I hurriedly bound up my side and the cut above my eye, feeling very glad I'd brought bandages. Then I called Walker, who answered immediately.

"I'm sure hopin' that explosion was you."

"It was." I decided I'd tell him its source later. "I'm in the offices. Are you close?"

"Yeah, yeah." He spoke under his breath. "Had to move into the warehouse, they were getting close to me, but not far. You go to the end of the 'L' and there's a busted window headin' inside. I'm behind a container off to the left."

"See you in a minute."

"Wait, wait!" he said before I could hang up. "Just be careful. I seen they had Rossignol here with 'em, and he's bad news."

Hmm..."He a bigger guy with bionic arms?

"Yeah. You didn't run into him, did you?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll meet you soon." I hung up, grabbed the saw off the floor, and jogged to the end of the hall, hand pressed gingerly to my side. Sure enough, there was a window looking into the cavernous darkness of the warehouse interior. Containers and rusting automated forklifts hulked out of the dark, half seen. I went left and hugged the wall, soon finding a container that wasn't quite shoved against it. Lurking in the narrow gap like a trapdoor spider was Walker.

He gave me a frank look up and down. "Shit, Sharkie, who's rescuin' who?"

"Oh, sure thing, man. You're welcome," I said pointedly, crouching to join him in his little hideyhole. Behind him I saw a prone form that must have been Monta.

Walker looked pained. "No, come on. 'Course I'm grateful. I just didn't want you gettin' all messed up."

"I'm gonna be fine, Walker. Let's just get out of this pit." I tried to give him a reassuring clap on the shoulder but he hissed in pain. I immediately yanked my hand away and noticed a bloody hole through the sleeve of his jacket.

"Shit, Walker, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! How bad is it?"

He flashed a pained smile. "Ain't nothin', just a through and through. Wouldn'tve hit me at all if my muscles weren't so big." My face must have shown what I thought of that. "Oh, yeah. Forgot who I was talkin' to."

"Just let me wrap it up. I might have to cut the jacket off."

"You ain't cuttin' shit." He shimmied it off with a couple of pained grunts and held out his arm so I could bandage it.

"What about him?" I asked when I was done.

"Sharkie, meet Monta. When he's conscious, he's the best shot in Savlop-2. Right now, though, well, I knocked 'im out on painkillers. Took a slug through the femur."

I winced. "He's not bleeding out, is he?" I knew there were some big arteries in your thigh.

"No. I bound him up as best I could but he ain't exactly having a good time. I don't know what else to do for 'im 'cept to get him to a doctor."

I nodded. "Let's do it, then. Any ideas?"

He scratched his chin. "Well, I was thinkin' we try makin' a distraction, get back to my vic and haul ass outta here."

Oh, man. "Walker, I, uh...I don't think that's gonna work." I glanced off to one side, embarrassed.

"Why not-" He cut himself off. "No. No way, Sharkie. Don't tell me you..."

I nodded.

"You fuckin' blew up Allison? My fuckin' car? My fuckin' car..." He was somewhere between angry and inconsolable.

Allison? He'd given that shambolic thing a name? "It-it was the only one with enough metal in it! The Blues all drove plastic fantastics, man! Wouldn't have lit up. And there was no other way I was getting by all of 'em without getting ventilated." I put a hand on his shoulder again. "I'm sorry. She died for a good cause."

"Kings dammit...Alright. Alright." He huffed out a breath. "Plan B would be callin' somebody else to get us, but there's only a few I trust and ain't none of 'em close enough to matter. Plan C, then, is the Moth Strategy."

"The hell is that?"

He smirked, silver flashing. Even hurt and trapped, he still had that Walker attitude. "Head for the light, baby. We get to the vat buildings and the Blues won't dare shootin' us up. Admin grunts don't take too kindly to gunfights out front o' their expensive factories."

Sounded pretty tenuous. "You sure they won't just shoot us anyway then bounce?"

"Blue Div has uptown connections," he said darkly. "They ain't gonna risk those even a little bit. Besides, the trek over there'll give enough time for our ride to show up."

"Thought you didn't trust anyone enough."

"Mmmmwell..." he averted his eyes. "There's one guy who I only sort of trust, but I at least know exactly how much to trust 'im. Everyone else I'm not even sure how much not to trust 'em. You know?"

Whatever he'd just said, I understood it about as well as a cat did poetry. "No. But it doesn't matter. This guy'll give us a ride out?"

"Probably. Let me ring him up." He pulled out his slab and hit a contact. It rang several times before someone answered, while I looked around nervously. Any time Allison's sacrifice bought us was surely running out.

"Hey, Willy!" said Walker, faux-effusive. "How's it goin', compadre? Listen, I-"

He paused. "Sorry about that, man, but I really-"

Again. "Dammit, Wiremu!" he shout-whispered, suddenly mad. "Heartfelt condolences that I interrupted, but me an' my friends are about to get killed over here, so-"

This would be pretty funny, I thought, if I wasn't part of it. "You should care, bud, 'cause I'll pay one-fifty on the denar over usual! Double! Fuck it, fine, triple, just show the hell up at Processor Twelve in twenty minutes in somethin' big and fast. An extract, possibly hot. You bargain like a Hsieh Street jerky merchant, man-No, it ain't a compliment! Just get here."

He hung up with an explosive sigh, and I raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, ride's taken care of. Though for what it's gonna cost me I might just let 'em kill me."

"I'll give whoever it is your regards, then."

"He'd rather hear my account numbers," muttered Walker. "Okay. It's simple. All we do is head back outside the same way we came in and we're facing the right direction. It's a straight shot to the vats. We just have to get far as we can before they see us. I'll carry Monta, and you cover us, Sharkie."

Was he serious? "I'll carry him and you cover us, Walker."

"But-" he looked sincerely concerned for me, blue eyes luminous in the gloom. "Hon, you got holes in you." He gestured to my side. "You shouldn't be carryin' anything."

"I appreciate it, Walker. I really do," I grabbed his good shoulder, looked him earnestly in the eye. "But I'm stronger and you're the better shot. And speaking of holes, you aren't lifting shit with that slug in your arm."

His jaw clenched. "You're right," he finally said. "But you don't drop Monta, you hear me? You only do this if you can promise me that."

I glanced at the sniper's supine form. He looked a bit under six feet, fit but not bulky. Maybe one seventy-five plus gear, then? Call it two hundred pounds, carried over rough ground, in the dark, as fast as I could, while probably getting shot at, with a couple of bleeding wounds.

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Well, either I could do it or I'd die. I gave Walker a solemn nod.

"Alright, then. We'll do it your way. Only..." He paused. "I'm all out of ammo. Man, that might be the most embarrassing thing I've ever said..."

I flashed him a lopsided grin. "I hear it happens to every guy, sometimes. Here." I handed him the Slukh and the coilgun, along with the reloads.

"The hell is this spaceman shit?" he muttered, aiming down the holo sight.

"SKH coilgun. It's loaded, safety's on." I quickly showed him the controls. "This lever here switches it from flechettes to slugs, and the slugs have some kick. Be careful."

"Damn..." he murmured in appreciation. "Why doesn't Vandermaas ever show me this stuff?"

"Probably figured you didn't like 'spaceman shit,'" I murmured, squat-walking over to Monta. He was a compact man in head-to-toe ninja gear, black tactical everything from boots to pants to balaclava. The effect was broken only by a bright-blue bandage wrapped thickly around his right thigh. A polymer pistol and a fighting knife rode on his belt, and a folding-stocked sniper rifle was tied to his leg as a makeshift splint. The mag pouches on his vest were empty. Must have been one hell of a rolling gunfight before they got cornered here. The only non-tactical thing on him was a small charm around his neck, shaped like a boot: the symbol of Ironstride, Martyred King of warriors.

"Alright, you," I muttered. "Let's get you home." His breathing was slow and shuddery. I heaved him up over my shoulder, doing my best not to disturb his leg, but he still groaned in pain. "Sorry, man," I whispered, but he was too whacked out to respond.

"Ready?" asked Walker. I nodded. "I'll lead the way," he said, and darted out of the hideyhole with his head swiveling back and forth. I inched my way out a good bit slower, then carefully stood. While I could squat a lot more than two hundred pounds, I wasn't usually all fucked up when I did it. A groan much like the one Monta had made escaped me at the sharp pain in my side. I felt myself swaying a little, my balance out of whack like when you're badly dehydrated. It could have been blood loss or concussion or both.

Walker turned and looked at me dubiously. "You sure about this?"

I leaned against the container for a few seconds until the dizzy spell passed. "Yeah. Yeah. Let's just get it over with."

Walker went back through the window into the office, then helped me get Monta through it with a minimum of jostling. He moved down the hallway very quietly, one of my guns in each hand. I thought that only worked in movies, but I wasn't going to tell him his business. We heard voices outside, but none from in here.

Suddenly Walker paused, making me freeze. Then I realized he'd found what remained of the Blue Div heavy I'd killed. "Fuck me," he whispered, "was this you too?"

"Yeah. He's why I'm leaking." I don’t know why he sounded so shocked. I guess I had gone a little overboard.

"Sharkie, that's Rossignol. One of their hardasses. Man had a reputation, and you just clipped 'im like nothing." He spun round, smiling nervously. "I'm just glad I got to you before they did. Sheeit."

"Uh, thanks, man. But can we talk about it later?" I was definitely starting to hurt more.

"Fuck! Sorry!" he hissed. "It's just...Kings. Let's go."

We stepped over Rossignol and got to the reception room. Walker took a position to one side of the empty door frame, this time without even glancing at the corpses. I stacked up behind him, keeping Monta balanced on my shoulder.

"'Kay, looks clear. C'mon." He went out, doing that tactical sidestep walk you see the elite doorkickers doing in movies. I galumphed along behind him, just doing my best to keep upright.

It was at that moment, of course, a Blue soldier came around the corner of the building, a Thayer carbine held loosely in his hands. I tried to freeze, kept moving when I almost tripped, and was about to yell a warning. Before I could even inhale Walker snapped an arm up and silently emptied the Slukh into him. He hadn't even quit moving. Damn.

Walker got to a ragged hole in the fence and held it open for us. He'd pocketed the Slukh; fumbling around trying to load four separate rounds in the dark would slow us down.

"Worst part's over," he whispered to me as we kept moving. "Couple hundred feet away, there's a drainage canal we gotta cross. Should be dry. Then it's flat dirt all the way to the processors." I looked ahead at what he was talking about, trying to navigate entirely by the secondhand lights behind us. I could barely see the canal as a swath of darker shadow far ahead, cutting perpendicularly across our path. Past that was the processing plant, an oasis of bright, clean lifelights. It seemed farther away than it had earlier. The only cover to be had was a couple of dead bushes-just about worthless. Well, there was only one way to get there.

It was rough going. The ground was dirt mixed with rough cinders and bigger chunks of concrete, always ready to slide out from under you or trip you up. I suspected there might have been more buildings here once that had since been demolished. Both of my sides throbbed with every step, and the puncture wound was getting uncomfortably wet through my hasty dressing. I tried to use the pain, tried to make myself focus on breathing steady and putting one foot in front of the other. At first it was nerve-wracking, my back tense at the expectation of a bullet any second. The work was hard enough, though, that after a minute or two that threat didn't seem to matter. I'd get hit or I wouldn't, that was that.

We got to the canal without being caught. It was maybe twenty-five feet across and ten deep, with sloped sides leading down to a flat bottom. Walker helped me down the slope into it. "Breathe for a sec, Sharkie. Just breathe." I did as he said. Even talking was too much effort. The whole time I stared at the slope out, dreading it. After about half a minute we moved on. Even with Walker bracing me from behind, climbing up out of that canal was the hardest thing I'd ever done. My thighs burned, my vision swam. I was sweaty and cold all at once, huffing like a moldlunged pig. Blood trickled down my thigh, making me itch, and Monta moaned quietly at a barely-caught stumble.

After what felt like forever we reached the top edge. "King shit," I wheezed, tromping onward. I made about two steps, hunched over like an old man, when there was a funny fwip noise from the air next to me, and something small like a bug or moth ruffled my hair. I was so out of it I didn't even know what happened until Walker hissed "Down! Down!" I went to my knees fast as I could, making Monta cry out through his analgesic stupor. "Mother-Kingsdamn-fucker. They saw us." Walker was already prone, facing the lot we'd left. "When I shoot, you move as fast as you can, right?" He aimed down the coilgun's sight.

"Not leaving you," I huffed.

"I'll be right behind you, you fuckin' deek. This ain't a story." Without further warning he fired. I noticed that rather than a fiery flash, the coilgun produced a toroid of blue-orange plasma that seared itself into my retina like a camera flash. Looking right at it when I needed night vision had been fucking stupid, of course, but still-it was cool.

I didn't have much time to contemplate it, though, because as soon as the deafing bang sounded I stood up and broke into the fastest jog I could manage. It was answered by a fusillade of luckily inaccurate automatic fire. My teeth were gritted, every exhalation a little whimper of pain. "Hoo-wee!" cackled Walker as he ran past me. "This thing's a tack driver! Don't stand under a light when you shoot at someone, ya blue-balled, rad-suckin', roach-eatin' idiot!"

Well, at least one of us was having fun.

He got a ways ahead and to the left of me and dropped prone again. "Wait a sec," I barely heard him mutter under my own surging breath. A moment later there was a noise like heavy cloth being ripped and a stutter of plasma flashes from his position. "Why didn't you tell me this thing's automatic, Sharkie? Suppressin' fire! Yeehaw!" He ripped off another burst.

"I didn't tell you because the ammo's so damned expensive" is what I would have said if I'd had the breath or the spare focus. The lights of the processors were closer, but not close enough to make the Blues back off. Some of the return fire sounded like it was getting closer.

I focused on that light, my vision blurring around it. I focused until I barely felt the weight or the pain, until the gunfire went silent and there was nothing but my feet, my breath, and my destination. One more step, I told myself. One more. One more. One m-

Something hit my forehead with a metalling bong, sending me stumbling backwards with Monta's weight almost overbalancing me. "Sharkie, we made it! Slow down!" Walker caught me and hauled me back vertical before I could tip completely. I saw that my attacker was a fence pole, and technically I had attacked it. "Check it out, hon! Whould woulda thought I'd ever be so happy to see a fuckin' vat house." He threw my arm around him to brace me-I was glad of the help-and we began stumping our way down the fence toward the entrance.

He was right, I realized as we limped along. My breath was surging and heaving, I was dizzy, and it felt like someone was running a drill into my side, but we'd made it. We stood right at the fence line around the processing building. Its white wall sprawled out to either side like a cliff. Between the fence and the building, a couple of geared-up guards were rapidly approached us, their combat shotguns raised about as far as they could get without actually aiming at us. The only insignia on their gray-camo armor was a badge with a set of silver rectangles on it, mounted on the upper arm.

"Clear the area," spat the one in the lead, the voice issuing from his helmet a deep, electronic threat-growl. "Clear the area now. We are authorized to use deadly force if you do not comply."

Walker raised his free hand-now empty of the coilgun-in the air and kept going. "Never thought I'd be happy to see Argent Fist pukes, either," he muttered. “Fuckin’ contractors.” Louder, he continued with a textbook "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. We're movin' as fast as we can."

"Move faster," came the growl. The guards were pacing us on their side of the fence. It was like if sizzling bacon could talk, but down-tuned several octaves.

"Yes sir, of course sir," said Walker, yanking me along a little harder. He was being so obsequious I couldn't even tell if he was mocking the guy or not. It wasn't much farther to the gate.

There was the loud click of a safety coming off. "Final warning. Move away from the fence or we will shoot."

"I'm sure you will, sir," soothed Walker. "But don'tcha think they're a bigger problem?" He jerked his head away from the fence, and when I craned my neck that way I saw several Blues standing not fifty yards from the fence, still holding guns.

There was no growl in reply, but I distinctly heard one of the guards say "Shit!" behind his faceplate. Their guns shifted from us to the Blues, who were glaring daggers at Walker and I.

Suddenly something moved ahead of us and I saw headlights bouncing up and down, rapidly approaching. "Fuck yeah, Willy," Walker whispered. In seconds a black van skidded to a halt in front of us, the sliding door already open. Without prompting, Walker heaved Monta off of my shoulder and onto the rear seat, then yanked me in to sit in the middle row. The van skidded around and was shooting away from the confrontation before the Blues or the guards had a chance to say anything. Breathing hard on the seat, I half-expected to hear bullets smacking through the sheet metal, but no shots came. Finally, finally, I relaxed and sank into the seat.