n Buckeye. I'd have felt a lot better if we
weren't the only car.
     Suddenly we were rammed from behind. A truck
had hit us. It didn't have lights. One good view in the
side mirror revealed a zombie driver. "Don't react," I
hissed to everyone, fearing a volley of gunfire at the
wrong moment. Everyone kept his cool.
     "We weren't hit very hard," I said. The truck was
barely tooling along, at about the same slow approach
speed we were doing. "Everyone all right?" I asked
quietly.
     While I received affirmatives, the zombie driver
demonstrated some ancient, primitive nerve impulse
that had survived from the human days of Los Ange-
les. The fughead leaned on his horn. All of a sudden, I
completely relaxed. Getting past the checkpoint was
going to be a cinch.
     "Shall I take us in, Corporal?" asked Albert, obvi-
ously on the same wavelength.
     "Hit it, brother," I said.
The truck stuck close to our bumper through the
totally porous checkpoint. After that, we just drove in
typical L.A. style, weaving drunkenly between
zombie-driven trucks, leaning on our horn, all the
time heading for the ever popular LAX. I wanted to
give the airport the biggest laxative it had ever had
with Lemon Marine Suppositories. Cleans out those
unsightly monsters every time!
     32
We dumped the car in one of the over-
     crowded LAX parking lots. Lot C, in fact. There was
real joy in not worrying about finding a parking place,
and an even greater pleasure in not worrying about
remembering it.
     We only had to hop a single fence to get where we
were going, in the time-honored tradition of hijack-
ers, and Ken didn't weigh very much. A thought
crossed my mind. "So, uh, one of us knows how to fly
a plane, right?"
     "Better than flying it wrong," Arlene said.
"No time for jarhead humor," I said. "Gimmie an
answer."
     "Funny," said Arlene, quite seriously, "but I was
about to ask the same question. Really."
     We both looked at Albert. "I'd been planning to
take lessons, but I never got around to it," he admit-
ted sadly.
     "How hard can it be?" I asked, recalling the words
of an old movie character.
     We infiltrated the refueling area for the big jets, and
I found the perfect candidate: an ancient C-5 Air
Force transport, which could easily make it all the
way to Hawaii. Assuming somebody could drive it.
Everyone was already doing a good zombie perfor-
mance, although I still thought Jill was overdoing it.
Ken was propped between Albert and me, and we
were able to make it look like he was stumbling along
with us. We prepared to tramp up the ramp, joining a
herd of other zombies.
     A pair of Clydes waited at the entrance. Damn the
luck! We could pass for zombies among zombies, but I
wasn't at ail sure about these guys,
     They were disarming each zombie as it entered the
plane. It was a perfectly reasonable precaution, con-
sidering how zombies acted in close quarters when
they were jostled, pushed, pulled ... or damn near
anything else. I couldn't blame the Clydes for not
wanting the plane to be suddenly depressurized, but
the idea of being disarmed was not at all appealing.
We did some shifting around, then hit the ramp
with myself in the lead, the other four right behind
me, four abreast with Jill and Ken on the inside. Jill
did as good a job as I had of keeping Ken's end up.
This makeshift plan could work if the Clydes were
bored.
     Sure enough, they barely paid attention as we
simply took our heavy artillery and tossed them on
the pile outside the plane. Bye-bye, shotgun. This left
us with nothing but the pistols hidden inside our
jackets.
     We stuck close to each other, lost in the zombie
mob, as the plane started to taxi; then we worked our
way up front. The Clydes were in the back, huddled
and talking about something. By the time the plane
lifted off, giving me that rush I always get from
takeoff, we were close enough to the front that we
could duck behind the curtain leading to the cockpit
door. I took it on myself to give it a gentle push.
The door opened inward, revealing a pair of imps
hovering over a strange globe, another product of
alien technology, bolted to the floor. The monsters
appeared to be driving the plane through the use of
this pulsing, humming, buzzing ball. It gave me a
headache just looking at it; biotech made me need a
Pepto-Bismol. The glistening, sweating device was
connected to the instrument panel.
     The imps' backs were to us. They were so preoccu-
pied with their task, they didn't even turn around
when we entered. I closed the door quietly and locked
it.
     From the cockpit I saw Venus ... we were going the
wrong way, due east!
     This simply would not do. I pointed at the imps,
and then at Arlene. She nodded. We stepped forward,
pistols in hand, and the barrels of our guns touched
the back of imp heads at exactly the same instant.
The little voice in the back of my head chose that
instant to open its fat yap and suggest that Arlene and
I should say something to the imps, on the order of,
"We're hijacking this plane to Hawaii. We never did
have a proper honeymoon!"
     But there was no way to give an imp orders, other
than Fall down, you're dead! We'd simply take over
the plane. After we killed the imps.
     I'm certain that Arlene and I fired at the same
moment. The idle thoughts passing through my mind
couldn't have affected the results.
     But something went wrong.
The imp Arlene tapped went down and stayed
     down. She put two more bullets in him, almost by
reflex, to make certain that the job was good and
done. I should have been able to take care of one lousy
imp, after the way we'd exterminated ridiculous num-
bers of zombies, demons, ghosts, and pumpkins.
One lousy imp! At the closest possible range! The
head turned ever so slightly as I squeezed the trigger.
Somehow the bullet went in at an angle that didn't
put the imp down.
     Turning around, screaming, it flung one flaming
snotball. One lousy snotball. I dived to the left. Arlene
was already out of the line of fire, on the right, taking
care of the other one. Jill crouched, fingers stuck in
her ears, trying to keep out the loud reverberations of
the shots in the enclosed space. Albert could have
done the same.
     But Albert froze. As much of a pro as he was, he
stood there with the dumb expression of a deer caught
in the headlights, right before road kill. Maybe Albert
had a little voice in the back of his head, and it had
chosen that moment to bug him. Or maybe it was
such a foregone conclusion that these imps were toast,
he'd let down his guard, taking a brief mental rest at
precisely the wrong moment.
     The fireball struck him dead-center in the face.
I remembered losing Bill Ritch that way.
     It didn't seem right to survive all the firepower this
side of the goddamned sun, and then cash in on
something so trivial. It made me so mad, the cockpit
vanished in a haze of red. It was like I'd mainlined
another dose of that epinephrine stuff from Deimos.
I dropped my gun and jumped on the imp, beating
at it with my fists, tearing at it with my teeth. I was
screaming louder than poor Albert, writhing on the
floor holding his face.
     Hands were on me from behind, trying to pull me
off, little hands. Jill was behind me, yelling something
in my ear I couldn't understand; but the part of me
that didn't want to hurt Jill won out over the part that
wanted to rip the imp apart with my fingernails.
Letting go seemed a bad idea, though; there'd be
nothing stopping it from tossing the fireballs to fry us
all. Then I heard Arlene shouting something about a
"clear shot," and I suddenly remembered the inven-
tion of firearms.
     The caveman jumped out of the way to give Cockpit
Annie the target she wanted. She pumped round after
round into the imp's open mouth. He never closed it.
He never raised his claw hands again.
     Of course, while we were encountering these diffi-
culties, there was a commotion outside. I guess we
had made a bit of noise.
     One of the zombies tried the door. The lock held for
now. Sanity returned, and I helped the blinded Albert
get up, casually noticing that he hadn't taken any of
the flaming stuff down his throat or nose. He might
live.
     In the distance we heard gunshots and curses. The
Clydes must have been forcing their way forward,
shooting any zombies in their way. Suddenly, I was
grateful that the plane was a sardine can of solid,
reworked flesh.
     "Okay, moment of truth," said Arlene, the mantle
of command falling on her there and then. It's not
something I'd wish on my worst enemy. "Who's going
to fly this damned thing?" she asked in the tones of a
demand, not a question.
     The gunshots crept close. We had perhaps a minute.
"I will," said Jill in a small voice; but with confi-
dence. I remembered her stint in the truck with some
trepidation. Then I remembered how she stayed be-
hind the wheel after a missile tried to take her head
off.
     "You didn't tell us you could fly one of these," I
said, getting my voice back.
     "You didn't ask," she said. It sounded like one of
those old comedy routines, but without a laugh track.
It wasn't funny.
     "Jill," I said, "have you ever flown a plane before?"
"Kind of."
     "Kind of? What the hell does that mean?"
A zombie threw itself against the door, where
Albert still moaned. He braced himself, still fighting,
still a part of the team.
     She sighed. "Okay, I haven't really flown; but I'm a
wizard at all the different flight simulators!"
Arlene and I stared at each other with mounting
horror. I hated to admit it, even to myself, but my
experience bringing down the mail rocket--with a
high-tech program helping every mile of the way--
probably qualified me less to fly the C-5 than Jill with
her simulators.
     "All right?" I said to Arlene.
"Right," she answered, shrugging, then went to
hook up Ken.
     I helped Jill look for jacks on the glistening biotech.
She was more willing to touch it than I was. She found
what she needed and plugged Ken into the system.
The operation went smoothly; he'd been designed for
the purpose.
     Jill called up SimFlight on her CompMac and
tapped furiously, connecting it to Ken, then to the
actual plane. A moment later she spoke with that
triumphant tone of voice that rarely let us down:
"Got it! We have control!"
     The gunshots suggested the Clydes were getting
closer, and more heavy bodies were beginning to
throw themselves against the cockpit door. I was
about to make a suggestion when Albert beat me to it.
He was down but not out.
     "Godspeed," whispered Albert, still covering his
eyes. "Now, why don't you purge all the air from the
cabin, daughter?"
     Raising my eyebrows, I silently mouthed "daugh-
ter" to Arlene, but she shook her head. Albert obvi-
ously meant it generically. He was much too young to
be her real father.
     Faster and faster, Jill typed away . . . then the rag-
ing, surging sounds behind the door grew dimmer and
dimmer, finally fading away to nothing. Modern
death by keyboard. We were already at forty thousand
feet and climbing; up there, there was too little air to
sustain even zombies. And Clydes, human-real or
human-fake, had a human need for plenty of O2.
"Well done, daughter," said Albert. He could hear
just fine.
     Having come this close to buying it, I could hardly
believe we were safe again. A coughing fit came out of
nowhere and grabbed my heart. Arlene put her arm
around me and said, "Your turn to sleep again." I
didn't argue. I noticed that Albert was already
snoozing.
     Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care . , .
I felt too lousy, and too guilty somehow, to stay
under for long. Less than a half hour later I was awake
again. Jill had turned around, crossed the coastline,
and was over the ocean. All was well with the world
... for a few seconds longer.
     "Holy hell, we're losing airspeed!" she suddenly
screamed, jerking us all awake. "We're losing alti-
tude!"
     It's always something.
The engines strained and whined, making the
     noises they would if headed into a ferocious head
wind. But there was no wind. With a big fooooomp,
one engine flamed out. Jill wasn't kidding about the
quality of her simulator exercises; she instantly dived
the plane to restart it. Then she headed back, circling
around to try again.
     "Stupid monster mechanics," I yelled. "Dumb-ass
demon dildo ground crew! How the hell do these
idiots intend to conquer the world when they can't
even--"
     "Shut up!" Jill shouted. I shut up. She was right. I
could be pissed off all I wanted after she saved our
collective ass.
     Two more tries and she was white-faced. "It's some
kind of field," she said. "We can't go west."
"So that's how they're conquering the world," said
Arlene calmly. I took my medicine like a good boy.
33
     Jill set the auto-pilot to continue circling,
hoping no one had noticed the deviation yet. She
typed away, accessing the biotech nav-com aboard.
Then she smiled grimly. "Listen up," she said.
We sure as hell did; the mantle of command was
hers while we were in the air. "Guys, we're going to
have to dump you off at Burbank." She said it like
Dante's Ninth Circle of Hell where the devil himself
is imprisoned in ice, spending eternity chewing on
Judas like a piece of tough caramel. I'd made good
grades in my lit. courses.
     "What? Why?" demanded Arlene.
"The force-field switch is located in the old Disney
tower, near the studio."
     "Is nothing sacred to these devils?" I asked.
"Night on Bald Mountain," said Arlene, "part
deux."
     "Sorry. No choice."
Jill altered course and headed northeast. We didn't
speak for the rest of the short flight. None of us could
think of anything worth saying.
     Finally, Jill was bringing the plane low over Bur-
bank International Airport. "Can you do a rolling
stop?" I asked. "Slow down to about fifty kilometers
per hour, then turn it into a touch-and-go?"
"Uh," she said. After thinking about it, she contin-
ued: "Yeah. Why?" I let the silence speak for me. She
gasped and said, "You're crazy if you're thinking of a
roll-out!"
     "I'm thinking of a roll-out."
"What the hell," said Arlene. "I'm crazy too."
Jill shook her head, obviously wondering about
both of us.
     She cruised in over the airport, ignoring the stan-
dard landing pattern and dodging other planes, which
answered my question about lousy zombie pilots.
We were low enough that the passenger cabin was
pressurized again. Arlene and I went aft, picking our
way over a planeful of zombies and two Clydes that
were examples of the only good monsters. Jill kept
calling out, "Are you ready?" She sounded more
nervous each time. We reassured her. It was easier
than reassuring ourselves.
     "Open the rear cargo door!" Arlene shouted so that
Jill could hear. We hit the runway deck hard, bounc-
ing twice; the C-5 wasn't supposed to fly this slow.
The rushing wind made everything a lot noisier. But
we were able to hear Jill, loud and clear, when she said
the magic word:
     "Jump!"
We did just that, hitting the tarmac hard. I rolled
over and over and over, bruising portions of my
anatomy I'd never noticed before. I heard the sound
effects from Arlene doing her impression of a tennis
ball. But I didn't doubt this was the right way to
disembark the plane; couldn't risk a real landing.
I got to my feet first. Jill was having trouble with her
altitude. "Jesus, no!" shouted Arlene at the sight of
Jill headed for a row of high rises.
     "Lift, dammit, lift!" I spoke angrily into the air.
There wasn't time for a proper prayer.
     At the last second, bright, blinding flares erupted
from under both wings, and the C-5 pulled sharply
upward. A few seconds later we heard a roar so loud
that it almost deafened us.
     "What the hell?" Arlene asked, mouth hanging
open.
     "Outstanding!" I shouted, fisting the air. "She must
have found the switch for the JATO rockets."
"JATO?"
     "Jet-assisted takeoff!" I shouted. "They're rockets
on aircraft to allow them to do ultra-short-field take-
offs."
     "I didn't know that plane would have those."
"She probably didn't either," I said, so proud of her
I wished she could hear me call her daughter the same
way Albert had.
     We watched until Jill became a dark speck in the
sky, circling until we could get the field down.
We tucked and ran, jogging all the way to the huge
Disney building; the Disney logo at the top was shot
up--somebody'd been using it for target practice.
"Ready?" I asked.
     "Always."
I took a deep breath; pistols drawn, we popped the
door and slid inside.
     My God, what a wave of nostalgia! It was like old
times again . . . back on Phobos, sliding around cor-
ners, hunting those zombies!
     Up the stairwells--couldn't trust the lifts . . , I
mean the elevators. Any minute, I knew I'd run into a
hell-prince--and me without my trusty rocket
launcher. Thank God, I didn't.
     We played all our old games: cross fire, ooze-barrel-
blow, even rile-the-critters. The last was the most fun:
you get zombies and spinys so pissed, they munch
each other alive.
     Every floor we visited, we looked for that damned
equipment. Nada. We climbed higher and higher; I
began to get the strong feeling that we'd find the field
generator way, way up, fortieth floor, all the way at
the top.
     It'd be just our luck.
We took Sig-Cows off'n the first two zombies we
killed; better than the pistols, even though they were
still just 10mm. The next one had a beautiful, won-
derful shotgun. I'd take it, even if it was a fascist
pump-action.
     "Like old times," I said.
"Back on Deimos," she agreed.
     "They die just as easily. I like my new toy."
"Hold your horses, Fly Taggart," she said. "Haven't
you forgotten something?"
     "Like what?"
"A certain wager."
     No sooner did she mention the bet than I did
indeed remember. There was only one thing to do.
Change the subject: "Those zombies were probably
the least of our troubles, Arlene. We can settle this
later--"
     "No way, Fly! I jumped out of a plane for you, and
you're gonna pay your damn bet." When she got like
this there was nothing to do but surrender. All the
demonic forces of hell were like child's play compared
to welshing on a bet with Arlene Sanders.
     "Well, now that you mention it, I do have a vague
recollection," I lied. "And that Sig-Cow looks like a
mighty fine weapon at that."
     "Good," she said. "You take the Sig-Cow. The
shotgun is mine."
     We resolved this dispute at just about the right
moment, because a fireball exploded over our heads.
We were under bombardment by imps. Now the new
weapons would receive a literal baptism of fire.
Blowing away the spiny bastards, up the fifth floor
stairwell, I turned a corner and found myself nose-to-
nose with another Clyde. This close, there was no
question: it looked exactly the same as the one we'd
killed in the alley in Riverside, the same as the two
who'd disarmed us getting on the plane.
     There was no question now: they were, indeed,
genetically engineered. The aliens had finally made
their breakthrough . . . God help the human race.
He raised his .30 caliber, belt-fed, etc., etc.; but we
had the drop on him. He never knew what hit him--
well, it was a hail of bullets and Arlene's buckshot,
and he probably knew that; you know what I mean!
But now I had my own weapon; she looked envious
. . . but she'd had her pick. The bet was paid.
As a final treat, thirty-seven floors up--Jesus, was I
getting winded! I felt like an old man--we were
attacked by a big, floating, familiar old pumpkin.
It hissed. It made faces. It spat ball lightning at us.
I spat a stream of .30 caliber machine-gun bullets
back at it, popping it like a beach ball. It spewed all
over the room, spraying that blue ichor it uses for
blood.
     "Jesus, Fly," said my partner in crime, "I'm going
to lose my hearing if this keeps up."
     "What?"
"That machine gun! It's almost as loud as Jill and
her jets."
     "What's that?" I asked, grinning. I was delighted
with the results of my belt-fed baby.
     She gave a "playful" punch on the arm, my old
buddy. I yelped in pain.
     "Where's an uninjured place on your body?" she
asked.
     "That's a very good question. I think tumbling
down the airstrip eliminated all of those."
     "Same here," she said. "But you can still make a
great pumpkin pie." She kicked at the disgusting
remains on the ground.
     "Shall we find the top of the mouse house?" I
suggested.
     "After you, Fly."
In battlefield conditions, a proper gentleman goes
ahead of the lady. If she asks, anyway. I was happy to
oblige; but the nose of my machine gun actually
preceded both of us.
     At the very top we found a prize.
The door wasn't even locked. Inside was a room full
of computers hooked into a new collection of alien
biotech. This stuff gave off a stench, and some of it
made mewling sounds like an injured animal. I
wished Jill could be with us, plotting new ways of
becoming a technovivisectionist.
     "Got to be it," said Arlene.
I had trouble making out her words, not because my
hearing was impaired, but because of the noise level.
My machine gun contributed a good portion of it. So
did Arlene's shotgun. And there were several explo-
sions. A nice fanfare as we blew away unsuspecting
imps and zombies tending the equipment.
     I picked up a fiberglass baton off the body of an ex-
zombie guard and used it to bar the door. I expected
more playmates along momentarily. The idea didn't
even bother me; not so long as I could buy us some
time.
     Arlene waved the smoke away and began fiddling
with the controls on the main console. She frantically
started flipping one push-switch after another, look-
ing for the one that would kill the field.
     "There has to be a way of doing this," she said, "or
finding out if we've already done it.
     "What makes you so sure?"
"Well, what if the aliens wanted to fly to Hawaii?"
I nodded. "I can just see a pinkie in one of those
Hawaiian shirts."
     "Damn! I wish we had Jill and Ken with us."
"Defeats the whole purpose, A.S. They're ready
and waiting, forty thousand up, ready to blow for the
islands as soon as we cut the bloody field."
"Most of the switches require a psi-connection to
activate, and I can't do that!"
     By now there was a huge contingent pounding on
the door. The fiberglass bar was holding them ... so
far. These sounds did not improve Arlene's psycho-
logical state or aid the difficult work she was trying to
do.
     "I'm not getting it," she said. "I'm close, but I'm
not getting it. Damn, damn, damn . . ."
     "Is there anything I can do?"
"Hold the door. Hold the door! I'm sure there's one
special button, but how will I know it even if I find
it?"
     As if to mock her, the entire panel went dark right
then. She looked up and saw . . .
     Me. Me, her buddy. Fly Taggart, technical dork,
first-class. In my hand I held a gigantic electrical cord
that I'd sliced in half with my commando knife. I
knew that knife would come in handy one day.
"When in doubt, yank it out," I said with a smile.
She tried to laugh but was too tired for any sound to
come out. "Did you learn that in VD class?" she
asked.
     I was saved from answering her because the door
started to give way under the onslaught. Then the
shred of a feeble plan crept into my brain. I ran across
to the windows and smashed them open.
     We were forty stories high, looking straight down
on concrete, but it seemed better to open the windows
than leave them closed.
     "We took the energy wall down, at least," I said
over my shoulder. "Jill's got to notice it's gone and
tread air for Hawaii."
     Arlene nodded, bleak even in victory. She was
thinking of Albert ... I didn't need alien psionics to
know that. "The War Techies will track her as an
'unknown rider,'" added Arlene bleakly, "and they'll
scramble some jets; they should be able to make
contact and talk her down."
     "Would you say the debt is paid?"
I didn't have to specify which debt. Arlene consid-
ered for a long time. "Yeah," she said at last, "it's
paid."
     "Evens?"
"Evens."
     "Great. Got a hot plan to talk us down?" I asked
my buddy.
     She shook her head. I had a crazy wish that before
Albert was blinded, and before Arlene and I found
ourselves in this cul-de-sac, I'd played Dutch uncle to
the two love birds, complete with blessings and un-
wanted advice.
     But somehow this did not seem the ideal moment
to suggest that Arlene seriously study the Mormon
faith, if she really loved good old Albert. A sermon on
why it was better to have some religion, any religion,
lay dormant in my mind.
     Also crossing my mind was another sermon, on the
limitations of the atheist viewpoint, right before your
mortal body is ripped to shreds. Bad taste, especially
if you delivered it to someone with only precious
seconds left to come up with a hot plan.
     She shook her head. "There's no way," she began,
and then paused. "Unless . . ."
     "Yes?" I asked, trying not to let the sound of a
hundred slavering monsters outside the door add
panic to the atmosphere.
     Arlene stared at the door, at the console, then out
the window. She went over to the window like she had
all the time in the world and looked straight down.
Then up. For some reason, she looked up.
     She faced me again, wearing a big, crafty, Arlene
Sanders smile. "You are not going to believe this, Fly
Taggart, but I think--I think I have it. I know how to
get us down and get us to Hawaii to join Albert."
"And Jill," I added. I nodded back, convinced
she'd finally cracked. "Great idea, Arlene. We could
use a vacation from all this pressure."
     "You don't believe me."
"You're right. I don't believe you."
     Arlene smiled slyly. She was using the early-worm-
that-got-the-bird smile. "Flynn Taggart. .. bring me
some duct tape from the toolbox, an armload of
computer-switch wiring, and the biggest, goddamned
boot you can find!"