The Machiavelli Interface Read Online Free PDF

reinforcements. So far, so good.
    "Hey!" A pair of guards, one using a spookscope, ran into the corridor.
    Dirisha dropped to a prone position, both hands extended. The roar of a . 177 filled the air as the guard with the carbine sprayed the place where Dirisha had just stood. She returned his fire with a half-dozen darts, three for each man. The two men jerked and hit the floor, hard.
    "Dirisha...?"
    That was Geneva, coming back to check on her.
    "I'm okay, keep going!" Dirisha scrambled to her feet and ran toward the other woman. Geneva turned and sprinted back for the corner.
    Ahead, in the eerie green, came the staccato spat of a spetsdöd. Dirisha heard the thrum of a hand wand, then more rounds from a spetsdöd. She and Geneva rounded the next corner.
    And went blind. Somebody was waving a big HT lantern, and with the amplification of the spookeyes, it was like looking at a nova. Dirisha shoved her spookeyes up to kill the fire, but Geneva was faster. Geneva's right spetsdöd kicked into full auto, and a shower of darts encircled the light. The lantern fell and shattered on the floor, turning the corridor jet once again.
    Dirisha pulled her 'eyes back down. The afterimage on her retinas blotted out anything directly in front of her, and she had to use peripheral vision to see.
    "He must have come out after Red and Sleel passed. The shooting was farther on."
    Dirisha nodded. "Come on, the clock is running."
    They ran. The plans said the center block control was just ahead. Another thirty meters—
    Dirisha leaped the downed forms of a pair of troopers as she reached the control room. Red stood guard, arms extended to cover two corridors, while Sleel bent over a panel. He attached a portable power pack to it. Without speaking, Geneva slid to a stop behind Red, covering the remaining two corridors with her weapons. Father and daughter stood back to back, watching.
    "Come on, Sleel, give me a heading!" Dirisha felt her tension, but there was no help for it. Her adrenaline ran high, lapping at her logic, insisting that she move ! Each of the matadors circulated bacteria-aug, and was therefore considerably faster than an unaugmented trooper, but one of the side-effects of the neurological bacteria was the urge to use that speed once it was initiated.
    "Sleel—"
    "Three, he's on three, the isolation cell! Four, no, five doors down!"
    Dirisha ran. With the power down, Khadaji had to know something was going on. He'd be ready to move.
    Three, four, there it was, the fifth door. Dirisha skidded to a stop. The manual door pry was supposed to be marked with an emergency symbol—there it was. Dirisha grabbed the lever and pulled it from left to right. The door slid toward her on its tracks, like a block coming from a wall of blocks.
    She moved to the side, waited until the opening was just wide enough to squeeze through, and leaped into the cell.
    Khadaji stood in the center of the room, unable to see her in the dark, but smiling. He knew .
    'Time to leave, Emile."
    She moved to him and extended the spare pair of spookeyes she had stuck in her belt. Amazingly, he reached for the gear and took it without fumbling.
    How could he do that? He couldn't see anything!
    Khadaji slipped the spookeyes on, clicked them into life, and nodded. "Your show, Deuce," he said, grinning.
    "That's my line," Dirisha said. "People keep stealing it." She turned and moved.
    Eight minutes later, seven more troopers cast into the lock ward, and they were out. A military hopper waited at the entrance, with Bork at the controls and Mayli mounting the spingun. It was five minutes past midnight.
    The matadors hurried into the hopper. Bork triggered the confounder, rendering the vehicle invisible to Doppler and radar. He turned to grin at Dirisha.
    "What say we lift?"
    Dirisha shook her head. "No, I think we've danced this dance enough. Geneva?"
    The blonde said, "Okay. Stop."
    The hopper began to lose its opacity, quickly going from a solid to a phantom