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All I could do was make a dive for him.
"Stop him!" Kraj shouted and the guard looked at me and pressed a quick pattern on the red keys on the box.
I can't pretend that it felt nice. Enough pain leaked through to tear at my stomach with nausea and to knot my muscles. I stumbled and fell at the man's feet, not quite reaching him. The drug I had taken blocked most of the pain, but not all of it. There still had to be nerve pathways open for motor control. My eyes filled with tears and I could not wipe them so my vision blurred and swam. There was a shoe before me and that was no good, and a uniform leg, bad as well.
And then the guard's hand as he bent over to take hold of me. I lashed out with my extended middle finger and scratched the skin on the back of his hand.
He shivered just a bit and kept on bending, almost in slow motion, until he crumpled on the floor next to me, dropping the control box. It was just close enough to reach out and tap the off button.
The pain was over, instantly. And Kraj was behind my back. I scrambled and rolled, fighting my knotted muscles, climbing to my feet.
In the few moments since I had attacked the guard the situation had changed drastically. Angelina lay across Kraj's desk, holding to her collar, writhing in pain. Kraj was on his knees behind the desk reaching for his gun. I dived for him just as he raised it. I was not going to make it, I was too late, he was going to fire and that was that.
But at precisely that moment the distant explosion went off and the floor heaved, dust and bits of plastic shook down from the ceiling and the lights flickered. Kraj had not been expecting this—and I had—and his attention wavered for that vital instant as I slithered across the desk towards him and my fingernail nicked his skin.
He fired, but the slug plowed into the far wall because he was falling, unconscious even as he pulled the trigger.
Angelina must have attacked him as soon as I had dived for the guard. By hanging from the cable she had brought her feet up high enough to get in the one good kick that had sent Kraj over. He had retaliated by going to the radio control before his gun—and this little bit of excess sadism had given me the chance to reach him. But Angelina was paying for this now.
I could not look at her twisting body as I climbed up on the desk beside her. There were a number of controls before Kraj's chair but I was not going to take the time to try to figure them out. Instead I unhooked the box and turned it off. Angelina opened her eyes and lay still, just staring at me as I went through the drawers in the desk.
"Darling you are a genius," she said weakly. I found a key and bent to unlock her collar. "How did you do it?"
"I out-thought them, that's all. They couldn't find any weapons in my clothing because the clothing itself was the weapon. The fabric was soaked in tanturaline which transformed it into a powerful explosive. I put the liquid catalyst on the cloth under my arms where my body heat would keep it from reacting. As long as I was in the uniform nothing happened, but as soon as they made me strip it off—as I was sure they would—the catalyst began to cool and when it reached the critical temperature…"
"Boom the whole thing exploded. My genius." She reached up and pulled me to her as the collar clicked open, and bestowed a warm and passionate kiss that I returned for a bit until I remembered where we were and disentangled gently. She sat up shakily and tried the key in my collar.
"And I suppose you have some wonderfully ingenious explanation of how you killed these fiends?"
"Not dead yet, just unconscious. I filed one fingernail to a point sharp enough to scratch skin, then punted it with callanite." "Of course! Invisible to the eye and it would take a spectrometric test to find the tiny trace. But more than enough to render the scratchee instantly unconscious. What next?"
"A phone call to get the rest of the operation going in case that explosion wasn't heard outside the building. But they have listening devices…"
Before I could finish the sentence the lights went out. Since the room had no windows we were in complete darkness and I was lost, falling, out of contact with reality.
"Angelina!" I called out, aware of the hoarseness of my voice. "I am juiced to the eyeballs with narco drugs that cut off almost all pain sensation, which is why I could polish off the guard even though he was jazzing me with his shock box. But this also means I can't feel anything at all—I'm completely numb. All I can do is hear in the darkness. You'll have to help."
"What should I do?"
"Find Kraj and drag him over to me. I'm going to see if we can't get him out with us."
She pulled him out from behind the desk, none too gently from the sounds I heard, and helped me get him up on my shoulders.
"Now lead us out of here. You'll have to guide me because I have no way at all of moving around in this darkness. Across to the other side of the hall, then left for about 45 meters until you come to the stairs. Then down, all the way."
Angelina took my hand and we were off. I slammed into a couple of things but that wasn't her fault since I still had no sense of touch. It was easier and faster in the hall where she could follow the wall with one hand. There were voices shouting in the distance as well as one or two satisfying screams. My exploding wardrobe was providing plenty of distraction, coupled with the electrical failure. Then, just as I was congratulating myself on how well things were going, the lights flickered and came back on dimly.
We stopped, frozen, blinking in the sudden illumination and feeling as though we were in the middle of a spotlit stage. There must have been at least a dozen people in sight.
But they were all ignoring us, involved in their own troubles, barely aware of each other. A uniformed fat official actually ran by us, eyes wide with fear after the explosion and the darkness, not even seeing us.
"The stairway, quick," I said and lumbered forward as fast as I could with Kraj bounding on my shoulders.
Of course it was too good to last. The emergency limits flickered and dimmed redly and seemed about to expire at any minute. A soldier coming towards us had enough time to look and to think about what he was seeing. It finally dawned on him that something was wrong and he raised his gaussrifle and shouted to us to stop.
Angelina had Kraj's pistol and she fired just once. The soldier folded and we were at the stairs—when the lights went out again and stayed out.
The stairs were difficult to maneuver, though some sensation was coming back and I could feel a certain amount. But I dropped Kraj once, we both laughed a little at this and rolled him down an extra step or two for good measure, and a moment later I fell against Angelina and almost toppled us both headlong. After this we went more carefully and one flight down someone spoke.
"We've been waiting to take you out. Just stand still."
It was a girl's voice, and not speaking Cliaandian, or Angelina would have blown the whole stairwell up. We waited and I felt someone's hands touching my head, putting on a pair of heavy glasses. Then I could see again, with everything in harsh contrast. They were infrared goggles and the girl who was waiting for us had a hand projector. We went down almost at a run after that, while she called on her com-radio. Taze was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
"We sent people up all the staircases to try and contact you. They are coming back now. This way."
They took Kraj from me. I couldn't feel any pain or fatigue, but I was sure from the way my muscles were vibrating that I would ache all over when the drug wore off. We went at a fast trot to the open mouth of the service tu
"In," Taze ordered. "There are cars waiting at the other end."