A pellet whizzed past his ear and he ducked low, glancing swiftly around the intersection. A thin, violet beam was playing from a doorway in Sears and he dodged towards it, ignoring the other spanging projectiles that ripped through the air and caromed off the building walls behind him.
Tanner was in the doorway, nursing a bleeding shoulder, his face glowing with the joys of battle.
"Tanner, what happened?"
"She's playing it in the open," Tanner snarled. "She's trying to convince the apes that way!"
She might succeed, Stan thought slowly, but it was more likely that the apes would blame it on a gang war of some kind. They wouldn't believe the truth. They wouldn't want to.
Tanner pointed down the street a block. "Cover it down there and we'll try to drive them towards you!"
Stan raced down half a dozen doors, then suddenly stiffened. There was the wail of sirens. And then the heavy chatter of a machine gun and the drifting choking of tear gas.
The spanging sounds and the violet beams suddenly stilled and figures slipped quietly from the buildings towards the side streets. Stan hesitated and then started running, away from the intersection.
He collided with Avis when she darted from a doorway. The granite face had broken and tears were streaking down it. Before he realized it, he was holding her tightly around the shoulders while she sobbed into his chest.