The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,125

got no hidey number.”

There was a clicking and a creaking from inside the tech. Sky waited it out. “You,” it said to her after that clicking was all done. “You are guilty of serial infractions of quarantine and curfew. You must give yourself up to the nearest uniformed officer.”

Sky turned her head to the right, and then she turned it to the left. “I don’t see none,” she said.

I give a look over my shoulder. Mole and Cup was hanging back a long way. From their faces, they was not so fearless as Sky was. Mole’s face was as white as a bleached shift. Cup was crouching down in the grass, kind of, trying to hide herself. I would of been doing the same thing if I could, but I was held where I was by Sky’s big arms as well as by the rope that was tying my hands together. I couldn’t do nothing but watch.

“Kneel down on the ground then,” the tech said, “and place your hands behind your back or on your head. Wait there until I bring further units to secure you.”

Sky give a shrug, which dragged me up a little way and then set me down again. “I’d love to help you, Elaine, but I got business in another place.”

“If you don’t comply, you will be fired upon.”

I thought Sky would run away at them words, or duck down, or something. All she done was walk a few steps to the side. The top part of the tech moved to follow her, the big pipe pointing straight at her. That screaming come again, loud enough to hurt my ears. She went a few steps more, and the same thing happened again.

Of a sudden, I knowed what the pipe was. It was a gun like Rampart Arrow’s bolt gun. That was why the tech said it would shoot us down with it.

Well, I seen oftentimes what the bolt gun could do, and this being so much bigger it would surely tear us into pieces too many and too small to be gathered up after. With seeing that, I got so scared it made me blind and deaf and stupid. I gun to thrash around on Sky’s back, trying to get myself free so I could run or hide.

She lifted up one big hand and fetched me a whack on the side of my head. “You be still,” she growled. And I was still enough, since her slap almost knocked me senseless.

She went on a little further, and the gun kept on turning.

“I can’t help this,” the tech said. It sounded like it was sorrowing. “My orders are explicit. Kneel down, or I will fire on you.”

“No, you won’t,” says Sky as easy as you please.

That clicking come again from inside the tech, and it was followed right away by a louder noise like something heavy falling into place. “I’m sorry for this,” the tech said.

“You always are,” said Sky.

I shut my eyes tight, thinking this was like to be it for me. My mind filled up with thoughts of all the things I was never going to get to do again, though they was jumbled together so they didn’t make no sense. One thing I seen was myself sitting with Monono in the far lookout instead of Spinner. Her head on my shoulder like Spinner’s was that time. Her hand on my arm, all warm.

And then we was hit.

But what hit us was not something solid like a bolt. It was a push of air that come down the pipe and smacked into us, then was gone past us, ruffling our hair and flattening our faces.

Sky give a yell, but it was not from being frightened. It was like the cheer you throw out when you’re watching a race and getting real excited. “Yeah!” she shouted. “Yeah, Elaine! You got me. You got me again, damn it!”

The tech said nothing for a while. Cup and Mole, who had both throwed theirselves face first on the ground, come up on their hands and knees again. By and by, they stood up.

“I am out of ammunition,” the tech said. “I have summoned additional units. You will remain where you are until they arrive.”

Sky patted the end of the big pipe, the way you would pat a dog. “You keep hoping, Elaine,” she said. “You keep summoning, boy, and maybe one day they’ll come.” She turned to look at Mole and Cup. “Shit! Look at the two of you.