Pulse

THIRTY- THREE

Frothing mad, seven regens, both men and women, burst into the large laboratory. Queen ducked behind a workstation and watched as the mindless group snapped at each other like a pack of wild dogs. One caught the arm of another and bit a chunk free. The flesh healed immediately, but the injured regen reacted violently, tackling the other in a bloody frenzy.

Queen crawled toward the workstation that held her thumb drive and Aleman's virus. She had no idea if it had time to do its work, but time was up. If she wanted to leave alive it had to be now.

The battling regens rolled across the linoleum floor, leaving streaks of liquid red as they tore one another apart, healing time after time, descending deeper into madness. The pair fell into a computer terminal, shaking the hibernating machine. The screen blinked to life and played a start-up chime. The sudden light and sound startled the regens and without pause, the group flung themselves at the computer, treating its actions as a sign of life and, therefore, food.

Monitors flew through the air after proving too tough to bite through. Wires snapped and fell to the floor like disemboweled entrails. All the while, the regens worked their way across the lab, headed straight for Queen. She reached up over the desktop and felt for the thumb drive. She found the front of the computer tower and the thumb drive attached below. She grabbed on tight and yanked.

The device removal chime sounded like a gunshot.

Queen held her breath as the regens stopped and listened. In that moment, she knew she wouldn't leave the room without a fight. Never one to take the first blow, Queen unslung her weapon and stood up. As the closest regen's eyes widened, its head ceased to existed. Queen placed three hollow-tip rounds between the eyes of a second. But her luck ran out when she aimed at the third.

The five remaining regens sprang into action, tossing tables and equipment at Queen as they made their way toward her. She realized with horror, that the regens weren't completely mindless. They understood the danger of bullets and were doing their best to avoid them. Queen backed up a small staircase that led to an exit. But the combination of not knowing where the exit led and knowing the regens would give chase she decided to make her stand here.

She let loose with several volleys of bullets, catching a shoulder here, a leg there, slowing them down, but far from stopping them. With fifty feet between them, she took note of the four large cylinders attached to the wall. They might understand the danger of bullets, but she doubted they could comprehend the danger of the liquid nitrogen stored above them.

She let five more rounds fly after ducking a flat-screen computer monitor flung at her head like an Olympic discus. She struck the regen that threw it in both legs, sending it to the ground. Then she yanked out her weapon's magazine and slammed in a new one. Adjusting her aim, she unloaded the full magazine on the four containers of liquid nitrogen.

As rounds struck the first container it rang with a hollow gong. Empty.

One of the regens lunged forward, no longer fearing being shot.

Queen drew her handgun with her left hand while she shifted the submachine gun's aim to the next three containers, sweeping back and forth across all three. She squeezed the handgun's trigger as the regen, a balding man with a scruffy beard, reached out for her. The hollow-point bullets made short work of the man's head.

The bullets striking the liquid nitrogen tanks sounded as dull thuds. As the report of her weapon ended with an empty magazine, a violent hiss filled the air as the compressed liquid nitrogen sprayed through the quarter-sized holes.

Writhing in agony, the four remaining regens became drenched in liquid nitrogen, their bodies instantly freezing where struck.

Queen turned to flee before a jet of the quick freeze liquid struck her. Unlike the regens, she could not heal from such a wound. She slung her weapon over her back and stepped toward the door, but found her legs suddenly pulled out from under her. She struck the hard floor with a grunt, losing her sidearm in the process. She rolled over quick and found a legless regen, a woman this time, pretty once, now snarling and covered in blood, pulling itself up her pants legs and eyeing her stomach where a feast of entrails awaited.

On her back, Queen couldn't reach her weapon, which held an empty magazine anyway, and her sidearm was well out of reach. She could feel the regen's nails digging into her leg as it pulled itself up. The regen let out a roar, opened its mouth wide, and, despite Queen's kicking, made a lunge at her stomach.

The regen's teeth stopped an inch above Queen's stomach where she had no doubt it would have made short work of her clothing and flesh. Even the Kevlar vest would do little to stop the regen after it realized the bulletproof garment could be lifted away. With shaking arms, she pulled the regen's head away from her stomach, pulling it by the thick shocks of hair she'd caught in both hands. But it fought her the whole way using strength born of madness and adrenaline.

The mad woman lashed out, striking Queen's arms, slicing gashes into the flesh. Queen screamed in anger, not pain, then gave a yank on the woman's hair that pulled her up and away for only a moment. But it was all Queen needed to slip her legs out from beneath the regen's body and kick hard.

The woman toppled, legless, down the stairs and splashed into a pool of steaming liquid nitrogen. With the majority of her body frozen, she snarled and bit at the air, still trying to get at Queen.

Queen stood, walked to her handgun, and took aim at the woman. "I'm sorry," she said. "You probably didn't deserve this." She fired once, shattering the woman's skull and sending brain matter into the liquid nitrogen where it turned solid and floated like ice cubes in a drink. She fired three more times, dispatching the other three frozen human experiments. Then, as liquid nitrogen began to lap at the top stair, she exited the lab and headed into the unknown depths of Manifold Beta.

Screams rang out in the distance. Gunshots, too. But there was no way to know where she was. Ahead, a light pouring from two windows set into double doors glowed bright in the darkened hallway. With no other direction to go, she headed for the doors hoping not to find more regens or walk into a Gen-Y trap. She prepped her weapon, switching out the magazine with her last, kicked in the doors and gasped.

Strapped to a table at the center of a small lab was the last person she expected to find inside the Beta facility. He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Queen," he said. "Get the hell out of here."

"Not without you, Bish," she said, then pulled out a knife and began cutting through the restraints.

"You don't understand," he said, then his head turned toward the door and his eyes went wide. "Queen! Look out!"

She spun and squeezed her weapon's trigger. A spray of bullets cut across the chest of a regen man. The impact sent him to the floor, but he began scrambling to his feet as though he'd merely tripped. Queen took aim and fired three rounds, destroying his skull, and brain. He fell to the floor, dead for good.

"You don't have time, Queen," Bishop said again, his teeth clenched.

She ignored him and cut his other arm free. But before she could cut his legs free an impact from behind sent her sailing across the room. She rolled with the impact on the floor and managed to get back to her feet just before the regen, a woman this time, leaped at her. Queen fired the weapon, striking the woman's leg, but the regen's forward momentum wasn't stopped.

Queen let go of her weapon and reached up with both hands, catching the forearms of the regen woman before she could slash out. The woman pushed forward, allowing her arms to be bent back. She snapped at Queen's face with her teeth. Over and over, aiming for Queen's nose.

Feeling the woman's muscles tear as she bent her arms back, farther then physically possible, Queen realized the woman would eventually reach her. But she couldn't let go of her arms to stop the woman's face… and while a head butt to the face would normally end this match, it would only send the regen into a deeper mania. With the woman's blood-tinged breath filling her nose and mouth, Queen screamed in frustration.

Then she felt the woman torn away. The regen sailed across the room and crashed into a wall.

Bishop stood between them, clutching the knife. He'd set himself free.

Queen quickly grabbed the UMP and took aim, but Bishop stood in the way. "Bishop, move!" The regen stood. Then charged. As did Bishop.

They met in the middle of the room. Bishop ducked beneath the woman's slashing hand and struck up with the knife. The blade entered the woman's chin and entered the brain, pinning the woman's snapping jaws shut. Bishop continued the motion, picking the woman up off the ground, holding only the knife hilt, then smashed her back onto the floor. He was on top of her in an instant, launching punches with his fists like a jackhammer. He stopped when the woman's legs finished kicking.

Queen stood, dazed. She'd never seen Bishop kill someone in hand-to-hand combat. It was brutal on a level she never pictured him capable of. She walked to him as he breathed heavily and placed a hand on his shoulder. He spun around with rage in his eyes.

She fought the urge to move away from him. "You did good, Bish."

He calmed. Looked back at the woman and shook his head. "How can this be good?"

Queen saw him look down at his hands, which she could not see. He shook his head again. When she leaned over to see what had captured his attention she saw his fists covered in blood, but not a scratch on him. The blood belonged to the regen. She wasn't sure what bothered him about it. They all had blood on their hands, usually figuratively, but they'd all killed, Bishop as much as the rest.

He stood and headed for the exit. Queen took one last look at the regen's smashed head and then followed him into the hallway where screams echoed from every corner of the complex.