When the Devil Dances

“Shari, get the kids through to the other side; I have to go find out what the captain is up to.”

“Got it,” the older woman said wearily.

“Take a break, but we won’t be long.” She paused and contemplated the captain again. “I hope.”

By the time Wendy had reached the center consoles there was a massive gurgling sound echoing through the room and Elgars had headed to the nearest tank.

She walked over to the ladder on the side of the tank and started to climb up it, drawing her combat knife.

“Hey, Captain America,” Wendy said. “We’re on our way out of here in case you’d forgotten.”

“I know, ’twon’t take a minute,” Elgars said in a strangely deep voice. “Could you possibly rummage me up a spot of wire, baling wire will do well, and a few scraps of duct tape and… oh… a can of spray paint? There’s a good lass.”

“Hey!” Wendy said, catching Elgars’ eye. “Hello! Anne! We have to make like a tree and leaf!”

Elgars shook her head and looked down at her hands, which had started to strip out the wiring harness for the tank motor. She shook her head again and nodded. “I know,” she said in a normal, if distant, voice. “But I think the Posties should have a something to remember us by, don’t you?”

“So you’re mixing up a really nice batch of nutrients?” Wendy asked sarcastically.

“Not exactly,” Elgars said with a death’s-head grin. “What’s in nutrients, Wendy?”

Wendy thought about it then said: “Oh.”

“Roight,” Elgars said, her head going back down to her task. “Now go get me a spot of wire and some duct tape, there’s a good lass.”

* * *

“Wire and duct tape,” Wendy muttered, shifting the MP-5 to a better grip. “Where in the hell am I going to find wire and duct tape?”

There would be some in a maintenance section, but the nearest one on the map was further away than the elevators and in an area the Posleen were bound to have overrun. She walked to the far end of the room and thought about it. Something one of the long-time “pro” firefighters had told her floated up to the surface of memory and she smiled. She looked at her map and figured out which door an administrative puke would come in. All things considered, either the one they came in or the one they were going out. So, where was the furthest away from that you could get?

She climbed down from the catwalk and began hunting along the walls of the room until she found what she was looking for. On the south wall, the furthest from the door they had come in, behind the last tank, carefully hidden from all but a determined search, was a chair.

And a toolbox.

And a pile of oily rags and roll of baling wire. And a can of gray spray paint, half full.

And a pin-up calendar.

“Well, at least he had some taste,” she said sourly. “Although that chick has no idea how to carry a rifle. And I guarantee that’s a dye job! If she’s a natural blonde, I’m Pamela Anderson.”

She opened up the toolbox and, after extracting a hard candy from the bag in the top, found the roll of duct tape in the lower compartment.

“Okay, all the comforts of home,” she muttered, rolling the candy around in her mouth. She put the baling wire in the toolbox, closed it up and picked up the can of spray paint. “Now if I can just get it all up the ladder.”

* * *

“What took you so long?” Elgars asked.

“Gee, sorry, Captain,” Wendy snapped back. “I just found a toolbox I thought you could use and all the other shit you asked for. I guess I should have hurried carrying the heavy fucker up the ladder! And trying to breathe in here isn’t helping!”

The atmosphere, slightly ammoniacal and earthy before, now reeked of ammonia: it stung the eyes and clawed at the nostrils.

Elgars tossed her a mask and donned one herself. “Sorry, but all I really needed was the baling wire, tape and spray paint,” she said, her voice muffled by the respirator. “Thanks for the rest of it, though. What happened to your shirt?”

Wendy’s shirt had taken a beating with three of the buttons torn away.

“I caught it on the damned ladder,” she snapped, looking down at herself. “I thought about duct taping it together, but that was just too redneck.”

“Don’t let Papa O’Neal hear you say that,” Elgars said, chuckling.

“You’re sounding normal again,” Wendy noted, opening up the toolbox and tossing her a hard candy. “You had me creeped out for a second there.” She adjusted the mask and refit it carefully. Without careful fitting, masks tended to leak and she could smell a trace of ammonia still.

“What did I sound like?” the captain asked. She had stripped out the primary power leads for one of the mixing tanks and brought it under the catwalk so that it reached the tank on the opposite side. Taking the spray paint can from Wendy she proceeded to tape the three-phase leads onto the can.

“Sort of… British I think. All this ‘there’s a good lass’ stuff.”