Chapter 20: Chapter nineteen

Present day

 

Just as Liz was beginning to think she would never see the sun again, something changed.

She was showing Danvers how her prosthetic hands achieved such fine motor control without sacrificing on responsivity when it happened. Every light in the room went out. Guards shouted at scientists to get down as they flicked on flashlights and searched for any possible intruder. Liz hit the ground, seeing only in flashes as the guards swept their lights across the room. For a long moment nothing happened, and the only sound was guards checking with one another by radio.

Then one of the guards didn’t check back.

“Unit seven?” One of the guards asked. “Unit seven, report.”

Static crackled over the radios and Liz could almost feel the tension buzzing through the room like the beginnings of an electrical storm.

“Unit seven, report!”

A voice as cold and patient as a glacier came over the radio. “Unit seven won’t be reporting today.”

Something about the voice sent chills down Liz’s spine, but the was nothing compared to its effects on the guards. The room was suddenly full of shouting. Liz caught only snippets, as not all of it was in English, but there were desperate calls for backup, barked orders to stand and fight, and the fearful screaming that he was here, and he would kill them all.

A gun clattered to the floor. Then a gunshot broke through the other noise and the room fell silent.

“Anyone else wants to run,” Petrov said, “They get the same treatment. There’s only one of him, only one way into this room, and we have a hostage. You three, take up positions there, there and there, cover the door. When he comes in, shoot him. You, you’re on the radio, have the other units converge on our position. I’m going to get us some insurance.”

Silence fell but for the sounds of men moving into position. After a few moments, a light fell over Liz and Petrov hauled her to her feet and jammed a pistol into her back.

“Try anything,” he snarled into her ear, “and the first bullet goes through your gut. Messy way to die, and slow. Still useful as a hostage. Understand?”

Liz nodded, hopeless tears forming in her eyes.

For a few moments, the only sounds Liz could hear were Petrov’s breathing and one of the guards calling all units to back them up.

None of the other units responded.

By the light of Petrov’s flashlight, Liz could see three men with automatic weapons training them on the door. They were spread out, so even if whoever was coming through the door shot one of them, the other two would take him out before he could reorient on them. Despite that, their hands shook violently, making the flashlights they had mounted on their guns wave about. And, though Petrov seemed more under control than his men, even his flashlight was shaking more than a little.

They were terrified. Whoever was here, they could put the fear of god into these hard men. Liz wondered if it might be a superhero. Reaper or maybe Bodycount. No one had seen Reaper in a year, and Bodycount hadn’t been spotted in the US for several years, but it was possible. Shutting down criminal operations was what they did after all. Perhaps one of the fabled superheroes was here to save Liz and shut down whatever operation these people were running.

And there, in the dark with a gun to her back, Liz felt a real hope, honest and bright and true, burn in her chest for the first time since she had woken up in her cell.

The door opened, and the men opened fire. Automatic fire, insanely loud and constant, like a chainsaw ripping through sheet metal, tore through the room, sending bullets through the door and out the other side.

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There was no one there. The door had swung open to reveal empty space, and the guards had put hundreds of bullets into bare, cinderblock walls.

Then, one of those walls exploded inwards, showering the nearest guard with stone shrapnel and making the earlier gunfire sound almost quaint by comparison.

Liz’s ears rang and everything got dark. For a moment she thought she might have a concussion before she realized everything was dark because Petrov had dropped his torch.

A heavy impact sounded in the darkness.

Liz could feel Petrov’s gun shaking as he held it to her back, and when she looked, she could see pools of light spinning around the room as the guards desperately tried to find whoever was now in the room with them.

Another heavy impact, and one of the pools of light winked out.

Automatic fire roared again as one of the guards shot wildly, trying to take out the assailant through the laws of probability alone. Bullets ripped through the lab and someone screamed. The muzzle flash illuminated the guard and he looked like a man caught in a nightmare, his face a rictus of fear. And behind him, something else. A figure in black sliding up to the man.

Another impact, and then nothing.

Petrov took the gun out from Liz’s back and fired where the figure had last been seen. The other guard followed suit with his automatic, but there was no way to tell if they hit anything in the darkness, and the other guard’s flashlight was waving so wildly now that it did little more than provide an insane strobe effect.

Liz tried to take the opportunity to get away from Petrov, kicking at his shin and trying to throw herself to the ground, but he held her tight with one massive arm, not letting go of his hostage under any circumstance.

“I warned you,” he fumed right into Liz’s ears at a volume she was sure would normally have hurt to hear.

But then he let out a cry and fell backwards. Liz fell too, though she managed to separate herself from him as she went down.

A single shot rang out and the last pool of light dropped to the ground and pointed at a wall. Then, another, and the muzzle flash showed a man. Not a superhero, there was no costume. Just a man in black standing over Petrov, pointing his own gun down at him.

Then a strong hand was pulling Liz to her feet and that cold voice said, “You’re okay now. I’m here to save you.”

“Thank you,” she said, not really sure what else to say in a situation like that.

He guided her through the door, where he paused and threw something back through and pulled Liz along down a dark hallway. As they came through a door into a room where a faint light filtered in from the outside, an explosion shook the building and Liz stumbled. The man seemed unaffected, and he led Liz out of the building and away.

Outside the building Liz got her first good look at the man. He was surprisingly unremarkable. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it was more than she got. He looked fit, but there were others who looked fitter. She supposed he was good looking, but there were others who were better. He looked like someone she could pass on the street and then forget.

Or, he looked as if he should look like that. Every element of his appearance was average to the point of forgettable, but there was something off about him. He was too still when he stood, too fluid when he moved. He looked subtly inhuman, as though someone had animated him using a computer program and it was almost perfect, but not quite.

“I thought you were a superhero,” Liz blurted. It was a strange thing to say, but she had never almost died before and her head was still ringing from all the gunshots and explosions, so she wasn’t exactly feeling herself.

“I thought so too,” the man said, “once.”

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