Pulse

FIFTY-THREE

"All I need is one shot," Knight said. "And I won't miss. So why don't you put the gun down."

Knight was shocked when the woman actually complied. Then she surprised him.

"You're with King, aren't you?"

Knight just stared at her, wondering if he should knock the woman unconscious and be on his way. But he wanted to find out what she knew about King, and he had issues attacking women he'd rather be asking out. She was his type — a chiseled beauty. He exited the elevator, keeping the gun leveled at her chest. "Who are you?"

"Anna Beck. Gen-Y Security. I just met with King. Gave him a map. I imagine he's on his way." She smiled slightly, laughing at his scrutiny. "I'm on your side." She turned her weapon around, holding it by the barrel, and handed it to Knight. "You're going to need this."

Knight took the weapon and tucked it into his pants. "Why's that, exactly?"

"The facility is sealed down tight. There's no way out. Not until Ridley or Reinhart shuts down the system."

"In that case," he said. "Where can I get lost?"

Beck stepped into the elevator. "Science level. Lots of nooks, crannies, and equipment to hide a little guy like you."

Knight looked at her wryly. She stood a good three inches taller than him and probably weighed more, too. At that moment, he realized he liked the size difference and decided to not take offense. He returned to the elevator and stood next to her. Looking over, and up, he saw she was closer to five inches taller than him. A lot of woman, Rook would say, was not necessarily a bad thing. Knight agreed. Still, her uniform bore a Gen-Y logo. He might fancy her, but he couldn't trust her. Not yet.

The elevator opened a moment later. An empty hallway yawed before them. "The science level. Go in deep, pick a room, and hold your position. I'll see if I can't put a wrench in things here."

Knight stepped off and turned around. "Thanks for helping."

The doors closed.

Fighting hard to not cover his ears against the ear-splitting alarms, Knight ran into the science level, not worrying about tripping motion sensors or appearing on cameras. He needed to find a place to make a stand, and fast. He found what he was looking for at what he surmised was dead center of the level. The lab was large, perhaps fifty feet wide and three times as long. The room had only one set of double doors. Nowhere to retreat, but only one direction to shoot. Not knowing the layout of the facility, this would improve his odds of survival more than running pell-mell through the hallways.

He worked his way through the room, rounding computer terminals, refrigeration units, and large, granite-topped lab tables with built-in sinks. The place looked like a combo computer lab and college science lab. But there was a lot of equipment he didn't recognize. All that mattered to him was that it was made of metal and could take a bullet… or fifty, in his stead. At the center of the room was a long work table. It had metal sides and a granite top. He took up position behind it and leveled his Sig Sauer at the doors, ready to shoot anything or anyone foolish enough to enter.

As a long minute passed he noticed the large carrying case on the tabletop. It was gun metal gray and cold to the touch. Something important must be held inside. Something recently transported, possibly from Tristan da Cunha. Knight kept one hand aimed at the doors, while he unlatched the carrying case. He flipped open the lid. Steam rolled up and over the top. The object inside the case looked like some kind of statue head, snakelike and monstrous. The Hydra head.

Knight realized the head might be his ticket out of Manifold. If they still needed it intact, he could hold off an army for however long it took King and Bishop to track him down and raise holy hell. As he closed the lid, three rounds, fired in so rapid a succession they could barely be distinguished from one another, ripped through the air and smashed into the case. The case toppled, spilling the Hydra head onto the floor. It slid across the smooth tiles and slammed into a table leg, chipping chunks from its nose.

Some bargaining chip, Knight thought as he ducked down. He realized that Manifold would have never left the head unguarded and placed casually on a desktop if it wasn't completely irrelevant. In fact, they'd probably want it destroyed to keep anyone else from accessing its DNA.

He rolled to the side of the desk, poked his head around the side, and fired off two shots. The guard who'd fired at him dropped to the floor. Knight ducked behind the desk again and as he heard the doors open, popped up, and took aim. His eyes widened as six men poured into the room. He fired off two more shots, dropping another man, but the other five took up positions behind equipment and support beams. They returned fire with a devastating amount of raw power. With each pull of the trigger, each man fired three rounds without recoil. Holes punched through the desk on either side of Knight as debris and shrapnel from bullet impacts all around sprayed into the air.

What a pitiful last stand, Knight thought. He was a sitting duck in a shooting gallery. Then he remembered the Metal Storm weapon given to him by Beck. He drew it, stayed low, and listened to the gun reports. Two men on the right, three on the left.

The gunfire stopped for a moment as the guards stopped and listened. They were, no doubt, trying to figure out if they'd hit him. He rose from his hiding place, ready to fire. But a barrage of bullets tore up the granite tabletop, spraying his face with shards of granite. He fell back down. His face stung from where the stone had buried itself in his skin. Quickly reaching into his pocket, he produced a small eye dropper bottle. He sprayed both eyes, blinked rapidly to clear the debris and discarded the bottle. A man rounded the desk, weapon aimed.

Luckily for Knight, his knee-jerk reactions were faster than the guard's planned actions. He squeezed the Metal Storm weapon's trigger only once, but three rounds smashed into the man. He cried out and spilled backward, flipping over a computer terminal, taking the monitor with him. Knight noticed the man's earpiece. He searched the back half of the room and found four security cameras.

Four cameras. Too many to waste ammunition on, but at least now he knew the guards were coordinating their attack with whoever was watching. Knight fired a warning shot in the air, causing the guards to flinch, then dove over a desk and worked his way around a second lab table. He then dove to the right, sliding behind a refrigeration unit, leaned out, and fired. The men, still catching the audio description of his fast movements, were caught off guard. Knight fired and dropped one of the remaining three. The fridge exploded as a massive amount of rounds struck. Bottles and beakers within burst as the rounds ripped through. Liquid spilled from the unit like blood from a wound.

Knight leaned out to fire again, but both men were hidden from sight. They'd learned that Knight didn't miss. Knight went into motion again, diving and rolling. Rounds filled the room as he popped up and ducked down again and again like a special ops whack-a-mole. He slid to a stop, found a clear shot along the floor and squeezed off a t hree-round burst. A man on the receiving end screamed as his ankle shattered. He hit the floor just as Knight fired again, silencing the screams. Knight went to stand, intending on dropping the last man with an Old West draw. But his foot slipped and squeaked across the floor. He fell back in a pool of multicolored liquid.

Fluids rushed around his body. He looked to the back of the room. More refrigeration units had been destroyed. This was bad. Not only was his footing ruined, but he had no idea if the liquids were poisons, chemicals, or somebody's rancid milk. At any moment he might succumb to a toxic gas created by mixing chemicals, or be blasted apart by an explosive reaction. But not knowing for sure meant the true danger still lurked at the other end of the room. Knight braced himself and prepared to stand and fire. When he came up his target was nowhere to be seen. A shadow moved. No, the man was hiding. But why? He must know about the liquid, about his unsure footing. Why not take aim and fire when he emerged? Knight knew a moment later when the doors burst open and ten more guards charged into the room: reinforcements.

Knight drew his handgun and along with the Metal Storm weapon, unleashed a barrage. Two men fell. The rest returned fire. Chaos reigned around Knight. Equipment exploded. Glass shattered. More liquid spilled. The Metal Storm weapon was empty. Having no ammo to reload and no idea how to do so if he came across some, he tossed the weapon to the side.

The pounded metal desk he hid behind relented to the bullets. A round struck his shoulder. He winced at the pain, but never slowed, angling his weapon up over the top and firing a spray of rounds across the room. As a man shouted out in pain, Knight launched toward the back of the room. Bullets ate up the floor behind him and obliterated the equipment around him. He dove behind the last lab table and slapped a fresh magazine into his gun.

He could hear the men sliding through the room. Whispering commands to each other, holding their fire as they closed in from both sides. Knight didn't stand a chance. He lay flat on his stomach. Placing his face half in the liquid rushing by his position, he looked under the two-inch space beneath the desk, hoping to see the locations of at least a few of the approaching men. He didn't see any boots, but what he did see stripped away what little hope of escape he had left. The Hydra head sat beneath a desk, deep in a puddle. Knight watched as the liquid was absorbed by the head. The fluids were pulled so quickly that they began flowing toward it. Turning fleshy and green, the head swelled near to bursting. But it didn't burst.

It grew.