"You must be Michael Loring." He offered me a hand and shook with a strong, dry grip. "And you're Natasha Farrell. I'm Charles Goyette. Come on into the studio and we'll get you situated."
He led us to a security door and punched a combination into the lock. We followed him through that down a Corridor and past a bank of monitors carrying news from the four major stations in Phoenix. Halfway through the newsroom we turned right, and after a short walk through a dark corridor we entered the studio to the left.
Charles slipped behind the control desk and pointed me to the chair opposite him. He put Natch on my right so we both could face him. Beyond her, a huge picture window opened out onto Eclipse. Behind us, a glass wall let Charles look on into the operations room where his broadcast engineer and a member of the news team were working to produce the newscast droning on in low tones in the studio.
"Just pull the microphones toward you. You want them at mouth level, about two to three inches from your lips. You'll need your headphones when we take callers." He shuffled some notes and glanced at the computer monitor to his left. "This should be a good segment, so I expect the boards to light up. We'll be on a seven-second delay, so if something slips out, we'll get it."
He handed each of us a preprinted card. "Study this and sign it. It's just a precaution, but we have to do it to stay legal."
I took it and flipped from one side to the other before reading. The back had a map of the station and a red line running from the studio to an emergency exit. I assumed, before I started in on the text, it was a fire prevention card detailing the escape route, but the text proved me wrong. It read:
In accordance with the Gwyn-Rogovitch ordinance (Phoenix Municipal Code 23-491-020-01), I, the undersigned, have been informed of the evacuation route in case of an armed incursion of this broadcast facility. I certify I have no firearms on my person and all combat will be left to the staff and security personnel to handle in the event of an incursion.
I raised an eyebrow. "Gwyn-Rogovitch ordinance?"
Charles nodded. "I forgot, you're not from Phoenix originally. In the 1980s and '90s, we had a couple of incidents here. A madman, Billie Gwyn, took a local TV anchorman hostage in the studio and forced him to broadcast a statement. In the 1992 a quadruple murderer, Pete Rogovitch, commandeered a radio promotion van to make his escape. The City Council decided that all radio and TV personalities and employees should then go armed to prevent such things from happening again."
I frowned. "Wouldn't increasing police coverage be a better idea?"
Charles shrugged easily. "Ratings battles during sweeps get nasty around here, and Scorpion Security didn't want any part of getting into the middle of that. But don't worry, there hasn't been an incident since the pirate station out in Glendale got involved with a firefight with Ev Mecham supporters in '02."
"Charles, on the air in 10," came the engineer's voice through the studio's speakers.
Charles nodded at the man in the room behind us, then watched the clock click down on the computer monitor. As the hour became 7:00:00, our host leaned in toward the microphone. "This is Charles Goyette here with another program in KTAR's long-running Jobline series. Tonight, we have two delightful guests. With me is the new CEO of Lorica Industries, Michael Loring, and Natasha Farrell, one of the first enrollees in Lorica's 'Adventures in Opportunity' program. Welcome."
"Thanks, Charles."
He looked down at his notes, then smiled. "Lorica Industries has opened a new program that you're calling Adventures in Opportunity. What can you tell us about this program?"
I looked up and made eye contact with Charles. "Lorica is starting to hire people who are willing to take a chance on getting out of their present circumstances. Right now, for example, we are starting Phase One of the AIO program, and that calls for a total of 300 men and women who are willing to travel away from Phoenix for somewhere between one to three months. We will be providing meals, board, transportation, tools, insurance, benefits and a generous salary, but everyone should understand that it will be hard work and perhaps even slightly dangerous."
"Hence the program title, Adventures in Opportunity."
"Exactly. We're going to be hiring through the Sunburst Foundation, so people can get details through them. We want a wide range of experience, because we'll be forming our own little community while we get the job done."
Charles nodded and looked over at Natch. "Now Ms. Farrell, you're one of the first people to enroll in the program. You've lived here in Phoenix all your life?"
"Y-yes." Natch started a bit nervously, but the host's smile helped cut the tension. "I lived in Eclipse and heard of this program from a friend at Sunburst."
"So you applied ahead of time?"
"Natasha is going to be one of our screeners and project coordinators," I interjected. "She is part of the staff we're using to put this program together."
"What attracted you to the program, Natasha?"
"The chance it offered, I guess. Living in Eclipse, like, the Frozen Shade almost feels like a cork in a bottle, you know?" She looked at the window for a second, then continued. "I saw this as a chance at getting out of the bottle. Out from Phoenix, I'll get a chance to learn something about myself. If I don't feel like I'm living under a rock, maybe I won't feel like a bug. Can't hurt to find out, anyway."
I smiled and gave Natch a wink. The host turned back to me and asked another question, which I answered quickly, then we went to a commercial. The show continued in an easygoing style, alternating between a general discussion of the city to dealing with callers who wanted to know if they or someone they knew would be suitable for the AIO program. Things went well and, all too quickly, the hour came to an end.
"Well, that's it for this hour. After the news we'll be back with the head of the Phoenix Skeptics discussing the continuing controversy about GFOs and other weird things pouring into our state from Nevada." Charles hit a button on the console and pulled off his earphones. "Hey, that was a great show. We'll have to do two hours next time."
"I look forward to it," I told him. The show had given me hope, because I knew the next day we'd have thousands of people applying for the few positions we did have open. At the same time, the desperation I heard in some voices made me wonder if Natch had been right to question our ability to make changes. In our alliance with Fiddleback, we might have enough power to destroy Pygmalion, but that still left us with Fiddleback, and he was, by no means, an impotent enemy.
A sense of impending doom started to build in me as I thanked Charles. We left him in the lobby to greet a short, heavy-set man with a beard, and headed out of the building. As the door clicked shut behind us, I turned toward Natch. "You did a great job."
"Thanks."
We set off back toward City Center, and I suddenly realized why I felt uneasy, and I knew it had nothing to do with Fiddleback and the danger he presented. We had been broadcasting on the radio from a place that was a well known location. We left the building within a predictably short time after the end of the broadcast and, for security reasons, we even exited through the same door we had used to enter the building.
We had provided anyone having the means and motive with a grand opportunity.
The Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance took it. Two blond young men in gray wool longcoats stepped out of the Ultra-shuttle waiting shelter. The yanked their coats open and brought their weapons to bear. I turned to warn Natch, but before I could say anything, I heard thunder and watched her fold around a shotgun blast to her stomach.
In that instant, I returned to the training I had gone through for as long as I had been Fiddleback's tool. Drifting toward my left, eclipsing Natch's falling body with my own, I eluded most of the shotgun blast meant for me. I felt pellets hit and heard them thwap through the plastic of my windbreaker, but the Kevlar softened the blow of the four or five that hit me.
One part of my mind assessed the damage that had been done. I felt pain, which meant the vest had not stopped
all the pellets. I knew, given the physics behind the way Kevlar worked and the reality of shotgun ballistics that I was lucky anything had been stopped. By the time I moved a step closer to the shotgunner, I had determined the damage to me was minor at best and that I could close and kill the shotgunner before he could break the weapon open and reload.
His partner brought up a silenced and suppressed Ingram Mac-10, but my swing to the left meant his partner shielded me. If he wanted to burn his friend, I was dead. This close, the Mac-10's .45-caliber slugs would blow clean through my vest and, since the Aryans had provided the vest in the first place, I could not rule out the gun having been loaded with Teflon-coated shells.
Counting on some vague honor among white supremist trash, I used the cover and made my move. Sprinting forward and off to the side, I reached the railing that guarded the pedestrian walkway on the edge of the up-street. I vaulted up and over it, then dropped away into space as bullets pinged and sparked off the railing.
The Aryans had been using Teflon bullets. One hit me in the left shoulder, knocking me back and around through freefall. A wave of pain crashed through me, and in its wake I could feel the grinding click of my shoulder girdle trying to accommodate disintegrating bones.
I had leaped from the up-street knowing the long drop would likely injure me, but injury beat certain death. Now, with the motion imparted by the bullet, I fell out of control. Twisted around, I could not see where I was going and with my body falling parallel to the ground, there was no way I could get my feet under me to break my fall. Knowing that, I went limp and hoped for the best on my landing.
I missed best by a wide margin.
Whatever I hit, it snapped my spine cleanly and numbed the lower half of my body instantly. Even though I could not feel them, my legs hit the ground hard and bounced back up, folding me forward as if I were trying to bring my feet up over my head to touch the ground. As that happened, I somersaulted backward, then landed on my face and tasted dust on my lips.
I fought to banish the pain throbbing out of my left shoulder in sympathetic rhythm with the agony tracing itself up my back. I knew instantly that my legs were as useless as my left arm, but even at that I was better off than Natch. I was still alive and stood a chance at remaining that way. Clawing at the dirt, I knew if I could drag myself into the shadow of the fragmentary brick wall that had broken my back, the Aryan with the Mac-10 might not be able to shoot me.
"You are too stupid to live, Loring!" I heard someone shout from above. I heard a faint click, then a thump followed shortly by a second thump. Looking up, not 10 feet from my face, I saw a blue sphere land in the dust in front of me. I stared at it and, in a moment of crystal clarity, I realized the gold symbol embossed on the grenade's blue plastic shell was the Build-more corporate logo.
Sinclair MacNeal swallowed hard as he saw Bat step into the briefing room doorway. The larger man had both hands locked into fists. He wore a pistol on his hip and a bandolier of clips across his broad chest, but Sin knew from the set of his shoulders and the snarl on his face, Bat meant to do his grim work with his hands alone. The gun was along because even Bat knew he'd be stupid to attempt what he was setting out to do without one.
"I can't let you go, Bat." Sin looked around the room for support, and got it from Rajani and Hal, but the Yidam, Vetha and Crowley remained aloof. "You can't do this."
The fire in Bat's eyes suggested madness, but the cold, cruel way he smiled told Sin that the pit fighter was 100% in control of himself. "I do not need your permission."
"Bat, this is stupid. You don't even know the Aryans were the ones who pulled the triggers." Sin fought to keep pleading out of his voice, but he could not. "If you do this you'll be betraying Coyote's trust in you."
"Natch is dead. She trusted me." Bat's hands flexed and closed as if he had a throat in his grasp. "Heinrich and his Aryans are bragging. Now they pay."
"Bat, you don't know. Coyote is in the Barrow Neurological Center. He may come out of his coma and tell us who really did it!"
Bat's left fist slammed down on the briefing room's table, making coffee mugs jump and leaving a dent in the wood. "You do not control me. You do not control this group."
"Before he left for the radio show, Coyote told Nero Loring and I that we should see to it that things keep going." Sin rubbed at his forehead with the fingers of his left hand. "I understand why you've been going after the Reapers — they took Natch's body and you have witnesses who bear that out. But this, you're just guessing. We don't need you dead, too. Put the weapons away and start thinking for a change."
"I've thought plenty, MacNeal, and I know your game." Before Sin could do anything, Bat crossed the gap between them and grabbed a hunk of shirt-front in his left hand. The fighter hauled Sin up and pinned him against the far wall. "The Aryans work for your father. Don't think you can protect him." Bat pulled his right fist back. "I will hurt him, and I think I will start by hurting you."
"No." The contradictory whisper came as gently as the way the pale, long-fingered hand encircled Bat's right wrist. As his fist started to move forward, the hand tightened and drew the fighter's arm down and around. Before his arm could be shoved up behind his back, he twisted around, and Sin felt the grip on his shirt slacken.
Both he and Bat stood with jaws agape. "Jytte?" they asked in unison.
Sin had always seen her as a beautiful woman who lived inside an invisible cage. He knew she functioned as the computer wizard of the group and had seen ample and excellent examples of her skills. Despite being obviously intelligent, she had seemed mechanical and cold — not unfeeling, but unable to feel and share feelings. He realized in an instant he had thought of her more as an appliance than any sort of human being.
The blond woman nodded. "I, too, have been...thinking. I owe you all an apology, for much of this is my fault. I should have seen...things. I believe we can regain what we have lost, but I will need your help — all of you."
Sin sat at the table without straightening his shirt. Jytte had changed — the difference was tangible yet elusive. She wore the same clothes she had always worn, and they hid most of her body, yet she seemed to move with them as opposed to within them. He had heard that she had helped Natch with her makeup before she left with Coyote, so he looked for any sign that she had applied her skills to herself. He could see none, but he knew well that it could mean that her skills were sufficient to disguise themselves.
Bat dropped into the seat beside him as Jytte walked to the head of the table. "Coyote's prognosis is very bad. A Scorpion Security report suggests that with his right arm he managed to push himself away from the grenade. Instead of taking the blast in the head and shoulders, he caught shrapnel along the front of his body, from his feet to his face. A number of internal organs were ruptured or perforated, but his heart escaped injury."
Jytte winced, then shivered. "Coyote has bone and metal fragments lodged in his brain. He is not yet stable enough for surgery. At this point, if he ever comes out of his coma, he will be unable to walk and will likely never recover the use of his left arm. That limb is infected and they may amputate it. His right arm may well be affected if they go in to pull out fragments. The most likely situation is that if he lives at all, it will be in a permanently vegetative state."
"At least he is alive." Bat's jaw muscles bulged, and Sin could hear the squeal of his teeth grinding together.
"And Natch is dead." Jytte hesitated as if trying to understand why a tear had started rolling down her left cheek. "You have dealt with those who took her body."
"Not all of them. Yet."
'You have broken them. That is enough for now, Bat. We will deal with Natch's killers in due time, but there is a greater problem here that we must handle."
"A greater problem?" Bat shook his head. "Natch is dead."
"At least she no longer feels pain." Jytte's head came up. "Look at me, Bat. Look at what Pygmalion did to me." She brought long fingers up through her hair like pitchfork t
ines through silk. "These are not my hands. This is not my hair. These are not my eyes. He killed me by taking away everything I was and giving me this body."
Her blue eyes filled with volcanic intensity. "You have seen what he did with Mickey. You know he does what he wants to whomever he wants when he wants. He has no limitations — self-imposed or otherwise — on what he is willing to do. With Ryuhito working with him, his power is at least doubled, if not squared, and his access to Earth is not blocked in the way access is blocked for Fiddleback."
Bat nodded his head once, but Sin saw no easing of his shoulder set. "Pygmalion first, as practice. Then the Aryans die."
"I think, Mr. Kabat, you will do better to focus on Pygmalion than to even think about the Aryans." Damon Crowley got up from the table and carefully tucked his chair into place. He looked up at Jytte. "I am not going to be of much direct use to you in the short term. I will, however, do two things that will make your organizing the effort against Pygmalion simpler."
Fiddleback Trilogy 3 - Evil Triumphant Page 6