by Tim Cody
After pushing Burton's arm away, Jonny hurled his fist against his face, landing a powerful blow in the same instance as Michaela. Both their opponents were knocked off guard, and they took advantage of the opportunity to swap, rotating as one.
Jonny reached his free hand down to grab Michaela's sidearm, and as soon as he faced Krauser, he fired a bullet into his forehead. The sound of gunfire and the sight of Krauser dropping sunk Burton's stomach, and distracted him just long enough for Michaela to take advantage. She stepped forward and buried her knife in his chest, piercing his heart in one strong, swift motion.
Burton gasped and dropped his knife, and before he even hit the ground, Jonny fired another shot. The scientist from earlier stopped dead in his tracks, inches from ducking out the door when the bullet hit the ground at his feet. His hands were high above his head again.
“Hold it right there!” Jonny shouted and stormed over to the scientist, arm outstretched to keep Michaela's sidearm trained on his torso. “What the %$#@ was that thing up on fifteen!?”
“I don't know!” the scientist shouted back, quaking at having a gun pointed at him.
Jonny grabbed the front of his shirt and pinned him to the wall with his forearm. He shoved the gun's barrel against his throat, right below his jawbone. “It killed one of my men!”
Michaela, meanwhile, pulled her knife out of Burton, and wiped the blood off on his sleeve. She tucked it back into its sheath and walked over to Nightingale, and touched her shoulder. “It is over, little one.”
Nightingale looked at Michaela over her shoulder, and then at the two dead men on the floor. “You killed them?” she asked as she stood.
“I cannot take all the credit,” she answered. “Jonny helped a little.”
“I work on this floor, floor twelve!” the scientist shouted. “I think floor fifteen is mostly nanobot research, I don't know! I don't know what they have up there!”
“Who leads the research!?”
“I don't know, I don't—” Jonny cocked the gun's hammer back with his thumb and pressed the hot barrel harder against his throat. “Oh, $#!%, I think his name's Phellman!”
Jonny took a step back, putting his arm's length between the scientist and himself. The scientist relaxed when he was let go, but then immediately dropped dead when Jonny put a bullet in his forehead. He uncocked the gun and tossed it to Michaela, then pulled the flap away from the touch-screen on his forearm. He began swiping through the Lab's personnel files, looking for Phellman.
“Jonny,” Michaela said after she caught and holstered her gun. He wasn't paying attention, though. “Jonny, we must keep moving.”
“I need to find out what was going on up there,” Jonny replied. “I need to know what killed Theo.”
“No, Jonny, you need to get us out of this building.” Michaela shut the door to provide them a little more security, and she picked up Jonny's rifle. She walked over and held it out for him. “Take your gun, and we will leave.”
Jonny snatched his rifle away from Michaela, but instead he just placed it on the heavy oak desk in front of him. “I need to know why Theo died!”
“Theo died so we could live!” Michaela immediately rebutted.
When Jonny tried to access the screen labeled Personnel Files, red block lettering appeared to tell him he no longer had permission to view them. Tommy must have met up with another squad and radioed Command to cut off their access.
Jonny gritted his teeth, and his lips turned up in an intense snarl. He grabbed the edge of the desk and shouted, heaving it off the ground and turning it on its side in an impressive display of unadulterated strength and rage. Nightingale began to back away, suddenly frightened when she saw the expression on his face. She kept Michaela between herself and Jonny, and soon bumped into a tall bookshelf that took up nearly the entire wall of the office.
“Jonny, calm yourself,” Michaela said. She touched his shoulder, but he shook her off.
Something wiggling on the ground caught Nightingale's attention, then, and she jumped with alarm when she saw one of the thin metal tubes that had been inside the creature. She looked all over the room, worried that it had followed them, but of course it was nowhere to be seen. She doubted it would be able to hide in the sparsely furnished office, so she relaxed and knelt to inspect it.
“Was it stuck to someone's shoe or something?” Nightingale asked, looking at the bird on her shoulder. It just chirped and cocked its head to the side as if in a shrug, and Nightingale shrugged in response. It didn't seem to have any of that flesh on it, so she reached out to pick it up.
“Don't touch that,” Jonny said firmly when he noticed Nightingale.
He was a second too late. The instant Nightingale's fingertips touched the thin tube, she gasped and her eyes clenched shut against her will.
She saw Phellman—she recognized him from earlier—staring at her in Doctor Metzger's office, surprised to see her alive. He bolted into that secret passageway, but ran right into an ECHO squad. They gunned him down and kept moving—left him for dead, but he clung to life.
Nightingale watched as Phellman pulled himself down so many flights of stairs, crawling on his belly and bleeding badly. He pulled himself all the way to floor 15, and then somehow managed to pull himself up to his feet. Using the wall to support most of his weight, he found his own laboratory.
He collapsed just inside, and dragged himself to the storage unit where he kept his most recent experiments. One weak, shaky arm lifted, and his quivering hand punched in a security code to unlock the heavy steel cabinet with a loud, hydraulic hiss. The shelf slid out and he reached inside, grabbing a handful of tall, narrow vials.
Somehow, Nightingale knew they were his nanobots—exactly like the ones Doctor Metzger had injected into her.
Phellman rolled onto his back and shattered the vials in his fist. The glass tore his flesh, but he could feel—and Nightingale could feel—what must have been millions of microscopic machines pouring into his open wounds and sealing them shut. They went into his wounds and healed them from the inside, starting with his hand. After that his bullet wounds began to heal, repairing the internal damage to his lungs and heart first, and then closing the bullet holes in his torso.
He gasped in a breath once his lungs were fully functional, and his heart began beating full force.
Too quickly.
He panted for breath and sprung to his feet, eyes suddenly wide and excited as if he had received a sudden burst of adrenaline as he looked all over. “No!” he shouted, and lifted his shirt. The bullet holes had healed, but flesh continued to grow. The nanobots didn't know when to stop, so they kept multiplying his cells—creating more and more flesh, continuously packing it on, creating large swells on Phellman's torso. “They work, I know it, I saw it! They healed her without these side effects, why not me!?”
His breathing became labored again when his lungs began to swell. He clutched his chest and bolted from the room, sprinting down the hallway, his mind racing with possible solutions. Supplements were at the top of his list, though, so he ran to the other end of the floor, and burst into the cybernetics laboratory. He was panicking and afraid of dying, and the emotions were transferred to Nightingale.
“Calm down, kid!” Jonny shouted, but Nightingale didn't seem to be listening. She had picked up that tube—it wasn't even five seconds ago—and almost immediately began bawling her eyes out.
“I don't wanna die, I can't, I wanna live!” Nightingale shouted. “I need the synthetic lungs... The synthetic heart... Synthetic veins...”
“What the hell's wrong with her!?” Jonny asked Michaela.
“I do not know!” Michaela knelt beside Nightingale and looked her over quickly. “She appears unharmed!”
“The nanobots will absorb them,” she continued to mutter. “They'll reject my damaged organs, and will assimilate the synthetics.”
“Synthetics?” Jonny asked, and then reached down to grab the thin tube—a synthetic vein—from her ha
nd. He tossed it across the room, and Nightingale immediately snapped out of it.
Her eyes shot open wide and she looked up at Jonny and Michaela. “It was Phellman!” she shouted.
“What was?” Jonny asked.
Michaela immediately pulled Nightingale into a hug, and stroked her hair. “It is alright, child. Your internal organs are unharmed, and I will make sure they stay that way.”
Nightingale calmed down considerably when Michaela hugged her, and she squeezed her tight in return. “That monster was Phellman. His nanobots turned him that way. They were supposed to heal him, but they turned him into a monster!” Nightingale pulled her head back suddenly, tears pouring down her face as she stared up at Michaela. “Doctor Metzger put Phellman's nanobots in me! Am I gonna turn into a monster like him!?”
“No, child!” Michaela immediately answered, and hugged her close again. She cradled Nightingale's head to her chest and continued to stroke her hair in slow, soothing motions. “No, child... You will not become a monster, I promise you...”
“I hate to break this up,” Jonny said, picking his rifle up from behind the recently flipped desk and cocking it, “but we can't spend any more time in here.”
Michaela nodded and looked down at Nightingale. “Are you okay?” she asked, smiling that reassuring smile.
Nightingale looked up at her and nodded. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, and Michaela helped her stand. “I'm sorry that Theo died, Jonny,” she said once she was on her feet, and she sniffled one last time. She felt responsible. “If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have ever come here. He'd still be alive.”
“Oh, no...” Michaela said sympathetically, and touched the girl's shoulder.
“It's not your fault,” Jonny responded. “Don't ever think that it is. None of what happened to you here—none of what happens because of what happened to you here—is your fault. Theo wouldn't blame you, so don't blame yourself. Understand?”
Nightingale nodded slowly, her eyes dropping to the floor. She stared at her feet and tried to accept Jonny's explanation. She had trouble, though.
“Roger...” she eventually muttered.
“Now come on, let's go... Our best bet now is to just book it for the lobby.”
As usual, Jonny took point. Michaela grabbed her rifle from the floor as she passed it, and cocked its hammer back. She glanced back at Nightingale and waved her forward with her head. “Stay in front of me from now on, child. You are not properly equipped to cover our flank.”
Nightingale nodded and did as instructed. She felt a little less safe since she couldn't see Michaela, but she knew she was right behind her.
Chapter 7
Not Too Soon
“So you were a doctor at a school?” Nightingale asked Michaela quietly as they followed Jonny.
He was leading them to the north stairwell, on the completely opposite end of floor 12. He didn't have any idea what the rotation for ECHO squads would be like on that side of the building, but he at least had an idea of what they were like on the west side. They were almost guaranteed to run into another squad if they stuck with their original plan, so he decided to roll the dice and check out the north.
“That is a good guess,” Michaela answered, “but no... I worked at an orphanage.”
“Why'd you leave? You looked happy, and it seemed like the kids really liked you.”
Michaela regarded the girl curiously at that statement, but ultimately wrote it off as just a peculiarity. “Everyone who joins ECHO has their reasons, child... Someday, I would like to return to the orphanage. There are still so many children in this place who do not have homes, or families, or anyone to look after them.”
“Thank you,” Nightingale said. “Thank you for looking after me, Michaela.”
“You are welcome, little one.” She smiled and patted Nightingale's head.
“What about me?” Jonny chimed in. They had entered a long corridor, the door to the north stairwell at the other end. “What am I, chopped liver?”
“Chopped liver?” Nightingale asked, eyebrows pulling together in confusion. She glanced over her shoulder at Michaela in question.
“It means he feels left out. He is fishing for a compliment.” Michaela snickered.
Nightingale smiled and looked up at Jonny. “I appreciate your help, too. Thank you. But...” she frowned and looked away, “I never got to thank Theo...”
“Theo was never in it for the recognition,” Jonny said, his tone suddenly a bit sullen. “He's just always had a soft spot for kids...”
“Was he a father?” Nightingale asked, afraid that the answer might be yes.
“No, but he had a lot of people who looked up to him...”
“Theo was a preacher,” Michaela clarified. “Whether or not you were a person of faith, his sermons always had a way of hitting home...”
“Save it,” Jonny interrupted. “We need to focus. Save the eulogies for after we get out of here.”
“Roger,” Michaela replied.
“Roger...” Nightingale said, staring at her feet as she walked.
“It will be okay,” Michaela whispered, reaching one hand out to touch Nightingale's shoulder. She could sense her sadness.
Nightingale just nodded, but then shrieked when she found herself suddenly off her feet.
“Contact, contact!”
“Contact!”
Several men, Jonny included, shouted when the stairwell door at the end of the hall slid open.
Michaela had scooped Nightingale into her arms the instant she spotted the door opening and ducked behind a corner to the left. Jonny flattened his back against the wall around a corner to the right, using it for cover as a hail of bullets filled the hallway.
As soon as Glitch squad was behind cover, the corridor fell silent.
Michaela crouched with Nightingale, holding her back against the wall. She stroked her hair and looked into her eyes. “Be still, little one. Stay behind me.”
Nightingale just nodded; the bird was hiding in her hair again.
Jonny and Michaela pivoted together, Jonny on his right foot and Michaela on her left knee, leaning around their corner cover just enough to return fire. They each squeezed off a single shot, the two bullets hitting the same target square in the forehead and dropping him. They pivoted back behind cover, and Jonny showed Michaela his empty magazine.
Michaela tossed a half-full clip across the hallway, and Jonny snapped it into his rifle.
“Times are tough all over, aren't they, California?” Tommy called out from the stairwell when he saw them sharing ammo. He was using the door for cover. “What have you got, like, twelve bullets left? If that?”
Jonny and Michaela shared a glance, but remained silent.
“Let me guess,” Tommy continued, “your plan was to time your escape route around Reverb and Specter, and then go dark. You could've hit up the west stairwell and you would've been out of here in ten minutes flat—what went wrong?”
“You're too smart for your own good, Tommy,” Jonny called out.
“Maybe you're right! The smartest thing I've ever done was ditch you and your merry band of misfits,” Tommy replied.
“It doesn't have to be like this,” Jonny said, poking his head around the corner just enough to see the other squad. They were hunkered down in adjacent hallways, but held their fire. After taking out one, he counted four threats remaining—they had come in with five total: the standard number of soldiers in an ECHO squad, plus Tommy.
“No, this is exactly how it has to be,” Tommy replied. “That experiment needs to be terminated—”
“She's just a girl!” Jonny yelled.
“She was just a girl!” Tommy immediately returned. “Now we don't know what the %$#@ she is!”
Nightingale winced at hearing that, and looked up at Michaela for reassurance.
“Do not listen to him,” Michaela said without looking away from the corner. “He is just frightened.”
“I'm only giving you one
more chance, Tommy, and that's far more than you've ever given anyone else. Let us pass.”
Tommy chuckled. “Or what? You gonna kill me with your twelve bullets?”
“No,” Jonny said, and then he and Michaela pivoted around the corner to each squeeze off another single round. Their bullets landed in the head of another target, and he dropped. They returned to their cover just in time to avoid the hail of return fire. “I'm only gonna use one.”
“Ha!” Tommy laughed, almost cackling, with what could have easily been mistaken for true amusement. “I've gotta hand it to you, California—despite all my whining, you guys have got that teamwork thing down tight!”
“You oughta try it sometime, Tommy,” Jonny called out from around the corner, keeping one eye on the other squad once the bullet stream subsided. “Thinking about someone else, that is.”
Tommy was silent for a moment, and then said, “Saving this girl isn't going to make up for the ones you couldn't save.”
“Like I said—too smart for your own good.”
Jonny and Michaela pivoted around the corner again, but Nightingale gasped and grabbed Michaela to get her attention.
“Michaela!” she shouted when they were approached from behind, suddenly staring down the barrel of an automatic rifle.
Tommy had bought time for a sixth squad member to flank them.
Michaela immediately pivoted back, putting herself between the man and Nightingale, and pulled her rifle's trigger at their attacker.
Click!
She immediately drew her sidearm, and two simultaneous gunshots rang through the corridor.
Their attacker dropped, bleeding from a small bullet hole in his forehead.
Nightingale breathed a sigh of relief, but then Michaela slumped to the floor in front of her. The single bullet had pierced just above her body armor, and she was bleeding badly from her throat.