Rhodes obviously recognized the significance as quickly as she had. “Double time,” he ordered quietly. Then he and Sergei took off in a fast, crouching run, past the building containing Funakoshi’s lab, toward the large administration building. The remainder of team two followed, guns at the ready.
Team two was no more than ten yards from the administration building when the rear door flew open and a squad of armored security guards burst out, carrying assault rifles. Both groups saw each other at the same instant. Sergei fired first, his long burst cutting three guards down in their tracks. Then, simultaneously, Rhodes and the Nagara guards opened fire. Two more guards were down before Nikki could even react. A burst of fire stitched Murphy from crotch to throat, and he went down without a sound. Rundle’s big rifle boomed, and another guard dropped with a guttural cry.
Something whip-cracked past Nikki’s ear, and she shrieked. She brought the Walther up, squeezed the trigger. The heavy pistol boomed, the recoil brutalizing her hand and wrist. She hadn’t taken time to aim — the shot had just been an instinctive response — and she didn’t know where the bullet had gone. She tried to drag the big gun down, back onto line.
But there was nothing left to shoot at. Precise bursts from the two Storm Knights’ submachine-guns had put the remaining guards down.
There was more shooting from the west side of the compound. Beames and his team had hit heavy resistance, Nikki realized. They’d probably be too busy protecting themselves to do much about the administration building. But the rear door was still standing open. There was nothing between team two and their objective.
They sprinted for the lighted doorway. Sergei was the first one through …
And the next one to die. A brilliant red beam, about as thick as a pencil, flicked into existence for an moment from a source Nikki couldn’t see, struck the young Russian full in the chest. With an explosion of bloody steam, Sergei’s torso burst as the water in his body flashed instantaneously into vapor. He fell without a sound, undeniably and messily dead.
The others flung themselves back from the doorway — Rhodes only after he’d sent a quick burst of fire into the building. The beam blinked on again, for a split second looking as solid as a glowing plastic rod, probing harmlessly out into the night. This time Nikki heard the weapon’s report, an electronic zip sound.
Crouching low, Rhodes ducked around the doorframe, triggered a longer burst. The carbon dioxide laser beam — that’s what it had to be, Nikki realized — lanced out again, passing a foot above his head. A second later, Rundle too craned around the frame, ready to send a heavy rifle slug at the enemy Nikki hadn’t even seen yet.
The Victorian trooper wasn’t as lucky as Rhodes. The laser flashed, missing him but striking his rifle. The cartridge in the chamber detonated, blowing the rifle breech apart a hand’s-breadth away from the soldier’s face. He staggered back, screaming, his face torn by fragments of metal.
“Get out of the way!” Rhodes yelled. A little needlessly: Nikki, Peter and Black were flattened against the outside walls of the building on either side of the doorway. Nikki’s heart was pounding, and there was the sharp, copper taste of fear in her mouth.
“Damn it to hell,” the Texan muttered almost musingly. “Enough of the goddamn subtlety.” He pulled something from a pocket of his camouflage jacket — a small sphere not much larger than a golf ball. A hand grenade, Nikki realized with a shock. He pulled the ring at the top, let the small lever it restrained spring away. He counted quietly to himself — a pause that seemed like forever to Nikki. Then he rolled it through the doorway into the hall.
He’d timed it perfectly. The ruby beam flicked out again, missing him by inches as he flattened himself against the outside wall. Simultaneously, the grenade detonated. Splinters whizzed through the air out of the door, and the pressure pulse made Nikki feel as though someone had slapped cupped hands over both her ears. Almost before the shrapnel had stopped flying, he spun around the frame, crouched in the doorway, emptying his submachine-gun in one long burst.
No laser beam licked out to blow him apart. Quickly tugging out his empty magazine and slamming a replacement into place, he signalled for them to follow as he darted in the door.
There were only three left to follow him. Rundle wasn’t dead — he was on the ground moaning, clutching his bleeding face — but he was in no condition to take any further part in the night’s work. Nikki looked back at him, sympathetic pain knotting her stomach. She wanted to help him, but there wasn’t much they could do now. This had to be a quick hit-and- run operation if they wanted to survive it — Beames had made that clear during the trek to the outpost — and Rhodes needed support. “We’ll be back for you,” she told the wounded soldier quietly. Then she followed Black and Hollingforth in through the door.
The grenade had made one unholy mess of the corridor. An interior door to the right, about ten feet down the hallway, was hanging on one hinge, and fragments had punched holes in the walls.
It had made an even worse mess of the man who’d been wielding the laser gun, she saw. Her stomach did a queasy flip-flop, and she tasted bile. He was wearing heavy armor of some kind—segmented plates of what looked like metal, with some kind of compact mechanisms at the joints — but it hadn’t helped him much. The grenade had detonated right at his feet, and the combination of shrapnel and overpressure had almost literally torn him apart.
Rhodes was prodding the gory remains with the toe of his combat boot. “RKD armor,” he said obscurely, “heavy duty crap.
“Watch the hallway,” he ordered, bending to examine the laser weapon. The guard had dropped the business end—a deceptively small gun that somewhat resembled the Storm Knights’ submachine-guns — but the power pack to which a cable connected the projector was still on the dead man’s back. “Busted,” the Texas pronounced. “Shoot, coulda used that bad boy.”
He stood back up. “Okay, Ms. Nikki, you’re our guide. Which way to the computer room?”
Nikki looked around her. She’d never been in this part of the administration building before, didn’t know where the mainframe computer might be. But of course none of the others would know either; they’d never even been inside the outpost before. And that made finding their goal her responsibility, didn’t it?
She thought for a moment. “Probably in the middle of the building,” she said, pointing down the hallway. It was about twenty-five feet long, ending at a grey metal door. “That looks promising.”
Rhodes nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’ll take point. You three watch my back.” He hesitated. “And check your targets, team one might be coming in here too.”
That adds some complexity, doesn’t it? Nikki realized as the Texan moved off down the corridor. Damn it, I’m not cut out for this. Hollingforth and Black followed him immediately — brutal revolvers still held tentatively —leaving her to bring up the rear. She walked past the door to her right, blown almost off its hinges.
Movement. A muffled sound, a minuscule movement of the air.
Beside her!
She tried to spin, tried to bring her Walther up.
But something smashed down with crushing impact on her right wrist, sending bolts of pain up her arm into her shoulder. She felt bones crack. The pistol fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. Something — hard as a bar of iron — locked across her throat, cutting off her cry of pain and dragging her brutally backward.
Dusty Rhodes heard — or sensed — something. He turned — seemingly in slow motion, as Nikki’s time sense suddenly kicked into overdrive — whipping his submachine-gun around.
Too late. Something boomed next to Nikki’s ear — a double report, a brutal ba-bam, almost more felt than heard. A double muzzle plume flared, scorching her right cheek, and lashing it with unburned powder.
The two bullets caught the Storm Knight in the forehead, exploding out the back of his head. The sheer impact knocked him over backward, his death spasm emptying his weapon into the ceiling.
&nb
sp; Peter and Black turned — much too late. Nikki expected to see them blown apart the same way as the laconic Texan, expected to follow them into oblivion a second later.
But there were no further gunshots. Something hot
— a painful, burning circle — pressed against Nikki’s right temple. It took her an instant to realize it was a gun muzzle, still hot from the passage of the two bullets.
Nikki’s ears were ringing painfully, and she was slightly dizzy from the concussion of the double gunshot. The bar — or whatever it was — was still across her throat, making breathing difficult. And her right wrist arm, from the broken wrist right the way up to her shoulder, felt like it was on fire. She tried to turn her head, tried to see who — or what — was holding her.
“Don’t move, Carrson-san,” a familiar voice hissed in Japanese. Eichiro! she realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach. To reinforce the words, the gun muzzle ground painfully into her temple. She gasped, her eyes blurring with tears. “And don’t you move, either,” the voice added in English.
Peter and the professor were standing ten feet away from her, their pistols levelled ineffectually at Eichiro behind her. They couldn’t shoot — they knew it, she knew it and Eichiro knew it — without hitting her. She saw Peter’s face twist in an uncharacteristic snarl as the full realization of his helplessness hit him. They couldn’t do anything to help her..
But maybe she could. She shifted a little in Eichiro’s grip, pressing back a little against him, trying to sense exactly where his body was positioned. If she could figure that out, maybe a quick elbow to the groin would settle the matter …
“I said don’t move, Carrson-san,” Eichiro grated. He viciously jerked on her throat, so hard she felt her trachea was about to rupture. Ruthlessly he dragged her backward, forcing her to walk backward. The slightest hesitation was rewarded by a tightening of the agonizing grip. He pulled her back, through the drunkenly hanging door, out of the hallway, into a small anteroom. Then through another door into a much larger room.
The air was suddenly cold against her wet skin. She knew where she was without even having to look — the air-conditioned computer room. Of course, she told herself, why put the computer room in the middle of a building? If it’s near the outside you don’t have to run the air ducts so far to vent them to the outside. If she could have drawn enough breath, she would have sobbed. I should have known that. If she had known it, Eichiro wouldn’t have got her, and Rhodes wouldn’t have died. She wrenched against his grip.
It was totally useless. With a hissing chuckle, Eichiro just tightened his grip, cutting off her air altogether. The world swam before her eyes, tiny points of light drifted around the periphery of her vision. Then he released the pressure incrementally, just enough to let her breathe again. She dragged air gratefully into her lungs, each breath feeling like torture as it passed through her brutalized throat.
As her vision cleared, Nikki could see that Peter and Black had followed them into the computer room. They were still about the same distance away, still with their guns aimed, ready … and useless. She saw Peter move slightly to his left — probably trying to flank Eichiro — but the manager took another step back, dragging Nikki with him, until his back was safely planted against one of the big tape drive cabinets.
“This is .what you were coming for, wasn’t it, barbarians?” Eichiro almost cooed, in English again. “The computer room? Well, now you’ve found it. How unfortunate it will never help you.” He chuckled again, then suddenly he spat, “Drop your guns. Now.”
Neither of the men moved. Peter’s expression made him look like a biblical conception of an avenging angel, and Black’s face was twisted with pure hatred.
“I’ll kill her if you don’t.”
“If you harm her, we will certainly kill you.” Peter Hollingforth stated it unemotionally, as absolutely and unequivocally as he’d state a physical law. “Count on it.” His eyes looked cold, almost as soulless as Sergei’s had been.
“I won’t hurt her if you drop your guns,” Eichiro offered, trying — and failing — to keep his voice reasonable. “If you drop your guns, I’ll let you all go.” He gave a short bark of laughter. “Do you think your lives matter to me? All that matters is the success of this station.”
To her surprise, Nikki realized that half of Eichiro’s statement was the absolute truth. Success is all that matters, isn’t it? she asked herself. That’s the nature of life in “new Japan.” But as to the rest of his statement?
“He’s lying,” she shouted. She gasped with pain as he wrenched on her throat, but she wouldn’t be silenced. “Drop your guns and he’ll kill us all,” she croaked.
“Decide!” snapped Eichiro. “Stand there long enough and my guards will get here. And they’ll kill you, make no mistake about it. They’ll probably want to execute Carrson-san too, as a traitor to Nagara, and what possible incentive would I have to stop them?” From her peripheral vision, she saw him smile — the heartless smile of a shark. “The only chance you have for survival is to trust me. Drop your guns.”
For a long moment, nobody moved. Then first Hollingforth, followed by Black, lowered their revolvers. The two heavy pieces of ordnance thudded to the floor.
“Nooo!” Nikki screamed, but her howl of anguish was drowned out by Eichiro’s maniacal laughter.
The hot circle of his gun barrel was gone from her temple as he brought the weapon to bear on Peter.
The gun was gone …
She tried to lash back, hurt Eichiro, break his bones. Kill him. But she had no strength left. Half-choked, her head was swimming. Physically he was much more powerful than she was. There was nothing she could do, just watch while he killed her friends. Two more of her friends.
No!! This isn’t right, her mind raged. This isn’t the way the world should he. Monsters, ninjas, laser guns, corporate killers. This isn’t the way the world is/ Everything around her — everything she’d known for the past few years — was some kind of perversion of the real world. The world seen in some horrible, dark, distorting mirror, like something in a corrupt funhouse. This isn’t RIGHT!! she screamed mentally. Outrage, anger, hatred — they all raged in her chest.
And then there was something else there, too, alloyed with the burning emotions. A new heat — emotional heat, but also physical heat — that flared inside her. She gasped at the onslaught of the new sensation, felt it lash through her body like an electric charge.
Images of home, of her childhood, struck her with the impact of a speeding bullet train. Her friends, her family… That was the way it was before the Possibility Wars. That was the way it still was in the places Beames had called “Core Earth.” That was the way it should be.
Not like this.
This is wrong.
WRONG!!
A sudden muscle spasm ripped a scream from her torn throat. Tore her away from Eichiro’s grip. She spun to face him.
Her vision was blurred — inexplicably. It was if a mist was building around her and Eichiro, between them. A mist that pulsed and throbbed with power, flickering around the periphery with electrical discharges that shimmered like heat lightning.
I’m dying, she told herself. Eichiro must have cut off oxygen to her brain for too long. I’m hallucinating.
But no. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peter and the professor reeling back, hands raised to shield their faces from the energy lashing through the computer room. Then it’s real?
Eichiro’s face was frozen in a rictus of horror. He muttered a Japanese phrase she’d never heard before and couldn’t directly translate—something about a maelstrom? His massive pistol fell from nerveless fingers.
She tried to back away from him, but found herself frozen. It wasn’t as if her limbs were simply immobilized. Her brain was sending out the correct nerve impulses, and seemed to be receiving the appropriate feedback from the muscles. According to her physical sensations, she should have been backpedalling as fast as her legs could carry her, bac
k and out of the computer room, away from … whatever it was that was manifesting itself between herself and Eichiro.
That’s the way it felt. But she could clearly see that she wasn’t moving. Her body was as rigid as a statue. Which do I believe? she asked herself. My body or my mind? Or are they both lying to me?
The mist was getting thicker, still pulsating with some impossible, internal energy. The sheets of heat lightning were brighter, more frequent, illuminating the computer room like photographer’s strobes. What in the name of God is happening?
And then, in a silent concussion, reality fragmented around her.
*
The words hit her from nowhere — she’s never heard them before, but she knows they’re right. She knows they mean the same thing as Eichiro’s phrase, the one she didn’t understand.
Reality Storm.
The world flickers and shifts in her view. The walls, floor and ceiling of the computer room warp and twist — or at least they seem to. Is it just an effect of the distorting fog? Or is it something else?
Wind howls around her, plucking at her clothing, whipping her hair wildly. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. She can see and sense the motion of each discrete hair, as though time is passing at a fraction of its normal rate. She sees Eichiro open his mouth to scream. The sound, when it comes, is low-pitched, horrible — something not quite human.
The heat lightning strobes so brightly that she screws her eyes shut against its actinic brilliance. But, impossibly, she can still see clearly, even though her eyelids are closed.
The mist surrounding her and Eichiro thickens, until it becomes opaque. They are contained in a small bubble of clear air, beyond which there is …
Nothing.
That’s what it feels like to her. This region, this bubble, is all that exists, all that ever existed. Beyond its grey periphery is Nothing — non-existence, Chaos, the Void. How could she ever have believed that there was ever any more to existence? America, Japan, Sumatra, Orrorsh … Meaningless creations of her brain. This is the whole universe, just her and Eichiro.
Nigel Findley Page 32