Scorpia Rising

boyish looks that all the agents seemed to share. There was a gun clasped in his hands. He had taken up a stance with his legs apart, ready to fire.
    For two or maybe three seconds, nobody did anything. Julius and Alex had been aiming at each other. The agent was right between them. He had a gun in his hand but didn’t know which way to turn it. It was obvious to him that there had been a major security breach, but what he was seeing didn’t make any sense. He was looking at two boys, identically dressed in some sort of school uniform, identical to each other in every way. All his training and years of experience in the field hadn’t prepared him for anything like this.
    It was the weapon that decided him. Someone had just taken a shot at the secretary of state, and although one of these kids had a pistol, the other was holding a rifle. He must be the enemy. The agent brought his gun around. Julius did the same and he was the first to fire. The bullet smashed into the man’s chest, throwing him back toward Alex. The two of them fell backward. The dead man was on top of him, pinning him down but at the same time shielding him from any further shots. Julius realized he had run out of time. He had to leave. He threw the rifle down and ran out the door that the agent had opened. Alex clambered to his feet and went after him.
    This was the real service staircase. It was made up of wide concrete slabs with white-painted walls and it was lit by a series of neon strips. Alex took the steps three at a time. He was fairly certain that Julius was unarmed. If he’d had another gun on him, he’d have surely tried to use it. The real danger was that once the other boy reached the bottom, he would all too easily lose himself in the crowd. Alex knew that there were two thousand people down below, surging out into the night. If Julius got too far ahead of him, he would disappear in seconds and Alex was grimly determined—he was going to end this tonight.
    The staircase emerged on the far side of the building, away from the OBUs, with the main gates visible ahead. Alex burst out into a scene of pure chaos. There were people everywhere, scattering across the ornamental lawns. Tourist police were shouting at them, blowing whistles, waving frantically with gloved hands, but everyone was ignoring them. More police cars were arriving with lights stabbing at the darkness, sirens adding to the confusion. Here and there, Alex caught sight of security men, Americans, shouting into their throat mikes, barely able to hear a word. The night was thicker than ever and the Assembly Hall loomed over them, massive and swollen, like a bomb about to go off. Alex sucked in the warm air. He was already sweating. It was like being inside a gigantic oven.
    Where was Grief? Alex searched for him, trying to pick out the blue uniform from the swirl of suits and cocktail dresses. There was no sign of the other students from Cairo College, but they could have been anywhere. A voice erupted in Arabic, speaking through a bullhorn. It was accompanied by an electric whine of static. Where was he? Alex was afraid that he was too late, that he had already got away.
    And then he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye that somehow didn’t fit into the pattern of fear and people taking flight. A flash of blue colliding with white. There he was! Julius had attacked one of the tourist police. Why would he want to do that? Alex watched the man go down with a knee in his solar plexus and saw Julius sweep something up from the edge of the lawn. Now he understood. Julius had decided to arm himself and he had taken the lightweight Vzor 27 pistol that is standard-issue to the Egyptian police. Well, that made two of them. Alex was still holding the Tokarev and he gripped it more tightly, balancing it in the palm of his hand. The chase had become more dangerous, but somehow it felt right. After all, the two of them were meant to be identical. Well, now they were.
    He set off in pursuit. Julius must have sensed he was coming because he suddenly twisted around, and although they were a good sixty feet apart, separated by hundreds of people racing in every direction across the campus, their eyes locked. Alex wondered if Julius was going to shoot it out right here—but the other boy was in no mood for a fight. He had a policeman lying unconscious at his feet and it wouldn’t be long before others noticed. With something like a snarl, he turned and began to run.
    Alex