"You aren't really going through with that deal, are you?" she asked. "With George, I mean?"
"I don't see how I can avoid it," Marc said. He nodded over his shoulder toward George, who was watching them from a close distance. "He isn't letting me out of his sight for a second. I'm so weak now from lack of sleep and food, I may not even be able to handle those two out there. Then too, if it weren't for George, we'd still be helpless."
"There must be some way out of all this," Toffee said miserably.
Marc turned to her for a moment, his eyes clinging worriedly to hers. "I only hate doing this to you," he said. "I know you'll go when I do, and I can't really believe you aren't completely real any more. Sometimes, I feel that I've known you for years and years."
"You have," Toffee said softly. "You have." Then, boosting herself to the tips of her toes, she reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "It's all right. Do what you have to. I'll help if I can."
"I'm sorry," Marc said.
They waited a bit longer. Marc glanced around for a weapon and found the length of pipe Toffee had given him the night before. He picked it up and moved cautiously to the edge of the dynamo. The rain sounded ragingly against the metal coverings over the turrets. He watched the demented brothers until their backs were turned toward him, then sprang forward.
The moments that followed were covered with noisy confusion. At Marc's first movement, the brothers left their work with a cry of dismay. Cecil whirled about, a heavy wrench in his hand. He raised it menacingly and Marc ran toward him. Toffee ran toward Gerald, but her value as a combatant was negligible. Gerald quickly shoved her aside and, as she fell to the floor, ran to the aid of his brother. It was just as Marc raised the pipe over Cecil's head that Gerald, in a headlong dash, butted him squarely and brutally in the pit of the stomach and sent him doubling forward in a convulsion of agony. Cecil was quick to seize the opportunity to use his wrench. He swung it upward and brought it down with savage strength. But the blow was inaccurate. It missed Marc's head and crashed dully into his shoulder. With a cry of pain, Marc twisted to one side and fell to the floor. He lay inert as though the blow had paralyzed him.
Toffee, from her position, had a jumbled impression of Gerald running in another direction, toward a table upon which lay two guns. He was going to kill Marc! She jumped quickly to her feet and ran unknowingly to the switch panel on the wall. Something had to be done! She began pulling switches with frenzied swiftness. It was as her hand pressed frantically on the fourth one, that everything was suddenly plunged into blackness. For a moment she leaned against the panel, weak with relief.