Alex Reynard

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Chapter Forty-Two

Down below, the operators of the city's four maintenance cranes pushed their machines to the limit. Ectopia Cordis' wheels spun around a central axis, but there are also five support poles at the edges of the Bigwheels. This is the infrastructure that holds the city together. All five beams are criss-crossed with internal struts and tied together with a series of riblike rings, one for every Bigwheel. It is upon these poles and rings that the cranes crawled upwards. Their motors chugged like booming thunderclouds. Smoke vomited from their pipes. Sweat beaded on the foreheads of the operators. All of them could see the black clouds bellowing from the top levels. All of them knew they'd never make it in time.

Gyre 2 had made mincemeat of Bigwheel Fifty. Behind it lay a grey, flattened rut of devastation. Survivors walked around aimlessly, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what had happened or what to do now. Some citizens and guardsmen were already helping the dead return to wakefulness, or digging through pancaked buildings for those trapped. One restaurant owner, possibly delusional or possibly enraged, was starting to reconstruct his pride and joy already, putting bricks on top of other bricks. Everyone, everywhere, was dusted with ash.

As has been said before, the brain of a nightmare is a marvelous thing. Taking in all relevant factors, George had predicted Gyre 2 would take a diagonal path across Bigwheel Fifty, coming near the edge of the city limits but not rolling those crucial two thousand feet more. Instead it would drop to 49, leave it comparatively unscathed by making a lateral beeline across Spoke Three and dropping off again. Here was where they'd gain some time to prepare. Because, if all went as foreseen, it would roll from the outer edge of 48's Spoke Four, past the main axle, all the way to halfway along the length of Spoke Two. This would take a terrible toll on 48's many, many residents. But since it was largely a residential Bigwheel, there were simply no structures tall enough to bend into a ramp. And no time to create one either. There were several Supercolossal-class wheels on 47, but none in the path of Gyre 2. Forty-Six was a lucky miracle. Two Supercolossals, right in the projected spot where Gyre 2 would land after falling off Forty-Seven. If all went well.

What George had not told his companions, what he did not dare tell them for fear they would hesitate instead of acting, was that he was only seventy-to-seventy-five percent confident in his prediction. Junella was right; the amount of factors to consider was impossible. This was George's very best educated guess.

Needing to make up time, he picked up Toby and Zinc in his claws as he took off at top flightspeed towards Panjandrum Mall. Piffle followed behind, valiantly trying to keep up. It was a good thing the construct remained in parrot form, as it meant he could give Zinc an aerial view of their target and let him know which direction to shove it.

The canine rhythmically clashed his wrenchtips together as he peeled his eyes and surveyed the mall's supports. It was an A-framed building, and that was excellent. A triangle frame would be the worst. But obviously, the mall's owners would want everyone outside to see as many of the shops as possible. Two great big solid triangular slabs holding the wheel up would be bad for business. Instead, the circular shopping center was held aloft by, literally, an immense capital 'A' made of intercrossing steel beams on either side. This meant four points of connection to the ground. This meant Zinc only had to take out two of them to get the whole fucking thing to lean like a limbo dancer.

"Set me down right there!" he called to George. He revved his doorknockers again. This was just what they'd been made for. To eat through anything too tough for his wrenches alone. This would be a trial by fire. He hadn't practiced with them nearly long enough to be confident they could do this. But emergencies rarely have the patience to wait for a convenient time.

Zinc's feet hit the grass and he was already running towards the north apex. Malls are typically crowded places, and there were hell of a lot of people in the way. The doorknockers snorted, spraying aerosolized blood on anyone close. Zinc hammered the ground, sending up divots, and howled, "MAKE WAY, FOLKS!!! I GOTTA SAVE THE GODDAMNED WORLD!!!" He threw in a banshee scream for good measure. Shoppers scattered like pool balls.

The apexes of the A-frame were the mall's entrances. Customers rode escalators to the main hub and chose their spokes from there. Entrances have guards. And two of them already had their tazersticks pointed at Zinc as he rushed towards them like a mad bull. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?" screamed one of them.

"I'm real sorry about this," Zinc said sincerely, as he blocked her tazerstick with a wrench, and a whack from his doorknocker sent the guard flying fifty feet in the air. Her partner had exactly half a second to gawk before he was given a free air travel vacation as well.

Wasting no time, Zinc clamped onto the closest corner of the structure and dug in.

This would not be easy. His first swing shattered the cement facade but barely dented the metal underneath. Plus, it nearly rebounded and plowed through his lungs. He was going to have to concentrate, let his mind go, and just run these things on pure instinct. He could not spare an iota of headspace on who might be trying to stop him from doing something so very, very illegal. He let himself trust his friends. He swung harder.

George dropped Toby into the crowd of screaming, bumbling shoppers, then did a swell job of dispersing them by changing back to his horse form in mid air and THUDding to the ground on his hooves. Screams rose in pitch and civilians scattered.

"Any second now this place is gonna become a cop convention," Junella blared. Her sword was already up and eager. "Toby, get that hammer of yours out right this fucking second!"

The mouse was too scared to disobey. Gleaming steel filled his hand in an eyeblink.

She welded him in place with her glare. "No excuses. No pussying out. We are Zinc's only line of defense, understand? You wanted all this damn fool hero bullshit, and here we are. I will do my best to keep the pigs away and let my partner do his work. You will do your best too. And you will die trying as many times as you need to! Am I crystal fucking clear, mouse!?"

Unable to speak coherent words after that verbal barrage, Toby just sputtered a bit and nodded. He looked over the crowd. Everyone was running away for now, but from the second leg of the A, he could see the sizzly lights of tazersticks coming closer. Toby glanced at his bracers, opened his pouch of throwing knives, kissed the head of his hammer, and tried not to think about what he was about to do with it.

Piffle landed a second later, panting. "Jeezum crow, George is fast!"

Junella's cutlass pointed at her. "Remember when I told you to buy yourself a weapon at Dorster's? Let's see it now."

The hamsterfly giggled. "Oh right! I nearly forgot! Thanks for reminding me, Junella!" With that, she pulled up the front of her shirt.

Junella thought nothing Piffle did could surprise her anymore. She was wrong.

Piffle had swallowed one of Alfonzo's sheath-pills too. Just like Toby, her weapon was conveniently stored and ready. Although in this case, it was in her bellybutton. She held out her paw, light flashed from within her tummy, and then she was holding a five-foot-long golden fork.

"A... FORK..." Junella exploded.

Piffle double-handled it like a poleaxe and spun it around. It was light but strong. It gleamed pinkish from her outfit. "Yeah! Ain't it the cat's meow? He practically sold it to me for a song!"

Junella's inner ichor was boiling. "That's probably because he knew it's fucking useless!!!"

Piffle just grinned smugly. "Au contraire," she said simply.

A security guard was forty feet away and closing. Piffle beat her wings to give her a jet-propelled start and met him halfway. He swung his stick, but it missed her by a foot. He grunted a bit as Piffle's fork sank straight through his midsection, four gold tines glinting red on the other side. Piffle swung and flung the dead guard off like kicking a rotten pumpkin off a porch.

Junella's jaw dropped.

Piffle flitted back to where the skunk stood. She held her bloody fork in one hand while smoothing out her skirt pleats with the other.

"Where in Hell below did you learn how to do THAT?"

Relishing teasing her, Piffle reached out to tickle the skunk's chin. "There's a lot you don't know about me," she bubbled.

Junella pistoned her arm out past Piffle's shoulder to dumbfound her revolver into her palm and blast away another guard getting close.

"I try to be upfront about myself, personally," the skunk replied.

Most organisms are instinctively hardwired to feel revulsion at the very thought of harming another of their kind. Toby felt exactly this as he watched a security guard come closer and closer to him. A taut rubber strap holding back his arm. But what helped him overcome this feeling was the carved-in-stone fact that, right now, violence was a necessity. This was bigger than the pain caused by one weapon to one man. Zinc needed him. And even though they didn't know it, the thousands of Ectopians on the Bigwheels below needed him too.

"I am so sorry about this," Toby said, as he swung his hammer around to obliterate the guard's cheekbone.

The man fell at the mouse's feet, spasmed in pain, then reflexively scrambled up and away, wailing. Toby stared, still feeling the impact echoing in his arm. His mind was nothing but soup now. No coherent thought. Just lightning bolts of adrenaline, mixed with every ecchy emotion possible.

No time for reflection or regret. More guards were coming.

***

Zinc, meanwhile, was in a world all by himself. Nothing existed. Not even him. The entirety of the universe contained only his wrenches, his doorknockers, and the metal he had to get through. It fought him. This was not like cutting through a car. This was dense stuff. Top-level stuff. This stuff was meant to hold up over thirty dozen stores and an unthinkable amount of shoppers, all of whom would want a ride as smooth as mousse. No trembles or jostles could distract their minds from bargains. So the supports of this mall had to be godly-solid.

He was a single mutt who had to cleave through all of that.

But he was making progress. It was more than just dents now. The metal balls were white hot from friction. With each impact, they were denser than any sane world's physics could allow. They were starting to gouge away chunks of melted metal, like scooping out butter with a spoon. But each sphere was still only the size of a softball, and he had to somehow carve up this big bastard bad enough to make it buckle. Then he had to do it all over again on the second support.

He didn't let his mind think about this. He had to go blank. He already heard no sounds, and his vision was nothing but smears of color. He had no idea what was happening behind him, but had perfect faith in Junella to give him room to do his thing. They'd been through plenty of tight scrapes together. Nothing was heavier than today's platter of fuckety-hell, true, but some had come close. His wrenches alone had knocked down a hell of a lot of impossible shit through the years. Now they were supplemented by some brand new toys, eager to prove themselves. He could feel his lava-hot blood flowing through his shoulder-engines. His blood, his will, animating the metal. They were not additions to his body, they were his body. And his body was nothing more than a vehicle for his will. It was the car; he was the engine. He forced more power into his motor. More. More. He felt his sanity slip away into the fire. There was nothing else but the metal in front of him, and his will pounding through it.

***

While Zinc was achieving a state of pure zen, all hell was breaking loose around him. Once people realized that some nutball was trying to wreck the mall, he attracted quite a lot of attention. It was the duty of Junella, Piffle, George and Toby to deflect that attention.

Junella was finally having fun. This was her element. This was her chance to regain her confidence and remember why she'd earned it. Before her were the twitching corpses of a dozen security guards, diced just right to make regeneration take a good, long time. Her cutlass sang in the night. At her feet lay a small but growing pile of spent revolvers.

So far she'd been able to hold her ground. The others too. They made up a semicircle around Zinc. She'd been directing the others on how much area to handle based on glances and body language, since having both hands full meant her voice muted. She'd given Toby the smallest area to deal with, and his back to a wall to boot. To her pleasant surprise, he was doing well for a complete amateur. Mostly reacting on pure instinct, but he'd clobbered four or five guards by now. Plus he was quick to block with his bracers, as rodents are naturally twitchy. Piffle was a giggling demon with that fucking ridiculous silverware of hers. Goldenware? Why the hell had Dorster even made a thing like that!? Whatever the reason, Piffle was twirling it like a cheerleader's baton, turning it into a whirling, flashing blur of gore. And George... Oh, her heart went out to George. He was reveling in nostalgia; the good old days of remorseless wholesale slaughter. And he was laughing the whole time. Like a kid playing with toy soldiers. Except George was eviscerating them with his unholy-powerful hooves and teeth. Junella snatched glances towards him occasionally. When their eyes met, they shared a single thought; 'We shouldn't be enjoying this so much, should we? But we are.'

High up above, Jamais Dreamsicle was covering the whole event from the Channel 909 auxiliary news helicopter. The main pair of choppers were already up at the top, covering the runaway apartment building story. That creep jerk shithead brown-nosed asshole Michael had jumped on the scoop before she could. He was probably jerking off right now at having one-upped her. But she'd show him. She'd have something to roll his smug little nose in. Because she'd kept her ears pricked for any big developments, and had pounced the instant the scanner said some kook was trying to knock down the Panjandrum. Coincidence? That this was happening within minutes of the terrorist attack on 52? Impossible. She'd wrangled Cameron's camera and ignored Bicep's warning that the aux chopper wasn't exactly in the best shape for acrobatics. "I don't give a silver shit if we crash, so long as we bump Michael off the live feed," she had told him. The snarl on her pretty muzzle punctuated her sentence nicely.

So now Cameron was hanging off the side of the doorframe like a reluctant skydiver and she was right there with him, wind blowing her hairdo all to hell. But that wasn't important. 'KEEP TALKING.' That was all that mattered.

Jamais was known for two things. First, that an unfortunate magical accident had left her with all her bodily joints turned clear, like glass. So her head, hands, feet, etc., always appeared to be floating an inch or so away from her. She could have long ago treated this, but instead had made it her trademark. Secondly, she was also known for being a damn good reporter. "As you can see, the guards are trying their hardest to get to the main terrorist and subdue him, but there is some kind of mercenary group protecting him. Things are not going well. This is an unprecedented tragedy. I can't even count the number of people they've killed. Mall shoppers are being directed to the other three exits, but there are still many, many people trapped inside."

"Do we know how many?" Diana asked through the headset.

"That is unknown at this time," Jamais replied. She hated having to shout over the roar of the chopper blades; her voice sounded naggy at this volume. "We are as close as we can get to the action down below, and we are beginning to get a clearer picture of the criminals, these insane lunatics whose motive is not yet known. There is an albino mouse, male, some kind of plus-size female rodent with wings, a dark-furred female who is moving too fast to identify species, and most unbelievably, what looks to be a nightmare, yes an actual nightmare, working alongside them. Specifically the type known as a bonecuddy. How this is possible is still unknown. They may have some kind of mind control spell on it, or it's a remarkably good mechanical fake. Irregardless, it is tearing through the crowd. The carnage is unbelievable. I hope you have a disclaimer warning our viewers to keep children away."

"We certainly do, Jamais," said Diana.

"We can't quite get a good look at their leader yet, they're circling him pretty tight. But from the glimpses we've caught here and there, he appears to be heavily cybernetically altered. Specifically, some kind of robot prosthetic arms. The support pillar is taking a pounding. If he keeps this up, I- Wait! Wait! Cam, swing the lens over there! Diana, it looks like the city's police force is taking over from here! The terrorists should be apprehended shortly!"

***

Of course Ectopia Cordis is protected by more than just guardsmen. For the really nasty work, they send in the robots.

These are metal beasts designed to cause such fear in normal souls that pants become soiled in their presence. Each one is a massive titanium cylinder, thick as a refrigerator. They are incredibly maneuverable and fearsomely fast. Three treaded wheels support them on independent shocks. Long arms snake out from their armored torsos, each ending in a cluster of grabbing claws and pacification implements. Their heads are bundles of sensors topped with three high beam headlights. If they spot you, they will catch you. And if they catch you, they will cram you inside their holding-cell chests and take you to face judgment.

At the sound of their sirens, Junella's ears perked up. At the sight of their searchlights closing in from all sides, a smile of boundless joy came to her face.

Because now she could really let loose.

As much as she'd been enjoying spearing the security guards, there was always that pesky pang of conscience in her heart. She'd been holding back. These were just guys trying to earn a wage, after all. They'd done nothing to deserve her fury. Heck, if she and Zinc had been normal terrorists, they'd be heroes. So yes, she'd killed oodles of them without hesitation, but she did try to make it swift and painless. She kept her cruelty in reserve.

But now... Now here came the tin pigs. No souls, no pain sensors. She could unlock the unholy depths of her black heart and feel nothing but the thrill of ruination.

Civilians and guards scampered out of the way at the growl of the policebots' engines. They were a wall of white-painted silver. Dozens of them, all identical, all with their arms up and ready to ensnare. Their eyelights painted the surrounding buildings red and blue, red and blue, red and blue. Their sirens shrilled. "CITIZENS MOVE ASIDE. POLICE ACTION COMMENCING."

Junella threw her revolver down to speak, but her sword hand may as well have been melted in place. "Toby! Piff! Don't try to take them on, they'll rip you to ribbons! Just keep your eyes open for any more guards and keep Zinc working!" She was glad to see them nodding in unison, and even gladder that Zinc looked like he hadn't even heard her. He was still head down, steadfastly sending up sparks and squirts of liquefied metal. "George! You ever fight fuzz before?"

He surveyed the approaching tank-like enemies. "Not like these."

"They're dead simple, but deadly as fuck. Aim for the eyes first, but watch out for the hands too. They can still hurt you when they're blind. And be prepared to dodge a LOT of bullets."

"Bullets, I am familiar with," George replied, digging in his hooves.

She turned to face him, locking eyes. "First though, I need you to stay put until I give the signal. Trust me on this."

He bowed. "I cede to your greater experience with this particular foe, Madam Brox."

Zinc was aware of precisely none of this. He was on fire. Sometimes literally, as his work was filling the air with drops of molten slag. But he'd hit his stride. He'd figured out the rhythm. His doorknockers were swimming through the metal in a crisscross pattern, and would cut through the support in just a few more minutes. How he was going to get over to the other one, that was a problem for the Zinc fifty seconds in the future. But he was confident he could get that rhythm back once he got there. He had this.

The civilians had mostly cleared out, leaving a large empty area where Zinc and the others were conducting business. Jamais was still high in the sky, narrating everything while Cam lived up to his name. Viewers tuning in saw the quintet of criminals trapped like rats as cop-bots swarmed in from every street. Thirty or forty units. They closed in, creating a circular perimeter around the perps. When they were all equidistant from one another, the policebots ground to a halt, forming an impenetrable wall. Together, a hundred or so headlights all focused on a single point: one sword-wielding skunk.

Junella felt the heat from all those lights. But she stood firm, squinting back at them. Teeth grit. Readying.

"UNKNOWN AGGRESSOR, YOU ARE ENGAGING IN CRIMINAL TRESPASS AND IMPERILING THE PROPERTY AND GOOD TIMES OF ECTOPIAN CITIZENS. STAND DOWN AND YOU WILL BE COLLECTED WITHOUT HARM."

All their voices had spoken as one. Toby was reminded quite strongly of the Cold Coven. But as he and Piffle cringed side by side, their weapons seeming puny in the face of all that robotic might, they also remembered what Junella had done to the Cold Coven.

In the blinding glare of police lights stood one vinyl skunk. Her posture was tense as a cobra. Her tail was up and ready to strike.

In the palms of each one of their multi-tooled hands, each policebot had a minigun. Each minigun was all spun up and ready to fire.

Their opponent had a sword.

Junella had played with these toys before, and was counting down the seconds in her mind, knowing exactly how long she had until they were programmed to start spitting up tear gas and tanglewire. She didn't want that. Non-lethal weapons were harder to get around. She wanted a good old fashioned gunfight.

She raised her cutlass.

They reacted predictably. "YOU ARE DISPLAYING AN AGGRESSIVE MOTION. YOU ARE ORDERED TO LIE DOWN FLAT ON THE GROUND SURFACE. YOU WILL NOT BE WARNED AGAIN."

Junella put her hand over her heart. Her needles found the grooves to tell them just what she thought about their warning.

"I AM JUNELLA FUCKING BROX! MY BREATH IS FIRE, MY HEART BEATS THUNDER, AND I AM BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU COMBINED!!!"

The instant the last syllable escaped her resonating chamber, her feet were dashing across the grass, top speed towards the cop dead center in her sights. Her sword came down in front of her like a thin shield.

And the air rippled with bullets.

Every cop fired at once. Gun barrels flashed like firecrackers. A thousand black bees filled the space between the constables and the criminal as she charged. Reality itself seemed to pulsate with the sheer amount of firearms all roaring at once.

Toby watched, eyes wide, as splashes of melted vinyl went everywhere. Chunks of sizzling black plastic burned the grass. A half-liquified lump made a desperate leap for one cop's sensory cluster, and uncountable bullets tore through. It landed like a wet pancake across the cop-bot's headlights.

Toby's heart shattered. Junella had failed. They had all failed.

And yet... the blob of black sludge was still holding onto its sword.

It stirred.

Something like an arm gushed out and grabbed onto the cables in the sensory cluster. A head-like mass emerged. And then two orange eyes flashed, containing all the fury and madness of Hell.

The mouth shaped the words, 'Nice try.'

And then the sword flashed and the policebot was dead in the space of a heartbeat.

The drumbeat of bullets started again, and the liquefied shadow sprang out of reach.

George took that as the signal and thundered in to join the fray. Head down, hooves thundering, spraying a tidal wave of nightmare fire before him. The policebots' attention was successfully halved by this. More bullets flew, and a cloud of bone splinters haloed George. But their weapons merely tickled. And his booming laughter told them so.

Junella was regaining form with every metal body she landed on, slashed through, and leapt from. Like she was stealing their health to regain her own. Her cutlass glowed white-hot, superheated from all the bullets that had struck it. It looked like a chunk of pure carved sunlight. It was now the perfect silverware for carving pork.

More robots fell. Their slashed wires puked out sparks as they topped backwards or rolled in senseless circles. Junella's hands were too busy to speak, but her face radiated joy. Vicious, silent laughter. Her blade damn near set the air itself afire. Flitting like a flea from bot to bot, she disarmed them literally. Gun barrels and other implements were sheared to bits. Their grasping arms were cut up like hot dogs in mac 'n cheese. Their eyelights burst and went blind. The cops poured on more bullets, but by now were more likely to hit each other than their quarry. Ricochet shots went in every imaginable direction and did some pretty nasty things to nearby civilians. But the bullets didn't slow Junella, this demonic jet angel. For every scrap of flesh they managed to tear off, she willed more.

And they might have wore her down to soup eventually if not for the addition of a one-horse cavalry. George's hooves slammed into a cop's chest, sending it skidding backwards and domino-ing several of its comrades. George churned out fire like a blast furnace and kicked with all his might. Bullets rained down on him. He clung to life for as long as he could, like holding in breath, then exhaled and expired in one mighty eruption. But he was back on his feet again soon. He planted his front legs and turned his back end into a machine gun turret, blasting out cannonball-strength kicks that made bowling pins of the policebots. Their optics melted under his flamethrower breath. Their hands snatched chunks of rotting flesh that sloughed off as fast as George could grow it.

The policebots converged on the two dark monsters, trying to pen them in, to make a corral of their own metal bodies. They were programmed to account for fast-resurrecting enemies. The goal was to smother them in sheer numbers. For every one of them that fell, there would always be more deployed from around the city. An inexhaustible supply.

Junella could see them closing in, and that was all part of her plan. The more they bunched together, the less distance needed to jump around from body to body. Tarzan-swinging off one flailing metal arm, she ran horizontally across a row of metal chests with her cutlass slicing through eyelights on one side and her revolver making holes through the other. Her tail whipped around to cram their 'faces' full of shards. The name of the game was keeping one step ahead. She knew their reaction times. So long as she could act quicker than their processors could react, she was sailing smooth.

At this point the combatants were all so fixated on pummeling the shit out of each other, it seemed nothing could have torn their attention away.

Well, how 'bout the earsplitting groan of a two-thousand ton mall taking a sudden, violent lurch sideways?

Imagine a cow's bellow amplified through the speakers of a heavy metal concert. There was no ignoring the sound, or the instinctive tremor of panic at seeing something so huge jerk so suddenly. Heaving towards the ground like it'd just spotted a penny.

Even the cop-bots paused, calculating whether the mall was about to fall and flatten them. This gave Junella and George a much-appreciated two-second timeout.

But Zinc's work was not done. He'd been metalworking merrily along a moment ago and had completely forgotten that sometimes you don't have to cut all the way through something to reach its breaking point. Gravity had finished his work twenty seconds early, and the whipcrack recoil of the remaining metal snapping outwards might've reduced his torso to red jelly if he'd been standing a foot to the right. Instead he sat down hard on the grass, brainstunned for a second, then looked way up at the mall leaning towards him. As if looking down accusingly. 'Why are you hacking away at my foot? I need that.'

Zinc's jaw fell open and he shouted to his comrades, "I finished this side!!!"

Junella's head twitched in his direction but she was in no position to help. She had to keep the cop-bots' attention cemented far away from him.

Piffle realized this too. She sucked her big fork back into her tummybutton and dashed over to hoist Zinc onto his feet. "Don't worry, darling! I'll fly you on over and you can get right back to work!"

Zinc didn't even notice her pet name. His senses were still blind to everything but the reverberation in his wrenches and knockers. He had the groove, and he had to get back to business soon before he lost it.

Piffle got her arms around Zinc's chest and prepared her wings for takeoff. "Toby?"

The mouse appeared at her elbow. "Yes?"

"You gotta run on ahead and scare away anyone who might wanna stop us landing there."

"Me!? What!? I can't-"

"There's no time, Toby!" she urged. "Look up! The wheel's almost here and the mall's not leaning enough to catch it!!"

Toby did look up. She was right. Gyre 2 was almost at the edge of Bigwheel 48.

***

As George had predicted, the apartment building had withstood its many bumps and tumbles to continue on causing chaos. It was no longer 'round' exactly, but gravity and momentum were keeping it going. And it had torn an almost perfect diagonal across Bigwheel 48: from the east of one spoke all the way across to the west of another.

Uncountable homes had been crushed in its path. Uncountable screams of pain and tears of panic. Gyre 2 was a skyscraper-sized Grim Reaper, walking amongst the unfortunates, uncaring how many of them ended up splattered beneath its tread.

But the damage was not limited to just what Gyre 2 touched. When the wheel had drawn near, employees and even some customers at Kingdom Spinners had rushed like mad to scoop the rarest, most precious albums off the shelves. They dropped to the floor and shielded them with their own bodies as the nightmare rumbled past. When the shaking stopped, the shelves were bare and the floor was littered with shattered chunks of music. They'd saved only a fraction of the collection.

Moments later, attendees at an autograph signing for Lambretta Corazon were jostling and clambering for the exits. And, to his credit, the pampered, preening actor displayed rare heroism in helping his fans get out first. Then tremors rocked the building's foundations, bringing the roof down on all who remained inside. And though he was trapped beneath several tons of beams and tile, Mr. Corazon smiled. His fans would dig him out in no time at all, and would worship him all the more afterward.

As mentioned before, hospitals in Phobiopolis tended mostly to deliver the injured to a merciful death, or to reverse unfortunate magical effects. But there was another function they served. Psychiatric help. And considering the wealth of things in Phobiopolis itself to torment the mind (not to mention how battered a mind must usually be to end up in there), the wards were always full. Doctors and nurses were scrambling to empty Cleckley Hill's beds. The massive mental asylum lay straight in Gyre 2's path. Swarms of bewildered patients stood safely away in the courtyard. Some of them shivered at the feel of real wind blowing through their fur again after so long. Some of them took the opportunity to escape. Some of them were clawing to get back inside again, to the safety of normal routine. The staff held hands of the walking bewildered. They threw the least-ambulatory patients onto gurneys or dragged them on mattresses down the stairwells like toboggans. Anything to get everyone outside doors any way they could. One guard on the first floor had even shot out the rec room's windows so the patients could crawl through.

You cannot choose to work in such a place without a deep, defining commitment to selflessness, so it likely pained Cleckley Hill's staff much more than most when they realized their task was simply impossible. The wheel was too close, and the hospital wasn't two-thirds empty yet. Some stayed, shoving as many warm bodies through the doors as they could until the shadow descended over the building. Others rushed outside, waving their arms to try to get the convalescents as far away as possible before impact.

Gyre 2 ate up Cleckley Hill like a light snack. Windows exploded into glass confetti. Beds, equipment, and patients alike were churned to pulp in seconds. Nurses looked up with tears in their eyes, unable to stop imagining the hopeless ones left trapped inside, and wondering if dying yet another death might break them permanently.

There was nothing that could have been done to save them. And Gyre 2 was still rolling, still falling.

***

"This is impossible!!!" Jamais screamed from high in the sky. "The lead terrorist is on the move! Not only have our city's protectors failed to stop him from destroying one strut of the Panjandrum, but he's actually brazen enough to move on to the other!! This can't be happening!!"

The vixen clamped a paw over her mic so she could whisper to Cameron, "It's all still going out live? No problems?"

"Not a one, Jammy."

Her eyes shimmered. There was practically a neon sign above her head saying, 'GOODY GOODY GUMDROPS'. "Michael is going to shit a brick shithouse when he sees this! I scooped him, finally! Runaway wheels happen every year, but this! This is what people remember!! I can smell my raise from here!" she hissed with a giggle.

"What was that, Jamais?" Diana said over the earpiece.

"Just... just overwhelmed for a moment, I'm sorry. I can't help but think of all those poor citizens, still trapped inside the mall. What must they be going through as this tragedy unfolds?"

***

It all came down to this: Zinc was in Point A at the moment. He needed to be at Point B, or else everything they'd done would be for nought. George and Junella were distracting the cops. Piffle had her hands full. Zinc was too far in the zone to do anything helpful. So it was all up to Toby to clear a path for him.

The mouseboy was running before he could let this sink in. Running towards the second apex of the Panjandrum Mall, and also running away from thinking too hard about the pickle he was in. There would be guards at the second entrance. They would see him coming. He would have to make them go away somehow. If he didn't, they would swarm over Zinc and stop him from tearing through the other support leg. If that happened, the mall wouldn't catch the apartment building. If that happened, there would be further death and destruction. If that happened, he and all his friends would be locked up tight by the police. All this, and the clock was still ticking down the seconds they had left. It might even be too late already.

Toby's mind fractured. One part of him was drawn into dwelling on all these what ifs, yet his primitive side paid attention only to his senses. Wild nonev mice had simple minds. Minds that ran almost wholly on instinct: when to run, when to bite, etcetera. This part of his ancestry was still present in Toby, domesticated as he was. So his feral side had to give his rational side a few kicks to get his whole mind to register the group of security guards he was racing straight towards.

Half a dozen grey and black uniforms. Mall cops. Not an elite fighting force, but any one of them was still physically fit and armed enough to kick the ass of one mouse.

There was a moment when panic reared up in him and clutched at his heart like an electrified hand. He felt himself wrestle it back. There was simply too much at stake for him to fail now. He knew there was a danger of his own fear sabotaging his efforts, so he could take the easy way out, screw up, and have a self-pity party later. No. People were counting on him.

Toby's hand was at his pouch and he emptied it in seconds, flinging every last one of his throwing weapons out at the group of guards. They recoiled as sharp metal tore into their thighs, palms, and eyes. Toby clanked his bracers together like a shield and bulldozed through the rest.

Or at least he tried to. He didn't weigh much after all. He bounced off, and only his tail kept him from falling on his ass. One guard, after taking a shuriken in the cheek, came to his senses quickly enough to aim his pistol at Toby. The mouse's coral eyes widened and a steel hammer swung down to shatter the guard's fingers. Toby wasted a split second on being amazed. It was like his weapon had acted on its own. But more guards were turning their attention to him now, so he let his hammer fly again and again. It was hard work not descending into random, panicked swinging. He had to keep alert, see everything, anticipate the nearest threat and smash it. He was doing pretty well actually, until the bullet slammed through his ribcage.

There was no pain at first, oddly enough. Only a kind of watery numbness that suddenly punched him under the armpit. He was too focused on swinging his hammer to notice. Then he became aware of a searing sting, like a cigarette burn. He saw blood in his peripheral vision. He could feel it pouring out of him like a water faucet. He realized then, if he looked down at what had happened to him, he would pass out and be no use to anyone. So he held tight to his adrenaline and let it drag him along in its wake. His hammer went up and down like an oil pump. He didn't care where, or even look to see. So long as that impact of steel on bone traveled up his arm each time. Although his arm was getting all funny on him now. Bright yellow strings of pain kept shooting up his nerves on that side. Almost as if his arm shouldn't still be working, yet he was forcing it to. Then he heard another loud boom and something bad happened to his leg. He dropped to one knee.

The gunshot was so close that all he heard was a sudden high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. He was deaf now, only able to see the tangle of guards that never seemed to thin out no matter how many times he hit them. Dark blobs kept darting in and out at the edges of his vision. He could no longer feel his arm. Just the weight of the hammer in his hand. Everything was going all rubbery...

Then something interesting happened. Three of the guards' heads exploded like party balloons. As they fell to the ground with a trio of splats, Toby saw past them, only for a brief instant, to Junella in the thick of the policebots, pointing her revolver his way then tossing him a nod.

He nodded back.

There were only two guards left now. Toby thought he could manage that. He was a mouse without anger in his heart, but he could definitely feel desperation. And he could disassociate the two fursons in front of him into simple problems he wanted to solve. With a hammer. He forced his legs to leverage him up, then swung as hard as he could. Another numb, burning place appeared in his neck. He kept swinging. His arm sizzled, the nerves feeling like they were covered in biting flies. But he kept swinging.

And then there was no one else in front of him.

Toby looked up and there was a ring of horrified, screaming shoppers around the mall's entrance. But they were all moving away. No one else was moving towards him.

He felt sticky all over with something wet and warm. Something in his mind told him he probably shouldn't ask what it was. He wasn't even sure where he was. 'Disoriented' was a very good word for Toby in that moment.

Thankfully, it was only a few seconds later when a pair of wrenches slammed the ground beside him, and Zinc hauled ass over to the apex to start the second half of his Magnum Opus Of Pounding On Things. Piffle alighted beside Toby, and gasped in shock at his condition. She had no idea how he was still standing. "Gloriosky, Toby!!" she shouted. "Doesn't it hurt!?"

He blinked. His head swiveled around towards her. Her facial features seemed to be swimming around in lazy circles. A perfectly lucid thought appeared in his mouth before his brain could examine it. "You should probably kill me now, Piffle."

Being the good friend that she was, she didn't even pause to nod. Toby saw a flash of gold, then a giant fork went straight through his face. The top of his head came off like a beanie.

Seconds later, a much-less-bloody Toby appeared next to his newly-vacated corpse. Piffle immediately squeezed him silly. "You did great!! You knocked 'em into next Tuesday! I don't even know how you held on for so long!"

His eyes seemed frozen open. Like he couldn't close them even if he wanted to. His body trembled with the aftershocks of the pain his adrenaline had kept him from feeling. "I don't know either," he said truthfully. "I just did it... because I had to."

She kissed him on the cheek, and didn't mind when he was still too rattled to notice. She looked up. "Good grief, we don't have much more time..." she whispered in horror.

Gyre 2 was falling towards Bigwheel 47 already.

And Zinc had just barely started work on the second support.

Toby's muzzle boinged upwards at the sound of the titanic crash ninety feet overhead. Debris rained down from the underside of the Bigwheel, and a cloud of birds who'd been nesting there took to the air all at once. Even from below, Toby could hear the crunches and booms of Gyre 2's insatiable appetite.

He turned to yell encouragement at Zinc, but Piffle put a finger over his lips.

"We can't distract him. He knows. We just have to let him work."

Toby looked past her shoulder to the rigid, unflinching form of Zinc. Hunched over and swaying back and forth in time, letting his doorknockers swing in the necessary pattern. His tail was frizzed up to maximum, and his fur showed the scars and singes from a hundred drips of melted metal falling on him.

"Go Zinc," Toby whispered in awe.

Piffle nodded, then arranged Toby back-to-back with her. Weapons at the ready in case anyone else stepped in to interfere.

***

Cops are trained to ignore distractions and focus on their primary objective. Robot cops doubly so.

The policebots only flinched for a scant moment when the Panjandrum first shuddered and leaned (although the shockwave knocked a few of them over). And they certainly did not turn around to gawk when Gyre 2 hit the Bigwheel just above them. Their sensors only cared about two things: one skunk and one horse.

The pair were both skilled fighters with extensive hours of practice. But everyone has their limits. They'd fallen into a strategy of George remaining mostly in one spot to draw the policebots' focus, while Junella danced around the perimeter, incapacitating tinmen by the score. The cops' advantages were many. The robots could not feel pain, could not feel fear, showed no remorse at seeing their brothers in arms fall, and their numbers were seemingly infinite. Junella had made piles of their useless bodies, snowdrifts of them, but there were always more. Streaming out from the streets and alleys in all directions. Lights flashing, sirens squealing, all the time bleating their repetitive prerecorded bullshit about how she should surrender or else they would be forced to use deadly measures.

They had tried like crazy to put her down. But Junella would not die until her task was accomplished. She kept herself in a very particular state of mind. She thought fluidly. She moved like a wave, a splash, a river. She curved her body around their shots. Maximizing their misses. And even when they hit, she let herself believe unquestioningly that every chunk the bullets tore from her was expendable. She could grow it back. Her body would handle it. Her mind was fixed on chopping up arms and heads. She knew for a fact that if she died even once, she'd lose her grip on her sword. If she dropped her sword, it'd cool down. And if it cooled down, it'd no longer be any good for cleaving through cop-metal. She could afford no mistakes.

These pigs were relentless. But they had no imagination. That was their most exploitable weakness. They were programmed with various scenarios of criminal action and reaction. All Junella had to do was keep on confusing them. Which was not difficult if you know what confuses a robot. The challenge was in keeping it going. Already, just hopping from body to body was something they weren't prepared for, and their minds couldn't learn how to defend against it properly. But she still had to keep one step ahead of those flailing arms. Even a blind robot could still clamp down if it caught hold of a piece of her. So she just had to make sure that never happened. She used every weapon in her arsenal. Her sword cleaved, her guns ripped, her tail smashed, her musk blinded, and her speed dazzled.

George was a nightmare, and nightmares do not experience fatigue or fear. They do however experience irritation. George did not like to feel boxed in. And the endless, endless, ENDLESS robots crowding in from all sides were steadily driving him berserk. No matter how many of these galvanized trashcans his kicks sent flying, two more would show up. It was like fighting a hydra. With every clasp of their rotten grabby claws, with every bone chip their bullets blew out of his body, he had to fight his primal rage from overwhelming his rational mind. He must not let that happen. There were other factors to consider more important than himself. Whenever he had a spare fraction of a second, George kept glancing towards Sir Zinc, Sire Toby and Madam McPerricone. He had to keep them foremost in his mind. No matter how much the policebots vexed him, he had to remain a flashy, attractive target. A lure. Keep the action away from that second strut. George glanced to the sky. It might not matter anyway. The Gyre was right on schedule, but it might have been simple physics that no force in the universe could cut through metal fast enough to bring down the mall on time.

Zinc knew this. And he knew that if it were true, then he would simply have to work harder and faster than any force in the universe ever before.

It was impossible work. He had to trust completely in his own body to heal itself from all the slag scorching his flesh (plus the occasional stray bullet), and to keep stuffing the pain back down so he didn't feel it. He had to maintain complete faith in his friends that they wouldn't let anyone through to mess with him. A single paw on his shoulder would be all it would take to fuck his concentration up irrevocably. He was doing split-second calculations of tremendous delicacy. Dozens of them with every passing second. His doorknockers worked like a dream, and if he ever got out of this mess he'd have to introduce Millie to Dorster in thanks. These puppies were the pinnacle of craftsmanship. The ultimate proof that nothing beats good old-fashioned bare-handed hard work. Controlling the density of the two metal balls was as smooth as shifting gears on his old convertible (which was really saying something, as Zinc had built the transmission himself). And they had to be. He had two supernovas' worth of density constantly whizzing past his head and he had to keep them both in perfect harmony. He'd already improved the efficiency of his crisscross pattern. With every swing, he changed the arc a little, widening or tightening the parabola. Maximum efficiency. He'd gone beyond the point of letting his self recede until nothing was real but the metal in front of him and his arms shaping it to his will. Now, it was like that part was on autopilot. Muscle memory. He could step back and cast a critical eye on his progress. Tweak it here and there. With every swing of his doorknockers through the support leg, the next swing got a little sweeter and did a little more damage. This was like painting. Zinc was attaining a state of calmness that normally only heavy drug use could produce. He was smiling. Even as flecks of white-hot steel pelted his eyeballs, he was cool as a cucumber. He hummed in time with his swings. Timing them to the beat of a good song. Keeping up the rhythm. THIS was the groove, oh man. This was IT, baby! The Gyre was forgotten. His purpose was forgotten. His body was forgotten. He was just one far-out cat, digging his job. Enjoying his work. Everything was cool.

Did I mention how you don't always have to cut all the way through metal if other factors are already working to weaken it?

In this case, one such factor was the several thousand tons of retail space that gravity was trying very hard to make horizontal.

Before Zinc was even halfway through working on the second leg, it buckled exactly like the first one had. Except a little more forcefully this time. The steel reached its breaking point and burst outwards, turning poor Zinc into beef stew. It happened far too quickly for him to even register surprise.

Toby looked up and screamed loud enough for both of them, as the already-leaning mall came hurtling towards him.

Along with several heaping boatloads of shoppers, guards, and onlookers, Piffle and Toby skedaddled the hell out of there. The Panjandrum's shadow loomed longer and larger over them. It moaned in protest as its acres of steel were yanked in directions it was never made to withstand. The entire south side's windows finally gave in and shattered into a glittering waterfall of broken glass. Quite a lot of it happened to pelt the rotors of a flying-too-close news helicopter, sending it into a death spiral. Merchandise and customers (both alive and dead) poured through the mall's broken windows to clobber the ground below. It was an unthinkable amount of property damage. Totaled up, it would probably make our heroes' bill at Rippingbean and Woofingbutter's look like a minor expense. And of course, here came the looters. Even some of the people who'd fallen out of the broken windows got themselves reanimated and started looking around for unbroken merch.

Chairs, computers, pianos, pretzel kiosks: it was raining everything. Inside the mall, floors that had moments ago been tilted but still navigable suddenly became funhouse slides. Shoppers shrieked and grabbed hold of anything they could. Some were knocked loose by heavy products and went tumbling out into space. The food court turned into the ugliest mess you have ever seen. Shelves of disc media regurgitated their contents like a drunk leaning over a toilet. A herd of hot tubs came loose from the jacuzzi dealer's and chased down fleeing customers like stampeding rhinos.

While he was running across the bike lot with his heart beating so hard he could feel every vein and artery in his body, Toby glanced back and wondered if their plan was going to fail for an incredibly stupid reason they hadn't even anticipated. What if the mall fell all the way over and hit the ground? Then it'd just be one more thing for Gyre 2 to bounce off of and go on its merry way. He squeezed Piffle's hand so tight it was surprising no fingers got broken. 'Plus, I'll end up squashed beneath it. Flattened like a bug under an entire mall. Even if I come back to life, I'll still be flat as a pancake and I'll just keep dying over and over forever until they dig me out and put me on trial for terrorism!' The poor little mouseboy started laughing crazily. Piffle joined in, thinking he was celebrating their victory.

The cops hesitated again, to calculate their own safety in case of structural collapse. This gave George and Junella just enough time to look up and see the mall taking its final bow. They too had the same thought Toby had. But the mall was still anchored solidly on the opposite side. And despite some loud protesting, it held. The structure ended up at a fifty degree angle.

The wheel had stopped spinning. Shrieking customers held on to curtains and carpeting, dangling over the drop. But the mall stayed put.

"It is done, Madam Brox!" George shouted as his hind legs dented yet another cop-bot. "There is nothing more to do now than hope and see!"

"Good," she replied, emptying another revolver (there were probably hundreds of them littering the ground below her). "Mind if we just ease off and let these cops beat us into submission?"

"At this point, that sounds almost relaxing."

And so the pair of them took a well-deserved break. They gave their well-worn bodies slack, and let themselves die peacefully under a hail of thousands and thousands of bullets.

***

As if to reward him for all his hard work and dedication, fate gave Zinc a front row seat.

He came to his senses several yards away from the destroyed support. His wrists and doorknockers had scorched ruts in the ground from where they lay beside him. He looked up and blinked at the sight of the Panjandrum leaning over him. "Sheeeeeit," he mumbled. "Lookit all those poor saps hangin' out the windows. Don't they know that's dangerous?" He giggled airily.

Zinc was drunk off his own brain chemicals. Flying high on euphoria and endorphins. Nothing could have possibly bothered him in this state. The thought occurred to him, as it had to Toby, that the mall just might fall over and trap him under it indefinitely. "Oh well," he said, and giggled some more. Everything just seemed... okay.

So Zinc watched passively, enjoying the grass under his back and all the pretty colors, as a gigantic blood-streaked apartment building fell out of the sky towards him.

Gyre 2 had not spent much time on 47, but it had been just long enough. The Panjandrum was firmly in place, with almost twenty-seven seconds to spare, once the giant wheel finished up decimating another batch of shops and rolled off the edge towards Bigwheel 46.

To Zinc, the building seemed frozen in time for as long as he wanted it to be. The moon was full behind it. One big ol' circle illuminating another. Gyre 2 glittered as it fell, tumbling end over end like a flipped coin. Chunks of concrete, sheets of glass, bodies and other detritus followed after it. Like sprinkles.

It was beautiful.

And though there were innumerable screams of horror all around him when Gyre 2 and the Panjandrum finally kissed, Zinc could only smile.

"Cool."

The two wheels smashed into each other with a sound that defied description. Like a few hundred thousand electric guitars being dropped into a car crusher. Like all the world's whales singing one synchronized out-of-tune note. Like several kazillion tons of metal falling and impacting another several kazillion tons of metal. Nothing comes close. But the impact's shockwave sent debris airborne for miles. And the closest batches of gawkers instinctively raised their arms to shield themselves. As if that would do anything.

Many onlookers watched the mall bend and wondered if the weight of the apartment building would snap the other side and lay it flat. And for a few hideous seconds, that's exactly what it seemed might happen. Zinc was lying on his back beneath the two stupendous structures with his arms crossed behind his head. Resting in the shade.

But the mall's two remaining legs held. And considering how much they'd survived already, it should serve as an illustration of just how much Zinc had needed to do on the opposite side.

As planned, Gyre 2 began to slide.

More windows exploded. As if the survivors inside the mall hadn't had enough to deal with already, now sheets of razor sharp glass were raining down upon them like a nightmare typhoon. More people and products fell through to splatter on the ground. But as horrific an experience as it was for them, the important thing was, they were among the last to die in the day's long cataclysm.

It only took seconds. Gyre 2 slid in a fireworks show of grinding sparks down the length of the Panjandrum, flipped like a coin when it hit the surface of 46, then sailed cleanly through the air past the edge of Ectopia Cordis.

A shadow loomed over the parking lot. Drivers shat themselves in panic and tried to drive away in every direction possible. Traffic jams happened immediately. The few who ended up stuck in their cars did not have a good day. Those smart enough to get out and run tended to fare better. Even though they now had to contend with the pig-like garbage-eater beasts. An apartment building was too much of a meal even for them, so they also tore off like lightning. Which put them in the midst of a running smorgasbord of easy meals. Thankfully for most, terror of falling ferris wheels tends to give a furson the speed to outrun a morbidly obese parasomnic construct.

It is a testament to just how well Ectopia Cordis is built that the city itself didn't shudder in the slightest when Gyre 2 finally made landfall. Citizens from every Bigwheel gathered around the edges to watch, some of them falling over. When the building finally hit pavement, hundreds of cars were reduced in an instant to tinfoil. Many hundreds more all hopped up into the air upon impact, only to fall back down again in disarray. Many, many, many car alarms went off.

The asphalt was cracked in a mile-wide spiderweb all around where Gyre 2 landed. But it was over.

The wheel was still.

The catastrophe had ended.

Thousands of Ectopians cheered.

And way back up on Bigwheel Forty-Six, one very satisfied mutt with wrenches for arms was lying in the grass and grinning his groovy little head off.

"I did it," he whispered contentedly to himself.

It sounded so good, he said it again. "I did it."

He honestly didn't even mind when big metal clamps grabbed hold of him and began to drag him off to jail.

What could the cops do to worry him? He'd just stared impossibility itself in the face, and she'd blinked first.

*****

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