James Axler – Bitter Fruit

RYAN SAW the man in the flamethrower rig at the same time he spotted the remote-control detonator a dozen paces away. He pushed himself up in a lunge and darted forward, knowing his life was probably measured in a handful of heartbeats. Four strides, and he threw himself forward. He landed hard on his stomach as the blast of fire streamed toward him.

The heat got close enough to singe his hair. He closed his eye and smothered his face in his arms, protecting his vision. He slid across the floor and smashed painfully into a wall.

When the heat receded for a moment, he glanced up, not believing he was still alive. Flames clung to the walls, burning and jerking in the breeze as the superheated air cooled and created a vacuum.

The detonator lay a foot away, surrounded by a brown slick that smelled of chemicals and spoilage.

Ryan fisted it and pushed himself up as the soldier with the flamethrower stepped farther into the tunnel. He didn’t bother returning fire. The flamethrower had him outgunned even if he could shoot around the shield the guy held up.

At every driving step, his boots threatened to slip out from under him. His lungs strained for the thin, smoke-laden oxygen left by the fiery gout, and his exertion left black comets dancing in front of his eye.

Fifteen feet from the door, he heard the whoosh of the flamethrower, felt the heat of it approaching him. Ryan threw himself forward. At the entrance and a little ways inside the room, a pool of the unidentified chemical looked deep enough to cover him.

He slid into it face first and went under immediately.

The flamethrower laid down a field of fire over the top of him, baking heat into his back and shoulders. He gave it a three count, guessing that the weapon would have a hard time sustaining a burst longer than that. Surging up from the glop with difficulty, he stayed low and shoved his way into the room.

Voices rang out behind him.

Ryan grabbed the side of the door and swung himself around, aware of the men pounding down the tunnel after him. He armed the detonator with a flick of his thumb, then pressed the button.

The explosions came in quick succession, sucking down all sound in a swirl of white noise that carried a mind-numbing intensity. A wave of turgid chemicals slapped out of the corridor and slammed across the computer workstations and mainframes.

Krysty stood in the other hallway, shouting something Ryan couldn’t hear, but he was easily able to read her lips. She held out her hand.

Ryan dropped the detonator and fought hard to maintain his equilibrium. He grabbed Krysty’s hand and followed a half step behind her as she led the way to the mat-trans unit.

The others were already inside, blurred shadows beyond the dark jade armaglass.

Krysty entered first and Ryan followed, closing the door to immediately activate the jump.

The woman held Ryan’s hand tightly, squeezing it to let him know she was there, then sat cross-legged on the floor.

Dropping down to his haunches with his back to the wall, Ryan glanced up as the ceiling disks came up to power, glowing with a lethal, lambent light. The familiar mist drifted up, wafting into their lungs as they breathed. He tried to prepare himself mentally for the mat-trans jump, but there was no way. It was better to simply lie back and surrender to the process, recover from it later.

He looked up, staring hard through the armaglass window of the security doors.

A handful of shadows waited there, bristling with hostility and rage. One of them smashed a gunbutt against the glass, but the armaglass held.

Not all of Burroughs’s men had died in the explosions, nor had they been blocked from coming through. A man waved the others back and raised his assault rifle.

The bullets sparked, spitting yellow flashes from the armaglass, but didn’t appear to even chip the surface.

Ryan tried to lift the SIG-Sauer. Everything they knew suggested that the jump process couldn’t be interrupted once it had begun, but they were against people who knew a lot more about the mat-trans units than they’d been able to discover on their own and with Doc’s help. Curiously no one tried to open the door.