But then he realized there was no time for that. Or for anything else. The Fixers were going to get away. And even if they weren’t likely to make it down to Fort Lauderdale in time to add to that attack, they would be free to do more damage. He had no doubt Kuga and Santoro could find other dreadful uses for those machines and all the highly trained and enhanced Fixers.

“No damned way,” he snarled as he launched himself down the road. He had nearly a full drum of the high explosives left. They may not pack enough punch to stop the fighting machines, but those grenades would do a lot of damage to that truck. He was even grinning as he ran.

He was grinning when a Fixer rose up from the shrubs right in his path. It wasn’t an ambush, just bad luck. Bunny slammed into him at full speed, and the two of them fell and began rolling down the slope. Bunny’s shotgun flew straight up into the air and vanished inside a holly bush.

Top used Hot Mama to stomp on the other K-110. The titanium alloy feet of the fighting machine, backed by the entire weight of the device and every ounce of cybernetically enhanced technology, did what grenades couldn’t do. It smashed the cowling in, crushing it, flattening it, and turning the driver within into a red horror.

“Yeah, and fuck you, too!” Top yelled.

Then he turned as bullets pinged off his own cowling. Two of the Fixers were on their feet, eyes blazing red as the Relentless chemicals flooded through their systems. One kept firing with his rifle while the other grabbed a six-foot length of broken tree branch and swung it like a baseball bat at the machine. The blow was massive, and it staggered Top, making Hot Mama backpedal for balance.

Top opened up with the minigun, driving the armed Fixer back and down, but the one with the club kept swinging, going mad with it, laughing maniacally. Top tried to swat him away with the mechanical arm, but the Fixer was fast and ducked under. The killer rose up before Top could check his swing and cracked the branch across the cowling again. The wood shattered, but a small crack appeared in the reinforced glass.

The Fixer dodged another swing, dived, and came up with a rock the size of a grapefruit. He dodged in again, smashing the stone with raw power, but also with precision, attacking the K-110’s few weak spots. It was the kind of assault only someone who really understood the fighting machine would know to do.