Sadler scrambled to his right, wrapping an arm around Kat’s waist while charging toward the end of the conference table. He forced her toward the front of the room as the double doors behind them burst open.
Kat heard thunderous reports from the doorway as she rushed toward the podium. On the run, she swept her pistol over the doors and fired wildly to push the new arrivals back into the hall. Next to her, Sadler fired blindly behind him. “Don’t hit Maggie!” she screamed as they separated at the head of the room. She threw herself forward and slid behind the podium. Sadler ducked behind the sturdy base at the front of the conference table. They both peered carefully from behind their cover.
The double doors and nearby wall were decorated with perforations and splinters from Kat’s fire. Lolz and an agent had found shelter behind the overturned metal table at the back of the room. The second agent was a crumpled, red mess on the floor.
Kat could hear Sadler hyperventilating as he repeated, “I killed him… I killed him…”
Lolz took a hasty shot with a small pistol that missed Kat’s podium and struck the screen behind her. The glass exploded into shards that tinkled to the floor.
“I thought you didn’t have a gun!” Kat said loudly from behind her podium. She fired two more shots through the double doors. The guards in the hallway seemed in no rush to make a death charge.
Lolz’s playful voice carried over the echo of the reports. “Only said I don’t like guns, never said I didn’t have one!”
“Sadler!” Kat whispered forcefully.
The man closed his eyes and blew out a breath in a keening wail. His hands began to tremble fiercely as his body stiffened. The Jamison in his hands fired once as his fingers convulsed. The shaking spread to his entire body and soon, he curled into a ball behind the front support of the conference table.
“It’s just you now, Cat,” Lolz told her gleefully from across the room.
Kat looked at Sadler in horror. His body jerked grotesquely as he suffered the painful effects of the telepath’s overload. His eyes were squeezed shut and his head rocked back and forth violently. He had bitten his tongue and blood was running down his chin as pathetic noises escaped his scarlet lips. The grisly sight filled Kat with revulsion… and rage.
She snarled fiercely and swung around the podium while channeling her aggression into a ferocious push. She felt the psionic pressure coil inside her between heartbeats and unleashed it with the fury of a storm. The metal table ripped brutally out of the timeline.
Beyond the Jamison’s front sight, Kat saw the astonished look on Lolz’s face. Blue eyes met brown as the telepath’s lips moved to form words but a hailstorm of flechettes ripped through her body before they could be uttered. The impacts didn’t jerk the woman nor did they throw her backward. Instead, the ballistic shards shredded the tender flesh they touched and painted a horrific, crimson mural on the back wall. Lolz’s body collapsed to the ground like a discarded doll.
Kat continued to pull her trigger, walking her fire to the stunned agent beside Lolz’s ruptured body. Two seconds and three shots later, he joined his team leader in oblivion. Kat relaxed her index finger to allow the trigger to reset when gunshots from the doorway accompanied a spray of wood chips over Kat’s face. She ducked as she fired again in the general direction of the doors. Once fully behind the podium, she hefted her pistol. It was running low on ammunition.
Two rapid barks from Sadler’s pistol filled the silence. “Kat,” he asked unsteadily. “Are you okay?”
Kat’s ears popped painfully as the metal table returned. She gritted her teeth and growled through the agony. “I’m going to take their wall, Sadler. You ready to fire?”
“I guess…”
Kat took several breaths in succession and placed her free hand to the side of the podium. The last time, she promised before beginning her push. Unlike her focus on the metal table, it took considerable effort to wind up the energy in her head. She pushed with her free hand to help her mind bundle its strength. As the pressure grew, she aimed it at the length of the conference room’s wall. She released a strained grunt as she forced her will over the room.
The double doors, along with five meters of wall on either side, vanished. Two guards stumbled into the room after the walls they were leaning on disappeared. Kat brought a shaking Jamison up toward the nearer threat even as Sadler’s pistol bayed death. A wave of flechettes consumed both guards.
Ringing in Kat’s ears replaced the reports of their gunshots. Despite the carnage they had inflicted, she kept careful aim over the hallway. “Wait,” she said, louder than was necessary in the eerie calm.
Seconds passed. The room was an overpowering cocktail of acrid smoke and gore. Kat steadied her breathing and braced for the onslaught. Between eye blinks, the damaged wall and doors popped into existence. Kat groaned at the torture in her ears but kept her aim steady. The blood streaming from her right ear gnawed at her concentration. She finally succumbed to it and wiped irritably at her cheek with her reaction hand.
“I have a feeling that Semicorp isn’t going to get its security deposit back,” Sadler said as he inspected the wreckage from behind the conference table. “How long do we wait?”
“Lolz said both teams,” Kat recalled. “Peecho’s team in Rat’s alley and her team here. We saw two guards at the front doors, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Those two must be the ones she was stalling us for. I think that’s it. I think we won,” she said hopefully. “Keep covering the door just in case. I’m going to check Maggie.” She rose and walked to the conference table, careful to pass behind Sadler. Reynolds was still breathing. Miraculously, she had not been hit by stray fire but flecks of splintered debris covered her. The woman moaned lightly.
Kat gently slapped Reynolds’ cheek. “Maggie, Maggie,” she said urgently. The doctor’s eyes opened to narrow slits. “Open your eyes, Maggie. Open your eyes,” Kat demanded relentlessly while shaking the woman’s shoulder. “Maggie, you need to open your eyes.” She pulled at the doctor’s legs to swivel them off the table.
“What’s wrong with her?” Sadler asked.
“Drugged,” Kat answered. “Maggie, open your eyes,” she persisted.
It took Reynolds over two minutes to sit up on the table. Five minutes after that, she was standing but only with support from Sadler. He started the slow process of helping Reynolds walk to the door as he asked, “Back the way we came?”
Kat was at the door, watching down the hallway. “Yeah, we need to get your handheld.”
Fifteen agonizingly slow minutes later, the three were in Sadler’s aircar headed for his apartment complex.