“What is it?” said Savino, seeing the expression on his face.
“Where are the rest of them?” said Drakov. “That’s only a fraction of the number I sent through.”
They waited, but no more Lilliputians came through. The ones already in the room continued to circle just beneath the ceiling, like bees buzzing around a hive.
“Maybe they didn’t make it,” said Savino. “We figured there’d be losses, didn’t we?”
Drakov shook his head, frowning. “Yes, but not so many.”
He licked his lips nervously and checked the time again. “Come on, come on, where is it? That damn plate should have blown by now!”
He was watching the glowing border circuits, waiting for the glow to disappear, which would mean that the link on the other end had been broken by the chronoplate being destroyed. Andre couldn’t take her eyes off the circling Lilliputians, flying round and round just beneath the ceiling like miniature airplanes in a holding pattern. Circling around the chronoplate, almost as if they were waiting for something.
“Damn those little bastards!” Drakov shouted. He looked up at them with fury. “You were in full retreat! And you forgot to blow the terminal, you miserable, little …”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a plasma pistol. He raised it, aiming at the chronoplate, and at the same instant, the border circuits flashed once more and Steiger came tumbling through, onto the floor.
“Creed! Look out!” Andre shouted. She came out of the chair and launched herself at Drakov in a running dive.
Drakov fired.
The band had set up on the stage and the musicians were running through a final sound check with all the instruments and mikes. There was a massive wall of amplifiers stacked behind the band and everything was turned up full. There was a bank of synthesizers, two electric guitars, an electric bass, a gargantuan clear plastic drum kit with two huge basses, rows of acoustic and electric tom-toms, cymbals and an array of gongs and bells, and the ensemble was rounded out by the lead singer, an androgynous young man with snow white hair down to his shoulders and a strut a 7th Avenue hooker would have envied.
He paraded back and forth across the small stage, prowling like a panther in a cage, shrieking into the mike with such abandon and such force that Lucas winced, wondering how he could possibly sing like that and not scream himself hoarse. The sheer volume of the band was deafening. With his roadielike appearance, no one bothered to approach him. And with the volume of the music, conversation would have been impossible…
This was where it started, he thought in passing as he quickly scanned the club. The heavy metal sound, which over the years became the dominant form of music, absorbing both the fringe and mainstream styles, always on the cutting edge of technology until it eventually metamorphosed into cyberpunk, the ultimate union of the musician and his instrument, where the synclaviers and percussion circuit boards were actually hardwired into the musicians’ bodies.
The band stopped playing for a moment to make some minor adjustments, and the silence after such an auditory barrage was almost a shock. Lucas took advantage of it to approach one of the club’s employees, a beautiful young woman in a black Lycra miniskirt and a T-shirt emblazoned with the club’s logo.
“Excuse me,” he said, and the aftereffects of the band made him speak much louder than he needed to, but she seemed used to it. “I’m looking for those people who just came in here, two guys, and a girl—”
“You with the band’?” She gave him a cursory glance and went back to applying black fingernail polish to her nails.
“Yeah, and so’s the girl. I’m supposed to get—”
“Upstairs.”
“What?”
“Upstairs, they went upstairs.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
He headed for the staircase, but as he got there, the big bouncer stood in front of him with his beefy arms folded across his chest.
“Where do you think you’re goin’?”
“Upstairs,” said Lucas.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The bouncer shook his head and rolled his shoulders back, flexing his lats and chest muscles. “I don’t think so.”
Lucas tried to go around him, but the bouncer stepped in front of him, putting his hand up against his chest and shoving him back. At that moment, the band started up again. Lucas didn’t waste time trying to argue. The music was too loud, in any case. He simply kicked the bouncer in the groin with all his might and then swung the rolls of cable hard across his face as he doubled over with pain. Then he ran up the stairs two at time, taking advantage of the noise. He reached into the pocket of the leather jacket, took out the switchblade and flicked it open.
He reached the top of the stairs and looked around quickly.