"I was unconscious when I was brought in. What do you mean, you think so?"
"Well, I was actually taken into an old apartment building a block away and then along an underground tunnel to get here. But I got a glimpse through an unblocked window as I was being brought through the main building, and I think I saw the Tyler Mansion's outer wall. Anyway, even without fancy furniture and all you can tell the rooms up there were designed for someone rich."
The Tyler Mansion. The name was familiar from Ama Nunki's local history/geography seminars: a large house with a sort of pseudo-Reginine-millionaire style, he recalled, built south of the city in the days before industry moved into that area. She'd been vague as to the semi-recluse owner's whereabouts since the Troft invasion, but it was generally believed he was holed up inside somewhere, counting on private stores and the mansion's defenses to keep out looters and aliens alike. Jonny remembered thinking at the time that the Trofts were being uncommonly generous to leave the place standing under those conditions, and wondering if perhaps a private deal had been struck. It was starting to look like he'd been right . . . though the deal was possibly more than a little one-sided.
But more interesting than the mansion's recent history were the possibilities inherent in being locked inside such a residence. Unlike a factory, a millionaire's home ought to have an emergency escape route. If he could find it, perhaps he could bypass whatever deathtrap the Trofts had planned for him. "You say you came in through a tunnel," he said to his cellmate. "Did it look new or hastily built? Say, as if the Trofts had dug it in the past three years?"
But she was frowning again, a hard look in her eyes. "Who the hell are you, anyway, that you never heard of Old Tyler? He's been written up more than every other celebrity on Adirondack—even volunteer lunatics can't be that ignorant. At least, not those who grew up in Cranach."
Jonny sighed; but she did have a right to know on whom her life was probably going to depend. And it certainly wouldn't be giving away any secrets to the Trofts eavesdropping on them. "You're right—I grew up quite a ways from here. I'm a Cobra."
Her eyes widened, then narrowed again as they swept his frame. "A Cobra, huh? You sure don't look like anything special."
"We're not supposed to," Jonny told her patiently. "Undercover guerrilla fighters—remember?"
"Oh, I know. But I've seen men masquerade as Cobras before to impress or threaten people."
"You want some proof?" He'd been looking for an excuse to do this, anyway. Hopping off the table, he stepped closer to the rear wall and extended his right arm. A group of suspected sensor positions faced him just below eye level. Targeting it, he turned his head to look at the woman. "Watch," he said, and triggered his arcthrower.
A discerning eye might have noticed that there were actually two components to the flash that lit up the room an instant later: the fingertip laser beam, which burned an ionized path through the air, and the high-amperage spark that traveled that path to the wall. But the accompanying thunderclap was the really impressive part, and in the metal-walled cell it was impressive as hell. The woman jumped a meter backwards from a standing start, mouthing something Jonny couldn't hear through the multiple reverberations. "Satisfied?" he asked her when the sound finally faded away.
Staring at him with wide eyes, she bobbed her head quickly. "Oh, yes. Yes indeed. What in heaven's name was that?"
"Arcthrower. Designed to fry electronic gear. Works pretty well, usually." In fact, it worked quite well, and Jonny didn't expect to have to worry about that particular sensor cluster again.
"I don't doubt it." She exhaled once, and with that action seemed to get her mind working as well. "A real Cobra. So how come you haven't broken out of here yet?"
For a long moment he stared at her, wondering what to say. If the Trofts knew he was on to their scheme . . . but surely her presence here proved they'd already figured that out. Tell her the truth, then?—that the aliens were forcing him to choose between betraying his fellow Cobras and saving her life?
He chose the easier, if temporary, solution of changing the subject. "You were going to tell me about the tunnel," he reminded her.
"Oh. Right. No, it looked like it'd been there a lot longer than three years. There also looked to be spots where gates and defensive equipment had been taken out."
In other words, it looked like Tyler's hoped-for escape hatch. And already in alien hands. "How well were the Trofts guarding it?"
"The place was full of them." She was giving him a wary look. "You're not planning to try and leave that way, are you?"