The Measure of a Man [The Exceptionals Book 1] Read online

  In the training room where they had been given their ‘assignments', Firststrike stood, still manacled. Clad in his form-fitting black bodysuit, his torso covered with the snake-scale patterned, flexible micromesh armored vest, and his silver eye patch fastened by adhesive to his face, Firststrike stood opposite The Eel with a grim smile on his face.

  The Eel was a full head shorter than the lean and formal Firststrike, but he was well muscled and gave off the impression of tremendous power. He stood with hands on hips. Though his blue hood concealed his lower facial features it was clear he was smiling as well. “Now, we'll see whose kung fu is best,” he said in an exaggerated cartoon voice. He launched into a phenomenal display of martial skill then, going through Eagle, Snake and Tiger Kung Fu forms for the benefit of the Tri v cameras. He finished with a fierce yell, poised on one leg, his fingers in claw-like posture, and stared directly into Firststrike's good eye.

  The electronic shackles hummed once then dropped off Firststrike. He never broke the eye lock with The Eel as he stretched his arms and legs out slowly. He then assumed a comfortable stance and stood perfectly still as The Eel began to circle around him.

  When The Eel was directly behind him, and tensed to strike, Firststrike spoke in a quiet but powerful voice.

  "You have lost,” he said. “Only one who doubts himself strikes an enemy from behind."

  "Don't give me that Oriental honor crap!” the small Chinese man said.

  "Someone has to teach you; you obviously were not listening when your master gave you the lesson the first time."

  Like lightening, Firststrike spun and swept The Eel's feet out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor. “Seems like I shall have to teach you a lot."

  The Eel quickly came to a crouch and launched himself at Firststrike. Sliding and darting like his namesake, he attacked Firststrike with unbridled fury. Firststrike remained calm and relaxed, contenting himself with deftly avoiding his opponent, but knowing that he must soon strike back.

  * * * *

  Skorpion sat at the main terminal of the command console in the computer center of the headquarters. She was wearing a wire-covered hood, gloves and jacket over her scarlet combat uniform. She was jacked directly into the main terminal through the contact points in the cyber suit using the same virtual technology that interactive cyber arcades had been using for many years. Her feet were shackled to her chair. The Artist wandered about the room, gesturing like a concert maestro as he spoke.

  "From missing one line of code,” he waxed poetically, “to millions of lines of perfect code! Pure! Unassailable! I hope you don't think my pontificating immodest, my dear."

  Skorpion replied without taking her eyes off the screen. “Oh, no, of course not,” she said sarcastically, “please, continue."

  "Don't think I'm stupid, sweetheart! I can be just as sarcastic as you. But, then again, I don't need to lower myself to your level. I have already succeeded. Now, you must find the one line of code that can be changed without setting off the gas prematurely. As you can see, you are in a simulation of this building."

  Indeed Skorpion seemed to be standing in the Training Room of the headquarters though she knew it was a simulation. In the virtual world, she was wearing her battle gear and was armed with her whip and a Beretta 900 auto pistol. She heard The Artist as a disembodied voice:

  "The line of code is hidden somewhere therein. There is also a simulated assassin programmed to be your equal in every way lurking about. If he should catch you, your death will be anything but simulated as you are ‘wired for sound,’ so to speak and will receive a lethal dose of electricity. And don't worry; the home audience can see the visuals you are looking at. And as I love musical accompaniment, I will provide the same!"

  The Artist started to sing Gilbert and Sullivan songs, beginning with the score of “Ruddigore".

  Skorpion cringed. “I hate operettas,” she mumbled.

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  Chapter 6

  The Mercenary strode into the computer room with a satisfied smile on his face. He paused at the door to the room and leaned against the frame. The Artist looked up at him and pressed a button that would kill the video/audio feed of the room they were in.

  "Sit rep?” The Mercenary asked.

  "All our matches, but one, are under way. Only our silent friend is not yet engaged in the struggle; and that should be happening any second now.” The Artist danced over to stand beside the larger man and pressed a button to let his virtual self take over the serenade of Skorpion. “May I compliment you on your battle strategy?"

  "Only when it has proved successful. Connor Le'Schott is a cunning opponent, and quite capable. I have firsthand experience."

  The Artist called the video feed up on Lastshot in his room as his manacles disengaged.

  "I find it fascinating that you were able to recognize your ‘old buddy’ despite the extensive plastic surgery you say he has had,” The Artist said. He looked up at the muscular soldier and waited for an answer to his hinted question.

  "You bleed with a man,” the masked warrior said, “you get to know ‘em. I saw that Lastshot character in operation, stopping a bank holdup two years ago and I saw the way he handled himself. I suspected then. So when we planned this little party, I did my homework, then I knew.” He turned his attention to the monitor.

  Lastshot stretched and reached under the pillow on his bed for a wadded up black object. It was a Laughing Wolf bandana that he pulled out and clutched in his hand. He bent down and tied it just below his left knee. He exited his quarters and stood in the hall, listening. He moved cautiously down the hall until he was out of the camera's field of vision. Even though his face was distorted by the Regen, Retlow knew he had been smiling the whole time.

  The Mercenary laughed out loud. “Yep, that Cousin is very capable."

  * * * *

  Skorpion stood in the computer-generated virtual environment. The Artist's off key voice was singing faintly in the background having switched to the song “A Modern Major General.” Skorpion turned and headed for the door. She stopped suddenly as the walls before her seemed to crawl with a million bugs, until she focused her eyes on them and saw that it was, in fact, innumerable lines of computer code.

  "This is going to get boring, fast,” she said.

  Suddenly, a shot rang out. Skorpion raced for a doorway, and ducked through as a figure dressed in gray, carrying a huge handgun, emerged from the shadows across the room. On his featureless face was a tattoo resembling Skorpion's in the same deep blue as hers. He was dressed in a drab grey parody of her own battledress. He holstered his sidearm and followed her out the door.

  Skorpion ran into the hallway and dodged around a corner. She drew and checked her weapons. “What the—These wouldn't stop a sick rat!” Gone were her regular guns, they were now single shot flintlocks. She checked them to see that there actually was powder in the firing pan and a ball in the barrel. “This is gonna take some thought."

  She heard the Grey Assassin come out of the training room. Catch you later, she thought and took off running.

  Skorpion ran across the hall to the stairwell door as bullets thudded into the ceiling above her. She veered off the stairwell door and ran around a corner, whipped off her long leather robe and threw it onto the floor. She fired one of the flintlocks at the overhead lights, plunging the immediate area into darkness.

  She retreated down the hallway, still keeping an eye on the corner. In the background now, The Artist was singing the Mikado's score in a loud and distracting voice.

  The Grey Assassin came cautiously down the hallway, stopping just before the corner. Skorpion waited, holding her breath to avoid making any sound. There was a sudden loud click from around the corner; Skorpion dove away. A small concussion grenade came bouncing around the corner and exploded.

  The blackness shook with a blinding flash of light. Skorpion staggered upright, her hearing gone. The Assassin rushed forward, but tripped
on the leather robe, hitting the floor hard. He shot wildly, spraying the hallway with bullets.

  Skorpion ran a zigzag pattern until she pushed through the next stairwell door, jamming the panic bar closed behind her with a metal upright she tore from the old style railings of the staircase.

  Glad it's not my real robe, she thought. They're a bitch to get tailored.

  * * * *

  The Number Four Train runs on the east side of Manhattan, passing on its way from the Bronx to Brooklyn. A downtown train rumbled into the Fourteenth Street station and squealed to an ear-piercing stop. Echo was on the train with his trench coat pulled tight to cover his battledress uniform. He and other passengers exited the train en masse.

  He had driven to Forty-second Street, parked and gotten on the train, so he could approach the headquarters’ underground entrance with the least chance of alerting anyone watching the building.

  He lagged back from the crowd, allowing people to pass him. When he was alone on the platform, he looked both ways, then jumped down onto the track.

  From the shadows behind him, a figure followed. All in subdued silver and gray, it was the last of the intruders from the Jannsen Laboratory invasion; the criminal named Void. His feet, which were booted, made absolutely no sound even as they crunched the gravel of the track bed beneath them.

  * * * *

  In The Trench, the crowd was watching the split screen images from the headquarters. They had all called their friends and now the pub was packed with viewers. The whole place had an atmosphere like an Irish Wake.

  Goldstrike, who had made it to the fifth floor of the headquarters, peered down the dim corridor. He quietly moved to the door to his quarters. When he reached out to touch the door handle, he was thrown backward into the wall as if he had been clubbed. He lay stunned for a second from the strong electrical charge the doorknob had hit him with.

  "Frag me!” he said, shaking his hand in pain. “Yeah, yeah, I shoulda known."

  The patrons roared with laughter as Goldstrike winced from the electrical shock. Since he had gone public, he wore no nanite cream, or any distortion makeup, so that the Regen only slightly distorted his features; he did, after all, relish being famous.

  Stepping back, Goldstrike tried to kick the door in, but, was again shocked and thrown to the floor.

  "Okay, okay, I get the point!” he said aloud. “Ow ... damn..."

  "Why don't you use your head, it's harder?” A voice behind Goldstrike made him look up.

  It was Lastshot. Goldstrike looked at his team leader then looked around. “Funny, chief. What's happened to your playmate?"

  "Ours isn't a face-to-face. I have to ‘locate and coordinate.’ You're the first one of us I located,” Lastshot said, then added sarcastically, “Lucky me."

  They looked at each other for a moment before they both laughed.

  Suddenly, bullets pinged into the wall right next to them! The two Exceptionals raced down the hall, through a doorway and down the stairs.

  "Your lady friend's getting jealous!” Lastshot said.

  Goldstrike smiled, “I can't help it, this always happens: women go crazy over me—then start shooting."

  In the Trench, Matthew's redhead, Erica Trace, cheered and yelled, “You go, Goldstrike!” She made sure everyone seated near her could see the Goldstrike logo pin that Matthew had given her to wear.

  Two women seated nearby smiled at each other and made a point of flashing their own Goldstrike logo pins back at her.

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  Chapter 7

  On the first floor, Temper's head snapped around as a faint sound reached her ears. Accessing her tracking implants, she crouched down and peered at the floor. She placed her fingertips lightly on the linoleum. Standing and turning, she moved off without a sound.

  On the second floor, Wind flattened herself against a wall, and looked at a tiny detector on her wrist. She smiled and moved off at a run.

  Temper walked slowly up to a stairwell door, sniffed the air, smiled, turned and went to a wall panel that gave access to the air duct system. She removed the panel and climbed in to a space that looked too small even for her slight frame.

  Temper crawled through the air duct, sniffing the air, touching the floor, walls and ceiling with her fingertips which had a nanotech filament glove beneath the surface layer of skin that made her sense of touch function in the infrared and thermo-intensive ranges. Sensor implants linked into her nervous system allowed her to process data beyond what her normal senses could. It gave her access to thermal traces, energy sign and other data. She came to a junction, started to climb up.

  Wind walked down the hallway, stopping to look from side to side as if she had lost something. She consulted her monitor again, then turned quickly but quietly and walked back the way she came.

  Temper, her fingertips on the wall of the air duct, smiled, and continued climbing.

  Temper reached a grill at the end of one shaft. Touching it with her fingertips, she was satisfied that the coast was clear. She pushed the grill open, wincing at the squeak its hinges produced.

  Temper dropped silently out of the air duct, turned to close the grill, and then decided against it. Closing her eyes for a moment, she stood still, taking in the whole hallway with all her senses, then turned and moved on.

  * * * *

  In the real world computer room, The Artist finished singing Gilbert and Sullivan's opening song from Yeoman of the Guard and was about to start another song. Skorpion was still jacked into the terminal. The Artist walked over to her, leaned over and sang directly into her ear. “Oh Wandering Minstrel I..."

  In the virtual headquarters, Skorpion was walking down the hallway. She winced as The Artist's singing suddenly became louder, before fading away.

  "I hate that,” she said.

  "I heard that!” came the disembodied voice of The Artist.

  At that moment, the Grey Assassin turned a corner down the hall from Skorpion. Her back was to him.

  Skorpion was intensely studying yet another line of code written on the wall.

  "The Michelangelo virus,” she murmured, “that bastard—"

  Her head snapped around as the sound of cloth on cloth reached her ears. She saw the Assassin, and in the same instant, dropped to one knee, drew one pistol and opened fire. The Assassin disappeared around a corner.

  She peered down the corridor as she drew and cocked the second gun before she realized she had used its shot on the overhead light.

  I'm starting to think like Matthew, she thought. I can't just wander around this place and shoot at things: Plan Skorpion!

  She backed down the corridor, turned and ran for the nearest stairwell again.

  Somewhere in the real world, The Artist began singing a song from Princess Ida.

  * * * *

  On the fourth floor, Goldstrike and Lastshot emerged from the stairwell, and closed the door behind them.

  "Take the back stairs,” Lastshot whispered. “Meet me at the armory; and don't stop for a snack on the way unless you pick me up some popcorn."

  "Got it; no butter,” Matthew said as they both raced off.

  A few seconds after they split up, Sniper threw the stairwell door open, pumped a few rounds into the hallway and stepped out into the corridor.

  "Nothing like a few ten millimeter rounds to soften up a room,” she said, smiling. The sound of a door closing drew her head around. “Oh, Shiny, you're making this way too easy."

  She slammed a fresh magazine home in her weapon and racked in a round before jogging off towards the sound.

  * * * *

  In the training room, The Eel was not having a good day.

  The room was twenty meters across, it's periphery a series of racks, mats, weights, archery and pistol targets and workout gear. The Eel had, it seemed moved through most of the room in an attempt to batter down Firststrike's defenses.

  "Will you stand still?” he screamed. The lithe man launched a complex ser
ies of spinning heel kicks, first in one direction then reversing himself, intending to catch the one-eyed Exceptional off guard.

  Firststrike dodged each attack with graceful ease. The Eel looked like he'd run an obstacle course, sweating profusely, and breathing like a racehorse.

  "I stood still before, Wu,” Jason said in a calm voice. “I don't think you were very pleased with the result."

  The Eel drew back and calmed himself with a breathing exercise, before he looked directly into Firststrike's good eye. “You are so annoying,” he said.

  The Eel lunged at the taller man, but Firststrike side slipped and drove his knee into The Eel's chest. Then he slammed a knife-hand blow to the back of his neck. The Eel staggered away three steps, and turned, obviously hurt. The Chinese criminal shook his head and growled like a wounded dog, but still would not quit.

  "Give it up, Wu, you're hurt.” Firststike's voice was sincere, but he did not make the mistake of dropping his guard in case The Eel was not quite as injured as he seemed.

  "Shut up!” The Eel yelled as he leapt forward. Firststrike spun and caught him in the stomach with his heel. The masked man staggered, Firststrike hooked his thumbs together, and fluttered his fingers straight up like a mime doing a bird impersonation. Momentarily distracted, The Eel let his guard down. Firststrike slammed a back fist into his opponent's nose, breaking it, and knocking him out.

  Firststrike checked to make sure The Eel's pulse was steady. “David Carradine's Kung Fu is the best,” he said quietly.

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  Chapter 8

  On the third floor, Wind crept cautiously down the hallway. She paused, touched the wall and checked her wrist monitor, puzzled by the reading she got. She stepped into the center of the hall and looked around her. “Where is she?” the petite redhead said aloud. “How could I have missed her?"

  Suddenly Temper, who hung unseen from a sprinkler pipe at the ceiling directly above Wind, calmly dropped behind her, pressing two fingers to the base of the criminal's skull. “I declare this contest over,” she said. “Or shall I press on this nerve cluster and—"