Urban Renewal - 24 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"What the heck is going on there?" Candace asked.

Todd carefully negotiated through the crowd that had spilled off the sidewalk and onto the street. "It's the Farmer's Market, looks like a riot. Maybe the vineyard owners and the hop growers came to blows?"

Candace laughed. The growth of vineyards east of Marshalldale since the 1970s had been bitterly resented by the local hop farmers. But both groups were still hugely outnumbered by the apple growers in the larger Wenatchee area. A local cartoonist had drawn a prizefight between boxers labeled "beer industry" and "wine industry" while a large audience drank from cups marked "cider".

A block later, Todd suddenly pulled to the curb. "Donk says that's him." He pointed at a man jogging across the street in front of him.

"The guy in the torn clothes who's bleeding from his hair?"

Todd got out, used Z9's covert ops moves to disable LeJeune and tossed him into the back of the SUV all without the surrounding crowd really getting an idea of what had happened. Candace got into the back to tie the crooked cop up while Todd drove on toward the bridge over the Columbia and Marshalldale.

* * *

From the roof of a hangar Catclaw missed a leap for the landing gear of the jetcopter. "Son of a Comet!" he cursed as he fell between a baggage tram and a tow truck. Picking himself up off the pavement and straightening his left wrist, he muttered, "Just because it heals doesn't mean it don't hurt."

Sensing that Leo had survived the forty-foot fall, Lady Karma continued to concentrate on weaving a net of worries and distraction out of the stray thoughts she could capture from Spartako. Little enough and probably useless, this just wasn't her sort of fight.

The cyborg seemed intent on escaping to the east, accelerating now toward the Knight whose voice boomed out. "This cannon can cut the blades off your vehicle in 1/20th of a second. Give up and land that thing."

Spartako replied on several radio frequencies at once. "I have my own thermonuclear device. Back-off, Space Junk!"

Sensing the approaching cusp, Kendra threw her net before the cyborg got out of range.

* * *

"He must be two hunnert feet in the air, Billy," said Tessie. "How close can you get me to him?" In the condensed temporal bubble of Blueblazes force field, they seemed to have plenty of time to discuss it.

Billy considered for some infinitesimal of real time. "At this speed, I can jump pretty high." He hadn't crossed the Mach 2 barrier with Tessie in his arms, fearing even greater turbulence than he'd faced at Mach 1. Mach 2 was the one that had killed a lot of good pilots, but Mach 1.95 was still more than the speed of a rifle bullet on target. "I can get you close enough to touch him, I think. But you're going to have to help me with the landing."

They said nothing about taking the risk. Neither of them had ever planned on dying any other way, and Urban had already died once. Tessie kissed her rag doll and whispered, "Let's do it."