16.

The frenzied hordes appalled Marten. Faintly, from down the stairwells came the sounds of gunfire and plasma cannons. The sounds lashed the crowds, the masses, and they trampled weaker people, clawed and fought to get away. Illegal weapons appeared. Shots rang out. The moans of the dying mingled with groans of terror. Hundred-man fights raged. Big men with crank bats, wearing the uniform of a local sports team, waded through the mob. Their heavy bats rose and fell. People collapsed, their skulls crushed and their faces bleeding. Kitchen knives appeared in fists, were plunged into tightly packed bodies. An overturned car plugged one lane. People scrambled to get over it, trampling a knot of school kids underneath. The old hobbled, infirm and begging for help, to be thrown aside by stronger, younger people again and again. Some of the frail gave up. Others held up their arms, pleading. Outside a theater, chorus girls screamed offers to whoever would save them.

Where any of these people thought they could hide was a mystery to Marten. But that didn’t matter. Panic overrode logic.

The lights flickered as a dreadful quake caused masonry to rain upon the mob. Shrieks and bellows rose to a crescendo as trapped people turned, clawing those nearest them in the need to get away. The crank-bat wielders were attacked from all sides and the big men went down under an avalanche of screaming people. Waves of human flesh turned in any open direction and bolted for safety. Twenty office managers in tweed suits sprinted into a building, to come tumbling back out as a drunken mob bashed them with bowling balls. Crammed bodies jammed the nearest stairwell; several young men climbed atop that packed crowd and slithered over the heaving mass. One was pulled headfirst back into the throng, his screams lost in the noise as boots and shoes crushed the life out of him. A boy, his face pale with terror, refused to move as he stood there, ashen and silent.

 To Marten’s horror, a mob charged them, led by a tall man with long hair. Inhuman fear stamped their features. Demented, they could not grasp that there was no way out in this direction. Marten and the Incorrigibles were sheltered in a small cul-de-sac. Once the mob reached them, they’d be trampled, perhaps to death.

Omi raised his assault carbine to his shoulder. Flames leapt from the short snout and he trembled from the vibration. Marten couldn’t hear the shots over the wild sounds around them. The lead man blew apart in a spray of blood and bone. Behind him, others plunged to the ground, gut and chest-shot. The survivors turned as they bellowed like maddened bulls.

Trembling, Stick led them to a nearby hole in the wall. An artillery shell must have created it earlier. They ducked into what looked like a hotel lobby. There they waited as if sheltering from a storm. The mob had become like a force of nature, this one particularly unpredictable.

“Why’d you do that?” Turbo roared into Omi’s ear. It was the only way to make himself heard.

Omi didn’t say why. Like Marten and Stick, he crouched with his back against a wall. He closed his eyes and pressed the hot barrel of his gun against his forehead. Perhaps he felt bad for what he’d done. Perhaps he merely rested.

“We gotta keep moving,” Marten said.

“Why’d he kill them?” shouted Turbo.

“I don’t know.”

“We ain’t murders!” the junkie bellowed.

Omi moved like a spark, jumping into Turbo’s face. “They would’ve trampled us! That’s why!”

“You murdered them!” shouted Turbo, saliva spraying out of his mouth.

Omi swung the butt of the carbine into Turbo’s gut. The tall junkie bent at the waist, falling backward. The gunman fed a bullet into the chamber and raised his weapon.

“No!” shouted Marten. He leaped beside Omi and yanked down the barrel.

For a moment, it seemed Omi would use the same trick on him. Then the Korean’s shoulders sagged and he threw himself against the wall, his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against the hot barrel of his gun.

Marten helped Turbo.

“He’s crazy.”

“Maybe we all are,” Marten said.

Turbo laughed harshly. “Not like him, baby. He’s Class-A crazy.”

Stick moved beside them. “Listen.”

They did.

“The crowd’s thinning out,” Stick said.

“Yeah,” Marten said. “I’m not shouting anymore.”

Omi opened his eyes. He wouldn’t look at Turbo. “I have one question.”

“Name it,” said Marten.

“What’s our plan?”

“I plan on living, you murdering bastard,” Turbo said.

Omi acted as if he didn’t hear. He asked Marten, “You tell me our plan.”

“We have to stop PHC,” Marten said.

“From doing what?”

“What do you think?” Marten exploded. “From blowing the deep-core mine.”

Omi rose, and now he stared at Turbo. “Exactly.”

“So you can gun down anybody now?” shouted Turbo. “Is that your excuse?”

“So we can save Sydney. Yes.”

“Just like the cops say,” Turbo sneered. “You’re doing this for everyone else, huh?”

“That’s right,” the gunman said.

“Yeah?” said Turbo. “Well—”

Marten grabbed Turbo’s skinny arm, shaking him. “Save it. Let’s go.”

They followed him out of the hotel and back onto the street. A group of teenagers armed with bricks sprinted past. They hurled the bricks at windows, cars, stores or dwelling places, their laughter hysterical. Two old men helped up an old woman with a bleeding gash on her forehead. Crushed bodies lay everywhere. The relative quiet after the mob had passed an eerie feeling to it, making the world strange.

“Come on,” said Marten.

Exhaustion dragged at their muscles. They’d been tortured for many months, Marten not as long but to the point of death. So he allowed each of them another shot of Superstim. Turbo begged for more, until he noticed Omi’s haughty eyes. After that, the tall junkie slouched down the street without complaining.

Luckily, they made a straight run to the Deep-Core Station. Most of the crowds streamed to a lower level, starting stampedes there. Marten wondered what would happen when they reached end of the line Sydney, Level Sixty.

“There it is,” whispered Omi, who held up his hand to stop them.

They peered around a corner at the bank-like building. The large plaza was empty, rather silent compared to the noises of only shortly ago.

“If we charge across they’ll just shoot us down,” Omi said.

Marten shook his head. “We have to bank this on PHC already being successful.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning PHC will have taken this place out, killed everyone so there aren’t any witnesses.”

“You can’t know that,” Omi said. “Maybe Deep-Core is in with PHC.”

“I doubt it,” said Stick. “Remember how the Reform people hated PHC sticking their nose into their racket?”

“Yeah,” Omi said.

“What’s wrong,” Turbo jeered, “don’t have anybody to point a gun at?”

Omi narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, real tough,” said Turbo. “How about you watch this. Marten!”

“What?”

Turbo pointed at his pocket, the one holding the medkit.

Marten thought he understood. Dubiously, he drew out the medkit, weighed it a moment and then handed it to Turbo.

Turbo’s fingers flicked over the buttons as he pressed it to his arm. The medkit hissed, shooting him with more stims. “Ahhhh,” whispered Turbo, his face one of ecstasy. He pitched the medkit back and strode onto the plaza, his carbine ready. Then he broke into a sprint for the glass door.

“Fool,” Omi hissed. “They’ll kill him.”

They didn’t. Turbo made it to the door and bounded within.

“He guessed right,” said Marten, who now broke into a sprint after Turbo.

Inside they found more carnage. DCM personnel lay sprawled everywhere with laser holes neatly drilled into them. A few times, they found a red-suit with an ugly bullet hole in his skull or torso.

Stick savagely kicked one. Turbo spat on them all indiscriminately.

The door into the elevator room stood ajar. Blood and gore lay splashed on the controls, but the bodies had been cleared.

“PHC beat us here,” said Omi.

“So it would appear,” Marten said.

“You doubt?” Omi asked.

“No….” Marten said.

“What then?”

Marten looked up, swallowed. “We have to go down after them.”

“What?” Turbo asked. “Down? How about up?”

“Highborn say no,” Omi said.

“Yeah? And how do you know that?” Turbo asked.

“By thinking.”

Marten thought Turbo would jeer. Instead, the lanky man shuffled off to sulk. Marten studied the controls. They seemed basic enough. He pressed a red button. Ping! The nearest elevator opened, and before them stood the plush box that could take them farther down into the planet than anything else possibly could. None of them, however, made a move.

“I once heard an old, old saying,” Marten finally said.

Turbo refused to be drawn. Omi grunted, but seemed lost in thought. Stick, who stropped his vibroblade on his pant leg, looked up. “Yeah?”

“Those who would lose their life will gain it. Those who would gain their life will lose it.”

“That don’t make sense,” the knifeboy said.

“Here it does.”

Stick thought about, shrugged. “Maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Omi said. “He’s right. So let’s go.”