Well, bring ’em on! Hey, nothing beats the drama of a last stand.

Maybe … , I thought, though it galled me to admit it. Maybe I am Albert Morris, after all.

In fact, just one thing was spoiling the smug intensity of the moment. Not the fact that everything might end soon, in a blaze of battle. I could accept that.

No, it was another of those strange, brief headaches that had begun coming over me during the last few hours … starting almost too mild to notice, but recurring lately with greater intensity. They would blow in like a hot wind and last only a minute or so, filling me with unexplained feelings of claustrophobia and helplessness, then vanish, leaving no residue. Perhaps it was a side effect of dittolife extension. I had no idea what to expect when the rejuvenation finally wore out. Only that the extra day had been rather more interesting than dissolving into slurry.

Thanks, Aeneas.

A faint clatter drew my attention away to the east, where I hurried to look over the parapet. There, on the fire escape, I now saw a dozen Waxers trying to climb quietly. Only the rusted metal framework kept creaking and popping, spoiling their stealth. It looked so rickety, with any luck the whole thing might give way, sending them crashing to the alley below.

Should I try to help luck along? I wondered. A blast from the scattergun, aimed just right, could remove several bolts from the brickwork, causing a chain reaction, maybe unzipping the whole rickety thing.

Or maybe not. I decided to hold back my last shell, for at least a minute or two.

A quick dash to the south end showed another bunch of ditbulls clambering upward. These were equipped with finger and toe spikes, doing it the hard way, ascending laboriously hand-over-hand by jabbing the sharp tines into crumbly mortarwork. More than ever, I felt flattered by their attention. And eager to return the favor.

A low wall surrounded the roof, looking rather decrepit and ready to go. So I pushed … and had the rapid contentment of feeling the whole mass give way. More than a meter of brickwork collapsed over the side, followed by a satisfying scream below. I ran along, kicking and shoving, sending more sections of wall toppling onto climbers, then turned and hurried back to the stairwell.

Half a dozen figures dived for cover as I brandished the scattergun. That won me about a minute’s reprieve, I figured. Spinning around, I rushed to check the east-side fire escape again.

That group was much closer now. So close, I no longer had any choice. While bullets pelted the rim of the wall, I cocked the hammer and chose a target, firing my final shot where it’d do the most good.

Two warrior-golems screamed and rusty latticework groaned as a bolt popped free … then another.

But the fire escape didn’t collapse. Those ancients built well, dammit.

No time left. What should I do now? Try to hide Irene’s film? They’d search every square centimeter, as soon as I was squashed …

I suddenly thought of the pigeon coop. Maybe I could tie the spool to the leg of a bird, send it flapping away, only to return after the goons departed -

Bullets abruptly splattered the roof nearby. I spied a head and arms poking over the west parapet. Dodging behind the stairhouse, I evaded that threat only to see more hands fumble over the rim on the east side.

Just one thing to do, then. Run for the edge while I still can! Some passerby may see me splat. With any luck, they’ll grab the film spool, and perhaps my head, hoping for a finder’s fee. My pellet code would lead to Albert … or Clara …

It was a damn thin hope, but all I could muster as voices converged inside the stairhouse less than a meter away. Bullets smacked from nearly all directions now, encroaching on my narrow umbra of shelter, splattering me with sharp slivers.

I gathered my legs, preparing to spring for the precipice -

— then stopped as a new sound arose, burgeoning from nothing to noisy in seconds.

A groaning whine of engines.

The battle-dit who had been shooting at me turned around, stared, then lost his grip with a cry.

A new shape rose to take his place. Compact, sleek, and powerful — a blue and white coupe with downthrusting engines at three corners and a logo in jaunty letters that spelled HARLEY along the nose.

The trim skycycle turned as its cowling opened, revealing a figure who waved insouciantly, his beige spiral motif resembling that of a spinning propeller.

Beta, I thought. So that’s where you vanished during the fighting!

Grinning, my erstwhile nemesis offered a small space behind the pilot seat. “Well, Morris? Coming?”

Believe it or not, I hesitated for a split instant, wondering if the pavement might be a better bet.

Then, dodging bullets all the way, I ran hard to dive for the sanctuary offered by my longtime foe.

Picture the inimitable Fay Wray, wriggling vainly in the adamant grasp of King Kong. That’s how I must’ve looked as the giant golem hauled me from the underground storage area under its one remaining arm. I gave up prying uselessly at the behemoth and tried instead to gain calm … to slow my pounding heart and chill the hormones surging through my veins. It wasn’t easy.

A caveman, in danger, never wondered, Am I real enough to matter? But I often do. If the answer is, Not really, I can greet death with an aplomb that only heroes used to know. But if the answer is yes, fear multiplies! Right at that moment I could taste bile surging from my gut. Having seen my house and garden burn, I had no wish to make Clara grieve for me twice.

“Where … are you taking me?” I asked, catching my breath. The monster barely acknowledged with a low grunt. A conversationalist. He also stank, from some kind of spoilage either before or during imprinting.

Moving away from the wall, with its row of locked storage cabinets, he carried me through the enormous storage room past shelves piled endlessly with tools and equipment … all the kinds of stuff you might need if, say, a few dozen important VIPs wanted to take shelter underground from some nuclear-bio-cyber-ceramo calamity up at the surface, forever. We were nearly at the door leading out of the storeroom when a drumming sound arrived from the hall outside. My captor paused in his tracks.

He listened. I listened. It sounded like marching footsteps.

Something more than dumb grunts stirred in the monster’s head. Making a decision, he stepped to one side, shifting into shadows before a procession of clay soldiers trooped into view.

They entered in a column, one after another, wearing army camouflage colors and still glowing from the autokiln. Golems — big ones — dressed and equipped for battle.

Did someone activate one of the reserve units? To look for me perhaps? I felt tempted to shout and wave, in case they included a Clara.

Only I didn’t see her among them.

You learn to look for signs … a certain carriage or bearing or maybe a sashay of the hips. I’ve been able to pick out Clara, on the flickering image of a battlefield sportscam, amid a squad of mud-encrusted quadrupeds covered with refractory plates of stegasauroid armor. Mere costumery doesn’t matter. Something in the way she moves, I guess.

No, she wasn’t in this bunch. In fact, they all moved pretty much the same, swaggering in a manner that seemed as brash as hers, only more arrogant. And maybe a bit mean. There was a sense of familiarity, without being able to pin it down.

I didn’t shout. The troop of thirty or so combat golems passed by, heading deeper into the storage room, toward the place where I was standing before the monster abducted me. And for the first time, I wondered, was the thing actually trying to help me?