Assault on Sunrise (The Extra Trilogy) Read Online Free

chunk of his sandwich to it. It gave the treat a dab of its nose, and trotted by. Ricky was startled when Iris Meyer on his left said, “Where are all these new dogs coming from lately?”
    “All what dogs, Miz Iris?”
    “All the new ones around!” She answered in a testy tone that seemed to add, ‘you young airhead!’ “There’s that little Sheltie mix. And the first time I saw that wooly brown bitch over there was yesterday.”
    “Sorry, Miz Iris. I don’t get outta my mill much during the days. I guess dogs wander in, what can you say?”
    “No they don’t, Richard Dawes.” Her tone induced meek attention from Ricky, and she went on to describe three other canine newcomers she had seen around town. And after a moment it struck Ricky … that she was right. Few strange dogs did wander in to any settled community like this, as full as it was of territorial resident dogs.
    “Listen, people,” shouted Smalls, whom the endless, aimless series of speakers had at last exhausted. “We’re spinning our wheels. The charge is gonna be judged without us, and damn small doubt of the verdict. Go talk to everyone else now! Network! Go city-side, coast-side, find out what you can about who’s after us.
    “But I just wanna say one last thing for myself. This situation we’ve got hasn’t changed one thing for me. When I went extra on They Teem, I went in knowin already that Sunrise here was where I wanted to buy in, where I wanted to live. An since I’ve been here, it’s been worth every ounce of the arm it cost me. I’m not goin anywhere else. Anyone comes to cage or kill me had best bring their lunch, and all the help they can find.
    “So. Tomorrow at my office we’ll be organizing runs down to the Valley, both for those who are … relocating temporarily, and for those who are setting in stores. Com or come in and we’ll try to get everyone taken care of.”
    *   *   *
    As the moon declined, they all sat on Chops and Gillian’s deck under the star-ceiling, which shed light enough to make their eyes glint from their shadowed sockets. All except Jool were holding a beer or a second beer. Curtis and Jool sat at the deck’s edge dangling their legs off, arms around each other’s shoulders.
    Gillian said, “If you count people who are older but still tight, we could have six or seven hundred effectives up here.”
    “More!” said Chops. “And a lot are way-back country people who know how to fight.” They were looking far down the slope at Sunrise, whose jagged lines of street and house lights was a tiny echo of the stars’ abundance.
    Gillian said,”Whoever’s doing this, they have to know that a lot of people are gonna fight. I think the fight is probably what they want.”
    Japh said, edging closer to it with the rest of them, “The scam that got us in this fix … was really well scripted.”
    Japh noted that Curtis and Jool’s embrace got a little closer as they looked down over the town. Curtis nodded.
    “It’s pretty clear Sandy’s not just going to L.A.—she’s going to Hollywood.”
    Now it was out. They all relaxed a little.
    “Real-life Live Action,” Japh said bitterly. “Another groundbreaker. And who’s the biggest groundbreaker of them all? Who invented Live Action?”
    “Gotta be,” Chops growled. “You know there’re two hundred survivors just from Alien Hunger alone up here?”
    “Yeah. Has to be Panoply Studios Sandy’s got in mind.”

 
    V
    TARGET PRACTICE
     
    Before the sun came up, Curtis and Jool woke up and got it on. As their baby had grown in her, he had taken to moving more gingerly when he was in her too, worried that it might hurt Jool to be holding them both. But then she began to ride him strongly, snatching him up into her recklessness and making him reckless too.
    Reckless was good, because it was like a promise. It meant they had their whole lives of love ahead of them and could spend it how they wanted. He felt that she was not riding toward