Emerald eyes a tale of the Continuing Time daniel keys moran

Better.

David nodded. “We’ll remember.”

Good. Carl’s head sagged back against the wall. Go.

David rose and punched for the maglev. Denice hugged her father suddenly, fiercely, felt the pain that rolled through him at the contact. Blood covered her when she let go. “Good-bye, Daddy.” She rose and ran to the maglev when the doors opened.

Carl Castanaveras’ last thought reached out to them after the doors to the maglev had rolled shut upon them. Kill the fuckers.

As the maglev descended, David Castanaveras said grimly, “We will.”

I’ve lost touch with upstairs.

It took Charbonneau a long moment to understand what D’Argentan had said to him. His father was growing angrier and angrier over Maurice’s insistence that he was dead; Logrissen had ceased walking and now simply stood motionless at the entrance to the hotel, staring in at Maurice. Charbonneau could see Logrissen’s lower intestines, hanging out of the hole Charbonneau’s autoshot had made in him back in the summer of ’59. Finally Maurice said, Sergeant? Did you say something?

Yes. I’ve lost touch with Conseiller Carson.

Want me to go up and see what’s happened?

Sergeant D’Argentan hesitated, then said reluctantly, No. No, don’t do that. I’ll go. Watch the door, make sure nobody enters the hotel. Maurice nodded, and D’Argentan turned to the maglevs.

The door to the center maglev flexed slightly before D’Argentan had even touched the pressure point that controlled it.

The door curled open.

Maurice watched D’Argentan jerk as though he had touched a live wire, one hand still reaching for the pressure point, as the converging beams reached him and his uniform burst into flames.

They came out into the lobby slowly, cautiously, stepping across Sergeant D’Argentan’s burning body. As Maurice had heard, they were mere children; it was the first time Maurice had seen them since their kidnaping. Maurice sat with his autoshot, watching the genegineered telepath children move across the lobby, toward the entrance. The boy had his laser trained on Maurice, and Maurice smiled at him. The girl was very pretty, but she did not look at Maurice after the first quick glance to make sure her brother had him covered. Maurice said politely, in heavily accented English, “Hello.”

The boy hesitated at the door after the girl had ventured outward, onto the slidewalk in front of the hotel. For the first time Maurice seriously considered the possibility that Sergeant D’Argentan had told him the truth; neither of the children seemed to notice Nils Logrissen’s grinning corpse standing just outside the hotel’s entrance.

The girl turned back. “David, come on!”

David Castanaveras took one slow, halting step toward Maurice Charbonneau. Maurice smiled at the boy one more time as David brought the maser down to focus on the center of Maurice’s chest.

“Hello,” Maurice said again. “I am Maurice Charbonneau.”

David Castanaveras whispered; Maurice had to strain to hear him. “Hello. My name is David Castanaveras, and this is for my father.”

Then for the barest instant Maurice felt a pain so great that he thought for a moment it was something else entirely—the touch of God, perhaps, calling him home. And perhaps it was. The maser beam swept across him and then there was no pain, nor anything else, for ever and ever again, amen.

The twins ran out into the night, into the riots.

Into the first hour of the Troubles.

Trent was not certain what caused him to look back. He was out of sight of the Peaceforcer station, running through the rain as fast as he was able. Behind him something moved too fast for his eyes to track.

Brass balls.

He ducked into an alleyway, ran to its far end and turned out onto another street. He found himself on Westway Street, across the street from the Hudson River. The wind whipped the river strongly, and its waves splashed up and onto Westway Street. He was the only person on the slidewalks for three blocks in any direction. If the Peaceforcers came this far—

He ran straight across the street, down to the water.

On the other side of the street, the Peaceforcer Elite seemed to appear out of nowhere.

A single pier stretched out into the water of the Hudson River; Trent could not see a boat on the side facing him, but there had to be one on the other side. The logic did not strike him as even slightly strange; if there was no boat the cyborg would catch him. He ran the thirty meters to the pier’s entrance and reached the boardwalk only seconds ahead of the Elite and ran down its empty length without looking back. His gaze swept left and right, left and right.

There were no boats moored anywhere on the pier.

The Peaceforcer made a long arm and snagged Trent’s shirt. In a single instant of movement too fast for Trent to comprehend, much less resist, the Peaceforcer gathered Trent in and picked him up from the boardwalk.

Trent did the only thing he could think of; from a lifetime of martial arts instruction, he grasped the Peaceforcer, hugging him for traction, and kicked down at the invisible blur of the Elite’s legs. It was like thrusting his hand into a rotor. He felt his right leg snap like a stick and then the Peaceforcer went down, and together they skidded across the slick boardwalk. They did not even slow before they went over the edge into the choppy water.

There was no air in his lungs; he had not had time to draw a breath. The Peaceforcer was still holding him, and the cyborg’s great weight drew them both down into the warm summer waters.

The iron grip of the Elite’s hand on his shoulder eased as though the Peaceforcer were considering the situation, and then the grip loosened further and let Trent go. With the last energy in him, Trent kicked up, to the surface of the water, and drew in a great gasping breath when he broke through to the air. A huge roaring filled his ears, and he swallowed water several times. Bright red dots hung before his eyes, and he considered, as though it were a problem that did not concern him, how to get back to land when he did not have the strength to swim.

The waves brought him smashing up against one of the columns that bore the pier’s weight, and then again. The third time he grasped the column when he struck it, lacerating his arms against rough barnacles. The water washed over him and took his air away, and he held his breath until it receded. With his last strength he held on to the pier as the water washed over him, and held on, and held.