“Body armor. Shoot for the head,” another voice replied. This one calmer, a commander.
“He’s not wearing body armor!”
Bloodshot smiled, watching the gunshot wounds in his flesh healing.
“No I am not,” he said to himself but he had lost a lot of blood. He knew this because he could feel it on the ground outside in the tunnel. Splattered on the concrete wall, mixed in with the flour like some pagan spell. Then he felt it come to life. At first the nanites in the blood started crawling toward their host, then they began flowing. Then they formed parabolic arcs of crimson liquid metal flying through the air like the lines of a magnetic field. He heard surprised cries from the few remaining mercs, even a panicked shot or two. The bloody streams of nanites flew back into his body. Bloodshot watched as his reanimated flesh ejected the crumpled bullets that had hit him. The exit wounds knitted shut.
* * *
Axe stared at the strands of crimson liquid metal surging back into the second SUV. The driver and Vasilov matched his incredulous gaze. Nobody was quite sure what they were looking at. Even knowing what he knew, Axe still couldn’t believe that one man had just walked through his private army like that. According to Baris, he’d hired the best; the most disreputable, but the best. Frankly, he wanted his money back.
“Martin Axe!” their attacker shouted from inside the second SUV.
Axe went cold. This was death come for him.
“Oh God. It is him,” he breathed.
“You know this guy?” Vasilov demanded.
“I don’t know. I’ve heard stories.” Stories that he’d thought were bullshit until a few moments ago. How could Harting have come so far?
Axe grabbed his phone, found Baris in his contacts and hit FaceTime so hard he was surprised he didn’t put his finger through the device.
Baris answered. He was in his thirties, bearded and powerfully built. Even half awake his cold blue eyes offered the promise of violence that fitted with the reputation that had followed him from the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, and into the world of sophisticated black-market military technology.
“Da—”
“It’s him, he found me!” Axe practically screamed.
“And?” Baris asked. It was clear that he couldn’t have cared less.
“And?” Axe shouted. “And your guys suck! I’m completely screwed...”
Baris ended the call and Axe hurled his phone across the vehicle.
He looked up to see the few remaining mercenaries moving cautiously toward the second SUV.
Axe flinched as their attacker burst out of the vehicle and landed among the mercenaries. Their attacker took a shotgun blast to the chest, sending him staggering back toward the wrecked trailer of the truck. The other mercenaries opened up with their assault rifles, a full automatic fusillade. Their attacker danced backward as he was hit many times. Stray bullets pierced the remaining bags of flour, sending more clouds of powder into the tunnel’s atmosphere. The white fog engulfed their attacker as he fell backward.
Axe allowed himself a moment of exultation. The mercenaries hadn’t been holding back. Maybe he had got his money’s worth after all. Surely now their ghost attacker was truly dead?
* * *
Bloodshot hit the concrete a bullet-riddled corpse, though just for a moment. It didn’t stop him from trying to get up. His chest burned. He looked down to see a swirling mass of nanites, like tiny glowing metal maggots feasting on dead meat, writhing over his chest. Just for a moment it was too much for him, this couldn’t be right, it was sick, a horrific violation of nature. He coughed, his breathing shallow: Surely I can’t survive this? Then he remembered Gina, the stainless-steel bolt that had robbed her of life and the fact that the man responsible was only a few feet away.
His flesh burned as the glowing, overtaxed nanites tried to heal the appalling amount of damage that had been done to him.
* * *
The mercenaries had rapidly reloaded their weapons and were creeping closer to the crashed truck trailer. Bloodshot burst from the wreckage. The mercenaries started firing but they were too slow. He was among them, a berserker. Their stray bullets filled the air with yet more clouds of powder.
Bones broke, windpipes were crushed, necks snapped, mercenaries were rammed into the ground and faces stamped on as Bloodshot moved through them killing and maiming. His wounds were now healing almost as quickly as they were inflicted. He saw the look of terror on the last surviving mercenary’s face as he kicked him hard enough to launch him into the air.
* * *
Axe watched as one of the mercenaries flew out of the expanding white fog and hit one of the SUVs hard enough to splinter bone and set the vehicle’s alarm off. The cloud of flour engulfed Axe’s own SUV, coating the windows. Then, nothing, except the bleating of the alarm.
Axe exchanged looks with Vasilov and Mr. State-the-Bloody-Obvious in the driver’s seat. Somehow he knew it wasn’t over and there were still two of the armored SUVs behind them, stopping them from leaving the tunnel the way they had come in.
There was a squeak from the window, the sound of fingers on glass. Slowly Axe turned to look. Two holes had been drawn in the flour. A pair of eyes were staring through the holes straight at him. Axe was sure that his heart had stopped for a moment. A smile was drawn in the flour under the eyes. Then there was movement as their attacker walked away.
“He can’t get in can—” Axe started.
The dead body of one of the mercenaries was slammed against the SUV’s window. He had two grenades on his belt. Axe had just a moment to realize that both the pins had been pulled.
“Shit,” Vasilov managed.
The SUV rocked as the window was blown in. Axe squealed, trying to curl into a ball as he was showered in shards of armored glass. The figure walked back into view. He was powerfully built, shaven-headed, his clothes a bullet-shredded mess. A perfectly circular scar burned hot and red in the center of his chest. He was covered in the white powder, held a semi-automatic pistol in each hand, and he looked like a perfect specter of vengeance.
Axe knew he was dead. He just wasn’t sure why.
* * *
Bloodshot only had eyes for the quivering mess of a man that had killed his wife. The way he was looking at the Australian he was surprised that Axe hadn’t already expired.
Too late he noticed the commander of the mercenaries bringing a short-barreled shotgun to bear. Everything seemed to slow down. Bloodshot’s vision filled with fire, buckshot and fragments of glass. He felt the side of his face ripped away down to the skull. He was aware of the torn flesh re-forming in the air with the consistency of toffee, tethered to the bone with metallic crimson and silver filaments of nanites.
Bloodshot staggered back a step, a grimacing half death’s-head grin on his face as the damage started to reverse, the airborne flesh being pulled back to the bone. He raised both pistols and started to squeeze the triggers rapidly.
Bullet after bullet hit the driver and the mercenary commander, battering them around the SUV’s cab like ragdolls. He wasn’t keeping track of the rounds in the pistols’ magazines but a subset of the billions of nanites inside him was. The slide on the pistol in his left hand shot back, the magazine empty. He stopped firing. He only needed one more bullet. He dropped the empty weapon.
“You don’t understand. You’re making a mistake,” Axe begged.
Bloodshot checked the chamber on the gun he still held in his right hand. One in the spout. He aimed the pistol at Axe. Gave the man some time to contemplate the black void of the barrel; after all, he’d done the same for Bloodshot back when he’d been a man called Ray Garrison, and had been married to Gina Garrison.
“Thanks for the advice.”
* * *
A single shot echoed through the concrete tunnel.
CHAPTER 15
Bloodshot nursed the battered, badly damaged SUV across the cracked concrete of the airstrip, trailing clouds of flour behind it, towar
d the stolen Gulfstream. He saw the other plane first. Another corporate jet, this one with the glyph-like RST logo emblazoned on the fuselage. It occurred to Bloodshot that having your corporate logo on the plane you’re using for nefarious means probably wasn’t the smartest idea. Chainsaw was waiting for him, Tibbs, Dalton and even KT. Bloodshot was too tired to fight. He very literally felt run-down, like a battery. If this turned nasty then he didn’t have much of a chance.
Bloodshot brought the bullet-ridden SUV to a halt. The door fell off as he tried to open it. He climbed out slowly. The superhuman killing machine he’d been not so long ago was gone now. He half walked, half staggered toward Chainsaw.
Dalton detached himself from the other two and started toward Bloodshot.
Here it comes, Bloodshot thought. He knew in this state Dalton would take him. It didn’t matter, though. He would fight, it was just who he was.
Dalton walked straight past him, popping gum but otherwise saying nothing. The ex-SEAL was carrying something that looked like a gas can but Bloodshot recognized it as an improvised Fuel Air Explosive.
“Shit, look what they did to you,” Tibbs said, taking in his bloody, bullet-torn clothing as he reached the sniper and KT.
KT handed him a new shirt. Somewhere in the dim recesses of his brain, the part that was human, that understood empathy, and wasn’t just tailored rage designed for combat operations, Bloodshot recognized the expression on her face as concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He stared at her. It was only now that he was starting to come down from the berserker rage that had carried him through the fight in the tunnel. He must have looked wild in her eyes, feral. Not that he had the energy to do anything with it. He was feeling tired, sluggish. He was aware no, he could feel the nanites struggling. At least he now had an idea of just how hard he could push the tiny machines, how much damage they – he – could withstand.
Bloodshot heard Dalton dump the improvised explosive into the SUV.
“I gotta hand it to him. The guy does damage,” Dalton called as he made his way back toward the others.
Bloodshot flinched as KT put a hand on his shoulder.
“Talk to me,” she said quietly.
He was aware of Tibbs turning ever so slightly toward them, the lenses on his high-tech harness angled their way.
“The man who murdered my wife is dead.” He felt the emotion behind his own words but his voice sounded flat. “I just looked him in the eye and killed him.” He had to force himself to look KT in the eyes, worried that all he would see was his reflection. “But it doesn’t feel like I thought it would.” His skin felt hot, presumably something to do with how hard the nanites had had to work. “Him being dead isn’t gonna bring her back.” He felt as flat as the batteries in his tiny robot friends. He had hoped for some sense of satisfaction, some kind of closure, but there was nothing. He wasn’t sorry that Axe was gone from this world. He didn’t feel bad about the army of hired guns he had fought his way through. They would have done the same to him. All he knew was that he missed his wife. Yet he still found himself looking at KT.
“Funny how that works,” she said.
Anger flared within him but then he saw the look in her eyes, the sadness there and something else he couldn’t quite make out. Guilt? If so, he could identify with that. He still felt bad as regards their “moment” in the break area. Before he had remembered his dead wife. Now that he did remember her, it seemed ridiculous. His death, the technology involved and his resurrection notwithstanding, how could he have forgotten Gina? And what did KT have to feel guilty about anyway?
“Whatever,” he told her after a few moments. “I’m done.”
“Yeah, I might be too,” she told him. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He had taken her for a good company girl.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She went quiet. It was clear that she wanted to tell him something but maybe this wasn’t the place.
“It means we’re all tired. It’s time to get back to base and get you plugged back in,” Tibbs told them. Bloodshot had almost forgotten he was there.
“Plugged in.” Like he was an appliance now, a weapon.
Then the improvised FAE exploded and bathed the airstrip in its orange glow.
CHAPTER 16
If anything the interior of the RST jet was more luxurious than the Gulfstream he had stolen. Judging by the spartan nature of their bunkrooms back in the tower, Bloodshot guessed the plane was used more often by execs than grunts. The atmosphere left much to be desired, however. Dalton just stared back every time he looked in the ex-SEAL’s direction and Bloodshot had no patience for that particular pissing contest right now. Tibbs just played with his knives while his blind eyes stared at nothing. At the same time Bloodshot knew that the lenses on the ex-Delta sniper’s harness saw all. But it was KT that bothered Bloodshot the most. Despite how he felt about their “moment” in the break room, in the light of subsequent revelations he could have done with someone to talk to. Instead she appeared to be lost in her own world, struggling with her own thing and, not surprisingly, unwilling to discuss it in the present company. All in all it had not made for a very pleasant flight.
Bloodshot had hoped that some food and time to rest on the flight back to KL would have allowed him to regain some of his lost energy. It hadn’t. It was a hardware issue it seemed. He felt exhausted.
Back in the tower he found himself with Dalton and Tibbs on either side as they escorted him through the corridors toward the “resurrection room.” KT trailed behind them. Bloodshot wasn’t happy about the escort but didn’t feel up to making an issue of it just now. It seemed that the nanites were just done, just so much metal and plastic baggage in his bloodstream now.
He could see Harting waiting for them ahead, leaning against one of the neutrally colored walls. He was expecting to get reamed by Harting; after all, he was their billion-dollar boy and he’d just run off with their tech without so much as a cheery goodbye. On the other hand he hadn’t put their tech in his body, and at some point in the future he was going to have a very serious conversation with Doctor Harting about the inalienable rights of the individual to live free and pursue happiness. For a given value of happiness.
The thing was, none of this was playing out like he had thought it would. He had half expected Chainsaw to try and take him down when he saw them on the airstrip. They hadn’t, however, been nearly as aggressive as he had expected, particularly Dalton, despite his piss-poor attitude on the plane. Though the ex-SEAL’s behavior was another weird thing. Bloodshot could see him rubbing people up the wrong way. He wasn’t sure if he’d seen enough of what was under Dalton’s front to know if he was pure asshole through and through, though he suspected they wouldn’t have gotten on whatever the circumstances. Straight from the get-go, however, Dalton hadn’t liked him. Bloodshot’s memories were still fragments but it felt like the ex-SEAL knew him. As far as he could tell the world of Tier One special forces was a small community. Had Bloodshot known Dalton before he’d... died? Did that explain the enmity? Because he couldn’t see someone like Dalton surviving in such a close-knit community, one that relied so heavily on being able to trust the guy next to you, if he was a 24/7 raging asshat.
Bloodshot had been playing catch-up since he’d woken up in military-industrial Oz, but now he had finally had some time to think about it all he just couldn’t get the lie of the land here. Things were stranger than just him being a nanite-infused cybernetic organism raised like Frankenstein’s monster from the grave.
“Tibbs, get him on the table,” Harting said, barely casting an eye in Bloodshot’s direction. It was clear that Harting could’ve happily exchanged “he” for “it” for all the doc cared.
“No. I don’t need it,” Bloodshot told him. It was part macho never-show-weakness bullshit and partly because he felt like he was ceding far too much power to other people right now. He was also starting to feel more than a little uneasy
about it all.
Harting ignored him.
Tibbs took him by the arm and started to pull Bloodshot away, but KT grabbed him and pulled him back toward her. Bloodshot barely had the strength to resist.
“Remember me,” KT whispered in his ear.
What the hell?
Bloodshot stared at her. He opened his mouth to ask her what she meant but Tibbs had interposed himself between them and was propelling Bloodshot down the corridor away from KT and Harting, and he really didn’t feel strong enough to resist.
He looked back over his shoulder as KT turned to walk away but Harting stopped her.
“Join me in the command hub,” Bloodshot heard the doctor order her. Then Tibbs pushed him around a corner out of sight.
CHAPTER 17
Bloodshot was back in the resurrection room. Back where he’d woken up dead. The stainless steel of the autopsy table was cold and uncomfortable underneath him but then such tables hadn’t been designed with the living in mind. He found himself looking up through the track lighting, past the intimidatingly insectile, robot arm apparatus, to the mirror-paneled ceiling.
He may have been a big man, powerfully built, but his reflection made him look as weak as a kitten. Even if he did need “plugging in” he was starting to have serious misgivings here. Something wasn’t right. What had KT meant by “Remember me”? Why wouldn’t he remember her?
“You will feel a slight jolt as the system connects to the nanite network.” It was Harting’s voice speaking through concealed speakers.
The nanites’ microprocessors had gone through a CIA firewall as though it hadn’t existed when he had been trying to find Axe. With a thought he tried to gain access to RST’s systems to see if he could find out what was really going on here.
“Doc, I’m okay. Really.” It was bullshit but he was playing for time and he didn’t want to be here, lying on this table, so vulnerable, anymore.
He couldn’t be sure whether it was because the nanites’ power was so run-down, or perhaps Harting had ordered his IT people to fix the weakness Bloodshot had previously exploited, but this time he couldn’t even gain access to the local network.
Bloodshot--The Official Movie Novelization Page 8
