Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

Philippe stepped forward again. “Shut up!”The gun whistled down-and Chase’s hands snapped up, locking around Philippe’s hand and arresting the blow less than an inch above its target. The bodyguard froze, confused for the briefest moment, and Chase pulled forward with all his strength. Philippe slammed into the high back of the chair.

The bodyguard’s head was above Chase’s left shoulder. He smashed his right fist into Philippe’s face three times, knuckles coming away bloodied. His left hand closed around the gun, tearing it from his opponent’s grip.

Philippe’s free hand clamped around Chase’s face, fingers stabbing for his eyes. Chase punched him again, hearing something crunch-his nose or a tooth-then grabbed the bodyguard’s forefinger before it could plunge into his eye socket and bent it back as hard as he could. Faced with the choice of releasing his grip on Chase’s head or having a finger broken, Philippe chose the former, letting out an anguished screech-and in the split second he was distracted, Chase kicked out, heels hitting the floor and propelling the chair backwards on its casters across the conference room. The gun slipped from the grip of both combatants, but it was too late for either of them to act upon that fact-

The chair and its occupants crashed through the window and fell into the bomb factory. Philippe was on the bottom, having just enough time to begin a horrified scream before it was abruptly cut off as he hit the floor and the combined weight of Chase and the chair crushed his rib cage flat.

The impact flung Chase from the chair. He slammed down on his side, broken glass showering all around him. A stinging pain burned across the side of his head-he’d been cut. Shaking off fragments, he got to his feet and looked around.

The two men in hazard suits stood about fifty feet away, regarding him with astonishment. Then one of them dashed to the nearest wall, hand flailing at a panel, and a warbling alarm burst from loudspeakers around the chamber. The two men ran as best they could in their bulky suits for the exit.

If the technicians got through the door and it closed before Chase reached it, without a key card he’d be trapped in the factory with no weapon, easy prey for the security force when they arrived.

Chase broke into a sprint, chasing the yellow figures. They were at the door, one of them already swiping his key card. He passed the exposed laser they’d been working on, running faster as the door opened and they threw themselves through it. It swung shut behind them.

Twenty feet, ten, his arm outstretched-The lock clunked.

Chase reached the door a moment too late. “Fuck!” He pulled the handle, but it didn’t budge.

He turned to see where Sophia had gone. At the far end of the chamber was another door, identical to the one beside him. Undoubtedly with an identical clearance level.

He was trapped. And despite the fact that he was in a room where devastating weapons were being built, there was nothing he could use to defend himself.

Unless…

He ran back to the condenser chamber on which the technicians had been working. The laser, inside a steel tube about the length of his arm and four inches in diameter, had been pulled out of the end of the chamber on a metal rail, heavy-duty electrical cable still connected to its side. Attached to it by a ribbon connector was some kind of calibration device, a box festooned with buttons and gauges.

But only two controls caught his attention. One was a large dial with the stylized symbol of a lightning bolt above it, the other a red button.

An electronic chime sounded.

The door burst open, security guards pouring into the room. Guns raised and ready. They saw him-

Chase grabbed the laser and swung it around, supporting it with his right arm as his left whirled the dial to full power and stabbed at the button.

There was a blue flash and a noise like a muffled gunshot. For a moment Chase thought the laser had overloaded… then every single one of the guards keeled over dead, smoke billowing from neat holes in their chests. The fully powered laser beam, invisible in the filtered air of the factory, had burned straight through the line of men in a millisecond, leaving a smoldering dark spot on the far wall behind them.

“Oh I like this!” Chase crowed, experiencing an incongruous moment of elation at his new toy before remembering what he had to do. He turned back around, taking aim at the protruding cabinet housing the laser of the farthest condenser chamber. Another touch of the button, and he saw the briefest flicker of intense blue light on the cabinet before the access hatch blew out with a huge bang and a cloud of smoke. Warning lights flashed red on the control panel.

One down. He lined up the laser on the next condenser and fired again, getting another satisfying explosion as the assembly blew apart. Two more shots took care of the remaining condensers.

Another chime, more distant. The door at the other end of the room had opened, and he could hear men shouting as they ran into the factory. Chase brought the laser around to take aim, but he couldn’t see them from his position, blocked by the furnace.

Time to leave.

He hunted for an escape route. The broken window of the conference room was too high to reach, and there was nothing nearby he could climb onto.

But there were pipes above it, conduits for the air-conditioning and filtration system…

He pushed the red button again, this time keeping his finger firmly on it as he swept the laser across the suspended pipes, the blue spot of the beam burning with supernova fury and slicing through the metal. The severed conduits swung down like a giant hinge and hit the floor with an echoing crash.

Chase threw down the laser to break it, and ran up the fallen pipe work. Momentum alone carried him most of the way up the steep slope before he started to lose his footing, the metal buckling beneath his feet.

More shouts, a gunshot-

He flung himself through the hole in the window as if performing a high jump, clearing the lower sill by an inch. He thumped onto the carpet and rolled to a stop, then sprang up to find the Glock that Philippe had dropped. He grabbed it, then rushed around the table to retrieve his possessions. The grenade he shoved into a pocket, then he hefted his pistol.

A gun in each hand, he turned to face the door.

Charging footsteps outside-

Chase whipped around towards the window overlooking the chip fabrication plant and raised both guns, squeezed the triggers, then ran-

The window shattered just before he reached it and leapt out. He arced towards one of the clean rooms, about to crash down onto its glass ceiling.

He fired again, guns aimed downwards. The ceiling exploded, a razor-edged monsoon cascading into the clean room below. Chase’s feet thudded bone-jarringly onto a workbench, the pain of his leg wound flaring back to life. He ignored it and threw himself into a forward roll, racks of fragile silicon wafers tumbling and crunching beneath him, and flew off the end of the bench to land on both feet.

His jacket was covered with the broken remains of glinting microprocessors. “Chips with everything,” he muttered as he got his bearings. He had landed near one side of the huge room, the door through which he’d originally entered in the center of the far wall. A warren of glass lay between himself and the exit.

Shouting from above-the guards had entered the conference room and realized where he had gone. And more were spilling through the entrance off to his left, with a clear line of fire up the central aisle.

But the shortest distance between two points was a straight line…

Both guns raised in front of him, Chase ran again, heading directly for the far exit. That the route was blocked by clean rooms didn’t stop him-he kept firing, glass walls bursting apart in his path as terrified technicians dived for cover. He sprinted through the transparent maze as it parted, shimmering fragments spraying around his pumping legs like breaking waves.