And in a time span so small as to be almost incomprehensible to the mind of man, two hundred fifty thousand silicon chips in the necks of the residents of the Alliance of Four Cities became nothing more than harmless disks.

CHAPTER 37

Lieutenant Fred Lowry was still fifty yards from the south exit and running hard, his men fanning out behind him, when the trees above them erupted with a withering fire. A bullet slapped past his ear so close that he felt the air smack against his cheek.

With a startled cry, he veered sharply to the left and dove for cover behind a thick clump of bush. “Get down! Get down!” he screamed. But the man behind him didn’t have a chance to heed the warning. He was hit full in the chest, and his body jerked violently, the bullet hurling him back two or three feet before he tumbled to the ground. Another man screamed as a shot took him high in the shoulder, slamming him back against a tree.

“Take cover!” Lowry screamed again.

Had it been daylight, it would have been a massacre, but as it was, the Guardians still had the lights of the city behind them, silhouetting them faintly. Pinpoints of light flashed from several points above them as the rebels poured in the fire.

“Fan out! Circle around them!” Lowry’s commands were nearly lost as the Guardian line erupted with return fire, shooting blindly at their unseen attackers. Lowry raised up on one knee and peered over the bush. Suddenly the south door flew open.

“They’re coming out!” he cried, snapping off a quick shot in the direction of the exit. A hand with a rifle appeared from out of the doorway, stabbing upward at the overhead light. The bulb shattered, and the south side of Central Control was plunged into darkness. Taking aim this time, Lowry blasted off another round and heard a sharp cry of pain.

The rebels saw the flashes from Lowry’s muzzle, and suddenly his position was under heavy fire. He jumped instinctively, rolling once, then came up in a darting, crouching run across a small open place and dove behind a tree where two other Guardians were firing up the hill.

For several seconds the fire fight raged unabated; then the ground beneath Lowry heaved upward, bouncing him hard against it. Looking up, he saw the building bulge outward, then explode, spraying bricks like straw in a hurricane. Both Guardian and rebel were momentarily stunned into immobility, and every person on the hill stared at the gaping hole in what had once been Central Control. Even as they stared, the flames cast an eerie light across the hillside and through the trees.

“Lieutenant Lowry!”

The booming voice rolled down to him over the crackling noise of the fire.

“Fred, this is Clayne Robertson! Can you hear me?”