by Jason Brant
“You’re as industrious as ever, Mr. Benson.”
Then he shot me.
51 – The Man in Black
Huxx took point as they entered the front door of the facility. A dark stairwell greeted them a few feet inside. Without hesitation, the former Seal led them down a full flight before pausing at a closed door.
He looked back at Bree. “When we go in, you check the right. That’s all you cover, got it? I don’t care if three people are straight ahead. I’ll take them. You’ve got the right.”
Bree nodded.
She held an M16 against her shoulder. The rifle had belonged to one of the men they’d shot, so she figured he wouldn’t miss it too much. Though sniping was her specialty, Bree maintained a high level of proficiency with lower-caliber weapons.
A strap held her Remington at an angle over her back. Odds were low that she would need it inside the facility, but she didn’t dare leave it behind.
Huxx glanced at the detective. “You try not to bleed to death.”
“I’m fine.” Lloyd leaned against the railing for the stairs. “Let’s do this.”
After watching him in silence for a moment, Huxx nodded at Bree. “Ready.”
“Ready.”
“Moving.” He pushed through the door and entered a plain hallway.
Bree came in behind him and peeled off to the right. She checked a corner that was empty, then moved to the first doorway and peered inside. It was an office, though it didn’t seem like the kind used to run a business. Some sort of math equations covered a dry-erase board. The name Xavier was scrawled in fat letters, a string of smaller print that she couldn’t read from across the room.
“Clear,” Huxx said.
“Clear,” Bree parroted.
“Moving.” Huxx speed-walked down the hall and stopped at the next door.
When Bree stepped behind him, he grabbed the handle and pushed it open.
A fist connected with his face.
Fire barked from the muzzle of his gun as he stumbled backward.
A man stood in the doorway dressed in a black suit. Bree had seen him at the apartment building in D.C. that morning, leading the group who had gone after Christie Tolbert.
Before she could get her rifle up, the man kicked her square in the chest, sending her flailing backward.
A jolt of pain ran up and down her left side as she landed on her ass. Her chest ached from the kick, heart jackhammering from the blow. The gun strapped to her back jammed into her spine.
Lloyd fired at the man in black.
Bullets destroyed the plaster by the man’s head as he ducked down and charged forward. His left hand shot up, knocking Lloyd’s gun aside. His right jammed a pistol against the detective’s chest and fired.
The round slammed into Lloyd’s vest, knocking him back to the wall on the other side of the hall.
Huxx recovered and brought his own weapon up.
In a flash of movement so fast that Bree barely saw it, the man in the black suit spun and kicked Huxx’s gun from his hands. Bree had spent some time in boxing gyms and martial arts dojos, but she’d never seen anyone move with such speed.
Huxx countered the attack with a straight punch.
The man dodged it and raised his pistol.
Huxx grabbed the barrel in his free hand and wrenched it sideways.
It belched thunder as their attacker’s finger grazed the trigger.
Bree rolled to her side and jumped up. She tried to aim at their attacker, but his brawl with Huxx didn’t give her a clear shot. Her rifle held steady as she drew a bead on both of them and waited for an opening.
A grunt came from Lloyd as he bent over, sucking in air as best he could.
Dropping the pistol, the man in black caught Huxx in the ribs with a short punch. When Huxx bent over slightly, the man chopped him in the throat with a ridge-hand strike. Huxx staggered back, hands going to his neck, choked gags coming from his working mouth.
Before Bree could fire, their attacker ducked behind Huxx and shoved him in her direction.
She sidestepped and took aim.
The man batted the muzzle away just as she fired, the bullets veering off into the wall.
He twisted it out of her grip.
She tried to yank it back, but his hands were too powerful.
Bree grabbed her pistol.
A perfectly placed punch caught the top of her hand, numbing it instantly. Her fingers spasmed beside the handle of the gun, not responding to her commands. Their eyes locked for a split second before the man drove the stock of the rifle into her chest.
It landed in the same exact spot his kick had. The blow made her knees wobbly. Flash bulbs exploded in her vision. She careened backward, slamming against a door, the knob hitting her in the kidney.
Enough of her wits remained to realize that she was in deep shit. They were fighting an opponent who had run through the lot of them without breaking a sweat. He’d chopped down Huxx like he was fighting a drug addict in the parking lot of a fast-food joint.
In a blur of movement, the man dropped the rifle and freed her pistol, finger cradling the trigger. He jammed the end of the barrel under her chin. His other hand grabbed her throat, lifting her up and back against the door.
She choked against his iron-like grip.
He stared at her with a chilled gaze hardened from years of dealing death and savagery.
“A woman,” he grunted. “They brought a woman.”
Bree struggled to speak against his strangling fingers, her voice choked and gruff. “That’s right, motherfucker.”
She grabbed hold of her belt buckle and yanked the hidden blade free.
Jammed it into his side.
Felt the blade glance off bone and slice through meat.
The man groaned.
His grip relaxed.
Bree snapped her head sideways just as the pistol exploded beside her ear. An all-encompassing tone filled her head, drowning out everything else. If he fired a second time, she didn’t hear it.
She twisted the knife and drove it deeper into his side.
Blood-tinged spittle flew from his lips as he released her and stumbled away. The rifle fell from his grasp as he turned his attention to the knife jutting from his side. He grabbed it and tore it free.
Bree collapsed against the door, hands going to both of her ears. A warm, sticky fluid soaked through her mask from the ear the gun had barked beside.
The man in black staggered away and disappeared around the corner of the hall. A trail of tiny scarlet droplets snaked behind him on the floor.
After several seconds of grinding her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut against the blaring tone in her head, Bree felt the piercing pain ease just a bit. Her thoughts cleared slightly although the tone in her ears didn’t abate. Blood covered the hand she’d placed against her ear.
Lloyd shuffled beside her, his mouth working under his mask as he looked down at her.
“What?” she yelled
He yanked the mask off and his mouth moved again, but Bree didn’t hear anything above the all-encompassing tone. She pointed at her ear, shook her head. Starting to pull her mask off as well, she felt Lloyd’s hands against hers. She looked up, saw him shaking his head.
Even though they had warned her that revealing her identity could cause enormous problems for anyone she knew, at that moment, Bree just wanted to be free of the mask. She wanted to breathe air without the covering. A claustrophobic sensation had wormed its way into her gut.
And she wanted to check on her ear.
While Smith and his men knew who Detective Lloyd was, they didn’t know about Bree Manning. With a groan, she left it on and grabbed hold of the hand Lloyd had proffered. He hauled her up, concerned eyes inspecting the bloody side of her mask.
Huxx had managed to get to his feet, though his hands remained at his throat. He said something to Lloyd, who responded. Bree couldn’t make out a damn thing they were saying.
Looking from
Bree to Huxx and back again, Lloyd motioned in the direction the man in black had fled.
Bree nodded, and then picked the M16 off the ground.
Too loudly, she said, “Let’s finish this.”
52 – Smith
“You fool!” Smith grimaced at the dead men on the floor. “You damned fool! Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Looks like I killed your stooges.” I held the bleeding wound on my left arm. The shot had knocked me to the floor where I sat with my back against a desk. “And brought your whole goddamn organization to its knees.”
“You might have just killed millions of people!”
The pain pulsing in my arm added to the myriad of other agonies stabbing, pounding, and dancing all over my body. The misery made it difficult to focus. I’d fought my way to the main event, but now I struggled to step into the final ring and take the title.
Smith moved closer to me, his pistol aimed at my head. “Your conceit won’t even allow you to see the big picture. You were of little consequence to us! You’re a drop of water in an ocean. Your talents pale in comparison to what we’re fighting against!”
I’d never seen the normally relaxed Smith like that. The other times we’d tussled, he’d remained calm. The man was nearing a full-blown rage as he stood over me.
“There are threats out there you can’t possibly fathom. And we were the only ones with the tools and the means to fight against them! If we lose track of the Xavier virus, then all is lost! Not to mention locating the other gates.”
I didn’t know, or particularly care, what the hell he was talking about. The man was a delusional psychopath who had committed unspeakable atrocities against mankind. His lies and chest-beating horseshit didn’t matter to me anymore.
His chest rose and fell in exaggerated breaths.
The creases in his brow smoothed. The hand holding his pistol tensed.
“Good-bye, Mr. Benson.”
I braced myself for the end.
The Man in Black staggered into the door and slumped against the frame. Blood soaked through his suit and covered the hand he’d placed against a wound in his side. His breathing hitched.
He coughed up blood.
“They’re inside,” he wheezed.
“How many?” Smith kept the gun aimed at me, though he turned his attention to his flunky.
“At least three. Maybe more.” The Man in Black hacked a bloody glob of phlegm to the floor. “They’re wounded, but still coming. We have to evac.”
My ears perked up at the word wounded. I could only hope that the team wasn’t too badly injured.
“Looks like you have a boo-boo. Come over here and let me take a look.”
Both of them ignored me.
“Take this.” Smith slid the bag from his shoulder. “We aren’t finished extracting the drives.”
The Man in Black shook his head. “No time for that.”
“This will have all been for nothing without that data. Take the bag. I’ll fill a second one and be right behind you. Get the vehicle prepped.”
I glared at the bleeding shithead in the doorway.
He stared back. “What about him?”
“I’ll take care of him.”
The man reached for the bag and slung it over his shoulder with a grimace. “They’re not far behind. Hurry up.”
“I’ll see you soon, my friend.” Smith turned back to me as his henchman fled the room. “I can still salvage this.”
“Eat dick, Todd.”
I focused on Smith’s mind. Knowing he was about to flee the facility meant that he would shoot me in a matter of seconds.
“You should know that you’ve accomplished nothing except aiding in the death of everyone you know and care for. You were given a great gift, but you squandered it on alcohol and apathy. You’re a stain on—”
I thought of Sammy’s last moments as she died in my arms, her thoughts melding with mine. The vision of a giant man killing a small-town sheriff with an enormous hammer followed. More of Smith’s horrors came rapid fire.
Analysts leaping from windows to their death.
A senator shooting himself.
Secret Service agents murdering each other.
A boy torturing a stranger in the woods.
A severed head planted in a flower garden.
Jamie Welsh dying in his metal coffin.
My rage boiled over as I faced the man responsible for it all. The pounding in my skull reached new heights as I centered all of my power on the barrier surrounding Smith’s mind. Fresh blood flowed from my wounds, covering what little bit of my skin wasn’t already crimson stained. My shoulder bled profusely, though I barely registered any concern over it.
Smith pulled the hammer back on his pistol.
“Ashley!” Drew’s voice came from outside the door.
I didn’t respond, just kept focusing on Smith’s head.
The hard drive fragments vibrated on the floor around me.
Smith watched them. “What are you doing?”
“Ashley!” Drew’s voice was much closer.
Smith took a step closer, halving the distance between us. He turned his body toward the door. When Drew appeared in the doorway, Smith jammed the pistol against the top of my head. I barely noticed.
The room swam in front of me. Sounds became tinny, distant. Copper filled my mouth, coated my tongue. Electrical sensations tingled my extremities. Though my body was weak, almost near death, my mind felt more powerful than it ever had.
Sammy’s angelic face appeared before me.
She smiled.
Drew limped into the doorway, a rifle in his hand. His mask was pulled off. Blood had soaked through half his uniform. “Drop the gun, asshole!”
He stepped inside, weapon trained on Smith.
I was only vaguely aware of his positioning in my peripheral vision.
Two more of my masked teammates followed them.
Huxx’s voice was clear. “Put the gun down.”
Judging by the size of the other masked crusader, it was Manning.
“Give up your weapons and I won’t execute Mr. Benson. You have my word.” Smith jabbed at the top of my skull with the pistol.
“Oh my God! What did you do to him?” Manning said, her voice oddly loud.
Sammy leaned forward, her face inches from mine. Her smile faltered.
I reached out, touched her cheek.
“Don’t move, Mr. Benson.” Smith twisted the muzzle into my scalp. He knelt beside me, taking cover behind my large frame. “We don’t want things to end badly.”
It’s time to end this, Sammy whispered.
My hand snaked out, grabbing the barrel of the pistol and angling it away from my head just as it went off. The vibration ran up my arm, though I hardly noticed. I snapped my head around and stared into Smith’s eyes.
He cracked me in the nose.
My head rocked back.
There was no pain.
I focused all of my anger, my willpower, my pain at Smith’s mind.
The metal bits on the floor shook violently.
Smith flinched. “What are you—?”
The power inside me surged.
His mental defenses cracked. Odd, confusing images flashed through my mind. A dark-skinned man stood before a cage bathed in deep shadow, something unseen inside loosing an ear-piercing shriek. Two ranks of men in lab coats inspected an enormous, severed tentacle the size of a bus. A beautiful blonde woman hid behind a middle-aged man, whispering in his ear, his mouth repeating her words as she continued.
“Stop it!” Smith dropped the pistol and fell to his ass. His heels slid across the floor as he pushed away from me until his back hit the server rack behind him. Both hands went to the sides of his head. “No!”
Blood erupted from his mouth
His nose.
Eyes.
The scar on his cheek split open.
His hands fell to his lap.
He gaped at me through rheumy eyes.<
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The sides of his head crunched inward.
A loud crack filled the room, and then all fell silent.
Death spasms jerked Smith’s legs.
An indescribable pain tore through my head, like something had broken. It blinded me, consumed me. I might have screamed, but I couldn’t be sure. Sammy’s face evaporated. My brain felt too large for my skull. The pressure was almost too much, as if the top of my head would explode at any second.
I vomited and then toppled to my side.
Drew staggered over and knelt in front of me. “Ash!”
“Didn’t recognize you without the suit.” I gave him a bloody grin.
Then I passed out.
53 – Shrinkage
“What in the hell just happened?” Bree hollered. She could barely hear herself.
Huxx stood beside her, both of them gaping at Smith’s dead body. They’d just witnessed a man’s head get crushed like a grape, but without any external force. When the terrorist had crawled away from Benson, all three of them should have lit him up like a Christmas tree, but they hadn’t.
They’d been too amazed by what they were watching.
Even Huxx, who had seen things that would horrify the average person, had been transfixed by it. As Lloyd moved to his friend on the floor, the two of them kept staring at Smith’s body.
Huxx said something.
“What?” Bree looked at him. “I can’t hear anything.”
He just shook his head, finally peeling his eyes from the man’s mangled head. He quickly pointed at Benson and Lloyd and then gestured at the ceiling. Bree took that to mean they had to hit the road.
She concurred.
They’d found Benson and killed Smith. Or something had killed Smith, anyway. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around what she’d seen. Regardless, they had to book it out of there if they had any chance of getting out of Woodsland alive.
Bree knelt beside Lloyd and inspected the man they’d come to rescue. Blood covered his head, torso, and most of his arms. Small, circular wounds bled by his temples. His shoulder was leaking as well, a small pool forming under him on the floor. Popped blisters oozed on the back of his legs, the burns surrounded by angry, red flesh.