Strangers and Shadows (48 page)

The lobby doors shattered as a guard flew through them headfirst.  Glass scattered in every direction as several more combatants came flying out of the lobby and landed unconsciously on the walkway.

Ava and Asher exchanged uneasy glances as they wondered what was happening inside.  Several moments later the commotion inside seemed to die down as Asher checked his watch.

“How long has it been?” Ava asked.

“Three minutes.  Two more to go.”

“
Three minutes?  That’s it?
”

“I know… it feels like we’ve been out here for ages.”

They sat quietly for the remainder of the five minutes before Asher broke the silence.  “Time to move.”

Ava reached out and put a hand on his forearm.  “Listen, Asher, when this is over…”

Asher shook her hand off and looked away.  “It’s time to go.”

He was so cold—nothing like the man Ava remembered.  He used to be so warm and inviting.  Had she done that to him?  She tried to put off the thought as she followed him inside.

The scene inside was shocking to say the least.  Ava wasn’t sure what she had expected to find, but it wasn’t this.  She barely recognized the lobby from the last time she was there.  Furniture was overturned everywhere.  The walls and ceiling were scorched with blaster fire.  Unconscious men and women lay everywhere.  From what she could tell, they were all still breathing.  The sound of Asher’s voice broke her out of the spell.

“Let’s go!  We can’t stay here.”

“How do we know which way he went?”  Ava asked.

“We follow the bodies.”

Ava followed him as he led her through the lobby at a fast walk.  His blaster rifle swept back and forth as he watched for any guards that Desmond may have missed.  Ava was impressed with the way he moved.  The way he carried himself, he seemed so sure of who he was.  Something else that had changed about him, she supposed.

The bodies led to the stairwell.  Inside the stairwell Ava looked up and her heart sank.  The stairs seemed to rise into the sky for miles.  She suddenly pulled her head back as a body came falling down.  It landed with a sickening thud, unlike anything she expected—whether that was due to the body armor the guard was wearing or the other bodies he landed on, she couldn’t say.

Perhaps forty floors above them, they could see flashes of light as Desmond continued to carve a path out of the Embassy’s guards toward the prime minister’s chambers.

“Ava!” Asher yelled.  He had already mostly climbed the first flight of stairs.  “Come on!”

She forced herself to look away from the fallen guard and hurried after Asher.  When she caught up to him, she kept running right past him.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t fucking take much more of this,” she yelled back to him.  “I want out of this stairwell!”

“Great,” Asher muttered under his breath.  She was freaking out.  “Just keep moving, and keep your eyes open.  We’ll be there in no time.”

They continued to climb, floor after floor.  They were almost to the halfway point when Asher needed to catch his breath, but he didn’t dare stop and let Ava get too far ahead of him.  “Ava, wait!” he called out.  

She stopped and turned back from the next flight up.  “What’s the matter?  Don’t tell me you’re tired already!”  She had the hint of a smile on her face.

“Not all of us have nanites bolstering our bodies.”

“Don’t be a cry baby…”

Asher took a deep breath in to respond, but paused as he heard the clinking.  It sounded just like a— “Detonator!” Asher screamed.

Ava turned and watched the frag detonator bounce down the stairs past her.  It settled somewhere in between her and Asher.  She caught Asher running back down the stairwell out of the corner of her eye as she scrambled up the stairs away from the explosive.  She had only taken a few steps when the detonator went off.

The stairwell flashed white, then red.  Ava shut her eyes as the blast threw her into the wall.  When she opened them again, she was covered in dust and debris.

The ringing in her ears blared as she tried to stand.  She wobbled first left and then right as her equilibrium tried to sort out which way was up.  She finally managed to steady herself against the wall with her left hand.  Slowly the dizziness subsided along with the ringing in her ears and she could make out Asher’s voice once more.

“Ava!” He sounded frantic.

She carefully made her way to the railing.  The last thing she wanted to do after surviving the detonator was trip over the rail and fall to her death.

Through the dusty haze she saw Asher below her.  She waved.

“Thank the Mother, you’re alive.”

“So sweet of you to care,” Ava said.  She meant it.  

The stairs in between them were no longer in existence.  The detonator had left a giant gap, too large to cross.

“There’s no way I can get up to you over here,” Asher said.  “I’ll have to go down to the next stairwell and cross back over on the next floor up.  In the meantime, don’t wait for me.  Keep climbing, catch up with Desmond.  I’ll be right behind you.”

Ava nodded.  She didn’t like splitting up, but there seemed to be no other alternative.  “Be careful, Asher.  The other stairwells may be full of guards.  Shoot first and let the Mother sort them out.”

“That’s the New Britain way.”  Asher threw her a mock salute.  “See you soon, princess.”  He retreated down the stairwell, out of sight.  Ava heard a door close and then she was alone in the stairwell.  Alone, that is, if you didn’t count the bodies around her everywhere.  She shuddered and began to climb the stairs taking them two at a time.

As she neared to the top of the stairwell, she paused and searched below her for any signs of Asher.  There were none.  She hoped he hadn’t run into any trouble.  He should have made it back to the stairwell by now.

She decided to go ahead.  The stairs had ended, but the prime minister’s office was only accessible by a private lift.  She wasn’t certain how Desmond had planned to get up there, but she figured she would go and see.  Worst case, she would end up waiting for Asher to catch up.

Ava opened the stairwell door and froze in her tracks.  At the end of the hall stood a squad of commandos with Dorian in the lead.

Dorian saw her at the end of hall and smiled.  “Get up to the prime minister’s office, I’ve got this.”

The squad of commandos breached the lift doors and fired ascension guns up the shaft.  Their lines attached with a metallic thud and they connected their harnesses to the cables.  In unison they rose up the lift shaft toward the prime minister’s office and out of sight.

Now they were alone.  

Ava lifted her blaster and leveled it at Dorian’s face.  She pulled the trigger in rapid succession and watched the blaster bolts fly true to their target.

Dorian lifted an outstretched hand and deflected all three of Ava’s shots.

Ava’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Have you forgotten about the nanite shield already, niece?” Dorian asked.

In truth, she had.  She had barely spent any time at all with her own nanites before her body was abducted by the prime minister and used by the man standing in front her.  

Ava emptied her blaster at Dorian, who again deflected all her shots, and then pulled out her knife.  “Let’s see you dodge this!”  She charged down the hall.

Dorian tossed his own blaster aside as he watched her coming.  “Isn’t this interesting?”  He crouched in a defensive stance as she neared.

Ava came within range, slashing forward and back, aiming for Dorian’s neck.  He danced this way and that, evading every attack that Ava threw at him.

“I admire your fighting spirit, but I really do have somewhere to be.”  

Dorian reached out and caught her hand that held the knife.  He held it in place firmly in the air over her head as she struggled to drive the blade toward him.  “Even with the nanites you have left, you are no match for me.”

Ava spit in his face.

Dorian wiped it off angrily.  “That wasn’t very nice.”  He backhanded her across the face with his free hand.

Ava felt her lip split as the blow landed.  Dorian’s other hand tightened around her wrist and she heard the bone snap before she felt the pain.  The knife fell from her hand as she cried out.  Dorian released her wrist.

Ava felt the nanites in her bloodstream begin to dull the pain, but Dorian was still near her.  She jumped and swung her knee up, aiming for his solar plexus, but he was too quick.  He caught her thigh with both hands in mid-air and flung her into the opposite wall.  She landed hard.  Her back hit first, leaving a dent in the wall, followed by the back of her head.  She came to rest on the floor, and tried to clear the ringing in her head.  She briefly wondered why she was lying down and staring at the ceiling.

Dorian knelt down and mounted her, placing one knee on each side of her ribs.  He placed his hands around her neck and started to squeeze slowly.  He could have ended it quickly, crushing her windpipe, but he wanted to watch her life slip away in front of him.

Beneath him, Ava squirmed, trying to escape his grasp.  Her right hand was useless, but with her left she grabbed one of his wrists and tried to pry his hands from around her neck.  He was too strong.  She felt the blood rush to her face, behind her eyes, as the choke pinched the carotid artery closed.  She watched her vision narrow from the periphery into the center.

Just before she lost consciousness, he relaxed his grip.  Fresh oxygenated blood flowed into her head and brain.  She looked up to see him smiling.  He was toying with her, like a cat with a mouse.  He would bring her to the edge of death over and over again before ending it for good.

Panic set in and Ava bucked and kicked trying to once again throw him off her.  It was no good, he was too heavy.  For a moment, he let go of her neck to stop himself from falling off of her, but she still could not escape from under him.  He had only to wait until she had completely exhausted herself and then he would choke her again.  

He didn’t have to wait long.  Within twenty seconds, Ava had burned through her all of her strength.  Adrenaline still raced through her veins, but it served only to heighten the fear she now felt as Dorian’s hands once again enclosed around her throat.  This time it hurt more.  He was compressing her trachea now in addition to the arteries.  She coughed and gagged, trying to keep drawing air through her throat and into her lungs.

Her vision began to darken again, and Ava’s only wish was that this would be the end.  But the Mother was cruel.  Once more, she felt the pressure subside and her breath returned to her.  She heard Dorian cry out in surprise and saw him twist around before he stood.

Ava used the distraction to quickly scurry out from under him.  When she looked up she saw Dorian reaching over his right shoulder and pulling out the injector that Asher had stabbed him with.

“You little shit,” Dorian said.

Asher took several steps back.  “Why don’t you try picking on some—”  He never finished his statement as Dorian closed the gap faster than Asher ever could have anticipated and backhanded him into the wall where he slumped over, unconscious.

Dorian turned back to Ava.  She was crawling toward the knife she had dropped.  “Now, to finish our little game.”  He took two steps toward her before his knee wobbled and he stopped.  “What the hell?” he asked, bewildered.  “Something isn’t right… What the hell did he…”

Ava smiled as she got to her feet.  “Come now, uncle.  You’ve been inside me, it’s only fair that I should be inside you too.”  

Dorian dropped to his knees, his face in agony.

“Right now, the nano-virus that was born inside my body is raging through your system rendering your nanites inert.  I imagine that once its run its course, you’ll be fine, but before that happens…”  Ava closed the distance and delivered a kick to his head.  Dorian grunted and spun with the impact landing on his back.  Ava jumped on top of him and raised the knife.  “Look at me!” she yelled as she brought the knife down into Dorian’s chest.  She felt it sink to the hilt and pulled it out, hot blood spurting out all over her.  “Look at me!” she yelled again, over and over as she continued to stab him.

She only stopped when Asher caught her arm from behind.  “It’s over, Ava.  It’s over.”

She looked down at Dorian’s unrecognizable body.  There was blood everywhere and countless knife wounds.  How long had she continued to stab her tormentor?

“Come on,” Asher said.  “Let’s go find Desmond.”

Ava stood and took two steps toward Asher before she fell.  Asher rushed forward and caught her as best he could, trying to protect her head from hitting the ground.  He cradled her in his arms and gently nudged her, trying to bring her to.  “Ava…” he called.  When she didn’t respond he called her name again louder, shaking her a more forcefully.

Still no response.

“No, this can’t be happening.”  Asher shooks his head, as if he could simply wish his nightmares away.  He laid Ava’s head down and checked her vitals.  There was no pulse and she wasn’t breathing.

He tilted her head back and placed his mouth on hers and blew air into her lungs, trying to resuscitate her, but to no avail.

Asher laid his head down on Ava’s breast and wept.

The last commando slumped to the floor.  Desmond knew how he would deal with them as soon as they entered the lift shaft.  It was child’s play for him.  The elite soldiers may have been trained to deal with all sorts of situations, but dealing with someone who could pick up their bodies and fling them into each other like a child playing with rag dolls was not one of those situations.

Hoping that he hadn’t injured any of them too badly, Desmond turned to where Julia stood looking out the window over the city.  She was watching in the distance, several hundred feet out.  The viral weapon floated there, its timer counting down from ten seconds.  As it reached zero, a blinding white ball formed around it and then shot out at the speed of light.

The windows shattered and air rushed in, bringing the nano-virus with it.  Desmond shielded himself and his estranged wife from the shards of glass that flew through the air.  As soon as he had done it, he wondered why.  It wasn’t his job to protect her anymore.