Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [51]
What in the hell was wrong with the woman? She'd never been anything but efficient and competent before, why was she just standing there now with that strange look of confusion frozen on her face?
Then One saw the trickle of blood that ringed her neck.
Olga Danilova's head started to slide forward on her neck, then tumble to the floor. As with Drew's fingers, the laser had cut through skin, muscle, and bone cleanly.
A moment later, the headless body fell to the floor as well.
In a lifetime of fighting, the man who now went by the nom de guerre of "One" had seen pretty much every type of death imaginable—and several that he couldn't imagine, even having seen them. He'd seen much grislier, more painful, far, far more brutal deaths than what he just witnessed.
And yet the simple decapitation of Olga Danilova was done with such mechanical, ruthless, unthinking efficiency that One found it to be in its own way the most repugnant death he'd ever seen.
He forced his attention back to Drew, who was shaking, his eyes starting to flutter shut.
"Stay conscious—you're going into shock."
This admonition appeared to have no effect on the commando.
So One tried a more direct approach. "Stay awake!" he barked as loud as he could.
"Sir! It's coming back—it's coming back!"
Not happy that Warner was also panicking, One stood up, as did Warner. This time, the laser ran along the floor.
At once really impressed with and seriously pissed off by the efficiency of the security program that ran this room, One got ready to jump.
The laser sliced through Drew.
Warner jumped up to avoid it, but even as he did so, the laser shifted upward and sliced through his torso. His feet and legs landed on the floor; half a second later, his head, arms, and torso landed on top of his legs with a squelching sound.
Having only another half a second to mull, One looked up, saw the ceiling light fixture, jumped, grabbed hold of the fixture, then pulled his body horizontal so it would be over the beam.
Feeling the heat of the beam as it passed under his legs, ass, and back, he heard a metallic clanking sound as it went by.
He landed, ready for anything. Taking a quick look down, he saw that the laser had sliced through his titanium knife and its holder.
The laser launched a third time.
One was ready for anything.
Or so he thought.
This time it spread into a diagonal grid that took up the entire breadth and height of the corridor. He could feel the heat of the massive deathtrap on his face as it neared him, ready to cut him into distressingly small pieces.
Nowhere to jump, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
One's last word before he was literally cubed was: "Shit."
Sixteen
BARTHOLOMEW JOSEPH KAPLAN HAD BEEN having a really good day.
Then again, any day that had One saying "Let's move out" was a good day as far as Bart Kaplan was concerned. After years of frustration, he was at last living his dream life at his dream job.
When he was a teenager, Kaplan had found his vocation: to be an agent working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was the only thing he ever truly wanted.
Also when he was a teenager, he discovered that he had a tremendous aptitude for computers. Actually, he had a tremendous aptitude for most academic subjects; he finished Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, in three years, then blew through NYU's undergraduate program in two with a BS in computer science.
While his peers were still finishing their sophomore years and trying to determine what to do with their lives, Kaplan was being recruited by dozens of large companies.
He turned them all down, because dammit, he was going to work for the FBI.
As it happened, the FBI was happy to have him—as a computer expert. His skills as a computer geek were of tremendous use to the feds, and they were thrilled to have him as a resource.
There was only one problem: Kaplan didn't want that. He wanted to be a field agent. He explained that to his superiors.
Most of them didn't laugh, though it was an effort for them.
Kaplan was a good