With all that happening to their south, it was no wonder that the woman north of the Devar-Toi saw only the backs of the three guards in the ivy-covered watchtowers. Three didn't seem like many, but it was five per cent of the total. A start.
Susannah looked down the barrel of her gun at the one in her sights and prayed. God grant me true aim... true aim... Soon.
It would be soon.
TEN
Finli grabbed the Master's arm. Pimli shook him off and started toward his house again, staring unbelievingly at the smoke that was now pouring out of all the windows on the left side.
"Boss!" Finli shouted, renewing his grip. "Boss, never mind that! It's the Breakers we have to worry about! The Breakers!"
It didn't get through, but the shocking warble of the Damli Hovise fire alarm did. Pimli turned back in that direction, and for a moment he met Jakli's beady litde bird's eyes. He saw nothing in them but panic, which had the perverse but welcome effect of steadying Pimli himself. Sirens and buzzers everywhere. One of them was a regular pulsing honk he'd never heard before. Coming from the direction of Pleasantville?
"Come on, boss!" Finli O'Tego almost pleaded. "We have to make sure the Breakers are okay-"
"Smoke!" Jakli cried, fluttering his dark (and utterly useless) wings. "Smoke from Damli House, smoke from Feveral, too!"
Pimli ignored him. He pulled the Peacemaker from the docker's clutch, wondering briefly what premonition had caused him to put it on. He had no idea, but he was glad for the weight of the gun in his hand. Behind him, Tassa was yelling-
Tammy was, too-but Pimli ignored the pair of them. His heart was beating furiously, but he was calm again. Finli was right. The Breakers were the important thing right now. Making sure they didn't lose a third of their trained psychics in some sort of electrical fire or half-assed act of sabotage. He nodded at his Security Chief and they began to run toward Damli House with Jakli squawking and flapping along behind them like a refugee from a Warner Bros, cartoon. Somewhere up there,
Gaskie was hollering. And then Pimli o' New Jersey heard a sound that chilled him to the bone, a rapid chow-chow-chow sound. Gunfire! If some clown was shooting at his Breakers, that clown's head would finish the day on a high pole, by the gods.
That the guards rather than the Breakers might be under attack had at that point still not crossed his mind, nor that of the slighdy wilier Finli, either. Too much was happening too fast.
ELEVEN
At the south end of the Devar compound, the syncopated honking sound was almost loud enough to split eardrums.
"Christ!" Eddie said, and couldn't hear himself.
In the south watchtowers, the guards were turned away from them, looking north. Eddie couldn't see any smoke yet.
Perhaps the guards could from their higher vantage-points.
Roland grabbed Jake's shoulder, then pointed at the soo LINE boxcar. Jake nodded and scrambled beneath it with Oy at his heels. Roland held both hands out to Eddie-Stay where you are!-and then followed. On the other side of the boxcar the boy and the gunslinger stood up, side by side. They would have been clearly visible to the sentries, had the attention of those worthies not been distracted by the smoke detectors and fire alarms inside the compound.
Suddenly the entire front of the Pleasantville Hardware Company descended into a slot in the ground. A robot fire engine, all bright red paint and gleaming chrome, came bolting out of the hitherto concealed garage. A line of red lights pulsed down the center of its elongated body, and an amplified voice bellowed, "STAND CLEAR! THIS IS FIRE-RESPONSE TEAM BRAVO! STAND CLEAR! MAKE WAY FOR FIRE-RESPONSE
TEAMBRAVOr There must be no gunfire from this part of the Devar, not yet. The south end of the compound must seem safe to the increasingly frightened inmates of Algul Siento: don't worry, folks, here's your port in today's unexpected shitstorm.
The gunslinger dipped a 'Riza from Jake's dwindling supply and nodded for the boy to take another. Roland pointed to the guard in the righthand tower, then once more at Jake. The boy nodded, cocked his arm across his chest, and waited for Roland to give him the go.
TWELVE
Once you hear the horn that signals the change of shifts, Roland had told Susannah, take it to them. Do as much damage as you can, but don't let them see they're only facing a single person, for your father's sake!
As if he needed to tell her that.