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Demetriou and Corden. Running with these stupes was doing nothing for his nerves. He felt his stomach lurch inagreement. Stealing and chilling was something he wanted to do because it was easier than breaking your back for Big Bal. Doing it with Corden’s crew wasn’t easier—no way.
    Demetriou gunned the wag engine until it roared, put the wag into gear and released the brake.
    Chambers closed his eyes as the wag shot forward.
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    â€œS TUPE CRAZY bastards,” Krysty cursed. There was every chance that the idiots coming for them could total their own wag as much as they could overturn the wag—now a seemingly too flimsy shelter—in which she and her companions were clustered. It was as if these coldhearts didn’t care. Maybe their wag was the stronger. Maybe the front bars on the wag had been put to a test like this before.
    It didn’t much matter. They had some firepower, but would it be enough to stop the oncoming wag, or at least to deflect it from its course?
    â€œI think this may be one for me,” Doc said in her ear. He was whispering, but it still sounded loud and clear. Using the frame of the glassless window as a rest for the barrel of the LeMat, Doc took aim for the windshield of the oncoming wag.
    If the coldhearts were crazies, then maybe they had met their match in Doc. The prematurely aged Tanner grinned, his strong white teeth reflective of the mad glint in his eye. This was a challenge he could relish. Only a fool would accept it. Doc was that fool. When you had seen all that he had seen, experienced threedifferent eras and still been left alive, isolated and marooned, there was little else left but to accept the insane as the sane, and to rise to any challenge presented.
    If the windshield was shatterproof, then the fire would harmlessly strike and be deflected. If the grille on the front of the wag was open enough to allow the inclusion of fire…
    Squeeze that trigger soon enough, and maybe you could hit both targets.
    All of that swept through the tangled and darkened skeins of Doc’s mind in the few moments it took him to rest the LeMat and squeeze. He didn’t worry too much about aim. Keep it straight, and the onrushing target would be hard to miss.
    The impact of the shot charge held within the percussion pistol sounded loud and deafening in the confines of the wag. A cone of silence followed it as traumatized eardrums adjusted to the sudden concussion.
    A single moment stretched to infinity and back as the grape shot of the pistol spread in the molten air, close enough to take all impact, distant enough to allow it to spread across the windshield and fender. By accident or design, Doc had picked the optimum moment.
    The wag slewed away from its stationary adversary, throwing up a cloud of choking dust that obscured its path.
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    D EMETRIOU DIDN’T FEEL the shot and the glass shards that rained over his chest, face and thorax. All were hit head-on. Nervous jerks of a traumatized system made him spin the wheel, taking them off a collision course.
    Corden had seen the raised and steadied barrel, had thrown himself down, yelling a blurted and incoherent warning, a noise that made no sense in syllables but said everything in tone. It was enough to make Chambers and Thornton dive to the ground.
    Corden screamed in pain as he felt shards score his back. His head connected with the edge of door frame and dash, blurring those lines of pain. For a moment he almost lost the light, but his survival instinct kicked in. If this was going wrong and they had to fight back, then he needed to stay alert to stay alive.
    Demetriou’s life snuffed as he fell heavily on the wheel. His foot hit the accelerator and the wag shot across the uneven plain. The jolting made it hard for the other three coldhearts to regain any kind of control, but that very lack of guidance saved them. One rut too many, and Demetriou’s corpse shifted in his seat, his foot sliding