Free John Golden: Freelance Debugger by Django Wexler Page B

puppeteer's bass roar. “Now both of you get out here or I'll cut this girl to shreds!”
    “John Golden!” Sarah shouted. “You get her out of here right now or I' m never speaking to you again!”
    “How good a shot are you?” I said. “Really.”
    Delphi shook her head slowly. “Pretty good , but I've never used something like this.” She lifted the ray gun. “Is it going to run out of ammo?”
    “I doubt it. It's not a real gun, after all.” I looked carefully at her eyes and satisfied myself that any trace of the transitional fog had gone. “Listen. I think I've got an idea, but I need you. Are you okay?”
    She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “Yeah. What's the plan?”
    “ Okay. I go right; you go left. Open all the cages. The fairies should go straight for Falmer, they're furious. Then, when I give the signal—”
    Delphi listened, swallowed and nodded. I glanced around the corner of the cage. The puppeteer had freed itself of most of the clinging pixies, and was stumbling back towards the central pit and Sarah, scissors snapping at a few determined holdouts.
    “Go,” I said. “Now!”
    Delphi took off at a run, and I headed in the opposite direction. I reached the first cage, wound up, and delivered a kick at the corner strut that bent the thin metal and kinked the chicken wire. A little more work, and the twisted strut pulled free, taking half the front of the cage with it. A wave of angry fairies poured out, pixies in every color of the rainbow and other, stranger things, flowing around me with a quiet, vicious determination making directly for the puppeteer. Over the buzz of the blender-teeth in the central pit, I could hear the whine of the ray gun as Delphi took a more direct approach to opening the cages on her side.
    “ Golden!” the puppeteer shouted. “What do you think you're doing, Golden?” It stepped toward Sarah, claw-hands coming up, and my heart stopped for a moment.
    Before the blades could close around her, the first wave of fairies reached the Falmer-thing, and they hurled themselves at him with a fury born of long imprisonment. Another wave, from Delphi's side, arrived a moment later and started scaling the huge, misshapen body like mountaineers, wrapping themselves around its mechanical limbs and digging tiny, sharp teeth into its waxy flesh.
    “ Get off me!” it said, in Falmer's voice again. “You little parasites! Don't think this is going to help you, Golden!” Scissors snapped and clicked, shredding the smaller fairies in puffs of blue smoke.
    I reached the next cage, still carry ing the broken strut, and gave the wire at the front a couple of whacks to open a hole. That was enough—watching what was happening, the fairies inside grabbed the edges and tore the enclosure open.
    I ran to the third cage and opened it as well, adding another wave to the tide. The puppeteer was almost invisible now under a layer of thrashing, gnawing bodies. The porcelain mask that served it for a face waved about wildly.
    “ Gol-Gol-Golden!” It stuttered, like skipping record. “I'll k-k-kill her!”
    It staggered a step in Sarah's direction, edging around the whirring pit of knives, and struggled to raise an arm with a dozen small fairies hanging off it. There were two more cages to go, but I realized we couldn't wait any longer.
    “ Delphi, now!”
    There was an endless pause, the trembling claw moving inch by inch toward Sarah. Then the ray gun whined, and a beam of brilliant light stabbed out and intersected with the cable holding Sarah off the ground. She dropped past the puppeteer's claw as it snapped closed and landed in a crouch at the struggling thing's feet.
    “ Sarah, over here!” I shouted. If I could get to her, I could pop us both out of the burrow, which ought to get her back where she belonged—
    Sarah had other plans. Her eyes narrowed as the Falmer-thing shifted clumsily toward her, head bent and arms extended. She exploded from her crouch