"Okay, we're blown. Grab the gear and get ready to beat feet."

Duran growled an affirmative.

"There!" a voice on the other side of the wall yelled. "They drilled through the wall. Look at that mess!"

With a groan. Archangel sat up. pulled the probe, and snatched the cord from her datajack. She was pale, and dark circles showed under her eyes.

A wavy shimmering left Cullen Trey's hand and shot through the hole. An instant later, he turned to face Skater with a smile. "Those guards won't bother us now, but there'll be more."

Archangel got to her feet and grabbed her gear with difficulty as Skater laced his hands together and let her step up into them. She slid her deck over her shoulder, then pushed up. almost tumbling over backward but managing to grasp the pipe's lip.

"What'd you get?" he asked.

"More than I expected." Archangel pulled herself into the pipe, but kept on talking. Her voice echoed and resonated within the confines. "I'll have to decode it to figure out everything."

On the other side of the wall, security alarms cut loose with all the flair of a mauled barghest.

"NuGene has created some kind of new organic replacement tissue," she said, switching over to the commlink as she made her way down the tunnel.

Skater helped Trey up, watched the mage disappear into the pipe, then reached up and pulled himself along with considerable effort. He lost a couple layers of skin off his cheek as he wormed his way in.

Skater knew it was only his imagination, but the pipe felt tighter as he crawled back to the drainage spillway. He pushed the claustrophobic thoughts aside and tried to figure out how the hell they were going to get out of here. They couldn't go back the way they came, so it seemed the only choice was to go deeper into the city.

"Dragonfletcher was working security," Archangel said over the commlink. "The kicker is, he'd linked up with someone in Seattle who was supposed to help him handle things at that end."

I’ll bite," Wheeler said. "Who?"

"Conrad McKenzie."

"Not Lone Star?" Duran asked.

"No."

Skater considered that, feeling the suppositions turn suddenly nasty in his head. "How long has that been going oh?"

"From the quick take I got while downloading files," Archangel said, "the earliest mention of McKenzie was maybe a couple months ago."

Skater started through the bend, working to stave off the increased panic that flooded through him as soon as he felt his shoulders wedge. Gently, he loosened them and went on. "Does Silverstaff know about McKenzie?"

"There's no way to be certain."

A blast echoed through the pipe from the other end. Skater felt the heat and force of it wash over him. Voices followed, sounding loud and excited. He pushed himself harder, trying to get around the bend. If the NuGene security guards fired up into the pipe, he'd be an easy target. The ragged plascrete burned across his back, shredding fabric.

The deep basso baying of dogs on the hunt sounded. A clatter of nails scratching frantically at metal rattled through the pipe. Then the howling resonated differently, letting Skater know the dogs were inside the pipe.

"Move," Duran yelled over the commlink. "Those fragging yabos have sicced beasties on you."

At the end of the pipe, Archangel pulled herself out and fell. Trey hesitated, watching her. Hearing the clatter of claws coming closer, Skater reached forward and grabbed the mage's foot. Bracing himself against the side of the pipe and wedging in tight, he shoved the foot as hard as he could.

With a cry of protest, Trey scooted out of the pipe and went down, flailing haphazardly. Water splashed and there were some painful grunts.

When he was within reach, Skater grabbed the lip of the pipe and hauled himself through just as the First pair of reddish eyes gleamed in the shadows behind him. He twisted as he fell, bringing the boosted reflexes on line as he reached for the Predator. His hand closed around the cold grip an instant before he slammed against the bottom of the drain pipe.

Elvis was facing the pipe's mouth with his forearm snap blades bared. The carbide tips gleamed darkly. "Get clear, chummer," he told Skater.

Duran was on one side of him, holding a pair of full-size Cougar Fine Blade knives in a martial arts stance, and Wheeler was on the other, wearing his jacket wrapped around his arm and waving a stun baton above his head.

Archangel had Trey by the arm and was hurrying him out of the way. Elvis's jacket was lying in the water where she'd dropped it.

The first animal to appear was a huge black Labrador with bullet-proof armor over its head and chest. The pink tongue lolled out over the ivory fangs for just an instant, then it launched itself at the troll. The reflexes as well as the distance of the dog's jump let Skater know it was razored. It streaked for Elvis's throat at once, almost too fast for the troll to counter. The snap blades crashed against the dog's skull plate with enough force to shoot sparks, and the dog sank its fangs into Elvis's shoulder instead of ripping out his throat.

Then Skater's attention was yanked back to his own situation. Another dog, this one big and heavy, but not as immediately identifiable, leaped from the pipe and landed on Skater's chest with enough weight to knock the wind from his lungs and put him flat on his back in the running water. He didn't know how many other dogs came out of the pipe, but the sounds of animal growls and the team fighting for their lives blotted out all other noises. Struggling, the teeth only centimeters from his eyes, the stink of the dog's fetid breath over his face, he managed to leverage an arm under the animal's chin and keep it momentarily at bay.

The claws ripped at him, the slashing efforts blunted by the wetsuit. Hot saliva dripped on his face as the dog whined and growled in its frustration to gel at him. Skater smashed the dog on the end of the snout with the Predator's barrel, drawing blood and a sudden yelp of pain.

The dog shook its head and backed away. Skater rolled to his knees, but before he could get to his feel, the animal launched itself at him, mouth gaping almost wide enough to clamp down on Skater's entire face.

Using the lightning-fast reflexes available to him, Skater rammed his right hand, pistol and all, into the dog's mouth. Before the fangs could close and break the skin of his arm, he fired three shots. The bullets cored through the back of the animal's head and sent it into spasmodic quivers. As the corpse shuddered to the ground. Skater stood and looked around.

A decapitated dog and a disemboweled dog lay at Eivis's feet. Bloody splash patterns covered his clothing. "Slot, I hate killing dogs," the big troll said. "I like dogs."

"These weren't dogs," Duran said as he extricated one of his knives from the skull of another animal. The shattered head dropped into the running water at the bottom of the drain. "They were just tasked killing machines. Being flesh and blood didn't change that."

Voices echoed through the pipe and let Skater know pursuit hadn't ended with the dogs. "Grab the gear." he said, fisting the straps of the pack nearest him. "They'll have the river closed off," Wheeler said. "We're not going to the river." Skater took the lead, using his flash for the benefit of Trey and Archangel, who weren't chipped for low-light vision. The elven decker's vision in the dark was better than a human's, but not enough to navigate by.

Duran asked Elvis to give him a hand as he shoved the corpse of the first dog into the access pipe leading to the building foundation.

"What's up?" the troll asked. But he complied with the request anyway, carrying a dead dog in each hand.

"Going to leave the sec-jokers a little surprise.'' The ork reached into an ordnance pouch, slipped the pins from two grenades, and wedged them under the pile of dead animals. He glanced at Skater. "Relax, kid, I know you figure these nitbrains were just doing their jobs, even if they sicced these razored hounds on us. This is just pepper gas. It'll make them uncomfortable for awhile, and definitely throw any other animals they bring up off the scent."