John Ringo - Sister Time

She knew Erick’s psyche, more or less. If she left his employ, even precipitously, he would simply write her off as no longer in his employ. She would not have believed the indifference if she hadn’t found it such a persistent irritation. She would also lose a terrific salary and unparalleled fringe benefits.

On the other hand, there was someone in the game who not only could take out a Darhel, but had. There was also the probable reaction of the other Darhel upon anything or anyone in the vicinity. Fringe benefits or not, Prida had more than four hundred years in which to find and enjoy jobs as good as or better than this one. Provided she was alive to enjoy them.

Yet, one didn’t want to jump the gun and throw away a good thing needlessly. Perhaps good old Pardal had just gone off and had himself a major snit, all by himself. One heard of such things happening to Darhel now and again. The thing to do, she decided, was to appear to be totally invested in the project for as long as possible, while covering her routes of escape if things suddenly blew up. Literally or figuratively.

“Dahmer, get me the head of security,” she said.

“Security, John Graham here, Ms. Felini. What can I do for you?”

She absently inquired as to Erick’s orders and more or less repeated them, telling the security head to also take over and coordinate the loaner guards from the military along with his own people. This was harmless cover for her real announcement — that she intended to spend the night at the facility, or several nights if necessary, and therefore would be making a brief run to her apartment to pick up a few necessities.

She declined the assistance of a staffer to run the errand for her, of course. Wouldn’t dream of it. Morons.

There. She could keep herself out of the way of any real hazards until she was more confident the situation was stable, and without jeopardizing her job. After all, she would be doing her job, and doing it well. From a safe distance.

Jerry Rydell did not appreciate being called in on a weekend, for no damn reason at all that he could see, to patrol a damned near empty building. Entering middle age and already picking up a little weight, despite a job that kept him on his feet and walking, Jerry didn’t often get dates with attractive women. Belinda Scarpelli was about as good as it got for him. Pretty, about six years younger than he was, only a bit plump herself. Having to cancel his date with her had put him in a goddam lousy mood. Especially not when what he got in exchange was having to walk the floors with Nigel Pinkney, otherwise known as Nigel the Prick.

“So, bet you’re real glad to be in here on Friday, mate. Do a little honest work for once,” the prick said.

“Nigel? Blow me.” He’d been up one sixth floor corridor and down the other with this cheese-dick and it had gotten old before he’d taken the second step.

“Eh, what? Don’t like the sixth floor, do you?” In some stupid attempt to play up his name, Nigel affected a very corny English accent, copied out of old prewar stuff that had been badly holo-enhanced to fill in the dead air in the wee hours of the morning. He seemed to think it helped him get women. Jerry allowed that that might be so — but only the stupid ones.

He clenched his fists as they walked, yet again, past the old biddy’s office. Said woman was some nameless corporate drone on the sixth floor who had the most grating voice he could imagine — worse than his mother-in-law from his first marriage. It didn’t matter what time you walked past her office, day or night, she was loudly talking at her PDA, on some kind of call to someone, with that grating twang that echoed halfway down the hall in both directions. On and on and on. In his nightmares sometimes, he’d be patrolling this hall and stop, wrenching her face open with a crowbar. Inside would be only a buckley and a large, round speaker, embedded in miscellaneous wires and plastic casing, droning on in a computerized loop, forever.

They were really responsible for both the sixth and seventh floors, but on this job that meant walking the halls of the sixth floor in endless loops, trying futilely to break the pattern by looping here instead of there, running the route backwards, etc. But no matter where you went on the hall, you could always hear the old biddy, at least a little bit. He had, more than once, fantasized about breaking into her home some night and bludgeoning her to death in her bed. He wasn’t a particularly violent person, but it was the only way he could conceive of continuing to draw his paycheck while never, ever having to listen to that scraping, screechy, rasping voice ever again.

They could only patrol the sixth floor because the big boss and his bimbo minion were housed on the seventh, and they were too good to be bothered with the presence of lowly rent-a-pigs. Jerry’s fists clenched tighter and he harrumphed silently. Damned snot-nosed suits. Except — her highness the bimbo was out of the building and the creepy big boss was out of town. They were allowed to patrol the seventh floor when their majesties weren’t there.

“Hey, Nigel. We really oughtta do a few loops around the seventh floor, seeing as we’re on such high alert and the suits are all out. Ya think?” Please let him not be a prick just for once, the portly man wished, adjusting the too-tight, loaner gun belt. Paranoid snot-nosed suits, he amended morosely.

“Right you are. I could do with a change. That old bird could peel paint off the walls, if you ask me.”

What a prick. “Let’s take the elevator.” As a rule, Rydell avoided stairs.

“Shall we, then?”

Papa O’Neal heard the squeaking in the elevator well and had his back to the wall by the time it dinged. The first guard, a little weaselly man, hit the floor, sapped and stunned, but not out. The taller, fat one was still slightly in the elevator, and had to be grabbed before he could hit the door button. The neck break would have normally only worked for someone catching his victim from behind, by surprise. Those men did not have Michael O’Neal’s squat, muscular build and gorillalike arms. His massive upper body strength and juv’s agility let him muscle the guard’s neck around by main force, snapping it like a twig.

Almost as an afterthought, his heel jammed down, hard, on the neck of the first man, before he twisted, bringing the opposite knee down, with his full body weight, onto the spot where his foot had been just an instant before. Both hands buried in the little man’s hair, he pulled it up and back, past a right angle, until he heard the familiar crunch.

A body in each hand, he dragged them free from the elevator doors before that conveyance could start complaining too loudly about the obstruction. A novice killer, or someone who had not yet made up his mind to kill a particular individual, could be hesitant — read “slow” — in action. Decisions to target or not target took time. Thinking about which move to use next took time. The techniques of an active martial artist, who had only trained but never killed, took time.

It is a truism in fighting that reaction takes longer than action. The techniques of a practiced, active, master who had killed many times at close quarters, and had already targeted a particular man, took very little more time than the remorseless fall of a guillotine blade.

Papa O’Neal had come into the facility classifying all its employees as not only enemies, but “bad people.” The guillotine blade had felt no more nor less for those it once felled than he felt for his own kills. Now, he no longer classified them as either enemies or bad people, simply as bodies in need of safe disposal. Safe, in this case, being defined as providing the least risk to the mission.