The leader opened the box. The mokkers were instantly entranced. The one standing farthest from Nick was so taken by what he was seeing that he vaped a triple snort of mok-1 up his nostrils and shuddered with delight.
The box contained a large silver ring with a massive diamond setting. Its perimeter was studded with what appeared to be emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
Nick tensed, ready to spring into action as the leader reached a hand toward the box. But the mokker hesitated at the last instant, suspecting a trick of some sort.
He has to touch it.
“Here, let me show you some of its beautiful features,” Nick said, lunging forward and making a grab for the ring.
The leader reacted as expected. He yanked the box away with a possessive growl that would have done an angry mutt proud.
Good boy. Now pick up the damn thing.
The leader gripped the prize between his thumb and forefinger and held it aloft. The diamond’s polished facets gleamed under the lunar light, suggesting the ring was extraordinarily valuable. In reality, it was a clever fake. Nick had bought it for nineteen dollars from one of the licensed beggars who plied their trade in Philly-sec’s Rittenhouse Square bazaar.
Body heat from the leader’s fingertips activated the thermal switch. The tiny flashbang hidden inside the ring triggered.
Blinding white light.
Earsplitting noise.
A flashbang this small couldn’t produce the severe disorienting effects common to its larger brethren. But the sudden eruption of light and sound was enough to startle the mokkers and buy Nick a few precious seconds.
He stepped forward and swept his right leg upward. The toe of his reinforced boot caught the short mokker in the crotch. The man grunted, grabbed his junk and crumbled to his knees. Nick dashed past him and ran for all he was worth toward the alley’s exit. His ride, an ’89 Chevy Destello, was right around the corner, optically camouflaged in the recessed doorway of an abandoned factory building.
The leader and the other wingman recovered from the flashbang’s effects quicker than anticipated. Nick could hear their loud footsteps. There was no need to glance back to realize they were closing fast.
I’m not going to make it.
The physics of human locomotion were against him. Short legs couldn’t compete with long ones. The two mokkers were seconds away from tackling him. At that point, extremely bad things would happen.
He was five meters from where the alley funneled into the street when two more men stepped around the corner. Their faces were silhouetted by a dim streetlamp at their backs. His first thought was that they were more mokkers.
His only chance was to crash through the pair. He lowered his head and mentally steeled himself to be an unstoppable battering ram.
The newcomers whipped up their arms in tandem. From the left hand of one and the right hand of the other, beams of twisting black light erupted. The luminous streaks flashed past Nick’s head on opposite sides, passing so close that the heat of the burning energy warmed his earlobes.
Startled gasps emanated from behind him. Nick stopped, whirled around. The two mokkers had been hit. Smoldering fabric and flesh over their hearts marked the beams’ entry points.
The mokkers collapsed face down in the alley. Their backs revealed the exit wounds of the hot particle streams. They writhed for a few moments as the thermal energy spread through their chest cavities, baking internal organs. In seconds they segued to a motionless limbo from which there would be no return.
Back at the cul-de-sac, the surviving mokker had recovered from Nick’s crotch kick. Having seen the fate of his companions, he was huddled at the side of the dumpster, frantically vaping. But inhaling all the mok-1 in the known universe wouldn’t make him fearless enough to confront a Paratwa assassin.
…
Find out how it ends by purchasing BINARY STORM from any good stationer or book emporium
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher Hinz wrote the Paratwa Saga, whose first book Liege-Killer won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel and earned Hinz a nomination for the John W Campbell Award for best new writer. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, technical administrator of a TV station, public relations writer, screenwriter, and comic book scripter for DC and Marvel. He orchestrates the creation of fantastic universes, a lifelong passion, from a wooded realm in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA.
christopherhinz.com
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