my mental back, sorta.
"No!" I screamed, startling everyone around me. Someone jumped back at my shout and nearly knocked over the Temptation. It wobbled and finally steadied. "No!"
The mindvoice of the park ranger guarding the pilot was suddenly gone. There was only a silence where it had been, and then a new voice was there, one I knew: the jumper called Red. I could hear his thoughts as he spoke to them. ... safety off "Welcome" magazine in "to the" and let 'er rip "Rox, assholes!"
The mindvoices in the copter came at me all overdubbed and confused.
Christ just let me get turn this damn chop- hate leaving Angie any
back to my family. per around, if you ask way. God, it'd be
You can HAVE this me. Let 'em have stink- good to just be back
crap. I--what the ing Ellis if they want home with her, snug
hell's with Johnson? it. Hey, what's with gling. Huh? "Welcome--"
"Welcome to the Johnson? He's looking Lord Jesus, he just took
Rox"? Oh God, John- pretty damn weird the safety off
son! NO! Please God
don't
I screamed again. Screamed with the sudden death of the mindvoices and their wailing pain, screamed with the nats I knew were dying. Screamed because it was all so useless and unnecessary.
Outside, the jumped chopper lost control in a wail of shrieking metal. It exploded before it hit the water. I saw the glare wash over the buildings of the Rox.
I've never heard so many people die at once.
I heard the other nat squads slowly realize that some thing was wrong. I felt their outrage and horror as the carnage echoed over their headsets and radios. I felt their fury.
Their sudden surge of will.
My Wall fell in tatters, shredded by nat hatred. They poured through.
I was staring at the Temptation again, sightlessly. Everyone in the building was gaping at me. I knew they were waiting for Governor Bloat to do something, but I couldn't think.
I could hear them. I could hear everything-as the two choppers touched down in cold tornadoes of dust and vomited their loads, as a boat full of rangers and cops hit the shores of my Rox and scrambled out. I heard screaming and the percussive bark of gunfire. I witnessed the assault through their minds.
It didn't last long. I'd like to claim that it was something I did or that the jokers did, but it really wasn't. I'd already told Kafka to take one of the walkie-talkies, thinking I'd direct him where the nats were. But even as the squad of jokers ran to the compound where the choppers had landed, the jumpers, directed by Blaise, continued to attack. They were taking the cops, making them turn and fire on their own. The nats quickly found that they couldn't trust their friends. It wasn't the damn kids or the ugly jokers who were the enemy here in the Rox. It was themselves.
They died.
I felt them die. I watched the scenes through their minds, through their thoughts.
Leo caught a glimpse of himself in his buddy's visor. He was thinking that they looked like a bunch of damn robots behind the helmets. He even thought it was funny. He was starting to say so to Tom, his partner, when Tom shuddered. He looks so strange .... Then Tom whipped around his weapon before Leo could move. Tom was shooting at anything and everything, just holding the trigger down and spraying. Leo saw a line of slugs rip open his stomach and spill purple guts into his cupped hands.
He was dying. Cold mud pressed against his face, but in his mind was another image. He was holding a baby wrapped in a Muppet Babies blanket. In his thoughts, I could see him holding the kid up to his stubbled cheek. He kissed her.
"Good night, darling. Daddy'll be back in the morning, I promise. You be good." He replayed that kiss again and again, crying as his life pumped out from the hole in his chest and the vision spiraled away into the darkness of unconsciousness. "Daddy loves you. Hell be back. I promise. I love you."
A park ranger stood on open