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brought this down on us. We should have waited outside the redoubt for Magus to come back. From the moment we set foot inside that place, we were fucked.”
    â€œStuck between a rock and another rock,” Doc said soberly.
    They had been caught in countless tight spots in the past—or more correctly in the future—but they had always been able to figure a way out. This time perhaps not. A question occurred to Ryan: Could a person really die a hundred years before he was born? He kept it to himself.
    â€œWe still have some time left,” Vee said. “Can’t we change the future somehow? Avert this nuclear attack? What do you know about it?”
    She sounded remarkably calm for someone who’d recently learned the world was going to blow up in a matter of hours, Doc thought.
    â€œPrecious little that would help that cause, my dear,” Doc said. “An all-out missile exchange between the United States and the Russians on January 20, 2001, created a global, nuclear holocaust that ended much of civilization. That conflagration and its aftermath necessarily complicates the unraveling of the whos, the wheres and the whens. Which one, if either, started it is unknown. It could have been initiated by a third party or a computer glitch—or misinterpreted data. Miscommunication, even. Because we don’t know the precise chain of circumstances that triggered Armageddon, altering the course of those events becomes difficult if not impossible.”
    â€œIf you’re thinking of warning someone about nukeday,” Krysty said, “who would listen?”
    â€œYou’re right,” Vee agreed. “No one is going to listen.”
    â€œYou believe us?” Ricky asked.
    â€œAfter what I’ve seen with my own eyes today, I’d believe anything you told me.”
    â€œWhat’s happened to us is triple bad luck, and there’s no way around it,” Ryan told the others. “But it doesn’t change why we’re here. Or what we can do in the time we have left. One way or another we can still make sure Magus never leaves this place.”
    â€œChill half-metal bastard,” Jak spit.
    â€œWe need to get off the street and figure out how,” Ryan said.
    â€œWe can go to my office,” Vee told. “It will be closed for the night by the time we get there. I have the keys. No one will bother us. We can cut through the alleys and stay out of sight.”
    As they trooped single file down the sidewalk, away from the subway station and the police barricades, a man in a peacoat stepped from a doorway and, smiling broadly, accosted Ryan. “Snake Plissken!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were dead!” Then he laughed like a mutie hyena.
    Ryan kept walking. It wasn’t the first time he had heard that line.
    To his back the man shouted, “Hey, Snake,
Escape from L.A.
blew chunks!”

Chapter Five
    Angelo McCreedy lowered his copy of the
Daily Racing Form
as people poured up the steps from the Thirty-Fourth Street–Herald Square Metro station. In his classic black chauffeur cap, black three-piece suit and tie and black leather gloves, he leaned against the stretch limo’s front fender. If his pickup didn’t show soon, he was going to have to move the limo from the taxi stand and start circling the block—the cabbies lined up behind him were starting to get restless. Exiting subway travelers seemed in an extra big hurry this afternoon, maybe because of all the sirens going off. A major accident was the cherry on top. It could louse up traffic for the rest of the day.
    As he folded his
Form
and tucked it under his arm, a mass of shiny purple appeared at the top of the subway stairs.
    Man, those are some big dudes, he thought.
    They looked almost identical, like octuplets. They were in matching outfits and had the same height and build. The tight hoodies kept their faces in shadow. They all sported what from a distance