Francine adjusted her sunglasses. Myles could see a frown on her brow and realized she must be accessing the news channels. He wanted to go out to her and put his arm around her, and offer her some comfort, and promise that it would be over soon, and that she wouldn't be harmed. The sort of thing real fathers would be doing all over Thallspring right now.
But the senior staff and the party leadership were waiting for him, and they had family, too. He sat behind the desk with one last reluctant look at the patio door.
"I'd just like to say that if anyone wants to resign effective immediately, then I will accept it. It won't affect your pensions or benefits." There was a moment of awkward silence, but no one came forward. "Okay, then. Thank you for your support. I do appreciate it. As you know, I've decided to follow Strauss's lead with a policy of cooperation. They're a hell of a lot more powerful than us, and God knows, more evil. Trying to sabotage the chemical plants or throw rocks at their soldiers is just going to lead to retaliation on a scale I cannot accept. So we just grin and bear it, and hope their star-ships all hit a black hole on the voyage back. If we do that, I think we can come through this relatively unscathed, at least as far as infrastructure is concerned. Margret?"
Margret Reece, the chief of police, gave a reluctant nod. She was looking at the reports scrolling down her membranes rather than at anything in the room. "I studied the files from last time. They really are only interested in pillaging our industrial output. That's where their enforcement comes in. We can do what the hell we like in the rest of town, riot and burn it to the ground—they simply won't care. As long as the factories remain intact, they're supplied with raw material, and the staff turn up for each shift, they'll leave us alone."
"Then that's what we ensure happens," Myles said. "The rest of our civic business carries on as normal. To keep the factories operational, we keep the town functioning. That's the service we provide, no matter what."
"Do they steal our food as well?" Jennifer asked. "I remember there wasn't much to go around last time."
"They'll only take what they need to eat themselves," Margret said. "Given that thirty percent of the tourists managed to make it out before flights were grounded this morning, the food refineries we've got will give us a large overcapacity for the remaining population. The reason food was short last time is some rebel moron went and firebombed two of the production lines."
"Which we can't allow to happen again," Myles said swiftly. "I'm not having some heroic resistance movement putting innocent lives in danger."
"I doubt we'll get an organized resistance," Margret said. "Z-B always makes sure the punishment for any action against them outweighs the propaganda gains. But we're keeping a close eye on the people we know can make trouble."
"What about the tourists?" Don asked. "There's a lot of them didn't make it home; the airport looks like a refugee camp."
"Not my decision," Myles said. He had to squash his anger so he could speak in a clear voice. "The governor will say how much civil transport will be allowed. Given why they're here, I expect they'll want everyone at home being as productive as possible."
"One of their platoons has reached the main square," Margret announced loudly. "They'll be here any minute."
So quickly? Myles took a breath. So much would depend on what kind of working relationship he could establish with the governor. "Okay, let's go greet the bastards with a smile."
Denise milled with the crowd on the edges of the Livingstone District. Human curiosity had won out over trepidation, allowing hundreds of people to come watch the spectacle firsthand. Few children had been allowed out, though. This was mainly adults and older teenagers, staring grimly at the streets that led down to the waterfront where the police had established a no-go zone. Conversation was dark mutters of resentment, folklore of what Skin suits were capable of and the atrocities committed last time.
Bars were still open and well frequented. Most of the men were clutching cans of beer, drinking steadily as they watched on their glasses and membranes the drop gliders bursting out of the sky. The attitude reminded Denise of prematch anxiety, home-team fans barely tolerating the provocative antics of their rivals. Animal territorialism was still a strong component of the human psyche. That was going to work to her advantage. This was a very volatile situation, and most of the police were covering the waterfront and promenade. The mayor had been worried about his good citizens rampaging down onto the sand as the drop gliders beached. Idiot. An open beach was no place for urban conflict, not against well-organized troops.
Her sunglasses were showing datapool video relays of the gliders arriving. The discordant voice of the crowd rose around her. She dispatched a series of coded messages to cell members scattered along the street. Acknowledgments came back. Everyone was ready.
The first Z-B troopers appeared at the end of the street. Five of them, striding along confidently. There wasn't even a pause when they saw the crowd.
Denise raised her sunglasses and stared at the first one. Her irises focus-shifted for detailed close-up. The Skin was very similar to what she remembered, as if a bodybuilder were wearing a dark gray leotard. They all had very fat fingers and strange bulges along the arm. Their helmet design had altered; the Skin's pliability ended around the jaw, turning into a protective shell covering the upper face and skull.
There was a tiara band of sensors at eye level, and two gill-vents on the cheeks. The only visible weapon was a cumbersome pistol clipped to a belt along with some pouches (must be for effect, she thought). Heat profile was surprisingly uniform, with only a couple of degrees' difference across the whole suit surface.
Her view pulled back. There were nine Skins walking up the street. A chorus of obscene taunting chants rose from the crowd who were moving back and forth restlessly along the pavement. Nobody ventured closer than four or five meters. Then a young man walked out into the middle of the road directly ahead of the Skins. He was carrying a can of beer, which he drained in a couple of big gulps. The Skins ignored him as they got closer. So he turned his back to them, bent down and dropped his shorts.
"Kiss my ass!"
The crowd laughed and jeered. Several cans clattered onto the road around the Skins, spinning around as foaming beer sprayed out of the open tabs. Still the Skins kept going, silent and seemingly unstoppable. Denise had to admit, their discipline was good. Her ring pearl was picking up short data-bursts from individual suits. Her Prime started to break down the heavy encryption.
A rock sailed over the heads of the crowd to smack against a Skin's chest. Denise's enhanced vision captured the sequence as the outer layer hardened around the impact point. The Skin's stride halted momentarily as the rock bounced off him. Still none of them retaliated. Emboldened by their apparently passive attitude a couple of tough lads ran out and tried to rugby tackle the invaders.
One Skin stopped as the first lad charged toward him, turning so they were facing. The lad was yelling at the top of his voice as he spread his arms wide ready for the collision. A second before they hit, the Skin darted swiftly to one side, bending slightly, one arm coming round. It was a perfectly timed throw. The Skin's arm caught the lad in his chest and lifted with tectonic strength. He left the ground, momentum flipping him until he was upside down above the Skin. Then the powered push ended. His boozy battle-cry had turned to pure terror as he found himself inverted, three meters in the air, and hurtling toward a shop wall. His arms and legs flailed wildly as the now-silent crowd watched. There was a wet thud and the sudden loud crack of snapping bone as he hit the bottom of the wall. His cry cut off dead.
The other Skin simply extended his arm, fingers flat and pointing at his assailant. He never moved as the second lad cannoned into him, the extended fingers striking the middle of his chest. There was a bright flash of electricity, and the lad jerked backward, limbs thrashing madly from the discharge. He crumpled onto the pavement, twitching.
The crowd growled its resentment. They began to close in on the Skin
s. A swarm of beer cans and stones started to fly.
Lawrence had known it was a bad situation as soon as they got off the promenade and he saw the crowd lining the street ahead. He would have preferred the police to let the town's population through on the beach. The street pushed everyone together. It could cause serious casualties.
"Keep calm," he told the platoon, mainly for Hal's benefit. "They have to find out what we're capable of sometime. Might as well be now. A quickshock demonstration will make them think twice in the future."
The shouts and insults were nothing. Beer sprayed around their feet, and they splashed through. A very well aimed rock caught Odel on his chest.
"Ignore it," Lawrence ordered.
"Shouldn't we tell them to keep back?" Hal asked. There was a hint of unease in his voice. "They're just getting worse."
"This is nothing," Edmond said. "One Skin could take these pimps out. Stop sweating it, kid."
Lawrence expanded Hal's telemetry out of the grid, checking the kid's heart rate. Which was high, but acceptable.
"To these people we must appear invincible," Amersy said. "Half of that trick is making them believe it. So just swagger along nice and easy. Come on, remember your training."
Two fury-driven young men charged out of the crowd, heading straight for the platoon.
"No weapons!" Lawrence commanded. "Lewis, shock yours." The other was heading straight for Hal. Lawrence said nothing, wanting to see how the kid would handle it. As it turned out, the throw was perfect, sending the youth crashing against the bottom of a wall.
"Way to go, kid!" Nic whooped.
"Nice one," Jones said admiringly. "You could have turned faster, though."
"You couldn't," Hal said cheerfully. "Too old. Your reflexes are shot."
"Shit on you."
"Pull in formation," Lawrence said. He didn't like the mood of the crowd. "Hal, well done. Everyone, let's not get excited here."
The crowd was moving in, winding themselves up for a head-on clash. Cans and stones were coming at them from all directions.
"You going to dart them?" Dennis asked.
"Not yet." Lawrence switched on his external speaker and cranked the volume up. "Stand back!" He could see the people closest to him wince, putting their hands over their ears. "You are causing a civil disturbance, and I have the authority to disperse you with appropriate force. Now calm down and go home. The governor and mayor will address you shortly."
His amplified voice was lost under a howl of obscenities. Looking out at the raw hatred facing him he imagined what it would be like standing here without Skin. The lapse made him shiver. "All right, grab your punch pistols, I want..." His suit's AS flashed a warning at the center of the tactical display grid. Sensors had picked up a thermal point approaching fast The Molotov arched through the sky, trailing a streamer of bright blue flame from the hihydrogen fuel. It was spinning as it went, curving down toward Karl.
"Let it hit," Lawrence ordered.
Karl's arm was already extended, the rime-millimeter muzzle poking through the carapace. Targeting lasers had found the Molotov. "Oh, man," Karl grunted. "I hate this, Sarge."
The Molotov crashed down on his helmet. The glass burst, flinging out a sheet of dense flame that enveloped the whole suit. People nearby yelped, scrambling back out of the way as the flames grew hotter, gorging on the fuel. The rest of the platoon calmly took their punch pistols up and flicked the safeties off.
"Give them the talk, Karl," Lawrence said.
The flames died away, revealing the Skin suit standing unharmed. "The person who threw that is under arrest," Karl said through his speakers. "Step forward, please. Now." He took his own punch pistol from his belt. "I said, now."
The crowd began shouting and chanting again. More stones were flung. Then another three Molotovs appeared in the air. Again, they were all aimed at Karl.
Someone's organized, Lawrence realized suddenly. The Molotovs were aimed at the same place, and came from different directions at the same time. "Take them out," he ordered.
Karl and Amersy shot the bottles in midflight. Giant fireballs ruptured the air and poured down. Flame splashed over a dozen people, who ran screeching in agony. The crowd went berserk, and charged forward en masse.
"Disperse!" Lawrence yelled at them above the bedlam. He aimed his punch pistol and fired. The plastic bullet caught a man in the middle of his chest, slamming him back into the three behind him. They tumbled like human bowling pins. Rushing feet trampled them.
The platoon had formed up in a circle. The punch pistols began firing. Psychologically, they should have acted as a much greater deterrent than darts. A mean-looking weapon, a loud gunshot, and a man goes flying. It was obvious and physical, you could see it happening. You should run away lest it happen to you.
Lawrence's AS alerted him to the sound of gunshots, simultaneously running an analysis program. Someone in the crowd was firing a pump-action shotgun. He saw Dennis stagger backward, his Skin carapace totally solid.
"Where the hell did that come from?"
Three Skin AS programs coordinated their audio triangulation and indicated the line of fire. Lawrence's visual sensors showed him a man running through the crowd— something (long, dark) in his hand. He gave the image to Lewis and Nic. "Snatch. I want him."
They charged forward into the mob, ruthlessly thrusting people aside.
Someone jumped on Odel's back, an arm around his neck, trying to strangle him. He reached around and picked off the attacker effortlessly. Two men lunged at Lawrence. He hit one, going for the arm. Kicked at the other, hearing the leg splinter. Each time, the Skin's AS moderated the strength of the blow. A full strike from a Skin fist could smash clean through a human rib cage. Unless you wanted to kill somebody, always go for the limbs.
They were too close now for the punch pistol. He dodged one madman who was swinging a chair at his head. Another broke a bottle across his shoulder; ragged glass spikes slithered uselessly over the Skin carapace.
Jones screamed. Lawrence saw his grid turn red. Graphics swirled madly as the AS tried to make sense of the data. Visual sensors locked on. Jones was falling, arms waving slowly. He hit the pavement, and his fists cracked the stone slabs.
"Jones!" Lawrence yelled. "Status?"
"Okay," Jones gurgled. "Electric. Electric shock. I'm okay. Motherfuck. They zapped me with a charge. Goddamn, it was a brute."
"Amersy," Lawrence ordered. "Dart them."
Amersy held his arm up high. Nozzles slid out through the carapace around his wrist. Fifty darts puffed out.
It was as if God had reached down and switched people off. The front ranks of the mob crumpled with startled expressions that swiftly faded to the neutral face of the deep sleeper. Within seconds, a fifteen-meter logjam of inert bodies surrounded Lawrence and the platoon. Beyond that, the remainder of the crowd stared down at their comatose compatriots in numb horror.
Amersy fired another salvo.
Screams broke out as more people fell. The remainder began running, vanishing down side streets at an incredible rate.
"One for the good guys," Edmond said.
"They're crazy," Hal whined. "Totally fucking crazy. Is it going to be like this the whole time?"
"One sincerely hopes not," Odel said.
"Jones?" Lawrence walked over to the trooper, who was now sitting up. "You okay?"
"Shit. I guess so. The insulation blocked most of it Bloody thing scrambled half of my electronics. Systems are coming back online. E-alpha fortress is rebooting the full AS."
Lawrence didn't like the sound of that at all. The suit should have shielded him from just about any kind of current, and the electronics were EMP-hardened. He looked round the deserted street. A lot of the unconscious bodies were bleeding, and he could see several who'd been caught by the Molotovs. The burns looked bad.
Rocks. Molotovs. Shotguns. Electric shock.
We were being tested, he thought Someone wanted to know our Skin capabil
ity.
"Dennis, check Jones over, please."
"Yes, Sarge."
"Did anyone see who hit Jones with the shock?"
"I was busy," Karl said. "Sorry."
"That's okay, we can run the sensor memories."
"Newton?" Captain Bryant said. "What the hell's happened?"
"Crowd got out of control, sir. I don't think..." The display grid with Nic Fuccio's video and telemetry flickered and turned black. A medical alarm began to shrill in Lawrence's ears.
"Sarge!" Lewis cried. "Sarge, they shot him. Oh Jesus. Oh fuck. They shot him."
"Dennis!" Lawrence yelled. "With me." He was sprinting, moving at incredible speed over the sprawled bodies, then powering down a narrow side street. Bright indigo navigation displays scrolled down, guiding his feet. Left turn. Right turn. Curve. Right turn. Clump of people across the narrow road, standing staring. He slammed them aside, ignoring the pained protests.
A Skin was lying spread-eagle on the cobbled road. Dark red blood was spreading out from it in a thick glistening puddle. A fist-sized hole had ripped into the carapace between Nic's shoulders. It was bad, but his Skin could have sustained him. The suit's circulatory system was still plugged into the jugular and carotid splices; in such extreme damage situations the AS would keep the brain supplied with blood until the field medics arrived. Whoever the sniper was, he must have known that. The second shot had been fired when Nic was down. It had taken off the top half of his head, leaving nothing from the nose upward.
Lewis was kneeling on the road beside him. Emergency disposal valves had opened on his lower helmet, allowing a stream of vomit to splash down his chest.
"He's dead," Lewis wailed. "Dead. Never had a chance."
Lawrence glanced around. The civilians were backing off fast. Heads vanished into windows, which were slammed shut.
"Where did it come from?" Lawrence asked.
"Oh God. Oh God." Lewis was rocking back and forth.
"Lewis! Where did the shots come from?"
"I don't fucking know!"
Lawrence looked up and down the nearly empty street, reviewing the last of Nic's telemetry. He was running eastward, so judging from the impact he had been shot from behind. There was no obvious window or balcony for the shooter. When Lawrence raised his view, he saw a church tower standing above the roofs. The whole street was exposed to it. But it must have been over a kilometer away.