They walked through an entertainment room where workers depressurized. There were foosball and Ping-Pong tables alongside arcade games from the 1980s. Another doorway led to a large office space lined with cubicles.
A young, attractive woman stepped up to them. “Hello Detective, my name is Stacy and I’m Hockney’s assistant. He’s taking a call but will be right with you. Would you care for a water or juice while you wait?”
Serrone asked for an energy drink instead. Today wasn’t the day to quit bad habits. As they waited, she studied the workspace more closely. Hockney’s office was a separate room at the far end of a much larger work area. Men and women, most of them in their twenties and thirties, faced their computer stations. The desks were decorated with toys and other examples of geek culture. Serrone saw a Star Wars screensaver and action figures from some comic-book flick.
These Nerf-ball warriors didn’t strike her as vicious killers, but she’d felt the same way about the attackers back in the Apple Store.
As Serrone sorted through these impressions, all activity in the office suddenly ceased. No typing, no phone calls, no conversation. Everyone sat ramrod straight in their Aeron chairs, eyes fixed on their screens.
Curious, Serrone took a step closer. To her surprise, all the monitors showed the same strange stream of data. She leaned forward, hoping to get a reaction from one of the workers — perhaps a hello or some form of acknowledgement — but the Omicron tech-heads remained in their drone-like trance state.
Serrone was getting a bad feeling about this place, once again reminded of the blank fanaticism she’d encountered during the attack on the Apple Store. She chewed her lip and balled the keychain in her pocket until her hand hurt.
“This is ridiculous,” she said to Dawson, who projected a calm rivaling the monk-like Omicron workers. “How long are they going to keep us waiting?”
Dawson shrugged in response. Serrone shook her head and scoped the office floor for Hockney’s assistant. The young woman seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Fed up, Serrone pivoted and strode briskly toward Hockney’s office. She knocked on the closed door. No one answered. She repeated her knocking. Still no response.
Impatience boiling over, she pushed into Hockney’s office to find him slumped back in his chair, shirt soaked with blood, a wide gash in his throat.
Jesus…
Serrone went for her pistol. Weapon out, she circled the desk and glimpsed Hockney’s assistant hemorrhaging red on the hardwood floor. Her legs twitched, heels bobbing up and down. Hockney must’ve assaulted her first before killing himself.
Next to his lifeless features, the same strange computer code slashed over his monitor. Serrone’s blood turned to ice. The horror she’d first experienced in the Apple Store had followed her to Omicron.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TALON AND ZAGAN faced each other in the server maze, about a hundred feet between them. Two classic adversaries gearing up for the bitter, final confrontation. Zagan’s physical condition was worsening at an exponential rate. The skin was stretched taut against his skull and pockmarked by a shimmering patchwork of circuitry. Steel fingers pierced through a fraying layer of broken skin and made his hands look like bloody gloves worn by a robot.
Advancing down the corridor of servers, the flickering lights on the explosive charges extinguished one by one as soon as Zagan passed them. His mere presence was manipulating the material world.
Talon’s heart sank.
“I don’t know how you broke free of my program, Sergeant, but you’re too late.”
We’ll see about that, Talon thought.
The fog thickened and the temperature dropped a few degrees. Casca had said the pendant would protect him from Zagan’s reality hacks, but so far it was doing jack shit.
Talon’s hand came up with the Glock in it and he started firing into the demonic cyborg-creature closing in on him. Bullets might be useless against his enemy, but Talon didn’t want Zagan to catch on that he might have an ace up his sleeve. Lead slammed into Zagan in hot spurts, each round connecting with its target in a fiery eruption of flesh and steel. The bullets stitched bloody patterns on his chest. It barely slowed down the monster’s inexorable approach.
Talon replaced the magazine in his weapon with a metallic snap. For Talon to use the Demon Slayer, Zagan needed to move in closer. As long as Zagan felt secure in his superiority, it would be easier to lure him into a close-combat situation. Talon prayed that Casca’s fearsome knife would prove more effective than his talisman had.
His thoughts were interrupted when the roiling carpet of frosty mist engulfed him, erasing Zagan from view. The freezing fog swallowed the blinking servers, too. He tried to focus on his other senses. Were those incoming footfalls?
Talon squinted, desperately hoping to penetrate the thick fog. He sensed more than saw vague movement, but it was too late. A fist popped out of the mist and found him. With the force of a brick slamming into the side of his face, Zagan’s inhuman punch hurtled him through the air.
Talon crashed into one of the blinking servers. The sharp impact rattled his bones. Fuck… He never saw the attack coming. Zagan had struck seemingly out of nowhere. At this rate, the fight would be over before it started.
Zagan was closing in fast. Another attack was surely just a second away. Talon whirled as Zagan’s metallic foot shot out at him from the icy fog. It hit the space where his head had been an instant earlier and pulverized the server in a shower of sparking electronics.
How did one fight an invisible, superhuman enemy? Talon’s surroundings swarmed with shadows. His senses struggled to penetrate the layered gloom. The mist rippled and Zagan’s skull-face thrust toward him with ferocious speed. The head-butt sent Talon reeling backwards several feet.
Crimson sheeted down his face and the taste of iron coated his mouth. He spit blood and realized one more attack like the last one and he’d be done for.
He needed to fight back. Somehow. But merely grazing Zagan with the Demon Slayer would alert his adversary of the magical weapon in his arsenal. He’d have to play his cards right and strike only when he spotted a real opportunity to do some damage.
He had to buy himself some time… Get Zagan to reveal his position in the living fog. Talon thought he’d gotten to Zagan the other day. The right words might trigger a similar intense psychological response.
“You’re being played like a chump.”
No answer.
“You think you’re controlling this power, Zagan, but take a quick look in the mirror and you’ll see who is in the driver’s seat.”
“What are you talking about?”
At least a reaction. Good.
“The darkness is destroying you.”
“The darkness serves me,“ Zagan hissed, rage pulsing. “It’s making me stronger.” Each word sounded like it was being torn from Zagan’s throat, the transformation distorting his voice.
“You’re fooling yourself. This entity is killing you. You’re dying.”
Air whistled and Talon jumped aside. The disrupted fog swirled and Zagan smashed into another server.
Okay, finally we’re getting somewhere…
As this hopeful thought cut through his mind, the amulet around his neck suddenly lit up. The wave of occult energy warmed his flesh, but there was no pain. Electricity burst from the pendant and rippled through his body. An instant later, the fog parted and there stood Zagan, mere inches from Talon’s face, gearing up for his next attack.
Damn, it does work!
Zagan’s iron fist blasted at him and Talon sidestepped the deadly blow with trained grace, drawing the Demon Slayer in mid-movement. The knife came up and scythed across Zagan’s throat from left to right. For a stunned beat, the Omicron CEO stood there. Then he took two weak steps back and his second mouth spouted blood. It splattered the steel servers and pearled on the pristine white floor. Disbelief flickered across Zagan’s features. How could the blade harm him when bullets had
failed?
Talon assumed a close-quarters fighting stance, but it was too late. Zagan had regained his bearings. His arm lanced out with pneumatic force. Fingers powered by superhuman strength snapped around Talon’s wrist, squeezing until the viselike grip forced him to drop the Demon Slayer. Zagan kicked the knife aside and with devastating force rammed Talon into one of the servers.
What happened next turned even Talon’s battle-hardened stomach. Zagan’s fingers dug under the flaps of skin lining his gushing throat and pulled off his face in one violent motion. It felt like a mask coming off, the shocking act exposing glistening bone and shiny musculature interspersed with dull steel and glittering cybernetics. A steel skull sheathed in slick gore and patches of oozing tissue glared back at Talon. The wet eyes boring into him were still organic. A demonic fusion of man and machine had taken place.
Zagan was wounded but a long way from being defeated. Talon had to get his hands on the Demon Slayer, which now rested about ten feet from where he stood.
Talon scrambled past the servers, heading for the knife. He never made it.
Zagan bolted forward and closed the gap between them before Talon could reach the supernatural weapon. Lightning fast, Zagan’s arm flashed and he seized Talon’s throat. Feet dangling above the floor, the Delta operator desperately choked for air. The bones of his neck cracked. A few ounces of pressure and it would all be over.
He only dimly made out Zagan’s next chilling words. “I pledge your soul to my master.”
***
Serrone burst out of Hockney’s office, one hand clutching her gun and the other nervously palming her phone. She was calling for backup but so far failing to get through. How was she not getting a signal in one of the most wired places on the fucking planet?
Dawson stared at her wide-eyed. “What’s going on?”
“Phone’s dead and something is messing up the Wi-Fi, if you can believe that. We better get the hell out of here and call for backup. Hockney and his assistant are dead.”
“Oh shit.” Dawson craned his neck to catch a view of Hockney’s office and shuddered at the sight.
Nice to see that the man has a pulse, Serrone thought crazily.
“Let’s go.” She grabbed Dawson’s arm and pulled him into motion. Dawson fell in step with her, both glad to be leaving the eerie cubicle area behind.
All the engineers remained frozen in tableau as they surged past them, hypnotized by their machines and oblivious to the officers’ presence. How long before they snapped out of their unnatural trance and turned into a murderous mob? Serrone couldn’t explain it logically but she sensed that the program must be the source of this madness. Somehow it was exerting a terrible pull on these people.
Guard up, Serrone and Dawson crossed the vast atrium. The previously idyllic setting was now filled with hidden horrors and dark potential. What other dangers lurked behind the cheerful facade?
They had almost reached the front security desk when a strange whistling sound cut through the air, followed by a thump. Serrone whirled. A body lay sprawled on the lobby floor in a broken, bloody mass, face planted in the floor and features caved in. At first Serrone didn’t quite grasp what she was staring at. How had this person died? She trailed Dawson’s gaze as he tilted his head up at the upper floors.
Omicron workers loomed on the second and third-floor catwalks. They were in the process of climbing over the glass railings. A frightful realization hit Serrone. The pulped worker beside her was a jumper and these other tech professionals were about to join the first suicide.
No… Don’t do it…
Serrone mouthed the word “no” but her trembling lips produced no sound. She averted her gaze as two more cultists hit the hard lobby floor with a wet splat and the sickening crunch of bones breaking.
Oh my God…
She spun toward the security guys. They’d all drawn their guns. One man fired, hitting Dawson before pointing the pistol at his own temple and pulling the trigger. He went down in a spray of red, his brain savagely splattering the terminals of the security desk. Two more pops followed in quick succession as the other two guards blew their brains out and collapsed.
Terror flared in Serrone. She wished with all her heart that she’d never come to Omicron today. Wished she was at home, feeling the warmth of her daughter’s cheek against her own and tousling Casey’s soft hair instead of clutching the cold grip of her pistol.
She struggled to suppress her mounting panic. One look at poor Dawson told her that any help would come too late. She was still rooted in place when approaching footfalls rattled the blood-clotted lobby. Three engineers were zeroing in on her with quick, determined strides. They all wielded blades in their outstretched hands and were closing in fast. Even more disturbing, the incoming horde was cutting off the main entrance, her one way out of this madhouse.
Serrone fired away and the three cultists spun around in an explosion of brains and blood. Their bodies were still twitching as six new cultists took their place.Serrone knew she was doomed. She wouldn’t be able to hit every one of her pursuers before they reached her. The unstoppable throng surged forward and she started running.
They were herding her toward the assembly hall located at the other end of the lobby. No choice but to play along. She kicked open the wooden door and powered into the auditorium, determined to blow away anyone lurking in the shadows. To her relief, the narrow aisle leading into the assembly hall was deserted.
She slammed the door shut and moved deeper into the vast space. She soon recognized that she wasn’t alone in the cavernous chamber. An audience of engineers hammered away on their laptops while images of the progressing mass suicide filled the screens before them.
A snapping sound behind her made her spin away from the screen. A programmer had closed his laptop lid. The scene repeated itself as other engineers sealed their computers and rose to their feet, their empty eyes fixating on her now. She held up her pistol even though she knew this crowd wouldn’t be intimidated by the weapon. These men and women were beyond reason. Beyond any instinct for self-preservation. These were slaves to a digital master she couldn’t comprehend. She was up against a seething mob of fanatics who all shared the same goal…
Murder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TALON FELT HIS life draining away.
The tendons in his neck stood out like cords and his temple pulsed. Zagan’s nightmarish robot skull-face dripped gore. The one weapon that could offer Talon a fighting chance remained tantalizingly out of his reach. He was about to succumb to the inhuman pressure on his windpipe when his darkening gaze landed on...
Michelle.
She had materialized about thirty feet behind Zagan. This wasn’t the broken woman who’d perished in his blood-soaked arms. This Michelle was a vision to behold. She looked the way she did when he proposed to her in the park. Beautiful. Untouched by death. Full of life.
Sadness welled up inside him but he drew a strange comfort from the idea that they might be reunited soon. To his surprise, instead of welcoming the possibility of his passing, Michelle whispered one word that changed everything.
Live.
Talon’s bloodshot gaze traveled back to Zagan. He took in the pulsing servers. Remembered the stakes. This wasn’t about him or personal vengeance any longer. Three hundred Omicron workers were in danger of committing suicide. Who knew how many lives would be lost if this hellish program infiltrated the operating system of every Omicron device in the world?
Talon had dedicated his life to keeping his country safe. He’d sworn to protect America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Zagan couldn’t be allowed to win.
Tapping into the last of his dwindling reserves of strength, Talon reached for the pentacle around his neck and pushed it against Zagan’s hand, hoping this desperate move might have some sort of effect.
As soon as the amulet made contact with Zagan, he roared with savage agony and let go of Talon. The Delta operator crashed to th
e floor and rolled away. He scanned his surroundings and locked on the Demon Slayer. Killer instinct flashed in his eyes as he scooped up the magical knife. Tapping into his rage, he honed his fury until its razor edge rivaled the blade in his hand. This was for everyone Zagan had sacrificed in his mad quest for power.
For Erik.
For Michelle.
His hand tightened around the blade and spun, steel slicing in a lethal arc. He slashed Zagan’s chest, once, twice before driving the weapon deep into the cyborg-demon’s chest. The Demon Slayer penetrated metal, circuitry and tissue to find the abomination’s pulsating heart.
Zagan bellowed and the server room shook with his roars of pain. He stumbled back and clutched the hilt of the blade sticking from his chest. Before he could liberate it from his flesh, Talon’s leg flashed out in a roundhouse kick that drove the handle of the knife even deeper into Zagan’s ribcage.
A second later, the charges ignited back to life and the ticking countdown resumed. Weakened by the attack, Zagan’s power over reality was growing more tenuous.
Two minutes left before the explosives would go off - two minutes for Talon to get the hell out of here.
Talon spun around and dashed toward the control deck. As he sprinted down the passage of pulsating servers, he searched for Michelle but saw no sign of his love. Had a trick of his imagination conjured her into existence? Or had Michelle somehow communicated from the beyond? Talon didn’t have the answer. All he knew was that her presence, imagined or not, had given him the necessary strength he needed to defeat Zagan.
Talon reached the elevator and punched the call button. Sensing movement behind him, he pivoted toward his pursuer. The biomechanical monster lurching toward him was barely human, a cyberpunk nightmare of fizzling robotics and bleeding meat.
Occult Assassin: Damnation Code (Book 1) Page 13
