Rising Storm

'HEY!' Tricker shouted. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' He rushed

toward her and yanked the door closed. 'How did you get that open?'

Surprised, Wendy took a step back. 'I was just curious,' she said.

'This door is always locked,' he said. 'How did you get it open?'

'It was like that,' she squeaked, holding her hands up as though she thought he might hit her.

John ghosted up behind him.

Then, to Clea's intense annoyance, the cameras cut out. 'Shit!' she said aloud.

She should have taken care of that.

'I didn't do anything*.' Wendy shouted, backing away. 'I didn't touch anything!

Why are you being like this? What's wrong with you?' Her voice turned whiny.

'I didn't do anything!'

Tricker spun round just in time to block John's strike and easily reached through John's defense to strike him hard on the jagged cuts on his face. John staggered back, blinded by tears, as the stitches broke and blood began to flow.

Wendy squeaked in horror and rushed forward shouting, 'Stop it!'

Without really looking, Tricker kicked her in the stomach, sending the girl flying backward. She landed gasping for breath, tears streaming down her face.

Something happened within John at the moment. He became the calm center of the storm, just as his sensei had told him he would. John judged that their skills were about equal, especially with the asset of his youth, even compromised by

his wounds. But before the advantage had been all Tricker's; for his experience, for his ruthlessness. Now they were considerably more equal.

John was hyper-aware of everything around him, of Wendy writhing on the floor trying to get her breath…

Tricker flicked a series of kicks at him—low, middle, high—balancing effortlessly. There was no room to dodge; John backed a little, blocking with his forearms and sliding in with his weight on his back foot.

' Isa!' he shouted, driving bladed palms at his opponent's groin and eyes.

Those eyes widened as Tricker slid back in turn, blocking high and low and trying to capture a wrist; that nearly cost him a kneecap, as John snap-kicked in the moment they were in contact. What followed in the next thirty seconds was like a savage, precisely choreographed dance— one that left John's face wound bleeding again and Tricker favoring one leg. The younger man waited, hands up and weight centered; it wouldn't last much longer. It couldn't, not when experts were fighting for keeps. The least little advantage…

After what seemed to her to be an eternity, Wendy got her breath back and struggled onto her hands and knees to watch the two men battle.

'Are you crazy?' Wendy shouted at Tricker, still gasping. 'Are you completely insane?' she demanded, tears streaming down her face.

The question and her expression were so convincing that for a split second Tricker thought that he might have made a mistake.

John's booted foot caught Tricker in the side of the head and the agent went down, temporarily paralyzed by the blow. Instantly John followed up with a carotid hold and Tricker's world went black.

John looked at the unconscious man, reached down to check his pulse, then went to Wendy. 'You okay?' he asked, deeply concerned.

'I've been kicked in the stomach by an expert!' she snapped. 'No, I'm not okay!

But I'll live,' she added grudgingly. She took his offered hand and let him help her to her feet, then she got a good look at his wounds. 'Oh God, John! Your face!' She reached for him, but he held her off.

'No time,' he said. 'We've got to get this guy tied up. Help me look for something.'

The first thing that John noticed was that the computer screen was flipping through views of rooms a great deal snazzier than this one. Laboratories, by the look of them. 'Hey, check it out,' he called to Wendy.

She stood by his side for a moment, watching, then shook her head. 'So how do we get there?' Then she looked at him and smiled. 'That door!'

He nodded, wiping the blood off his chin before it could drip on the keyboard.

'But first things first, all right?' He tipped his head toward Tricker. 'See what you can find.' it wasn't long before Wendy straightened up with a glad cry.

'Duct tape! The force that holds the universe together.'

John had made a happy discovery of his own, a Sig-Sauer 9mm that he found under the desk in a quick- release clip. 'Most excellent,' he murmured, caressing

the gun.

'Hands tied in front or back?' Wendy asked.

'Back, most definitely.' John went to stand beside her. 'Let's get him onto one of the bunks,' he suggested. 'I'll take his head, you take his feet.'

They flung him on the bunk and John got to work winding the tape tightly around the agent's hands and feet.

'That's a little snug,' Wendy said, looking worried.

'Yeah, but if he gets loose he's gonna try and kill us.'

'A point,' she conceded, 'most definitely a point.'

He wound the tape around their prisoner and the bed at his neck and hips, binding him to the bunk until the tape ran out.

'No gag?' Wendy asked.

'No point,' John said. 'There's nobody to hear him. I'd rather use the tape to make sure he doesn't come after us. Besides, they're risky. Too much chance of his choking to death.'

She looked startled, but nodded wisely. This wasn't her world; in matters like these she'd best let John be her guide.

They left the room and looked across the short hall at the door that Tricker had pulled closed. It stood open a foot.

John's body turned to ice and he could feel his blood pounding in the cuts on his face and the lump on his head. Then he shook it off.

'She… it's here,' he said quietly. 'And it knows we're here.'

Wendy looked at his pale face and bit her lip, knowing who he meant and taking fright from his obvious apprehension. She knew instinctively that there was only one thing to do in a situation like this—pretend it didn't matter.

'Aw, you can do it!' she said, giving his arm a little slap. 'You handled that guy all right.'

' He is human.' John looked at her and wished her gone with all his heart.

As though she knew what he was thinking, Wendy leaned in close and kissed his cheek gently. 'You need me,' she reminded him firmly.

He could see her pride as she said it, and putting his hand behind her head, he drew her close and kissed her. It hurt, but it fed his soul. He leaned back and smiled at her. 'I'll go get the gun, then we'll get started,' he said.

Wendy smiled and nodded. When he was gone she gave the door beside her an anxious glance, took a deep breath, and rubbed her aching stomach. Looking across the hall, she could just see Tricker lying on the bunk.

So far, she thought, so good.

He needs her? Clea thought. Whatever for? She certainly can't fight. And if she wasn't here to back him up then what was her purpose? It had also surprised her

that Connor was unarmed. To the I-950, that was synonymous with unprepared.

But from what he'd said, he expected her to be here. This suggested an unreasonable degree of self- confidence. But why? What reason had he to be so confident?