His voice now pure iron, Hunter addressed the two captive Golems. ‘That was just a taste. He keeps fucking around, and we start again – with all of you.’ Keeping his eyes on Cayden, he hissed in the Doctor’s ear. ‘He tries to interfere, or make any kind of move, and one of them takes the hit – yours and theirs.’ He pressed the knife against Garrett’s carotid. ‘Come on, Rich. Everything they’ve been through for you, and you still want them to take on more of your shit? Give me the canister, and they’ll never have to again – I can promise that much.’
Garrett’s head lowered, chin almost touching his chest. Like he was falling asleep – or into a more permanent state. Hunter pulled his head back by his hair. When the older man didn’t even blink, he rabbit-punched him in the gut with his knife hand. Garrett doubled over far as he could, coughing up blood-streaked saliva. The fit ended fast, however – faster than Greg would have expected, with so much injury. Still bent over, the Doctor whispered, ‘All right… All right.’
Greg’s shoulders slumped. He turned his head aside, not wanting to see or listen. A glance Leah’s way showed the same stricken, defeated look he had to be wearing. Cayden didn’t show a thing.
Hunter smiled, in real pleasure this time. As he held the blade under Garrett’s chin one more time, the older man spoke again, a little louder. ‘Just one thing you should probably know… if you want the whole story.’
‘Make it quick,’ Hunter said curtly. He mimed looking at his watch, and glanced at the Gaia screen. ‘Time’s running short – and I doubt you’ve got much to waste.’
Garrett took no notice of this. He stayed hunched forward, in pain or shame. ‘You and I, we both hammered away at the ARC formula, day and night. So many changes, so many samples – there were times I lost track which version was which, and where. Sometimes… I had to comb through every freezer or file, to find just one.’ His head began to rise, inch by inch. ‘But there was one I always knew where to find. The very first – the one you thought you took.’
Hunter’s frown was puzzled and annoyed. ‘What the hell kind of crap is that?’
Somehow, Garrett managed to lever himself up. Blood coated his chest and torn-up shirt, dripping in streams to the floor – yet he was still conscious, and aware. The blade at his throat didn’t seem to faze him anymore, either. His voice was a dull murmur. ‘I knew from the first day what I was creating. What it could become – and would, because of me, or others. I tried to forget it, to tell myself I was paranoid, or afraid of progress. But the truth stared me in the face, with every test – and would again in worse ways, when the trials began. I couldn’t allow that – not without knowing all the dangers.’ He lifted his head a little higher. His smile was sad – and oddly, without self-hatred, for the first time. ‘So I found out.’
Hunter stared at the old man. Greg stared, too, with slowly growing wonder. Something was different, he realised. Not only was the Doctor’s posture stable, but it was better, shedding years of hunching from lab work and simple age. His chest was swelling inch by inch, looking stronger and more muscular with every slow breath; so were his upper arms, and legs. The flow of blood from his wounds hadn’t just reduced; it had ceased. And beneath the rags and sheen of red, the cuts themselves seemed different – almost smaller.
Hunter’s face was slack with disbelief. His knife hand wavered. ‘No,’ he whispered.
‘Oh, please, Sam,’ Garrett said. ‘You know the first rule of any theory.’ He paused, still smiling – but now with a knife-hard edge. ‘You test it.’
Hunter snarled with shock and rage. He swung the knife back, to stab into Garrett’s chest or throat. In that moment, the Doctor flexed his arms. The zipties tore away like paper, and his hands came together, catching Hunter’s fist between them. The other man yelled in fury, then in startled pain as Garrett’s foot slammed into his abdomen. He sailed backward, crashing amid the tank wreckage.
Features hard and determined, the Doctor sprang up. Every one of the knife wounds was gone, as if they’d never been. His entire body seemed to glow and pulse with energy. He paused a half-second to flip his cane into the air with a jerk of his foot, and catch it one-handed. A sword blade – the same as that of Cayden’s and the Brown Coats, by its gleam – flashed when he twisted the head free.
Taylor rushed at him, blade twirling. With unearthly speed, the Doctor spun away out of reach, and slashed at the ex-Golem’s back, following with a sharp swing of the sword hilt to the other man’s head. Taylor convulsed and staggered, but stayed upright, already whirling to block the next attack. This let Greg see the long, deep gash that gaped open across his back, from shoulder to waist – and which was just starting to close. More anti-regen, he thought, wonderingly. He had it. All this time, he –
Hunter jumped to his feet. Face contorted with fury, he shot out a hand to one of the guards holding Leah. The guard – Fred – made a short jerk of one arm, tossing him the thin sword. Hunter caught it easily, not taking his eyes from Garrett – then charged, blade spinning like a marshal’s baton. Garrett braced his feet against the floor, bringing up his own weapons. With a roar, Hunter crashed into him, hard and fast enough to topple a young tree. A burst of sparks flew from the connecting blades. The Doctor barely retreated a step, pushing back with all his strength. The two old men grappled at each other, straining and grunting. Then, Garrett suddenly toppled over, bringing Hunter with as he somersaulted backward. He slammed into the wall with a startled squawk, hard enough to leave a deep circle of cracks in the concrete – though he had enough time to tuck in his head and shoulders, avoiding a snapped neck. He landed on his ass, momentarily dazed – then sprang up again, matching Garrett’s move.
Taylor and Joey started forward, blades up. That broke the spell of shock that hung over Greg. Ignoring the wrenching pain this brought in his leg, shoulders and scalp, he pushed off the floor with his knees, jamming his head into Drake’s stomach with all the strength he could manage. Drake wasn’t completely distracted – he thrust his hips back, avoiding a blow that would’ve broken all his lower ribs, at full speed – but the hit was enough to knock the wind from him with a loud ‘Oooff!’ His hold on Greg’s hair loosened. That was all Greg needed. He yanked his left arm free at last – shouting in relief as feeling returned to it – and spinning around into a fighting stance, while yanking his other hand across the ex-Golem’s belt.
His knife, new blade, and Cayden’s machete tore free from their clips. In less than three seconds he had flipped the machete to Cayden as the other Golem charged into the fight, and was up and ready, both other weapons in hand. He glanced to the right; Leah had broken out of her captors’ hold as well with a deft twist and roll, pulling her own sword free from his waist. She back-flipped to Greg’s side, coming up in a combat stance.
Scowling, Drake snapped his arms out, drawing his two blades. With no further heads-up, he rushed them, the two thin weapons stabbing out. Greg bent backwards at the waist, just missing a stab to the chest, slashing at Drake’s arm and face even as he dodged. The ex-Golem ducked both easily, and drew back from Leah’s follow-up cut with equal grace. Greg advanced, hacking downward with his sword and slicing up with the knife. Drake brought his weapons across his body, blocking both, and kicked out with his right leg. It missed Greg’s crotch, but still managed a glancing hit on his partially-numb left leg, making him stumble. The ex-Golem stabbed at him again, aiming for his face, but Leah’s blade parried it away. She forced him back, knife and sword glittering blurs.
This gave Greg a moment to regain his footing, and assess the fight. Beyond the wrecked tank platform, Cayden was fighting Taylor and Joey both at once, dancing, ducking and leaping out of the way of one’s strikes as he parried or sliced at the other, with the same grace and speed he’d shown at the airfield. His clinger was rent at chest and arms. Blood flew in droplets when he moved, but he showed not a hint of pain, or lethargy. Joey’s coverall was in red-soaked rags, from collar to cuff. Taylor’s scarred frame was even more ri
pped up, with blood loss to match the Doctor’s running down his frame and staining the cheap shorts he wore. Neither of them was slowing down, either.
A blurred, writhing shape shot across his vision as he processed this. It smashed into the platform’s tangle of glass and metal, throwing chunks of both in all directions – and blood and viscera, too. He swung toward it, in time to see Hunter and Garrett rise to their feet, panting and wheezing. He watched, transfixed. Both men’s clothes were shredded, and turned almost black with blood. Then their figures blurred, and smashed together again.
Greg felt the impact through the soles of his clinger. More fragments flew; he ducked to avoid one the size of a trashcan lid. He snapped out of the funk once more, and sprinted to rejoin Leah, who was just holding her own against Joey and Drake. The latter spun to block Greg’s stab at his ribcage, then swung scythe-like at the Golem’s head. He ducked – then, in the half-second before Drake could swing again, leapt forward and slammed his knife into the ex-Golem’s gut with all his strength.
A red geyser drenched his arm. Drake grunted like he’d only been punched low. His backhand swing was slower than before, but still fast enough that Greg took a deep cut to the forehead ducking it. Instead of letting go and rolling away, however, he hurled his body into Drake’s. Both men crashed to the ground, with such force that their blades were torn from their grips. Rather than scrabble for his, Greg tore his knife free, and lunged up at his enemy’s face, scrambling atop him with one pull of his free hand. Drake blocked his stab, drawing a long slice along his left arm, and swung a knife-hand at Greg’s head as he tried to sit up and grab for the Golem’s throat with the other. Greg knocked the grab aside with his knife hand, and shifted sharply in the same move, taking the blow on his other arm hard enough to bring a crack of breaking bone – several, by the feel.
Agony lanced up to his shoulder. He ignored it and pushed farther up, so that he was almost sitting on Drake’s chest. The ex-Golem brought his arms up again, to punch or block. Before he could do either, Greg swung the knife in a short, tight arc. The blade punched into the left side of Drake’s throat, protruding from the other. He gobbled and choked, fists flailing against Greg’s chest like bricks. The Golem ignored these, bearing down harder with the knife. Blood spewed from the wounds and Drake’s mouth; both carotids must have been hit. His struggles grew less and less. Greg pulled the knife free, raised it above his head, then brought it plunging down with all his strength.
The point pierced clean through Drake’s throat. Greg felt the tear and crack of muscle and bone, and a harder thunk when it struck the concrete below, embedding itself several inches. Drake’s thrashing abruptly stopped. His limbs dropped to the floor, twitching. He let out one last, soundless choke, then went still, eyes staring emptily into Greg’s own.
A thunderous crash of metal and glass on concrete reverberated through the room. Breathing hard, Greg yanked the knife out a second time, and scrambled to his feet – and stopped, momentarily stunned. Badly damaged before, the entire right-hand block of offices and rooms was now gutted. Piles of rubble were heaped in the doorways and what was left of the glass partitions; some were still settling. More spiralling impacts starred the walls beyond, and the floor.
As he processed this, another crash sounded from the surgery room – what was left of it. Two struggling forms, grappling at each other, thudded into one of the larger heaps of metal and glass. Before Greg could tell who was who, one of them shot out a knee, knocking the other back into the room. Leaping to his feet, he charged after his enemy. More crashes and shattering noises rose, along with grunts of pain and effort. For a moment, Greg could only stare, watching the destruction. Even he, at his worse or more desperate, hadn’t come close to this kind of strength – or rage. How can they?
New shouts broke him from this wonder. He spun, flipping his dropped blade into the air with a jerk of his foot and catching it, all in a single move. Leah was driving Fred back toward the stairs, their blades slashing and parrying so quickly he couldn’t see the strikes. Cayden was still battling both Joey and Taylor, still with barely any wounds – but they’d backed him farther into the space between the last left-hand office and the far wall. Every time he made a slash or dodge that would break from the trap, one of his opponents always blocked the way. He was still fast, not showing any exhaustion, but he couldn’t last.
Almost without thinking, Greg sprinted toward the three of them. He leapt at one of the tumbled tanks, and sprang off it into the air, new blade carving down at the closest target: Taylor, whose back was still to him. His old partner must have sensed him, however. Rather than lunging in for a new attack on Cayden, he spun and slashed up with a double-bladed strike at Greg’s legs.
Greg caught the swing on his blade, right as his feet ploughed into Taylor’s carved-up stomach. Hardly winded, the ex-Golem let the strike knock him free of the block, and rebounded off the wall, one blade thrusting out in a stab, the other swinging down at Greg’s head. He dodged the stab, deflecting it with his knife, and blocked the swing; the blow made him drop halfway to one knee. Still vague-eyed but determined, Taylor pirouetted away, out of reach of an answering stab, then charged in again, slashing with both blades – first horizontally, then vertically, creating a near-impenetrable shield for the several seconds it would take to get close enough for a killing strike.
Greg fell back before this onslaught, then parried the last vertical swing and stabbed at Taylor’s face with the knife. His ex-partner jerked his head back awkwardly as he made his own parry, slicing a new furrow in Greg’s bad shoulder. Hissing with the pain, Greg slashed again, at Taylor’s face, making him bring both swords up to catch it, then pushed with every ounce of strength he had. Taylor stumbled back with the force of the shove, arms raising above his head for a split second as he fought to stay balanced. That was all Greg needed. He pushed hard one more time on his sword arm, forcing Taylor back another inch – then leapt forward, knife outstretched.
The blade plunged into Taylor’s chest, burying itself to the hilt below his sternum. Red droplets sprayed into Greg’s eyes, enough to blind him momentarily. Taylor flinched, grunting. The swords slid from his grip, falling with a clatter amid the rubble. Still burning with adrenaline, Greg gave him one last shove, pinning him to the wall below the Gaia screen, and twisting the knife deeper, up into his chest cavity. Taylor didn’t make a sound, or try to fight; in fact, he’d gone nearly limp.
He brought up the sword, to stab into Taylor’s head or neck – then stopped. His ex-partner was staring at him, in a new way. Almost as if he were awake, for the first time in days, months, aeons – and had seen all that had happened, while he was out. He looked down at the knife in his chest, as though surprised – and yet, also, not. When his eyes lifted, there was a deep gratitude in them. Tears formed at their corners; two slid down his cadaverous, bony cheeks. His mouth opened, dribbling blood; a faint grunting rose from his throat. Greg leaned closer, trying to hear better. His ex-partner’s mouth formed three words, or as close as he could get: ‘Thank… you… Greg.’
Greg stared back, too startled to speak. Taylor’s legs wobbled, then gave way. Greg released his grip on the knife, and Taylor sagged to his knees, still propped up. Slowly, the vivid light in his gaze died. Greg felt a sting in his own eyes. How long had his ex-partner endured his role, after literally coming back from the dead? Had his mind watched, trapped, as his body acted and fought under Hunter’s control? Garrett had said he’d started flushing the inhibitors and all other compounds from him; maybe that had accounted for Taylor’s slowness, and halfhearted skill. Had he been coming back, right up to Greg’s killing strike? He’d never know now.
Blinking away the wetness, he reached down and jerked the knife free. When he straightened, they were dry – and hard as stone. The pain from his wounds was gone; only an icy numbness remained, filling him from head to toe. Time to end this.
Off to his left, Joey had finally managed to block Cayden into a corn
er on his own. He feinted and jabbed constantly with both weapons, forcing the older Golem to block every time before he could make any strike of his own. Greg pivoted on one heel, priming to charge the ex-Golem. In that same instant, Cayden dropped his guard a fraction – long enough for Joey to score a deep stab to his left abdomen, below the ribcage. Cayden slumped to one knee – and seized the other man’s arm. Before Joey could draw back the sword or swing the other, he pulled him in deeper, and swung his own blade down in a tight, cleaving arc.
There was a thick crunching sound. Joey froze, staring cross-eyed at the blade now embedded in his forehead. He let out a couple of hitching grunts, then collapsed. Cayden wrenched the blade out as he fell, bringing a splash of blood and grey matter. Moving stiffly, he stood, and yanked out the sword still embedded in his side with a stifled wince. He let it drop to the rubble-strewn floor, staring at Joey’s blank, greying face with no expression of his own. Greg was sure, though, that the older Golem was as shaken as he.
He spun on his heel, knife and sword ready. Three down. A heavy pall of dust hung over the scene, shot through with tendrils of greyish smoke; something had caught fire in one of the offices near the stairway. More crashing metal and stone came from the same direction; Greg spotted two human-shaped forms grabbing at each other through the cloud, but couldn’t tell which was which.
On the other side of the platform, Leah was now retreating, being pressed back toward the ‘recovery area’. Her arms still moved quicksilver-fast, but Greg could see the fatigue in her shoulders – and the several glancing cuts to her arms where that had already cost her. She parried another strike and tried to counter with an underhand stab. Fred was quicker, however; the ex-Golem crossed his blade with hers before the stab was halfway up, then bulled forward with all his strength, locking them at the hilt. Before Leah could dig in, he hurled her backwards into the ‘recovery area’s’ teetering frame, hard enough to tear through the support pylon and send her flying into the mirrored far wall. There was a crash of glass; Leah screamed, more in pain than fury, a sound that abruptly cut off.
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