Appeals Court, page 39 by Charles Stross
<< Return to Title Details & Download40
evil-smelling black smoke trails from her spidersilk gloves as they descend. "Ow." Huw can barely hear her moan and to tell the truth he's more concerned with the state of his own stomach, gellid with terror as they drop past two, three rows of windows.
The ground comes up and smacks him across the ankles and he lets go of Bonnie. They fall apart and as he falls he sees a delivery van pulling away, the tailgate jammed shut around a blue basket. "Thanks a million, bastards," Bonnie snarls, picking herself up. "Think you could have waited?"
"No," Huw pants, looking past her. "Listen, the Inquisition are round the front and they'll be after us any second --"
She grabs his wrist. "Come on, then!" She hauls off and almost drags him the length of the filthy alleyway, under rusting fire escapes and collapsing headless plastic statues of Disney cartoon characters decaptiated as graven images by the godly.
By the time they hit the end of the alley, he's up to speed and tugging her, self-preservation glands fully engaged. In the distance, sirens are wailing. "Shit. They're round the other side. So much for your wait-and-get-away-later plan."
"That was back there," she says tensely. "There's a basement garage, when the building reconfigured we could have dropped down a chute straight into the cockpit of a batmobile and headed out via the service tunnels. Woulda worked a treat if it wasn't for your teraherz radar."
"My radar?" Huw says, hating the squawk in his voice. He swallows his ire as he looks into Bonnie's fear-wide eyes. "Right." he says. "We need transport and we need to get past the Inquisition shock-troops before we can get to the out of town safe house. If they've ringed the block and they've got radar they'll see us real soon --"
"Shit," says Bonnie, her grip loosening. Huw looks round.
An olive-drab abomination whines and reverses into the alley, reversing towards them. Cleated metal tracks grind and scrape on the paving as an assault ramp drops down. It's