by N M Tatum
The bartender returned with their drinks. She slid Sam’s to her and shot her a look of pity. It stung, but Sam brushed it off and leaned into it instead. If she was eliciting pity, then she was doing something right.
Sam sipped her drink and gazed longingly at Adam over the rim of her glass. “How’d those people stuck in the past take that change?”
“She wasn’t happy.” The mask Adam wore began to slip. Sam spied some genuine emotion on his face. “But she made it clear that Layton wasn’t going to move forward without first obliterating the past.”
“She?”
“Dr. Suzz,” Adam said. “Layton’s CEO.”
Sam could tell she was scratching at the surface of something big. The answers they were searching for were buried just out of reach. She needed to peel away a few more layers.
“She’s got quite the reputation. A bit of a battleaxe, from what I’ve heard,” Sam replied.
“More like a photon torpedo. Cross her, and she will not rest until she’d turned you to ash.”
Sam had ordered another drink without Adam noticing. Suddenly it was in front of him, a double. Sam raised her drink in salute, prompting him to do the same. When he set his glass back down, his eyes were a bit glossier.
“I’m sure you’ve got some great stories about her,” Sam prompted. “I’d love to hear some. Being a woman trying to establish herself in this business, I’ve always kind of looked up to her.”
“Don’t,” Adam said. “She’s not the kind of businesswoman you want to be.”
The mask had almost completely fallen off his face now. Gone was the arrogant entrepreneur—he was a quivering employee again, terrified of his boss.
He leaned in close so he was sure only Sam could hear. “She’s obsessed with her old partner, Nora Soff from Chrisoff. Suzz is constantly raging against her. She’s practically got a complex over it. Thinks Soff screwed her. She thinks the entire industry screwed her, and she’s taken some drastic measures to get even.”
Adam sat back in his chair. He looked ill, like the drink was quickly catching up with him.
“What did she do?” Sam asked.
She recognized the look in Adam’s eyes. They were the eyes of a man who wanted to unburden himself. They were the eyes every person had right before dying.
“Look, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. It’s so fucked up. Suzz went completely off the reservation. As soon as I found out what she was doing, I got out of there. I left Layton and never looked back. But she’s fucking crazy. If she finds out I said anything, she’ll destroy me. She’ll send those things after me next.”
Boom.
“What things?” Sam said.
“These fucking monsters that she engineered in her lab. She…” He stared into his empty glass. “She sent them to StrobeNet.”
“And you know this? For sure?”
“I was there when she loaded the crates. I authorized the shipment. As COO, I had to.” A sense of urgency flared in him. “She would have fed me to those things. After I left, I heard that she did the same to Jasob.” Confusion overtook him suddenly. “Why am I telling you this?”
Sam stood. “I put something in your drink. A truth serum. It’s harmless.” She grabbed his wrist. “You’re coming with me.”
“What the hell—”
Adam was cut off by the sound of breaking glass and a burst of screaming.
Sam wheeled around and spotted the reason for it. A group of very out of place looking men and women stood in the middle of the conference center floor. They were clad in leather and heavily tattooed. They looked like a biker gang.
“Hey there, fancy people,” one of the gang members yelled. The largest of the men, he had a thick neck, thicker arms, and a barbed wire tattoo on his cheek. “I’ve come with a message from your friend Dr. Patty Suzz.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What is happening right now?” Joel said. “Who the hell are these guys?”
“No clue,” Reggie answered over comms. “But they obviously mean trouble. We need to join up and plan our next move. Everyone, sound off with your location.”
The team was scattered around the center, none close enough to meet without attracting the attention of the newcomers.
“They really just came out and said it?” Cody said. “Admitted to all these people that they’re working for Suzz? I don’t get it. Won’t that just put Layton in the spotlight? Law enforcement will be on to them now.”
“Only one reason Suzz would be so brazen here,” Sam said. “She doesn’t intend for any of these people to live long enough to tell their story. These thugs are going to kill everyone.”
“Way more straightforward than her standard MO,” Joel said. “Why the sudden change?”
“We’ll worry about it later,” Reggie said. “Right now, we need to figure out what we’re going to do about these guys.”
“I hate to be the one to say it,” Joel said. “But do we do anything? I mean, we’re exterminators. This undercover thing was enough of a deviation from our standard job. But this is straight-up security work. You weren’t keen on this from the beginning, Reggie.”
The comm was silent.
“No, I wasn’t,” Reggie said finally. “But we’re here. We can’t just walk away from this. We may not have that option anyway.”
“No more talking,” Sam said.
The guys’ collective gasp sounded over the comm as they watched Sam walk away from the bar, parting the crowd with her presence alone, and march straight for the gang of thugs.
“What’s this now?” The big thug said. “Looks like this one wants to dance. But I didn’t bring my dancing shoes. Maybe we can just—”
His voice died in his throat. At the exact spot Sam’s fist slammed into it.
“Shit!” The fact that the profanity had leapt out of Reggie’s mouth was lost on the others. They were too occupied with Sam going ape-nuts on the thugs. “Move, move, move! Let’s get in there!” he urged.
Cody shoved his way through the crowd, which was now thrumming with energy and running around like a bunch of wild maniacs. He tripped over a woman who had fallen in the chaos. He climbed back to his feet and pushed through.
Joel and Peppy approached from the opposite side of the conference center. The crowd, even when frantic, gave Peppy a wide berth, allowing him a clear path toward the thugs. Joel followed in his wake.
Reggie was typically too polite to shove people out of his way, but Sam was alone with that gang, facing nearly twenty of them from what he could see. He needed to get there to help, or, no matter how much of a badass she was, she’d get taken out.
Though the thugs would have a hell of a time doing it, no matter how outnumbered Sam was. They weren’t expecting her. Anything about her.
The thugs laughed as she approached. They stopped laughing as soon as she dropped the lead thug, and went to work trying to rip her to pieces. Two thugs rushed her. She drove the palm of her hand into one’s chin. He dropped to his knees instantly. Then she drove her elbow into the top of his head.
The second of the two came at her like a charging bull, his head down, trying to gore her. She met him with a knee to his face. He dropped into a quickly growing pool of his own blood.
With three of them down so quickly, the rest of the gang realized Sam wasn’t to be taken lightly. They all charged her at the same time.
She dug her heels into the floor and prepared to fight all of them. Her blood ran hot through her body, firing up her muscles in a way they hadn’t in a long time.
She was reminded of her days as a mercenary. Those days seemed so long ago, but it had only been months since she’d left that life behind to join up with the guys. And it had only been in those months that she hadn’t felt a man’s face crack against her knuckles. Or felt his blood run down her forearms.
It was different, killing bugs and rats. She’d been covered in plenty of blood, but a different part of the soul fired up when you fought for your life
against other people.
She felt guilty admitting it, but Sam missed it.
That’s why she didn’t back down when she was grossly outnumbered and overpowered—she was too excited. That excitement faded only slightly when the first wave slammed into her.
A beefy man dropped his shoulder like a linebacker and charged at her. She planted her foot on his shoulder and leaped over him. But Sam couldn’t see the slender woman running at her from behind the large man.
The woman jumped to meet Sam and drove her foot into Sam’s gut. Sam tensed her abs enough to absorb some of the impact, to keep the hit from driving the air out of her lungs. Her momentum suddenly halted, Sam dropped onto the large man’s back. A man with a lightweight boxer’s build appeared above her, dropping his elbow toward Sam’s face.
Sam crossed her arms in front of her. A sharp pain spiked through her wrists. Followed by a sharp pain in the side of her jaw as the woman’s foot slammed into her.
Sam rolled off the large man’s back and hit the floor. The three turned on her, stared down at her like she was a hole that needed filling. She looked up at the soles of their feet and shut her eyes tight, fully expecting them to come down on her face.
She heard a crunch, but her face remained intact. She opened her eyes in time to see Reggie’s fist crush the large man’s nose. He was followed quickly by Cody driving his shoulder into the boxer’s back. Then Joel slid along the polished floor and kicked the woman’s feet out from under her.
The chaos of the conference center amplified tenfold. The crowd fought against each other to exit the room, trampling and kicking and elbowing as though they were part of the brawl in the middle.
The rest of the thugs charged at the team, and the whole thing became a tangled mess of limbs. Sam thrashed, not knowing who she was hitting, though not particularly caring. Blood splattered on her face. She smiled when she felt it run down her knuckles.
Reggie, Cody, and Joel were swarmed. Their thrashing was less elegant and effective than Sam’s. Wasted movements with occasional hits. The effort was exhausting. The guys were quickly running low on energy, and their enemies showed no signs of slowing.
Something struck Reggie’s knee, bringing him to the floor. Even at his lowered height, he was nearly face to face with the man who hit him. Reggie grabbed the man by the collar and headbutted him. The man’s face burst into a spray of red, and he fell to the floor. The victory was short-lived. A fist caught Reggie in the jaw, turning the world fuzzy.
He couldn’t quite make out the hazy form that was lifted above the crowd, held up by a giant, meaty fist, but he recognized the voice that screamed out. Cody was held high by a Frankenstein-looking thug whose face was crisscrossed with scars. One of the man’s eyes was clouded, probably related to the star-shaped scar surrounding it.
“Gonna pop your head,” Frankenstein bellowed.
His threat was wholly believable. He probably would have followed through on it, had a flash of brown not rushed by and knocked his legs out from under him.
Frankenstein landed on his back, crushing one of the other thugs beneath him. Cody came down on his chest. He scrambled free of the goon’s grip, then, kneeling on Frankenstein’s chest, Cody rained down a flurry of punches on his face.
Being one of the smallest in the fray, Cody shouldn’t have been surprised that he was hoisted into the air again. Another beefy goon plucked him up by the back of his shirt like he was a child. Cody felt like a child as he kicked his legs, trying to wriggle free.
He saw the flash out of the corner of his eye. There was a slick sound behind him, like something slicing through a watermelon, and he fell back to the floor. He reached around behind him and felt a hand still clutching the back of his suit jacket. When he turned, he saw that the hand was attached to an arm, but the arm was attached to nothing. The goon to whom it had belonged stared at the arm like it was an alien thing. He didn’t seem to notice the blood gushing from the stub where that alien thing used to be attached.
Peppy growled at the thugs, blood dripping from his jaws. The arrival of the alien hound brought a lull in the brawl. Joel, Cody, Reggie, and Sam were able to stand and take stock of their injuries. They were bleeding and bruised and their fancy clothes were in tatters, but they were alive and still had some fight in them.
The thugs, considering their numbers, were surprisingly bloody. Not one of them had a clean face. Several were unconscious. One was missing a limb.
Joel was suitably impressed with the Notches’ effort. He fist-bumped the team. Smiles spread across their faces. Bloody, disgusting smiles. And then the fight began anew.
The thugs must have been getting paid a hell of a lot of money to continue after one of them lost an arm. If Reggie’s leg fell off during a battle, Joel would have absolutely pulled the plug. But, in a way, the Notches were glad the thugs didn’t turn and run. They were struck with a sense of satisfaction, knowing they could go toe to toe with the grizzly looking ruffians.
Months ago, before having ventured out on their own, Cody, Reggie and Joel would have been trampling each other to reach the exit just like the rest. But, now, after slogging through bug guts, fighting for their lives and blowing up enormous aliens, a few bruisers didn’t frighten them. In fact, it may have been a welcome change from the swarm of mutated monsters.
Now that they were able to coordinate their approach, the team was able to work together and mitigate the chaos. Cody slide-tackled a thug. As the thug fell, Joel brought his knee up into the thug’s chin, knocking him out instantly. Reggie lowered his head as he charged a man. When he reached him, he straightened, launching the man over him like a catapult, where Sam was waiting to dropkick him in the head.
Peppy needed no coordination. He raced around the periphery of the fight, picking off goons, herding them in closer to the middle.
The fight ended with a swift punch from Cody into the nose of the last thug standing. It ended just in time. With the last man down, the full force of fatigue hit the team. Their muscles were jelly. Their legs wobbled under them.
Joel took in the scene. A dozen unconscious thugs littered the immediate area. Most of the conference attendees had vacated the large room…only a few stragglers who had chosen to hide under tables or behind the bar remained. Now that it was quiet, they emerged from their hiding places and ran after the rest of them.
Several security guards bolted into the room, looking around frantically. One of the guy’s faces was swollen. Another was trying to get their restrained hands free. Had someone imprisoned them?
“Suppose there are any of those little sandwhiches left lying around?” Joel asked. “I didn’t get any.”
Reggie pulled a chair out from a nearby table and sat. “What the heck was all that about? Suzz went through all the trouble of genetically engineering those creatures and smuggling them into those stations to wipe them out on the down-low, then she just hires a gang of leg breakers to bust up a conference? What am I missing?”
“Like you said,” Sam said. “She went through all that trouble of making those creatures. Then we killed them all. Maybe she got tired of sneaking around.”
Before they could take any more time to speculate, a fresh round of screaming erupted in the lobby between the hangar bay and the room where they sat.
“Now what?” Cody said.
“Caterers just announced they’re bringing out more crab cakes?” Joel guessed hopefully.
“Not our luck.” Sam squared off, like she sensed what was about to step through the door.
Another gang of thugs appeared. Twenty of them, all fresh and mean looking, and all with both arms still attached.
One of the thugs smiled. “Now this is my kind of party.”
Chapter Eighteen
As impressed with themselves as they were, the team knew they couldn’t go another round against an even bigger group of bone-breaking thugs.
“We need to get out of here,” Reggie said.
“Agreed,” Sam said.
Joel eyed the group pouring into the room. “Any idea how we do that? They’re sort of blocking the only exit.”
Sam let her mind go blank. She took in every detail of the situation—the gang, the environment, the Notches’ state, anything on hand they could use as a weapon. All the information filtered through her brain until it spat out a solution.
She darted across the room, perpendicular to the gang. She said nothing to the guys, but they weren’t so stupid as to sit and wait for direction. As soon as they began to run, the gang set off after them.
Whatever Sam had planned, it was their only move. If it didn’t work, the gang would run them down in seconds and pummel them to death. Though, once Cody realized what her plan was, being beaten to death may have been the preferable way to go.
She ran onto the balcony that overlooked the rest of the station. She did not slow down. Instead, she planted both feet and launched herself over the railing. She disappeared from view, presumably plummeting to a messy end.
Joel and Peppy didn’t hesitate to follow. Joel yelled, “Oh shit!” as he jumped and hoped for the best.
Reggie, likewise, showed little hesitation as he ran for the railing. He slowed his gait only enough to time his jump.
Time slowed as Cody approached the barrier. He could hear the gang bearing down on him from behind. He could see the infinite drop on the other side of the railing. He could not see his friends. He could not see how jumping over that railing resulted in anything other than certain death.
And they hadn’t even faltered. Sam jumped, so they jumped. His mom’s voice sounded in his head now. “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” He was about to find out.
His rational brain battled with his instincts. His gut told him to trust Sam. His brain told him Sam was a lunatic. But, if there was one thing he admired about Sam, one thing he’d been trying to learn from her, it was that she could turn her brain off and just do. He needed to think everything through.
But he didn’t have that luxury now.
