CHAPTER 303: CHAPTER - 303

Chapter - 303

Rick broke cover. He didn’t run away; he ran at the hesitant guard on the right. He dropped his rifle—it was useless against the armor anyway—and sprinted, sliding on his knees across the polished floor.

The guard, shaking off the Dread, brought his weapon down, but he was a microsecond too slow.

Rick slid right into the guard’s legs, sweeping them out from under him. The armored giant crashed to the floor with a heavy CLANG.

Rick didn’t try to punch him. He knew he’d break his hand. Instead, he scrambled onto the guard’s chest, straddling him. He grabbed the edges of the guard’s helmet with both hands.

"Let’s see what you look like!" Rick roared, his muscles straining as he tried to rip the helmet off.

It was locked. Sealed tight.

The guard punched Rick in the ribs. It felt like being hit by a sledgehammer. Rick gasped, the air leaving his lungs, but he didn’t let go. He grabbed the guard’s tactical vest, yanked a combat knife from the guard’s own sheath, and jammed the blade into the seal between the helmet and the neck guard.

He twisted. Sparks flew. The seal popped with a pressurized hiss.

Rick ripped the helmet off.

Underneath was a man. Just a man. Pale, sweating, eyes wide with the residual effects of the Aura of Dread.

"Peekaboo," Rick snarled.

He slammed the heavy helmet down onto the man’s exposed face. Once. Twice. The guard went limp.

"One down!" Rick yelled, rolling off the body just as a hail of bullets chewed up the floor where he had been.

He grabbed the guard’s fallen railgun-carbine. It was heavy, humming with power. He scrambled back behind the marble pillar, his ribs screaming in agony.

"I got a gun!" he yelled to Sharon. "A big one!"

"Great!" Sharon yelled back from behind an overturned heavy oak table. "Use it!"

Rick popped out and pulled the trigger. The recoil was non-existent, just a magnetic thump. A stream of hyper-velocity slugs tore across the room.

He didn’t aim for the guards. He aimed for the ceiling. Specifically, for the massive, multi-tiered crystal chandelier that hung directly over the two guards advancing in the center.

The crystal stem shattered. Gravity took over.

The chandelier, weighing easily half a ton, fell.

The two guards looked up just in time to see a glittering mountain of glass coming down on them. They tried to dive, but the Aura of Dread still had their reflexes dulled.

CRASH!

The sound was like a bomb going off. The chandelier slammed into the floor, burying the two guards under a mound of shattered crystal and twisted metal. They struggled, trapped under the weight, their armor protecting them from being crushed but pinning them helplessly to the floor.

"Three down!" Rick yelled, pumping his fist. "Who’s next?"

Marnus Warner hadn’t moved from the couch. He hadn’t spilled a drop of his champagne. He watched the destruction of his living room with a look of mild annoyance, as if someone had spilled red wine on a napkin.

"Impressive," Marnus said, his voice amplified by the room’s acoustics. "Resourceful. Brutal. I can see why my HR department recommended you."

He set the glass down on a side table. He picked up a small remote control.

"However," he said, "this is taking too long. And I have a flight to catch."

He pressed a button.

A sharp BEEP echoed from Nadia’s chest.

The LED display on her bomb vest, which had been dark, flared to life in angry red numbers.

10:00

09:59

Nadia, hanging from the chains, began to thrash, her eyes wide with terror. "Marnus! No! You need me! You need the retina scan!"

"I needed you," Marnus corrected, standing up and buttoning his purple velvet blazer. "But these two hooligans are making the transfer... risky. And frankly, I’ve already moved enough assets to buy a small island nation. Greed is a sin, Nadia. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?"

He looked at Rick and Sharon. "Ten minutes. The vest is wired to the building’s structural supports. When it goes, the top three floors go with it. I’d suggest you run, but... well, my remaining guards won’t let you."

The three remaining Elite Guards, ignoring their fallen comrades, stepped forward. They formed a wall between Rick, Sharon, and the exit.

Marnus turned and walked toward a wall panel that slid open to reveal a private, reinforced panic room—or perhaps an escape route.

"Enjoy the fireworks," Marnus called over his shoulder. "And Rick? That suit really doesn’t fit you. It’s a bit... nouveau riche."

The panel slid shut, sealing Marnus inside with a heavy THUD.

Rick and Sharon were alone in the wrecked room with three angry, heavily armed super-soldiers, a pinned woman screaming obscenities, and a ticking nuclear option strapped to her chest.

Rick looked at the timer. 09:45

.

He looked at the three guards. They racked the slides on their weapons.

He looked at Sharon. She was reloading her SIG, her face pale but set in grim determination.

"Okay," Rick said, hefting the stolen railgun. "New plan. We kill these three, we crack that panic room like a walnut, we punch Marnus in his smug face, and we defuse the bomb. In nine minutes."

Sharon looked at him as if he were insane. "You don’t know how to defuse a bomb!"

"No," Rick said, a manic grin spreading across his face as the System chimed in his head again. "But I bet she does." He pointed at Nadia. "She’s the one who conned the guy who built the security system. She knows tech."

"I don’t know bombs!" Nadia shrieked from the ceiling. "I steal laptops! Get me down!"

"Work in progress!" Rick yelled.

He turned back to the guards. The Aura of Dread had worn off. They were recovering. Their visors glowed a menacing, steady blue.

"Sharon," Rick said, his voice dropping low. "Do you trust me?"

"No!" she yelled instantly. "I hate you! Every time I trust you, I end up covered in bodily fluids or explosion debris!"

"Good," Rick said. "Hold that thought. It keeps you sharp."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bag of loose diamonds he’d taken from the container. He ripped it open.

"Cover your eyes!" he yelled.

He threw the handful of diamonds into the air, right in front of the guards’ high-tech visors.

The security lights of the penthouse hit the hundreds of perfectly cut gems. The diamonds scattered the light, creating a dazzling, blinding kaleidoscope of refraction.

To a normal eye, it was sparkly.

To a high-tech, light-amplifying, tactical HUD visor... it was a supernova.

The three guards stumbled back, clawing at their helmets as their optical sensors were overloaded by a billion points of piercing light.

"MY EYES!" one of them roared, his voice digitized and distorted.

"NOW!" Rick screamed.

He and Sharon charged. Not to cover. Not to run. They charged straight into the blinding, diamond-filled glitter storm of death.

This wasn’t a fight anymore. It was a scramble for survival at the top of the world, and the floor was literally about to drop out from under them.

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