He ran down the hallway and turned right just in time to have another man in body armor shoot him in the head.
There was a moment where he was falling back, his senses reeling, then he hit the floor. Before the man could approach, John sat up and shot the man in the throat, tearing out a chunk of meat and sending the man to the floor in a bloody mess.
He saw stars, then his vision went black.
I’ve been shot in the head!
“John!” Eric screamed through the earpiece. “What’s happening?”
He wanted to close his eyes and drift away, but Eric’s insistent screaming brought him back.
If I’m shot in the head, then how am I still alive?
Approaching footsteps echoed through the hallway. He closed his eyes and waited until the footsteps were right next to him, then opened his eyes and used Deion’s M11 to shoot the man in the kneecap between gaps in the body armor.
“Ack!” the man screamed, collapsing to his good knee and bringing his HK to bear upon John.
John grabbed the man’s arm with his left hand and pulled him down. The man fired wildly, and bullets ricocheted around the walls, smacking into steel, and marble, and granite.
John jammed Deion’s M11 into the man’s mouth and pulled the trigger twice, ending the man’s screaming and his life.
He gasped and sat up, wiping at the right side of his head above the ear. His hand came away covered in blood. He poked at the wound and realized the bullet had only creased his scalp.
“John! John!”
“I’m hit,” John said, “but it’s just a flesh wound.”
“You’ve got less than two minutes,” Eric said.
“Right,” John said. He staggered to his feet and stepped over the dead man’s body. The mercenary he had shot in the throat lay on the floor, choking on blood, and John shot the man between the eyes, ending his suffering. The stench of gunpowder mixed with the sharp scent of ammonia as the man’s bladder released.
The first door on his left contained a floor buffer and a collection of mops and buckets. “This isn’t the stairs,” he said. “Just a bunch of cleaning supplies.”
“Dewey!” Eric bellowed. “Look at the floorplans again!”
There was a moment of silence, then Dewey said, “Sorry. It’s the second door.”
John took the second door and found himself in a concrete stairwell with walls painted a deep maroon. He took the steps two at a time, and when he reached the bottom, he came to a wall. Hallways stretched to his left and right.
“Which way?” he asked.
There was no response in his earpiece.
I must be too deep to get reception. How much time was left? Ninety seconds?
“Okay,” he said to himself. “There’s got to be a way to figure it out.”
Even though his mind was foggy, he pushed himself to think.
They said to the west. Which way is west?
He looked at the floor and noticed that the concrete on the left was worn from years of use, but the hallway to the right was less worn, as if very few people had taken that path.
It’s got to be that way.
He hurried down the hall and came to a steel door. There was no way for him to know how many men waited on the other side, but time was ticking, so he turned the knob.
The door opened without effort. As he stepped into the room, he saw a gaping hole chiseled out of the concrete on the far wall. The walls of the hole looked at least five feet deep, and cables ran inside. A faint glow came from within.
Bingo.
He took another step and a heavy weight slammed into his back. Startled, he fell to the floor.
Fists rained down on him and struck him in the bridge of his nose. Stars exploded before his eyes and he dropped his chin to his chest to protect his throat, then lunged at the source of the blows.
The stars faded as he caught the man and brought him to the hard concrete. The man screamed wordless howls of rage, and the fists came at a furious pace.
I’ve got less than sixty seconds. We’re all going to die.
He would not allow that. He grabbed the man and managed to get his hands on the man’s shoulders, then muscled the man to the floor.
“No!” the man screamed, thrashing about. “I will kill you all!”
John took a deep breath and then growled, “I’m dying of cancer already, asshole!”
With the drugs from the Implant still flooding his system, he wrapped his legs around Huang Lei, grabbed his head, and twisted until there was a loud crunch.
Huang Lei stopped moving, and his body went limp.
I’ve done it.
No, he corrected himself. The bomb is still going to detonate. I’m not letting that happen.
I can’t.
Somehow, he managed to stand and make his way to the wall, stepping through the hole and into the underground bunker.
The bomb was six feet long and almost five feet high and made of steel.
It’s… big. It’s too big!
Dewey said he had to raise it to twenty-five degrees, then the pit would roll back into the tunnel, but looking at the bomb, he thought it was too massive.
How am I going to prop it up? How can I keep the pit from rolling back into the core?
As he stared at the bomb, he realized Dewey had never told him which way to raise it.
Was it lengthwise, or side to side? And which side? There’s, like, four different ways it can go.
“Dewey?” he asked. “Dewey, can you hear me?”
The earpiece was silent.
It appeared to be a giant steel box, but the more he inspected it, the more he focused on the metal gimbals on the front and back that had cables dangling from them.
Those must be the steppers, which means the code disks are underneath. If that’s the case, then one side is the front, and one side is the back.
At the bottom of the bomb, nearest him, was an open access hatch with a row of D-cell batteries.
Okay, this must be the front. Which means the pit rolls in from the right or left. But which way?
Seconds passed.
I don’t have a choice. I have to make a decision. Most people are right-handed, so I’m guessing it’s on the right, which means I need to lift from the left.
He reached the left end of the bomb and stopped.
Dewey said this thing weighs like thirteen hundred pounds. How can I lift that?
He searched around the bottom of the casing. There were small recessed handles, and he grabbed them and pulled.
The bomb failed to move.
There’s no way I can do this.
If he failed, a lot of people were about to die. Deion and Karen. The cops waiting outside. Individuals in the buildings around them. People in the city. Perhaps the entire world, if World War III started.
He spun around and squatted with his back against the bomb and lifted with his legs, putting everything he had into it.
His heart thumped in his chest and slowly, ever so slowly, the end of the bomb came off the ground.
With each inch, the muscle fibers in his legs tore. His shoulders were on fire, and it felt like he was being stabbed in the spot where his prosthetic attached to his leg.
There was a soft click within the bomb and then a vibration as metal brushed against metal.
The pit moved. I did it!
Time slowed as he realized that he had no plan beyond that point. There was no way for him to keep the bomb raised while he inserted something underneath the side to prop it up. If he lowered it back to the floor, he might not be able to raise it again.