“I am offering something you will not find anywhere else—a chance to redeem yourself, to pass from this world to the next with your head held high.”
Kuhn looked back at the door leading to the room in which he had awakened, then at the hall of armor in front of him. As he stood there, he realized with a strange frisson of combined horror and honesty that Stengrave was right—there was only one way out.
“All right.” Striding to the rack of bladed weapons, he selected the long sword—the only one that even came close to the fencing blades he’d used in college, and tested its heft and reach. He couldn’t explain it, but it somehow felt...right in his hand. “I’m ready.”
“Good. You may begin at your leisure.”
Gripping the hilt in both hands, Kuhn slowly began walking down the rest of the hallway, searching for that one suit of armor that had the telltale sign of a real person inside it.
That one? Or maybe that one? He stared at each one, trying to discern something, anything that would give him the edge.
There! Spotting what he thought was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, Kuhn whirled and drove the tip of the blade as hard as he could into the lower abdomen of a spectacular suit of fluted armor that was engraved everywhere with delicate golden filigree.
The armor suit tipped backward and crashed to the ground. On impact, the helmet flew off, revealing a mannequin’s featureless face.
Sword held high, Kuhn turned, looking for one of the suits to come at him. None of them moved. Come on...come on!
He lashed out at another suit nearest to him, this one a simpler, unadorned collection of steel armor. It, too, went over in a clatter of metal and mannequin limbs. Kuhn turned to the next one, only to find it had stepped off its dais and was coming right at him.
Stengrave rushed him like a striker charging for a loose ball—a striker sheathed in sixty pounds of metal.
Kuhn didn’t even think about trying to get his sword up—he just leaped out of the way. Stengrave didn’t change course or attempt to stop, however, he just kept going, only slowing once he’d reached the sword rack. Grabbing a heavy-bladed Walloon sword by its basket hilt, he whirled, slashing out with it in a move that would have sliced Kuhn’s chest open if it had connected.
The younger man, however, wasn’t there anymore. He’d gotten up and backed away, sword held out in front of him. Now armed, the six-foot-five Stengrave regarded him for a moment from inside a visored basinet that covered his entire head. Stengrave raised his sword in front of him in a brief but sincere salute, then began advancing on the smaller man.
Kuhn stepped back and then did so again. His foot brushed against a helmet that had fallen off one of the other suits, and he reached down, groping blindly for it, as he dared not take his eyes off his attacker. Stengrave kept coming, and just when Kuhn thought he’d have to abandon the piece, his fingers gripped an edge and he grabbed the helmet and whipped it up at Stengrave.
He’d thrown it in his opponent’s general direction, so the programmer was surprised to see his improvised missile clang into Stengrave’s helmet, throwing the man off course for a moment. Seizing the opportunity, Kuhn didn’t follow up with an attack, but instead darted off deeper into the hallway, trying to find a place to hide and hopefully figure out some way to take the armored man by surprise.
Despite the odds against him, Kuhn hadn’t felt this alive in years. Also, from what he had seen, he thought he might actually have a chance to take the other man. Stengrave’s closed-face helmet protected him, but it also limited his vision to a tiny strip right in front of his eyes. Plus, as the helmet was attached to the rest of the armor, it didn’t allow him to turn his head! Finally, there were many places where he wasn’t nearly as heavily armored, like his neck, elbow and knee joints.
If I can just take him by surprise, I might be able to pull this off, Kuhn thought. And I think I know exactly how...
Hiding behind the last suit of armor near the far door, he tried to get his breathing under control as he peeked out just enough to locate Stengrave. The bigger man had returned to the middle of the hallway, standing a few steps away from the rack of swords. Although he was looking around, Kuhn’s evaluation of his helmet was correct—Stengrave couldn’t turn his head. He ran through his plan one more time in his mind. Here goes...
He shoved the armor he was hiding behind over as hard as he could, counting on the movement to attract his boss’s attention. The moment he felt it tip, he ducked and ran, keeping low, down the row to the suit of armor closest to Stengrave.
The falling suit hit the floor with a clatter. Kuhn didn’t wait for Stengrave’s reaction, but shoved the suit he was standing behind over, as well, straight at the big man. His plan was to follow that up with an attack, hoping to injure the other man as he dodged the falling armor.
It wasn’t a bad plan, and went off more or less as he had planned it. The only trouble was that Stengrave ended up facing Kuhn to fend off the falling armor, and as such, saw the smaller man coming at him. Already committed, Kuhn kept going, even as Stengrave sidestepped the second distraction. Kuhn angled over to the other man’s left side, where his sword wasn’t, already raising his sword to swing down at the armored man’s left knee, hoping to chop into the joint and maim him.
Kuhn wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. As he started bringing his sword down he caught a blur of movement from Stengrave out of the corner of his eye, then it felt as though he had run into a horizontal railing with such force it knocked the breath out of him. He kept moving forward, his sword forgotten in his hand, even as he felt a strange pressure on his chest, which was gone as soon as he’d sensed it. He stumbled a bit, falling to one knee. Sensing that something wasn’t right here... Where did all this...blood come from? he wondered as he stared down at the pattering of droplets on the floor in front of him. With a gasp, he realized the front of his shirt wasn’t indigo anymore, but black...black with wet, fresh blood.
Oh, my God... A long, horizontal tear had cut his shirt in two. Kuhn moved numbing fingers up to pull the top part away, revealing a long slash across his stomach, through the abdominal wall lining and into his abdomen. With mounting horror, he thought he saw the pinkish-gray of his own intestines as he fell backward to sit on the ground. Blood was everywhere, on his hand, in his pants, covering his shoes. Oddly, there was no pain, which surprised him, as he would have thought being sliced open this way would have hurt like a son of a bitch.
Kuhn’s sword dropped from his other hand as a wave of weakness crashed over him. Dumbly, he looked up to see Stengrave looming over him. The owner of Stengrave Industries had raised his visor and now stared down at Kuhn with cold, slate-gray eyes. His face looked as if it might as well have been carved from granite. Again, he raised the sword, its edge now covered in blood, to salute him.
“You lasted longer than I expected. Farväl.”
Drawing the sword back, he swung it forward and down, the heavy blade slicing through Kuhn’s neck and spinal cord, and cutting off his head. It rolled to the ground while the jet of blood that spurted from the stump was already subsiding as the body fell backward to the floor.
* * *
KRISTIAN STENGRAVE REGARDED the body of his former employee as dispassionately as he did most of his investments. The strongest feeling he would admit to at the moment was annoyance—annoyance that someone in his employ, whom he had spent considerable resources to retain and improve—would have turned on him for such a base reason as money. It was only through the most fortunate circumstance that the hapless programmer hadn’t realized the true value of what he was stealing. If he had, then anyone he would have come in contact with, from his minders at the other company, to his family, would have had to have been killed, as well. Secrecy was simply that vital for his largest project, one that would irrevocably alter the world as humanity knew it.
Stengrave cleaned his
sword and set it back on the rack before unstrapping his helmet and removing it, revealing sweaty, white-blond hair that fell to his shoulders. He tapped his wireless earpiece. “It’s done.”
The door at the far end of the hallway opened and a whip-thin man with a shaved head entered. Dressed in an impeccable three-piece dark gray suit, he walked to Stengrave, careful not to get any blood on his handmade shoes. “I sure hope that isn’t the severance package you have planned for me.” His voice held the smooth, supple tones of a top-class British education.
“Do not betray me, Mr. Firke, and you will never have to find out,” Stengrave replied, not taking his eyes off the body. “Have this hallway restored, and set up the accident as we had discussed.”
“Of course, sir.” The second man eyed the head with pursed lips. “I suppose there wasn’t any way you could have avoided beheading him, perhaps? That will make it more difficult to, uh, disguise his condition.”
“He deserved an honorable death. Just make it happen.”
“Of course, sir. Don’t forget that you have the update call in an hour. The lab in the Congo says it has news.”
That tore Stengrave’s gaze from the body, and he began divesting himself of the rest of the armor. “Excellent. I look forward to hearing about their progress. I suggest that you keep a travel bag prepared. If all goes well, you may be overseeing a field test shortly.”
“Of course, sir, I’ll prepare that just as soon as I’ve had this—” Firke nodded at the mess “—cleaned up.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sixty hours earlier
Dr. Gerhardt Richter sighed as he leaned back in his chair, trying to avoid the chill breeze blowing on the back of his neck. Shaking his head, he walked over to his single upright dresser, pulled out a black, silk scarf and draped it around his neck. Although the laboratory needed the air conditioning to maintain the temperature throughout the complex, it was difficult for him to get re-acclimated, particularly after two days in the field. Now, he always felt cold, no matter where in the complex he was, and that damnable breeze seemed to follow him around the room. Richter walked to the thermostat mounted next to the door and tapped it, not sure if the damn thing was regulating anything anymore.
This is not how groundbreaking science is achieved, he thought, activating the VOIP—voice over internet protocol—program on his machine. “The thermostat in my office is malfunctioning again, Sharene. Please get someone in maintenance to take a look at it as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir. Yours is the third complaint I’ve received, and maintenance is already looking into it. I’ll pass on the status update as soon they get back to me. Also, I just received word from the lab that they’re ready to begin the next round of tests.”
“Good, I’ll be there shortly.” Richter closed his computer and tucked it under his arm. With a grimace, he glanced at the roof above him one last time, as if willing it to stay up long enough for him to get out of the room. Rising from his desk, he left his cramped office and walked into the even more cramped hallway.
His backers had built the complex to be sturdy—at least, that’s what they had told him—but the German was forced to stoop as he walked, so that his balding head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. He was slightly concerned that he would develop a permanent hunch from the past five months of work.
After this, I’m due a long vacation, he thought, maybe somewhere sunny and bright instead of humid and hot all the time.
The idea cheered him a bit and he nodded to the other white-lab-coated men and women he passed as he headed for the main laboratory.
He stopped only once before passing two security men half carrying one of the test subjects—a quivering young African male—between them, with another technician trailing them.
“Hold it.” Richter thumbed back the sagging youth’s eyelid, revealing an eye that had rolled back into his head. “Where’d he come from?”
“He’s the security breach we recaptured at 2100 last night,” the tech said. “Filmed him killing a full-grown leopard out in the jungle. Emailed you the video this morning.”
“Right.” Richter pressed fingers to the young man’s neck. “Erratic heartbeat. I don’t like that. Place him in the guarded ICU and monitor his condition for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir.” The three men left with their prisoner, and Richter continued on his way.
Arriving at his destination, Richter entered the airlock, waiting for the doors to close. He walked to the center of the small corridor, where a powerful stream of antiseptic air washed over him, removing any small biological organisms that might contaminate the lab. When the tone sounded, indicating his cleansing cycle was completed, he stepped into the next room.
The laboratory was state-of-the-art, with a half dozen of the current shift’s white-coated scientists working at computer stations and lab tables. One of them, a tall, Nordic-looking blond woman, noticed his entrance and walked over.
“Good afternoon, Doctor. Here to witness the next test?”
“Correct.”
“Good, we’re about to start. Follow me, please.” She led him to the other side of the laboratory, where a large, thick pane of laminated glass separated them from the occupants in the other room.
Richter watched as the first creature in the room roamed around. It was a chimpanzee, about three years old, circling the perimeter of the bare, five-meter by five-meter room with apprehension in its eyes.
“This is a young male, captured two weeks ago, weighing ninety-three pounds and measuring forty-five inches tall. We’ve limited its calorie intake and have taken steps to ensure a suitable aggressive reaction to the second test subject.”
A door slid open on the right side and a slender black man wearing a pair of white shorts and a T-shirt was prodded through the door, which slid closed behind him. The chimp’s head swiveled to stare at the newcomer, whose eyes also locked on the animal. The chimpanzee rose, standing on its back legs and supporting its front body on its knuckles. It bared its teeth at the man, who looked confused for a moment.
The blond woman spoke, not taking her eyes off the window. “The primate senses that something isn’t right with the human subject.”
“When does the reaction start, Dr. Estvaan?”
“Any moment n—”
She hadn’t even completed her sentence when the two creatures in the room exploded into action. The man’s face turned into a rictus of rage that suffused his features, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a savage snarl, his fingers outstretched into curled talons as he rushed at the chimpanzee. The animal stood on its hind legs and charged, screaming in rage, its fangs also bared.
“Normally the chimpanzee has the advantage, since it is five times as strong as the average human, despite being outweighed by fifty pounds.” Dr. Estvaan sounded as though she might be discussing two Olympic wrestlers. “But watch.”
The two combatants clashed in the middle of the room. The chimp established early dominance with its opposable hands on the lower legs clamping onto the man’s torso while its upper set of hands grabbed the head of its soon-to-be victim as it zoomed in to bite at the vulnerable face.
Usually that would have been the end of it. However before the chimp could attack, the man’s hand swiped down with inhuman speed, raking the animal across the eyes and causing it to screech in pain. The man continued his attack, curling his hand into a fist and battering it against the monkey’s skull again and again, his hand blurring with the effort. The chimpanzee rocked back with each punch.
“Subjects have been observed to break their fingers and dislocate their wrists and elbows from repeated forceful blows against their targets,” Dr. Estvaan stated, jotting notes on her tablet.
The chimpanzee’s hands tore at the man, scoring a hit on his genitals and twisting hard, but the man didn’t s
top his frenzied assault. He lunged forward, sinking his teeth into the side of the chimpanzee’s neck and savaging it with all his might.
The chimpanzee screamed in agony and redoubled its efforts, grabbing one of the man’s ears and tearing it off his head. But its struggles grew weaker as bright red blood spurted from the terrible wound in its neck. It brought around its right fist, the fingers covered in blood, trying to smash the man’s temple. Without stopping his attack on the chimp’s throat, the man’s left hand rose to block the attack, his open palm meeting the monkey’s arm whistling through the air and stopping it cold.
The chimpanzee struggled to extricate its hand, the muscles shaking with strain as it tried to free itself, while the man’s hand closed around the chimp’s fist, squeezing it tighter and tighter. The chimp now shook all over, its ropy muscles spasming as it went into shock. It moaned once, then its head flopped back.
The man shoved the chimpanzee’s body off him and stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving as he sucked air in through his gore-caked mouth, his own blood mingling with his victim’s to spatter on the floor.
“First assault to critical wound in eight point nine seconds.” Dr. Estvaan noted that data on her tablet. “Impressive.”
“Yes, yes, the lethality results of the compound have been noted a dozen times. It is the next phase that is critical. Are your men ready?”
Estvaan tapped her earpiece. “Send them in.”
The door the man had come through slid open again and a man dressed in heavy padding and ballistic protection, with a riot helmet and visor on his head, appeared in the doorway. The test subject whirled, his dilated eyes locking on the new person. His nostrils flared as he scented the air, a low growl building in his throat, then he crouched and leaped to attack. The new man fired a pair of darts into his assailant’s chest, then ducked back behind the door, which began to close. The subject hit the barrier and forced his arm through the shrinking hole to block it. Bracing himself against the wall, he began levering the door open.
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