climbed high enough within the Bureau to be able to cover his own tracks.
It was like a chess game. Smith stopped drinking, lost weight, and actually began to enjoy work again.
But everything in the past paled next to that moment, the moment Smith entered the DruTech Building.
This wasn’t just stealing files and sending agents on fake missions. This was the real deal. Smith was actually in the field himself. When he saw Rothchilde’s chopper outside, he got even more excited. His mind filled with fantastic scenarios, saving Rothchilde in a hostage situation, neutralizing the targets, being able to actually shoot somebody.
Smith couldn’t run the hundred in less than thirty seconds, but for the very first time he felt like a real Fed.
He scanned the lobby, overhead, then at eye-level, and finally sweeping the ground. His pulse broke into a rumba when he saw the guard’s body. Smith moved in for a closer look, favoring his good leg. He wanted to shout out in excitement when he saw the head wound.
This was it, what he’d waited his whole life for. Real danger. He knelt down next to the corpse and felt for its pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one, doing it anyway because that was what they always did in the movies. He could imagine telling this story later, people hanging on his every word.
“He’s dead.”
Smith spun, knees bent in a crouch, both hands on his weapon in a perfect Weaver stance. Just like he’d practiced a hundred times. But none of his training prepared Smith for what was standing fifteen feet away from him.
At first, he thought he was looking at a corpse. The man was caked with dried blood, which seemed to streak out of the four bullet wounds in his torso like fireworks. Any one of those wounds should have been fatal, but the guy was standing there, obviously alive, with a goofy grin on his face. And an ax.
Smith went by-the-book. “Drop the ax! Hands on your head, get down on your knees!”
The man lifted his hands above his head, but he raised the ax with them.
“Drop the ax!”
The man didn’t drop the ax. He did something that Special Agent Smith wouldn’t have ever expected. He held it like a lumberjack and threw it.
Smith’s reflexes took over. If he were a seasoned pro with plenty of field experience, perhaps his first instinct would have been to fire the gun. But since he wasn’t, Smith did what anyone would have done when an ax came at them. He put his arms over his face and ducked.
The ax handle hit him across the forearms, sending his gun flying.
Smith got up out of his crouch and was seized by an overwhelming feeling of giddy delight. He’d been absolutely sure that the ax was going to bury itself in his head. The fact that he’d escaped with only bruised elbows was amazing.
But it wasn’t over yet.
The bloody man was walking towards him, his arms wide open. Like a giant bird of prey, swooping down.
Smith knew he needed to find the gun, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the spectacle before him. When he returned to his senses, it was too late. All he could do was run.
But Smith and running weren’t good buddies.
He took off through the lobby in a comical hobble, his bad ankle unable to fully bear the weight of his body even after all of the therapy. It was like trying to run with a ball and chain on his leg. Smith pushed past the pain of bones rubbing against each other, but it just didn’t work right.
He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the bloody man following in a brisk walk. Not even running, but quickly gaining ground. He’d picked up the ax.
Ahead of Smith was a dark hallway, doors at the end. He was sweating now, fear and pain pushing out his prior thoughts of glory and excitement.
“What’s wrong with your leg?”
Smith concentrated on the doors. If he could just make it there, maybe he could lock them somehow, keep the bloody man away. It wasn’t that far. Smith forced himself to move faster, ignoring the fire in his ankle, pushing himself harder than he ever had in his life.
He made it! The bloody man was only a few steps behind him now, and Smith grabbed the door handle, turning it, pushing forward with his shoulder.
Locked.
But it wasn’t over yet. He still had his training. Hand to hand combat. Martial arts. He hadn’t practiced regularly, because there hadn’t been a need. But he still knew enough to defend himself, even if his opponent did have an ax.
Special Agent Smith spun around, feet planted a shoulder’s width apart, arms out in a defense stance.
“Keeeyaaa!” Smith’s battle cry echoed down the hallway.
The echo lasted longer than he did.
Jack Kilborn
Disturb
“Is it damaged?”
Rothchilde was referring to the thalamus, hypothalamus, corpus callosum, and other parts of the brain that were harvested to produce N-Som. In the head he’d brought, all of these parts were intact. The bullet had only done damage to the motor cortex, central and longitudal sulcus, and occipital lobe.
“It’s fine.”
“There’s enough to make N-Som?”
Theena nodded, removing a section of the medulla oblongata. Bill raised an eyebrow at this, but kept his mouth shut. Theena was grateful for that.
They ground up the tissue with a mortar and pestle, and then began the laborious task of making it into a pill.
Theena didn’t bother with precise measurements this time. She also abbreviated the suspension in the acetonitrile and eyeballed the amount of the dimethylformamide dispersant. Rothchilde didn’t know any better.
Since DruTech contracted out for the actual pill manufacturing because it was a complicated process, the way to make ingestable N-Som in the lab was to simply add some hydroxypropyl methylcellulose and sodium starch glycolate, then spoon the mixture into empty gelatin capsules.
The work, although forced, had a calming effect on Theena. This day had been a trip to hell, with no end in sight. She was happy to lose her mind in a familiar chemical procedure. But as it neared the end, she began to worry about what would happen next.
“Those don’t look like N-Som.” Rothchilde was eyeing the capsules suspiciously.
“We can’t make tablets here. We don’t have the proper equipment.”
Rothchilde pointed the gun at Bill. “Take one.”
Bill shrugged, reaching for a capsule. Theena had a terrible moment of mind-bending panic, and made her decision immediately.
She grabbed a capsule first.
Rothchilde gave her a disapproving glare. “I was talking to Dr. May.”
Theena knew she must look like hell, and she couldn’t recall a moment where she’d ever felt less sexy. But she’d been manipulating men all of her life, and for the very first time her life depended on it.
Theena smiled as seductively as possible, and brushed up against Rothchilde with a smooth roll of her hips.
“You killed this man, didn’t you Albert?”
Albert met her gaze, trying to look nonchalant. Theena lowered her voice, breathy and soft.
“I want to see it.”
“Really? You’re a fickle one, aren’t you?”
“Just because I want to be on the winning team?” Theena pouted slightly, a move that always worked for her. “You won’t let me share your victory? Share your power?”
She placed a hand on Rothchilde’s arm and caressed it. His face softened.
“Maybe we could try it together.”
Theena nodded, putting the capsule between her lips. She held it there, like a cigarette, teasing. Rothchilde raised a hand and plucked it out.
