Johnny stared in disgust at the dead bodies on either side of him. It was an easy assumption to make that the two intruders had killed them, but the two looked as if they had been in that state for hours. He stepped over the blood in the carpet and walked over to Gareth’s slumped body. Feeling in his pockets for the gun he always carried, Johnny realised that the man had shot himself with his own gun.
Or maybe the woman had shot him before killing herself.
The two were so pale and delicate-looking that he was almost too afraid to touch either of them. The room was completely silent – deathly silent – and Johnny found the sound of his own breathing too loud and disrespectful. The bodies were cold, too cold to have stood any chance of survival, but the guard didn’t feel any better knowing that there was nothing he could have done. He didn’t feel any worse either. Strangely, he felt only admiration for anyone who could cause this degree of destruction and not be worried about the consequences.
He bent down to Gareth’s body and brushed his fingers in the pool of blood on the desk. Curiously, he stared at it and then tasted it, totally detached from the weirdness of his actions. “It’s the same.” Johnny had always wondered if everybody had the same blood, or whether it was different. But, it tasted the same as his own. He felt compelled to take more than that, but the impulse was not fully his own. The desire to do it was one he had not allowed to rise within him since he was a child, now brought out and fuelled by something he couldn’t control. That same thing was making him extremely angry and he gripped the gun he had put in his pocket. He was glad that he had ignored David’s advice and put a live bullet in each space. Holding onto the edge of the desk, Johnny looked towards the door, gun tightly wedged in his free hand, and angrily wondered if David had woken up and was giving chase yet. He doubted it.
“Still supposed to keep the area safe,” he growled. Okay, so technically David was off duty but he was still the security – still supposed to keep the Crash Room protected. Which is where, he deduced, the couple wanted to go. Anger rose within him and threatened to bubble over. “I have to do everything myself!” Johnny raced out of the room and rushed down the corridor, absently trailing his fingers through a second pool of blood as he left.
At the end of the corridor, he turned right, not really remembering which way he had arrived. The door he came to was locked and said ‘Entrance to fire escape. Keep locked.’ Wordlessly, he turned around and idly thumped the white cement wall with the side of his curled up fist.
The Crash Room.
Their final destination was now within reach. Mika took Robyn’s hand and got her to help him prise open the lift doors. Their combined strength not only opened the doors but crumpled them at the edges. Aware that either of the security guards could come upon them at any moment, they leaped down into the lift shaft and fell through the darkness. As they plunged into the shaft, Mika caught sight of the top of the lift rushing up to greet them and realised he was not in the mood to be slammed onto something hard and metal again tonight. He threw out his free arm and grasped thee thick cable, allowing Robyn to dangle loosely beneath him. In turn, she reached for the cable and wrapped her legs around it, leading the way down it as if she were a child climbing a rope in P.E.
At the bottom, Mika felt around for the catch to the escape door he knew they would have installed in case of emergency. Carly had been most co-operative on that score… after a fashion. His fingers finally located the lock in the darkness, too stiff and rusted from lack of use to come apart easily. Still mindful that he might not have enough time to work on it, he took the gun from his waistband and shot at the catch. The bullet pinged off as it made contact with metal. Robyn, who had been standing on it, fell straight through the hatch and landed on her knees. Mika sat on the top and let his legs dangle through before he slid down. On landing, he found himself staring straight into a mirrored wall. Mika shook his head and bent down to Robyn, swaying back and forth on her knees.
“I hurt my hands, Mika.” She looked at her hands, still blistered from the burns and now with angry, red friction burns down the centre, as if they were new to her and she had never hurt them before. “I don’t like it.” She made a grab for his hands and compared the burns with her own. “You’re hurt too. It makes you angry.”
What could he say? Robyn knew him so well. He watched as she scrambled to her feet, then hit the button to open the doors. “I do my best work when I’m angry,” he muttered, distracted.
“I know.” Robyn giggled insanely, the way she often did. “I remember every blessed second of it. Such fun.” She pushed herself against a wall – the mirrored one opposite the door – and writhed about, ecstatically. “Such a sweet girl.”
Frustrated at the lack of movement by the doors, he hit the button again before turning and smashing his fists into the mirrored wall on either side of Robyn’s head. The mirror taunted him, seeming only to serve to remind him that he was no longer a man worthy of a reflection.
Robyn gasped and turned her head to the side. The doors began to slide open, and she grabbed Mika’s arm and twisted it up behind his back, painfully. Mika grunted in unexpected pain as she frog-marched him out into yet another long corridor. “Don’t!” she warned.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t let it win.” She felt it too; what Mika was feeling. Human emotions being taken to extremes. She and Mika being something other than human, they weren’t so easily affected, though their passions were heightened. “I can see it in you Mika.” She pushed him away from her and he turned around to face her, slightly disappointed that Robyn hadn’t really hurt him. “You’re remembering and feeling guilty. We don’t do that. We feed, we kill, we forget.”
The door at the end of the corridor was unmarked and they headed towards it. “Whatever we’re here for - it’s trying to make us crazy. And it’s winning.”
“No, it’s not,” Mika said, defensively. “I’m the same as I’ve always been.”
Robyn started to drift into another world but, for the first time, shook her head and brought herself straight back out of it. “No… you’re different.” She came to the door and looked at the extensive security measures. “Must be pretty important.”
“Up for a little breaking and entering?”
Robyn smiled at him and put her hands on the wall and lifted up her leg to smash the retina scanner with her boot. Mika balled his left fist and launched it into the keypad which demanded he type in his personal ident and then swipe his keycard. “Screw that.” As Mika worked on ripping the plasma pad from the wall, Robyn turned her back to the door and jerked her elbow into the voice recognition machine. The couple stepped back and admired their handiwork; machines fizzing as electric charges ran through them, pieces of glass and metals dangling from wires in the wall, bits of machinery lying broken and useless on the floor. The doors began to open, just as Carly had said they would if they managed to over-ride all the security systems. The electronic voice from one of the wrecked machines – she couldn’t tell which, they all looked the same now – wound down, sounding much like a cassette player when the batteries were flat. “Security’s a bit lax.”
“It is now. Come on!” Mika skidded to a halt in the middle of the room and Robyn trailed slowly behind him. “Robyn?”
“It’s too bright. It’s too bright.” She perched on top of the tables and covered her eyes with her hands. Mika found the fuse box in the corner of the room and opened it, desperate to kill the offending lights. Unsure of which wire to pull, he simply grabbed them all and gave them all a good yank. The fluorescent strip lights faded away and the computers fell silent. The room quickly descended into pitch blackness, but Mika wasn’t at all fazed by it. He could see perfectly well, but his eyes quickly adjusted to the light from the corridor and the bright white paint of the room. He was aware that Robyn was still curled up beside one of the computers and decided it was best to
just leave her their while he looked for the disks. Following instructions he headed for the computer at the end of the room. Ignoring the sliding drawers beneath the desk, which he knew were empty but for a few old data cables, he opened the two doors on the wall cabinets and scanned the inside.
There they were! The disks that contained the information he needed. He reached inside with both hands and grabbed a stack of floppy disks and CDs. In the near-darkness, he sorted through them; he let some drop to the floor and kept the ones he thought might be useful. Robyn took them from him as he strode towards the door and pocketed them, pushing the button through the hole in the top of her pocket. “Let’s go now,” she suggested, heading down the corridor to the lift. Now they had downed the electrics, they had no choice but to climb up the shaft the way they had come down. The faltering light in the corridor was coming from a back-up generator, but one look up at it told Robyn that it wouldn’t last much longer. Not that it actually mattered – darkness was their friend –
“Hurry up!” called Mika, already leaping towards the open hatch. “He’s coming after us!”
“Hmm? I’m coming.” She cocked her head to the side, listening to a sound Mika had probably already heard – the generator was giving out. Shrugging, Robyn ran into the lift at a sprint and jumped through the trapdoor.
FIVE
“You okay, Robyn?” asked Mika as he pulled her to her feet in the warehouse.
“Let me guess,” came the familiar voice of Johnny. “You put Dave in a coma, give Johnny the run around, then think you can escape with the contents of the Crash Room?”
“Well… yeah,” said Mika. “That’s usually how it works.”
“Not this time, pal.” Johnny pointed his gun at him and squeezed. There was a flash of blinding light as the bullet left the barrel and Mika left the ground, somersaulted in the air and landed behind the gun-wielding guard. “Where –“
“You’ll have to do better than that. Pal.” Mika turned round to grin at the guard – that awful knowing grin that said he wasn’t leaving empty-handed. Johnny faced him and lined the gun up with Mika’s heart. Mika looked down at it. “Bollocks.”
“That good enough?”
“No.” He ducked as yet another bullet sailed through the air, this time over his head, and stayed down, poised and ready for action.
“I think he’s serious,” chimed in Robyn. “He’ll shoot you. He’s angry… needs to find an outlet for it. All that heat and passion and frustration.”
“Robyn, love. I don’t think –“
“Sssh!” She held up her hand to silence him and held Johnny’s gaze. David stirred by the desk and lifted his throbbing head off the floor. Focused, she and Mika both heard his heartbeat quicken as he regained consciousness and began to half-listen to them. “Thinking no-one understands you, no-one notices you.” She grabbed his wrist and pulled it towards her, looking over at Mika and wondering why he hadn’t taken this opportunity to run. “So, you use guns… any weapon. To make them notice you. To make your mark on the world.” She released the whimpering man and looked at Mika, mentally asking him why he hadn’t taken the chance to escape.
“Baby. We’re the predators, we don’t run. They’re the prey, they do.” He raised his eyebrows as David tried to hide behind the desk and Johnny lowered the gun, and felt for the closed ball bearing wound in his abdomen. It had already healed too far for it to reopen again unless he did it on purpose.
Johnny stared down at the weapon hanging by his side, unsure of why he had lowered it. Strange. He was in no doubt that it was something to do with the two he was trying to reach, but he found that he could hardly move. His legs felt heavy, as if they were made of lead, but there was nothing to keep him from moving. “What’ve you done to me? Why can’t I move?”
Robyn strolled over to Mika and they just stood, watching as Johnny moaned and grunted as he tried to get his legs to work. Mika allowed Robyn to take his hand and they twisted their fingers together. Johnny looked on in disgust as Robyn squeezed his hand and ground the bones together. He thought he heard bones crack and saw blood seeping from between Mika’s fingers. He imagined the pain must be excruciating, involuntarily flexing his own stained fingers. He was astonished to discover that not only did he not seem to mind, but he seemed to be delighting in it. “That’s revolting,” he uttered, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of the redhead licking the blood from his hand.
“And you’ve never done it, I suppose.” Mika looked pointedly at Johnny’s blood-covered hands. “Does this horrify you? Are you sickened by it?”
Johnny looked away without a word and suddenly found he could move again. Maybe it was just an effect of something that had worn off; he really didn’t know – or care – now that he could think of more reasons to give chase. He looked down at his gun and raised it once again. It gave him the power he craved to know that he held a threat over them, that he could choose whether they lived or died.
Mika ran across the room and vaulted over the desk. David pushed himself further into the corner and refused to return his concerned glare. “Get away from me.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.” Mika reached up from the half-crouch he had dropped into and held onto the edge of the desk. “David, right? I’m not trying to hurt you – you’re just in my way,” he snarled. Mika gripped David around the neck and lifted him up, mildly amused by the fruitless kicking of his legs. “That’s not gonna do you much good.” He tightened his grip and let him drop, conscious and breathing.
“Stay away from me!” he begged.
Mika shrugged and left him hiding under the desk. He looked out to where Johnny was standing, gun unwavering, and smiled amicably. “Not getting me that easily.” Making such light-hearted chatter in a basic kill or be killed situation didn’t feel right, and it certainly wasn’t the way Mika would have chosen. However, needs must. And Mika was nothing if not accommodating. Robyn was nowhere to be seen but he could pick up her scent quite well in the still air; she was close by, maybe on one of the gantries.
“I’ve got you now.” A smirk spread across Johnny’s face and he took a step closer.
Mika sighed and ran over to the metal stairs, thundering up them and dodging at least three more bullets as he went. He hit the gantry and looked over the rail, tapping his fingers in mock impatience as he waited for him. Johnny hit the stairs and started up them, not noticing as Mika moved to the top of the steps. Johnny neared the top; Mika reeled his foot back and slammed it into his chest, sending the man flying back down the stairs. Neither the landing or the blow had broken any bones, but Mika was positive he could have broken a couple of Johnny’s ribs had he been wearing his boots rather than trainers. Satisfied that the guard would be out of action for a short while, he walked down the stairs to retrieve the gun. That done, he slid the gun across the floor and stood up. “Robyn?” he called.
“Yes?” she replied. He heard Robyn moan quietly and looked around the room for her. “It’s not over. He’s coming back.”
“What do you mean? I’m coming to find you.” But before he could take one step Johnny was on his feet and standing behind him. Unaware than Johnny was even awake, Mika was stunned to find himself knocked out by a powerful roundhouse to the back of the head. “Ugh!” was the tiny sound he made as he slumped to the floor.
Johnny used the toe of his shoe to turn him over onto his back and fixed a heavy foot on top of his ribcage. Expressionlessly, he reached behind him and displayed a second, fully-loaded gun, which he again trained on Mika’s heart. “Now, who’s got the upper hand?” he smirked.
Mika let his head drop back to the ground, dejected, then lifted it back up, his face changed from mildly confused to deadly intent. “Still me.” Quickly, he gripped the thick ankle with both hands and wrenched it to one side, bringing the man crashing down beside him.
“You’ll pay for this,?
?? he grunted, black dots of pain dancing before his eyes.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Robyn giggled from one of the corridors, and Mika saw her shadow dart across the gantry into another corridor. Knowing that Robyn could take care of herself, he ignored the impulse to find her and crashed back down to the floor as Johnny used his foot to sweep his legs from beneath him. Johnny flipped himself back onto his feet, a mere instant before Mika did the same, and caught the man on his cheekbone with the back of his hand. Mika went with the blow and looked up at him, his eyes holding no emotion or rage. “Now you’re getting it.” He took a step back, threw himself into a forward flip which brought him to his feet inches from Johnny. But Mika made no move to attack, and just laughed in his face. Glancing down to the floor, almost imperceptibly, Johhny fixed his eyes back on Mika and quickly reached down for the gun he had dropped a few seconds before. So fast that the movement seemed to happen in a flash, Mika grabbed the other man by the shoulders, turned him one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and helld him tightly in place so he could not move. “You have to reach –“ He pried the gun from his hand, “for your weapon. Which is why we’re better than you.” Unable to move, Johnny almost didn’t see his eyes turn to a menacing amber glimmer. “We’ve already got ours.” Mika shook his head, feeling his eyes turn back to icy blue.
Johnny set one foot slightly in front of the other and tried to twist out of his hold. Mika held firm, tightening his grip every second, and Johnny found himself wondering if his opponent had any weaknesses. Everyone could be defeated somehow – it was just a case of finding their weak points. Suddenly, Mika let go of Johnny and pushed him away. The guard stopped himself on a metal pole and looked over at him, curiously, not understanding why Mika hadn’t crushed his sternum right there and then.
He shrugged. “Fair fight, and all that.” Mika looked down at the gun he had ripped away from his hand and idly tossed it over to Johnny. He snatched it out of the air, and used his other hand to ready it to be fired. Mika had been counting on that, knowing from experience that people never passed on a chance to gain control. He just hadn’t figured out what his next move should be, trusting his instincts to carry him through a fight he didn’t envision ending easily or any time soon rather than a well-thought out plan. He usually planned everything in great detail but, with Robyn and Carly both saying that there wasn’t much time to take action, there had been a definite lack of time to do any kind of thinking ahead. Mika wheeled around and ran the length of the lobby, slowing his pace until Johnny stood a chance of catching him up. He reached a set of identical metal stairs leading to a slightly higher gantry and took five of them in one giant jump. Stopped for a moment by the squeal of metal on his friction-burnt hands Mika gave Johnny a few vital seconds to gain ground on him. Mika ignored the sting and reached the top a mere instant before Johnny, tripping on the last step but regaining his balance without breaking stride. Johnny was right behind him.