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way back to L.A., where the first sight greeting her was
a zombie window washer. The thing saw her with its
watery eyes and began shambling in her direction,
brandishing a plastic bottle full of dirty water. Jill was
fresh out of ammo.
She hated to run, especially from a zombie, the very
bottom of the monster food chain. But running was a
lot better than being groped by those rotting hands
with the jagged yellow fingernails. So she hauled ass.
A normal zombie might not run very fast. This one
didn't have the energy to do anything but curse. It
wasn't until Jill was three blocks away that she
wondered if maybe the creature really wasn't a zom-
bie. The thought that some homeless person had been
missed by both sides in the war made Jill's skin crawl.
Jeez, it was possible. The zombies might not notice
a bum, especially if he'd been sleeping in the right
garbage and had a sour odor on him. The big mon-
sters might assume he was a zombie, and any humans
coming through the area would think so too.
The idea made her literally sick. She threw up and
covered herself in an odor like that of sour lemons,
which would be useful if she needed to pass for a
zombie herself. She looked bad enough. She hadn't
slept in days. The circles under her eyes and the
graveyard pallor of her skin gave her a living-dead
appearance.
She didn't like the sick feeling in her gut. A drug-
store sign beckoned. She went in, hoping to find
something that would settle her stomach.
Jill wasn't so exhausted that she forgot to take
precautions. She took out her piece even though it was
empty. Always a chance she could bluff her way out of
trouble if she encountered a human foe.
The first tip-off was the clean floor. An abandoned
store would have been a disgusting mess, but this
place was spotless. Broken windows had been
boarded up. She felt like kicking herself that she
hadn't picked up on so obvious a clue from outside.
Then she heard low voices. Unmistakably human.
Not broken bits and pieces of language repeated
without meaning. Whoever they were, they sure as
hell weren't zombies. For one thing, zombies didn't
listen to really bad classic alternative rock.
What sort of people were in enemy-occupied terri-
tory? They could only be guerrillas or traitors. She
examined her surroundings more closely. The origi-
nal contents of the store shelves were missing. She'd
made a bad choice as far as her stomach was con-
cerned.
Large boxes stood in place of a drugstore's normal
stock. Shafts of light from the setting sun slid past the
boarded windows and illuminated the box next to her
knee. She looked inside and saw that it contained
bottles of a nutrient solution made from hydrogen
cyanide.
She almost whistled but stopped herself. It would
be a good idea to find out if the voices belonged to
friend or foe. She had a sinking feeling they were the
enemy. This stuff could be used in the monster vats,
or in some stage of the creatures' development.
She'd find out while there was daylight. For all of
her adult accomplishments, Jill was little-girlish
enough to tiptoe without making a sound. On little
cat feet, she crept over to an air vent where she could
hear the voices much better.
Two men were talking in the next room. She
couldn't see them, but she heard every word, loud and
clear.
"The masters say we will inherit the Earth," said
the deeper voice.
"They've already taken care of the meek," replied
the higher voice, snickering. He sounded like Peter
Lorre out of an old horror movie.
Jill didn't need them to spell it out: these were
human traitors. The real McCoy. These dips hadn't
crawled out of any vat. She was shocked that these
human bad guys couldn't come up with a better name
for the Freds than "the masters." Really . . .
"I was at the general's briefing," said the deep
voice. "He told us the resistance is so desperate
they've started a propaganda campaign to convince
people that the masters have enemies elsewhere in the
universe."
"Yeah, I heard that, too." The other one snickered.
"The masters are the only life besides us. They've told
us. Except for life they create, of course. That's why
we're so important to them; we're the only other
intelligent life in the galaxy."
Jill had heard enough. Fly had often asked what she
would do if she got a crack at human traitors. She'd
wondered about that, too. Now she had her chance to
find out.
Dr. Ackerman thought Jill was a genius. As young
as she was, she already knew there was a reality
beyond cyberspace, and that reality was just as impor-
tant when it wasn't virtual! She had many interests--
like chemistry, for instance.
While Tweedledumb and Tweedledee continued
stroking each other, Jill checked the contents of the
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