GEN13 - Version 2.0 (14 page)

Highwire’s commanding voice cut through the mist. “Where’d they go?” she called. “Sweep the room! Sing out when you find one of them!”

Mustering up her remaining strength, Rainmaker crawled quickly beneath the steam. Every movement brought new agony to her broken rib. But still, she pushed on until she reached the spot where Grunge was already stirring. He shook his head to clear it, his long hair flying.

“Tssst!” Rainmaker hissed.

Grunge brushed the hair from his face, a determined look in his eyes. “Where’s Rox?” he whispered back.

Rainmaker increased the breeze slightly but kept it near the floor. As more of the area cleared, Freefall came into view. She was still curled up in a ball, her eyes tightly closed.

Rainmaker cupped her hands to Grunge’s ear to minimize the odds of their being overheard. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Rainmaker whispered. “You grab Roxy and get her to safety. I’ll go after Bobby.”

“Right.”

“And stay low. Take the fire stairs. If we get separated, I’ll meet you out back in the alley.”

With a quick nod, Grunge headed off.

Even as she made her own way toward Burnout, Rainmaker had to marvel. She’d never seen Grunge with so little to say before.

He really
does
love her,
she thought.

Moving forward, Rainmaker was surprised to see Burnout already crawling toward her in a clear zone of his own. Apparently, they’d had the same idea, though she didn’t know how he’d managed it. Then, as he came closer, she felt the wave of heat and figured it out. He was using the same trick that he’d used yesterday in the snow, raising his body heat enough to disperse the steam around him.

Burnout’s way was riskier, though. Because if one of the Gen
¹⁴
kids felt the sudden rise in temperature as he passed, they’d be able to pinpoint his location.

Rainmaker drew a finger across her throat, signalling him to cut the heat. Burnout nodded. She pointed toward the door, then set off toward it. Burnout followed close behind.

The door seemed miles away. But they covered the distance swiftly.

As they headed out into the hall, Sarah looked back at the remains of their beautiful apartment.

This isn ’t over,
she thought grimly.

It took several minutes for Knockout to follow the sound of hissing steam back to its source and feel her way to the broken pipes. Then, after she crushed the pipes to slow the billowing steam to a trickle, it still took several more for the air to clear.

By that time, no one was surprised to see that Gen
¹³
was gone.

Highwire looked around with a clinical eye. She nodded at the empty apartment without disappointment, as though acknowledging exactly what she had expected to find.

“Mission abort,” she said. “Someone is bound to have heard the noise and called the authorities. We cannot risk public exposure at this time,

“Sidestep, withdraw to base.”

Sidestep responded with a nod. She began to create the teleportational portal they’d need.

“What about Fairchild?” asked Reverb. “Intel indicated a fifth member of Gen
¹³
.”

“The other targets are likely to alert her,” Highwire answered. “In all probability, they know where she is. We do not.”

While Highwire had been talking, Riptide had been surveying the area around him. Mostly, it was just the shattered remains of objects that had been broken in the fight. However, his interest was piqued by a sheet of paper lying on the bar next to him. The thing that caught his eye was Caitlin Fairchild’s name, printed in bold letters across the top of the page. He scanned the sheet, which was limp from the steam, but still perfectly legible. Gingerly, he peeled the wilted resume off the bar and turned it over. The back was covered with a list of times, names, and telephone numbers.

“Perhaps we do know where she is,” Riptide said.

It’s worth it,
Kat thought.
All of it.

Everything that Kat had put up with all day long faded into the background. In the half-hour since she’d arrived at the converted loft that housed the company, it was as though everything that Kat had endured in her other interviews had ceased to exist.

.. So I was reading the American Association of University Women report,” the woman was saying, “and it just sort of clicked in my head. Here you’ve got thousands and thousands of teenage young women dropping out of science and technology, right? So what struck me all a sudden is that, after a while, it starts to turn into

a self-fulfilling prophecy. The technology doesn’t attract women because it isn’t designed to appeal to women.” “Because it’s been built by men.”

“Exactly! Most of the girls drop out before they grow up to design stuff themselves, so they’re not around to build the next generation technology. So when the next set of girls comes down the pike, what do they find?” “More of the same.”

“And that’s not going to draw them in any more than it did the last time around. To really engage them, you need stuff that’s been designed with them in mind. It can’t be macho shoot-’em-up games where you think with your testosterone. It needs to feel different, it needs to look different, it needs to be relational instead of coldly logical. It needs to ‘think’ like they think.”

“I get it—you need to invite them in instead of closing them out.”

“Right! You need to tear down all the basic assumptions that nobody thinks about but that wind up sitting there like a flashing neon sign that says, ‘Boys’ club—no girls allowed!’ ”

“That makes so much sense.”

“Well, obviously, it’s not the whole answer to getting girls into technology. You’ve got to remember there are also tiny, little contributing factors like, oh, say, puberty and self-image. It’s a start, though. If Girlsworld.com can provide girls with positive, welcoming experiences with technology and pull them into an online community of other girls who are doing the same thing, then we’ve got a shot at having a real impact. With a little luck, and a whole lot of work, we might just get it right. If we do, then maybe we can empow'er girls and make a difference.” Kat liked Dorothy Levin. She liked her a lot.

The founder and president of Girlsworld.com didn’t look much older than Kat herself. Judging from the masters’ degree from M.I.T. that hung on the wall, Dorothy was somewhere in her late twenties. She was constantly talking with her hands, in animated style that reflected a boundless energy to match her commitment. She genuinely cared about the work she did, and her enthusiasm was infectious. Kat had no trouble understanding how Dorothy had managed to wrangle a generous pot of start-up money out of everyone from venture capitalists to the National Science Foundation.

Kat and Dorothy had hit it off almost from the moment Kat walked in. The woman truly wanted to give girls a chance, and Kat got the sense that she took the same approach toward the people who worked for her.

In fact, the small company showed Dorothy’s fingerprints all over it. The whole place oozed with a sense of mission that struck a chord deep within Kat. And since most of the staff was female, the sexual politics that felt so overwhelming elsewhere promised to be almost nonexistent here. Every aspect of the place felt exactly like what Kat was looking for.

Best of all, they had an opening for a junior programmer—one that didn’t require a whole lot of prior experience.

“To be honest, the job doesn’t pay much. But we make up for it with long hours and overwork,” Dorothy was saying with a smile. “Seriously, though, there are lots of opportunities to get some great experience, and the people here are terrific.”

Kat’s ears perked up. Her skin tingled with excitement. This was beginning to sound like a job offer.

“Now, I should warn you,” Dorothy continued, “the hours really are long. We pull our fair share of all-nighters and weekends when we have to. But it’s worth it.

“I think you'd fit in well here, Kat. What do you say?”

Kat couldn’t believe her ears. It was like a dream come true.

And yet...

There was also a small voice in the back of Kat’s brain that was having second thoughts. Dorothy’s mention of long nights and weekends brought back Lynch’s concerns about Kat being too inaccessible to the team. What would happen when a crisis conflicted with her deadlines? Kat knew full well that, sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Eventually, one side of her life was going to have to take a back seat to the other.

But still... Kat had a rare opportunity here. It seemed much too good to pass up. Maybe she could figure out a way to juggle all of her responsibilities. Maybe she could find a way to make it all work.

Or maybe she was just trying to fool herself.

“Dorothy,” Kat said, “I think I’d . ..”

That was when the humming started to build.

Dorothy held up a finger to quiet Kat for a minute. “Do you hear something?” she asked.

Suddenly, the door blew itself off its hinges. The surrounding wall exploded in d hail of bricks, glass, and sound.

Instinctively, Kat threw her invulnerable body over Dorothy to shield her from the debris. She felt chunks of the rubble smash themselves to bits against her back.
Not my good suit!
she thought.

It happened so fast that it wasn’t until after the shower of debris subsided that Dorothy even thought to ask: “Wha—what in the ... ?”

“Sony,” Kat said. “I have a feeling this is for me.”

Kat had no idea what this was about, but one of the lessons that Mister Lynch had repeatedly drummed into her head was that finding out could wait until after she’d defended herself and survived. Kat let herself slip into automatic as she straightened and spun toward the source of the blast to assess the situation. As the dust started to clear, she was able to make out a pair of twelve-year-olds, one boy and one girl, standing just past the point where the door once stood. Another girl stood further away, in the middle of the large cubicle area outside Dorothy’s office. The shocked employees of Girlsworld.com were cringing against the walls or running for the exit.

Before Kat could react with more than confusion, Re verb struck. This time, though, it wasn’t with the sort of devastating blast that had demolished the wall, or even the kind of concussive force that had blown Rainmaker across the room. This was a more subtle gambit, but no less deadly.

Reverb thrust his hand out toward Kat, and her ears filled with a high-pitched whine that cut straight through her brain. As the screech rose even higher in pitch and vibrato, Kat clamped her hands to her ears in pain. It was no use, though. Covering her ears might have muffled the sound entering her ears slightly, but it didn’t stop the piercing vibrations from being conducted right through the bone of her skull.

Kat braced herself against the piercing agony and charged Reverb, only to be intercepted by a shuddering blow from Knockout. Knockout caught Kat in the stomach with a fist that could have driven itself through a brick wall without losing momentum. In the past, Kat had faced mortar shells without blinking, but the sucker punch sent her to the floor with the air knocked out of her.

Kat lay there, helpless and gasping. As she struggled to regain her breath and her footing, Knockout delivered a savage kick to her head that laid Kat flat with a grunt. To her utter amazement, Kat felt her lip starting to swell.
But—but that can’t be!
Kat thought, even as she instinctively rolled herself into a ball for protection. Kat couldn’t remember the last time she’d been injured by a simple kick.

Knockout stomped down on Kat’s lower back, directly over her kidneys.

She’s
...
strong,
Kat thought, through the blinding pain.
Stronger than me.

To make matters worse, Reverb’s sound vibrations showed no sign of easing up. Just the opposite, actually. The vibrations continued to intensify, threatening to turn Kat’s brain to jelly. Kat might have had the raw power to go toe to toe with a monster truck, but she was as vulnerable to strokes and aneurysms as anyone else.

Who
are
these guys?!
she thought.

Kat knew that she needed to gain some distance. Distance would give her the time she needed to catch her breath, if only for a minute, before bouncing back to launch a counterattack. The problem was that every time she tried to get up, Knockout immediately sent her back down.

And the vibrations were just getting worse.

It was getting harder to think. A dark haze was forming around the edges of her field of vision. Whatever she was going to do, she needed to do it now.

Can’t go up
..., she thought,
but maybe ...

Kat rolled over onto her back. Knockout raised her foot for another kick, but before she could bring it down, Kat slammed her fists and feet against the floor with all of her considerable might. The floor was still heavily reinforced from the days when the building served as a warehouse. In those days, every square foot of the floor had to be able to hold several hundred pounds. However, Kat was stronger than that. The reinforced beams within the floor didn’t stop it from buckling and giving way under the force of Kat’s pounding. Before her adversaries knew what was happening, the floor beneath Kat was gone, and Kat was tumbling down through the hole it left behind.

Directly below, in the offices of Mandl & Pemikoff Actuarial Services, a bespectacled man in a white shirt and bowtie was poring over a mass of ledgers and statistical tables. Kat landed smack in the middle of his desk, shattering it into splinters. She lay there, sprawled in the debris that was once his desk, panting.

The bespectacled man looked down at Kat. He looked around at his scattered papers and the fragments of his desk. He looked back at Kat again and then up.

“Thank you,” he murmured to Heaven.

Knockout reacted quickly, jumping to follow Kat down through the hole. But to her surprise, she never made it. In mid-leap, a gale-force wind caught Knockout unawares. The windstorm picked her up like a leaf and hurled her through the glass of a nearby window. In a glistening shower of crystal shards. Knockout sailed out the window and plummeted toward the ground, four stories below.