crowding his lengthening jaw.
This breakdown of the orderly schedule was intolerable. He would issue a reprimand when he was returned to his office.
Reuben stopped singing. There was gunfire outside.
'It's come,' he said. 'We're rescued.'
What was the old indentee talking about?
There were screams amid the gunshots. Shiba heard creaks and crashes, and knew that the compound was under attack. The fences were going down. The security klaxons were sounding.
The lights flickered and went out, then came on again, humming. The emergency generators were working, but the main power plant must be down.
There were explosions outside.
The cage room had no windows. It was most frustrating not to know what was going on. Shiba didn't care to ask Reuben what he knew. It was not seemly for an executive to appear ignorant.
He slithered away from the bars, and waited for further eventualities.
The main doors burst open, and a Good Ole Boy backed in.
He was firing wildly at something advancing on him. The doors swung open and closed as he fired at them. Bullets ricocheted, clanging spent against the bars.
Shiba warned the security man that his carelessness would be reported.
Something big came through the doors, and towered over the Good Ole Boy.
'Hallelujah,' breathed Reuben.
It was about twelve feet tall, and reptilian. It had mighty thighs and a tail, but small, almost useless human arms hanging out of the sleeves of a Petya Tcherkassoff T-shirt. Its head was the size and shape of the front of an old-fashioned helicopter, tiny eyes high up on either side, and its sharklike mouth was crammed full of large teeth.
'Yo,' said the creature, 'we come to bost yo asses out, homes!' It had a hispanic accent, and there was a five-foot scarf knotted around its brow.
It dipped its head to the Good Ole Boy, and opened wide.
'Excellente,' it said, chewing. 'Thass real radical, maaann! Thees
A green-faced, upright figure with combat fatigues and a Statue of Liberty crown of horns squeezed past the saurian, and saluted Shiba.
'We have liberated this facility, sir.'
Shiba reared up on his hind legs and stood like a man, tail lashing the floor.
'We are presently trying to locate the keys. You will be free within moments, sir.'
Shiba bowed at the soldier lizard, foreclaws locked in humility.
The saurian stumped off, whooping in Spanish, and Shiba heard lab equipment falling over.
'Be careful,' Shiba told the lizard.
'Discipline will be maintained, but the action is still being fought.'
Shiba understood.
Two Suitcase People, former indentees to judge from their dark hides, dragged Visser in. The Good Ole Boy was bloodied and shaky.
The lizard pointed a revolver at Visser's blubbery neck, and ordered him to turn over the keys. They were on a ring attached to his belt. The officer tore them free, and passed them to a female Suitcase Person with long, straight black hair and dainty human hands. She tried the keys systematically until Shiba's cage was open, and then progressed to Reuben's cell and repeated the process.
The lizard saluted. 'Captain Tip Marcus, sir,' he said.
'Hiroshi Shiba.'
'Pleased to make your acquaintance. Are you the ranking official here?'
Shiba looked at Visser, whose eyes were tightly shut, and nodded his head, slapping his chest with his lower jaw.
'We have received a surrender from this man. Do you accept it?'
Shiba lifted Visser's head. The Good Ole Boy's eyes opened. He was speechless with fear.
How much had Visser known? Was he another catspaw, or in on Dr Blaikley's schemings? Shiba growled, and felt saliva fall from his jaws.
'Sir?'
'Oh, yes, the surrender. I accept.'
'Very well.' Marcus nodded to the Suitcase Men, who shoved Visser in Shiba's old cell. The alligator girl locked him in.
'We're not quite sure, you understand,' Marcus said, grinning, 'whether to treat these people as prisoners of war…or as emergency rations.'
Shiba felt his stiff snout forming a smile.
With Marcus at his side, he walked out of the animal room. The House of Pain was messed up. Evidently, a lot of Marcus's people had suffered extensively here and felt the need to wreak a degree of retribution. But even amid the mess, Shiba could make out the remains of Dr Blaikley's programme of experiments. There were half-dissected alligators lying in shallow tanks of blood. And in the vats, bulbous organs were being grown. A child's paddling pool was incongruously lying in one corner, pale-grey quadruped reptile babies swimming in the shallow water. They looked up at Shiba with big, human eyes.
'We've been regrouping since the initial break-out, sir,' said Marcus. 'Mother Mary Louise has had this coming for a long time.'
Shiba would have to get to the .bottom of this backstory eventually. Evidently, his arrival at the Narcoossee compound had come very late in the plot.
'Where is Dr Blaikley?'
Marcus looked at the floor, horizontal lids blinking over his eyes. 'I'm sorry, sir…I accept full responsibility…I was unable to maintain discipline…'
He drew back the sheet that had been flung over the main operating table. Bloodied instruments clattered to the floor, and the naked and flayed thing on the red rack writhed, exposed eyes moving in the ruin of a face.
'Old scores, you understand, sir?'
Shiba laid a cold-blooded palm on Dr Blaikley's meaty brow, and felt something approaching regret.
It didn't have to be like this. Marcus's people should have known that the doctor hadn't acted out of malice. She was merely a loyal GenTech employee, doing her best for humanity.
If she hadn't died that instant, Shiba would have ended her life for her.
He paused a moment, in tribute to a woman of science. A woman who had done some good with her life.
Then, he dropped the messy sheet over her and accompanied Marcus back outside, to survey the damage and to resume the organizational reins.
There were reports to be made, and things to be done.
VIII
There was no sign of Colonel Presley's pink Cadillac. Krokodil suspected the old man who had been on the jetty of spiriting it away. It didn't really matter who had taken the car. It—along with all their heavy weaponry—was long gone and would never be coming back. While they had been distracted by the Josephite freaks, someone had cleared a neat profit. Ve-hickle theft was a capital offence in most states of the union, including Florida, but few people ever went to the chair for it. Compulsive car thieves didn't have much of a life expectancy anyway, and the professionals were much too cool to get caught
Krokodil, who still retained a residual prejudice against Sanctioned Ops from her gangcult days, wasn't sure
