Chapter 15

Thursday was more of the same. Viewing hours went on until eight -- and seemed to last longer than that. Then Uncle Buck or somebody catered ANOTHER dinner at a restaurant nearby and we sat through THAT and it was nearly midnight when we got back to the rooms. But the girls weren't to be denied on this particular evening, starting with Rachel, who rode me hard in her favorite position, trying to burn away the tension and frustration and pain and anger and who knew what else that she'd stored up over the past few days. It was brutal -- and wonderful -- sometimes pure animal passion and sometimes sweet romance. I came twice and Rachel must have tripled that before she exhausted herself. Then Shannon climbed on and did the exact opposite, moving slowly and smoothly and kissing and caressing me and offering me her love -- and only displaying her urgency on the cusp of her orgasms. We went to sleep with my sword still sheathed in her after she'd accepted my third delivery of the evening, climaxing in the process.

Friday morning at nine-thirty, we were there for the funeral and then on to the graveside service, Faye and Rachel and Nick in the limo behind the hearse, with Shannon and Elise and I following in the Escalade at the front of the column behind the hearse. After we'd all said goodbye to Roger, everybody in the world went back to the house and thirteen women jammed themselves in the kitchen to cook a dinner that could have fed everyone on site and a couple of homeless shelters. That went on until probably five, at which point we shook loose and climbed in the Escalade and headed for the hotel. I think I'd have packed us out of there that evening, but I couldn't just snatch Faye from that mass of relatives. Fortunately, they immediately began to disperse ... Everybody had had enough, I think -- Nick asked if he and Elise could use the spare suite and I said sure. Poor Faye had to put up with the slowly thinning crowd. I think we were all looking forward to getting out of there ... Rachel shucked out of her dress and underclothing on arrival in the room and stayed that way, announcing, "I'm getting used to my new wardrobe! I like the fit..." Shannon let herself be talked into it and didn't even hide when the waiter arrived at ten p.m. with a late-evening snack to tide us over until the morning. Rachel got a big kick out of pretending that nothing was amiss while she tipped him. We just kicked back -- all of us were overloaded from the stresses of the past few days and looking forward to moving on to our new lives the next afternoon. I groped the girls some and Rachel gave me one of her primo blowjobs, but we never got down to any serious sex -- it was as if we were saving ourselves or something. We went to bed at a decent hour and just recharged.

Saturday morning, we finally went down to the police station to check out. I had to recover the fancy gear and we did a little paperwork and I invited Red, Mike, Cheryl and Alisha to breakfast -- preferably at a place that hadn't seen any incidents. Red suggested a place that cops frequented about a block over and we all headed out into the sunshine.

They had a plan -- I'll say that for them. We'd parked the Escalade on the street and we were about halfway to it when this guy comes jaywalking across the street, cool as a cucumber, just in front of us. I was talking to Red, but the guy caught my eye and there was something about him that said 'suicide bomber.' I locked on and when he reached under his jacket, I went for my Ruger and leaped right, pushing Rachel down and into a parked car. As a result, the guy missed me with his first round and I put two in him from the Ruger, rapid-fire, before he got off his second. The bad news was that someone went, "Uuuh!" behind me...

It was Alisha. Fortunately, she took the round in a shoulder. I turned and went to her while telling the AI, 'We're gonna need medics and a body bag... ' "How bad is it?" I asked her.

"I'll be okay."

But that's when the sniper announced himself by putting a SECOND round into Alisha when I shifted left to take a look at the wound! I stood there, looking at her face as her eyes widened in shock, then something hit my shoulder -- HARD -- and I woke up! "EVERYBODY DOWN!" Alisha collapsed into my arms and I went over on one side to cushion her, yelling, "Girls! Get the probes and the transport pad out of the Escalade! I don't want this bastard getting away!"

Rachel blubbered, "But Scotty..."

"NOW, Honey Bun! Shannon..."

"I'm on it!"

"I'll draw his fire so you can work!" Shannon was at the back of the Escalade already and Rachel, suddenly superhuman, was right behind her. In order to keep the sniper from bothering them I popped my head up and dashed the opposite direction, drawing more fire before dropping behind a parked car. Red was on his cell and Cheryl and Mike were shooting at the building across the street, but if the sniper knew what he was doing, he would be gone soon...

"Probes are up! I can see him!" Shannon yelped.

"Get the big one flying -- we may need it!" I yelled back, totally forgetting that we had direct communication in the excitement.

"Where... ?" Rachel asked, fishing the transporter case out of the Escalade.

"Alisha!"

Red was crouched over her when I got there. "It's bad. Seconds."

"Alisha?"

"S-scott?" She was shocky.

"Alisha, Honey, I lied. I have two slots. Will you be my concubine?" I asked quietly.

I think she burned two useless seconds processing the part about me lying, then, "Yes ... I don't know why..."

'AI... '

<There is a tube at the transport terminus.>

"Ready, Lover!" Rachel cried, pushing the power button on the transporter.

"Red..." Red grabbed Alisha's legs and I took her under the arms, hoping we weren't doing too much more damage, and we got her halfway vertical and onto the pad and she disappeared before she could fall off.

"He's packing up!" Shannon yelped.

'AI! More probes! And I want something I can use at some distance!'

<An aerial command probe had been tasked and will arrive in eight seconds. Given your familiarity with the M16... > Three M16's arrived on the transport pad, along with a couple of bandoliers of ammo. <Recommend that you keep the transport pad with you... >

"I'll carry it, Lover -- I'm a good donkey, if nothing else!" Rachel declared. A harness appeared on the pad, clearly designed to carry the transport pad. "You're hit!"

"I know," I grunted. "It hurts, too, but not bad." Something was buffering me from the whole thing.

<The bullet passed through, > the AI reported. <The wound is not serious to your enhanced body. Temporary repairs are underway.>

"Good enough for me..." I muttered.

"He's running!" Shannon yelled.

<He is thoroughly covered.> Suddenly, we had a swarm of input angles -- including one on the guy's shoulder!

"We want him alive! I'll kill him later!" I roared. "Let's go get him! Shannon, give Mike, Red and Cheryl back their toys, in case we outrun them!" Shannon nodded and waved and popped open the case holding their faux iPhones and other gear while Rachel packed up the pad.

<Alisha Thorndyke is alive in a med tube. Damage is considerable, but she lives and will recover, > the AI announced.

"Great!" I issued the girls each a stinger and an M16 -- noticing that it wasn't EXACTLY an M16 -- and waved them forward. "Help where you can!" I told Red, and we dashed off at a rate nearly twice what an un-augmented human runner could do, Rachel burdened by the transporter, but not being slowed appreciably by it. The sniper was going directly across roofs and he was apparently well-prepared and had practiced his route, because he was taking his time and seemed to know where he was going. This begged the question, 'How come he was so well-prepared?' As I ran along the alley, Red hit me over the communications link with, 'Remember, it isn't just about this guy... '

'No, it isn't, ' I replied, 'And, Red? Your department is compromised. They let us fart around out there for a week, waiting for us to finish up, so they could do us AFTER it was all over!'

'Shit! That limits how much we can help!'

'Don't let on -- maybe we can flush him!' I argued.

'Okay, but... '

'I bet our communications are better than theirs, ' I replied confidently.

"Shit! He's made it to his car!" Shannon wailed. Those narrow legs of hers were a blur and had her on point ahead of Rachel and me!

"He's covered with probes, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then we'll follow him." I had the AI throw up a map of the local network of transport pads. It wasn't extensive, but there were a few in testing centers and places like the police station. We could leapfrog ahead of this guy, with any luck. "Rachel?"

"Right." Rachel, seeing what I was seeing, reached over her shoulder to extract the transport pad.

<Wait, > the AI erupted and a transport pad fell from the sky -- but slowed significantly before impacting gently at our feet. <The command probe can deliver and retrieve a transport pad via tractor beam. The field effect of the tractor beam induces excessive stresses on living tissues, but is not a problem for inanimate objects.>

'Right.' Still, we had no place to go yet. The guy was up on the freeway already! Picking up my anxiety, the AI said, <A second command probe has been dispatched and will be in place above the target in two minutes.>

Cheryl, Mike and Red trotted up -- in that order, Cheryl's gym-rat physical conditioning putting her ahead of the males. "Where is he going?" I asked them. After all, they were the locals...

"Not the airport..." Red mused.

"Warehouse district," Mike piped up.

"Looks like it," Cheryl agreed.

I had a thought and turned to Rachel. "Call Faye. Or Nick, for that matter -- we don't know how far this is supposed to go and he may be a target."

"Okay, Lover!" Rachel poked her phone.

<The Mercer home continues to be under surveillance, > the AI intoned, <and a Marine support team is on standby. Nicholas Mercer is more seriously exposed at the hotel.>

"Nick first, then," I told Rachel. "Tell him not to leave the room, but to stay away from the windows and keep the curtains closed." I thought a moment. "Dammit! We need to be two places at once!"

"I'll go back to the police station with these guys and we'll track the sniper from there," Shannon offered. "You and Rachel go get Nick."

I shrugged. "It's a plan. We'll link up when we know where he is."

<A transport pad is being positioned atop the hotel parking structure, > the AI announced. <The current pad is targeted to the pad in police headquarters.> Shannon nodded and waved the three cops at the pad. They headed through, Cheryl first.