"So, what did she offer you?" Padma asked me Prime-to-Prime, once we were outside in the hallway.
"What do you mean?" I said. "She didn't offer me anything."
"She asked you something, and you jumped up and said no. I could tell that much, even without understanding Cantonese. She asked you to leave me behind and take her with you instead, didn't she?"
I clenched my teeth, trying to keep a rein on my temper. Courtesy, I reminded myself. Courtesy, everywhere and always. Aloud, I said mildly, "You don't know what you're talking about, Violet."
"I know she was trying to seduce you," Padma retorted, undeterred. "Did she offer to sleep with you if you took her with you?"
"No. She asked me to kill her." Padma gasped. I went on, "She said she didn't want to be responsible for Lily Lee murdering anyone. She wanted me to strangle her, right then and there, just so that couldn't happen. I told her no. The only other thing she asked me to do was to give her a kiss before I left, which I did."
"Oh." There was a long silence. "Sorry, Indigo. I will shut up now."
"That would be a good idea."
I decided to take Padma to the large open space where all the spiraling hallways came together. I explained, Prime-to-Prime, what I knew about the pattern of halls and lights as we went. She was uncharacteristically quiet while I talked; I assumed she was feeling bad about what she had said about Li Lin-fa.
We had to slow down as we approached the center; there seemed to be more activity than previously. In fact, the hallway we were using became impassible (at least for us invisible folks who wanted to remain undiscovered) while we were still some distance from the center. We had to switch tracks several times before we finally caught sight of the main chamber.
"This is their central control area?" Padma asked me.
"Yeah, as near as I can tell. Do you see anything around here that looks like a teleporter?"
"I don't know. What do they look like?"
I stared at her. Or rather, I would have stared at her if I could have seen her. As it was, I just kind of stared at the space where I knew she was. "How should I know? I'm not the tech person. Hasn't Nicolai had you, I don't know, dust ours once a week or something?"
"No. I have never seen it. Do you mean to tell me you don't know what a teleporter looks like either?"
I slapped my free hand over my face and shook my head in despair. "No," I said. "I have no idea."
"Then how are we going to get out of here?" she demanded.
"I don't know!" I snapped. "I guess we'll have to figure out what one looks like, won't we?" I looked around the chamber as I considered the problem. An odd assortment of beings populated the open space. The tubes of grayish-green gas were there, surrounded by monsters of varying kinds. I caught sight of our favorite skinny red hedgehog; he seemed to be addressing some of the gas tubes. "Let's find out what JB Swift is doing," I suggested, pulling Padma with me.
"I'm telling you there's another Prime here!" he was saying. "There must be. Someone knocked out the guards you had posted at the girl's door, and I doubt she was capable of it. She wasn't much of a fighter."
Padma hissed softly at this; I squeezed her hand in warning. One of the tubes pulsed in an irregular pattern, and JB Swift said, "Yes, I saw the belt. I had my attack doll put it on, and we tried every English phrase we could think of to activate it. Unsuccessfully, I might add. It may have been damaged in the fight, or perhaps it simply doesn't respond to voice activation in English." More pulses. "Well, how should I know? You let me use it for only a little while. We left it there in the room, as you ordered. It's not my problem if you lost it."
Still more pulses, and these went on for quite some time. It looked like JB Swift was getting a dressing-down; I could see that he was starting to get mad. "I will not!" he shouted at last. "No. Absolutely not. She is spent, I tell you. I couldn't possibly send her out again, not for at least twenty-four --"
A rapid series of pulses cut him off. That went on for a few seconds, and then JB Swift cut off the pulses. "No, of course I'm not developing feelings for her. Do I look human to you? It's just that I have invested the last six years in developing the attack doll, and I will not throw that away just because you --"
More light pulses. JB Swift said patiently, "Yes, I know you think we need to keep the other Primes distracted so they can't organize a rescue attempt, but if there's one already --" Pulses again. JB sighed. "All right, if you think you need to buy more time, I may have something that will distract them. May have. Which Prime was she? What was her number?" There were some more pulses, and then a grin spread itself across JB Swift's ugly red face. "That's perfect," he exclaimed. "I hadn't wanted to send this one out because it's highly vulnerable to number seventeen's attacks, but without her, the others should find him a tough nut to crack. How many drones can you spare?"
Whatever the gas-tubes pulsed must have pleased him, because he bowed and said, "That should be more than enough, your Excellencies. I will make preparations at once." More pulses. "Look, I can do only one thing at a time. Someone else will have to oversee the search for her." With that, he was gone. I mean, he literally disappeared, and I was reminded how JB Swift had earned his name.
Padma began pulling on my hand. "We should follow him," she said.
"Did you see which way he went?"
"No, but if we can find him, then perhaps we can teleport out when he sends out his monster."
I considered what she had said. "Violet," I said, "remember when I told you to let me know if you came up with a better plan than mine?"
"Yes . . ." she replied hesitantly.
"I'm glad I said that. Piggybacking on JB Swift's monster is the best idea I've heard all day." I chuckled and gave her hand a little squeeze. "Come on, let's go."
I reasoned that he would make his headquarters somewhere near Lily's room, so Padma and I hustled back to the red/orange intersection we had just left. Sure enough, we soon caught sight of a huge monster striding along the red corridor ahead of us, and we heard JB Swift's voice saying from in front of him, "Just go out there and tear them apart. I know what I told you about the purple one, but she won't be there. You'll be fine." There was a rumble like the sound of a cement mixer with indigestion, and then he went on, "Of course I'm sure. We have her trapped here. You just go attack those other Primes with everything you've got; they won't know what hit them! That's a good monster!"
Padma giggled. "He is talking to him as if he were a dog."
I chuckled. "Well, no one ever said that Enclave monsters were smart."
We followed them along the red hallway for a while. Cement-mixer didn't move very fast, but geez, he was big! The hallways in this place were pretty broad -- probably to accommodate all the monster traffic -- but this guy filled most of one all by himself. After a time, JB Swift and monster turned left into a corridor whose color I couldn't quite place. It was an odd cross between blue and purple. Then, after a moment's thought, I mentally kicked myself. It was Indigo, duh! Boy, I can be stupid sometimes!
JB and Cement-mixer trundled down Indigo Highway for a long time, like close to an hour. Finally they stopped in front of a set of double doors that looked to open nearly as wide as the hallway. (A good thing, too, if Cement-mixer was planning to go through them.)
The room turned out to be fully as high-school-gymnasium large as the one I had teleported into. I was pretty sure it was not the same room -- I would have remembered exiting into a me-colored hallway -- but it could have been its clone. JB Swift directed Cement-mixer over to the center of a large circle inscribed in the floor, speaking encouragingly to him all the while. "Now don't worry about a thing. You're bigger than they are, you're stronger than they are, and you're fas-- well, anyway, you're stronger than they are. And just forget about the purple Prime; she can't hurt you."
"I'm not purple!" Padma hiss
ed softly. "I'm Violet!"
I chuckled quietly. "Yeah, well, I never thought I'd see an Enclave monster with self-esteem issues!"
That set her to giggling so much that I was afraid we would be discovered, Prime-to-Prime communication notwithstanding. The Zoinks (I decided I liked that better than "drones") were starting to arrive anyway, so I hustled us over to an out-of-the-way corner to wait where we could see everything but (hopefully) no one would trip over us. "Indigo," Padma asked after we had been watching the Zoinks slowly drift in for a while, "may I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"What would you have done if Lily had asked to come with us?"
"I would have said no," I replied without hesitation. "I already told you why."
"But she is so beautiful!" Padma said. She sounded troubled. "Much prettier than I. And . . . forgive me, but you seemed quite attracted to her. I thought for certain that you would want to take her with us."
"Maybe I did. But like I said then, it wouldn't have worked out. It would have put all three of us in a whole lot of danger."
"But what if she had begged you? What if she had offered to --"
"I would have said no," I repeated firmly. Hang it, why did girls always want to discuss these things?
"But what if --"
"Look, Violet," I said, exasperated, "leaving aside the facts that you hold your own quite well in the pretty department and that looks aren't everything anyway, she's not the gal who brung me. I would have said no."
"Who . . . brung you? I don't understand. What does 'brung' mean?"
I laughed softly. "It means 'brought'. Colloquial simple past tense of 'bring'." Yup, son-of-a-linguist strikes again. "When I was growing up, there was an old guy across the street from us who used to tell me, 'When you're at a party, always dance with the gal who brung you.'"
"Um . . ."
"Which means," I went on, "that you need to remain faithful to your friends, even if you happen to meet someone who may be new and beautiful and exciting."
"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "I see. You were just being loyal."
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"No, I . . . suppose not."
Poor Padma. I could tell her vanity was really taking a beating here. "Let me put it this way," I said. "You asked me about Robin earlier, and I didn't really answer you then. Now I will. She is my deep, dark secret, and you have discovered it." I took a deep breath; this was going to be hard. "Robin's death was my fault. I screwed up. She died because I let her down. I've been haunted by that ever since, and I swear I will never, ever let it happen again." I was glad we were invisible at the moment, because I didn't want her to see me blinking back tears. Talking about Robin still got to me, even after all this time, and I hadn't even told Padma everything. I hadn't told anyone everything, although I think Shelley suspected a lot of it.
I cleared the tightness from my throat and went on, "You are the reason I'm here right now, Violet. The only reason. I'm not here for Lily or Li Lin-fa or anyone else; I'm here for you, period. I jumped through that teleport trap because I was your minder and it was my responsibility to find you and bring you home safely. As far as I'm concerned, nothing else matters at the moment. You are the most important person in the world to me right now, and your safety and well-being are all I care about. And that's why I told Li Lin-fa no."
Padma made a soft sound, something between an "Oh!" and an "Aww!". It's that sound you hear girls make a lot when they see a really cute kitty or bunny or something. She shifted position, and then I felt her hand cuff my ear.
"Ow! Hey, what was that for?"
"Sorry!" Her hand caught hold of my hair, and she started to pull me toward her. "Come here, you idiot!" she hissed when I resisted. "That was the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me, and I am going to kiss you for it."
It was pretty awkward, as kisses go. I had never kissed anyone who was invisible before, and I'd bet Padma hadn't either. It actually went a whole lot more smoothly once I closed my eyes and just kind of felt where my lips should go. And, of course, we had to break it off when we heard JB Swift's amplified voice boom out, "Prepare for teleport in five minutes!"
"Oops! We had better go," I said.
The Zoinks had clustered themselves around Cement-Mixer, and they all appeared to be standing within the circle inscribed on the floor. I took that to mean that Padma and I ought to be within the circle as well, if we wanted to leave with the others.
It was hard not to bump into anyone; the only place that was comparatively free of Zoinks was directly in front of JB Swift's control panel. I squatted down there and indicated that Padma do the same to reduce the likelihood that we might be discovered. "Stay as still as you can," I whispered to her. He was behind some sort of plastic enclosure that looked like it hadn't been cleaned for while, but one could never tell.
"Prepare for teleport in four minutes!"
JB Swift was studying something on his control panel. He glanced up at us, then down again, and then he frowned and glanced back up. I said a very bad word.
"What is it?" Padma demanded. "What's wrong?"
"I think he's seen us. Stay still!" I commanded, gripping her hand tightly.
JB Swift leaned over to a microphone. "Bill, I'm picking up an odd shimmer in front of you, right at the very top of the circle. It's probably nothing, but have a drone check it out." (Bill? I thought. Bill the Cement-mixer? Well, why not?)
Cement-mixer grumbled something. JB Swift replied testily, "Well, how should I know what it is? Just check it out. And no, I can't stop the countdown at this point, not without authorization which they won't give me."
He returned to his controls and then announced, "Prepare for teleport in three minutes!"
Bill the Cement-mixer grumbled something at one of the Zoinks. It began duck-walking walking slowly toward us, sweeping its arms from side to side so as not to miss anything.
I uttered a different very bad word. "Violet, listen to me," I said, trying to keep the tension out of my voice. "I'm going to try to draw their attention away from here. I want you to stay there. Do not try to help me, do you understand? Don't help. Just stay put."
"But Indigo --"
"No buts. Stay where you are. That's an order. If you're not inside this circle when their countdown reaches zero, then everything I have done here will have been for nothing, and I'm going to be very angry with you. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes, Indigo." She sounded scared, but at least she wasn't crying, although it sounded like she would be in about two seconds.
"Keep hold of yourself," I warned her. "Don't lose your head. Everything's going to be fine." I looked up. The Zoink was getting closer. "Don't worry about me. I'm not planning to get left behind. Now, as soon as you teleport, start attacking the monster. Shout out to Wizzit that it's highly vulnerable to your attacks. Tell him to start tuning your weapons to take him out."
"My -- my weapons?"
"Your boots! Come on, think! Those boots you made!"
"Oh! Yes, I understand."
"Good." I stood up; the Zoink was nearly within arm's reach of us now. Reaching down to my belt buckle, I quickly tapped the code to turn off camouflage mode.
The Zoink started at my sudden appearance right in front of it, and it fell backwards onto its butt. It might have been funny if things had not been so grim. With a yell, I kicked it in the face and without waiting for the other Zoinks to react, I charged forward, swinging sap-gloved fists and yelling like a madman. Behind me, I heard JB Swift announce that there were two minutes left to teleport.
Two minutes? I grinned. It was like a game. All I had to do was stay inside this circle for two minutes. Who couldn't hold off twenty or thirty Zoinks for two minutes? This was going to be a piece of cake.
Well, as it turned out, I couldn't hold off twenty or thir
ty Zoinks for two minutes. Although, to be fair, it wasn't really the Zoinks; it was Bill. He waddled forward and swatted at me with a car-tire-sized hand. I had scouted that and had picked up a Zoink as a shield, but the force of his blow was enough to send both of us sailing across the large room, tail over teakettle.
"Indigo!" Padma cried, Prime-to-Prime. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I panted. "Stay where you are." I risked a glance over to where I knew she was. Too many Zoinks near her. I jumped to my feet and began circling around to the back of the circle as if I were looking for the best way to get back in. Just as I had hoped, the Zoinks came back toward me. I leapfrogged the first few and began laying into the rest with punches and kicks. Worked pretty well, I must say, at least for a while. I pushed forward steadily, punching out Zoink after Zoink with my specially-powered sap gloves. At some point, I must have crossed over into the circle, because Cement-mixer came over for another go at me.
I ducked under his first swat, which toppled Zoinks all around me. I didn't bother trying to attack him; based on what I had heard, he was resistant to all of us except Padma. It didn't make sense to me, but I knew it would to Wizzit, and that was another reason Padma had to make it out of here.
I gathered my legs beneath me as JB Swift announced that there was one minute left. I leaped up, thinking to dive over the knot of Zoinks in front of me. I had misjudged Bill's speed, though. He whacked me a good one, sending me flying out of the circle again, directly over Padma's head. I landed hard on the floor, striking my head and right shoulder.
"Indigo!" Padma screamed. "Help!"
Damn! The Zoinks were swarming after me like bees after their queen, which of course brought them right over top of Padma. I shook the stars from my vision and charged forward. I saw several Zoinks fly backwards amid showers of sparks; she was obviously making good use of her special boots. I picked up the nearest Zoink and flung it behind me, wincing at a sudden pain in my shoulder.
"Violet, you're outside the circle!" I shouted.
"I know! I'm trying to get in!"
"Ten seconds to teleport," came JB's voice. "Nine . . ."
Zoinks were starting to pile on top of me now. I flung two Zoinks off of me, but three more jumped on, and then a few more after that. I felt my knees begin to buckle. Desperately, I pushed forward to try to help Padma.
". . . eight . . ."
I staggered forward a step or two, but I couldn't make it any farther. Padma screamed for my help again, and I saw her go down under her own pile of Zoinks. And that was when it happened.
". . . seven . . ."
The first time I saw Shelley create one of her shock waves, I was just dumbfounded. I went up to her afterwards and asked her how she did it. She shrugged and smiled and said, "You just draw in the power from your force shield and then blow it out again as hard as you can." It didn't make much sense to me at the time, but now, all of a sudden, it did.
". . . six . . . five . . ."
My anger at the Zoinks and fear for Padma seemed to overwhelm me. I froze for a couple of seconds, and it felt like I was sucking in power from the shield around me. When I couldn't pull in any more, I yelled and threw it back out again as hard as I could.
". . . four . . ."
Zoinks flew everywhere. Even most of the ones that were on top of Padma were blown back by the shock wave. I dove over to her and pulled the rest of them off.
". . . three . . ."
I could feel the tingle of the teleporter charging up now. I hauled Padma to her feet. "We've got to get in the circle! Now!" I shouted at her.
". . . two . . ."
She seemed dazed and tried to go off in the wrong direction. I turned her around and started pushing her forward, but there were too many Zoink bodies on the ground, still semi-active and grabbing at our feet, trying to trip us up.
". . . one . . ."
I decided this was no time to be polite. I grabbed Padma's belt with one hand and the back of her tee-shirt with the other, picked up all hundred or so pounds of her, and flung her bodily forward. She landed inside the circle just as JB Swift said, "Zero!" There was a flash of light, and Bill, Padma, and a dozen or so Zoinks vanished.
Chapter 19