David Robbins - Atlanta Run

Blade darted to the right, sprinted along a short passage, and turned to the left. He paused in the junction and waited, his expression steely.

A second later the Terminators jogged into view.

“Here I am!” Blade taunted them, and took off again. He weaved through the maze, never running at his full speed, deliberately holding back so the Terminators wouldn’t lose him. Whenever they managed to narrow the distance, he would increase the pace enough to preserve his lead. He was playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, and he led the pair on a winding chase for over ten minutes.

“Slow down and fight, you prick!” one of them yelled, frustrated by their failure to catch the giant.

“We want your ass!” snapped the second.

Blade reached an intersection and looked back, and as they came into sight he raced to the left. They were angry, and probably fatigued, and such a combination inevitably resulted in carelessness.

Now was the time to finish it.

He veered into a right-hand corridor, placed the Bowies in his sheaths, and executed a flying leap. His fingers closed on the lip of the right-hand wall, and he hauled himself up with fluid ease and flattened.

“Where the hell did he go?” a Terminator bellowed from the passage the Warrior had just vacated.

Blade slid closer to the junction until his boots were at the corner. He placed his palms on the edges of the wall and tensed. If the men in the silver suits were as provoked as he expected, they would come barreling around the corner without bothering to look upward.

An instant later, they did.

Blade sprang, his body serving as a massive projectile as he launched himself into a flying tackle. They were side by side when he plowed into them from behind, his arms looping around their waists, his momentum bowling them over.

Encumbered by their tanks and their Fryer nozzles, the Terminators were awkward in recovering.

Blade was on his feet first, and he grabbed the left arm of the nearest Terminator and twisted sharply until there was a distinct snap.

The Terminator shrieked.

Remorseless in his revenge, Blade swept his left leg into the other Terminator, who was trying to stand, and knocked the man to the floor.

Still grasping the arm of the injured assassin, he gripped the wrist in his right hand, the shoulder in his left, and drove his right knee into the man’s elbow.

There was a popping sound and the Terminator voiced a shrill cry.

Blade flung the first man to the floor.

The second Terminator heaved erect. At such close quarters he could not employ his flamethrower for fear of incincerating his companion.

Instead, he lashed out with his right boot.

A piercing pain racked Blade’s left kneecap and he inadvertently doubled over.

Pressing his advantage, the second Terminator aimed a kick at the giant’s face. The blow never landed.

Blade caught the Terminator’s boot in his hands and wrenched the leg, rotating the boot clockwise until his adversary vented a muffled oath and toppled to the right. Mentally suppressing the torment caused by his throbbing knee, Blade closed in and planted the knobby knuckles of his right fist on the Terminator’s headpiece, at the point where he estimated the man’s chin to be, as the silvery executioner was scrambling upward.

The Terminator went flying and crashed onto his back.

His ponderous fists clenched, Blade stalked forward, moving methodically, not bothering to draw his Bowies. He saw the Terminator struggling to rise yet again, and he waited until the man was almost upright before striking.

Wobbly, his hands limp at his sides, the Fryer nozzle dangling by its hose from the tanks, the Terminator was on his last legs.

Blade didn’t care. He slugged the man twice, a right and a left, and the Terminator, out on his feet, toppled over, falling forward instead of backwards. Blade caught the man in his arms, and he was about to toss the assassin aside when a cold voice dictated otherwise.

“Don’t move, asshole!” barked someone to his rear.

Blade froze, supporting the Terminator by the armpits.

“I want to see the look on your puss when I squeeze the trigger,” the person declared. “So when I tell you to turn around, do it very, very carefully. If you understand, nod.”

The Warrior nodded.

“Good. Now turn around, real slow.”

Holding onto the Terminator, Blade pivoted.

“You should have finished me off.”

“I know,” Blade said. “There wasn’t time. I was getting to you next.”

The Terminator with the broken left arm was six feet away, his broken limb bent at an unnatural angle, his hand hanging useless next to his waist. In his right hand was his Fryer nozzle, his finger on the trigger. “I’ll enjoy watching you burn, you son of a bitch.”

“What about your friend here?” Blade asked, hefting the unconscious form.

“Put Johnston down,” the Terminator directed.

Blade deposited the silver figure on the floor.

“Now step back,” the first Terminator ordered.

His mind racing, Blade took a stride backwards. Unless he thought fast, he would be burnt to a crisp. There was no way he could pull his Bowies before the Terminator fired. He needed a diversion. But what? Glisson was dead and couldn’t be of any help.

Or could he?

Blade recalled the conversation he’d overheard between the two executioners. They mentioned having heard screams, but they didn’t know who was doing the screaming . They didn’t know Glisson was dead.

He had a chance, then, to outwit the one in front of him, but to do so meant relying upon the oldest trick in the book.

“Are you ready to die, you suck-egg bastard?” the Terminator taunted him.

“Not yet,” Blade responded, glancing quickly over the Terminator’s left shoulder and widening his eyes, pretending to have seen someone. He immediately adopted a placid expression, as if he was hiding the fact.

The Terminator took the bait and glanced over his left shoulder, and out of the corner of his right eye he detected the giant coming at him. He started to face his enemy, cutting loose with the Fryer before his turn was completed, intending to consume the meddler with flames. He nearly succeeded.

Blade knew he couldn’t reach the Terminator before the man fired, and he also was aware he couldn’t clamber over the walls in time. Employing the Bowies was a dubious proposition; the Terminator might manage to squeeze off a burst of flame. His best bet was to interpose something—anything—between the Terminator and himself. And there was only one object available.

The unconscious Terminator.

Moving rapidly for a man of his size, Blade stooped, seized the insensate Terminator by the shoulders, and lifted, his muscles rippling. He was shoving his makeshift shield at the first Terminator when the Fryer nozzle spat red and orange, the flames striking the tanks on the back of the second Terminator. The result, to the Warrior, at least, was unexpected.

There was a tremendous explosion.

Blade felt a jarring concussion as he was lifted and catapulted backwards, tumbling end over end, his hands and arms tingling, his face blistered. Disoriented, he crashed to the floor and slid over 20 feet, thumping to a bone-rattling stop against a wall at the next junction. He wound up on his left side, stunned, staring at the vestige of a glowing fireball dissipating in the passage.

Dear Spirit!

He rose to his knees slowly, his ears ringing, realizing the tanks on the second Terminator must have exploded and the man’s body had screened his own.

But what about the first Terminator?

Blade stood and walked slowly along the seared hall, amazed to discover a small crater in the middle of the floor. Smoky tendrils wafted toward the ceiling. And beyond the crater was an indeterminate mass of charred…