Rising Storm

'Well, that's always nice to hear,' Hate said.

Dog got to work on the gun, unscrewing the handgrip and carefully replacing the grip plates with those that had been handled by their mark.

'Really,' Hate said, rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth even as he kept his voice friendly and cheerful. 'All that way? Just for me?'

Dog Soldier grinned and shook his head.

'Well, thank you, but I really must go. Yes. Yes, everything is wonderful. Yes.

Thank you. You're very sweet. I must go. Yes. Good night.' Hate put down the receiver carefully. 'I was ready to go down there and blow them all away,' he snarled. ' Cattle!'

Dog chuckled. 'I don't blame you, man. People get to me the same way. Save the planet—kill all the people!'

Wendy walked along the dark street feeling totally jazzed. She'd been invited to a private meeting with Ron Labane! She gave a little skip and hugged herself.

When she'd heard Labane was going to be speaking here tonight, she'd made

arrangements to stay with her friend Diana, skipped her classes, and took a bus to Amherst. His speech had been wonderful, and even Di, who really wasn't that interested in ecology, had agreed about that. She'd been invited to go along to this meeting, too, but hadn't wanted to.

Wendy sighed. Di was a good friend, but she was more into dancing and dating than saving the world. Wendy would have loved her company tonight. It would have been so good to share this opportunity.

It was just pure luck that they'd found themselves behind two guys who worked on Labane's show in Oklahoma City. One of them, Rich, was kind of creepy, but the other, Joe, was friendly enough. He'd reminded her a little of Snog, a good sense of humor and obviously very smart.

They got to talking and Joe invited them to this private meeting. He explained that Mr. Labane was especially interested in talking to students in the high-tech area.

'Well, that lets me out,' Diana had said, grinning. 'I'm an art major.'

'Hey, you can come,' Joe said.

'Got a date,' Diana told him.

Di had told Wendy later that she thought he was hitting on her. 'When I want a guy to hit on me,' she said, 'I'll let him know it.'

Joe didn't act like he'd been rejected, though. He kept talking with them and joking. He was wearing latex gloves. When Wendy had asked him about it he

told her that he'd been burned when a battery exploded and the gloves protected him while making it possible to handle things.

He claimed that they had a special pass, but he couldn't find it. He kept handing her things from his pockets as he searched for his pass. The weirdest collection of stuff—metal and plastic and wire and string—but no pass. In the end they'd bought tickets like everybody else, which Joe's friend was clearly annoyed about.

'Did you believe him?' Di had asked later.

'Sure,' Wendy said.

'I hope you're not letting yourself in for a nasty experience going to meet these guys,' Diana warned. 'There was something fishy about those two.'

'It's at the Victorian, Di,' Wendy had said in exasperation. 'That's where Mr.

Labane is staying.'

It kind of annoyed her, Diana coming on so superior like that. As if U. Mass.

Amherst was a hotbed of sophistication next to Cambridge and MIT.

I bet she's sleeping around, Wendy thought cattily. She'd known other girls who suddenly felt all worldly because they were suddenly 'doing it' regularly.

Wendy entered the lobby and looked around; the man behind the desk had his back turned as he filed something. There was a lot of ornate furniture with red plush upholstery and matching drapes. The wallpaper was a sepia-toned print of acanthus leaves; the carpet had plate-sized pink roses all over it. She wrinkled her nose; it was very nice, she supposed, just not her style.

She went to the ornate staircase and climbed to the second floor. Mr. Labane's room was 207, at the far end of the hall. The hall was quiet and the ambience here was restful. She wished she could stay in a place like this: Diana's dorm was as noisy as the inside of a drum at a rock concert.

She found the door to 207 slightly open, but the room was quiet. Biting her lower lip, Wendy hesitated. She really didn't want to be the first to arrive. How would she explain her presence if Rich and Joe weren't here? By the same token, she'd look stupid hanging out in the hall like this. And if she was first she'd actually get some private time with Mr. Labane. Taking a deep breath, she knocked twice.

'Come in.' It was Ron Labane's voice.

She clasped her hands as her excitement surged, then nervously pushed the door open. Just inside the door on the left was the bathroom; Joe was coming out as she entered.

'Hi,' she said happily.

Smiling broadly, he lifted his hand as if to blow her a kiss and blew a fine powder right into her face.

Wendy started to suck in her breath in surprise, gagged, and fell to the floor unconscious.

'Gets 'em every time,' Dog Soldier said, brushing off his hands.

'Get her out of there and close the door for crissake,' Hate snarled. 'Couldn't

you have waited until she was further in?'

'Picky, picky, picky.' Dog grinned. He grabbed Wendy under the armpits and dragged her a few feet, dropped her like a sack of potatoes, and stepped over her to close the door. 'That was easy,' he said, watching Hate position the girl on the floor beside Labane.

'Yes,' Hate agreed. He spread the girl's right hand and touched the gun to her fingers in a number of different directions. 'Why did we have to replace parts if we could do this?'

'Extra measure of safety,' Dog said. 'Dude I knew got caught because of a fingerprint on the inside of a mother-of-pearl handgrip plate. Besides, we didn't know if we'd have the leisure. She might have brought a friend.'

Hate nodded, not looking up. Then he placed the gun in the girl's hand. Lifting Wendy up, he brought her close to Labane, the gun pressed against what was left of Ron's head, Hate's hand over hers on the gun. Dog wrapped the pillow around her hand and Hate pulled the trigger.

Wendy got most of what splashed, though Hate caught some blood and matter on his face and hair.

'Shit!' He dropped her and headed for the bathroom. He took a handful of toilet paper and cleaned off the worst of it, then pocketed the mess. 'Let's get out of here,' he growled.

'Sure,' Dog said. 'Bye, Wendy.'

They pulled the door quietly to behind them and went down the back stairs, exiting through the inn's rear door, where Hate had unscrewed a bulb earlier, leaving the back path in darkness.

'You wanna make the call, or shall I do the honors?' Dog asked.

'You,' Hate said. Why should he take the risk of having his voice recorded?

'Oh! Y'know what?' Dog Soldier said. 'You could imitate Ron! You could call up and say this coed stalker was threatening you and you'd seen her in the hotel and the cops should come and take her away, or something.' He grinned excitedly. 'It would be so cool!'

Hate stopped walking and looked at him. Actually, it would be cool.

Perhaps, thanks to a superior gag reflex, Wendy hadn't inhaled as much of the drug as Dog Soldier had assumed, or perhaps she had a resistance to it—for whatever reason, she returned, more or less, to consciousness before Labane's killers hit the back door.

Slowly she realized she was lying on the floor, and she wondered how and why this was so. Then, for what seemed like a long time, she stared at what looked like a very messy piece of raw meat. All at once she realized what it was she was looking at and her stomach rebelled.

Wendy tried to rise but couldn't. She threw up on the carpet and partly on the corpse. When she was through retching she pushed herself away from the body, weeping, her head turned away. She took shallow breaths, afraid