Pulse

FIFTY- FOUR

David Lawson leaned in close, staring at the screen where he'd watched Knight dive behind a lab table. "Be advised. Target is partially obscured."

"Copy that," came Reinhart's voice. He stood by the doors in the lab overseeing the battle, but not taking part. He wanted to see how the men he trained fared without him. The grim expression on his face and the number of motionless bodies on the floor revealed things were not going as they should have.

But as three groups of three moved in on the target from different directions, Lawson knew the man would soon be a stain on the floor. At the same time he couldn't help but respect the Delta operator. He fought with spirit and his aim was uncanny. His partner, Simon Norfolk, with whom he'd been posted since the destruction of Manifold Gamma, failed to see why killing the man was a shame.

"They're going to get the prick now," Norfolk said. He rubbed a hand quickly over his crew cut head, then rubbed both hands together with nearly spastic excitement.

"Focus on your job," Lawson said.

Norfolk rolled his eyes, then noticed Knight laying on the floor, looking beneath the lab table, handgun at the ready. "Middle team, watch your feet." The three-man team climbed onto chairs and desktops. All Knight would see was floor. As long as the cameras functioned, the team would coordinate based on every move their enemy made. The man was already outnumbered ten to one, bad odds to begin with, but with the cameras providing a kind of battlefield ESP, he didn't stand a chance, no matter how good his aim.

Motion behind the center team caught Lawson's eye. He looked at all four cameras. Not one of them provided a good angle. It could be nothing. Or it could be some kind of trap… but it didn't look that way. More like a fish flopping on the floor. A green fish. He tried to remember if the labs had any animal testing scheduled. He didn't think so, and they tended to use pigs and rats. Not lizards.

Lawson toggled the microphone, "Center team. Check your six. You've got—"

The jolt came fast, so fast that Lawson never shouted in pain or flailed. He simply stopped talking. Norfolk, now staring at the green writhing object on the lab floor, didn't notice his partner's silence until he turned around. "Dave, what the hell is that — gah!"

The electric shock baton caught him in the shoulder, sending eighteen amperes in ten microsecond pulses into his body. He seized and slumped into his chair. "Sorry guys," Anna Beck said as she stood above them, holding the shock baton by her side. "I was never keen on this peeping Tom stuff."

She could see the men on the four screens, nearly on top of Knight, holding their earpieces. They're intel had gone silent, throwing them into confusion. What had been a very organized approach fell apart as men began moving on their own. Reinhart was speaking into his headset, shouting actually. She couldn't hear him, but the four-letter expletives spilling from his mouth were easy to read. Heads would roll. Luckily neither Norfolk nor Lawson had seen her face. And after their screw-up letting Seth escape with classified information, these two would pulling duty in the arctic, or worse. Motion on the screen caught her eye. Knight had sensed the confusion and was attacking. The Gen-Y guards scattered, firing back as they did. But there was something else at the center of the room. Whatever Norfolk and Lawson were looking at was still there… and still moving. The thing writhed into view for just a moment before disappearing back beneath the desk. Beck gasped and stepped back. "Oh my God."

She had to warn Knight. If that thing kept growing no one would get out of that room alive.

Beck stepped past Lawson and jabbed the surveillance system with the shock baton. The system quickly overloaded, shutdown, and spewed smoke as the circuits fried. Gen-Y was officially blind.

She rushed out of the surveillance room, hurrying toward the barracks. She had to make a quick stop before she could help Knight.

Knight heard the sudden stop of feet sloshing through liquid and crunching on glass. Something had stopped the security force in their tracks, but it wasn't the thing growing behind them. They were too quiet for that. A voice by the door revealed the true nature of the problem. "Lawson. Lawson, get back on this com or so help me God I will make your life a misery!"

Knight sat up, using the lull and confusion to his advantage. He put several rounds in the closest man, then glanced toward the front of the room and dropped a second man without looking. He lay back down as return fire once again filled the room. He'd killed the two nearest attackers and got a glimpse of the man running the show — Reinhart. One of the Chess Team's Manifold most wanted. Knight risked sitting up again and squeezed off a round toward Reinhart, but a single shot was all he got before bullets began zinging past, and the shot was wide. He did manage to get Reinhart's attention. The man quickly gave up on reaching whoever had been directing the action.

Despite pain from the several shards of plastic, metal, and glass embedded in his face, and the sharp sting of the bullet wound in his shoulder, Knight couldn't help but smile. He lay on his back, looking beneath the desk. The thing on the floor had grown a body and legs were beginning to sprout. It looked about the size of a St. Bernard, but would provide a massive "holy shit" factor once spotted. These boys were about to experience their first true chaos, the kind that comes with urban warfare, and which Knight would cleave through like a katana blade through watermelon.

"Give yourself up," Reinhart shouted, still at the front of the room. The man was either a coward or smart. "Live to fight another day" was a motto that could win wars if abided by. "You won't be killed."

Knight remained silent. Confusion and stealth were his friends. Speaking gave away his position, physical condition, and mental state.

"You're outnumbered and the facility is locked down." Reinhart sighed. "You can't kill us all."

Knight knew Reinhart had experience. As head of Gen-Y he'd be their best-trained man. Ex-military. That he hadn't simply lobbed a grenade over the desk to flush him out meant he was either under orders not to do so or there was something in this room that made explosions a high risk. As a waft of something chemical hit his nose, Knight decided it was the latter. A chemical explosion at the heart of the facility could end up killing more people then just the men in this room. Motion on the floor caught his attention.

He lay back on the wet floor as the liquid continued rushing toward the growing creature. The Gen-Y boys would approach much more slowly now, if at all, so he was content to lay in wait. If someone was stupid enough to round the desk, he'd shoot them down. Otherwise he'd wait.

The screams would start soon enough.