There were people everywhere, a mass of them, upright and crowding the doors, screaming, yelling, trying to push each other out of the way, crawling over each other to make it to the exit. Others were slumping over in the middle of the club where the gas was reaching them. He saw the pretty brunette, trying to push her way through the mass of people, screaming. More and more revelers were swaying, falling as the gas spread. Every direction was blocked. The Nexus link that had been sublime union was now filled with terror and panic. Kade felt it press in on him, a cold dark tide of fear trying to take him under.

Then Feng’s mind closed around him. He could feel his friend’s resolve, feel his calm. They were getting out of here.

Feng pushed Kade out of his way. Then he reached up and grabbed a speaker the size of a trash bin off the stack beside them. Feng swung the speaker back, then drove it forward into the wall like a battering ram, embedding a third of its length in the plaster and wood of the structure.

Another canister shot into through the window, struck the bar, ricocheted into the illuminated wall of bottles behind it, sent alcohol and broken glass shrapnel everywhere. Kade heard more panicked screams as the glass lacerated people. More than half the crowd was down now. The rest were coughing. Kade was coughing. He could feel whatever was in the gas working on him. He reached into his mind to boost acetylcholine, boost adrenaline, try to keep himself awake…

Feng yanked the speaker free of the wall, swung it back again with both hands, drove it forward.

Then the wall exploded and something huge burst in. Kade saw it in slow motion through Feng’s eyes but it was too late, too slow. The armored jeep’s massive front end struck the speaker and then Feng, and then he disappeared as the vehicle roared into the club.

Chapter 41: Battle Royale

41

BATTLE ROYALE

Saturday October 27th

Shiva clenched his fists as the first view of the scene appeared. Overhead, their quartet of drones reached the site. Each was a meter-wide flying wing, radar absorbent, color shifting, propelled by twin fuel-cell-powered engines, loaded with cameras and small, lethal weapons.

On screen their cameras showed an armored jeep surging down the street, scattering people, striking some head on, and then crashing in through the wall of the club. From the other direction a second armored jeep was coming. Young men and women jumped out of its way, not all of them fast enough.

Hayes yelled into his microphone, “Fire on incoming vehicle. Fire on snipers.”

Over the city, the drones launched cigar-thick micromissiles – small carbon-and-titanium javelins – that ignited their solid rocket boosters, canted their control fins, and bolted out towards their targets on streaks of white-hot flame.