even though Boiled managed to cover his vital organs, the bullets all found their mark, whether on his arms or his body.
A ghostly scream surged forth from Boiled’s mouth. He’d been too slow to deflect the bullets. As impressive a figure as Boiled was, he was thrown backward. He scrambled for purchase on the egg, but his feet wouldn’t reach. He tried to grab hold of the edge of the entrance with his right hand, but the blood flowing from the wound that Balot had inflicted caused him to slip, losing his grip, and he hurtled into space.
Boiled’s scream was already tailing off into the distance when the wall closed, cutting him off completely.
Everything was quiet. Silent, just like the interior of a high-class AirCar.
Balot kept her gun trained on the shell wall. She could no longer lift a finger. Her eyes stared at something. Bloody fingerprints—left by Boiled when he frantically tried to find something to hold on to as he was blown away.
Liquid of the same color dripped down from the end of her gun and stained the carpet.
Red droplets ran from the gun down her wrist, dripping from her elbow.
The Doctor put his rifle down and knelt down at Balot’s side. He looked nervous.
“Is Oeufcoque injured?”
Balot’s gaze slowly moved from the wall and toward the Doctor, and she nodded.
Her hands still gripped the gun.
“What about you? You’ve cut your forehead, I see. Anywhere else?”
In a daze, Balot shook her head. She became aware of her surroundings.
The room they were in was like a villa in a holiday resort. A tall ceiling, with a staircase heading up to rooms with windows looking out onto a veranda lobby. Chairs were scattered around a chic table, and the whole place was furnished luxuriously.
The Doctor gently touched Balot’s hands.
“This is a Floating Residence, Humpty-Dumpty. Part of
The Doctor’s hand gently lowered Balot’s gun.
“You’re safe, now.”
Balot felt all the tension in her body evaporate and let go of the gun with her right hand as the Doctor indicated. Blood overflowed, gushing out from every crack in the weapon.
The Doctor tried to pick the gun up, but however hard he tried he couldn’t pry it from her left hand.
As she gripped the blood-soaked gun Balot felt a darkness encroaching on her from all sides. Balot was in space. She was inside a silver egg that shone in the darkness, and she was underneath the moon. She understood all of this, neither awake nor dreaming.
The Doctor peeled her rigid fingers from the gun, finger by finger.
“We’re flying through the sky as an egg.”
The Doctor’s face suddenly went puzzled. “Which one of us just said that?”
The gun slipped out of Balot’s hands. She heard a song starting to spin around in the back of her mind.
She receded from consciousness, but the charm continued, almost like a prayer, rosary beads and all.
The Doctor was saying something. Balot felt like she had turned into an empty vessel. Her body tilted backward, and she toppled over.
And with these words she lost consciousness.
People from the neighborhood were gathering around the building, watching anxiously as fire engines appeared on the scene. A number of police patrol cars appeared, closing off the area, and the Hunters and the firemen all milled around, their roles apparently jumbled together.
Boiled cut across the melee, driven by a sense of purpose. Some Hunters tried to stop him, unsure where he was heading, but he just flashed his PI license and curtly told them that he was on the heels of a material witness and that any police questioning would have to come via the Broilerhouse. The Hunters grumbled some words of abuse, but they let him pass, and he walked on in silence.
Before long Boiled found the gasoline-powered van. An airline company’s logos were plastered across its body and smoked windows. The door was unlocked.
As Boiled opened the door, he heard the sound of a trigger being cocked.
Boiled looked at the man in the passenger seat who was holding a gun.
“I thought that someone would come. One of the gang…” the man groaned. “Do you know who I am?”
Boiled took one glance at the man’s irregular fingers and nodded silently.
“Medium the Fingernail…that’s my nickname. A hound from the greatest pack of hunting dogs in the world. Or that’s what we were supposed to be, anyway.” Medium spoke through gritted teeth. His other hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth. His fingers had all been blown off from their base.
His whole body was covered with blisters, the left side of his face particularly badly. His left eye was shot through, and blood trickled from both his ears. His legs were limp and lifeless, his knees trembling.
Silently Boiled climbed into the driver’s seat. He closed the door and turned the keys that had been left in the
