Hero (Gone 9)

“Follow me, Cruz, I have an idea!”

Any idea was better than none, and any company was better than being alone, so Cruz followed the blue girl as they ran/flew beneath the eastern balcony and found themselves in something like a very upscale supermarket. There were stalls of food on both sides, seafood, coffee, gourmet stores with little jars of mustard and balsamic vinega

r.

It had all been looted, thrown about, trampled, but Simone kept going until she stopped in midair and pointed.

“There!” Simone cried, pointing at a chocolate shop.

“You want chocolate? Now?”

“Come on! Get some shopping bags. Grab anything sweet.”

This involved crawling around and using fingernails to pry stepped-on chocolates off the floor.

“What the hell are we doing?” Cruz asked, but Simone had gone behind the smashed glass service counter into the back room. She emerged with two five-pound bags of sugar.

“Forget the chocolate, this will do it! There’s more back there, grab it!” And Simone flew, right back toward the concourse.

Cruz, not knowing why but responding to the urgency in Simone’s voice, raced past the counter and on a shelf found a third bag of sugar, powdered, as it happened. She ran after Simone, who was already back out in the main concourse.

The bugs came crawling, a tide of bugs. They came flying, like horizontal rain. And Dekka’s heart died within her.

They had done nothing to hurt Vector.

Nothing. He had waited patiently until the only weapon that mattered—the flamethrowers—had become useless. He had waited patiently as they burned some small portion of him, and now . . .

A mass of the insects swirled into the air and again formed the “face” of Vector.

“Don’t feel bad,” Vector crowed. “You did well. You did very well. And I’ve learned something from this: Don’t bother with humans. Malik can take them out too easily.”

“Stop it, Markovic!” Dekka yelled, though her voice sounded weak in her ears. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you?’ Markovic countered. “Join me. Serve me. We can rule the world!”

“Great, a garden-variety megalomaniac.” This came from Malik.

The Vector face formed a hideous smile. “Ah, Malik. Do you know, Malik, that I can see through your morph? Eh? Do you know that I see what you really are? My God, the pain you’ve endured, young man. And for what? You’re powerless against me.”

“We’re still standing, Vector,” Malik said defiantly.

Vector moved his millions of wings and his millions of mouthparts and let go a long sigh that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Last chance, Rockborn Gang. I could have exterminated you long before this, but I wanted to see what you had. I’m impressed. Really, I am. But it’s decision time for you. Now or never. Join me, or die.”

The insect army was coming on, but at a measured pace, threatening but not yet attacking. Dekka knew that the instant she refused Vector’s demand, they would attack, and by sheer weight of numbers would find their way into eyes and ears and nostrils. Maybe their disease organisms would work against Rockborn, or maybe they wouldn’t, but either way, they would lose.

The choices now were submit or flee.

And then Simone came zooming in at about ten feet above the floor, zoomed over and through the storm of bugs, holding two big bags and trailing white powder.

“Come on,” Markovic said impatiently. “With me or against me? I could use the Rockborn Gang, truly I could.”

“We don’t get used,” Dekka snapped.

There came a whispery laugh. “Then what is to follow is on you.”

Then, Vector’s insects attacked, swarmed with violent purpose—not in an attack on the Rockborn Gang but in a frenzy of sugar addiction.

“Run!” Simone shouted as she passed. “The sugar won’t last long!”