Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

Verris spread his arms a little wider: I’m the target, shoot me. “Well?” he said.

Junior had never done anything that didn’t make sense to him and he wasn’t going to start now. He holstered his weapon.

Verris’s hopeful expression turned to disappointment. Junior decided he could live with that. If this was his idea of being a good father, God only knew what the man thought a bad one would do.

But he could show Verris that a good soldier could do the right thing without shooting his own CO. Junior approached him slowly and reached for the radio he was still holding out to one side.

Verris seemed to move impossibly fast as he reached around Junior, put his free hand inside the back of his shirt and yanked hard, pulling him down onto the gravel surface of the roof.

“I don’t think so,” he said, stepping back from him easily, lightly, almost as if he were dancing.

Junior pushed himself to his feet, trying to ignore his screaming shoulder and the feel of blood oozing from the wound, which had opened a little more.

“A loving, dedicated, present father,” Junior said, making it an accusation.

Verris darted forward and gave him a hard right that rattled his teeth. Junior staggered back a few steps but managed to stay on his feet. Before he could get his fists up, however, Verris pounced again and got both hands around his throat. Junior returned the favor.

It was like grabbing a handful of writhing snakes made of cartilage and muscle, all fighting to get away from him. The old man was in exceptional condition and crazy-strong—his fingers felt like steel bands. If he couldn’t break away, his dedicated, loving, present father was going to crush his throat, and then maybe pitch his body off the roof.

His vision started to dim. If he fell over, Verris would land on top and that would be the end. Fortunately, his sense of balance was still functioning—he let his hands fall away, then stamped hard on Verris’s instep while simultaneously punching both the man’s forearms upward, breaking his hold. His father staggered back and they locked eyes.

Felt that, didn’t you, Junior thought at him. Come at me again, you’ll feel worse.

But Verris didn’t come at him. He gave a short laugh and pointedly turned his back to look down at the street again, letting him know he was too busy to waste any more time teaching him a lesson he should have already learned.

Junior lowered his head and charged. The two of them went down hard, their bodies plowing a shallow trench in the gravel. Junior felt a hot spike of pain in his shoulder and clenched his teeth, refusing to cry out. Verris twisted around underneath him, grabbed him, and dug his thumb into the wound.

He flung himself away from Verris, who was on him immediately, trying to grab his shoulder again. Junior heaved him off, rolled away, and started to push himself to his feet when his side exploded in an agony that made the world disappear in a momentary whiteout. For a second, he thought his father had used a cattle prod on him, then realized it had actually been a hard punch to the kidney.

Junior fell over and Verris gouged his injured shoulder with his thumb again. Blood saturated the bandage and soaked through his shirt as the wound opened a little more but Junior still refused to cry out. He hit the back of Verris’s elbow, forcing him to straighten his arm and let go. Junior grabbed for him, intending to put his arm in a bone-breaker, but Verris’s other hand came up and threw a handful of gravel and dirt in his face.

Rubbing his eyes frantically, Junior kicked out with both feet at where he thought Verris was and connected only with air. Ignoring another bolt of pain in his shoulder, he rolled away and started to get up, only to have Verris horse-collar him again. His head hit the gravel, which broke the skin in several different places. Junior sat up, blood running down the back of his neck. Verris elbowed him in the face and everything went black as his jaw slid sideways.

When his vision cleared he was flat on his back and his dedicated, loving father was present on his chest, punching his face into mincemeat. “—trying—” punch “—to make you—” punch “—a man— ”

Father of the year, Junior thought, and dug deep for the strength he needed to show Verris he’d already done that himself.

Junior brought his legs up, twisted the right one around Verris’s neck and torqued him away. Scrambling to his feet, Junior saw the assault rifle he’d dropped earlier. In one continuous motion, he swept it up, pivoted on the ball of his foot and met Verris’s lunge by planting the butt end squarely in the middle of his grinning face.

Verris staggered back, wobbled, but stayed upright. Junior flipped the rifle and pointed the business end at him.

“Well?” Verris said. “Go ahead. You’ve got your target in your crosshairs! Do it! ”

He deserved it, Junior thought. Hell, Verris was literally asking for it—and yet he couldn’t.

Why the hell not? What the hell was stopping him?

Screw it . Junior flipped the rifle and slammed the butt into Verris’s face again. Verris crumpled to the gravel without a sound. Junior slung the rifle, sprinted for the edge of the roof and parkoured down to street level.

As soon as the kid was gone, Verris pushed himself to his feet. That last blow had stunned him a little but it hadn’t been full force. Right before impact, Junior pulled his punch. The kid couldn’t even hit him with all his strength, let alone shoot him. Obviously his duties as a father weren’t finished.

Verris turned to his left. Another Gemini soldier stood alone on a neighboring roof. He was dressed in a full-body suit made of next-generation Kevlar, his face covered by a more compact version of Junior’s night-vision gas mask. Here was the soldier that military commanders dreamed of but never imagined could actually exist—the perfect fighter. And this was the perfect time to turn him loose. Verris nodded, then jerked his head toward the street.

The masked soldier hopped over the edge of the roof and bounded down the wall as easily as an athlete might have sprinted along a road. He hit the street and kept going, his strides so long that he hardly seemed to touch the ground. When he came to the hardware store, he ran up the outside to the roof without breaking stride.

Verris smiled. Everybody was going to learn—or, in Junior’s case, relearn—a lesson tonight. It remained to be seen who would live through it.

For a small town, Glennville had one hell of a big hardware store, Henry thought as he finished Danny’s tourniquet. It was makeshift—a ripped-up apron with a screwdriver for a windlass, secured with a piece of rope. A store of this size probably had a first-aid kit with a commercially made tourniquet but there was no time to look for it.

He got Danny on her feet and helped her limp away from the exit and farther into the store. There was at least one more rear exit as well as a loading dock—more than the two of them could defend. They had to find a place to hole up until he could get Danny to a hospital. That was assuming they got out of here alive, of course, something Henry had categorized as extremely difficult but still possible. Then Danny had been shot in the thigh and that changed everything.

Henry sneaked a look at her; he knew from experience that a tourniquet hurt like hell but she didn’t make a sound except for an occasional short intake of breath.

At the end of a long shelf of flowerpots and bags of soil, Henry spotted a step stool on wheels. “Take a break,” Henry said. He eased her down onto it, then crouched low to peer left and right along the wide aisle running crosswise in front of them. The store seemed empty—he didn’t see or hear anything to indicate otherwise—but Henry was sure they weren’t alone. If he’d been in command, he’d have stationed a couple of guys here. He and Danny hadn’t exactly sneaked in without a sound so whoever was in here probably had a fairly good idea of their locations. Dammit.