ADAM

 

Wednesday January 15 - 0222 PST

Eight minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

When my back slammed into the front tire of the maintenance truck it didn't hurt as much as the other times I had been slammed into something. Maybe because it was made of rubber and filled with air. What was more likely was that I was just getting used to the pain of bruises and cracked bones.

As I looked up at the truck I'd careened into I noticed that it was the kind electrician's use. It had one of those buckets on the end of a mechanical arm that the technician could use to raise himself up to a power line. The inside of the stadium was littered with stuff like that like they were just finishing up construction. For a split second I thought about climbing into that bucket and raising myself out of danger. But it was a stupid thought because Lucius—I think that was his name—was rushing at me like a man possessed by a demon and he would be on me before I could even figure out the controls. And it wasn't just an analogy, he was moving way too fast for a normal person and punching well above his weight.

Whatever I did I had to do something different, because my current plan of letting him punch me in the face and toss me around the Stadium wasn't working out too well. He was coming at me again running along the metal deck plates faster than a cheetah.

Lucius's black jacket flowed in the wind behind him like a cape, and again I saw the pistol on his belt taunting me. He and I both knew he could pull it at any moment to finish me off. I'd ran out of fresh mags for Dominus so there was no way for me to shoot back. This beating he was giving me was personal.

"Adam!"

That was Captain Grider shouting at me at the worst possible time. Right as Lucius was about to plow into me I stepped off to the side using the best speed I had and then wrapped one hand around the elbow of his arm that was wound up to punch me. Lucius saw it coming but he had so much momentum in his superhuman run that he couldn't stop. So instead he just put one foot on the construction truck, then another and ran up it like he was Superman while he tried back flipping out of my grip. If it had been a normal person I would have laughed at the stupidity of his move, yet it was surprisingly effective. Had I not also been abnormal he might have broken out of my elbow lock.

"What?" I shouted back at Grider.

Lucius struggled in my hands as I forced him face-first into the side of the truck. The thin sheet metal dented inward from the impact but even that wasn't enough to get him to stop squirming.

"Get in between me and Kuzmin!" Grider shouted as he squatted down behind the shipping container that was riddled with bullet holes.

His words were so idiotic that I forgot what I was doing for a second. Did he really want me to get shot that badly?

Lucius, on the other hand, wasn't bothered by it and cranked his head back hard into my face. I wasn't sure if he broke anything because there were so many stars swimming around my vision that I wasn't exactly sure what I should be focusing on, other than my balance which was swiftly being lost.

Grider was still shouting at me. "Kuzmin won't shoot at his boss."

And then I understood his plan. Grider was trapped behind that box while the Russian—Kuzmin—was aiming down at him. But if I got in the way it would give him a small distraction and a chance to get out of there. If there was one thing I was good at it was getting in the way of a bad guy's plan. So I picked up Lucius and dragged him, along with all the stars I was seeing, in front of Grider's box.

Lucius didn't make it easy on me. If you've ever tried holding onto a cat that wanted to get away from you then you know what it was like for me to keep hold of Lucius. Sure he was smaller than me but he was a lot stronger and more ornery than he looked.

Grider took off when he saw his opportunity. He was followed a split second later by a wild shot from Kuzmin. In the end the strategy worked and Grider got out of the open. He was finally able to move on Kuzmin. We needed someone to do something because things were starting to happen all around me and I was pretty sure they were bad.

Several pylons coming out of the floor of the Stadium were glowing purplish-pink with light that looked like it was bubbling up out of the earth. When I first saw them I thought they might be some unfinished electrical work. But the tiny sparks jumping between these pylons let me know they were definitely finished. And those pink sparks were getting thicker like they were growing in power. And they were directing that power inward towards the glass dome with my friends in it.

One of Lucius's hands got free, balled up into a fist, and then came back straight into my nose like a hammer. The stars in my vision returned and he kept hammering away. I gotta say, at this point I was going kinda numb with pain so it didn't bother me much. But what did bother me was the folding knife he pulled from his pocket. With a single, energetic flick of his wrist the blade came out and up at my right eye socket.

I still had him by his other arm and he was hanging a good twelve inches off the ground but all I could think to do was get rid of him in that moment. So I raised up my right foot and slammed my boot heel into his sternum.

He went flying straight into a temporary office trailer shattering a window with his head and denting in the aluminum and vinyl wall with the rest of his body. That should have killed him, but that would have made things easy for me. My life is never easy.

Lucius stepped out of the wreckage his collision had created and he looked himself over for injuries. He wiped some debris off his suit coat before stopping a moment to glare at a large tear in his suit's breast. Then his glare shifted to me. "You ruined an Armani suit, you prick."

It was funny that up until that moment I thought I saw the extent of his anger. But apparently ripping his suit pushed it up into the stratosphere. As he twirled the folding blade in his hand I suddenly got the feeling that things were about to get much worse.

I really hoped that the others were able to do something soon because I wasn't sure if I could outlast Lucius.