Chapter 8: The 44th Floor

The moment the two metal spheres rolled into the hall, Jason’s instincts began to scream.

The red sensors on the machines flared immediately. These were not simple guard robots; they were spider robots, some of the most advanced fully intelligent weapons of war developed before the collapse.

Phut phut phut phut!

The firing speed was astonishing. Small holes under the electronic eyes erupted with flashes of fire. Bullets penetrated up the wall where Jason’s head had been a split second before. He threw himself sideways, sliding across the smooth floor, but the machines tracked him perfectly via infrared. A shot passed by his arm, leaving a trail line of blood behind.

It was a scratch, but it was a warning. These machines were lethal in groups, but he was only facing two. He needed to blind them.

He grabbed a grenade from his belt. He didn’t wait. He tossed it toward the center of the corridor.

BOOM!

The grenade exploded, creating a cloud of thick smoke and intense heat. The building, constructed of titanium steel and lunar soil, didn’t even budge, but the high temperature of the blast temporarily blinded the robots’ infrared vision.

Seizing the few seconds of confusion, Jason didn’t retreat; he surged forward. He rolled across the floor and sprayed bullets wildly into the smoke. He heard the satisfying crack-crack of metal impacts.

As the smoke cleared, he saw the result. One spider robot has become scrap metal, its circuits fried. The other lay belly-up, its gun barrel twisted.

“It’s a good thing there aren’t many of them,

” Jason thought, wiping sweat from his eyes. If there had been hundreds, even he wouldn’t have survived here.

He looked down the hall. Calvin was running toward the elevators at the far end, even finding the time to make a mocking face at Jason.

Jason raised his pistol to finish the second drone before giving chase. He pulled the trigger.

Click.

Empty.

At that exact moment, the “dead” robot on the floor screeched to life. With a sound like a metallic spring coiling, it righted itself. Its front two legs detached and shot out like flying knives.

At thirty feet away, the blades moved at nearly 100 meters per second. For a normal person, with a reaction limit of 0.1 seconds, death would be instantaneous. They would be stabbed before their brain even registered the threat.

But Jason wasn’t normal. He was a Superhuman.

Adrenaline flooded his system. His pupils dilated. The world slowed down.

To Jason’s eyes, the flying blades weren’t a blur. He could see the trajectory of the steel as his keen dynamic vision tracked them. His neural reaction speed was ten times that of a normal human.

He didn’t try to duck. In this gravity, ducking would leave him floating and vulnerable. Instead, he slammed his heels into the floor.

“Hah!”

He launched himself backward. On the Moon, his powerful muscles turned him like a leaf in a wind. He executed a perfect, impossible backflip, his body angling 90 degrees upward.

The blades whistled past the tip of his nose, missing him by an inch. The robot itself bounced up, spinning like a chainsaw to decapitate him, but Jason was already over it.

He landed on his feet, his momentum carrying him forward. He didn’t bother reloading. He gripped his pistol by the barrel like a club.

SMASH!

He swung his arm, slamming the heavy gun stock into the spider robot’s electronic eye. The machine flew like a ball, crashing into the wall. Jason hit it three more times—BANG! BANG! BANG!—completely deforming his gun, until the machine finally lay still.

“Whoa…”

A voice echoed from down the hall. Calvin stood by the elevators, looking stunned by the display of superhuman agility. But the shock didn’t stop him. He typed a code, gave Jason a mocking “goodbye” gesture, and the doors slid shut.

“Damn it!”

Jason sprinted to the elevator, but the doors sealed with a thud. He watched the numbers above the door change rapidly.

166… 165… 164…

He checked the other elevators. They were all locked on the first floor.

Jason punched the elevator door in frustration, leaving a visible dent in the steel. He immediately tapped his headset.

“Austin! Do you hear me?”

“Captain, it’s me. Status?”

“Calvin is playing hide-and-seek, and I lost him at the elevators,” Jason said, rushing toward the stairwell door. He kicked it open. “Now, listen. I need you to take the team into the main lobby. The hostages and the rebels are concentrated there.”

“Copy that.”

“Be careful,” Jason roared into the mic, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “There might be fifty remote-controlled bombs under the floor. You must disarm them immediately. There’s a map in the server room on the 44th floor—send someone to check it! You have less than four minutes!”

“Four minutes… Understood!”

Jason cut the line. He looked down the stairwell. It was a straight drop.

He didn’t run down the stairs; he vaulted over the railing. He plummeted through the air, falling five floors at a time, grabbing the railing every few floors just long enough to slow himself before dropping again.

As he fell, he watched the numbers on the elevator shaft.

59… 58… 57…

He was moving faster than the elevator. He was a blur of motion,like a ghost dropping through the center of the tower.

5… 4… 3… 2.

The elevator Calvin was in finally stopped. Ten seconds later, Jason landed in a crouch on the second-floor landing, his boots skidding on the concrete.

He burst into the hallway. The elevator doors were open. The car was empty. Calvin was nowhere to be seen.

Jason stopped. He didn’t run. He didn’t look for footprints or fingerprints, that was too troublesome and time consuming.

He closed his eyes.

To a normal person, the air just smelled of recycled oxygen and ozone. But to Jason, it was a map. He took a slight sniff.

A large number of scent molecules assaulted his enhanced senses. Among the stale air, one trail stood out like a bright lamp in the darkness, a mix of ammonia and sweat.

Jason opened his eyes. His pupils were wide, focused on the empty hall to his left.

With a strength like a lion, agility like a leopard, vision like a war eagle, and a sense of smell like a hound. He was comprehensively superior to humanity.

“Calvin,” Jason whispered to the empty air. “You can’t escape.”

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