GodMode

by O. K. Mills

  Silas stretched out with his hand to focus his telekinetic power on Colonel Norris, but was met with a front kick to the midsection that broke his focus. The colonel followed that up with four expertly executed knife-edged chops to Silas’ neck and chest. Silas stumbled and dropped to one knee.

  BANG BANG!

  Pike ran over to what appeared to be a service elevator.

  Air!

  Norris sprinted in the same direction, dodging handgun fire from Pike as he ran. Suddenly, the colonel felt what could only be described as the equivalent of multiple boa constrictors grasping his neck and squeezing with all of their might. As his vision blurred, he felt his feet leave the ground.

  A gesture from Silas dissipated the nerve agent into nothing. Colonel Norris felt the virtual “boas” ease their grip, though he remained dangling in mid-air like a puppet with no strings.

  “Mr. Pike, it is safe to breathe now. Come, let me take a look at your wound,” Silas commanded before turning his attention back to Colonel Norris.

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” Silas asked.

  Pike came walking over holding his shoulder. Silas gestured in Pike’s general direction, and Colonel Norris saw Pike’s shoulder wound heal almost instantly.

  “My God…” Colonel Norris said.

  “Not quite yet, but thank you,” Silas quipped, “I will be that and then some once our work here is completed. Now then, get on your com-link and tell your compatriots to stand down.”

  “You can go straight to hell,” Colonel Norris spat defiantly.

  A flick of the Silas’ wrist cut off Norris’ air; he fell unconscious.

  “You’re not going to kill him?’ Pike asked in surprise.

  “We need him, if nothing else to be a message carrier, if not an example. I am a prideful man, Mr. Pike, but even I can admit that you were correct in your assessment. If this small group of soldiers can cut through my defenses with less than relative ease, then my plans of world domination will be short lived.”

  “Unless you can create fear,” said Pike.

  “Precisely. If he won’t reach out to his compatriots willingly, then perhaps they will stand down on their own if they hear his screams over their com-link? Come, let’s return to the lower laboratory and introduce our friend here to Mr. Arata.”

  15: Tango

  Silas entered the lower laboratory with Pike, who carried an unconscious Colonel Norris in his arms. Arata took a seat beside Brynn, who remained in a comatose state. Then, as he had done so many times before, Arata began chaining Colonel Norris to one of several metal tables available in the room.

  Seeing Silas massage the several spots on his neck where Colonel Norris had chopped him, Pike asked, “You can’t be bruised, can you, Damien?”

  “Only my ego. I am starting to see the merits of your earlier assessment, Mr. Pike.”

  “I can’t take full credit. A few chops to the throat would be enough to sway anyone’s opinion.”

  “Bringing the world under my subjection will require more than resources and weapons. I need the greatest armament ever created by mankind. I need the spirit of fear.”

  Silas paused to let what he considered to be pearls of wisdom marinate for a moment before continuing.

  “A simple demonstration of my gifts, a road show of my talents if you will, that should more than subdue any further attempts to assuage my power.

  “I agree with you, Damien. Torturing the Colonel here isn’t going to be enough to get the President of the United States, much less the world, to comply. Bin Laden used planes as projectile weapons to strike fear. If it were me, I would take this man, strap him or someone of importance to an AIM-7 Sparrow missile and use your powers to drop it directly onto Ground Zero.”

  “That would most certainly be effective. I would need practice manipulating larger, heavier objects, of course,” Silas mused.

  “Is it really all that different?” Pike asked.

  Silas smiled patronizingly.

  “There is a significant difference between telekinetically moving a coin and telekinetically moving a bank. Still though, you do have a point. If I were to hold a missile above Ground Zero with a man strapped to it, using nothing but my mind, the world would quickly bend at the knee.”

  Silas turned his attention to Colonel Norris.

  “Mr. Arata, use your exceptional talents and get what I need from the colonel, here. Start with his toes and work your way up.”

  Arata nodded and started unlacing Colonel Norris’ boots.

  Crouching low, Spade eased into position by the entrance to the lobby and took hold of the door handle. He locked eyes with Heather as they counted down silently from three. On zero, Spade swung the door open, as Heather quickly released an arrow directly into the nearest overhead light. Almost instantly each additional light in the lobby area flickered out. Spade and Heather simultaneously lowered their infrared visors and slipped into the lobby under the cover of temporary darkness.

  WOOOOSH—THUNK!

  Heather fired an arrow straight into the throat of the nearest guard and crept silently to her right as Spade crossed behind her to the left. He slashed the throat of the second guard. He covered the man’s mouth as he took him to the ground before snapping his neck to finish him.

  Heather stabbed the last guard in his neck and left the knife dangling in place. Muffling his screams with her hands, she wrapped her legs around his torso. As she leaned backwards to take him to the ground, she twisted the knife in his neck for good measure.

  Heather and Spade, needing little more than eye contact, went to opposite positions near the east and west entrances to the lobby. Spade placed an adhesive C4 block from his utility belt onto the door to the west before moving out of the blast radius. He pulled out his gun and took aim toward the doorway.

  Heather, meanwhile, unsheathed two large daggers while remaining crouched down by the opposite door to the east. They counted down silently and lifted their infrared visors at zero.

  OOOHHHMM…

  The lights returned as the footfalls of soldiers could be heard approaching from the west where Spade’s C4 awaited them. The two Marines blinked several times as their eyes readjusted to the light, taking cover as the doorknob slowly turned.

  BOOM!

  The first soldier through was blown in half, his entrails creating grotesque, abstract art on the lobby walls and floor.

  PAP PAP!

  Taking advantage of their disorientation, Spade placed two bullets in each of the men coming through the door. He had just enough time to load a fresh clip into his chamber before more footfalls approached from the east.

  Spade shot another two into the face of the soldier coming through the door. Before the man had even hit the ground, Heather was already springing to her feet.

  CHUNK, CHUNK, TWIST!

  The next mercenary wailed as Heather stabbed him in the face and twisted for good measure. Spade finished the next two with rapid-fire shots to the forehead, as Heather loaded her bow.

  WOOOOSH—THUNK!

  Heather killed their final opponent with a well-placed arrow through the throat that pinned the man directly to one of the walls behind him. Spade pointed to the stairwell that led to the lower laboratory and moved in that direction as Heather followed hastily after him.

  Listening intently for a reaction, Arata extracted tooth number three from the mouth of Colonel Norris and dropped it into a blood-watered glass.

  He received none.

  Colonel Norris simply grinned with the teeth he had remaining, which let the blood pouring forth run down the center of his chin.

  Pike shook his head as he watched the process.

  “We’re wasting time.”

  “He’ll break,” Arata responded.

  “No, actually, he won’t, not if all we’re going to do is play dentist.”

  Pike rolled up the sleeves of the colonel’s black tactical shirt to reveal several Special Forces tattoos on his left arm.

&n
bsp; “What are you, colonel? Delta Force? Green Berets?”

  Norris simply continued smiling.

  “We’ll be at this for weeks before he breaks if he breaks at all,” Pike informed Arata, who simply frowned in disappointment.

  “Who’d you think they were sending? Justin Bieber?”

  Arata gave Pike a confused look.

  “Never mind. Just kill him.”

  “Mr. Bowden, a group of six men are approaching from the northeast.”

  Bear had difficulty hearing Sonia through the wail of approaching fire engines in the distance. Anyone with eyes would have seen the M1A1 tank consumed in a celebration of flames. If the President wanted to deny their mission, now it would take considerably more than the usual White House lies to do it.

  “Mr. Bowden?”

  “Go ahead, Sonia.”

  “Shall I activate available weapons?”

  Bear suddenly saw for himself the situation that Sonia was attempting to alert him about.

  “Stragglers.”

  “Six men, Mr. Bowden, heavily fortified but wounded and slightly disoriented. Average heart rate is in the mid to high 140s and climbing.”

  “Skittish. Can’t blame them. What’s our power looking like?”

  “Power levels are at 40 percent, Mr. Bowden. I recommend external shields and Gatling assault gauntlets. Shall I proceed, sir?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  As the suit powered up, it gained the attention of the approaching men who ran for cover in response.

  Bear swore.

  Though it possessed the ability to geo-target and blackout an entire city grid, the suit was not designed for stealth once darkness had actually been established.

  “Sonia, I need a map of the area with heat signatures.”

  Bear had barely completed his request when a sharp crackle of energy followed by a loud siren to his immediate right rang out. Before he knew it, anything powered by electricity—that wasn’t already out from his earlier actions—went completely dead, including the Birthday Suit.

  “That’s probably not good,” Bear said to himself. “If they have short-range EMPs, what other surprises might be in store?”

  CRASH!

  The door to the laboratory came flying open just as Arata was about to put a bullet into the brain of Colonel Norris. A handful of mercenaries bursted through, panting furiously, before one showed Pike a tablet displaying surveillance images. He placed a finger over his lips and gestured downward several times with his other hand before accepting the device.

  “Breathe, gentleman. You’ll live longer.”

  Looking carefully at the images, he swiped through slowly and quickly noticed the common denominator. The corpses of Janus mercenaries littered each area.

  “Do we have a count?”

  “Two, sir.”

  “I’m counting at least 27 dead just in these areas, and you’re telling me that two soldiers did this?”

  The men nodded. Pike sighed.

  “Who’d you think we were sending? Justin Bieber?” Colonel Norris wisecracked through a toothless grin.

  Pike smirked as he checked his gun. To the remaining mercenaries, he ordered, “Stay here and guard the girl. If I see any of you anywhere near the three of us, I’ll kill you after I kill them, understood?”

  Pike didn’t wait for an answer before exiting the lab.

  BANG, BANG!

  Bullets whizzed by Bear’s ear, forcing him to pick up the pace as he ran to the Federal Triangle Metro station. He tried to get as much distance as he could between himself and his assailants, but the weight of the Birthday Suit and his apparent lack of athleticism were certainly not helping.

  The electromagnetic pulse generator had knocked Sonia offline and crippled the suit—for how long Bear had no way of knowing. Without its shields the suit was really nothing more than a collection of component pieces designed to attach to tactical mesh and Kevlar body armor. He wasn’t naked out there, but he wasn’t exactly feeling confident either.

  BANG, BANG, BANG!

  In a full sprint, he finally reached the top of the escalator, which, of course, had been shut down temporarily for maintenance. Instead, he slid down the escalator’s middle partition to unfortunately slam hard onto the concrete tiled floor when he reached bottom. He gathered himself and ran off to the train platform.

  Apart from the out of service trains, the station was empty. Bear found a dark area under the escalator to hide in. He checked the suit, but it was just as dead as it had been since the EMP hit.

  He grimaced and sighed before silencing himself as he heard the patter of footfalls descending the escalator stairs.

  “I could have sworn I saw him come down here,” a voice said.

  “Shut up, man, you trying to get us killed?” a second voice said.

  “We’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing to worry about? He took out an M1A1 tank.”

  “That suit took down a tank, and the EMP took care of that. All we need to do now is find him.”

  Bear listened as the voices trailed off. Before long he heard more footfalls coming down, but slower this time. His suit remained dead, and he knew he would soon be too if all he did was sit tight.

  Crouching low, Bear eased out into the open, moving as quietly as possible. He spotted one of the mercenaries out of the corner of his eye coming toward him. The man paused and gave a silent signal to someone off in the distance. Bear moved quickly behind his target, and just as he was closing in on him, a voice suddenly rang out.

  “George, on your six!”

  The man spun on a dime and fired four shots into Bear’s Kevlar armored chest. Disoriented and stunned, he stumbled backwards toward the edge of the station platform. Two more shots hit his right quad just as his feet were over the red oval lights that lined the platform’s threshold. As pain coursed all over his body, Bear fell back-first onto the railroad tracks, the back of his head slamming hard into the ground.

  Although he wore a helmet, he still feared that he might have gotten a concussion. That concern gave way to larger ones the minute he saw “George” appear at the edge of the platform above him.

  “I got him, guys.”

  Bear feigned unconsciousness, and the patter of additional footfalls closed in on them.

  “He looks dead to me, Drew.”

  Bear kept his eyes closed to continue selling the ruse that he was either dead or unconscious.

  “Help me get his body off the tracks.”

  “Man, he’s lying right beside the third rail. I’m not getting electrocuted over this dude.” George insisted.

  As they argued, Bear’s mind perked up upon hearing “third rail.” While they were all distracted, he eased his gauntlet back toward the railing and grabbed hold. Electricity growled and popped, as energy stormed into Bear’s body. Seconds later the Metro station went completely dark. Though he was in enormous pain, Bear managed to roll to his left and crawl away just as the six mercenaries shot at the spot where he had been.

  “Torches on,” Drew ordered.

  Bear continued crawling but saw no change in the Birthday Suit. Six flashlights lit up the area, and it didn’t take long for them to find him.

  “That’s one leathery prick right there,” Drew said with a chuckle. “I almost don’t want to kill the sum’bitch.”

  “We should take a selfie with him before we kill him,” said George.

  The other men just glowered at him.

  “What? I was kidding,” George said sheepishly.

  “I’ve seen your Twitter account, man. I know your stupid ass would post that sh—”

  OOHHHMMMM…

  Suddenly, the Birthday Suit lit up like Christmas.

  “Activating shields.”

  Fear painted the faces of the mercenaries who began scrambling for the escalator.

  “You are losing blood because of a lower leg injury, Mr. Bowden, and your heart rate is dangerously high. You also are showing
signs of having a concussion.”

  Bear nodded.

  “Power levels?”

  “Power levels at 97 percent”

  Bear blew a kiss to the third rail, climbed out of the train tracks and up to the platform area. The mercenaries frantically tried to scramble out of the Metro station, but were having difficulty because of the pitch black.

  “Activate Gatling gauntlets,” Bear said.

  The suit responded with a glow and a series of noises that sounded like an old tape recorder queuing up a tape followed by several clicks.

  “Gauntlets online.”

  “Fire.”

  RATATATATATATATATAT!

  Bear watched as what had been human beings quickly deteriorate into a chorus of severed body parts, blood and agony as the Gatling gauntlets ripped into his opponents. When the gauntlets finally stopped whirring, Bear collapsed to his knees and his adrenaline ran cold. Dizziness overtook him as his body reminded him of his injuries.

  “Mr. Bowden?” said Sonia.

  Bear didn’t answer, unless you counted falling forward onto your face as a response. It wasn’t long before his eyes closed and his breathing slowed to a dangerously low rate.

  Heather and Spade made their way through a long hallway and down several flights of stairs. The headquarters of the January Club was a virtual labyrinth of everything from laboratories, workout facilities, and offices to military training simulators.