Chapter 30 The Duel
POV: Nicander
The digital countdown timer projected across the upper observation glass flashed a brilliant, unforgiving crimson.
Nicander released the grip of his customized assault rifle.
The heavy weapon clattered against the pristine, sterilized linoleum of the laboratory floor, entirely useless without armor-piercing ammunition.
He did not bother reaching for the tactical pistol holstered at his hip; the localized security scanners had already registered their armaments, and he knew Morvath Lusk was far too paranoid to send in a target susceptible to standard ballistics.
A heavy, pneumatic hiss echoed from the eastern wall of the laboratory.
A seamless panel of stainless steel slid backward, revealing a darkened antechamber.
From the shadows, a single figure emerged.
He was a leviathan of a man, easily matching Nicander’s towering two-hundred-and-thirty-pound frame, but completely encased in a customized, matte-black carbon-weave exoskeleton.
He wore no visor, exposing a scarred, heavily tattooed face twisted into an eager, sadistic grin.
He carried no firearms. Instead, gripped in each of his massive, gauntleted hands was a twelve-inch, serrated tungsten trench knife.
"I told you I watched the security feeds, Vargos," Lusk’s slimy, aristocratic voice crackled over the PA system.
"You rely on kinetic mass. On brute force.
So, allow me to introduce my Praetorian.
His armor is completely impenetrable to your scavenged blades.
Do try to put up a fight. It makes the viewing so much more entertaining. "
Nicander ignored the intercom. He drew the heavy, blackened combat knife from his chest webbing with his left hand. The Requiem Toxin screamed in protest, a violent, skeletal rot radiating from his necrotic joints, but he violently suppressed it.
He didn't look at the Praetorian. He looked at Zinovia.
She was already moving, her dark eyes completely fixed on the biometric access panel adjacent to the incinerator's bulletproof partition.
Her pale, black-veined hands were a blur as she used her titanium scalpel to pry the heavy plastic casing off the terminal, exposing the raw, tangled circuitry beneath.
"Bypass the grid," Nicander commanded, his voice a low, gravelly scrape that barely carried over the roar of the furnace. "Do not stop until the glass drops."
"Do not die before I finish," Zinovia countered, not sparing him a glance as she plunged her bare hands into the live wires.
02:45.
The Praetorian charged.
He moved with terrifying, chemically enhanced speed, the heavy carbon armor completely failing to slow his momentum. He closed the thirty-foot gap in a heartbeat, leading with a devastating, horizontal slash aimed directly at Nicander’s throat.
Nicander didn't attempt to block the tungsten blade. His dying, brittle bones would have shattered on impact. Instead, he dropped his center of gravity, ducking beneath the lethal arc, and drove his right shoulder directly into the Praetorian’s sternum.
The collision sounded like a localized car crash.
The kinetic impact reverberated violently through Nicander’s necrotic skeleton.
The stitches securing his torn obliques ripped open instantly, a blinding, white-hot agony lancing up his spine as fresh, hot arterial blood flooded down his hip.
But the sheer, uncompromising mass of the dockyard Butcher served its purpose.
The Praetorian stumbled backward, his heavy boots skidding across the sterile linoleum.
Nicander didn't give him a microsecond to recover. He lunged, swinging his blackened combat knife in a vicious upward arc aimed at the exposed flesh beneath the mercenary's jawline.
The Praetorian recovered with unnatural speed, bringing his gauntlet down to deflect the strike. Metal sparked against metal. The mercenary twisted his wrist, trapping Nicander’s blade, and drove his heavy knee directly into Nicander’s bleeding left side.
The air vanished from Nicander’s ruined lungs. The blow was catastrophic, driving the breath from his body in a wet, rattling gasp. He collapsed to one knee, the taste of oxidized copper and black rot flooding his mouth.
"The Butcher," the Praetorian sneered, his voice a thick, guttural rasp. He raised both tungsten knives above his head, prepared to drive them down through Nicander’s collarbones. "You're just a dying dog."
Nicander looked up, his glacial gray eyes burning with an absolute, terrifying void. He wasn't fighting for his own life. His life was already forfeit. He was fighting for the woman currently tearing a mainframe apart ten yards away.
01:50.
As the dual blades descended, Nicander surged upward. He didn't aim for the mercenary. He aimed for the environment. He threw his entire, agonizing weight sideways, tackling a heavy, stainless-steel centrifuge array bolted to the floor.
The heavy machinery tore free from its moorings with a violent screech, crashing directly into the Praetorian’s legs.
The mercenary roared in pain as the steel crushed his shins, throwing him entirely off balance. He pitched forward, his heavy carbon armor betraying his agility.
Nicander scrambled over the fallen centrifuge, completely ignoring the searing, tearing agony in his side.
He didn't use the knife. He used his bare, calloused hands.
He grabbed the mercenary by the thick, Kevlar-lined collar of his rig and violently slammed the back of the man's skull into the pristine linoleum.
Once. Twice. A sickening, wet crack echoed through the laboratory, briefly overpowering the roar of the incinerator.
The Praetorian thrashed wildly, driving the pommel of his trench knife into Nicander’s ribcage.
Nicander felt the bone fracture—a sharp, localized snap that sent a wave of gray static swimming across his vision.
But the absolute, homicidal devotion burning in his blood refused to let his grip falter.
Nicander shifted his weight, pinning the mercenary’s knife-arm to the floor with his heavy knee. With a feral, breathless roar, Nicander drove his thumbs directly into the soft, unarmored ocular cavities of the Praetorian's eyes.
The man shrieked—a horrific, high-pitched wail of pure agony that shattered the sterile silence of the room.
His massive body bucked violently beneath Nicander, thrashing like a dying leviathan, but Nicander held him down, channeling every ounce of his remaining, necrotic strength into the brutal, blinding pressure, until the mercenary’s nervous system finally succumbed to the massive, localized trauma.
The Praetorian went completely limp.
Nicander collapsed sideways off the massive corpse, his chest heaving with desperate, bubbling gasps.
The white linoleum beneath him was painted in a horrific, abstract smear of dark red.
He couldn't feel his left leg. The Requiem Toxin was capitalizing on the massive adrenaline dump, accelerating the cellular liquefaction in his organs.
He rolled onto his back, his vision swimming, and looked up at the digital timer projected on the glass.
00:30.
"Zinovia," Nicander gasped, the word nothing more than a wet, bloody bubble on his lips.
Across the room, Zinovia stood before the sparking, ruined access panel. Her hands were scorched and bleeding, the heavy scent of melted plastic filling the air. Above her, inside the bulletproof enclosure, the automated, titanium armature holding the velvet box suddenly violently shuddered.
The laser grid across the glass partition flickered, but the heavy glass did not drop. The armature began to descend, carrying the single, pearlescent vial of their salvation directly toward the roaring, three-thousand-degree mouth of the incinerator.