Longevity

their weapons, and put a second dart in them. He shoved Bedford’s gun into his belt and headed for the French doors.

There was a sort of a pop and flare from the direction of the cottages. Chris thought he recognized a firebomb, and lengthened his stride. As he passed Williams, he glanced down. The wounded detective had finished with the comu and was using the pillow to good effect.

“You’re still a… self-righteous bastard,” Williams said, “but you had… good point. About Bedford. One sorry… son-of-a-bitch.”

“I think the house is clear. I’m going after Livvy. If she doesn’t make it,” Chris said, “then neither will you. Other than that, you look reasonably good.”

As he reached the doors he heard gunfire from the direction of the cottages.

*****

Running gingerly on the balls of her bare feet, Livvy raced across the rest of the courtyard into the cover of the smaller cottage, the one furthest from the house. She had been easily visible from the house for a long time. She could only hope that the fact that her assault had been largely silent and that she had just taken out the guards that were probably responsible for acueye surveillance of the exterior would be enough to preserve the element of surprise. If someone had seen her from the house, she might have just killed Chris, and they’d be coming after her with everyone they had. Stop thinking about that, she ordered.

No one came out of the first pretty little cottage. The soft grass around it and the flagstone path up to its front door were a relief. The door yielded to her Masterkey and she went through it braced, sweeping the interior. There was no one in the main room, which appeared to be a hotlab, and no one in the bedroom, bathroom, closet or kitchen. Totally empty.

She moved from window to window, peeking out each, and couldn’t spot any guards rushing to surround her. Nemesis must be playing poker, too, she thought.

The hotlab created a small dilemma, and she paused for the first time, standing in the middle of the neat little interior. She was still running on cold fury. She really wanted to destroy Bedford’s and Josephson’s little private reset facility now, before someone stopped her, but unless she succeeded here otherwise, it would be only temporary, and therefore futile in the long run. Also, although Bruno had given her some nice little firebombs, she didn’t know how things stood in the main house. One of these bombs would draw a lot of attention, and destroy the remnants of their blindside.

There was gunfire from the house, and she realized her dilemma was resolved. Stifling her fear over its significance, she went with rule three: utilize distraction whenever offered.

As she headed back out the door, she rolled a triggered firebomb back into the room. It bounced back towards her when it hit a bank of refrigerator units and rolled under a table before exploding three seconds later. The sound of the explosion, muffled by the cottage walls, was relatively soft, but it was still loud enough to echo across the quadrangle. Also, the firebomb sprayed an accelerant liberally throughout the small space and a majority of the room burst into flames quiet satisfactorily. No one was going to miss the fire engulfing the pretty little cottage. Such a shame.

The next cottage faced the road and had a 5-foot-wide white-columned porch at the front. She made a small concession to her abandoned stealth by going around the back to approach the front door from the side away from the courtyard. Braced with her Stinger ready, she ran in a wide arc around the corner of the cottage into its small front yard. There was a man, she could see part of his gun and arm, standing well back in the doorframe. As her arc brought her forward to where she could get an angle for a body shot, her movement must have caught his eye, because he turned jerkily from his survey of the main house and fired straight for her head. He was either lucky or an excellent shot. The bullet hit the center of her faceplate, whipped her head back and jerked her off her feet. Her faceplate spider-webbed but held, and with a considerable painful effort she lifted her head and aimed her Stinger at the door from flat on her back through her bent knees. The man was gone.

The right window in the front of the cottage opened and a bullet ricocheted off the flagstone to her right. So he’d been lucky the first time.

Then it got very serious. An arm at the second window, the left one, swept forward and threw something that looked like a small, spiked ball at her. She didn’t get a good look, but she knew what it had to be: an armor-piercing grenade. Counting to three, she rolled desperately over and over towards the cottage across the soft grass and then, as she’d been trained years ago, flattened out, trying to meld with the ground beneath her. The explosion sent tiny fragments that shredded parts of her tunic and tore into her left leg and arm in several locations with excruciating effectiveness.

Livvy rolled the few meters more that she needed to reach the cover offered by the foundation of the cottage. They knew where she was, and they had armor-shredding grenades, so she was at more risk than she had been at any time since it all started.

No hesitation. Move fast, and move forward, into the cottage, where they wouldn’t be able to use another grenade. She scrambled clumsily to her feet, charged up the steps, and headed across the porch, toggling her faceplate open as she ran. Her charge was awkward, since she was favoring her left leg and carrying her left arm clutched to her side. The shooter on the right was firing at her but she was moving fast and only one of the bullets impacted, painfully, on her upper arm. Her armor held, but she couldn’t risk another grenade. When she reached the door, she slapped it, and the preset Attach’n’smash she’d been clutching ever since leaving the last cottage did it’s magic. The full force of its power blew the door inward. Following it in and going down on her right side, she managed to land on her shoulder squarely enough to keep her Stinger steady and fire twice at the man at the left window almost on impact. There was more gunfire from behind her in the small room, and ricocheted floor fragments hit her helmet twice harmlessly. She rolled over, and found the man at the other window. He was holding a gun but once she was facing him, he didn’t fire. He just sat there with his mouth open. Slow and not very bright, she thought, but there had to be somebody else in the room, because although she got off at least one shot simultaneously with the thought, she felt the dull prick of a dart coming through armor and then acute somnolence overcame her. Stinger. So close, she thought just before losing consciousness completely.

*****

Chris started across the courtyard, throwing excess guns into shrubbery and doing his best to run while clutching his ribcage. He saw the last of Livvy’s assault: the grenade, her roll towards the cottage, and then her awkward intrepid dash. It took his breath away. He heard a few more shots from inside and saw Louie come full tilt around the corner of the cottage, take the steps up to the porch in one leap and follow Livvy inside. He’d had strict orders to stay in the car, but he must have seen Livvy and then found the pop and flare of the firebomb too much. Overcome with excitement, he’d gotten out through one of the open car windows and followed Livvy’s trail.

Chris didn’t call out to either of them; he didn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t distract them and possibly prove fatal, and he frankly wasn’t sure he could take a deep enough breath to project his voice that far.

There was no more gunfire but when he got close enough he heard a man cursing and screaming. There was also a great deal of growling.

Braced with the Stinger he’d gotten from Williams, Chris went up the steps about ten seconds behind Louie. It was a small room, so as soon as he got in and did a sweep for anything still moving he saw Josephson with half of his right forearm obscured by Louie’s fully exposed teeth. There was a Stinger lying at his feet, along with an expanding pattern of blood from his arm. Louie was looking up at Josephson with a fixed expression, growling and tugging on the arm enough to keep him off balance.

Livvy was lying at Chris’ feet. He knelt stiffly to check on her. Although her left leg and arm were bloody, the bleeding appeared to gotten very sluggish now that she wasn’t in full-on attack mode, and she was breathing strongly. Williams should have already called for a medivan, which meant that they’d be there in just a few more minutes.

“Get this vicious animal off me,” Josephson said. He was surprisingly cool, given the fact that he had a 30 kilo dog attached to his arm and was surrounded by illegal armaments and a kidnapped boy.

“Good boy, Louie,” Chris said. He put another duoload in each guard, not caring if it was superfluous. These