Chapter 4

SPARK

01

It was four in the afternoon.

Balot was stirring stew in a saucepan, but she suddenly stopped. Oeufcoque was standing on the

counter sniffing the air coming in through the ventilation system. Balot poked Oeufcoque with her free

hand.

“Agh, that tickles.” Oeufcoque covered his sides.

But his nose was still to the ventilator.

He spoke with just a trace of nerves. “There’s an unusual smell.”

Balot poked at the stew. She lifted up the wine, bringing the neck of the bottle toward her.

“I’mnot talking about the seasoning.”

Balot placed the bottle down and leaned her head toward him.

“There’s a smell of carnival. A group of people rejoicing, about to go to a party, or a festival…or

maybe to war.” Oeufcoque spoke and sniffed the air again. “There’s also the faint, bitter smell of fear. As

if someone has been killed.”

Oeufcoque looked at Balot, apprehensive. But Balot was no longer afraid of this sort of thing. She

turned the heat down and entwined Oeufcoque around her fingers.

–Enemies?

“Probably. Check communication lines with the outside world, will you?”

Balot put Oeufcoque on top of her right hand and touched the intercomon the wall with her left hand as

he’d requested.

She snarced the receiver without lifting it, putting a call out to the police escort that was staked out in

the neighborhood.

–The lines are all ringing, but n.o.body’s answering.

“What, all three of the bases? What about headquarters? And try the Doctor too.”

–I’m not getting anything.

Balot tapped the receiver with her fingers.

–Something doesn’t feel right. It’s coming up that the lines are engaged, but it’s weird. It feels

like I’m contacting somewhere entirely different.

A claustrophobic, urgent atmosphere pressed in on themfromall sides.

Balot took her hand off the intercom and turned the stove off completely, and then she took her ap.r.o.n

off and threw it over a chair. She headed toward her room, Oeufcoque still on her hand.

–They’re coming, aren’t they? The people who rubbed out our police guard. Coming here to

a.s.sa.s.sinate us too.

“Highly probable.”

–I want to get ready. Will you give me five minutes? “What are you planning to do?”

–Take a shower.

She spoke as if she were talking about tending to her firearms.

Oeufcoque nodded. “But be quick.”

Dish, wash, brush…she felt the ditty spinning around the back of her mind as she savored the hot

water. Dash, crush, rush, flush…

She knew that having dirt and grime on her skin weakened her natural abilities. So, whenever she was

due to wear Oeufcoque she needed to make doubly sure she was clean. To scrub herself up spick and

span, polish herself up like a stainless steel knife.

As she washed she started to feel that she might be able to grasp each individual droplet of hot water

as it fell from above, down to the finest of movements. She probably could have. Even the destination of

the water. She could almost imagine the whole world flowing through her skin.

Under her control.

My body is my own.

The seed of resolve was planted firmly in the back of her mind.

She wasn’t going to hand it over to anyone else ever again.

She would protect it—and fight.

Why me? The eternal question was about to deliver up an answer that she had never even dreamed of.

Or not an answer, to be precise, but a reversal, turning the question inside out, just like Oeufcoque.

Whoever it is who’s targeting me—I’ll make sure they get their just rewards.

That was the answer she had to the question of why everything had to happen to her; she would take

the question—Why me?—and shove it right back in her enemies’ faces.

Dish, wash, crush, mash…

She turned the shower off. She snarced the TowelJet without touching it, and strong warm gusts of air

blew fromall directions, drying her body.

She rubbed oil on herself, luxuriating under the warmbreeze.

She was now the perfect blade, or so she felt. A blade so sharp it would even cut through its own

sheath. She was a sharp sword who had the right to choose what she would have wrapped around her.

And, of course, she had already chosen. Her one and only scabbard—and weapon.

Goodish, fresh, wish…

Balot left the bathroom. She stood in front of the desk, not a st.i.tch on her body.

She reached out her hand toward the mouse that was standing on the desk and sniffing his surroundings

with a pointy nose.

Oeufcoque jumped onto her hand. “Good to go?”

Balot nodded, wrapped Oeufcoque around her fingers.

–All set.

She imagined a dress, an impregnable iron fortress that would wrap her up completely.

Working with this vague image, she snarced Oeufcoque, running through his various programs and

adapting themone by one.

–Hug my body. Tight.

Oeufcoque turned with a squish.

Into the dress chosen—singled out—by his one and only.

The night melted like chocolate and seeped into the town.

The Banders.n.a.t.c.h Gang moved as one. Rapidly, silently, they closed in on the former morgue from

three different directions.

Welldone led the way, and Mediumfollowed swiftly behind.

Welldone checked the surroundings while Mediumstuck his Lockbuster Card into the rear door.

“It’s open. It was a triple lock—we only just made it.” Medium spoke and quickly slipped inside.

Welldone followed immediately after, almost back-to-back with Medium, and closed the door carefully

behind them.

The corridors were dark and narrow. Medium proceeded down them with caution, and Welldone

indicated to himto speak through their transplanted communication devices.

–We’ll leave the Lockbuster in and use it to carry our hack of the circuits. How long till we can

take over the building’s security systems, Fleshie?

–Two minutes should be plenty, Well.

–Rare, you enter from the south the moment we’ve overridden their security. Medium, you enter

from the main entrance, carrying the Boston bag full of firearms. No transmissions from more than

three meters away until we’re sure their security system is completely down.

–There are your orders, guys. I’ve pinned down the location of everything in the building. Heat

sources detected in the kitchen on the first floor and the north-facing bathroom.

–Go and investigate, Medi. See that the target doesn’t escape through a window. I’m heading to the

bas.e.m.e.nt.

Without looking back Medium raised his right hand to acknowledge, then glided down the corridor,

footfall silent, disappearing around the right turn.

He removed his gun from its holster on his hip, and his eyes flashed red behind his sungla.s.ses. His

computer-enhanced eyes picked up all the obstacles in the dark, clearly and accurately.

–Building secured. Sending through floor plans of the whole building now.

Flesh’s voice echoed deep in his ear.

Medium’s eye flashed. A semi-transparent diagramappeared directly over his retina. There were little

markers to show where he and the other members of his gang were, and the rooms where their target was

likely to be were highlighted in red.

–Move in, Rare. Mincemeat, standby on alert five meters from the entrance hall. Flesh was giving

the instructions now.

“Here we go!” Mediumused his real voice, not the wireless. A smirk formed on his face.

He pushed on, cross-checking the data on the map in his retina with what he could see, and decided on

his best route.

If he’d wanted to he could have brought up an image of the field of vision of the other gang members,

but Medium stayed fixed on the floor plans as he advanced down the corridor. It was a long corridor.

Some sort of special setup, thought Medium. This is ma.s.sive. Why would you need a bathroom that’s

more than twenty square meters in size? Must be to clean all those dead bodies. There was almost no

light now, and he pa.s.sed by a number of doors but barely paid them any notice. He’d already checked in

his retina that the target wasn’t behind them.

And this was why he completely failed to notice the white shadow that emerged from one of the rooms

and started to tail him, following in his footsteps almost casually.

Mediumturned a corner in the corridor and before he knew it he appeared to be inside a small closet.

Mediumfroze to the spot. Darkness enveloped himand seemed to stretch out forever.

–Fleshie? What the h.e.l.l is going on? Where am I?

–Calm down. Calm down. There’s a door right in front of you.

–Door? I don’t see any…

But then Mediumrealized that he was indeed staring at a single door right in front of him.

–Found it. A door. What’s on the other side?

–Someone’s waiting for you.

–Waiting?

–Someone’s holding a gun and waiting for you.

Mediumsmirked.

–Okay, Fleshie. Let’s work out if it’s our target or the PI. Give me their exact location and

physical characteristics.

An image flashed up in Medium’s eyes—an orange silhouette of the figure beyond the door.

–Wow, a giant. At least two meters tall. Must be the PI, right?

–That’s right. And if you shoot, you’ll hit him for sure.

Mediumaimed his gun carefully at his enemy beyond the door.

–Let’s see who’s the faster shot, tough guy.

He fired.

All fourteen shots in three seconds flat. He swapped magazines immediately, then kicked down the

door that was now riddled with bullet holes.

Something came hurtling toward him, enveloping him.

–What the…

Cold water.

Mediumscrambled to ready his gun, no idea what was going on.

Something slammed into his shoulders and body, forcing himover in a backward somersault.

He thought for a moment that he had been hit by some explosives that the enemy had planted.

But, as it transpired, he was wrong.

His eyesight returned to him and cut through the haze, and he saw it was something entirely different

that floated to the surface. A large white ma.s.s.

Medium’s gun shot up, a reflex action.

It was a bundle of wet toilet paper.

Soaked through now, Mediumtook his sungla.s.ses off and opened his eyes wide.

He was in a toilet stall.

This was the place that he had kicked the door down to and rushed in.

The toilet was in smithereens, obliterated by the electric charges fired at it, and it was vigorously

spewing out water.

“What…what the h.e.l.l is all this?” He spoke out loud again, unthinking.

He left the cubicle. On the wall to the right of him he saw four urinals. On the opposite wall, mirrors

and sinks.

The giant expanse of s.p.a.ce he’d been in had disappeared without a trace.

Mediumturned back to look at the stall again.

It was the only stall in the bathroom, and his eyes went to something on the wall above the destroyed

toilet.

Written on the tiles, in a bright poppy-red color:

I’M GONNA TO SNARC YOU UP!

–Fleshie, what the h.e.l.l am I looking at…

–I’m coming…

–What?

–Let’s see who’s the faster shot, tough guy.

The bathroomdoor opened.

All Mediumcould do was stand and stare.

A girl stood before him, dressed in brilliant white.

Pure as snow, fromtip to toe.

Her clothes had a bondage-gear feel to them, as if she were wrapped up in white restraints. Or it could

have been an evening dress, or a wedding dress.

One thing he was sure about—the striking figure in front of him was unmistakably the Teen Harlot he

had seen in the video.

Rune-Balot.

An unusual name…

He wondered whether it was the PI in charge of her case that was responsible for her extraordinary

appearance.

“Drop your weapons.” A man’s voice, out of nowhere. Surprised, Medium raised his gun. Had the

voice emerged fromthis defenseless girl standing right in front of him?

Balot’s left hand rose, and the snow-white silken glove turned with a squish into something else.

A gun.

Light glinted off its silver barrel.

Mediumgulped. His finger pulled the trigger on his gun almost reflexively.

A tremendous spark flared between Balot and Medium, lighting up the room.

Medium’s eyes were now wide enough to split his eyelids apart. He realized with horror what was

happening:

The girl in front of him had actually shot at, and hit, his bullet.

Howling like a dog, he fired again.

Sparks. Explosion.

Steel shrapnel splattered against the walls, spilled to the floor.

But this time that wasn’t all. Medium felt a searing pain in his shooting hand. All four fingers, his

thumb, and the grip of the gun had all been pierced by shrapnel.

The very definition of perfect marksmanship.

“Uh…” Medium’s face went white.

His left hand disintegrated and fell to the floor along with his destroyed gun. The water continued to

gush out of the ground behind him, covering the tiles.

Medium tried to jump out of the way, but Balot shot at the gun on the floor. At the grip, the magazine

that he had crammed full of electronically charged bullets.

All the bullets exploded at once, and a blue-white flame enveloped Mediumfromthe feet upward.

He had no voice left in him, and instead of screaming he danced a bizarre dance in the flashing light.

His whole body stiffened and burst at the seams.

The air was pregnant with the stink of burnt flesh and hair.

The blue-white light traveled across the water-covered tiles and struck Balot’s body too, but was

repelled by the white raiment that bound her body tight, fizzling away harmlessly.

Thunk—Medium collapsed in a heap. Sparks continued to leap from the side of his head. The various

electronic devices implanted in his head had short-circuited, and now pitch-black blood was pouring

fromhis eyes and ears.

He wasn’t quite dead yet—but he’d seen better days.

Balot looked at the geyser of water that was jetting out from where the toilet had been. She intercepted

the building’s water supply system—and snarced it. The flow of water slowed, then stopped.

She approached Mediumand, with the lightest of touches, put her hand on Medium’s forehead.

She sensed a weak current and recognized it as a voice being transmitted directly into his head.

–What’s the matter, Medi? Are our transmissions not getting through? Was the target there? We’re

not getting any response from Medi, Well. Medi, If you can hear…

–I’m fine.

Balot answered, in Medium’s voice.

–There’s nothing here. No sign of our target. I’ll continue searching.

Then she stopped snarcing the transmission, left the men’s toilets, and closed the door behind her.

02

–No, it’s definitely weird. It doesn’t add up.

Mincemeat heard Flesh’s voice at the back of his mind.

“Wa.s.sup, Fleshie? Explain to me what’s so weird.” Mincemeat held his Boston bag under one arm,

waiting leisurely just outside the entrance hall.

–According to Medi’s audio records, he’s just heard a number of gunshots. One of them doesn’t

show up anywhere on my database—my database. So we must be talking about some pretty unusual

equipment.

“So there’s someone with different equipment fromus. One of the PIs?”

–Yes, but Medi seems to be saying he’s all right…

“Hmm…”

–You’re the closest one there to Medi, Mincemeat.

“Fine, I’ll check it out.” Mincemeat gripped his Boston bag and headed straight for the entrance. “If

the target runs from the building you’ll have to get Rare or Well to catch her, ’cause I’m heading in to see

if there are any enemies closing in on Medi. Open the door for me, will ya?”

–Sure.

Mincemeat gave the lobby door a gentle shove and it swung open without resistance.

He walked straight on into the hall.

Checking that there was no one behind the window at the reception area, he shoved his hand into the

Boston bag. He pulled out the reserve firearms—in the shape of an attaché case—and walked down the

corridor in large strides.

He shed his Boston bag and pushed on farther down the corridor, where he heard an elevator door

chime and open.

He slipped deftly behind a pillar and silently opened the lock on the case in his hands.

The box folded out in both directions, and a double-handed grip appeared in the middle, which he held

firmly. There were muzzles where the box folded out, pointing outward—this was a fearsome automatic

weapon.

After taking note of his surroundings, he opened transmission channels.

–Is this elevator your work, Fleshie?

–That’s right.

–You want me to get in it?

–That’s right.

–I thought Medi was on the first floor, though? Do you think he’s found the enemy?

–That’s right.

–Send me the floor plans, will ya? Right, so that’s where Medi is. I’m moving on out.

–That’s right.

–Huh?

The transmission ended abruptly. But the floor plan showed clearly the route he needed to take.

Mincemeat shrugged his shoulders. “Jeez, talk about impatient.”

Paying close attention to his surroundings, Mincemeat slipped into the elevator.

He looked at the operating panel inside. There were five b.u.t.tons, one for each floor from the bas.e.m.e.nt

to the roof. The b.u.t.ton for the second floor was already flashing yellow.

The elevators closed, and Mincemeat braced his large body as best he could.

The pressure pulled him down. The lift was rising now with ferocious speed. Mincemeat just about

managed to stop himself frombuckling over.

The violent screeching of the wires could be heard overhead.

Then the elevator shuddered to a sudden halt, throwing Mincemeat’s huge frame into the air for a

second before he crashed back down onto the elevator floor, slamming his knee against the steel.

Mincemeat’s face was twisted in fury.

–Flesh, you little s.h.i.t! This isn’t a f.u.c.king carnival ride!

–That’s right.

–Huh? That’s all you’ve been saying since…

A cold sweat broke out on Mincemeat’s brown skin and his lips trembled as he heard:

–THAT…IS…RIGHT.

An unfamiliar voice, straight in his ear—inside his own head.

“Who the h.e.l.l are you?” Mincemeat couldn’t stop himself fromyelling out.

The elevator immediately resumed its ascent, throwing Mincemeat to the floor again. It stopped

suddenly on the third floor before plunging straight back down again.

“You s.h.i.thead!” he roared. He pointed the firearms in his hands at the panel on the door and shot it to

pieces with both guns.

The elevator stopped.

A smile returned to Mincemeat’s perspiration-bathed face. “I used to be a pilot, you know. That was

nothing…”

The lights went out, but that didn’t worry him. A click at the back of his eyes and his pupils shone red.

Dark, light…it was all the same to him. He rechecked the floor plans showing in his retina.

The bottom third of the elevator door had gotten as far as the second floor. With his two-hundredthousand-dollar

b.u.t.ter knife in his left hand, he burnt off the rest of the panel and pulled out the wiring. He

pointed his other hand, firearmand all, at the door.

His eyes skipped over the wires until he found the one that opened the elevator door.

Just then, a fizz, and something sprang up under his feet. An unbearable heat ran through his body. He

jumped with a shriek.

Something else leapt up fromstraight below him, piercing straight through his firing arm.

He rolled up his sleeve to take a look.

There was clean, round hole right between a pair of eyes on his arm. The eyelids were open wide, as

if the transplanted eyes were surprised.

Mincemeat broke out in a cold sweat.

It was one d.a.m.n thing after another.

The shot that came frombelow had hit the thumb on his shooting hand.

A series of screams emerged from Mincemeat’s mouth as he was shot again, in his hands, legs, and

b.u.t.tocks.

Mincemeat danced his bizarre dance to an audience of no one, yelling inside the box, where no one

could see. When he dropped his knife, that too was shot to pieces. An intense surge of sparks erupted

forth, scorching his right leg.

He found a moment to squeeze the grip of the gun with his right hand. He pointed the gun straight

downward.

At the same time, a 10mm bullet came flying into his left eye. His mechanical eye was crushed right in

the socket. Sparks and blood spurted out, littering the floor.

“I’mgoing to rape the s.h.i.t out of you for this, you f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h!”

Mincemeat fired dozens of shots at the floor, turning it into mincemeat, living up to his nickname.

Plenty of steaming holes were open in the floor now, and he peered through them, but saw no one. He

turned to the elevator door, shooting it up just as he had the floor. When the bullets in the top half of his

gun case were spent, he flipped it up into the air and gripped it the other way around.

He pulverized the door, leaving it a bullet-riddled mess.

“I’mgoing to kill you!”

He charged the door with his shoulder, and it bent open. He pushed it open with his left hand—now

minus a thumb—and tumbled into the corridor, out of breath.

Blood and sweat trickled down himin equal measure—his whole body was drenched.

He crept down the corridor, crawling, and hid in the shadow of a pillar.

–Fleshie! Answer me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Well! Flesh has been hacked! Well! Medi! Rare! s.h.i.t, answer

me, someone!

But the only answer he had was wild laughter froman unknown voice, echoing all around.

Confused, Mincemeat scanned the corridor to the left and to the right.

No one.

The laughter was happening inside Mincemeat’s head.

He tried to cut the circuits but found he couldn’t.

Tears welled up in his one remaining good eye.

Regression disorder, someone had called it.

The sounds of battle brought all the bad memories back to himin a haze of black smoke.

His helicopter had been shot down, and two days later he was taken captive. It was on the day of his

release, a year later, that he thought up his plan to transplant his wife’s eyes into his arm. His ex-wife,

actually—she had served him with divorce papers earlier in the year, when he was already at the limit of

human endurance, suffering all sorts of ill-treatment as a prisoner of war.

And his ex-wife had been giving him a look of the sincerest contrition every day—from his right

bicep.

Mincemeat tugged at his hair and ripped off his blood-soaked clothes, revealing all the eyes

transplanted onto his upper body.

He screamed a wordless screamas he forced himself up.

Brandishing his gun he pulled himself down the corridor, dragging his legs behind him.

The laughter in his head continued loud and shrill, driving himto distraction.

A pair of shutters slammed shut right in front of him—and behind him.

They were fireproof shutters—and odor-proof, made with the building’s particular requirements in

mind.

Mincemeat realized that he was once again trapped in a small s.p.a.ce, cornered on all four sides.

“I’m gonna f.u.c.k you up good and proper, you little b.i.t.c.h! I’ll rip your eyeb.a.l.l.s out and skull-f.u.c.k your

eye sockets!”

He was firing indiscriminately now, shooting everything he had in all four directions. Empty

cartridges flew in all directions, and the walls were remodeled under the barrage of bullets.

Just then he felt heat behind him. Mincemeat turned around.

The shutters were right in front of his eyes.

And frombeyond the shutters, more bullets came flying.

Both his knees were shot to pieces at almost exactly the same time, and he fell onto them, gritting his

teeth in agony.

As he collapsed both his elbows were blown off. His front arms drooped down, useless.

Every single blow was accurate to the extreme.

And in the twinkling of an eye—literally. For each of the eighteen pairs of eyes implanted into his

body were being targeted, methodically, ruthlessly. The liquid from the eyeb.a.l.l.s was splashed around the

room, and the crystalline lenses of the eyes, intermingled with blood and tears, seeped across his body in

a thick soup.

Screams of despair filled the airtight chamber.

Still Mincemeat managed to stand, and even as blood and vitreous humor poured from his body, he

managed to find the strength to charge the shutters like a frenzied bull.

With a violent crash the shutters buckled under the impact of Mincemeat’s shoulders. Blood splattered

the duralumin surface, and as he peeled his hands off it a string of liquid lingered behind.

He charged the shutter again.

The gunfire had already stopped, but he was no longer interested in that.

Then, without warning, the shutters opened, retracting into the ceiling.

Mincemeat became vaguely aware of a small, shadowy figure.

Gathering the last of his strength he screamed and charged at the silhouette.

He became aware that the figure had multicolored hair dangling down over a pair of sungla.s.ses.

By the time Mincemeat realized that he knew the face under the hair, the figure’s b.u.t.ter knife was

already embedded deep in his heart.

≡

Rare was overcome with shock, but he managed to wriggle himself out from under Mincemeat’s dead

body, which had collapsed on top of him.

He looked at his own knife, then screamed into the transmission device in the piercing voice of a little

girl.

–What’s going on? I thought you’d managed to trap the PI in there? Why is it little Minty? Do you

want me to come over there and kick the s.h.i.t out of you? What were you thinking, Flesh, you stupid

f.u.c.kwit!

–Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.

–What?

–That is the PI, right there.

Rare’s pale face darkened as the blood rose to his head.

–You f.u.c.king hacker! I’ll tie you down and have you gang-raped by pigs, you piece of s.h.i.t!

Rare ranted on in this vein for a short while before bursting into tears of anguish and pulling the

Hutchinson Knife from Mincemeat’s chest.

“Oh, you poor, poor thing, little Minty, all because that f.u.c.kwit Flesh didn’t notice that we’d been

hacked…you poor, poor little darling.”

Suddenly there was a click in his ear, and a transmission began.

–Come in, Rare.

–Is that Well? The real one? Not the piece-of-s.h.i.t hacker?

–Yeah, it’s me. Flesh is doing all he can to restore our secure line. What’s the situation over there?

–Little Minty…

–They got him?

Rare howled an unearthly wail as an answer.

–…I see. According to Medi, the target has run down to the bas.e.m.e.nt along with the PI. They’re

protected by thick shutters—Flesh is trying to find a way to open them. You head downstairs and meet

us.

–Okay, Boss. Are we going to sell little Minty’s body of for parts too?

–No, we’re a band of brothers. We don’t sell our family members of . Those of us who want to use

Mincemeat’s parts have the right of first refusal. Right?

–Of course. That’s right, Boss.

Rare gripped his knife tightly and meandered down the corridor.

–I’ll see you downstairs in the bas.e.m.e.nt, Boss. Could you beam me through the floor plans, please?

Rare’s eyes glinted red. Tears fell, blood-red under the reflection of the colored light.

He followed the route toward the bas.e.m.e.nt, wobbling from side to side, all the strength drained from

his arms.

–Head into the room to your left, Rare. There’s a shortcut.

Rare did as Welldone said, opening the door on the left-hand side. He descended the stairs and

entered the room.

–Lock the door behind you.

Rare was about to do so, then came to with a jolt.

“What did you say?”

Rare looked around, grinding his teeth.

A large number of lockers lined the wall. Evidently some sort of storage room for corpses—and no

sign of anything that could resemble a shortcut.

Gripping the hilt of his knife even tighter, Rare glared at his new surroundings.

The electronic lock on the door behind himshut automatically.

Rare snapped back to look at what had happened, and he saw a ridiculously long release code flash up

on the display of the electronic lock.

He tried the numbers several times, but there was no trace of a response. He kicked the door with a

high-pitched whine.

“How dare you, you piece of s.h.i.t! Where the h.e.l.l am I? Flesh! Flesh!” He carried on kicking at the

door, apparently not even noticing that he was now yelling out loud.

–You’re in the Archaeozoic Era.

Well’s voice—no, a voice identical to Well’s—fromdeep inside his own ear.

–And now you’re in the Proterozoic Era. And now Paleozoic, Cambrian, Mesozoan, and finally the

Diluvial Epoch.

Rare spun around in surprise.

–You’re in a sea of fossils.

Countless numbers of spirals flashed before his eyes.

Ancient sh.e.l.ls that had become one with stone were now appearing here and there and everywhere—

all around the mortuary, buried in the lockers—giving the distinct impression that they were in some sort

of prehistoric deep sea graveyard.

Rare jumped into action, bringing the knife in his right hand down on the nearest wall.

The metal melted where the blade touched it, and part of the locker slid to the floor with a thud.

The spiral sh.e.l.ls kept on appearing and disappearing as before. Proof that there was a projector

somewhere, sending the images around the room.

“You and your fancy tricks! Come on out, you pig! I’m going to rip you to shreds and f.u.c.k the pieces!”

Screaming, Rare raised his right hand, now balled into a fist.

The unusually thick bracelet that he wore on his left wrist started jangling. Without warning it fired

strands of metal in every direction.

A crackling noise, and blue-white sparks followed.

Thin strands wound back into the bracelet, and the pieces of metal clinked and subsided.

In a few moments the lockers in Rare’s vicinity had been reduced to pieces, collapsing into heaps on

the floor.

“Wire whips.” A voice from the shadows of the lockers. “Wires that emit charged particles. What a

brutal weapon.”

Rare turned toward the voice and without any hesitation pointed the bracelet in its exact direction and

fired his weapon again.

A blue-white flash tore through the room, and with the sound of a dozen screaming whips, the fossils

were ripped to shreds over and over.

For a second he saw a white figure caught in the wires, but it disappeared back into the darkness.

A hit, a palpable hit…

But Rare’s facial expression tensed. The bracelet’s rewinding function failed.

The display on the bracelet was going haywire, flashing randomly, and it wouldn’t respond to Rare’s

instructions.

“Electromagnetic waves causing interference? s.h.i.t…” Rare tut-tutted, and was ready to throw the

bracelet away as useless when, without warning, it started moving of its own accord.

“Remote control?” Rare stood there, astonished, and could only watch as the wires snaked across his

left hand and wove an intricate path toward his body.

Rare shivered in terror, his face suddenly pale.

The very next moment the wires returned to the bracelet at breakneck speed, and Rare’s left arm—

from the elbow joint down—was diced like a steak, shredded into small pieces that dropped into a pile

on the floor.

A scream—neither quite froma man or a little girl—gushed forth fromRare’s mouth.

Rare tumbled into a heap, watching as the wires flew into the air once more before igniting in a ma.s.s

of sparks and disintegrating along with the bracelet.

Blood oozed slowly fromthe stump where Rare’s armused to be before its amputation.

“I’mgoing to kill you…” Rare’s voice was full of venombut was masked by the sound of gunfire.

A bullet pierced Rare’s shoulder with pinpoint accuracy.

Rare collapsed head over heels but used his remaining good hand to scramble for one of the pull-out

lockers, using it as a makeshift shield.

Even as he did so another bullet pierced his left leg.

Giving a half-crazed yell, Rare still managed to move quickly and precisely, using the pull-out locker

as a stepping-stone to get a better view of the figure hiding in the shadows, the figure that he had almost

hit earlier. He leapt at it.

Bullets flew through the air, scoring direct hits on his right elbow and knee.

But Rare didn’t stop. He descended on the figure, plunging his blade downward.

More sparks lit up the darkness.

The blade, blocked firmly by two guns being held in a crucifix shape.

Steel melted, and the sparks lit up the room, allowing Rare to finally see his tormentor’s face.

“Looks like he has an artificially reinforced bone structure. The odd gunshot here and there isn’t going

to be enough to bring himdown.”

A voice. Oeufcoque’s voice.

But the only person standing in front of Rare was that actress from the kiddie p.o.r.n flick, all cherubic

and innocent.

Pressing the gun barrels away with his knife as hard as he could, Rare gritted his teeth and squeezed

out the name fromthe corner of his mouth. “Rune-Balot?”

At that very moment Balot relaxed and let go. She knew exactly what needed to be done to throw the

enemy off his footing.

She let the crossed guns slip downward to the right, and Rare stumbled.

She would have shot himin the back as he fell, but she couldn’t—the gun barrels were now half-fried.

Even as Rare collapsed to the ground he used his reinforced legs and loins to wrench his body around,

facing Balot.

The tip of his knife sped toward Balot’s flank.

More screeching and violent sparks.

Balot blocked the knife with her left-hand pistol. The incandescent blade ground into the body of the

gun.

Rare stared at the girl, a confused expression on his face, as if to ask What’s going on?

“Is she a PI who’s had her features surgically altered to make her look like her client?” Rare voiced

out loud, having decided that this was the only possible explanation.

Balot didn’t answer—she just thought back to Oeufcoque’s words, let go to get go.

She parried, sidestepping Rare like a toreador.

Rare’s feet tripped over themselves, and his blade made a red-hot arc that rent the air.

But he’d be back up, thrusting the knife right at her again, in just a moment.

Balot snarced the guns in both her hands.

The guns melted, fused together, and turned into a Hutchinson Knife, the exact same model that Rare

wielded.

Rare’s expression was a sight to behold—but he didn’t stop swinging his blade for a moment.

Balot switched the knife’s powers on and used her knife to block Rare’s blow.

The two highly magnetized blades collided, and an eruption of sparks burst in the s.p.a.ce between Balot

and Rare. Two bodies went flying.

Rare braced himself for his landing, gripping his knife the other way round now, while Balot

consciously relaxed her muscles and flopped to the ground.

Rare brought his knife down on her, and Balot nimbly thrust her knife upward.

Incredibly, the two knifepoints met exactly, in an infinitesimally precise head-on collision.

The knife flew out of Rare’s hands.

It twisted violently in midair before plunging into Rare’s chest.

“Gah…” Rare moaned as he staggered backwards into the locker-lined wall.

The knife was buried deep in his chest.

Frantically he tried to gain purchase on the hilt to pull the blade out, but the impact of the

electromagnetic current caused his fingers to flail uselessly.

He slid down the wall into a heap.

The stench of burning flesh emanated fromhis every orifice.

Balot grimaced at the vile smell. She almost vomited.

Before long Rare’s mouth was gurgling, overflowing with blood. The fact that the blood wasn’t

evaporating was proof that his knife’s electromagnetismhad just about faded to nothing.

Rare was at death’s door but still conscious.

“Including you there are four intruders total, right?” Oeufcoque asked, and Rare looked at Balot with

an expression somewhere between rage and tears.

Then his jaw twisted in a strange way. He opened and closed his mouth, and a reedy voice just

managed to escape. “I’ll have you gang-raped by pigs…princess…”

A gruesome sneer descended over Rare’s pallid features and Oeufcoque cried out, urgently, “The

smell of death! Balot, retreat!”

Balot understood immediately. Telecommunication equipment and reinforced sinews weren’t the only

things implanted inside Rare’s body. She leapt away from him, snarcing Oeufcoque to cover her whole

body. Oeufcoque responded as rapidly as he could.

Light filled the room.

There was a thunderous roar and a blast of pressure.

For Balot this was the worst sort of scene imaginable—one that she had already experienced.

Rare’s body exploded. The lockers were crushed flat, the ceiling warped, and the images of the fossils

were wiped clean by the blazing inferno that swept the room and the corridor outside, blackening all the

walls.

A large elliptical object emerged from the rubble, bouncing with a plop, then rolling across the room.

It looked almost like a giant white rubber ball.

A crack opened from the top, and from it emerged the figure of Balot, hugging her knees tightly to her

chest. She jumped down to the ground.

The rubber ball-like object spat out a snow-white garment that started slithering back into place

around Balot’s body, hugging her tight, like leather bondage gear. Shock-absorbent material peeled off,

sprinkling the floor like a cracked eggsh.e.l.l.

“Balot, are you all right?”

Balot surveyed her surroundings, scowling, staring at the still-flickering flames.

–I’m never having my body go up in flames again. I hate it.

Then she kissed her silk gloves, showing her grat.i.tude to a sh.e.l.l of her very own.

–So, where’s the last of our prey? The bas.e.m.e.nt, theysaid?

“Don’t refer to themthat way—you’re not supposed to be enjoying yourself. Are you?”

Balot laughed.

–I don’t know if I am or if I’m not. All I know is that I’m doing just what you two taught me to

do.

“But I…”

–And I want to get better. Like that guyjust then. Close up.

“And the idea of hand-to-hand combat doesn’t scare you?”

–Whyshould it? It’s what I’ve got to do, right?

“Well, yes, but…”

–What a half-baked little thing you are, mysoft-boiled Oeufcoque.

Balot impishly called out his name, a play on words, playing with him, and kissed her other hand.

–Don’t you worry. Trust me. I’ll pull it off, she informed him, matter-of-fact, smiling.

03

Welldone reached the bottom of the stairs and arrived at the bas.e.m.e.nt in front of the door to the

garage.

All of a sudden the whole building seemed to shake.

–What was that vibration?

Welldone raised his gun as he asked the question, but Flesh’s reply was bemused.

–It doesn’t make sense. The sensors just showed a heat reading large enough for an exploding

bomb, but it came from a room that had absolutely no heat readings up till now. No one could have

been in there. Maybe a trap that they set—something could have triggered it?

–But those vibrations tugged at my chest. Almost as if one of us had blown himself up.

Welldone was transmitting in a whisper now.

–Surely not, Well! After all, everyone’s heading right your way just this moment!

–Everyone…?

–Medi, Rare, Mincemeat…

Flesh hesitated.

–But according to Rare’s report, Mincemeat’s gone down, right, Flesh?

–That’s true…but all my circuits are secure now, so all our info should be completely safe from the

hacker.

–The enemy could have extracted Mincemeat’s transmitter from his head. The marker with

Mincemeat’s name—that’s him.

–I guess so…

–Or possibly—the same thing could have happened to the others too…

–Huh?

–Will this d.a.m.n door still not open, Flesh?

–Wait a second longer—I’ve just got the lock of . Boy, this is some security system. I don’t get it; it

must be so inconvenient to go through all this on a daily basis…

Welldone ignored Flesh’s words and watched the barrier walls as they opened out to both sides.

As a wall, it really was quite something. According to their calculations it was up there with a full-on

nuclear shelter in terms of strength and impact resistance.

Welldone pa.s.sed through the door and stood in the parking lot.

It looked like a perfectly run-of-the-mill lot, with s.p.a.ces for about ten cars, delineated by thick pillars

and steel frames. There were two freight elevators lined up side by side, and one of these had its door left

open.

There was a set of shutters down at the car park entrance, but nothing compared to the incredible gate

he’d just come through.

The moment Welldone noticed the shutters at the end of the parking lot he stopped moving toward the

meeting point and swung around, looking back at the entrance he’d come in through.

It was a completely ordinary door.

Just a normal automatic door, and it even had a transom on top—the shutters on your average twentyfour-hour

convenience store were more solid.

–Our visual circuits have been hacked! Welldone yelled angrily at the back of his brain. He kicked

the door in frustration. One side of the door bent with a loud crack and its hinges flew off, clattering

down the corridor.

–It’s just an ordinary automatic door! I was standing there with my d.i.c.k in my hands, waiting in

front of a door that I could have just pushed open! Flesh, give me a reading on the others’ positions!

A click, and Welldone saw an image of three blue flashing lights converging on him.

–Flesh?

No answer.

Welldone grabbed a gun in each hand and bent down, pressing his back to the wall.

The flashing dot representing Rare was coming down the stairs behind him. The flashing dot

representing Medium was in an elevator heading down to the lot. And the flashing dot representing

Mincemeat came toward him from the emergency stairs on the other side of the parking lot, swaying from

side to side as it descended.

“Specters, all of you…” Welldone muttered, a seething ma.s.s of indignation. “This is a disgrace! Rare!

Medi! Answer me if you’re there!”

Yelling now, he jumped up and ran toward the phantomfigure coming down the stairs.

He lifted his guns and fired.

The bullets sped into the darkness, embedding themselves into the walls and dislodging some plaster.

At the bottom of the staircase he spun around, firing simultaneously at the elevator and emergency

stairs.

The echo of the gunshots reverberated all around, and then the crisp sound of empty cartridges clinking

to the ground.

His bullets were soon spent. He slammed his back to the wall, creeping along bit by bit, expelling the

guns’ magazines. He opened up his coat and, in a well-rehea.r.s.ed move, shoved the bases of his guns

toward the spare magazines that were clipped to his sides, pressing theminto his body.

He pulled, and the magazines clicked off, making a noise like the pin on a hand grenade.

Each hand pressed a switch on the grip, the breechblock slid into place automatically, and the bullets

were all ready to go.

“These babies have got your names on them! Show your a.s.ses!” he screamed, eyes scouring the

darkness.

He was answered by an earsplitting noise.

The sound of a radio.

The car stereo from one of the vehicles in the corner of the parking lot blared loudly, headlights

flashing. Its engine revved violently.

The blare fromthe radio turned into the furious drumbeat of electroclash.

The tires scorched the concrete, and the car charged toward Welldone.

Welldone jumped away fromthe wall.

The car plunged at him. The steering wheel spun around, cutting a tight turn, and the car bounded up

and down, chasing him, suspension grating, headlights flashing ominously.

“f.u.c.k you!” Welldone fired shot after shot. He jumped onto the oncoming car, an abnormally powerful

jump, first onto the windshield and then onto the roof, shooting it to pieces before tumbling off.

The car smashed into the wall, its front half now totaled.

Welldone picked himself up and trained his guns on the driver’s seat.

But no one was inside.

Now a different car stereo came to life, headlights lighting up across the parking lot. Heavy metal this

time.

The engine rumbled, and the gas-powered car started closing in.

At ridiculous speed.

Welldone spun around and fired at the driver’s seat, but this car too had no driver.

He hid himself behind a pillar just in time. The car’s right headlight smashed straight into the pillar,

shattering—as if the car were trying to shave off a piece of the pillar as it pursued its prey.

Welldone took a running leap toward the next pillar, using it as a springboard to kick against and

change direction.

The car plowed on into the pillar.

Concrete flew everywhere. The steel rebar reinforcing the pillar were now wrapped around the front

of the car, merged into one ma.s.s.

The heavy metal stopped.

The drumand ba.s.s started.

Welldone landed on the ground and another car sped toward him.

Welldone screamed a wordless scream.

He jumped, firing at the driver’s seat again, but even as he did so the car caught his right leg, smacking

into himas it pa.s.sed.

Welldone’s body pirouetted through the air and slammed into the ground.

The advancing car continued on its course, slamming into the back of the car embedded in the concrete

pillar.

Welldone pulled himself up and, with a dark expression, spat—saliva, blood, and smashed teeth.

He ejected his guns’ magazines and reequipped them with a fluid movement and stared out into the

darkness.

The second he clocked a white silhouette in the corner of his eye, he pointed the barrels of his guns

straight at it.

He pulled the triggers, and returning fire came straight back at him.

An impact in his right knee. The same leg that had been hit by the car. Welldone’s whole body jerked

to the right and collapsed.

He rolled with the blow, firing off as many shots as he could as he fell.

None reached their target.

Another bullet came at him, hitting the same knee again.

His bulletproof padding shattered, and a hole opened up in his reinforced body.

A pitiful moan crept out of Welldone’s mouth.

He reloaded his guns, bullets hurtling toward himas he did so, but none of the bullets. .h.i.t him.

A suspicious expression appeared on Welldone’s face.

He wasn’t the target.

Welldone immediately realized what was going on. He gritted his teeth and sprang for cover on the

other side of the pillar.

That instant the bullets pierced the gas tank and the car went up in flames, causing a chain explosion

that brought the other car along for the ride.

A blast of flames engulfed Welldone, and his bulletproof coat was ripped to shreds as his body was

flung against the wall—like a doll that a spoiled child had long since tired of.

Even then, Welldone wouldn’t let go of the guns in his hands. He clambered to his feet, his whole

body pierced with fragments of unidentified shrapnel.

Breathing hard, he glared at the blazing fire and readied his guns again.

Without warning another volley roared forth from the flames. They were aimed for the gaps in his

now-ragged bulletproof coat.

His arms were hit, his shoulders were hit.

Desperately moving to change his position, he fired back, but the bullets just kept on coming.

A different type of bullet now, with an explosion of sparks on the surface of his bulletproof coat as it

slammed into his body. Charged particles flowed across his skin, frying all his exposed flesh.

Next it was a rifle shot. It sliced through his left shoulder blade and made a hole in the wall behind

him.

One by one, in quick succession, bullets of different calibers flew through his body.

Yelling what sounded like a war cry, Welldone peeled himself off the wall and charged at the

whirlpool of fire.

On the other side of the dark red smoke Balot’s face was a picture of delight as she fired her gun over

and over.

“That’s enough, Balot!”

An apparently inexhaustible supply of bullets emerged from a magical glove and disappeared again,

like a sigh in a thunderstorm.

She wore a satisfied expression, reacting to every roar and explosion as if to say That was me.

She was in control—overwhelmingly so.

The power to manipulate objects—and sentient beings—as she liked, bending themto her will.

This is it, she thought. This is the feeling that the men in my life have always been savoring.

Where previously she had been brutally oppressed, now she was experiencing the ultimate high.

Overwhelmed by a gust of pleasure so intense that it almost felt like pain, Balot grasped this all too

clearly.

“Stop it, Balot! That’s enough!” Her ears registered Oeufcoque’s shouts for the first time, even though

he’d been yelling at her all the while.

She hadn’t noticed because every time she had fired a shot, the shock wave of pleasure had numbed

her senses.

Now her aimfaltered. What’s the matter? she wondered.

Oeufcoque was trembling. He was shot through with an emotion that Balot, in her current state, simply

couldn’t comprehend.

“Balot, I’m begging you, you can’t misappropriate me so. It’s…abuse. Keep to our original tactics,

self-defense…”

–Don’t you worry.

Balot stopped firing one of her guns for a second to give it a fleeting kiss.

–I’ll be gentle with you. Leave it all to me.

Then she snarced her whole body with a sense of domination enough to make the blood turn sour.

“Stop i—”

This time she actually did block out Oeufcoque’s voice, forcefully silencing him.

She snarced both guns, turning theminto weapons she could use most easily.

Just then Welldone emerged fromthe smoke, both arms crossed in front of himto ward off the worst of

the flames as he leapt through them.

He rolled over the rubble, clocked Balot’s location, and stood up, his teeth bared. An expression

somewhere between fury and a smile.

For a moment they stared at each other in absolute silence.

Then they pointed their guns at each other.

Balot started laughing.

04

“It’s no good, I can’t get through!” Flesh wailed in despair. He was inside the shipping container on

the trailer.

“Well’s response—it’s as if he’s brain dead! And there are sound prints of over ten different weapons

recorded in his audio circuits…”

Boiled continued to stare at the monitor.

Flesh shouted. “How can there only be one of them? This is unbelievable? This PI Oeufcoque is a

freak! A s.a.d.i.s.t! He’s put Welldone in a coma and he’s shooting up the carca.s.s with a pile of weapons!”

Boiled suddenly interrupted Flesh’s stream of words: “Fetishism is essentially compensation for a

sense of helplessness.”

Flesh stopped his wailing and stared at Boiled suspiciously.

Boiled spoke. “Those who fight in a way that’s subconsciously designed to compensate for their

feelings of inadequacy—Oeufcoque’s skillful enough to trap them into his way of fighting. It’s as I thought

—Oeufcoque is providing tactical guidance, and the client doesn’t really understand. This is a deviation

fromthe designated Life Preservation Program—it’s abuse.”

“What are you talking about? I thought there was only one enemy?”

“The enemy is abusing Oeufcoque. Before long Oeufcoque will be forced to retreat from the

battlefield in self-defense. The enemy will lose her ultimate weapon…”

Flesh’s wobbly figure recoiled at Boiled’s voice, sensing a dangerous undercurrent in his flat

monotone.

“It seems that the target has been somehow reinforced with the Doctor’s technological trickery. It

seems that Paradise technology—Scramble 09—has brought another monster into this world.”

“Paradise…what do you mean…”

But Boiled just took out a long gun fromhis breast pocket, and Flesh swallowed the rest of his words.

It was a giant silver revolver, and it looked strong enough to pierce the armor on a tank.

The sort of gun that only a being with extraordinary physical strength could wield properly.

Boiled opened the cylinder to confirmthat it was fully loaded before snapping it shut again.

“A…are you going to go yourself, sir…?”

Boiled turned to look at Flesh and nodded.

“Then please be as quick as you can—I think Well’s in serious trouble.”

Boiled stood up and took the spare key to the trailer fromoff the wall where it was hanging.

Flesh watched him, wary.

“What are you going to do with this trailer?”

“Your gang has expended its usefulness. I wanted to gauge how Oeufcoque’s new user would react

when faced with danger. Now, before long, Oeufcoque and his user will be separated forever. I got what I

came for.”

He c.o.c.ked the trigger of the gun, and it thudded into place with a heavy click.

He pointed the muzzle of the gun at Flesh, casually, almost off-hand.

Flesh trembled.

Boiled pulled the trigger.

The gun roared, and a hollow s.p.a.ce appeared between Flesh’s shoulders.

Behind him a gaping hole opened up in the wall of the container, exposing it to the elements. The

whole trailer rocked fromside to side, and the eye-watering smell of gunpowder filled the room.

Flesh’s body slumped to the ground. He had been destroyed utterly from his chest upward, taking the

machinery behind him along for the ride. His cloak had come open, and his fat wrists could just be seen

peeping through fromunderneath the ma.s.s of exposed b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Boiled reloaded the single empty chamber with another bullet and exited the container.

He walked around the front of the container, climbed up into the driver’s seat, and inserted the key into

the ignition.

“I’mcoming. I’mgoing to acquire you, Oeufcoque. You’re a tool, after all.”

He twisted the key and the engine rumbled into action.

Boiled pressed down on the accelerator.

“Prepare to be f.u.c.ked up, you b.i.t.c.h!” Welldone shouted. It sounded almost like an order.

Both of his hands pulled down on his triggers. Balot did the same, simultaneously. Shots flew in

unceasing rapid succession. The bullets smashed into each other in midair, sometimes vaporizing each

other, other times ricocheting all across the parking lot.

Teeth bared, Welldone moved in toward Balot as he fired. Balot stepped to her right. Welldone

moved with her, mirroring her movements. The hail of bullets continued incessantly until one side

stopped. Welldone’s guns were both empty.

They both jumped behind pillars, but Welldone was the only one to reload.

As for Balot, as soon as she was in the shadows she snarced the guns in both her hands and fused them

together.

The two guns melded together and turned into a single giant gun. Her gloves integrated perfectly into

the grip, which formed the ideal shape for her hands: right hand to support and left hand to fire.

She burst fromthe shadows of the pillar, flanking Welldone and pointing the gun right at him.

Welldone screamed an inhuman cry. He had been trying to lift his right armto fire, and now it was. .h.i.t.

A shot to the back of his hand, a shot to the barrel, a shot to the firing hammer, and a shot to his elbow.

A streamof bullets.

The ammunition—the magazine that he had just used to reload the gun—exploded in his grip. The gun

was blown away, and with it all the fingers on his right hand.

Flying fragments splattered into the side of Welldone’s face, painting it in shades of black and red.

Still Welldone thrust his left gun out, unloading half the bullets in the gun in an instant.

Balot didn’t even try to dodge. She shot down only the bullets flying toward her face, trusting her

perfectly white garment to deflect the rest.

Two blows to her chest, one to her hips. But the impact was almost completely absorbed, and the

bullets didn’t even reach her flesh.

This is all you are. This is the best you can do. She felt like shouting at him at the top of her lungs.

She wanted to break himcompletely, thoroughly abuse and disparage him. It was what she needed to do—

and indeed she couldn’t think of anything else she should be doing.

Balot walked straight up to Welldone and fired at himwith all the rising pa.s.sions in her body.

Not a single bullet missed.

She hit Welldone’s legs, his shoulders, his stomach.

–No, you prepare to be f.u.c.ked up!

Balot screamed in a non-voice.

–I’m gonna f.u.c.k you up!

Her thoughts flowed through Oeufcoque and were spat out the other end as bullets.

–f.u.c.k you!

Welldone lay there, back to the pillar, arms and legs splayed open pa.s.sively.

And when, in a last-ditch effort, he tried one final time to lift the gun that was still gripped in his left

hand, Balot unloaded into his crotch, tearing it to shreds with another hail of bullets.

Frothing at the mouth, Welldone fired off a single shot in the wrong direction.

Gun smoke enshrouded the scene like tobacco smoke in a poolside bar that had no ventilator fan.

Empty cartridges from Balot’s gun bounced out onto the floor rhythmically, as if they were playing a

cheerful song.

Welldone slithered down the pillar, staining it red.

Balot continued to pump bullets into him even as he collapsed. With deadly accuracy she manipulated

the bullets, manipulated Welldone, and manipulated Oeufcoque.

Drenched in sweat, she stayed her hand for a moment. The muscles in her wrists were throbbing,

numb. The impact fromfiring the gun was now being absorbed by her, not her dress.

She realized that she could no longer hear Oeufcoque’s voice, and that it was she herself who was

suppressing it by force, as if she hadn’t known what she had been doing.

Balot let go and released all the power that had been building up in her body.

Her eyes p.r.i.c.kled with smoke and she couldn’t see well.

She tried to snarc the lights and the air conditioning in the parking lot but realized that most of the

circuits had stopped working.

Fires blazed all around.

Balot took a step back to survey a vista of rubble. The parking lot had been reduced to ruins; the

ceiling had caved in where the pillars had been destroyed, and the contents of rooms on the first floor

were strewn around the place.

The Doctor’s research lab, too, thrown into the mix. All of a sudden Balot’s eyes fell on an aquarium

that she had seen before. At the back of her mind, Balot remembered the Doctor’s words—that he was

trying to find a way to regenerate her voice box.

The aquariumwas obliterated, its burnt-out fragments intermingled with jagged shards of concrete.

The smoke cleared abruptly.

For almost the first time, Balot properly registered the appearance of her a.s.sailant.

His bullet-riddled body stirred.

The body that she had thought of only as a target—she had completely forgotten that he was a living,

breathing thing.

The mult.i.tude of dark red wounds that punctured his body reminded her of this fact.

Al