Hunger

“We should move out as soon as we can.”
    “Shouldn’t we try to take Sam out first?” Drake asked.
    Caine snorted a laugh. “You say that like it’s easy. If we could start by taking Sam down, we’d have an easy time of it.” He shook his head. “No. That’s not how we do this. If they catch us, we use the uranium to make them back off.”
    Despite himself, Drake grinned. “Threaten to drop it on them?”
    “Threaten to smash it open,” Caine said. “Threaten to launch it into the air and smash it open.”
    “And everyone will glow in the dark,” Drake said, as if that was a happy thought.
    “I’ll only have one hand free,” Caine said. “So you may finally get a chance to use that gun you love so much.”
    “Should we send Bug to Coates?” Drake asked. “Bring more of our people?”
    “They wouldn’t come,” Caine said flatly.
    There was a commotion and Caine glanced aside to see Computer Jack storming down the hallway trailed by Diana, who tried unsuccessfully to hold him back. Like a two-year-old trying to hold a bull.
    “You!” Jack bellowed.
    He waved his fist in the air and Caine could see naked wires, like hair-thin snakes in his fingers.
    “You said you took these down!” Jack cried accusingly.
    “Oh, gee, I must have missed some,” Drake said. “Hey, did you find your girlfriend while you were looking around?”
    Jack froze. “What?”
    Drake had his arm uncoiled, ready to use. “She must have been doing pretty good speed when she hit the wire. Breezed right through them. Oh wait, I said that wrong. The wire breezed right through the Breeze.”
    “She…what…” Jack gasped.
    “Cut her right in half,” Drake said, laughing with sheer glee. “It was kind of neat to see. You’d have found it interesting, all her insides, sliced right in half. Like a meatcleaver went through her.”
    “I’m going to kill you,” Jack whispered.
    “You don’t have the—”
    But Jack had tossed Diana aside and was running straight at Drake.
    Drake managed to lash him once with his whip hand, but only once. Jack hit him like a linebacker. Drake went flying across the room, flying like he’d stepped out in front of a bus.
    Drake landed hard, but rolled to his feet. He lashed again. There was a loud crack, and a tear appeared in Jack’s shirt.
    Jack never slowed down but went straight for Drake. But then, suddenly, he couldn’t move. He motored his legs, but could not advance.
    Caine with one raised hand held him with an irresistible force.
    “Let me go, Caine,” Jack yelled.
    “He’s yanking your chain, you idiot,” Caine yelled. The temptation to let Jack kill Drake was strong. It would solve a major problem—sooner or later Drake was going to challenge Caine. But for now, Drake was still necessary in a battle.
    Drake slashed at Jack with his whip, but the whip stopped in midair, hitting an invisible barrier.
    “Both of you knock it off,” Caine yelled.
    “You touch me, I’ll kill you!” Drake shrieked at Jack.
    “I said shut up, both of you!” Caine bellowed. He pushed both palms out, one aimed at Jack, the other at Drake. Both boys went flying backward. Jack landed hard on his back. Drake, lighter and without Jack’s superhuman strength, hitthe wall and crumpled at its base.
    Caine caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the backs of the two hostages as they bolted from the room.
    Caine twisted to aim for them, but they were out of his line of sight. He heard footsteps pelting away. “Get them!” he yelled.
    But Drake was slow getting up and Jack would be no help. Drake’s two thugs stood stock still, paralyzed. Caine realized that they were loyal to Drake, awaiting his orders and not Caine’s.
    He spun, raised his hands, lifted both the punks off the floor, and hurled them bodily down the hallway after the hostages.
    “Bring them back!” Caine bellowed.
    “Look out!” Diana cried.
    Gunfire erupted. Insanely loud. Caine heard bullets fly past his ear like buzzing dragonflies.
    Brittney!
    Not dead. Just playing dead and slowly, slowly working her way toward a gun she must have known was stashed under the counter.
    She was still in a heap on the floor, unable to stand, unable even to sit up, lying on her side firing.
    Caine leaped aside as bullets flew.
    He slammed heavily into the table, rebounded, and fell to his knees. He brought his palms up, but the barrel of the gun moved faster.
    But faster still, was Drake’s whip hand. It snapped