NORTHWORLD

Would've been smarter to hide under the bed until but was all over. But then, if
Special units opened up with the kind of firepower necessary to overwhelm the
gang's forcefield, the whole block would melt into a bubbling crater. Tat wasn't
going to happen. "Support," Hansen said, cueing the artificial intelligence in his
helmet. "Is the building's climate control in metal ducts?" A green light winked
even as the Commissioner's last syllable rose in an interrogative. The AI had
assessed the data from Central Records; probably out of Building Inspection, but
the exact provenance of the information didn't matter. Every scrap of data about
this building, its residents—and the villains believed to be holed up here—had
been sucked into a huge electronic suspense file within seconds of when the
scooting started. Any extant knowledge that Hansen might need waited at the tip
of his tongue, The trouble was, quite of lot of what Hansen needed to know would
be available only in the after-action report on the operation; and Commissioner
Hansen might or might not be alive to examine the data taken. "Top to Orange
Three," key ordered, letting the AI punch him through the chatter of the unit he'd
just watched launch the SpyFly. "Put one into the building's ventilation system.
Use a One-Star." The 1* class drones were old and slow, but they had double
capacity powerpacks and were rugged enough to airdrop witch their lift fans shut
down, "Sir, they've turned off the air system 'n the louvers 're down!" the Orange
Three team leader replied in a voice half a tone higher than normal. "Then it'll
take the SpyFly a bloody while to burn through the louvers, won't it?" Hansen
snarled, "So get on the bloody job!" "Hang on, sir," his driver warned, The aircar
bounced to a dynamic halt behind the forcefield barricade at the intersection. A
streak of flame wasked from the villains' hideout. The portable force field pulsed
like a rainbow; but it absorbed the burst without strain. Regular police fired a
sparkle of stun needles, but the temporary opening in the villains' forcefield had
already closed. The Special Units teams held their fire the way they'd been ordered