Micro

“Danny could be right,” Erika said. “Maybe there is some good person at Nanigen-”

“Maybe we should call,” Karen said. “It might be our only chance to save Amar.”

Peter stood up, holding a radio headset. “All right.”

From lower down on the fern stem, Telius took aim. He had the leader in the crosshairs of his gas rifle, but now the leader was bending over the guy with the bends, trying to help him. Hmm. Maybe he could get both of them with one shot. The leader and the bleeder-yeah. He adjusted his aim, squeezed the trigger, and the gas rifle kicked viciously.

There was a sudden hiss. A steel needle, seemingly a foot long, zipped past Peter’s neck, tearing his shirt, and entered Amar Singh, and detonated. The explosion threw metal fragments and blood in all directions. Amar jerked into the air, yanked off the ground, and his body seemed to come apart. Peter froze, a quizzical expression on his face, while Amar and pieces of Amar spattered around Peter.

Peter stood up, covered with Amar’s blood. “What-?” he began.

The others watched it happen as if it wasn’t real.

Karen looked around. “Sniper!” she screamed. “Get cover!” She began to dash for the nearest fern, but saw that Peter wasn’t moving-he seemed paralyzed, as if he couldn’t process what had just happened.

The sniper’s second shot hit a leaf over Peter’s head and exploded. The blast sent Peter to the ground. Karen realized the sniper was aiming for Peter. She swerved and ran toward Peter, and grabbed him. “Duck and zigzag!” she screamed at him. He needed to get away but not make any predictable movements: the sniper could pull lead on Peter, and hit him as he ran. “Go!” she yelled at Peter.

Peter understood. He began to run, left, right, left-left-stop. Run. Always heading for the cover of ferns. Karen ran, too, zigzagging, staying with Peter but not too close to him, wondering if the next shot…

Peter tripped, fell, and sprawled.

“Peter!” she screamed. “No!” Peter had stopped moving; he had become an easy target.

“Karen-get away-” Peter said, hauling himself to his feet.

These were his last words. In the next instant a needle flew through Peter’s chest, exploding as it went. He toppled. Peter Jansen was dead before he hit the ground.

Chapter 27

Fern Gully 30 October, 12:15 p.m.

Rick Hutter felt Karen King lift him up by his shirt, dragging him out of what he thought was a good hiding place, and heard her say, “Get up-go!” He noticed his blowgun lying on the ground, picked it up, grabbed the dart kit, and sprinted for cover. He lost track of Karen; he had no idea where she had gone. He ran underneath a stick, bashed through some leaves, and began to run among fern stems looming over him. That was when he saw the insect vehicle. A six-legged truck up there on the fern, clinging to a frond and moving along it, making a faint whine, driven by a man wearing armor. It was a man just Rick’s size. A micro-human. The man seemed experienced and confident.

The man stopped the vehicle, held up a strange-looking gun with a large-caliber muzzle. He loaded a metal needle in the breech, took aim through a scope, and fired. The gun kicked, giving off a hiss.

Rick had flung himself down behind a rock, where he lay on his back, panting, while he watched the man shoot. The man seemed relaxed. Comfortable with murder, Rick realized, while a hot rage welled up in him. The man had butchered Peter and Amar in cold blood. Rick was still holding the blow tube. Get off a dart at that bastard, anyway. I think Karen just saved my life. It was dumb to stay crouched like that. She pulled my ass out of a bad place.

He opened his dart kit and took out a dart. Looked at it with a sense of futility. It was just a splinter with a metal point made from a dinner fork. Never get through that bastard’s armor. He opened the curare jar and jammed the tip into the sludge and twirled it, choking back a cough as an odor wafted from the jar. Put a hot load on the dart anyway.

He fitted the dart into the tube, and rolled over, and looked out past the rock.

The vehicle wasn’t there. It had moved out of sight.

Where?

Rick crept out from behind the rock, listening, looking around. He heard a whining sound to his left. The bug truck. He got up and ran toward the sound, and when it got louder, he dove into a clump of moss and waited. The sound got closer. Carefully he looked out of the moss.

The bug truck had crawled up on the moss and stopped almost directly above him. He was looking at the bottom of the truck. He couldn’t see the man from here.

There was another hiss. The man had fired again.

Rick had no idea if anyone but himself was still alive. Karen could be dead. Erika, too. They were being slaughtered.

It made him furious.

It made him want to kill. Even if it cost him his life.

The man had stopped firing, and now the truck advanced. It came to a halt a short distance away, and he heard the man talking on a radio. “There’s a female at your three o’clock. Bitch has a knife.”

Bitch.

Karen.