by S Mays
“Never seen a goddess before?’” she asked.
“What?” Sverre asked.
“Lordy, we’ve got a real Einstein over here,” she responded, exasperated. “Look, we’ve got about ten minutes before the power turns back on, and if we aren’t vamoosed by then, you don’t want to know what will happen.”
“Um, what’s the plan?” he asked.
“You follow me, beat up anyone who gets in our way, and we should be out of here in five minutes,” she answered. “I had to waste three minutes coming down here to get you, and you hadn’t even left your room. Did you even try to open the door?”
“Err, no.”
“Like I said, a real Einstein. When the power is out, the doors stay locked, so the guards won’t be coming down this way, hopefully. I just unlocked yours and mine a split second before I shut the system down. We’ve got to get to the loading dock, then I can hotwire one of the transport aircraft to fly us out. Now, let’s move it.”
They darted down the hall, pausing at corners to check for any guards. There was shouting and screams echoing through the halls, but it was difficult to determine the source or direction.
“Where is everyone?” Sverre whispered as they ran.
“Holy hell, we got lucky. A delivery copter lost its rotor coming in and crashed into the side of the building, lettin’ a few prisoners loose. I had a script prepared that would notify me of any unusual changes in the facility, so I activated a program I’d embedded to cut the power and let us out as well. Fortunately, those things that got out are in the opposite direction of where we are goin’ and will keep the guards busy for a while.”
“Why didn’t you let all of the prisoners out? Wouldn’t that give us more cover?”
Izzy looked at him directly, rolling her eyes. “Bucko, if I’d opened all of these doors, you and I would have made it about ten feet before either bein’ drained of blood completely or ended up as some siren’s soul slave, or perhaps skinned alive and havin’ our identity stolen by a mimic wearing us as a skinsuit.” She paused a second to reach over and pinch his arm, tugging on the skin.
“Yowch!” he said, rubbing where she had pinched him.
“Okay, that’s the real deal. Let’s roll.”
Turning the next corner, they stopped. A lone guard was standing at the end of the hall, distracted by his helmet communication chatter. They backpedaled around the corner before he could notice them.
“Sheet,” Izzy said under her breath.
“You know, you have a really weird accent,” Sverre said.
“Well, that’s a combination of bein’ born and raised in Georgia and goin’ to MIT,” she said proudly.
“Kind of a ‘southern and smart’ thing,” he remarked.
“We’ve got about eight minutes to get out of here, and you are wastin’ it talkin’ ’bout accents. See that guy down there? That guy is the only reason you are here right now. So, get to work!” she commanded, shoving him out into the hallway.
The guard at the end of the hallway finally noticed their presence. He said something into his helmet microphone, then shouldered a nasty-looking rifle and took aim at Sverre as he slowly advanced down the hall.
“Don’t worry, that will probably be set on stun, because your file is marked as ‘Do Not Kill.’ But don’t get stunned, or we are done,” she hissed from around the corner.
“That makes me feel so much better,” Sverre shouted, crouching down.
The guard was shouting something, but Sverre was focusing and did not hear. Time slowed down as he cleared his mind, analyzing his opponent’s body language, height, weight, and speed. He’d done this a few times before, allowing the ancient instincts of the warriors within him to predict the movement patterns of his opponent. The hardware and tech might change, but human nature remained the same. The guard was overconfident, rushing his unarmed, unarmored opponent. He’d probably never had to contain a live prisoner before.
The guard stopped, agitated that Sverre wasn’t obeying his commands. The distance was a bit more than Sverre had hoped for, but time was running out.
Sverre’s first step cracked loudly in the narrow hallway. The speed of his launch was approximately thirty percent faster than the fastest Olympic athlete.
Too slow! The past weeks in confinement and constant abuse had eroded his skills. The guard pulled the trigger on his weapon.
The blue bolt sizzled past his left side, passing through his loose-fitting shirt. He’d twisted just in time, but there was a neat hole where the beam had passed.
I’m not sure this guy got the “no kill” memo, Sverre thought, increasing his speed. With each step, he accelerated, but it seemed to him that he was moving in slow motion. In his view, the guard was practically standing still.
The armored man fired again, upset that his first shot had missed. However, before his finger squeezed the trigger, Sverre had already seen his intent and shoved off the wall, easily moving out of the way of the energy. The distance between them was now half of what it had been when the confrontation started.
The guard attempted to fire again, but there was a second delay in the recharge mechanism. Sverre was unfamiliar with the weapon. He was beginning to think he’d only been given access to a small portion of the agency’s information while he was training.
Another blast whizzed by his head, this time close enough to sizzle a few strands of hair. The smell of burnt hair and ozone lingered in the air. He’d have to time the last movement perfectly as he’d be face-to-face with his adversary.
He paused unexpectedly, then spun to the side, causing the guard to miss again. It was time. He dashed forward, leaping against the wall, using his momentum to carry him forward. The guard, nearly hysterical at this point, fired again, but Sverre had already kicked off and landed on the opposing wall.
The beam blasted the area he had just leapt from, leaving sooty black scorch marks that contrasted with the pure white paint. Sverre drove off again, crashing into the guard in a flying body press. One fact about armor: great for blocking knives and bullets; not so great for hand-to-hand combat. Sverre quickly maneuvered into position, using the armor’s vulnerable joint system against his foe. Within a few seconds, he’d choked the man unconscious.
“Not bad!” Izzy said, jogging up from behind. “I knew you could do it.”
Sverre bent down and picked up the weapon, which instantly powered down. He flipped it around, looking it over curiously.
“Don’t bother. It’s coded to the DNA of each guard. Hand it to me,” Izzy said.
Sverre passed the weapon to her. She looked at it intently, squinting her eyes as her tongue poked out of the side of her mouth. After a few seconds, it hummed back to life.
“That’s no kind of hacking I’ve ever heard of,” Sverre said.
“Hey, a girl’s gotta have her secrets,” Izzy retorted, moving to the wall console outside of the door the guard was protecting. Within fifteen seconds, she had the door unlocked. Sverre wrenched it open. The path to freedom lay before them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“We’re almost there!” Izzy exclaimed.
Once she had a weapon, she wasn’t so timid about taking the lead, Sverre noted mentally.
“We’ll hop into a personnel transport, and I’ll fly us out of here. I put their radar system in a loop before the power went down. By the time they realize it, we’ll be home free.”
“Where to after that?”
“You seem to do pretty good in a scrap, so if you want to come with me for a bit, I can make it worth your while. Plus, you ain’t too hard on the eyes. I might be able to teach you a few things,” she said, smirking.
He wasn’t quite sure what “things” she was talking about, but this woman made him extremely nervous for some reason.
“At the end of the next hall is the loadin’ bay,” she said, panting slightly.
Once again, they rounded the corner, and a lone figure stood at the end of the hallway.
Sv
erre started to walk forward, but Izzy nudged past him.
“I’ve got this,” she said confidently. She checked the settings on the weapon, raising it against her shoulder.
The man at the end of the hall did not move as she raised the weapon. “Your funeral, buddy,” she muttered under her breath as she took aim. The blue bolt flared from the weapon, directly at the face of the man.
At the last instant, he raised his hand as if to block the energy bolt. A small flare of illumination flashed as the bolt struck his upheld hand. A stream of smoke snaked away from his palm.
“What the…?” Izzy stammered. She checked the settings on the weapon and adjusted them. The weapon’s hum grew louder as a final LED lit up, signaling full power.
The man did not move, but resumed his relaxed stance. Sverre noted that he was not dressed like anyone else he’d seen in the facility. A long black leather trench coat covered his body. The hood was drawn so that his face was hidden in shadow. He had black form-fitting pants that were probably a flexible mesh armor, judging by the glints of faceted material he could see. His supple boots were of a similar material or leather.
Izzy fired again, sending another sizzling bolt racing down the hallway toward the man. Raising his other hand, he blocked the discharge again. The dark figure folded his arms as if waiting impatiently for something interesting to happen.
Izzy looked at Sverre, then back at the man. She studied him carefully, thinking, as if she was trying to remember something she’d overlooked.
“Holy shit…. that’s not…. what the hell is he doing here?” she asked, terror creeping into her voice.
“Who’s that?” Sverre asked, puzzled.
“Just run, idiot!” she said, panicking. She started running down the hall they’d just come from.
“No, I’ve got this!” Sverre shouted, walking down the hallway toward the figure. “Dude doesn’t even have a gun.”
Izzy paused in disbelief, wanting to drag him away but too afraid to go back. She continued running down the hall, leaving Sverre behind.
The man at the end of the hallway said nothing but started to slowly walk toward Sverre.
His stance and body language were nothing like the last guard’s. This man was confident and well-trained.
They met in the middle of the hall, standing several feet apart.
“Looks like I’m going to have to go through you,” Sverre said, cracking his knuckles.
The man nodded silently.
“Do you know who I am?” Sverre asked, annoyed by the calmness of his opponent.
The man nodded again.
“You know you can’t beat me, right?”
The man tilted his head and shrugged slightly, as if someone had just asked him if it was okay to put mayo on his burger.
Sverre’s eyes narrowed, his impatient nature taking over. This guy was making fun of him!
Sverre’s first punch missed by inches. The second one was blocked by his opponent’s arm. It felt like this mysterious stranger had steel plates in his forearms. Sverre launched his knee upward, which his opponent blocked and pushed down with his hands, tilting Sverre’s face forward. A rising elbow caught him in the chin, dazing him.
Hell, did I lose this many steps in here, or is this guy that good? Sverre mentally asked himself, working his jaw around with his hand. The man stood silently, shaking his head as if he was disappointed.
Sverre lunged forward again, his movements picking up speed with each strike. Each was blocked or dodged, but it became apparent that his opponent was having more difficulty as the fight progressed.
The flurry of blows between the two was almost too fast for the human eye to track, at least for a regular human. His opponent was the most skilled martial artist Sverre had ever seen. While he’d trained with many experts at the Farm, they were usually found lacking. Perhaps it was the life-or-death struggle that made the difference, instead of sparring. He’d seen it once or twice while sparring with Jessica. Push her too far and she could easily flip into that cold, calculating mode that sent a shiver down his spine.
What was that? he thought, jumping backward. He had noticed a small light glinting out from inside of the closed hood. His opponent’s left eye was glowing red. No, the outline was wrong for an eye — this was perfectly round, more like the scope of a rifle.
Sverre rushed in again, intent on stopping the man from using a ranged weapon or some unknown ability. His opponent now countered his movements better and responded almost as fast as Sverre could move. Whatever his opponent had done, it allowed him to now match Sverre’s speed. Sverre’s next punch missed completely. He was rewarded with a hard blow to his ribs. Nothing cracked, but if he’d been a regular human, he was sure he would now have several broken ribs.
He looked back up at his opponent, who stood defiant. The man raised his hand, palm up, then opened and closed his hand, making a motion to “bring it.”
There had to be just a few minutes left, if time was not up already. Sverre thought back to the torture room and its nefarious chair. He lunged at his opponent again, this time more viciously and less calculated.
His desperation was magnified by his anger, increasing his strength and speed. The shadowy warrior was taken aback and could not counter the assault. Sverre let his instincts take control. Dredging up the betrayal of those he considered friends, his treatment at the facility, and everything else he’d endured, he fueled his power.
The next punch that landed cracked like a wooden bat on a baseball. Sverre felt several of his opponent’s ribs cave in. The man clutched his side, slowly looking up at Sverre in shock. The red eye flickered, but Sverre still could not make out the face under the hood. The figure shrugged off the pain and stiffened, widening his stance. His arms stretched out at his sides with fingers extended.
Sverre stepped back, unsure of what his opponent was doing. A billowing darkness flowed from the stranger’s right hand. It was as if shadows were spinning slowly toward his palm like a pinwheel. In his left hand, a gleam of blinding light began to dance like a star being born. What had started off with a faint flash now shone like a welder’s torch. Sverre shielded his eyes as best he could. He dared not look directly at it.
His opponent stood confidently. In his right hand was a wispy blade of pure darkness. Trails of black night swirled around the weapon. It was hard to discern the blade, hilt, or handle. In his other hand was a flickering sword of light and energy. It quivered and crackled as if it was pure white electricity. It, too, was hard to behold, blinding as it was.
“Say, you wouldn’t attack an unarmed man?” Sverre asked, backing away.
The man nodded solemnly and advanced. His first strike was with the black blade, which Sverre dodged at the last instant. The sword struck the floor without a sound. The blade had no weight or substance.
Sverre could only back away as the man moved forward, deftly swinging the blades. If the mysterious figure was a master of martial arts, his swordsmanship was on another level altogether. All Sverre could do was avoid the man’s weapons, but he was getting farther from the large doors at the end of the hall which had been his goal. Escape was slipping away. He focused again on his opponent, determined to win at all costs.
He soon noticed a pattern in the blade swings. The light blade was being used to set him up for a strike from the dark one. As the dazzling blade struck the wall and sliced through it with ease, he realized why: his opponent was still trying to capture him, not kill him. One strike from the light blade would slice him in half, but he was unsure of what a blow from the shadow blade would do. Using this knowledge, he devised a risky plan.
There was a soft “whoosh” as the black blade slid under his arm. As amorphous as it was, it was hard to determine exactly where it was at any given moment. The light blade was equally hard to gauge due to its blinding brilliance. He wasn’t sure how his opponent could stand to use it. There had to be only a minute or two left before the power was back on and the security system
became aware of his location. He grabbed at the collar still around his neck that he’d forgotten about in the chaos and realized the situation was a lot more desperate than he’d first thought.
Building up a pattern of ducking, dodging, and jumping, he allowed his dueling partner to lead him, waiting for the right moment. Just as the hooded man swung the light blade to force him toward the dark blade, Sverre stopped moving. The blinding blade stopped inches from his shoulder, startling his opponent. Sverre leapt forward instantly, striking the man with the palm of his hand. The impact was so great, his opponent’s feet left the floor. The warrior sailed backward through the air, landing on the ground with a loud thud. He slid down the hallway several feet on his back. Both blades vanished. The man in black did not move.
Sverre continued forward, leaping over the man and sprinting for the doors. He wasn’t sure what he’d do once he got there, seeing as he had no idea how to pilot the craft Izzy had spoken of, but perhaps there would be another vehicle he could use. As for the collar, he didn’t know. It was more blind instinct driving him now, like a cornered animal seeking its freedom.
A few feet before the door, something flew through the air, slicing into the ceiling above him. The light blade had embedded itself deep in the ceiling, just missing his head. He turned to see his foe slowly getting to his feet.
“What the hell are you made of?” Sverre muttered.
He turned to run again. No need in winning a fight when escape was his true goal.
Behind him, the man’s dark blade rematerialized. He looked down at Sverre’s shadow, which was cast by the light blade ahead of him. The dark warrior jammed the dark sword into the shadow. It sank deep down, unlike the other times it had struck the floor. Sverre’s shadow froze in place.
Sverre instantly felt a force tug him from behind, as if he were wearing a cape that someone had just snagged. Overwhelmed with weakness, he fell to his knees. Disoriented, he fell forward, flat on his face, unable to move.
The figure behind him left the sword where it was and strolled down the hall toward Sverre in triumph.
