Project Northwoods (106 page)

SOS COPY RAZE SHIT
… had she gone completely insane?

“
Cryonic…
” his father shouted from behind him. Arthur looked back, his father lifting his hand above his head, his palm seeming to shift to a blue tint as crackles of sparks danced off it. Snapping his hand toward his son, he finished with a climactic “
Hail!
” The freezing air hit Arthur and immediately made his lungs burn as the aisle frosted over. The air crackled above him, forming a sheet of ice which quickly shattered into dangerous looking shards. He immediately dove to his left at the next intersection as the icy daggers plummeted downward.

Pain exploded in his calf before he hit the ground. Arthur screamed as he struggled to get to his feet, his right leg pulsing angrily. He felt warm and freezing liquid mingle on the skin of his foot, subconsciously noting that the ice had torn into his flesh. A loud clunk of boots on metal drew his attention upward. His father, sadistic smile on his face, stood on top of the tower and carved a green-hued rendition of one of Zombress’s sigils in front of him.

“
Heart Breaker!”
he yelled, swinging his fist into the spinning glyph, shattering it. Two large shards split off and arced through the air at Arthur. He sprinted around the corner as one sailed past, shattering into dust against a tower but leaving an impressive indentation. The other followed in a lazy arc as he continued to run down the aisle, the green discus gaining on him. His leg was screaming, tendrils of fire working up his nervous system as he dove to the right at the next intersection, the shard trying to follow but smashing into the nearest computer in a burst of light.

“SOS, copy, raze, shit,” Arthur said as he pushed himself against the wall. “SOS-copy-raze-shit!” he hissed louder, looking around the corner.

“Can’t quite seem to get the hang of that one,” his father called out in an amused tone. He heard the thud of boots landing. “See-you-soon-my-son!” he shouted rapidly, Arthur immediately recognizing the shift in speed. Panicked, his eyes hit the floor, scanning the thick cables. He grabbed one and felt it barely move, buried as it was under other wires. He heard the rapid click of his father charging up the aisles and waited for his instinct to tell him when to…
now
!

Arthur yanked up on the cable, bringing up a thick nest of the snakelike wires. His father slammed into them, his pure speed ripping them in half before momentum made him tumble forward into a roll as electricity arced in the air behind him.

“Warning,” Overseer called out. “Main power has been cut to line 5. Battery backup initiated.”
Backup… backup
, Arthur thought. Something about the words stuck in his head as he rose to his feet and ran away from the still-twitching wires. “One hour of emergency battery remains.”
Copy… backup… backup copy… SOS backup…
 He slowed to a halt as it dawned on him.
Emergency backup. Destroy the computers
.

Suddenly, his father slammed into him at an unbearable speed, first knocking him into a computer bank, then to the floor, then into the air. Dark Saint leapt onto the tower and caught him by the throat, hefting him above the floor. He looked at his son, eyes wild. “This really has been fun catching up and all…” Arthur’s hand fell to the stun baton. “… But I’m getting a bit worn out.”

Arthur snapped the weapon free and extended it, slamming the sparking rod against his father’s exposed forearm. The electric current raced through both of them, knocking them apart. Arthur fell to the ground in a heap, twisting his ankle as the baton thankfully fell some distance away. Dark Saint had fallen backward into the parallel aisle.

Struggling to his feet, Arthur grabbed his weapon and collapsed it. His father gave a scream of anger from the next aisle, and immediately the air around him began to heat up. Waves of distortion made Arthur’s vision dance. Recognizing the danger, he sprinted on his wounded legs to the end of the aisle.

The world behind him exploded, a towering angry fireball reminiscent of Fire’s last night on earth erupting from Dark Saint. The shockwave threw Arthur hard to the floor. As the scalding air cooled, he chanced a look back at the smoke billowing in a mushroom as metal slag rained down.

“Warning,” Overseer alerted as a black form leapt from the epicenter of the explosion toward the back of the room. “Critical damage to 17% of systems detected. Battery backup will expire in thirty-five minutes.”

Arthur hefted himself upright as static buzzed in the air around him. “I always told you to stay away from the outlets!” Dark Saint cackled. Arcs of electricity ripped from the computers and wires, flowing to his father. “
Electro
…” he called out.

“Fuck!” Arthur shouted, turning and running away from the sound of his father’s voice.

“…
Beam!
” A flash lit up the room, and a burst of lightning swept down the aisles as Dark Saint strafed them. Arthur was almost to an intersection as the beam erupted down the path on his left. His hand reached toward safety when he was blown off his feet as the wave of crackling energy slammed into his back, throwing him down the aisle as his heart stuttered violently from the shock. He rolled on the wires as his father continued, more interested in saturating Arthur’s possible hiding places than he was in killing him in one blow.

“Critical power loss for 33% of computer systems,” Overseer said coolly.

The light died down as Arthur staggered to his knees. Dark Saint was speeding down the aisle, his son’s reaction time too slow to get out of the way. He connected with Arthur’s chest, sending him rocketing down the aisle and landing in a heap by Overseer’s monitor. Arthur instinctively rolled to his right as Dark Saint charged at him again and dove on his former position.

Chest aching, Arthur got to his feet as Dark Saint did the same. They faced each other, Arthur’s gut telling him to turn and run. His father came at him with a high right hook, his son dodging by darting underneath the blow and shoulder-ramming the hero away. Dark Saint returned with a high kick to Arthur’s shoulder, the force splintering the bone and shoving Arthur backward. The hero darted toward Arthur in a straight punch, which clipped his head as he dodged under the blow and punched forcefully at his father’s underarm.

Although the armor was weaker at the joint, Arthur still snapped his hand back with a hiss as Dark Saint staggered from the force. Arthur quickly regretted putting his brawling days behind him as his father whirled around and smashed him with an open palm. The bone in his jaw shattered from the force as Arthur was flung into a computer tower. Shaking, he used the fixture to pull himself upright as he looked back at his attacker. His vision was white, pulsing in time with his heart and the hammering pain in his jaw.

Dark Saint held his hand aloft as the air swirled and crystallized into a javelin of ice. Faster than any Olympian, he threw the spear at Arthur. He pushed himself off the tower, narrowly avoiding the ice as it ripped into the computer where his head had been. As he face-planted, the squeal of metal and hiss of electrical shortages popped into the distance, the force of the throw carrying the weapon down the line. Arthur tried to heft himself up, but Dark Saint was there, kicking him into the air, grabbing his arm and slamming him downward before pulling him onto his knees. The hero planted a boot on his son’s shoulder and yanked the arm out of its socket.

“That’s how you do it!” his father cackled as Arthur screamed. The nearby tower continued to spark and smoke from the water introduced to its circuits. Encouraged by the howl of pain, Dark Saint kept pulling, apparently trying to tear his arm off. “Warning. Critical damage to 40% of computer systems.” Arthur bucked hard enough to throw his father to the floor, dragging Arthur with him. The second he fell on top of Dark Saint, Arthur butted his head backward, feeling the hero’s chin crack against the back of his skull. It was disorienting, but the grip on Arthur’s hand faltered enough for him to roll away and scramble into a run.

Arthur rounded a corner. Gritting his teeth despite the broken jaw, he tried to emulate what he had seen Catalina do the night of the Fortress attack. He slammed his shoulder into a computer tower, only to have his vision go even whiter as he staggered from the pain. Swallowing, he got a running start and rammed the machine as hard as he could, feeling his shoulder give and pop back into position. The sensation was too much, and he promptly blacked out.

He came to a moment later, still alive and slumped against the computer. He heard movement behind him and he whirled, throwing himself backward to avoid a haymaker that ripped through the tower he had been resting against. He scrambled backward as Dark Saint tore one of the towers from its floor mountings and raised it above his head before smashing it downward.

Arthur pushed himself down another aisle and got to his feet as Dark Saint closed the distance between them, swinging widely and ponderously enough for Arthur to dodge the strikes. After a right hook, Dark Saint backhanded his son into a tower, lining up a straight punch into his head. Arthur ducked as the blow ripped into the metal and plastic, sparks erupting from the gap as the hero withdrew his fist. Swinging upward, Arthur snapped his fist into his father’s jaw. Dark Saint staggered backward. Arthur turned and ran down an aisle before something snagged his foot, tripping him face-first into a computer tower.

He staggered upright, bracing himself against the tower as blood poured from his lip. The ground had swallowed his feet, his father preventing his escape by way of Snare’s ability. With a pop, he was free and stumbling upright. Dark Saint gave a shout of triumph, and Arthur whipped around to see him bearing down, a psychic blade in hand. He swung downward as his son fell back, the mental energy shearing effortlessly though his bulletproof vest. The hero leapt forward again and swept the blade horizontally, ripping through Arthur’s armor and slicing into his skin.

Arthur screamed in pain and grabbed his father’s arm, swinging him around and into a computer bank. He reached up and grabbed Dark Saint’s head, bashing it against the unyielding metal. The moment of impact disintegrated the blade before the hero aimed an elbow into Arthur’s side, shoving him away. He pushed himself off the bank and turned to his son. Arthur ducked low and rammed into him, shoving his father once more into the metal casing. On impact, Dark Saint sprinted forward, holding Arthur as they charged, impossibly fast, slamming through one computer tower, then a second, then a third. His father flung him away, casting him onto the pile of debris created from being rammed through the Guild’s computer banks.

His body was aching as he rolled off the casings and sparking wires. He coughed up blood, not surprised that he was internally hemorrhaging. Arthur looked at his father, the hero’s arms rising in a ‘V’ as the air whorled around him. A cluster of fireballs materialized in front of a set of long, sharp ice shards. Meanwhile, electricity arced from the floor and computers, sending wisps of smoke into the air.

The fireballs shot at him one after the other as Arthur struggled to his feet and ran toward the back of the room. He heard the explosions as each one hit the floor, then felt them as the last two projectiles hit him square in the back, knocking him onto his stomach and setting his shirt on fire. Panicked, he rolled onto his back, the flames diminishing quickly even as his burned skin wailed at the touch of the floor.

“Critical power loss for 75% of computer systems.”

The ice javelins rocketed toward him as his father came more into view, gathering the electrical energy into his hands. Arthur got to his feet and rolled away, the shards slamming into the floor and shattering. Arthur, back still in agony, rose as his father arced backward, then swept a huge bolt of lightning in his direction. Arthur sprinted as fast as he could down the nearest aisle. This time, the energy ripped through the computers instead of bowing to their insulation, carving a neat line toward him.

The beam disappeared and Arthur collapsed, coughing up a splatter of blood.

“Critical system failure. Initiating emergency backup routine.”

“Overseer,” Dark Saint shouted, sounding winded for the first time. “Will this stop Freedom’s Sword?”

“No. Freedom’s Sword will fire in five minutes and fifty-two seconds,” he said. “Manual input will be inaccessible in two minutes and forty-nine seconds.”

“Good,” drawled Dark Saint.

“Arthur, are you alright?” Mollie chirped in his ear.

“I’ve been better,” he hissed through clenched teeth, the sound of her voice spurring him to get to his feet. “How’d you survive?”

“Arthur, I have had enough of these games!” his father shouted.

“I had a dummy virus in the e-mail server auto-activate if quarantine was activated. After that, I hid until it was lifted,” she sighed as he rounded a computer aisle, leaning against it and heaving air. “I’m glad you got my message.”

The clack of boots above him told Arthur that Dark Saint had taken to the top of the towers again. “Come out, you son of a bitch!”

“I have to keep him occupied for two minutes,” he grunted, looking around the corner and darting toward the back of the room again. A brief pause was filled with a sudden rush of pain as he slowed to a stop to catch his breath.

“There is a good chance this will not work, Arthur.”

“I believe in you, Mol,” he said, his eyes falling on a ladder to the gantry. “Mollie, what’s wrong with the sprinklers?” he asked, noticing the thick layer of smoke collecting toward the ceiling. He checked over his shoulder and made his way to the access ladder once he was sure the coast was clear.

“Dark Saint must have had Overseer deactivate them,” she said.

“Fix that mistake in thirty seconds.” Arthur ran to the ladder, his shoulder not too keen on the idea of hauling himself up.

Each rung sent shockwaves through his shoulder and his legs. Nevertheless, he made good time as he mentally ticked off seconds. Finally at the top, he stepped onto the narrow metal walkway, the path barely wide enough for two and a half people. Carefully, he stalked through the cloudy haze, coughing softly as he made his way toward the front of the room.