Stone pillars with statues of knights lined the path ahead of him. On the opposite end, there was a massive oak desk inside the room ahead behind the reflective doors. Seated there was a large, suited man wearing opaque sunglasses with his arms folded. A blonde woman in a lab coat sexily parked her rear on one edge of the desk, her legs crossed, with a huge smile on her face. Three of the walls in the room were like windows, revealing a glorious view of the city thousands of feet below.
Alexander Black finally reached Maxwell Hudson’s penthouse office.
Nia Black and Vincent Marks rushed through the lower levels of the Tower. Vincent’s access card still worked, and he was able to make use of the building’s executive elevators. It didn’t take long before the two were in the corporate levels of the Hudson Tower. They stormed past frightened employees, who gasped and backpedaled when they spotted the twin Baby Eagles in Nia’s hands and the Beretta in Vincent’s grasp.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Vincent stated. “The Security Soldiers go out in units. Each unit receives a specific command. Orders are issued from the control room. We have to get in there, take control of the system and shut it down completely. We basically order every unit to cease operations.”
“I’m not all that good with computers,” Nia muttered.
“That’s okay; I can handle it, even if they revoked my access. All I need you to do is make sure I don’t get shot while I’m in the middle of it.”
“Yeah, okay…” Nia mumbled.
Then Vincent took Nia by the arm and yanked her down, raising his Beretta with the other hand at the same time. He let off two rounds down a corridor and they smacked a Security Soldier in the helmet, sending him tumbling to the floor.
Nia looked up from the floor, staring at Vincent standing over her.
“I knew he was there.”
“I’m sure you did,” Vincent nodded, helping Nia to her feet. “I guess I just wanted to show off a bit. I may not have Hercules-enhanced DNA like you do but I can hold my own. I can’t let you have all the fun.”
“Didn’t you say they come in units of six or something?” Nia said.
Then five more Security Soldiers appeared at the end of the hall, holding assault rifles.
“And didn’t we discover outside that their armor is bulletproof?”
The sixth Soldier stood back up and took his place alongside his counterparts.
“You’re gonna need something a little bigger than that Beretta,” Nia suggested.
“The heavier artillery isn’t kept here, for obvious reasons,” Vincent grumbled. “Can’t endanger the civilians who work here. I could probably get my hands on an assault rifle from our weapons locker, but we already know that won’t be enough.”
“Then we’re going to have to take the direct approach.”
Nia put her guns away and cracked her knuckles.
“What are you doing?”
Nia looked back at Vincent with a smile. “Just get to the control room. There’s more to having enhanced DNA than being able to shoot straight.”
The Soldiers wasted no time. Each leveled their rifles and aimed square at Nia and Vincent.
But even that took too long.
In the time it took each Soldier to lean their guns forward, Nia had already crossed the distance of the hall.
Vincent darted out of the way as triggers were pulled. Automatic gunfire rattled in the air and sparked on the walls. Nia sprang in the air and sprinted toward them along the walls as all the shots passed underneath her.
She leaped off and slammed her knee into one Soldier’s helmet. Upon impact, her leg muscles doubled in size, her leg becoming hard as cement. The helmet shattered like glass and the skull inside burst like a grape.
Nia kept a tight grip on the body of the Soldier she defeated first, outstretching her legs and smashing her heels into two throats. The armor protecting their necks was dented, and both Soldiers gasped for air, collapsing to the ground, trembling until they stopped moving.
Nia landed and outstretched her arms, throwing herself forward, tackling the other three Soldiers to the ground. Their guns flew away. They all raised their fists and started pounding Nia in the head.
Nia shot a glance down the corridor and saw Vincent was still standing there.
“GO!!” she screamed.
“But…” Vincent mumbled.
“I got this! But I don’t know how long I can hold them!”
Vincent flashed teeth, then he ran past Nia and the Soldiers, disappearing down the hall.
Nia suddenly forced herself to her feet, throwing the last three Soldiers in three different directions. One crashed into the fire alarm, and a shrill ringing followed. Ceiling-mounted sprinklers shot on and it looked like torrential rain inside the building. Nia tightened her fists. She looked back and saw six more Soldiers appear behind her, ready to fight some more.
She then noticed something near the fire alarm. A fire extinguisher.
Nia quickly dashed away from the new unit, skipping over the fallen bodies of the first set, and snatched the fire extinguisher from the wall.
The Security Soldiers leveled their rifles and took aim, but the fire extinguisher was already swirling in the air toward them. They held their fire.
Nia Black raised a pistol, winking at the Security Soldiers with a smile.
Maxwell Hudson and Chelsea Romedrux just stared at Alexander Black with strangely calm eyes.
Alexander couldn’t believe them. He was the strongest man on earth, standing face to face with his nemesis in the only doorway out of the room, and Hudson didn’t even so much as have armed guards waiting.
He approached the desk. The doors creaked shut behind him. Alexander looked back briefly, then shrugged at Hudson.
“I always knew you were bold,” he started. “But I didn’t know you were insane. I guess you finally got it through your head. You created a monster. Raised one too many devils. I’ve come here to pick up your lady friend. But as long as I’m here, I might as well tear a new hole in your ass too.”
Hudson didn’t react.
Then Alexander noticed something. He didn’t even realize it before, but while he was talking, the music stopped. In its place was a high-pitched sound that started out faint. It was starting to get louder. And louder.
It felt like pins and needles in his head.
He couldn’t hold back his screams any longer. The pain became unbearable—a sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Blood began leaking from his ear canals. He fell to one knee, clutching his temples.
The doors opened again and six Security Soldiers rushed into the room, four of them holding shackles that looked like they were meant to restrain a rhino. The other two each held large jet injectors that they immediately stabbed into Alexander Black’s deltoids.
They pulled the triggers and Alexander suddenly felt wobbly and feeble.
It was sedative, and a powerful one.
As Alexander stumbled all the way to the floor, unable to support his own weight any longer, the other Soldiers latched his arms and legs together using the shackles.
Maxwell Hudson stood up, and Chelsea Romedrux hopped off of the desk, standing up as well.
They both pulled high-tech earplugs out.
Rachel Jones stood at a computer terminal in a sealed room deep within the Tower’s corporate levels. She darted back and forth, looking at camera monitors, taking in the bedlam. Then a thundering boom from outside the room startled her. It was loud enough to penetrate the supposedly soundproof walls of the control room.
“Where are they?” she shouted into a microphone. “We need backup now! Target Omega is here and she’s taken out three units already!”
“Sorry, Ms. Jones,” a voice crackled over the mic. “We got held up by a traffic jam. Cops are all over the place out here. Something about a car crash. There’s a mangled Viper sitting here, people are all over the place, ambulances, cops, reporters…”
“Damn it!” snapped Rache
l. “Go around! Get here as quickly as you can!”
Then the room’s only door swooshed open. Rachel looked behind her and saw Vincent Marks standing there with his Beretta out.
“What are you doing, Vincent?” Rachel asked him. “You should be out there investigating that blast…”
Vincent stared firmly at her, writhing his gloved fingers around the handle of his pistol.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I know everything now. You made those Soldiers turn their guns on me. Shut them down. You know this is wrong.”
“No, Vincent,” she said, “You’re wrong. Your whole existence is wrong. Mr. Hudson is trying to solve the problem created by people like you.”
“By replacing everyone who works for him with an automaton?”
Rachel slowly paced around the room, navigating around the various terminals and keeping her distance from Vincent.
“No…just you soldiers. You with your morals and your free will…you should understand this better than anyone, Vincent. After all, your weak little heart is the reason we haven’t been able to capture Target Omega.”
Vincent took his pistol in both hands. “You think Hudson’s going to spare you? What happens when you stop being useful to him? Just like his executive security, you can be replaced too.”
“I provide services for Mr. Hudson that no mere machine can ever compare with,” Rachel said with a grin, sliding her hand under one of the terminals. “I could provide that service for you too, if you want.”
“Rachel…” Vincent mumbled.
Then a gun went off.
Rachel’s eyes rolled up to the hole in her forehead. Blood rolled down the middle of her face and she fell dead.
“She’s right, you know.”
Vincent spun around and saw Nia. She was soaked from the fire sprinklers and scarred from battle, holding a smoking Baby Eagle.
“Those morals of yours almost got you killed,” she said as she walked past him, approaching Rachel’s corpse. “There is a such thing as being too honorable, you know.”
A revolver sat barely grasped in her hand.
“You couldn’t tell she was going for a gun? I mean, that’s the oldest trick in the book. We put a little more breath in our voice and talk all slow, and you men just look and stare and think about how much fun it would be to fuck and bang!—you’re dead.”
Vincent scratched his head. “I have an issue with shooting women.”
“Yeah, I know,” Nia said with a smile. “Now, you do know how to turn off those Soldiers, right?”
“Might take a while,” he responded, looking over the computers. “Rachel locked her terminal. I need to break through so I can log her out and log myself in. She had administrator access so it might be tough…”
“I ain’t understand a word you just said,” Nia sighed, starting for the door. “Just do it, all right?”
“Where are you going?”
“You should be cool in here. Just seal the door. I’ve got unfinished business to deal with upstairs.”
“What do you plan to do? Hudson…you’re going after him? He’s not worth it, Nia!”
Nia took a breath. “Even if you shut down the Soldiers, he’ll just start the project up again later. He’ll come after us. This has to stop, today. I have to end it. For me, for you…for my father and mother. For everybody. Hudson’s got to be stopped.”
Vincent crouched down at Rachel’s corpse and dug into her jacket pockets. He drew a small card with a magnetic strip on it.
Tossing the card to Nia, he said, “Here; that’s Rachel’s key. She was the only one with direct access to Hudson’s penthouse besides the big man himself. You should be able to get up there easily now.”
Thirty-Eight
“Hello, Mr. Black,” Hudson said, approaching his quarry, looking down at Alexander as he trembled on the floor. “The moment you entered the room, you were under the assault of a high-frequency sonic wave bombardment. Much like a dog whistle, only more potent. Everyone else was wearing specially-designed earplugs that filtered out the tones. They did make us deaf to your babbling, but I’m sure you weren’t saying anything terribly important.”
Alexander could barely move. It took matchless effort just to make a grimaced face. Chelsea Romedrux walked close and crouched low, looking into his eyes.
“Aw…you’re like a little puppy who knows he’s about to be put to sleep,” she laughed.
“H-how…” Alexander stammered.
“Heightened senses…that’s like, your greatest asset, you’d think,” Chelsea continued. “But I figured out that they’re also your Achilles’ Heel. You’re like, super-sensitive to extremes. High-pitched sound, super-bright high-beams, subzero temperatures; you name it. And the stronger you are, the more effective it is. I had to shut the sonic defense system off before it made your brains explode. After all…I need your heart pumping for my experiments.”
The Security Soldiers took Alexander by the arms and lifted him to his feet.
Then they released him and he fell back to the floor.
“Hey…what’s going on?” Chelsea mumbled. “Like, pick him up!”
“Negative. Threat imminent,” said one Soldier as he and the others turned away from Chelsea and Hudson, facing the open doorway and looking down the end of the hall.
The elevator door chimed and slid open, and a woman stepped out.
Chelsea gasped. “Like, how in the hell did you get up here?”
Nia Black presented the key card, holding it between two fingers.
“Rachel…” Hudson mumbled.
“Yeah, she’s pushing up daisies,” Nia said. “She was about to shoot a friend of mine so I had to stop her. You know how that is.”
Hudson looked at Chelsea. “Dr. Romedrux, if you would.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chelsea pressed a key on top of Hudson’s desk, and the six Security Soldiers immediately assumed fighting stances, producing electrified batons from inside their gauntlets.
“This again…” Nia sighed.
The Security Soldiers ran toward her like rhinos, their thunderous footsteps quivering the carpeted floor. Nia just stood her ground, tightened her fists, and took action.
Nia swung her forearm into her first opponent’s throat, sending him somersaulting backward, his own momentum throwing him forward to the ground.
The second swung at her with his electrified baton. Nia ducked, shot her elbow into his gut and connected with the force of a shotgun blast. She followed with a rising kick that sent the soldier flying backward, his helmet shattering to pieces.
The third thrust his gauntlet toward Nia. She caught it, swung him around and slammed him face-first into the office door. He collapsed to the floor and didn’t move.
Nia spun around as the fourth Security Soldier rushed forward, wrapping his arms around her waist. He pushed forward to slam Nia to the ground. She dug her heels into the floor and halted him in his tracks. She raised her arms and barreled her elbows down to the Soldier’s back, smashing into him like an anchor, leaving dents in his armor as he fell in front of her. Finally, Nia took hold of his torso and swung him around like a sack of potatoes, throwing his body into the air.
Nia was grateful for the high ceiling in Hudson’s penthouse.
She suddenly took off into a sprint, sprang into the air and swung her foot into the flailing Soldier, the collision hitting him so hard he changed direction in midair, hurtling into the last two like a missile. They all crashed to the floor. Nia charged toward the pile of men, grabbed their gauntlets and jammed their stun rods into each other’s helmets, breaking through them. They all violently thrashed about as the electricity lanced through their bodies.
Smoke hissed from them as Nia stood back up and swept her hands of dust.
She stepped over the fallen guards and yanked her Baby Eagles from their holsters.
“It seems more experimentation is necessary,” Hudson said. “Apparently even our second-generation Security Soldiers a
ren’t enough to stop her. Perhaps with Target Alpha’s DNA, the third generation will—”
“You ain’t ever gonna get the chance to find out, big man,” Nia said, determined. She raised a pistol.
“NO!!” Chelsea squealed, standing in front of Hudson, outstretching her arms. “You can’t do this! The world needs him!”
Nia sighed and shook her head. Then she opened fire.
Chelsea shook.
Three bullets smashed into Maxwell Hudson’s forehead—that towered well above Chelsea’s feeble height—and he fell backward over his desk.
Chelsea flashed teeth, staring daggers at Nia.
“You…you bitch! Like, how could you?”
“If you’re going to use yourself as a human shield for somebody that big, at least have the good sense to get a chair or something, shorty. Damn. You corporate types can’t even go take a piss without somebody giving you time off to do it. Don’t worry; somebody else will get promoted in his place. I just had beef with him.”
Chelsea started sniveling. She looked over at the fallen body of Maxwell Hudson, his legs sitting lifelessly on top of his desk, the giant chair flipped over his face.
“Like, go ahead then,” Chelsea sobbed, furiously wiping her eyes. “Finish what you came up here to do. Kill me like you killed my father. Here, I’ll even turn around so you can put two in my back just like you did him. Like, that’ll make it easier, right? Don’t have to look me in the eyes?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Romedrux Labs. You went there to steal our prototype, and you killed my father on the way out. Two rounds in my father’s back. That’s what I was told.”
Nia rolled her eyes. “Look, I didn’t kill anybody that night. Your father was alive when I left. Did you even look at the tapes? Or were you just trying to look for somebody to blame? You know damn well what happened to your father for real. You keep on blaming me but you know it only happened because of your boss.”
“Liar!” Chelsea screamed. “Even if…even if you didn’t shoot him…it was still your fault!”
Beloved Weapon Page 28
