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Click, the door slid open and the four figures slid quietly into the room. Dressed all in black, masks covering their features, the figures moved in a trained manner, spreading out to cover the living area of the apartment. Their guns were out and they moved cautiously; they had a job to do.
One moved over to the kitchen area, one towards the bathroom. One peeled off toward the bedroom and the final one took up a position covering the door they had entered through.
The bedroom door opened easily and with no noise. The assassin moved in to stand at the foot of the bed. He raised his gun and fired three silenced rounds into the form on the bed.
Stepping forward to check that their target is dead, the figure is taken completely by surprise as the bed is kicked out towards him by someone lying beneath it. The male dressed in just boxer shorts rolls backwards to his feet, back to the wall. Whilst his would-be killer regains his composure to raise the gun again the man throws himself to the right performing a handstand on the bed-side table. Coming up with the table in his hands he charges forward towards the gunman. Just as the gun is levelled the attacker finds his arm trapped in the rungs of the table. A twist and a snap and he drops the gun. A kick to the head places him on the ground.
Rolling around to face the door, sounds of movement indicate that the others are heading towards the bedroom. A quick vault and there is a semi-naked man atop the door waiting for someone to enter.
The first through the door immediately runs to his prone comrade, the second scans the room with his gun. The third seems reluctant to come too far into the room, but it is far enough. Dropping down in front of the third man, the athletic male grabs the other's gun hand; twisting the arm under his shoulder, the gun is aimed at the second man.
Chumf, chumf, chumf. Three silenced bullets blow out his hand and knees.
Turning on the first man a single bullet later and he is staring with dead eyes.
Bringing his elbow back the male despatches the third man, leaving himself with the gun.
Suddenly the lights go on in the main living room. The male responds by rolling out through the door. Coming up into a crouch he finds himself aiming at Dr. Janus.
"Good evening, Zach, how are you?"
"Better if you'd stop trying to kill me." Zach ejected the clip and the bullet in the breach. He handed the weapon to an orderly who had come in after the doctor.
"It seems you are improving on our new timetable as expected. We have decided to start some specialist training, and the boss is coming to see you."
"The boss?"
"Yes, Zach, you know, the one who is paying for all this," the doctor waved her arm to encompass the room around them, "and this," she poked him in the centre of the chest.
"Well, it would be nice to find the person who paid for me to become as strong as a morph."
"I wouldn't say you were as strong as a morph. But that is where the new training is going to come in..."
* * *
Zach stood in the training room. He had changed into the special armour they had provided for him and was now facing his instructor. The slender woman with black hair was wearing similar clothing to his own.
She reached into a bag she was carrying and produced two katanas.
"Have you ever fought with swords before?" she asked, handing him one.
"Not really. I've done some of the theory of it but the majority of my martial arts training is without weapons."
"Then you may learn something then..."
She darted forward with a head swipe that Zach had no problem blocking with the super light blade. It was a feint though, and his trainer's sword flashed around to finish sitting on his shoulder, edge to his neck.
"Lesson one," she stated.
They took up stances and faced off. She came in hard and quick, first to the head and then the legs. Zach blocked the first blow and jumped the second. Taking the upper hand, he pressed in with an over arm blow to the head. He found himself stopping when his instructor's sword was at his neck again.
"Lesson two," she intoned.
They stepped back into starting poses and the battle began again.
This time Zach attacked first, with his trainer blocking every strike. Head, head, left leg, head, right leg. Then she attacked with a strike to the neck. Zach stepped back and the sword passed an inch from him. He then stepped forward, thrusting his sword up towards her armpit.
Rolling to one side, she dodged the blade and dropped to sweep his legs out from under him. As he hit the ground he let go of the sword and it bounced away from him, but he rolled over and leapt back to his feet.
The attack did not stop though, and he was forced to lean away as his opponent's sword flashed down across his body again and again. Dropping back and then suddenly stepping forward, he was able to step into her guard and quickly managed to entrap her sword with his arm. He was now in a very precarious situation, as he had a sword blade under his left arm and the end that it was usually controlled by was being held by someone else. An extremely swift decision was made and Zach brought his right arm around. He hit the flat of the blade near the hilt with his palm and the blade snapped from the handle with a loud banging sound. He released the blade so that it could drop to the floor and then kicked it away.
She threw away the useless piece of sword and dropped into a fighting stance. Zach responded in kind and the battle was locked again.
Punches and kicks were thrown and blocked as the two moved back and forth across the training room floor. Zach decided that he needed something special to get the upper hand in this fight and feinted left. His opponent seemed to move with a supernatural speed and elbowed him to the floor. Almost as quickly he responded, sweeping around on the floor to kick her feet out from under her, but she jumped a clear five feet in the air. He rolled out before she landed so her knee impacted with the floor.
She returned to the fighting stance and they started again. Kicks and punches were traded and blocked until she connected with the centre of his chest. Thrown backwards ten feet, he slid to a stop on his stomach. He rolled up onto his feet and started to strip off the armour he was wearing. Seeing this the instructor followed his lead and removed hers. They continued until they were wearing just the navy blue jumpsuits they had on beneath the armour.
The fight started a third time.
The woman attacked with a series of kicks to the legs that Zach blocked. She followed up by jumping into a spinning kick aimed at his head. Zach responded by ducking under it and grabbing the back of her jumpsuit. He charged her forwards toward the wall, but at the last moment she ducked down and he was thrown over the top to land upside down against the wall. She stood to bring her foot down onto his head but he did a handstand and cartwheeled down the wall.
Landing the right way up, he vaulted and hand-sprang back to the centre of the room. The trainer moved quickly to meet him but he was ready and dropped to grab her legs. She slipped around and he moved her to a lock on the floor that was only breakable by brute force. Together they sat like this for a few seconds and then the pressure she was exerting was increasing. He adjusted a little and kept the hold. The strength he felt in this woman was way too great for any normal human. Oh great, she was a morph.
The pressure she was exerting was getting too much and Zach decided to let go. This turned out to be a bad idea, as she swung around and caught his arms in a lock of her own. He started to resist but damn, she was strong.
He put his normal strength behind it as he looked at this woman holding him. Then he noticed something - she was sweating, this was a strain for her. Summoning all his strength he started to push his arms apart and force her into a new position. It took some time and all his might but he broke the hold and twisted her around to where he was facing her, their arms held out in a bizarre game of mercy. Both were sweating quite profusely now, but Zach had the upper hand and took advantage of it. He kicked her hard in the stomach and she flew backwards, only stopping when she hit the wall. The shallow dent left behind her as she slumped to the floor was quite substantial. As she pushed herself up onto all fours, the door burst open and several people in white coats came running in. One of them was Dr. Janus.
"That's it, Zach, the training's finished. Go wash up."
"What? You think that's it? You try to kill me in my sleep, you send this morph in to kill me and when it turns out I may beat her you call me off? What is your freakin' problem, doc? Can't you just cut me a little slack and stop trying to kill me?"
Zach stormed out of the room, punching another dent into the wall by the door as he went. Dr. Janus moved over to see how the instructor was doing.
* * *
The black-haired woman sat on a chair in the doctor's office. Janus handed her a glass of water.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Archibald, we didn't know what was going on until it was too late. We would have been in sooner but..."
"But what? What happened to the nano-monitoring you were placing in Atlas?"
"Well, it seems the nanobots we injected to report back his bio functions malfunctioned."
"What? All of them?"
"Yes."
"But they have a ninety-five percent functionality rating, how could all of them malfunction? How many did you use?"
"We used the standard scanning set. We have a theory though."
"Go on."
"We think that his immune system is destroying them."
"He's curing himself of a 'nanite' disease?"
"Yes. It was quite common when the first nanites were tried because they were relatively weak compared with white blood cells. These ones were a lot more advanced though, and were built to survive even the strongest white blood cells. He has surpassed the strongest easily."
"And his physical strength? He is as strong as I am, maybe stronger. I thought you said he was likely to hit Olympic athlete level of strength and fitness?"
"It seems he is surpassing everything we had hoped for. At this rate he's going to be a real handful soon. We aren't going to be able to keep him controlled. The only problem he is having is his hyper metabolism. He is consuming a huge number of calories a day."
"I think it is time I met him on a more personal level. I've got some meetings over the next few days but I think he should visit me at head office. For lunch."
Paul Taylor, 13/06/01
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