“Set up blockades out of Zones Seventeen and Eighteen,” Kit gasped as as they skidded around a corner. He slammed one shoulder into a ten-foot wall of stacked aquaria, which shifted with an ominous groan. Water slopped out of the topmost layer. A door slammed back and Lachley’s footsteps receded upward. “Oh, hell, he’s gone up a stairway!”
“Come again?” the radio sputtered.
“He took the stairs, heading for Commons!”
“Copy that and relaying.”
Why was Lachley headed for Commons? Just running blind, heading up, same as many another fugitive, or was he planning something . . .
Kit’s eyes widened. “Holy—Sven, Gate Three!”
He mashed the transmit button again. “I think he’s headed for Gate Three! And even if he isn’t, leave a corridor open, try to herd him into it!”
“What?” the radio sputtered. “Right into the middle of an incoming tour? Kit, are you out of your— Oh. Roger that. Kit, you are one devious bastard.”
“So give me a medal—if this works. Sven, be ready for anything. I’m going to try something dangerous.”
“Chasing Jack the Ripper isn’t?”
He had a point, there . . .
How much time? Kit wondered frantically as they plunged up the stairs four at a time. Christ, how much time’s left? They burst out onto Commons at the edge of Frontier Town. Chronometer lights flashed steadily overhead. The vast open floor lay deserted, as empty of life as a midnight cemetery. Their footsteps slapped and echoed off the distant girders high overhead. Kit jumped a decorative horse trough filled with goldfish, which Sven whipped around, too short to go over it.