by Madlen Namro
Suddenly, another guard entered the room and bowed to the caliph.
“The robots are inside their cell. The command has been activated.”
“Well done.” Kaminsky nodded, putting his weapon aside for a moment. “They’re probably dead by now. Lock him up downstairs.” He pointed at Levi. “And… her too.”
He was visibly losing strength with every passing second. He began breathing heavily, gasping for air. A painful cramp clutched his chest, just like when he had found out about his son’s death. His eyes lost focus and his face went pale.
“Leave me,” he ordered and collapsed into his chair, completely exhausted.
* * * *
“Leave the guard. Let’s just use the smaller one.” David pointed at the second robot and began removing its processors.
Using metal elements taken from the guard unit, he short-circuited the small robot’s system and reloaded the command panel. After careful examination of its artificial brain, he went on to replace certain printed circuits and to reattach cables. It’d been a long time since he’d last done something like this manually, without access to a computer. He cursed under his breathe at everything he’d forgotten. He recalled one of the lectures at the academy about dismantling robotised equipment in field conditions, and smiled. He took another look at the machine’s brain and knew he could do it. He looked at Victor who stood close by, admiring his amazing skill, and said, “I can’t believe Levi is a cybermage.” He shook his head.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure of that, but that would explain a lot, especially his interest in the arcane and occult.” Victor frowned. “Combine that with his yoga and martial arts proficiency, his lessons with Mao. He has amazing control of his mental powers.” Victor stepped closer to see better what David was doing. “And a modern cybermage should also be proficient in alchemy and the Cabal… He knows all that.”
“I admit he’s good,” David confirmed. He pulled out one of the processors and tossed it aside, replacing it with one taken from the other robot. The programme would not be able to read the commands from this processor so the robot should not attack.
“He trained his personality to be very strong,” Jo added. “He has incredible inner balance, can focus and visualise at will.”
“He studied religion and philosophy.” Victor stood next to her. “We all did…”
“All right, I’m done.” David rubbed his hands together. “Let’s switch it on and send it to the door. It should open for him, like on the way in.”
“Okay.” Victor nodded and thumbed the switch.
The robot emitted a few strange sounds, but did not move.
“Fuck it!” David kicked the machine so hard it almost fell over. “Goddamn it! We’ll never get out of here,” he spat angrily. He needed a moment to get a hold of himself and think of a new way to deal with the machine. Soon, he was back at work.
Jo sighed, staring at the wall.
“What are you thinking about?” Victor glanced at her while adjusting the knife at his belt. “I keep losing this thing,” he said to himself.
“Levi may well be a cybermage, but we all know Kaminsky is a mage as well.” She breathed in deeply. “A dark, demented person with great powers at his disposal. We may never get out of here.” Her voice trembled.
“Kaminsky is drunk with power, possessed.” He gently touched her cheek. “But I won’t let him keep us here for too long, trust me.” He looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, just a thought…”
“What is it?”
“The mage card in the Tarot…”
“What about it?”
“The mage is represented by a young man at a table, a table covered with coins or plates… The Coins symbolise wealth, the mage’s desire for money…”
“That may be true,” Victor answered. “Besides, a mage is above all a man with a certain amount of power, able to use it efficiently to influence his surroundings.”
“And this one sure knows a lot…”
“But his weakness is that he believes his knowledge to be the ultimate truth.”
“Done,” David broke in. “Let’s get this shit going!” He switched the robot on and directed it towards the door.
“You’ve done it!” Jo exclaimed when the robot began to slowly open the metal doors.
The commandos carefully peeked outside, into the corridor. It took them less than a breath to disarm the four guards standing there.
“Let’s split up,” Victor commanded. “I’ll take the elevator, each of you go to one of the staircases. Make your way to the top, but don’t rush it. Your job is to find Levi. I’m going for the caliph. We’d better get out of here before this whole damn building blows up.” With his last words still hanging in the air, he moved closer to Jo and kissed her firmly, as if to show his energy and to share some of his luck with her. Next, he pressed the elevator button and moments later he was already on his way towards the top floor of the skyscraper. Jo chose the two-way staircase while David moved towards the other one, at the far end of the building. They came across several guards, which they quickly silenced by accurate shots and kept moving up, searching each floor for the commodore.
Meanwhile, Kaminsky was slowly regaining his strength. He sat motionlessly, leaning over the chair, focussed. He employed his mind to recall his energy, find his strength again. Breathing in regularly; he was going to meditate. Suddenly, he was stirred awake from his shallow trance. When he opened his eyes he saw a co-operator standing in front of him. The man bowed and said, “The commandos have escaped. They’ve separated.”
Kaminsky jumped to his feet.
“Stop the elevators! Block all the stairs! Now!”
The co-operator ran out and the caliph followed closely.
“I have to do everything myself. I’m going to make sure they die this time,” he muttered under his breath and began summoning his powers, “Elohim Gibor,” he called out the name of the god of war.
His heart was pounding and he felt warmth spreading through his veins as he marched. A moment later, the heat became almost unbearable. He stopped in his tracks as a vision of a dark-red desert overwhelmed him. He felt the weight of full plate armour on his shoulders and a sword in his hand. Suddenly, he was furious. A snake was slithering towards him across the sand. He felt an instinctive certainty the snake would attack. With a single, swift chop he cut the beast’s head off.
“That’s it,” he whispered, fully back to reality now. “I’m going to get you.” He gathered his resolve and sped onwards.
* * * *
“Death and decay, that’s the end of everything,” Kaminsky repeated his mantra as he ran on. He loved the role of a hunter. The chase was often more exciting than the actual kill, when the prey was already helpless. The actual act of taking a life was a ritual, it was not meant for pleasure.
“The elevators are blocked on the eighty-fifth floor.
Should we evacuate everyone?”
“Fuck them!” Kaminsky shouted at the guards. “Better
make sure the snake-man is still inside, so I can rip him
apart!” He felt his own words pushing him onwards. “I
should have killed him a long time ago, instead of putting
him in that prison, I should have just killed him.” He felt a
painful sting in his heart, but kept running. “I’ll let that
fucker see the red of his blood on my claws before I let him
die.”
Victor had to use all his strength to push the elevator
doors open. It had stopped between floors. He tossed his
weapon onto the upper floor and pulled himself up.
Quickly, in case the elevator started moving again, he got
out into the corridor and looked around. Luckily no one
was in sight. He briefly wondered how high he’d managed
to get when, suddenly, the black co-operator emerged in
front of him with a g
un pointed at his face.
He started shooting, but Victor managed to dodge the
fire, quickly moving closer to the attacker. He just needed
one lightning kick to disarm the man and they began fighting hand to hand. The co-operator was a huge, muscular man. He pulled out some sort of fishing line from his sleeve and threw it around the tracker’s neck. Victor struggled to get out of his grip or force him down with backward kicks, but none of it seemed to affect the man. He plunged his knife into the co-operator’s side, but the man just laughed. As a last resort, Victor tilted his head backwards violently, smashing the man’s nose. Blood spilt on his back, but the hit seemed only to have made the man angrier. Victor tossed his head back again. His lungs were about to explode, the line choking the air out of him. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the grip weakened and the man collapsed onto Victor. Had he fainted? The tracker could not understand what had happened until he noticed Jo
with a smoking gun in her hand.
“I had to.” She could barely speak; after all, she had
had to run eighty floors. “I felt…” She could not finish,
panting heavily.
“Damn, you really are in good shape, aren’t you?” He
smiled and bent down and picked up the co-operator’s
weapon. “Let’s go.”
They turned back to the staircase and continued going
up.
Meanwhile, David was rushing through the sixtieth
floor when he noticed a door with a ‘security’ sign. He
waited for a guard to walk out, killed him and took his
identity card. Moments later he was standing inside the
room. The building’s security guards, staring at their
monitors, did not even know what hit them. David used the
silent pulse gun to shoot through their spinal cords. They
stopped breathing immediately. Once he was sure there was
no one else around, he began browsing through each floor
using the surveillance system. He saw Jo and Victor
running up on the eightieth floor, rooms full of people, but
no sign of Kaminsky.
He kept looking, even though voices outside were a
sure sign someone was about to walk in on him. If only he
could spot Levi; otherwise, finding him would be
impossible. Finally, he saw the commodore on one of the
screens.
“There he is!” he whispered, looking back at the door.
“He’s alive.” He saw Levi and Laura, holding hands. The
door behind him suddenly opened. David crouched, hiding
behind the console.
“We have two men down!” one of the guards shouted
into his radio. “Sound the alarm!”
They ran out and David could return to the screens to
check which floor the feed was coming from.
“There, the hundred and twentieth floor, second level.”
He turned around and saw a guard’s weapon pointed at
him, less than a few centimetres from his face.
He should have shot me on sight, David thought as he
dashed to the side and shot the guard before he could even
think of squeezing the trigger. The commando moved
towards the stairway. He had to get to Levi and the girl. He
wouldn’t let anything stop him.
* * * *
“Lead our men out!” Kaminsky shouted into his communicator. “As soon as I deal with the snake I want this whole building blown up. Don’t evacuate anyone else!” he ordered. Let the world think it was the United Nations that had murdered all those innocent people. “If you can’t contact me, blow it up in exactly sixty minutes. Start from the top. Understood?” He switched his radio off without waiting for confirmation.
He was already on the ninetieth floor, only two storeys from Victor.
David jumped two stairs at a time, running towards the second last level of the building. The stairs behind him were drenched in blood. He was a warrior, a soldier set on a single purpose, to rescue his commander and help save the world from a monster.
He was only a few minutes away from the commodore’s cell. He wondered if, with all those telepathic powers of his, Levi already knew he was coming. Did he know what Victor and Jo were doing?
He kept shooting. After the six months he had spent among the terrorists, he knew their exact response scenarios and combat patterns. This knowledge allowed him to fight his way through almost to the very top of the building. Several more guards were shot down in the corridor and the only problem would be to open the cell’s door. Or maybe not, he thought as he ran into an overweight guard and quickly neutralised him with a few karate moves. This one had to have an ID card. He found the key in the man’s pocket and stepped into the room.
The commodore was sitting on the floor with pulsatory handcuffs on his wrists. Laura was crouching by his side. David shot the cuffs open. Levi seemed very much in the mood for action, despite his obvious exhaustion. David’s clothes were drenched in sweat; heavy beads running down his forehead were making it difficult to see. He wiped them off and looked at the commodore.
“Take Laura to Mao,” Levi ordered. His primary concern was the safety of his daughter.
“I won’t leave you alone. You’re still very weak,” Laura protested.
“My daughter’s life is most important to me right now. This is an order David.” Levi gave the girl a firm look. This was not the time for arguments.
“All right, I’ll wait for you at Mao’s.” The commando led Laura towards the emergency exit.
The commodore collected weapons from the dead guards and started fighting his way towards Kaminsky. The highly developed instincts of a mage and Mao’s teachings led him in the right direction. He sensed that time was very limited as he knew about the explosion the caliph was planning. He had to reach him before he killed Victor. He now realised that the tracker was the only real target of Kaminsky’s hatred, his greatest enemy. But why did the caliph have such a grudge against Victor? Levi could not understand.
* * * *
Victor stood face to face with Kaminsky. They both aimed their guns at each other. Jo stood one step behind the tracker, her weapon also raised.
“Two against one?” the caliph hissed at the woman, hoping to discourage her. “I know you detest imbalance as much as I do. Leave, now!”
Jo hesitated.
“This should be a fair duel between equals!”
Equals, Jo thought in amazement. Since when does he
think of anyone as his equal? What’s going on in here? She looked at Victor questioningly.
“Do as he says, please, Jo,” he told her. He’d known
from the very start he would have to fight this battle alone. Besides, he didn’t want her to suffer the consequences of his failure. He loved her too much to put her in such danger.
“You and I, Victor, are true warriors. These modern weapons are merely an annoyance.” Kaminsky was gaining more confidence with every passing minute. He never doubted his superiority over the younger man. “Let us toss these toys aside and fight in a civilised way. Let the greater mind and the deeper knowledge decide the outcome of this.”
Victor was genuinely bewildered. He realised of course that they could both successfully dodge gunfire. They were fast and clever enough. There were no swords around, so relying on martial arts could actually give him an advantage in this fight. But telepathy? A duel of minds? He could easily predict the outcome of such a confrontation with Kaminsky. He glanced at understand his dilemma. He was possibly the best there was, but not a mage. But to refuse Kaminsky’s challenge, to show hesitation or fear, would lose the battle before it even started.
The caliph also realised his great advantage and Victor’s predicament. His knowledge of combat magic could only ever be matched by Levi and the commodore would never use
his powers in that way. Kaminsky was certain he could get rid of the tracker without breaking a sweat.
He hated him so much. His second wife had loved him boundlessly; her son had been the apple of her eye, her little warrior. Kaminsky had despised that. As a husband he demanded to be the centre of his wife’s life. He could not accept any competition in that matter. To make it worse, Alexander had also grown to admire and love his stepbrother. The caliph was genuinely jealous. He waited to destroy this proud man, but something as trivial as putting a bullet in his brain was not enough. He wanted to defeat his brain.
“So be it,” Victor agreed and tossed his gun aside. He had no choice but to play Kaminsky’s game. This was the time to prove he deserved to be called a tracker, a soldier, a warrior. Jo went pale. She knew that once the fight started Victor would not back away. He would fight to whatever end awaited him. She realised she could lose her love in a matter of seconds.
The caliph also threw away his weapon, even though he Jo who seemed to a soldier, a tracker, did not really feel compelled to keep his word. The gesture did not really cost him much, however, he felt stronger than ever before. Killing this man with a mind blast was going to be a walk in the park. He gazed into his adversary’s eyes and activated his mental resources. He felt heat moving up to his head, a moment of concentration and a powerful mind blast struck Victor. He would be falling down in a moment, paralysed and unable to counter the attack. Kaminsky gathered all his aggression and transformed it into the energy now bombarding Victor’s mind.
Jo could see how pale the tracker had become. A group of guards ran in, to view, but the caliph stopped them with a wave of his hand. They froze, staring at the amazing mental duel in front of them. This was something none of them had ever seen before, a fight no training, course or lecture could even attempt to describe. The mental battle was truly a unique sight.
Victor closed his eyes. Bushido – he focussed on his way of the warrior – the code of Japanese samurais, simple and complex at the same time. It stressed a warriors five duties. Victor tried to concentrate on the rules despite the terrifying force of Kaminsky’s attack. Loyalty – his allegiance to the United Nations. He felt weaker with every passing second. Honour – his honour was being tested in this fight. He would not give up, would not run. There was no point analysing where he was and why he was there. All he could do was to focus intensely, build his strength on the simplest concepts. Fear of death, of defeat would only distract him.