after us another day.'
'No, Frederickson. I- '
A deep, burbling sound from the doorway behind him caused London to start, then half turn in that direction; only his soldier's discipline saved him, for if his gun had wavered I'd have put a bullet in his head.
The Warrior directly in front of me moved aside and turned slightly, enabling me to see the huge form of Hugo slumped in the doorway. Somebody had slit the giant's throat, and the last of his life was dribbling out through the fingers of both hands, which he'd wrapped tightly around his neck in an effort to keep it in. Hugo's eyes were glazing, but he had managed to stagger this far-and he was still on his feet. Now those huge feet started to move.
Blood spurted and pulsed when Hugo took his hands away from his throat. Throwing his arms wide, he uttered a bubbling roar and charged. Two of the Warriors spun around and pumped Hugo's body full of bullets a split second before Rafferty cut them down. London and the other three Warriors dove in opposite directions to the floor while both Lippitt and I fell on our backs and went for the lights.
Instantly, the laboratory was plunged into darkness that was complete except for a shaft of moonlight falling in through the broken window. I rolled to my left under a shower of falling glass and a hail of bullets, kept rolling until I came up hard against the wall. Rolling up into a ball to make as small a target as possible, I took off my smoked glasses and looked around.
Golly was still huddled between the two filing cabinets, face down, eyes closed and arms tightly wrapped over her head. Lippitt was crouched behind one of the filing cabinets, spraying bursts of fire down the length of the laboratory. Rafferty lay flat on the floor a few yards away, partially protected by the bars and base of the steel cage, returning the fire of the three Warriors, who were concealed behind heavy packing crates and another filing cabinet. Bullets flew everywhere, many ricocheting off the steel bars of the cage and striking sparks that hurt my eyes almost as much as the sharp, bright flashes from the muzzles of the machine pistols.
I did not see Stryder London-or Garth.
What I did see was a band of blue-black suddenly appear on the wall opposite me. The silhouette of a tall man carrying something over his shoulder appeared for an instant, and then the door slammed shut.
There was no way for me to make it across the room to the door without risk of being torn apart in the thundering, murderous gunfire. The nearest exit was the broken window, and that's where I headed at a dead run.
Lippitt must have caught my movement in the moonlight out of the corner of his eye. 'Don't do it, Frederickson!' he yelled, his voice punctuated by gunfire. 'London will kill you! Your brother's already a dead man!'
I left my feet, ducked and crossed my arms over my face, sailed through the broken window and did a shoulder roll as I landed outside in the snow. Rafferty's shout from inside just reached me.
I came up on my knees with my gun in firing position. Stryder London, with Garth slung over his shoulder, was clearly silhouetted against the night sky as he ran along the rim of the snow bowl, almost directly in front of me, thirty yards away. I braced, aiming the machine pistol with both hands, and fired off a short, low burst, aiming at his knees. My aim was too low, and bullets kicked up little showers of snow around his feet. The Warrior hurled Garth down the slope, then dove over the rim himself, disappearing from sight.
Rising to my feet, I ran forward, then slowed, dropped on my belly and crawled the last few yards to the rim; once I looked over, it would be my head that was silhouetted, and there was no doubt in my mind that this 'super soldier' would have little difficulty putting a bullet through it if he had a clear shot.
I was too cautious, had waited too long; suddenly there was a roar, and I got to the rim in time to see London on a snowmobile shoot out from an observation shelter used by both the Institute's researchers and its resident ski patrol and rescue team. Garth, apparently knocked unconscious, was crammed into a narrow space just behind London, and his hairy, naked body flopped dangerously over the side as London raced at an angle down the face of the bowl. There was no way I could fire at the Warrior without the risk of killing Garth.
Flinging myself over the rim of the bowl, I slid, rolled, and ran through the snow toward the shelter, desperately hoping there would* be a second snowmobile there.
There was, and London hadn't even bothered to take the simple precaution of removing the key from the ignition-a 'lapse' that I strongly suspected had been intentional. I jumped on the seat, reached for the key, and was almost bounced out on the snow when something very heavy and furry landed on the rear of the snowmobile, rolled into the cockpit with me.
GOLLY HELP FUCKING MONGO
I didn't know what I was going to do with a gorilla, except not try to push her out. London had already reached the bottom of the slope, and I expected him to race toward the throat of the bowl, a half mile away; instead, he began climbing the opposite face. I turned on the ignition of my snowmobile and, with Golly hugging me around the waist, shot out over the snow, taking a dangerously precipitous angle in an attempt to cut the distance between the Warrior and myself.
London had already slipped over the rim of the bowl by the time
I got to the bottom and started up the face. I was almost to the top when the thought came to me that it was highly arguable who was playing cat and who was playing mouse in this chase. I turned the snowmobile at an angle where its treads would hold it on the slope, shut off the engine and listened.
Except for the distant, snow-muffled chatter of the firefight still in progress at the laboratory across the bowl, there was silence: London was waiting for me somewhere over the rim.
'Go back, Golly,' I whispered as I got out of the snowmobile and snapped a fresh magazine into my machine pistol. 'There's nothing you can do, and it's too cold out here for you. I don't know how long this is going to take.'
FRIEND HUGO FUCKING DEAD
'I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry. There's no reason for you to die, too. Go back and find someplace warm where you can hide.'
GOLLY FUCKING WRONG
NO PLACE FOR FUCKING GOLLY TO GO
NO ONE TO LOVE FUCKING GOLLY
'I love you,' I replied, and as soon as I'd said it knew that I'd just lost a debating point to a gorilla.
FUCKING RIGHT
GOLLY STAY WITH FUCKING MONGO
'All right,' I said, starting up the slope. 'But you stay put right there.'
I crawled the last ten yards, slowly raised my head and peered over the rim. London might be able to pick up my silhouette, and he might be able to see shapes fairly well in the reflected glow of moonlight on snow-but I could see one hell of a lot better. What I saw was London crouched next to a tree in the middle of a crosscountry ski trail, slowly tracking his machine pistol back and forth across the rim. His snowmobile, with Garth still slouched unconscious over the side, was parked behind the tree.
I flung my shoulders over the rim, aimed and fired off a burst; snow kicked up around his feet and bark flew off the tree-too close to Garth. I stopped firing.
London fired in my general direction, but he knew that he was at a deadly disadvantage in this situation; he spun around behind the tree, jumped into the snowmobile. An instant later the engine roared to life and he shot off heading west.
?
LONDON FUCKING DEAD
'Not yet, babe,' I said, leaping into the snowmobile and gunning the engine to life. 'I'm still working on it.'
I shot over the rim. The snowmobile landed hard, bounced, and I almost lost control. I straightened it out, raced down past the tree and settled into London's tracks. I doubted that I carried any more total weight than he did, but the problem was that I had to stop frequently, turn off the engine, and listen to make certain that he had not stopped and set up an ambush.
Each time I stopped I continued to hear his engine-growing farther and farther distant. He seemed to be heading in a straight direction, away from the Institute, which suggested to me that he had a plan, a specific
