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ducts were big enough—just barely—for her to crawl through. No, she didn't exactly suffer from claustrophobia. But the whole experience was still enough to leave her exceedingly unhappy.
So were the women behind her, judging from their grumbles.
"Shut up," she hissed. "You'll warn the Scrag we're after him."
The moment the term left her mouth, she regretted it. She could sense, in the sudden silence behind her, hurt feelings as well as obedience.
She sighed. Then, decided to break her own command.
"All right, I'm sorry." Then, after a pause, hissing: "No, dammit, I'm not sorry. The pig is nothing but a 'Scrag.' That doesn't mean you are, but it does mean we need to come up with a different name. For you, I mean. I can't keep thinking of you just as 'my Amazons.' "
Yana's voice drifted up from behind her. "What does 'Amazon' mean, anyway? You used the word once before."
Thandi explained. When she was done, she could hear a low rumbling chuckle in the duct, coming from several throats.
" 'Amazon' it is, then," pronounced Yana firmly.
Thandi frowned. "Not sure," she whispered. "There might be a decent male ex-Scrag coming along one of these days, you know. Decent enough, anyway."
"So what?" replied Yana. "No problem. He can be an Amazonette."
"Amazonix," countered Raisha.
"Amazon-boy," offered Olga.
The burst of laughter which echoed down the tube then would have been enough to waken the dead, much less alert a Scrag. But Thandi discovered that she didn't really care, any more.
Yeah, that's right, superman. The super-bitches are hot on your tail. Which means you are dog food.
* * *
The Scrag did hear the noise, in fact, but he'd already known he was being pursued by someone. His hearing was very acute, and he'd picked up the sound of bodies scuffling their way down the ventilation duct behind him some time earlier. At first, he'd assumed that was his own people coming to his assistance. But eventually, from subtle details in the soft sounds which he couldn't analyze consciously, he'd understood that the people behind him were women.
That could only mean that, somehow, Abraham Templeton had been brought down. And that, whoever the women were