GRIDER

 

Wednesday January 15 - 0227 PST

Three minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

The shot ricocheted off the girder column I was covering behind and barely grazed the outside of my helmet. It didn't actually hurt me but it was a serious wake up call and I was back behind the column cursing up a storm. Mainly that was directed at Kuzmin's infuriatingly good aim, but a good part of that anger was also focused on myself for letting him pin me down.

"You are in quite difficult position, David." Kuzmin's barely contained laughter was even more infuriating than his aim. That asshole was actually enjoying this. "Here is present from me to help you out."

There was a soft thud and the long rippling roll of something metal tumbling over the scaffolding toward. Then something solid bumped into my boot. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was a hand grenade. But my mind engaged before I leapt up and ran out into Kuzmin's field of fire.

The pin and the spoon were still in place, so it wasn't armed yet. That presented its own set of problems though, because Kuzmin wasn't a rookie that would forget something basic like that. No, he was screwing with me. Either this was a inert training aid or Kuzmin had lost his mind. Knowing him though he might have actually fabricated a grenade that was set to explode in the user's hand when the spoon was pulled and now he was trying to get me to kill myself.

He might also be a truly sadistic bastard that gave me an actual live grenade because he knew how much I would agonize over the decision to use it while second guessing his intentions.

"What's wrong, David? You do not like my gift?"

My hands were starting to shake from all the rage I felt for that prick. That was also part of his plan. He wanted me to lose my head in my emotions so he could more easily put a bullet through it.

BANG!

Another round whip cracked past my girder column followed by his insane giggling. It was times like these that reminded me that dying wasn't what really bothered me. Letting evil men like Kuzmin win…that really burned my ass. There wasn't much I could do about it because every option I had available ended with me getting shot.

Then another option climbed up the ladder to my deck.

First one big hand then another gripped the top of the ladder and a second later Adam's massive bulked pulled itself up into view. I couldn't believe my luck. He would be the perfect distraction for Kuzmin. If I was especially lucky I could take out two birds with that one stone today as well.

He looked over at me with his naive, wide eyed stare and opened his mouth to talk. "Hey, Captain Gri—"

I chopped the air to shut him the hell up because he obviously wasn't smart enough to figure out why I was scrunched up behind a narrow steel girder. "Shut up and get behind cover."

As the implications of my words sunk in he started to duck down low and Kuzmin fired again.

BANG!

I didn't hang around to watch where the bullet landed because opportunities like this didn't come twice. Moving on pure instinct I was up and around the column firing a shot every time my left foot hit the deck. The steady fire wasn't hitting Kuzmin, but it got him to cower behind his own cover while I shrank the distance between us. Now our positions were reversed and I was the one keeping my head down.

The only real problem with my strategy was that it was limited by the amount of cartridges left in my magazine. At most I could take thirty strides since my mags only held thirty rounds. There was also the issue that I hadn't started my forward march with a full mag. At some point I was going to run out and then Kuzmin would have a window to shoot back. As my shots bounced off the big crate of rebar he was bunkering behind I was mentally preparing myself for the moment my rifle went dry. At that moment I would have to swap to my secondary, a Beretta M9, holstered at my hip. When it was time to switch me and Kuzmin would be in a race to the death as we both went for the first shot on the other.

BANG!…BANG!…BANG!…CLACK!

My M4's bolt locked back on an empty magazine and I simply let the whole thing hang from the harness as I went for the M9. Kuzmin caught it too but being in the tail end of the OODA loop he was half an action behind me. The M9 came free of its holster and was coming up to meet my other hand in a two-hand grip when I saw Kuzmin rising over the box of rebar with his sniper rifle in hand. The barrel of my M9 came level with the deck right about the same time as his muzzle steadied on my chest.

BANG!

I wasn't sure who had shot or if I was even still alive. For all I knew I was already in the afterlife watching things playing out. What brought me back to the here and now was seeing Kuzmin's head rocking back and half its content sailing out of the back.

I had won and survived another moment. But I wasn't home free just yet. During the entire ordeal with Kuzmin it wasn't lost on me that a swirling cloud of purple—I'm not even sure what to call it—was coming out of the floor of the crater and forming over the glass dome in the middle. Whatever it was we had to stop it before it turned the Primes into world ending monstrosities.

While I had no clue how to stop that stuff from welling up out of the ground I knew there was another option and it was laying at my feet. The Primes couldn't be turned against us if they were dead. And that was exactly what I would put in the report. The most expedient method of ending the threat to the nation was to neutralize the hosts. The bureaucracy loved its benign, word salad explanations.

Kuzmin's rifle was a classic of the Russian military, a Dragunov replete with modernized furniture. It was painted black like its owner's soul. While I hadn't fired this particular rifle I had trained often on the model since they were so common among the troops that US Special Forces trained with around the world. One issue with precision rifles like the Dragunov was that they had to be zeroed at a particular distance from a target to be effective. Unfortunately, I couldn't ask Kuzmin what range he had it zeroed to because he was dead, but I could take a wild guess.

Peering through the scope down at the crater's floor I found the spot I had been hunkering down at when Kuzmin first opened up on me. It wasn't hard to find the conex box covered in bullet holes, and it was right about the same distance as the glass dome. Perfect.

The purple-pink cloud ebbed and flowed over the glass dome like some supernatural umbrella. Any minute now it would descend on it and turn the Primes into something I didn't even want to think about. It was now or never.

The four Primes were all there, strapped down to their operating tables for everyone to see. They were arranged in a X with their feet almost touching and every last one of their heads was wide open for me to see. I rested the cross hairs of the sight on the skull of the one closest to me and exhaled. It was about a two hundred yard shot which was nothing for a precision rifle…if the scope was correctly dialed in. Then I slowly squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

The recoil surprised me—as it should when fired correctly—and one of the big hexagon-shaped panes of glass in the dome shattered into a million tiny fragments. Beyond it I saw the head of my target rock to the side under the bullets impact. It looked like I was dialed right where I needed to be.

One down, three to go.

My aim shifted to the next one in the X and settled again on a forehead. It was all going fast and quick. I'd be done with all four in a matter of seconds and the world would be safe.

BANG!

This time no glass shattered because I had a big hole to shoot through, and again the head rocked under the impact. Two down. Two to go.

Then I heard foot steps running toward me and an anguished cry. "Nooooooo!"

I looked up just as I saw Adam sprinting at me with his unreal speed. Before I could even get a word out he had me by the throat and I was swept off my feet. The sky and the walls and the columns spun around me as he slammed me down on the deck. Then he raised one of his meaty fists above me and levered it back as he got ready to pound it into my face.

Blue sparks danced over those fingers and fell to the deck around me where they fizzled out and died. I knew I would be joining them in death soon because with all the muscle mass of Adam on one side and the unforgiving deck on the other the only thing relenting in the inevitable collision would be my skull and the thinking meat within it. One day I was destined to die, however, I never thought it would be this day or this way.

"You murdered them…" Adam's words were filled with a combination of pain, betrayal, accusation, and shock. Just like his eyes. "How could you?"

He was just so young and naive that he didn't get that I had just saved him from having to do it himself when his buddies got transformed into something evil. Maybe he did understand and was working with them all along. You can't ever tell with exos. Either way I was at peace with my actions and that's really all that mattered when your life was about to end.