Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

by Douglas A. Taylor

Chapter 12

 

  For the next several days, I kept myself as busy as possible, trying to keep my mind off of what must be happening to Lily. The way I figured it, there was nothing I could do to help her at the moment, so it was best not to dwell on the matter. It was a good idea in theory; in practice, it didn't work out quite so well. Go figure.

  Still, I tried my best. I practiced "The Dying Poet" assiduously, I spent a few hours on our target range shooting my blaster, I took my turn teaching Angie a few of the things all new Primes need to learn -- such as the tapping codes for her Prime belt -- and I kicked the large bag in the gym practically into oblivion.

  I finally talked Trina into giving me some aikido lessons; in return, I agreed to pose for a few shirtless sketches. And no, this wasn't some elaborate seduction scheme on her part (or on mine either, for that matter). Much as I like Trina, and despite all our flirting, we've just never clicked in that way. No, the fact is that Trina is a pretty good artist -- I keep a few of her sketches of Lily in my room, in fact -- and she is constantly looking for models. And I needed stuff to do.

  Late one afternoon, about a week after my sister had joined us, I strolled into the kitchen where Angie was waiting for me. "Ready for the cook-off, little sis?" I asked.

  "Of course I am." She grinned at me. "You're going down, big brother!"

  I smiled my most serene smile. "We will see, Younger Sister, we will see." I began showing her where everything was in the kitchen. "So, how do you like being a Prime so far?" I asked conversationally as I pulled out a pair of cutting boards and handed one to her.

  "It's great! Did I tell you that Mike thinks I'll be able to go out with you guys the next time a monster shows up?"

  "No, I hadn't heard that." Knives next, from the utensil drawer. "What about your legs? Are they going to be strong enough?"

  "That's the thing. See, I've been working with Wizzit; he put me on this weird regimen where I'll do all these leg exercises until I'm ready to collapse, and then he'll run a healing coma on me, and then I do the exercises all over again, and then he does another healing coma, and so on. He says I can get the equivalent of two weeks of exercise in just one day. I'm practically back to full strength already. Isn't that cool?"

  "Yeah, that is pretty cool. I didn't know he could do that." I grinned; Angie's enthusiasm was infectious. We moved to the refrigerator, and I began removing various kinds of meats and vegetables and handing them to her. "How did your practice go the other day? I wasn't keeping track; were you able to generate a shock wave?"

  "No." She sounded put out about that as she divided the food between my cutting board and hers. "I bet I will soon, though." Then she got a smug look on her face. "And I know the reason you weren't keeping track; it was because you snuck off into the bushes with Trina. Mike wasn't happy about that."

  I laughed. "We were just talking, little sis, nothing more. Trina and I are old friends, and we sometimes have stuff to talk about. And if Mike can't handle it, he's man enough to confront me about it."

  "Well, it's your funeral." She shrugged and looked around. "It looks like I've got everything I need. Get ready to be blown away by my cooking."

  I adopted a parody of a Bruce Lee fighting pose and emitted one of his patented strangled-chicken yells. "Your cook fu is weak, sister! My cook fu is strong. I will destroy you!" She giggled and threw a hot pad at me.

  If you were a little puzzled by certain parts of our conversation, let me enlighten you. We Primes cook for each other at HQ on a rotating schedule, and everyone has more-or-less settled into his or her own unique style. Padma does really good Indian food, Toby plays around with British cooking and occasionally some Continental stuff, and Mike does up a great leg of New Zealand lamb. Trina likes to make these fancy French dishes, for some reason, while Nicolai does a combination of German and Polish. (Although, to tell you the truth, I don't know much about Polish cooking. He could have handed me a raw potato on a stick and told me it was a genuine Polish delicacy, and I wouldn't have known any better.) I generally make home-cooked Chinese, since that was what I learned growing up at home.

  When Angela joined us, a few people grumbled about not wanting to have homemade Chinese twice a week. I didn't understand it myself, since I grew up eating it every day. I suppose it takes all kinds. At any rate, after a day or so, we decided that the best way to resolve the situation would be for Angie and me to hold a cook-off. We would each make two of our best dishes, and the one whose food was voted the tastiest would get to continue to make Chinese for the group. The loser would have to adopt a different style of cooking.

  (And seriously, it would not have bothered me too much if I lost. I had already volunteered to switch to the central Ohio variant of American Tailgate Party cuisine -- veggies and dip, potato salad from a grocery store, and grilled burgers and brats -- but so far no one seemed interested.)

  Now, I realize that this type of elaborate competition might sound a bit silly to someone who has never lived at HQ. You need to remember, though, that to a large extent, we Primes have to manufacture our own entertainment, and a friendly contest like this filled the bill perfectly. To add to the festive air, we had even invited Shelley and our four Primes Emeriti -- Mayumi, Alvaro, Cathy, and Bill -- to help with the judging. Mayumi, Bill, and Shelley had all accepted; Cathy and Alvaro, it appeared, had other commitments.

  Regardless, Angie and I set to work on our respective dishes, chopping vegetables and frying up chunks of chicken, fish, and pork. (Good sport that I am, I had already warned her not to overdo it on the beef. Padma won't eat it, and neither will Nicolai if he thinks Padma is watching.) I was going with rice as a base, as any good Chinese will do, but Angie had decided to use a combination of rice and noodles. She was also making with the sauces, which I have never really had the touch for. I had a sinking feeling that her red sauce would carry the day for her.

  And then, as we were carrying our bowls and platters to the table for judging, Wizzit started to ring the monster alarm. There were a few groans, but not many, and none of them very loud; after a week without even a hint of a monster, I think everyone was as stir-crazy as I was and ready to see some action. I saw Padma nudge Angela, and the two of them raced off, presumably to the weapons room. It was now Angie's job, as the lowest-ranked Prime, to collect weapons for everyone else whenever we went out. I had neglected to mention that particular data point to her, but I'm sure Padma didn't forget, since that meant that she no longer had to do it.

  I ran to my room to pick up my battle vest. When I emerged, I saw Mike, whose room is just down from mine; he was slipping on a pair of black leather gloves. "Hey, are those sap gloves?" I asked.

  "That's right," he said with a self-satisfied grin. "Bill finally made me a pair with our anti-Enclave tech in them, just like yours. I thought I'd try 'em out today."

  "What about the savate shoes Toby wanted?"

  He shrugged. "Wouldn't know about those." He held out one gloved hand, the fingers spread wide. "These are mighty snug. I think they'll do, but I wouldn't want them any smaller."

  Toby came out of his room, hopping on one leg as he tried to slip what looked like a leather hightop sneaker onto his other foot. He sat down and struggled with it for a few seconds. Eventually he gave it up and threw the shoe back into his room. "Bill made mine too small," he complained, reaching one long arm back inside the room and withdrawing the savate boots he usually wore.

  "Maybe he didn't realize how much space our tech stuff would take up," I volunteered. Toby just grunted as he laced up the shoes with practiced ease. Within moments, the three of us were jogging down the hallway.

  "Where to today, Wizzit?" Mike asked as the three of us entered the common room. Nicolai and Trina were there waiting for us. Shelley, Bill, and Mayumi were nowhere to be seen; they had all probably teleported to their respective homes to retrieve their bla
sters. I assumed that Angie and Padma were still gathering weapons.

  "Today, you're going to lovely Honduras, to their capital city of Tegucigalpa," Wizzit chirped.

  "And . . . where else?"

  "Nowhere else. All five monsters are currently located there."

  "Perhaps they thought that JB Swift's little surprise party worked out so well, they want to try it on us," Toby mused.

  Trina looked around anxiously. "I wonder what is keeping the girls."

  Padma strolled in from the girls' hallway. Her hair was too short to braid now, so she was applying barrettes to keep it out of her face. "Where is Angela?" Trina asked her.

  "I left her in the weapons room," Padma explained. "I showed her where everyone's weapons were, and then I left to get myself ready."

  "Sorry I'm late, guys," Angie puffed as she came into the room holding an armload of equipment. Toby hastened to take some of it from her before she dropped anything. "I think I got all the stuff. Mike, here's your sword. Padma, I think this is your axe . . ."

  "That one is Nicolai's." Padma took the proffered weapon and handed it to Nicolai. Then she took the other axe. "This one is mine."

  "Oh. Um, sorry, I couldn't tell which was whose. Let's see, Toby's got his hammer and Trevor's . . . pointy stick."

  "It's called a vajra," Padma told her primly. "I fixed it for you yesterday, Trevor."

  "Thanks," I said, taking it from Toby.

  Angie nodded. "Okay. I've got my Escrima stick, and Trina, here's your sword. I'm sorry, but I couldn't find your triple blaster. I looked all over for it, but . . ."

  "It is all right; I have it with me," Trina assured her. "I always keep it in my room."

  "Oh, okay." Angela let out her breath and looked around. "I guess that's everything, then."

  Mike looked up at the ceiling speakers. "They speak Spanish in Honduras, right, Wizzit?"

  "Primarily Spanish, yes," Wizzit replied. "Some English, and various indigenous languages and dialects. But mainly Spanish."

  "That's what I was afraid of." Mike screwed up his face. "Is Alvaro available to translate, by any chance?"

  "Nope. He is in Mexico, in the middle of a weeklong music festival. As a matter of fact, he is performing on stage at the moment, which means that our interpreter of the day is Angela."

  "Me?" she squeaked. "Well . . . okay. I mean, I studied Spanish in high school, but . . ."

  "Just do your best, love," Mike said. "We can't ask any more than that. If you can't do it, don't worry. It helps to have an interpreter, but it's not essential; we've done without one before." He looked around at everyone. "Let's go. Angela, don't forget that you're Prime Violet now, not Junior Prime Pink." He squared his shoulders. "Prime Red, activate!"

  "Prime Orange, activate!"

  "Prime Yellow, activate!"

  "Prime Green, activate!"

  "Prime Blue, activate!"

  "Prime Indigo, activate!"

  "Prime Violet, activate!"

  Wizzit materialized us in a deserted alleyway between two two-story buildings. "Go off to your right," he instructed us, "and at the end of the alley, turn left. The Parque La Concordia will be straight ahead of you."

  The Parque La Concordia turned out to be some sort of city park in the middle of Tegucigalpa. It wasn't very big -- maybe one city block in size -- but it sure was an interesting-looking place; all the structures seemed to be imitations of Aztec or Mayan architecture, with lots of stone carvings visible on everything. A number of people were running away from the park, which told me that we were headed for the right place. I heard Angie call out something in what sounded like Spanish. A few people gave her odd looks, but no one burst out laughing or seemed offended, so I guess what she said must have been more-or-less appropriate, even if it wasn't exactly correct.

  The first monster was not hard at all to spot. Located by a stone bench just inside the park, it looked something like a Gila monster -- a lizard with a blunt snout and mottled, beaded-pattern skin. And like nearly every other Enclave monster I've ever faced, it was really, really big, like the size of a stretch limo, with its tail taking up about half the length of its body.

  The seven of us stopped in front of it. "Blasters out, everyone," Mike called. "Wizzit, can we attack?"

  "Yupperooni. All five monsters have been destroying public property since they showed up."

  "Right. Everyone aim and . . . fire!"

  Seven blasters aimed at the lizard and seven fingers pulled seven triggers. Nothing happened.

  "Wizzit?" Mike said. "What's going on? Why aren't we firing?"

  "Unclear. It appears that something is suppressing the energies of your force shields. I'm investigating."

  "Yeah, well, if blasters don't work," Toby growled, "let's see what good old-fashioned muscle will do." He hefted his huge hammer with both hands and took a swing at the lizard's haunches.

  Now, what should have happened was that the lizard was knocked sideways and that there were a ton of sparks. What actually happened was that his hammer made a smacking sound and bounced off the lizard's hide without noticeable effect, exactly as if it had struck an ordinary human.

  Let me take a step back here and explain something about our weapons. One of Wizzit's strictest rules is to cause as little collateral damage as possible; no innocent bystanders are ever to be hurt if it can possibly be avoided.

  For that reason, all of our weapons are specially designed to be as devastating as possible to Enclave monsters, while being completely ineffective against normal humans. Blasters, swords, hammers, even vajras -- none of them work against people. Generally speaking, that's a good thing, but it's also one of the reasons Lily had been causing us so much trouble, in fact, because none of our weapons affect her at all.

  (Well, okay, I suppose you might object that Mike's and my sap gloves are an exception to that rule, and you would be right. Sap gloves are leather fighting gloves with either steel shot or sand sewn into pouches along all the striking surfaces. The primary purpose of sap gloves, though, is to protect the hands, not to hurt people, and for that reason, Wizzit gave the okay for us to use them. And so far, I have never punched any human while wearing my gloves, not even Lily.)

  At any rate, the lizard didn't take much notice of Toby's attempt to flatten it. It seemed much more interested in Mike, who back-pedaled out of its way with typical Mike-speed.

  "Weapons aren't working either, Wizzit," he reported.

  "Yes, I know," Wizzit said, his voice irritatingly calm. "As I said, some unknown force is suppressing all activities of your force shields. You will also discover that you have no boosted strength, speed, or endurance. Nor do you have your usual limited immunity from impact injuries."

  "Oh, terrific!" Toby muttered. "So we're basically on an equal footing with the Emeriti?"

  "Yes. In fact, since their ability to use our weapons stems from a weaker version of your force shields, I would expect that they would have the same problems you are having."

  Toby went over to a nearby tree and began to tear off a largish branch. "In that case, we'll have to improvise." That sounded like a good idea to me; I pulled my sap gloves from a pocket of my battle vest and slipped them on.

  The Gila monster must have really liked Mike, because it had begun chasing him around the clearing we were standing in. "Let's not bring Copper, Black, and Gold out here just yet, then," he said, sounding surprisingly cool. "There's no sense in putting them in the same danger we're in. Aside from that, I'm open to suggestions. Wizzit?"

  "Best course of action is unknown at present," Wizzit replied. "I'm working on it."

  Nicolai leaped forward and grabbed at the lizard's tail, trying to slow it down. I joined him, but it simply thrashed its tail about, knocking us around like tenpins. Nicolai picked himself off the ground, shaking his head. "Is this a localized phenomenon, Wizzit?
Or have our force shields simply failed?"

  "Unknown. I believe it to be a localized phenomenon."

  "Can you still teleport us?"

  "Affirmative. The transponders on your belts are still operative; they do not depend on your force shields."

  "In that case," Nicolai said, "could you send me back to the weapons room? I have something there which I believe might help."

  Nicolai vanished in a flash of yellow light. Mike had vaulted over the stone bench, so that it was between him and the lizard. Toby and I made another grab for the monster, going for its hind legs this time. Angie and Trina jumped in to help me, and Padma moved over beside Toby. Together, we managed to drag it back a few feet from the bench. Didn't help a whole lot, though; it turned its head to snap at Toby, who backed away quickly.

  "I think another monster has found us," I heard Padma say. "Red, look out!"

  Padma's shouted warning came too late; Mike spun about, but for once, his lightning reflexes were not fast enough. A snake probably forty feet long and two feet in circumference launched itself at him. Its coils were looped around his middle, pinning his arms to his sides, before any of us could even blink. He and the snake fell heavily to the ground.

  "Red, are you all right?" Trina cried. She stepped toward him, her triple blaster at the ready, though I had no idea what she thought she would do with it.

  "I'll be all right, Orange," he said, with only a bit of strain in his voice. "Knocked me for a loop for a second, that's all." He grunted. "It's feeling a bit snug, though. Any chance this monster is modeled after some sort of constrictor?"

  "Checking . . . yes, that would appear to be the case, Red," Wizzit replied.

  "Don't worry, Red. We will get you free!" Trina said anxiously.

  "Right," he replied. "Let's see if we can come up with a plan first, though, shall we? Umm, let's see . . . Wizzit, can you teleport me out of here?"

  "If I do, the snake will come with you."

  "That's all right. You said you thought this was a localized phenomenon, correct? I assume that means that if you teleport me someplace sufficiently far away, then my force shield will start to work?"

  "It's worth a try. Here goes."

  Mike disappeared, then reappeared less than a minute later. "It was a good idea, Red," Wizzit said, sounding apologetic.

  "What happened?" Trina demanded.

  "Well," Mike said, "it appears that . . . our force shields . . . are not only being suppressed . . . but they're also . . . completely drained." His breathing was beginning to sound labored; he was having to stop every few words to breathe. "It would've been . . . ten minutes or more . . . before I would see . . . any benefit."

  I heard a hiss and the snap of jaws. "Damn, that thing's fast!" Toby exclaimed as he danced back from the Gila monster. "I was hoping I could smack it across the nose, but I couldn't get close enough to attack it!"

  By now, so much of Snakey was wrapped around Mike that I could barely see him. What little of his face I could see was turning a dark red. "Are you all right, Red?" Trina asked. "You're sounding short of breath."

  "The snake's . . . pretty tight around my middle," he admitted. "The sooner . . . you could get me out of here . . . the better."

  There was another hiss, another snap. Toby was shaking his head. "This thing's just too damn fast. It almost got my branch that time."

  I looked at the snake's back end, which was lying on the ground almost at Toby's feet, and it gave me the glimmerings of an idea. "Hey, Green," I said, "is there enough of the snake's tail by you that you could pick it up?"

  Toby risked a quick look down. "Yeah, I think so. Do you want me to try to unwrap it from Red or something? Because I don't think that'll work."

  "Not exactly," I said. "I'm wondering if you could get the Gila monster to bite it."

  Toby looked down again, and then I heard him chuckle. "I reckon that'll be entirely too easy to do. This big fellow's got a nasty temper."

  He laid his tree branch carefully to one side and squatted down to pick up the snake's back end. To be honest, I'm not sure I could have lifted it. Toby, though, just wrapped those long arms of his around the snake's middle, some four or five feet from the end, and heaved himself to his feet with a grunt. Then he lunged straight for the lizard.

  Snakey was concentrating so thoroughly on the victim trapped in its coils that I don't think it even knew anything was going on with its other end until Mr. Gila Monster chomped down on it. Then its head went up and its mouth opened wide in a surprised hiss.

  "Everyone after it! Now!" Trina shouted.

  I lunged for the snake and wrapped my arms around its neck. Trusting to the protection of my sap gloves, I grasped one of its huge jaws in each hand and pulled them apart as hard as I could. I caught a flash of purple as Angie stepped up beside me. She and Padma had scooped up Toby's branch, and now the two of them appeared to be trying to jam it as far down Snakey's throat as they could.

  Snakey went wild. It thrashed its head about in an effort to dislodge the weapon, slamming the three of us against trees, benches, and the ground, but we held on tight. After a minute or so of this, I suddenly felt it go rigid in my grip, and then it went completely limp, falling to the ground and taking us with it.

  I pulled my hands away from its mouth, picked myself up, and turned to see Mike feebly pushing coils of sparking snake off himself. I went over to lend a hand, and in a few seconds he was free. I helped him to his feet, and we stepped back as the snake's enhancements started failing all over its body; soon it had completely destroyed itself in a shower of sparks. On the other side of the clearing, I saw Padma helping Angela to her feet.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  Trina said, "Yellow happened." She was beside Mike, who was sitting on the bench, head bowed, his forearms resting on his knees. "Are you all right, Red?" she asked anxiously. She laid a hand on his cheek. "Do you need to go back for a healing coma?"

  Mike shook his head. His sides were heaving. "Just . . . just give me a minute or so to catch my breath. I'll be fine." He looked up. "What's that thing that Yellow's got?"

  I turned to see Nicolai and Toby facing off against the Gila monster. Toby had retrieved his branch and held it in front of him like a quarterstaff. For his part, Nicolai was holding what appeared to be a spear of some sort. As I looked closer, I could see that most of it was a long, sharp spike of polished bone or rock, and there was a steel rod protruding from the non-pointy end. The rod had been wrapped with leather to facilitate two-handed gripping. The bony part looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it . . .

  Trina glanced over her shoulder. "It is my unicorn horn," she declared.

  I nodded to myself. That was where I had seen it before. See, some time around last Christmas, we had fought a unicorn-like monster in France. Like the mythological creature it was patterned after, it would have been a plenty tough beastie to defeat -- very tough, very smart, and very strong. Luckily for us, it had taken quite a shine to Trina.

  First, the unicorn knocked her down, and then it laid its head in her lap and allowed her to stroke its nose until it fell asleep. (And if you know much about unicorns, you'll realize that said something interesting about Trina. I don't know whether it's still true, but I would bet a penny that it is.) While it was sleeping, Trina snapped the horn off its head, which caused the creature to disintegrate. The horn, as far as I knew, had been in her room ever since as a sort of weird souvenir.

  "I got the idea for using it when Blue's vajra broke last week," Nicolai explained, not taking his eyes off the Gila monster. "The horn is made of one of the hardest substances I have encountered, and it seems to have some anti-Enclave properties as well, although not as strong as those our normal weapons possess."

  Toby feinted at the Gila monster with his branch. When the lizard turned its head to snap at him, Nicolai lunged fo
rward and drove the point of his spear into the monster's side. It hissed and quickly backed away from him.

  "I had been thinking it would be useful in a speeded-up timeframe," Nicolai went on, "which is why I embedded a handle in the hollow back end, but it looks as though it may be our best weapon to use today, since it does not require a functioning force shield to be effective. It worked quite well against the snake just now."

  "Red, something is wrong with Violet." That was Padma. She had one of Angie's arms slung across her shoulders, and the two of them were making their way cautiously around the edge of the clearing towards us, steering clear of the lizard.

  "I'm . . . I'm all right," Angie said. "I'm just having a hard time seeing straight, and I feel really, really dizzy." She gave her head a shake, as if to clear it. "Uh-oh . . . I really shouldn't have done that . . ." She dropped to her knees and was violently sick in the grass.

  "Wizzit, send her back to HQ for a healing coma," Mike ordered. "Right away."

  Angie retched for a few seconds more. "No, I'll be all right, really," she protested weakly, raising up and wiping her mouth. "I just need to clear my head, and then --"

  "You're going back to HQ," Mike snapped. "No arguments. Wizzit, what's wrong with her?"

  "I am unable to diagnose at the moment," Wizzit replied. "Offhand, I'd say a concussion, but I won't be able to tell for sure until she has a working force shield. And even then, I will not be able to commence a healing coma until it is fully recharged."

  "She did hit her head awfully hard against a tree when the snake threw us," Padma added. "She was unconscious when I went to check on her; I had to wake her up."

  Angie was getting unsteadily to her feet. "Please, I want to stay and help . . ."

  "You can help us best by getting yourself healed up," I told her sternly. "Listen to Red; he's been in more battles than anyone else, and he knows what he's talking about. If he says you need a healing coma, then you need a healing coma. Now go!"

  "Okay," Angie said in a faint voice. She sank back down to her knees. "Oh man, I really don't feel good right now."

  There was a flash of violet light as she disappeared. "I hope she is not sick all over the carpet in the lounge," Trina murmured.

  "Or on one of the chairs," Toby added. I had to agree. The chairs in the lounge are really nice, and we try to keep them that way.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Thanks, Blue," Mike said to me quietly. "I appreciate the vote of confidence."

  I shrugged. "When you're right, you're right," I said. "Violet tends to be a bit headstrong."

  "Good to know."

  Toby and Nicolai were on opposite ends of the lizard now -- Nicolai by the head and Toby by the tail. Since a simple tree limb would not be terribly effective against an Enclave monster, Toby was having to content himself with distracting the lizard while Nicolai was doing the real damage. Fortunately, the lizard did not seem to be smart enough to figure that out; it turned to snap at Toby every time he put his improvised weapon within its field of vision.

  Mike said, "I think it's high time we tested the limits of this so-called 'localized phenomenon'." He seemed to have completely recovered from the snake's attack. "We need to split up. Orange, I'd like you to stay here and supervise Yellow and Green. Blue and Indigo, come with me. Wizzit, please let us know the instant we're out of range of this force-shield suppression . . . thing."

  "Will do, Red," Wizzit replied.

  Mike turned and began leading Padma and me deeper into the trees. "Any idea where we're going, Red?" I asked.

  "Not a clue," he replied cheerily. "But it's not that big a park; we can't go too far into it before we start coming out again. Now keep alert; I don't want to be surprised by another monster."

  We weren't -- surprised, that is. Nope, we saw that baby coming from quite a ways off. Or rather, we heard it coming. We had been walking for a few minutes and staring at everything around us like a trio of tourists. I was pointing out a pretty interesting Mayan-looking mini-pyramid when suddenly there was this gosh-awful thump and the ground shook all around us.

  "What was that?" Padma exclaimed. She had stumbled and was clutching at a tree for support.

  "I don't know," I said, "but it came from the direction we're headed."

  Another ground-rattling thump. "I would suggest we go investigate," Mike said. He began jogging forward. "Come on, you two, look lively!"

  The three of us ran forward -- not a flat-out dash like we would if we had had functioning force shields, but not just a jog, either. Soon we had nearly reached the opposite end of the park. Mike stopped short, looking up. "That's . . . that's a mighty big frog."

  We were staring at what had to be the third of Enclave's monsters. It was a large, black frog, probably the size of a medium-sized car; as I watched, it leaped up high, its long legs dangling underneath it, and when it landed, it made that earth-shaking thump we had been hearing.

  "What do we do, Red?" Padma asked anxiously. "We cannot fight this thing; it would be suicide."

  Mike scanned the area from right to left. I assumed he was looking for something -- anything -- that we could use to attack this creature. At least, that's what I would have done in his place. I couldn't see anything, myself, and I was hoping like hell that our fearless leader had a trick or two up his sleeve.

  "All right, Indigo, listen up," he said after a moment or two. "I've a job for you. It's very important that you do as I say."

  "What is it, Red?" From the eager way she said it, I could tell that she was hoping the same thing I was.

  "I want you to circle around very carefully until you've gone past this monster here. Keep under cover of the trees. Don't let it see you, understand?"

  "Yes, I understand. Then what?"

  "Then I want you to keep on going."

  "What?" She drew back from him. "Are you saying that you want me to run away?"

  "What I want you to do," he said, keeping his voice low and deliberate, "is to find out just how far this suppression field extends. When Wizzit tells you to stop, then stop and mark your position somehow. Then I want you to go in one direction or the other -- I don't care whether you go left or right -- and have Wizzit keep telling you whether you're in the suppression field or out. Keep marking your position. I want to see a line running along the edge of the boundary when you're done."

  "All right, I suppose I can do that," Padma said doubtfully. "How will it help?"

  "Blue and I are going to try to get this thing to follow us," Mike explained. "We'll need to know how far. And after you've got an idea of just where the boundary is, you're going to hang around outside it and let your force shield recharge."

  "But I won't be able to help you if the monster stays within the boundary, will I?"

  "Of course you will," he replied with confidence. He clapped her on the shoulder. "You're going to stay outside and lay down covering fire for us."

  "Oh, I see." Padma sighed. "All right, Red. I will do as you say." She sounded as though she didn't like the idea, though.

  As Padma crept off silently through the trees, Mike turned to me. "So, Blue," he said, "how d'you propose we tackle this thing?"

  I had been thinking about that very problem, in fact. "If I had some rope," I said thoughtfully, "then I could try to jump on the frog's back, slip the rope into its mouth or around its neck, and try to steer it outside the boundary."

  Mike chuckled. "You do like to ride your monsters, don't you? Wizzit, your opinion?"

  "Inadvisable, Blue," Wizzit said. "At least, not without a functioning force shield. Given the height of its jumps, if you were sitting on its back when it landed, you would very likely break something. Possibly several somethings."

  "Well, it was a thought, anyway." I folded my arms and chewed my lower lip while I watched the monster take yet another leap and come crashing down again, smash
ing a stone bench to smithereens. "Frogs have long tongues, don't they? Like, to snap up flies with? Maybe we could --"

  At that moment, we heard a shriek, and then came a sound like one of our triple-blasters being fired, only magnified many times. Mike and I looked at each other, then began running in the direction the sound had come from.

  "Indigo!" Mike barked. "What's wrong?"

  We heard Padma's anxious voice: "It's a -- a telu!"

  "A what?"

  "Sorry, I don't know the English word for it. In my part of India, we call it a telu!"

  There was another blaster-like sound, and then Mike and I came through the line of trees, out to what appeared to be the very edge of the park. Padma's indigo-glowing form was sprawled half on grass, half on a broad street; she had obviously flung herself to the ground to avoid being shot. Facing her was an eight-foot-tall monster that scuttled back and forth on far too many legs. Its tail arched high over its back; the tip glowed a dull, ugly red, and smoke curled up from it as from a pistol barrel.

  I skidded to a stop beside her. "In America," I said, "that's what we call a scorpion."