The ringer chimed; shrill and expected. It sang out again a split second later, but this cycle was cut short as the receiver lifted.
"Here," came a voice.
There was a pause from the other end; a hushed breath.
"Got you," it said after another second, "Stand by."
The warbling of the sat-link was stuttering in the background. A whooshing of atmospherics.
"Cipher in five, four three, two..."
There was a sudden snapping noise, followed by a high-pitched whine that lasted for two or three seconds. The emptiness of dead air filled the line.
"You there?" came a voice.
"Yes."
"Good, we're linked on cipher."
There was quiet from the other end.
"Glad you could make it, Marcus," continued the other.
No reply.
"I've got to admit, we weren't sure you'd show up. Not after last time."
"Happy to disappoint," snapped the other.
A short laugh-nasally and forced. "At least you haven't lost that wonderful sense of sarcasm, Marcus."
More silence. His breath was calm and even; controlled.
"How are you feeling, anyway?"
A sigh. "I'm fine."
"We were worried, I don't mind telling you; when you didn't check in after Bogotá ... we were wondering."
A tough silence followed.
"We have SOPs for a reason, Marcus. People start getting nervous when agents start operating on their own program..."
"The job got done, didn't it?" the other cut in.
"Yeah, sure, the job got done."
"So what's the problem?"
"Nothing, Marcus, nothing. Just wanted to be sure everything's okay, that's all."
"I said I'm fine."
"Okay, sure. No problem, Marcus. Just checking, you know. That's my job."
"You're job's to be a pain in the ass?"
The nasally laugh returned. "Okay, okay. I get the point. Just don't forget to check-in next time. Makes people nervous, you know."
"Get on with it, Rudy."
"Sure, lets get to business."
There was a pause on the line.
"We got a short-notice for you this time. A bit of a red star, I'm afraid."
"Jesus Christ," Marcus mumbled in response, "when isn't it..."
"This one's a Bravo."
Silence dropped again, like a lead blanket. Neither side spoke for a few second.
"Who?" he finally asked.
"Estes. Last night in the Nova."
"Shit."
"Yeah. He was on a quick mover. Tracked him for three weeks. The worm came out from the west coast last week, though we're not sure why. Estes followed him out, cornered him in some Middle District borough. Looks like he came up a little short, though."
"Shit," he said again.
The satellite wobbled again, the link moaning in protest. The encryption sync hiccupped.
"I'm afraid Estes put us in a tough spot on this one. The problem is, we couldn't get to him before the locals did. 53rd Precinct found him buried in the roof of a car. They've got the body at the precinct building now."
Another sigh escaped from Marcus - this one genuine.
"As you can see, we need to move pretty fast on this one."
"What's the angle?"
"Initial communications from the precinct intercepted this morning indicate that they've found what they described as "biological anomalies" in the body. They're moving it to a SECCOM lab tomorrow afternoon for further research."
"Hello?" Marcus was asking Rudy if they wanted him to hit the lab.
"Negative. Armored caravan. Three vehicles. We've got the route."
"Okay."
"Like I said, gotta move quick on this one. Implications are pretty obvious if SECCOM gets their hands on Estes."
"Got it. What about the worm?"
"His data's en route. Looks like a live one. Before the worm got to this guy, he was a some kind of thug out in LA, big son of a bitch too. Estes' last report had him working out of some hotel on the outskirts of Middle District."
There was a short, staccato burst of noise, a string of beeps sounding on top of each other. The data transmission ended with a slightly distinguishable click.
"Did you copy that?"
"Got it," returned Marcus. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, the lead officer on the case from the 53rd local is named MacAvie. She's got a strong record. Former SECCOM herself. She'll be riding shotgun in the main vehicle with the body."
"Roger."
A brief silence filled the link again.
"Good to go, Marcus?"
"Yeah."
"Alright, get a move on."
"Out here."
"Marcus?"
"What, Rudy?"
"One more thing. The Director's watching this one. He doesn't like it when he loses agents. Especially when locals get visibility on it." Rudy cleared his throat.
"Out here," he repeated.
"Good luck..."
He severed the connection.
*** *** ***
The world limped by slowly, looking gray through the dingy window of the van. The streets were all but empty, weekday pedestrian traffic lightened after the hoards of Apex workers retreated back to their Middle District homes.
The black commercial van had been retro-fitted into an armored car of sorts - Kevlar sheeting bolted onto the frame, steel plating reinforcing the windows, and a ramming hitch mounted on the front. The thick tires crunched through loose gravel in the street.
"MacAvie, Scanlon."
She turned her head slightly, angling her mouth toward the mike clipped to her collar.
"Go ahead, Scanlon."
"Hey, Ed says if we take the Canal we'll cut off some of the traffic from the Apex. It'll be faster than the Cross-Borough."
"Tell Ed to quit fidgeting back there. Feds aren't expecting us for another hour."
Her earpiece squawked back. "Come on, MacAvie. We just wanna drop this guy off and get outta here. I keep waiting for him to rise from the dead or something. Its spooky."
She shook her head, looking up to the man behind the wheel. He returned her expression.
"Relax, guys. We've got plenty of time, and I don't want start changing the route in mid-stride. Whatever he is, it isn't the boogie man."
The two vehicles passed through an intersection, the wire frame holding up the traffic light sagging down toward the street. The lights of Nova had just begun to glow, the city-state beginning its nightly reversion to artificial day; a silent protest to the dark. Above the silhouette of gray-black buildings, the hazy sun hastened its retreat.
"I don't know what those two are bitching about," said the driver, adjusting his posture behind the wheel. "They're not the ones who have to ride with him."
"Shit, French, not you too."
French looked to his partner. She was scanning the street again, her slight frame leaning up against the door. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, adding strength to the tightly drawn features of her face.
"You gotta admit, the guy is," he hesitated, licking his lips absently, "kind of weird. You know? All those things running around in his body like that. Its weird."
MacAvie didn't answer, eyes flickering as the Middle District scrolled past the van. French could see the familiar twitch in her jaw. Sometimes it was her only sign of life.
"Well," he continued, despite the silence from across the cab, "I guess he won't be our problem much longer. I usually hate giving the Feds anything. I'll make an exception this time."
"Screw the Feds," she shot back. "SECCOM's got their fat fingers in everything. It's getting to the point that we can't take a piss without their permission."
French suppressed a smile, knowing enough from the last year and half not to add fuel to her fire.
"Hey, Jules, everybody's got somebody to answer to."
The van cleared another corner, turning onto a narrower access street that would take them to the on-ramp for the Cross-Borough. A blue neon sign teetering from a rusted metal pole said as much.
MacAvie turned to her partner, mouth open to return a comment, when the front tires of the van blew out in a simultaneous explosion of pressurized air and steel-treaded rubber.
"Shit!" was all French managed to stutter as the van pitched forward, the metal rims and front axle of the vehicle screeching across the damp asphalt beneath.
In a wild attempt to overcompensate, the van careened to the right, smashing fully into the side of a small, square, Japanese pickup. Metal peeled and splintered as the van fishtailed to a stop, front end at a forty-five degree angle to the street.
"Jesus," yelled MacAvie, hands gripping the hardened plastic of the dash, "Are you okay?"
The driver's side door window imploded. French gasped, turning his head sharply in reaction to the showering glass. MacAvie reached over to him. The other hand was quicker.
The figure appeared in the remnants of the shattered window. MacAvie got a glimpse of his face, but the flickering image was gone as a single arm reached in, grabbing a handful of French's shirt. Her shocked partner had time to neither yell nor move, but from her perspective, it probably wouldn't have mattered either way. The figure yanked French from his seat in one clean motion, jerking him through the tattered remains of the window and out onto the awaiting pavement.
MacAvie's hand dropped immediately to her hip, fingers groping madly for the handle of her pistol. As the barrel cleared the molded plastic holster, the figure vanished.
The piercing whine of her earpiece made her flinch.
"MacAvie, what the hell is going on up there?"
She heard the trace vehicle screech to a halt behind her.
"Scanlon, get up here!" she screamed, reaching for the door handle, "Now!"
It was actually Hubley that got out first, jumping from behind the driver's seat with a speed and agility that seemed somehow foreign to his 220 pound plus frame. Hubley's trailing hand unsnapped the Remington 12 gauge from its rack along the dash.
Hubley sucked longingly at the cool night air, feeling the familiar pinch in his chest as his heart raced. Goddamn hypertension; he thought, maybe Sheryl was right, maybe he was getting too old...
He cleared the far side of the van, bringing the muzzle of shotgun around quickly. He saw French's body in an awkward lump about fifteen feet down the street. He was moaning loudly.
"MacAvie?" he yelled out, moving down the side of the van toward the cab. He hugged the side longingly, shotgun wavering in his right shoulder. "MacAvie, you there?"
"Over here."
He heard her voice from the other side of the van. It sounded distant, frantic. He caught something fleeting in the corner of his eye.
He turned to his left, but hardly in time. The man was on him in a flash of movement, like the strike of lightening. Hubley felt like a slug. He jerked instinctively at the trigger, hearing the shotgun roar and feeling the oddly reassuring kick of the double ought buck.
But the Remington had been deflected harmlessly to the side, one of the man's hands wrapped firmly around the barrel. The other took the weapon by the rifle butt, snapping it upward with alarming precision. The hardened plastic stock caught Hubley across the bridge of his nose, knocking him backward against the van. His body dropped to the ground, sliding along the body of the vehicle until in came to rest in a motionless pile on the street.
The figure stood for a split second, head canted oddly to the side, listening to the flurry of motion on the other side of the van. He dropped the shotgun to the ground, blue metal thumping off the street. The man spun on one heel, and propelled himself up the side of the van; pushing off the left rear tire. He disappeared over the top.
Scanlon had cleared his vehicle, after having watched his partner vanish around the far side of the van. MacAvie was moving around the front, by the mangled, dented hood, when Hubley's shotgun bellowed.
"Hubley!" yelled Scanlon.
He saw MacAvie shoot an alarming look back at him, pistol leveled across the front of the van. Scanlon began to sprint around the backside, to where his partner had just vanished. He didn't make it.
The figure pounced from the top of the van, launching himself from his perch like a panther. The neon sign behind him outlined his descending body in pale blue luminescence.
Scanlon tried to raise his firing hand, but the man dropped on him like a ton of bricks. His mind screamed for control, but the pain that gripped his hand and wrist forced the pistol to scatter across the ground. He felt his body spinning like a top, being contorted by what seemed like six different people. Through the pain and disorientation, he heard MacAvie.
"Freeze!" she screamed, "Let him go!"
Scanlon was suddenly facing her, both arms pinned somehow behind him, chin and neck twisted in a vice-like grip that was clamped down precariously over his larynx. He felt the air siphoning off.
"I said let him go," she repeated, edging closer, pistol leveled, "Right now."
If Scanlon could have talked, he would have told her to shoot. As it was, he could only struggle for breath, his body an immobile shield between MacAvie and the man. His wrist, at this point clearly broken, was somehow located between his shoulder blades.
MacAvie stopped a few feet away, eyes wide and weapon held rigidly in front of her. She breathed heavily through her nose. Scanlon felt the man's breath on his neck, even and tempered. Odd, he thought momentarily, that he would not be out of breath...
"Last chance, guy," MacAvie said, voice calm now, and flat. "End of the line."
MacAvie was studying what she could of the man, which was mostly obscured by what Scanlon knew was his own contorted, pain-stricken face and the shadow thrown by the nearby van.
Scanlon felt consciousness slipping away, his focus beginning to blur along the edges. The lack of air and the pain that throbbed through his back and arm pushed his grip on reality further down into the recesses of his mind.
And then he was flying.
Scanlon's body rocketed toward her in a sudden explosion of motion. She raised up her arms defensively, as all 180 pounds of the cop came spilling on top of her. The momentum took them both to the ground, MacAvie feeling the dead weight crush her down, head bouncing harshly off the hard, unforgiving pavement.
From beyond, where the man had just stood, she saw a flash of motion; a long jacket flapping in the breeze.
MacAvie struggled to pull the other cop off of her, Scanlon grunting loudly as he flopped over onto the wet street. The street in front of her was empty. She had seen the man disappear around the back of the van. She shot a quick glance to Scanlon, who had curled up awkwardly on the ground. She turned back toward the van, and cautiously stepped forward.
She paused at the corner, weapon leveled. She felt the blustering wind kicking down the narrow expanse of the alleyway. Traces of the bitter cold Nova winter was licking at her neck. She sucked in a lung-full of it, and spun around the corner.
The back of the van was open on one side. The lock which had been fastened to the rear hatch lay on the ground in two distinct pieces. Jesus, he's in the van.
There was a pounding behind her eyes. She reached out and grabbed the other side of the rear hatch, and in one motion jerked it open. MacAvie's pistol wavered side to side, as her eyes traced the inside of the van for signs of motion.
But there was nothing.
A gurney was strapped down and locked in place in the middle of the rear compartment. A black bag was tied down to the gurney, holding the body bag bound for SECCOM. The body was motionless, lying as it had been an hour earlier when they shut and locked the van before departing the Precinct house.
MacAvie could see traces of her breath in front of her, fleeting puffs of condensation dissipating quickly in the moist night air. There was something else.
On the body bag, tucked in on the right side. Pinned in against the restraining brackets. Square-shaped ... no; cylinders clasped together to form a brick. Black electric tape. Wires.
MacAvie threw herself back around the side of the van, gasping in anticipation.
A metallic click-and then blistering heat and noise.
The back of the van exploded in a ball of fire. The entire van lifted up off the ground momentarily, suspended there for a second by the force of the explosive that consumed the interior of the vehicle. MacAvie screamed despite herself, as the van came back down to earth. She felt the heat all around her. She buried her head in her arms as exploding glass and stripping metal echoed in her ears.
She lay still, a growing sense of nausea sweeping over her. The relative calm of the cab just a few minutes earlier seemed a lifetime ago. Scanlon, French, Hubly; faces as distant as childhood. She rolled slowly to her side, lifting her head up. The van was gutted, fire continuing to bellow from the rear hatch. Thick, black smoke spiraled upward, a column of spitting residue that trailed off into the equally squalor night sky. The taste of blood caked her mouth.
And she saw him there, beyond the hazy screen of smoke and shifting heat of flame. He was standing on the far side of the street, staring back at her with narrowed, focused eyes. There was a stillness-a calm-that reached out. Maybe the chill of the night. Maybe something else.
The wind shifted, the billowing smoke choking off her view. She lay her head back down against the asphalt, listening to the distant wail of sirens.
*** *** ***
"Okay, one more time."
MacAvie rolled her head back against the head rest, closing her eyes against the dull, thudding pain.
"You've got to be kidding," she said, almost whispering.
"Hardly, Officer MacAvie."
Jansen sat back on one end of the sofa, legs crossed and right arms thrown back across the back of the leather couch. He regarded MacAvie coldly, tapping a stainless steel pen against the yellow legal pad in his lap.
"When it comes to SECCOM security concerns, I never kid," he finished.
"Yeah, well maybe you should," MacAvie returned.
"Hey, take it easy, Mac."
Kendall sat behind his desk, looking as bad as he felt. Watching one of his officers being grilled by a SECCOM agent, in his own office, wasn't his idea of a good time.
"Let's just get this thing over with, okay?" Kendall added, a touch of desperation in his voice.
MacAvie looked back up. Kendall's office shades were at half mast, sheets of water cascading down the glass. The reflection from the lights outside the Precinct House was a collage of color, smeared by running water. God, she hated the smell of Kendall's office.
Jansen cleared his throat, eyes tracing back over the notes on the legal pad. MacAvie noticed a small nick above his upper lip where he must have cut himself shaving.
"Now then, tell me again about the van. You said the tires blew out?"
"Yeah, that's right. We turned onto the access road, and the front tires blew and the axle cracked. French tried to control the vehicle, but there was no way."
"Our ordnance techs found remnants of det cord in the street," chimed in Kendall. "High grade, contact detonation."
"Yes, Captain Kendall, I saw the reports."
"It must have been strung across the access road," continued MacAvie, "We drove right into it. Obviously pre-planned."
"Pre-planned? How do you mean?" asked Jansen.
"It was obviously an ambush," explained MacAvie. "The det cord was pre-staged for us on that access road, which means our route and timeline were compromised. The whole thing was a set up."
"Who in the precinct knew about the drop, Captain?" asked Jansen, shifting his cold stare across the room.
"Well, MacAvie, of course, and French. But the other two officer's were only informed a minute or two before they rolled out. And besides, I'm not sure I like the insinuation..."
"Don't get personal, Captain, this is routine. No one is pointing fingers here." Jansen offered quickly. "But you must realize the situation this incident has put us in. That package you were delivering was more importantly than you can possibly imagine. The fact that someone ambushed your officers is far less important than the fact that we lost that package."
Kendall sighed, leaning back into this chair.
Jansen turned back to MacAvie, who was busy slurping down a glass of water. Ice chattered against the sides.
"Interesting choice of words, though, Officer MacAvie. An ambush?"
She studied the glass a moment, before placing it back down on the table beside her. "Well, that's what it was. Quick, violent, precise. He was in and out," she paused momentarily, lost somewhere. "It was an ambush, all right," she finished.
"Strange, though, Officer MacAvie that you keep saying 'he' when you refer to this incident."
MacAvie looked over to Jansen, who now had one end of his silver pen balanced against the tip of his chin. A cup of coffee, untouched and room temperature, sat on the armrest to his right.
"Yeah, so?"
Jansen shrugged dramatically. "Are you trying to tell me that one man was responsible for this," he paused slightly, "ambush?"
MacAvie snapped back quickly, "That's exactly what I'm telling you, Agent Jansen."
Kendall reached automatically for the pack of menthols on the corner of the desk. Jansen studied MacAvie for a moment. Her jaw worked back and forth, a knot of tension forming at the base.
"I find that difficult to believe, Officer MacAvie."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Agent Jansen. But I was there, remember? That's what we've been talking about for the last two hours; what I saw, what I heard. Well, that's what I saw, and that's what I heard. One man."
"One man did this?"
"Yes, goddamnit..."
"One man blew the tires?"
"They were contact detonated..."
"One man pulled your partner out of the van?"
"He punched through the glass. There were shards everywhere."
"One man took out Hubley."
"Yes..."
"Then Scanlon? Then you? Then managed to shred an industrial strength, galvanized lock, get into the rear of the van, place in a command controlled explosive, detonate the explosive, and then disappear before your very eyes, all in the span of what..." he paused to take a quick glance to his legal pad. "...two and a half minutes?"
MacAvie glared, breath coming heavily through flared nostrils. A spark of light ignited in the relative dark of the office. Kendall sucked longingly at the cigarette.
"Officer MacAvie?" asked Jansen, "Is that what you're saying?"
The fresh scent of cigarette smoke masked the stale.
"Look, I know what it sounds like, Jansen. Believe me, I don't like to admit that one man was able to take out two teams of cops. But I'm telling you, I was there. I saw this guy. He was all over us. The way he moved-the precision, the speed," she paused, eyes shifting to the rivulets of rain that obscured her view of the Nova's Middle District. "He pulled French out of that van like he was a rag doll. He snatched up Scanlon in one grab, launched him on top of me like the guy was shot out of a cannon."
She looked up to Jansen, brow furrowed in concentration.
"His eyes, they were like, like..." her voice trailed off.
Jansen regarded her for moment. Kendall jumped into the painful silence.
"Look, we're all a little tired here. Why don't we call it a night, huh? Agent Jansen, can we finish this up in the morning?"
Jansen smirked slightly, slowly peeling his eyes off of the other officer. He nodded slightly toward Kendall.
"Of course, Captain. I'm sorry for keeping you so long. I'll contact you if I need anything further."
The SECCOM agent stood quickly, stuffing the legal pad into a black leather shoulder bag. MacAvie remained seated, her stare having found the lure of the rain splattered window again. Jansen brushed past her quickly, slipping through the door.
Kendall regarded his officer for a few seconds, traces of smoke lingering on the edged of his nostrils.
"Go home, Mac," he said, "Get some sleep."
"I'm not crazy, Captain," she returned quickly, forcefully. "I don't give a shit what Jansen thinks. You can ask Scanlon."
"I will, as soon as he gets out of the hospital. You're lucky, you know that?" he asked, jabbing his cigarette at her, "You're damn lucky to be alive."
MacAvie shook her head slightly. "No, no it wasn't luck," she said. "It wasn't luck at all. We're alive because he wanted us to be."
Kendall squinted, "Say again?"
"He could have killed all of us. During that ambush, he could have killed us anytime damn time he wanted. But he didn't. He did exactly what he needed to. Nothing more, nothing less."
"What, are you defending this guy now? He broke Hubley's face open, he crushed Scanlon's larynx, and you're grateful?"
MacAvie shook her head. "No, not grateful."
Her brown eyes shifted. The lines of fatigue had begun to crease the delicate features of her face.
"Get some sleep," said Kendall. "That's an order."
*** *** ***
"Are you sure about this, Mac?"
She was already moving up the stairs, shoes scuffing off the chalky white concrete. French moved up behind her, waiting for an answer.
"Mac, goddamnit, let's wait for backup. We can get a Tac unit here in ten minutes."
She turned the corner at a small landing, continuing the ascent up the dark, dank stairwell.
"He might be gone in five minutes, French," she spat back between breaths.
The handrail was like ice, a layer of silver finish peeling off like a molting snake. The smell of mildew was almost overpowering.
"We'll go in, flush him out," MacAvie continued, "By then the Tac will be on scene. We've got a Patroller on the way, too. Air will cover all the escape routes. We'll have the son-of-a-bitch boxed in."
"Yeah, but SECCOM told us to keep our hands off this guy. You heard Jansen. They want this guy themselves."
MacAvie spun around quickly, about halfway up the next flight of stairs.
"I don't give a shit what SECCOM wants, French," she shot in a whispered tone, "This guy is tied in somehow with that body we lost in the ambush. And that means he's tied in with the guy who did the ambush. You follow? I'm tired of SECCOM's bullshit secrets. I want this guy."
French studied his partner's face, hard and stoic in the darkness of the stairwell. He reached to his belt, and unholstered his pistol. MacAvie nodded slightly, turning back up the stairs.
They ascended another two flights, and MacAvie paused at a door on the landing. She turned back to French.
"Okay, fifth floor," she whispered slowly, "Should be third door on the right, Room 515."
French nodded. MacAvie slowly turned the door handle, and slipped quietly and easily into the hallway, with her partner silently on her heels. MacAvie chose the near side, French the far. Each moved tentatively down the hall, arms raised and pistols leveled in front.
A single operable hall light was fastened to the wall on the far end of the hallway. The carpet was threadbare, patches of dull concrete peeking up through random tears and holes. There was something oddly recognizable about the odor.
The two officers stopped at the selected door. MacAvie held an extended index finger to her lips. French craned his head to the side. From beyond the door came the sound of voices, dull and unanimated. Television.
French took his position in front of the door, MacAvie offset to the right. They paused momentarily. French looked to his partner. She nodded.
One kicked knocked the thin, pressed wood door clean off the hinges. Splintering wood and popping metal echoed through the hallway like a pebble in a tin can.
"Police! Nobody move!" screamed MacAvie, barreling into the room.
A small, narrow corridor. Dark. A blue-green light flickered from the approaching room. French was breathing heavily behind her.
A room opened up on the left. She ducked in, weapon in a controlled search. A small, empty kitchen. Pile of dishes in the sink, water dripping into an overflowing sauce pan. She turned back to the hall. French move past in a flurry of motion. She turned in behind him. The hall opened up into a room. No light but the strobe of the television. Empty chair. Mattress in the far corner. A coat hanger for an antenna. Cold.
French let out a muffled groan as the man bowled into him. His body crashed against the wall, head burying into the hard sheetrock. A round discharged, a flash of brilliant yellow-orange erupting in the darkness. There was a crack, sharp and unnatural, and French's body crumpled to the floor.
MacAvie leveled her weapon. The man was huge, a monstrous shadow that bore down on her. A scarred face flickered in her mind's eye. She snapped the trigger back.
The man flinched slightly as four consecutive rounds pounded into his chest at point blank range. She felt his weight careen into her, pinning her against the wall. A hand wrapped around her firing hand. She felt the crowded bones of her wrist and forearm begin to collapse as the grip tightened. She lashed out with her free hand, screaming in anger and pain.
The pistol dropped to floor, as MacAvie felt her wrist snap. The man took her by the neck, hands closing in around her throat. She tried not to look up, but somehow her eyes dragged up slowly to his face. It was distorted, pained and angered. Childish. He stared back oddly, breath choppy and strained.
"You are here for me?" the voice said.
MacAvie sucked for air, feeling the pain from her fractured wrist coursing through her, buckling her knees.
"You are here for me? Yes?" he asked again.
She tried to nod.
She heard him laugh. "Good," he said.
He jerked her off the wall, throwing her flailing body across the small room. She smashed into the T.V. stand, the set crashing to the ground in a small explosion of sparks. She lay still on the floor. There was a motionless body next to her. She heard him moving in the dark behind her. She started to crawl forward.
She groped desperately, clawing on the floor as she pushed her body down the small corridor. She could see the sparse light from the hall outside, pieces of door frame hanging limply from the adjoining wall. She cursed slightly as she felt a pair of hands dig into her.
She pitched forward again, passing into the hallway and into the far wall with sickening force. She flopped to the floor, a dull ringing in her ears. The surrounding hall became blurred, as the first tentative fingers of unconsciousness crept up her spine.
The man stood over her now, looking down with the same odd, detached expression. Sad eyes studied her, searching over her contorted body. Pain crept into her senses, clouding her vision. Blood soaked the front of his shirt from the impacts of her shots. He looked so tired.
A flicker of movement caused him to avert his gaze up the hallway to his right. She followed suit, and saw him there.
He stood just forward of the corridor light, long shadow thrown down the length of hall. She remembered the same knee length jacket from before, hanging off his broad shoulders. She remembered his eyes, burning down the hall; intense and angry. But most of all, she remembered the way he moved, like he did just then when he raised the weapon.
The projectile cut through the thick, humid air of the hall, a line of wire whistling behind it. It came home just off center in the big man's chest, three prongs digging deeply into the meaty flesh of his ribs. He staggered backward under the force, face contorted in pain and confusion. She watched as he reached for the projectile, a scream of anguish bellowing from his lungs. It was too late.
A charge traveled down the wire in a nanosecond, seizing the man in a grip of electromagnetic pulses that caused him to bounce uncontrollably off the floor. She watched in horror, as the man's teeth splintered. He continued to pitch back and forth, until the charge that rippled through him suddenly reversed its course and receded from his body. It traced a quick path back down the wire, leaving the man a motionless pile on the floor.
MacAvie turned her head, pulling her eyes from the horrific vision of the dead man in front of her. She found the stranger there, studying a small electronic devise in his left palm. The wire from the projectile fed into the device, with the weapon that launched it dangling precariously in his right hand.
After a few moments, he put the device into his coat pocket, and returned the weapon inside the recesses of the oversized jacket. He looked up then, finding MacAvie laying where she had been, leaning heavily against the wall. Blood caked the side of her face, a gash running perpendicular to her right eyebrow from the contact with the wall. She lay still, unable to move, unable to take her eyes off him.
He moved toward her, a few quick strides carrying him over to the supine body of the man. She watched as he stood over the body, studying him a few seconds. MacAvie pushed herself up into a sitting position, torso still using the wall as support. A wave of dizziness swept over her momentarily. As if he sensed it, the man turned back to her.
MacAvie studied his face, now unobscured by shadow or darkness. It was hardened, young but somehow aged by creases and lines. Eyes, deep and blue, regarded her oddly; a stare that was distant and calm. A small, pencil thin scar ran off the corner of his mouth, cutting across his chin in a diagonal strip of puffy, pink tissue. MacAvie felt a chill, familiar as it had been lying in that street just days before. The man looked for a second longer, then turned away, starting down the far side of the hallway.
MacAvie swallowed hard.
"Who are you?" she heard herself mutter. Her voice sounded weak, pathetic.
The man stopped, throwing a startled look over his shoulder.
"Who are you?" she repeated, this time with more force.
He stared for a moment, eyes dancing and alive as he searched for an answer.
"No one," he replied, in a strained, scratchy voice.
"You're, like him?" she asked, eyes traveling to the dead man on the floor.
He looked to the body, then back to MacAvie.
"No, I'm not like him."
"I shot him," she said quickly, feeling her ribs protest with every breath. "I shot him four times. He didn't flinch. He, he didn't even..."
"I know," he interjected, voice calm and deliberate, "He was a dangerous one. Tougher ... stronger." He paused slightly.
"He killed that other one," she asked, "The one in the van?"
The man hesitated. She thought she caught a momentary sigh.
"His name was Estes," he replied plainly.
"And you're, like him? Estes? The one you burned up?"
He nodded.
She grimaced as she inhaled, feeling her ribs' protest growing stronger with every breath.
"And that's why you blew him up? Destroyed him, before the Feds could get him?"
The man didn't respond.
MacAvie stared, mind blurring under the pressure of competing thoughts, burdening questions. She felt a wave of nausea pass over her. Anger, frustration, pain; all vied for attention.
From outside, the high-pitched whine of an approaching Patroller's turbines echoed through the building. The whistle of approaching sirens rose in fell in undulating pitches. He looked to her one last time, the stoic expression and hardened features returning to place quickly. He paused for a moment, lips seeming to quiver slightly. But then it was gone.
He turned quickly, moving back down the hall toward the far stairwell. MacAvie watched him go, unable to move-and not sure she would have even if she could.
And for the second time, she watched him disappear into the darkness.