“Do you even know who you’re double-crossing and why?” Lisa asked, coming slowly to her feet. “Or have you lost track too?”

“I can’t afford to give it away,” Helen told her. “I’ve too much stacked up against me. I used Mike’s passwords to hack into the police computer and foul up the precious databases, not to mention stealing the security codes that let us black out half the town. He won’t care about the others, but he’ll make bloody sure they throw the book at me.So give me the wafer, Lisa—or an excuse to shoot you.”

“Got too hot for you, did it?” Lisa said. “Arachne did mention that the weaker-kneed members of the team lost their nerve when they figured out exactly what kind of a snake you had by the tail.” While she said it, though, she glanced back anxiously at the inner door, wondering just how bad the situation had gone.

“He’s all right,” Helen said. “I don’t have anything against him.”

“You don’t have anything against me either, did you but know it,” Lisa said with a sigh. “Arachne has the wafer. I jumped out of the car to draw the head mercenary away while Arachne took care of his henchman. It wouldn’t do you any good if I did have it. Leland got as far as Salomey before he lost me, so we’re cornered. We just have to hope that Arachne gets away with the goods.”

“I don’t believe you,” Helen said. “Anyway, if it’s only the mercenary who’s on to you, he can’t possibly have enough backup to seal a maze with as many exits as this one has. Give me the wafer, Lisa. It really would be just as nice to shoot you instead—all that’s stopping me is the possibility that I might still be able to make a deal. Leland, did you say his name is?”

“He’s a pro, Helen. He wouldn’t bargain with you if he didn’t have to—and he wouldn’t have to, even if you had something to sell. Which you don’t. All you’re doing here is letting your side down and trying to foul things up even worse than they are already.”

Helen’s wild eyes were growing even wilder. She had obviously realized that Lisa wasn’t going to hand anything over, whether she had anything to hand or not. The script that she’d formulated in anticipation of the confrontation had let her down, and she didn’t know what to do. In the movies, the people holding the guns always got the respect they deserved, and if the people who were on the wrong end of the barrel were slow to cooperate, the people with the guns simply knocked them about a bit more and rummaged through their pockets and pouches until they found what they were looking for—but Helen Grundy had already cottoned on to the fact that Lisa wasn’t going to make any effort to oblige her. She was afraid that if she tried to carry forward the fight with anything less than a bullet, Lisa would win—and no matter what she thought about the amount of pleasure it would give her to shoot her ex-husband’s good and loyal friend, she was exactly the kind of person to whom the logic of rational deterrence applied. She was trying to get out of trouble, not deeper in—and she knew, even if she couldn’t quite admit it to herself, that she wasn’t going to get out. No matter what she did, she was in trouble. She had been reckless in running up her moral debts, and now the account was due for payment.

That, at least, was the way Lisa calculated the situation—so the fact that Helen actually fired the gun caused her considerable annoyance as well as a horrid thrill of pure terror.

Fortunately, the analysis had been fundamentally correct, and Helen had been careful to raise the barrel of the gun before firing, so that the bullet went over Lisa’s head and smashed into the lintel above the door to Morgan Miller’s prison.

“Leland probably heard that,” Lisa observed when her nerves were calm enough to permit speech. “If he didn’t figure out where we went before, he will now.”

Leland wasn’t the only one who had heard the shot. The door through which Lisa had come hadn’t closed again, although it had swung back so that it stood ajar. Now it opened wide again, and Arachne West came through it with her own gun raised and ready to fire.

The Real Woman had pressed the barrel of her weapon to the back of Helen Grundy’s neck before she realized who it was that she was covering. Her command to drop the gun was overtaken by a disgusted curse, which emerged in a form that was semi-articulate at best.

Helen dropped her gun anyway. She seemed relieved to be required to do it, although she had to know what an admission of failure it was.

“Like some rat or lemming the day after the crash begins,” Lisa observed drily. “Running this way and that, going nowhere, lashing out at anything within range. No direction at all. Self-destruction born of panic.”

“You haven’t even started!” Arachne West accused her.

“No,” Lisa admitted. “I didn’t even get to start.” She reached into the pocket on her thigh and pulled the wafer out, displaying it to Helen Grundy. “Surprise!” she said. But Helen didn’t look surprised at all.

Arachne took the wafer and vaulted over the desk to reach the copier that would allow her to duplicate it repeatedly. “I gave the van driver the slip,” she said, “but they had a pretty good idea of where we are even before you set up the audible signpost. We still have half a chance while they’re trying to make their way through the maze, though. Pick up the gun, Lisa.”

Lisa knelt down carefully. She didn’t dare duck her head precipitately while it was still aching from the clumsy blow Helen Grundy had given her. She picked up the gun, but took due note of the fact that if anyone came hurtling through the door with heroism on his mind, she would be the first target to attract attention. Arachne had a switch within easy reach that would engage the door’s locks, but she hadn’t touched it—presumably because the idea of being locked in while the corridor filled with ambushers was even less appealing than the prospect of reckless heroic intervention.

Lisa contemplated asking Arachne to open the inner door, but it was probably safer to leave Morgan locked in. That way, he’d be okay no matter what happened in the outer room if or when Leland and his taciturn friend arrived on the threshold.

Arachne fed the wafer into the computer. She began decanting information onto the local disk before opening the connection to a subsidiary station that would allow her to transfer data slot to slot.

The sound of a slightly muffled explosion made Lisa start. “He’s shooting his way in!” she exclaimed.

“He can’t hack the locks,” Arachne told her, her calmness exaggerated by concentration. “He’s in too much of a hurry to be subtle. He’s a way off yet.”

No sooner had she finished speaking, though, than a second explosion sounded. Alarm bells now began to sound in profusion. The cityplex police would be on their way—but Leland had already pointed out that their response times left something to be desired, and the lunch-time crowds in the mall would be panicking by now. Aboveground, everything would be chaos and confusion.

The alarms weren’t loud enough to block out the sound of another door being taken off its hinges. This one seemed very close. Lisa had been aware for some time that Ginny’s pills had worn off, but while she was moving, she hadn’t lost her momentum. Now that she had nothing to do but stand still, the letdown could no longer be put off. She felt as if a heavy blanket had descended upon her. The sharp pain caused by Helen Grundy’s clumsy blow had become oppressively dull and constant now, and she had to clench her left fist tight, digging her fingernails into her palm, to fight the deadening numbness. She still needed help, though—and help came.

“Dr. Friemann!”

The raised voice came from the corridor; it was loud and clear enough to dash any hope that its owner didn’t know exactly where they were, and the jolt it delivered to Lisa’s slowing heart restored the sharpness of her consciousness so completely as to make the situation seem surreal and hallucinatory.