Fitzgerald lifted his head up. "Let's get those file cabinets off the platform before the Men in Gray get back." He rose slowly to his feet.
"Opera, you and DJ man the consoles," said The Operator. Slowly the big blast doors swung open and The Operator, F-Cup Fitzgerald, and TuxedoHentai stepped outside. The Operator seemed to be the least tired of the three, probably because he had been nearest to the Crays in the Command Center for quite some time. "Help me, you guys," he said to the other men. Fitzgerald and TuxedoH stepped across the platform to help The Operator with the heavy cabinet. All three managed to shift the top cabinet slowly off of the other two cabinets and onto the floor.
Suddenly, a siren, and a flashing amber light! "Proximity warning!" DJ called. "Five hundred yards!"
"Not enought time to get the platform clear," said The Operator.
Fitzgerald saw the dead MIG's sub-machine gun and scooped it off the floor. "Come on, Fitz!" The Operator called, running back inside with TuxedoH.
Fitzgerald was feeling a little guilty, as if he had deserted the other Authors. Had he volunteered to take Subgirlie to safety just to have an excuse to go himself? Is that what they all thought, back in Adama's office? That he had run out on them? "I'm, uh, taking this back to Adama," Fitzgerald called to The Operator.
"Four hundred yards!" called DJ Woohoo.
"Fitz, Subgirlie can't stay here without an Author host," said The Operator.
"I'll be Subgirlie's host," TuxedoH volunteered. "Go!" Fitzgerald wondered if TuxedoH had his own motives for suddenly hosting Subgirlie, but there was no time to speculate. Already the big doors were closing. Fitzgerald waved once and jogged off, away from the Command Center, down the passage.
"Three hundred yards!" was the last thing he heard before the door closed.
Fitzgerald made his way up the passage to the junction. Angry voices could be heard down the tunnel to the right, so Fitzgerald went left. It was quicker to get back to the Hotel to go left, anyway. Leaving The Operator and the others to fend for themselves, Fitzgerald ran down the passage, back in the direction of the Concourse.
He made his way out into the sunlight, squinting. There was no one around, but several vehicles had been trashed. They were bunched next to the Concourse entrance, overturned and burning. Fitzgerald ran past a chaise longue with a woman's yellow bikini lying discarded next to it--the bikini top, like most to be found in this place, was huge. Fitzgerald jogged past a limosine with the body of an MIG protruding awkwardly through the windshield like the bottom half of a broken mannequin.
He opened the door to the Concourse. All sounded quiet, but that meant nothing; the treacherous Men in Gray could be around any corner. On impulse, he checked the registration. Subgirlie and the woman everyone had ASSUMED was the TW Girl had been checked into the Hotel by Hilbert himself. Fitzgerald found the room number of the fake TW Girl. He made his way to the stairs and started climbing. . . .
He was at the ninth floor. The rooms on this floor had balconies overlooking the entire Concourse; they were the most luxurious in the Hotel. Fitzgerald jogged down the hallway to room #999. "It would be the last on the hall," he thought sourly. He wasted no time trying to break the doors down but instead set the machine gun to single-shot and fired at the locks. He then gave the midpoint of the doors a mighty kick, and they flipped open on the hinges.
Fitzgerald wasn't sure what he'd be looking for when he got here, but he was curious anyway. On the floor in the middle of the living room were several trunks. Most contained clothes, but two had padded spaces for what could only have been weapons. The spaces were all empty now. He walked back into the bedroom. On the counter in the bathroom were various expensive cosmetics and toiletries. All the clothes seemed to be out in the living room, however. On a table next to the wall were two items: one of the Fake TW Girl's enormous bras, and a device that looked like a small radio, clicked off now. Was this how she had communicated with the Men in Gray? Fitzgerald picked up the radio and pocketed it. He still had the butcher knife taken from the Hotel kitchen. A lot of light was coming in the room from the balcony that faced the Concourse, so Fitzgerald didn't put the light over the table on.
That was probably what saved him.
He looked, fascinated, at the discarded bra on the table for a moment. It was the only item of clothing in the room, and looked tremendously out of place. He picked it up. Underneath the brassiere was a small boxy device--
--with what looked like a photoelectric cell on the top. And it was going BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! now. . . .
Well, Fitzgerald was no idiot, and it's better to be careful than dead. He grabbed the little metal box, which was now going BEEPBEEPBEEP, opened the balcony glass door, BEEBEEBEEBEEEBEE, and threw the thing as far out into the Concourse as possible, then ran back to the bedroom and dived behind the king-sized bed. . . .
******BOOOOOOOOM!******
The glass doors to the balcony shattered as the box exploded, sending shards flying across the room, slicing into everything. Fitzgerald had gotten between the wall and the bed in time. He stood up, glass pieces falling off his torn suit jacket. The walls and mattress were embedded with shards of glass. He took a deep breath and looked momentarily back out to the Concourse, through where the glass doors had been. Then he left the suite and walked back to the stairs. In another ten minutes he was back on the 20th floor, knocking on #2001. Dabbler let him in.
Fitzgerald stared at the room. It looked hardly any worse than when he left. A few bullet holes were on the walls, the windows had all been broken in, and the back walls, with the windows leading out to the roof of the floor below, were totally smashed. And speaking of getting totally smashed, he thought to himself. . . .
He gave the butcher knife and the machine gun to Adama. "What was that explosion a few minutes ago?"Adama asked.
"Booby trap," said Fitzgerald.
He looked around. Where the back windows had been, there seemed to be a lot of blood. "How's MarkT? Any casualties?"
"He's still unconscious. Nobody's dead or badly hurt. We found a first aid kit."
"We didn't think you were coming back," said TriCityBendix.
"I wanted to bring back the gun," said Fitzgerald simply. "I got into the Fake TW Girl's room. They used her suitcases to smuggle guns inside the Backstage. Oh, and I found this--" Fitzgerald set the radio on Adama's desk.
Adama picked it up thoughtfully. "I'll see if we can intercept any of their comunications," he said. "Where are you going?" Fitzgerald was walking, zombie-like, back out into the hall.
"I'm going up to my office," he said. "I'm very tired."
"We all are," said You Wish.
"Everything's clear, as far as we know," Adama called to him as Fitzgerald walked to the stairs. He climbed slowly up to 24. He was suddenly glad that his office was close to the stairs. Right now, if he dared, all he wanted was a little rest. Facing the door, of course.
The glass doors to the hall had been shattered--more broken glass. Fitzgerald stepped through where the doors had been and walked back into his office. Wearily, he dragged a chair so that it faced the door to the reception room. He crossed to the bar, grabbed a glass, and poured a large gin-and-tonic. Half of it was gone before he even tasted it. . . .
That's funny. That bottle was hardly started when I left here with Subgirlie. . . .
Tastes funny, too. . . .A figure appeared, silouetted in the doorway to the reception room. Too short for one of the MIG. Nice round hips. But she looked silly in the bowler hat. . . . My head hurts. So tired. So . . . tired. She had a nice body. . . .
The woman was just standing in the doorway, not moving, not even holding a weapon. . . .
Not that she needed one. What a body. . . . Fitzgerald looked at his glass, as if he had just remembered that he was holding it, and the room wheeled past him like a roller coaster, and he looked at the glass again.
"Drugged, by God!" he said, slumping heavily to the floor, unconscious, the glass shattering on the wood.
The figure stepped up next to him. "No, by me," said the woman in the bowler hat. Gray bowler. Gray skirt. Gray blouse. Gray jacket. Even gray high heels. It was the Fake TW Girl. . . .
Mon May 14 16:44:34 2001