Page 63 of The Sterling Acquisition
Note to self: compliment Morrison on his laboratory chemical selection. Very useful for impromptu warfare.
The second guard’s weapon swung toward Dante, but he was already moving, grabbing a metal centrifuge from the equipment rack and hurling it at the man’s chest. The heavy machine struck with enough force to knock him backward, his shots going wide as he struggled to regain balance. The bullets shattered glass cabinets and embedded themselves in the wall, spraying shards and splinters across the sterile laboratory.
Dante followed the centrifuge, closing the distance before the guard could recover.Disarm, disable, eliminate. Each movement precisely calibrated, the culmination of thousands of hours spent perfecting the art of efficient violence. The guard’s weapon went flying as Dante struck his wrist, then his knee buckled as a heel kick shattered his kneecap. The sound of breaking bone echoed off the tile walls, a percussive counterpoint to the man’s strangled cry.
He went down hard, and Dante finished him with a sharp blow to the neck that crushed his windpipe. The guard’s last breath was a wet,gurgling sound as he collapsed to the floor, his body twitching as his nervous system processed its own destruction.
The first guard was still clawing at his acid-burned helmet when Dante reached him. A quick twist separated vertebrae with an audible crack, and suddenly the lab was quiet except for Duckie’s terrified breathing. The silence was almost peaceful after the brief explosion of violence, broken only by the soft electronic hum of laboratory equipment and the distant alarm that someone had triggered.
Much more peaceful. Morrison really should have considered noise-dampening materials for his research wing.
“Please,” Duckie gasped, backing toward the door. His eyes were wide with terror, pupils contracted to pinpoints as survival instinct took over. “I was just—I didn’t want—”
Dante picked up one of the dropped weapons and checked the magazine. The weight felt comfortable in his hands, familiar despite his preference for more elegant methods. Still nearly full. More than enough for what came next.
SVI security believed in being well-prepared. Admirable, if ultimately pointless.
“You were just following orders,” Dante said, trying to stay calm and reasonable as though discussing weather rather than murder. “I understand. Corporate loyalty is important.”
For a moment, something like hope flickered across Duckie’s face—the desperate belief that perhaps he might survive this after all.
“Yes! Exactly! I was just—”
The gunshot was impossibly loud in the enclosed space, the sound reverberating off tile and metal. Duckie’s head snapped back as the bullet hit him between the eyes and his body crumpled to the floor like a discarded puppet. Blood and brain matter spattered across thepristine white wall behind him, the red a stark contrast to the laboratory’s sterile palette.
Poor Duckie. He should have chosen his loyalties more carefully.
The decision to kill had been automatic, not from cruelty but from necessity. Duckie knew too much about Dante’s operation, and leaving him alive meant leaving a witness who could raise a territory-wide alarm. In another circumstance, perhaps Dante might have considered mercy. But not today. Not when Orion’s freedom and sanity depended on absolute secrecy.
Dante checked his watch. Four minutes until the first incendiary device activated. Enough time to collect additional weapons and ammunition, but not enough for a leisurely exit.
He stripped the guards of their remaining weapons and spare magazines, leaving the tactical gear behind. SVI body armor was competent enough, but it bore corporate markings that would make him a target for every security guard in the territory. Better to rely on speed than borrowed protection.
Besides, wearing a dead man’s armor was tacky. Dante had standards.
Dante slung the weapons across his shoulders and headed for the door, stepping over Duckie’s corpse without a second glance. The man made his choice when he chose gambling debts over professional agreements.
Not that Dante blamed him. But money was only useful if you lived to spend it.
Three minutes until the devices activated. Time to leave before Morrison’s entire research wing became a crematorium.
He moved through the facility corridors quickly, no longer caring about maintaining cover. The emergency lighting activated, bathing everything in an ominous red glow that made the white walls look likethey’d been washed in blood. The alarm continued to wail, but there was no sign of coordinated response yet—SVI security was likely still trying to determine the nature of the threat.
Anyone who saw him would know what happened in Morrison’s lab, but in three minutes it wouldn’t matter. None of it would matter except getting to Orion before Morrison could begin the procedure.
Corporate espionage was so much simpler when you stopped pretending to be polite about it.
The parking lot was starting to fill with early morning staff, none of whom paid attention to the figure in bloodstained clothes loading automatic weapons into a corporate sedan. Just another consultant finishing his shift, nothing unusual about that. The cognitive dissonance of corporate life at its finest—see no evil unless specifically instructed to look for it.
Dante’s phone showed a message from his transportation contact—extraction vehicle positioned, route confirmed, gassed up and ready to go. Everything in place for the run to the Neutral Zone. The pieces were falling into place.
First, though, he had to collect what he came here for.
Behind him, the first incendiary device activated with a flash visible even through the facility’s reinforced windows. The explosion sent a shockwave across the parking lot, the percussion causing nearby car alarms to wail in sympathy. Secondary explosions followed as chemical stockpiles ignited, each one adding to the conflagration that was consuming Morrison’s life’s work. Black smoke began billowing from shattered windows, the acrid smell of burning chemicals and melting equipment filling the air.
Forty years of research became forty minutes of very expensive fireworks. Morrison was going to need therapy.
Dante allowed himself a moment of satisfaction as he drove toward SVI’s residential district, watching the growing inferno in his rearview mirror. Project Tether was history. Morrison’s research was becoming ash and molten metal. The physical tools that would have destroyed Orion’s mind were being rendered into unrecognizable slag.
