Poole took another step forward.
Instantly—with unexpected, terrifying speed—the man was on his feet, keyboard spinning away behind him. Poole was yelling but Warne couldn’t hear him over the clamor. The man looked around for a moment, as if searching for something. Then he dipped his hand into his jumpsuit, withdrew it.
Poole spun around, pushing Warne roughly to the floor. As he fell, Warne saw a sudden flash brighten the vague outlines of the corridor. Immediately, Poole shot down the walkway in a scuttling, crablike motion. The man in the jumpsuit pointed something, and again the flash came. There was a whining sound above Warne’s ear, and as the sound of the coaster receded, he heard the echoing crack of gunfire. He shrank back instinctively, shoulders pressing into the sharp edges of circuit boards. He turned toward Terri, pulled her head down protectively.
Poole and the man in the jumpsuit were now locked in a desperate struggle. As Warne looked back, Poole raised a fist, elbow cocked high, and drove it against the man’s face, once, twice. The man staggered, shaking his head as if to clear it. Then he lunged forward suddenly, raising his gun hand: Poole chopped at the man’s wrist with the edge of one palm and the gun went clattering to the floor. The man reared back into a martial arts stance, then swung around with great rapidity, aiming a roundhouse kick at Poole’s stomach. Poole tumbled backward, the man following, aiming vicious kicks at his head. Poole rolled into a crouch and the man broke away, racing around the corner, vanishing abruptly.
“Jesus!” Terri cried.
Warne continued to stare, hugging Terri tightly against his chest, dumbstruck, ears ringing. The fight had been so brief, so unexpected, he wondered if he had really seen it at all. Though it had lasted less than ten seconds, it had been brutal, horrifyingly deliberate. This was a professional confrontation, each man working as fast as he could to incapacitate the other. For all his military airs, Poole had always seemed an unthreatening, even faintly ludicrous, figure to Warne. But in less than a minute, his opinion had changed utterly.
Poole disappeared around the corner, in the direction the man had taken. Now he reappeared, gesturing for them to come forward. Beside him, the stranger’s utility case was flickering brightly, as if lit from within. A stream of smoke billowed outward.
Warne slowly relaxed his grip on Terri and stood up, leg muscles quivering. He took her hand and together they moved cautiously down the passage, Peccam following.
Poole had snugged the fallen handgun into his waistband. “Stop there,” he said as they approached the corner. Then he motioned Peccam forward.
“Where does that door lead?” he asked, breathing heavily.
Peering around the corner, Warne made out a small doorway on the inner wall of the Hub. The door was open, blocking the view of the corridor beyond. Instead of a card scanner, it had an old-fashioned metal hasp for a lock.
“The tracks of the Scream Machine,” Peccam said. “It’s what the Hub is built around.”
“Any other way out of there?”
“Not unless you walk up the coaster’s railbed. But that dip is incredibly steep. Safety inspectors are roped when they walk that track.”
Poole hesitated. The acrid smoke from the utility case wafted toward them, stinging Warne’s eyes. Then Poole reached over to a nearby rack of equipment and, with a grunt, yanked out a retaining rail.
“I want you to bar that door behind me,” he said, handing the piece of metal to Peccam. “Don’t open it unless you hear me tell you to. If I’m not out in five minutes, go for help. All of you. Stay together, don’t split up.” He pulled the pistol from his waistband, racked the slide, then began walking quickly but deliberately down the passage.
Warne began to follow automatically, then stopped as his foot hit something heavy. He looked down. It was a large duffel, almost invisible beneath a low rack. This must have been what the man in the jumpsuit was looking for. From the end of an open zipper gleamed the muzzle of a large weapon.
There was movement beside him, and Warne turned. It was Peccam. He, too, had seen the duffel. For a moment, they stared at the weapon together in silence.
“I’d better take that,” Warne said, a little uncertainly.
Peccam looked at him. “No, I think I’d better.”
“I saw it first.”
“I’m a Utopia employee.”
“But I’m the one they’re trying to kill—”
“Hey!”
Both men looked over. It was Poole.
“Don’t touch anything. Just bar the door behind me.”
He slid up to the open door, pistol raised. Then he nodded at them, ducked around the door frame, and disappeared within.
POOLE STEPPED FORWARD into the gloom, shrinking from the dim rectangle of light that slanted in the open doorway. Dim as the Hub was, this cube it encircled was blacker still. He slid back against the wall, breathing slowly, waiting. The rectangle of light attenuated, then disappeared as the door shut. Poole heard the rattle of metal as Peccam slid the rail through the hasp.
He crept a few steps along the wall, gun at the ready. He didn’t believe the man in the jumpsuit had another weapon, but he wasn’t going to take a chance. Years of training, half-forgotten, reasserted themselves. He took a series of long, slow breaths, scanning the indistinct perimeter.
Gradually, his vision adapted. He was inside a vast box, bounded on all sides by the walls of the Hub beyond. Before him stretched a forest of steel pillars, rising from anchors in the concrete floor to a complex architecture of spars and beams. Somewhere far above hovered a narrow circle of light: the thin opening through which the descending coaster shot briefly beneath the Park. As he stood, back to the wall, he thought he could hear song or laughter floating down from Boardwalk. Here in the blackness, it seemed impossibly far away: a dream kingdom imagined, not seen.
He turned his eyes from the faint light. Right now, he needed the darkness.
He began to move stealthily along the wall, muffling each footfall, scanning the monochromatic landscape before him. He wasn’t sure why the man in the jumpsuit had run in here. No doubt their arrival had taken him by surprise. Even so, he’d continued to work as he watched them approach. That had taken balls: clearly, this was one hacker that was no slope-shouldered wimp. Poole wondered what could be so important that the guy would delay his own exit just to type something in.
But right now, that didn’t matter. The important thing was, this guy wasn’t the type who’d panic. He had come here for a reason.
Poole continued edging along the wall. If he heard the squawk of static, or anything that sounded like a radio, he’d have no choice but to take sudden action. Otherwise, the best option was to keep to the shadows and wait until…
With brutal suddenness, bedlam descended upon him. The steel beams shivered, and a wave of overpressure tore at his eardrums. He crouched, shielding his face. The roar was like an engine of God. He was abruptly surrounded by a coruscation of sparks; screams and happy shouts peppered the walls as the coaches of the roller coaster bottomed out above his head, then rose again, trailing cries and yells and curses as it shot up the ramp.
Once more, silence settled over the blackness. Poole raised himself, then stood motionless. Why the sparks? Must be some special effect of the underwheels. Whatever the case, sixty seconds and another coaster would come through, bringing light as well as noise. He’d have to find a place where he couldn’t be so easily spotted.
Easing himself from the wall with his elbows, he crept forward, ducking from pillar to pillar, gun raised. Something crunched beneath his feet and he cursed, ducking back behind a supporting column. Overhead, the giant double tracks of the Scream Machine swooped downward. The rails gleamed dully in the heavy air.
From a vantage point behind the column, Poole looked around, listening in vain. What the hell was the guy up to?
He tried to put himself in the man’s shoes. The hacker wouldn’t have expected them to show up like that. There was no way the hacker
could have known they were as surprised as he was to find somebody there. So he’d have to assume they were tracking him deliberately. He couldn’t know how many were confronting him, whether or not they were coming from both sides.
That had to be it. The guy thought he’d been surrounded. So he ducked in here.
But this was a dead end. If the guy in the jumpsuit was going to get out, he was going to have to climb…
This time, Poole was ready when the trembling came. Shrinking back against the column, he turned his eyes downward, away from the approaching cars. Once again, the shrieking fell upon him like a heavy mantle of sound. Manufactured sparks shot from the wheels, and for a brief instant, Poole saw the floor around him light up. He started in surprise. He was surrounded by a dense litter of objects: earrings, hairpins, caps, glasses, coins. A set of false teeth gleamed within a small pool of lubricating oil. At first, Poole assumed it was all trash. Then he realized: all these things had been jolted from the riders of the passing coaches.
As the coaster mounted the tracks again and the horrible overpowering noise began to recede, he glanced upward. The flicker of sparks died away, and he saw—or thought he saw—a figure close by. Its hands were above its head. As the faint light died away, the figure fell still, hands locked in position.
Poole fell back behind the column. It was the man in the jumpsuit, all right. Hard at work at something.
And whatever he was doing, the man needed light to do it.
Poole waited, counting the seconds until the next train would hurtle down toward them. He allowed himself no movement, not even the merest flicker of an eyelid: here, between trains, the man in the jumpsuit would be watching, too.
There it came again: the tremor that seemed to start in the gut, then spread outward toward fingers and toes. A low rumble grew all around him. And then came the descending roar of the train.
As the noise reached its crescendo, Poole peered around the edge of the steel column. There was the man, illuminated by the passing glare. His hands were once again over his head, and his forearms were rotating, as if he was screwing something into place.
As Poole watched, the man finished, dropping his hands and ducking out of sight.
But Poole had already recognized the movements. Now he knew—all too clearly—how the man planned on getting out.
Without another thought, he tucked the gun into his waistband and sprinted forward, racing toward the spot where the man had been standing. Raising his own arms, he felt his way up the railings, his fingers spreading in a desperate search. There it was: the cool, rubbery texture of plastic explosive. Enclosing it in his hands, Poole gingerly swept his fingers inward, palpating, searching.
There was a sudden, terrible blow to his temple, and he sagged to one side, feet giving way beneath him. The gun came free of his belt and fell to the floor, spinning as it slid away out of sight. The man in the jumpsuit leaped for it, scrabbling in the gloom. Pulling himself up, Poole raised his hands once again, found the C-4, searched as quickly as he dared for the detonator. His fingers closed over it.
There was a pattering behind him.
Slowly, almost lovingly, Poole pulled the tube loose from the charge, catching his breath as the end bobbed free. He turned, tossing the detonator out into the gloom.
The roar of another car; and over the traceries of sparks he caught sight of the man in the jumpsuit, on his hands and knees a few feet away, still searching for the gun. Poole launched himself toward the man, who rolled away. Then they were both on their feet and dashing from beam to beam.
Poole raced after the sound of retreating footsteps, careering first off one steel truss, then another. The faintest glimpse of a form to one side—black against black—and Poole veered toward it, catching the man by the knees, both of them tumbling to the floor in a disorganized heap. The man kicked fiercely but Poole kept to one side, arcing a blow down into the face once, twice, three times. The man moaned, then lay still.
“Tag,” Poole gasped, leaning back against a support.
In the distance, there was a sharp crack, then a flash and a puff of smoke as the detonator fired. Poole did not bother to turn. The coaster descended again, filling the space with sound and fury. Poole paid it no heed. He leaned against the column, taking one deep breath after another, until at last blessed silence returned once again.
TO WARNE, THE anteroom of Utopia’s Security Complex looked more like an elementary school than a law enforcement station. The molded-plastic chairs in bright primary colors, sparkling tile floor, large analog wall clock behind a wire mesh, all sent a message of cheery institutional solidity. Even the posters on the walls—touting the Park’s safety record, or diagramming the nearest fire exits—played their part. Like everything else about Utopia, it was carefully planned. Most of the people who found their way to Security, after all, would be paying guests: victims of pickpocketing, parents looking for missing children, youths picked up for horseplay. It was important that Security present a benign, reassuring appearance. It neither expected nor was built for hard-core criminals.
Warne pulled his gaze from the walls, glancing back at the surrounding chairs. Terri Bonifacio was sitting beside him. To her right, Peccam was gingerly sorting through the heavy duffel they’d brought back from the Hub. Beyond, Allocco was talking to Poole.
Warne put his arm around Terri’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Me? I’ve been accused, accosted, stalked, shot at. And the day’s still young. Why shouldn’t I be okay?”
He drew her toward him affectionately. “This is my fault. I’m sorry you had to get involved in this.”
“Hey, don’t fool yourself. It’s more exciting than programming servos and doing code reviews.” She smiled, but the usual impish gleam was missing.
Warne turned back toward Allocco. He knew that he should be listening. But it was as Terri just implied: the whole afternoon had taken on such a surreal cast that he seemed set free from any normal script. As in a dream, he felt he could do, or say, anything, no matter how unexpected or outrageous, and the situation around him would adjust itself to…
There: it was starting again. He forced himself to listen.
“You’re telling me this punk set the thing himself?” Allocco was saying.
“Affirmative. There was already a hefty shaped charge in place beneath the rails of that big old coaster of yours. One of several, no doubt, they’d previously distributed around the park. With me so far?”
Allocco had turned a little gray, but nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, when this guy found himself ambushed, he ran inside, where the track supports were. He’d dropped his weapon, didn’t have time to grab another. But he did have a detonator. He planned to set the charge, then take cover until it blew. Once the next set of cars came plummeting down the track…” Poole shrugged, waved one hand. “Well, he’d escape in the aftermath.”
“Jesus, that’s cold,” Allocco said in a tone of disbelief. “Those Scream Machine trains hold a hundred and twenty people each.”
There was a brief silence as the little group digested this.
Allocco glanced at Warne. “Maybe this thing still has me a little loopy. But I thought you said you were searching for a piece of equipment. Were you just feeding us bullshit? You knew we wouldn’t let you go if you told us the truth?”
Warne shook his head. “No. It was very clever. He’d set up a remote command post, concealing it as a simple hardware router. One of a thousand. Nobody looking for an intruder would have ever found him. If I hadn’t picked apart his code, known what to look for…” He paused. “Even so, it was mostly luck.”
“We’ll see how lucky we are when John Doe finds out we’ve nabbed one of his goons. If he doesn’t already know.”
Warne shot Allocco a glance. “What do you mean?”
“Because, while you were playing hide-and-seek in the Hub, we lost our video feeds.”
“Lost? What do you mean, lost?”
“
As in all our surveillance cameras. In the Park itself, the Underground, everywhere. The only places not affected are the casinos, which have their own closed-circuit surveillance, and C Level, below us. We’re basically blind.”
“Sweet sister Sadie.” Poole gave a low whistle.
“I think our touch-typist friend can be thanked for that,” Warne said. He thought back to the darkness of the Hub, and how the man had just stared at them, fingers still moving across the keyboard. “He entered something on his keyboard after he spotted us.”
“You’ve got to hand it to him,” Poole said. “Quite a cool customer.”
“The only thing I’m handing him is a one-way ticket to Nevada Correctional,” Allocco said. “So, what scraps did he leave us? Can we appropriate his equipment, reverse the damage, figure out what he was up to?”
Warne shook his head. “He had a state-of-the-art minicomputer concealed in an equipment box. But it was rigged somehow. When he ran away, he set it off. Torched it.”
“A thermite charge,” Poole added. “Fused everything solid.”
“I see. So these boys are still two steps ahead of everything we do.” Allocco turned to Peccam. “What have you got, Ralph?”
The youth’s hands were deep inside the satchel. “Let’s see. There’s a spare radio”—he brought it out with a sniff, placing it on a low table—“but with a scrambler, just as useless as the one in the Hub. Various clips and cables and whatnot. And some very high-end networking equipment. About fifty packs of Nicorette gum. Some of these things, I don’t know what they are.” He held up a small strand of cablelike material.
“Det cord,” Allocco and Poole said in unison.
“Det cord. A couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
Poole reached over and withdrew one, unwrapped the waxed paper, peeled apart the bread. “I’d guess Jif, chunky style. Excellent choice.”
“Get on with it,” Allocco growled, running a balm stick over his lips.
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