by T E Stouyer
Still crouching, Johann turned his head back and saw Rock standing on the escalator landing with his weapon trained on him. Carson was there too. But he was still coming up the escalator, a few steps behind the giant.
Johann’s face twisted into an eerie smile. He was glad to see the two men. He had been disappointed that the fight had ended so quickly. But now, more people had joined the action. More prey for him to slaughter.
Taking advantage of the unexpected diversion, Soran tried to run past his sister. But Kadyna had other ideas. She intercepted him, and with all her strength, hurled him through the air at Rock and Carson.
“Whooooah!” Soran shouted as he flew towards the pair.
Thanks to the young man’s shout, Rock managed to get out of the way in time by throwing himself on the floor.
But Carson wasn’t so lucky. He was still trapped between the escalator railings with literally nowhere to go. The young man crashed into him, and the two of them tumbled down the steps together, all the way down to the floor below.
They ended up lying at the base of the escalator, aching and groggy from having repeatedly bumped their heads against the escalator’s metal frame on their way down.
Rock quickly scrambled back to his feet. But as he raised his rifle once again, Johann pulled on his wire and knocked the weapon away with his knife.
Instinctively, the giant grabbed the knife before his opponent could retract it. He then tugged on the wire with everything he had.
Johann was caught completely off-guard. He lost his balance and stumbled forward a few feet before he was able to steady himself again. But when the blond man finally looked up, he was met with a mean left cross to his jaw, quickly followed by a powerful right cross.
The force of the second blow knocked Johann down to the floor. But as he stood over the downed man, Rock stopped to shake off the slight throbbing pain in his knuckles. He’s just like Soran and Jenkins, the giant thought to himself. What the hell are these people made out of?
Johann also paused for a moment as he lay flat on his back—more from the surprise than because of the damage he had received. He didn’t think anyone other than his siblings could hit so hard.
But the surprise soon faded from Johann’s face, and was quickly replaced by anger. He had never felt so humiliated in his life. He had just been decked by a normal man. It didn’t matter to him that the man in question looked like a giant from a children’s storybook. He wasn’t genetically enhanced. And was therefore inferior.
Rock saw the change in the blond man’s expression. It clearly meant nothing good. The mercenary promptly reached behind his back for the gun tucked inside his belt.
But Johann, who had been glaring at the colossus towering over him, realized what was happening. He swung his legs in a quick scissor-like motion and swept the giant off the floor. Then, he sprung to his feet, grabbed the giant by the ankle, and launched him at Doc Chen, who had gotten back up and was taking aim with his gun from half-way across the floor.
With his mobility severely reduced due to his injury, Doc was unable to dodge the human projectile. The large mass of bones and muscles collided with him at high velocity and knocked him down on the floor.
As for the giant, he had been propelled with such force that, even though he had bumped into his comrade, his momentum continued to carry him farther. He fell back down and slid on the marble floor, until he crashed into a thick stone column. A numbing pain shot through his body. It felt like his back had been shattered into a thousand pieces. Even for someone with his sturdy physique, it would take time to recover from that kind of damage.
Marie had watched the entire scene, sitting on the floor with her back leaning against the glass balustrade. She had taken a handkerchief out of her pantsuit’s pocket and was using it to apply pressure to her wound in order to slow down the bleeding. She knew she had to act, but she’d hoped to have more time to gather her strength, first. She had lost a lot of blood and was still in quite a bit of pain. Unfortunately, time was running out. Johann’s attention had once again turned to her, and he had already begun his menacing approach.
She glanced down to her right. Her weapon was lying on the floor, not three feet from her. But her right arm was completely useless now. She would have to reach across her body with her left. Fighting through the pain, she twisted her hip and extended her left hand. But as her fingers inched towards the cross of her gun, she froze and gazed up.
Johann was practically standing over her, a knife in each hand, waiting.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Pick it up.”
Marie didn’t move. She didn’t answer. She just stared at him, her eyes brimming with tears of rage and frustration.
All the while, Kadyna was waiting at the coffee shop’s entrance with her arms folded over her chest. She now seemed content to play the role of spectator. She looked on as Johann and Marie held still and gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment.
“Pick it up,” the blond man calmly repeated.
Then, out of the blue, a voice came from behind him, and commanded, “Drop the knives, friend!”
Chapter 17 – No Regrets
Startled, Johann froze for a second. Then, he peered over his shoulder and saw a man standing about thirty-five feet away, pointing a gun at him.
Who was he? Where had he come from?
Johann’s gaze shifted to the second set of escalators at the center of the smaller walkway. No doubt the stranger had come up from there.
But who was he? And what was he doing here?
The man took a step forward and repeated in a menacing tone, “Drop the knives!”
“Look out! Two o’clock,” Rock suddenly shouted as he lay on the floor at the far end of the walkway.
The stranger promptly turned his head in the two o’clock direction and spotted a redheaded woman just as she was getting ready to throw a wooden chair at him. He hadn’t noticed Kadyna as she was standing so far away from everyone else. But thanks to Rock’s warning, he had been able to evade her improvised projectile.
Even so, the stranger was stunned by the speed with which the chair blew past him before it smashed through a glass window on the other side of the concourse.
And yet, that was nothing compared to the shock he received when he saw a knife skid on the floor on its own, before it lifted off and rocketed towards him.
“What the hell!” the stranger exclaimed as he narrowly evaded the blade by dodging to the side.
Taking advantage of the stranger’s confusion, Johann seized the initiative and readied his next attack, when …
Bang! Bang!
Two detonations reverberated inside the shopping center’s concourse.
Then, a veil of heavy silence descended upon the entire group as everyone froze, gripped by the gravity of the moment.
Johann lowered his eyes and stared at his chest. Two red blots had appeared on his white shirt and were slowly expanding. He then looked up and saw Marie peering at him from behind the barrel of her gun, which she was holding at the end of her outstretched left arm.
Johann staggered forward, all the way to the detective, and then gazed down at her and flashed his distorted smile one more time.
“That was for Hans and me,” Marie said. “And this is for Professor Karpov.”
Bang!
She fired a third shot.
Johann lurched backward on impact, and then forward, before he tumbled over the balustrade and fell down, accompanied by the sound of wires rasping against the glass edge.
The blond man hit the ground floor with a thud. Followed by two loud clanks as his knives bounced off against the marble tiles, like two short gongs marking the end of a solemn ceremony.
Soran and Carson had just started to regain their senses when it happened. The young man watched in stunned silence as his brother plunged three levels down and crashed on the ground floor.
At the same moment, a piercing shriek shook the air. “Johann!!”
Kady
na looked shell-shocked. She stared at the balustrade with her hands pressed against her temples, as if to try to keep her sanity from pouring out.
Eventually, her shock subsided. And her gaze focused on a specific point. On a specific person. Marie.
Kadyna was now glaring at the detective with a murderous fire in her eyes.
Marie, who was still sitting on the floor with her back against the glass balustrade, turned her head and stared with dread at the menacing figure. She knew she could not hope to get away. Not in her current condition. But then, the stranger who had saved her from Johann, earlier, moved closer to her and pointed his gun at the redheaded woman standing in front of the coffee shop.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.
Kadyna ignored him, and continued to glare at the detective.
But seeing that the redheaded woman was unarmed and standing still at a safe distance away from him, the stranger took a moment to glance at Doc and Sonar who were still lying on the floor, bleeding. “Hey, Rock,” the man called out. “Sonar seems to be in a pretty bad shape. We should hurry up and—”
“Watch out, Ben!” Rock shouted as he wobbled back to his feet.
The stranger promptly turned his head back around, and saw the redheaded woman dashing straight towards him. He was shocked to find that she had already reduced the distance between them to a few short feet. He couldn’t understand how she had covered so much ground so quickly.
“What the hell!” he exclaimed again. But this time he was unable to dodge the oncoming attack.
Kadyna never slowed down. She jumped and kicked him at full speed.
The blow was so powerful that the stranger flew back all the way to the other side of the concourse. He landed in the outdoor seating area of a restaurant and plowed into a row of chairs and tables. The wind had been completely knocked out him and he felt a burning sensation on his chest. He tried to take a couple of deep breaths and ended up coughing blood.
Rock was distressed by the sight of his comrade ending up on the receiving end of such a terrible blow. But he couldn’t afford to linger and worry about it. He needed to act, quickly.
Once again, his first instinct was to go for his gun. He patted on his belt behind him, looking for it. But it wasn’t there. It must have fallen when Johann threw me in the air, he thought.
Without his gun, or his rifle, the giant was left with only one option. Ignoring his pain, he rushed straight towards Kadyna.
But the woman in black wasn’t interested in him. Instead, she spun around and charged at the detective.
In response, Marie started to level her gun at her attacker. But the wounded detective was moving far too slowly in her weakened state. Kadyna savagely stomped on her arm, breaking every bone between her left wrist and elbow.
Marie screamed in agony as her forearm was crushed underneath Kadyna’s boot.
Jolted by the strident scream, Soran and Carson scrambled up the escalator as fast as they could. But they knew they had no chance of getting there in time to intervene.
Rock was much closer, and also moving as fast as he could. But he too wouldn’t reach Kadyna before she had exacted revenge on the helpless detective. The redhead’s claw-like hand was already closing in on her prey with deadly purpose.
Marie closed her eyes, and awaited the end. She felt strangely calm and detached, almost at peace. Even the pain in her right shoulder and left arm was fading away. And as time slowed to a near-standstill, she recalled the string of events that had led her to this place. The day she had met Professor Karpov. The close bond of friendship they had shared over the years. The night she had learned of his true identity. And finally, the day she had laid eyes on his dead body inside his apartment. All subsequent events flashed before her eyes like an old roll of film unraveling in front of a projector. Until … the final image. Her broken body, lying on a floor in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers.
Even so, she had no regrets.
…
Am I still alive? Marie wondered, after what felt like a long wait.
She opened her eyes to make sure.
Kadyna was still there. In the exact same position as before, with her fingers inches away from Marie’s neck, as if frozen in the moment.
But Marie soon realized that her attacker was now gazing past her. Something else had drawn the redhead’s attention.
Then, inexplicably, Kadyna jumped over the balustrade and plunged into the void.
“You, OK?” Rock asked as he arrived at the detective’s side.
Marie gave a faint nod. But he could see she was barely holding on to consciousness.
Rock tore a sleeve from her shirt, and then wrapped it tightly around the handkerchief placed against her wound in order to further stem the bleeding.
He then turned his attention to his fallen comrades. Sonar, in particular, seemed badly hurt. The giant rushed to him and managed to gently shake him awake.
“How’re you doing, buddy?” Rock asked.
“I can see your ugly mug,” Sonar replied in a faint voice. “So I guess I’m still alive. Hurts like hell when I try to move, though.”
“Then don’t try to move, you idiot!” Rock said. He then turned around called out, “Doc! Ben! You guys all right?”
Ben was still lying on the floor among the restaurant’s tables and chairs. And even though he was still feeling the after-effects of Kadyna’s vengeful kick, he was starting to breathe easier. He raised his hand and gave a thumbs-up to signal to the giant that he was OK.
Rock then ran over to his third comrade.
Doc Chen had also felt the cold steel of Johann’s blades, but his injury was far less severe than Sonar’s. It was actually the knock from the collision with Rock that had kept him out of the action for so long. But he had shaken out of it and was now back on his feet.
Having paused on the escalator to keep an eye on Kadyna, Carson and Soran finally made it back to the third level. Both men were in far better shape than any of the others. The tumble down the escalator had been a jarring experience, and the landing had been rough, but their fall had left them more dizzy than hurt. Luckily, the price of their rough ride had been no higher than a few bumps and bruises.
Carson went to help the wounded mercenaries, while Soran ran over to check on the detective. Her left forearm had an alarming bluish color, and her right arm dangled on her side, with blood streaming down from her right shoulder.
“Hang on,” said the young man. “I’ll go find something to treat your injuries.”
He stood up and quickly scanned the area. But realizing he wouldn’t find what he was looking for, he shouted in the direction of the toy store, “Luce! You can come out, now!”
The young girl had been waiting near the entrance. She appeared almost instantly and came running.
As his sister approached, Soran could see she was fighting to hold back her tears. “You saw?” he asked.
She nodded and said, “Is Johann …?”
The young man stared at her at length, but said nothing.
Doc walked over to the two siblings and asked Soran, “Is your other sister still down there?”
“No,” the young man replied. “She’s gone. And she took Johann’s body with her.”
His statement was met with a brief silence.
“In that case, we’ll worry about her later,” Doc eventually said. “Right now, we need to find a first-aid kit, or something similar. Some of us have already lost too much blood,” he added, looking down at his stomach. He had grabbed a napkin from a restaurant table and was pressing it against his wound.
Soran turned to his sister and said, “Luce, you’ve seen a map of this place. Is there a pharmacy nearby?”
She nodded again and pointed down and diagonally, somewhere on the floor below.
“OK, let’s go,” said the young man.
“Hold on,” Doc said. “The kid should stay here. There could be more of Jenkins’ men lurking around.”
&nb
sp; Soran shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Kadyna and Johann wouldn’t have come after us so brazenly unless they had taken care of that problem, first. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason Kadyna went outside, earlier.”
“All right, but that still leaves Damien,” Doc pointed out.
There was another silence, this one long and heavy.
Doc pondered the fact that despite all they had just gone through, their most dangerous adversary was still out there, waiting for them. It was a frightening prospect. They had barely survived their first confrontation with the clones, and they had been extremely lucky. Lucky that Johann looked down on them so much he had literally brought knives to a gunfight—a clear disadvantage, however special those knives might be. Lucky that Kadyna had willingly disarmed herself because she refused to fire at her brother, Soran. And lucky that she had stood on the sidelines and simply watched during most of the fight.
“If Damien was nearby, we would know it,” Soran declared. “He wouldn’t just wait around and watch like Kadyna did.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Doc conceded. “All right, you two can go, then. Do you know what to get?”
“Sure, we got it,” Soran replied. “We’ll be right back.” He then turned to Lucielle and said again, “Let’s go.”
The young girl took her brother’s hand and led him away, running.
Doc watched until the two siblings disappeared down the second set of escalators, at the center of the small circular walkway.
Chapter 18 – Symbols
Less than five minutes had passed when Soran and Lucielle returned and found the others gathered inside the coffee shop. Even though Doc had been persuaded by Soran that there would be no more masked men lurking in the shadows, he didn’t like the idea of staying out on the open floor. The coffee shop was only a few feet away, and from there, they had a clear enough view of the Grande Arche monument.
The two siblings had brought back a suture kit and two plastic bags filled with medical supplies. Doc inventoried the bags’ contents and nodded in approbation. “Good, looks like there’s everything we need.” He then turned to his comrade and said, “Rock, you and Carson keep an eye out, just in case. Soran, Lucielle, you two can assist me. Both Sonar and Marie are in—”