Chapter 58 - Collision Course in the Hurricane
The four elite shock troopers charged with inhuman velocity.
These weren't ordinary mercenaries; their muscles bulged with synthetic steroids, their eyes glowing with the same eerie silver hue that pulsed within Daniel’s veins. They were prototypes—crude, earlier iterations of the experiment that had perfected Daniel.
"Julian, take Lily and get behind the server racks!" Daniel yelled, shoving the child into Julian’s arms.
Daniel spun on his heel just as the first shock trooper lunged, swinging a massive titanium combat maul aimed at Daniel’s skull. Daniel ducked underneath the crushing blow, drove his elbow into the soldier’s sternum with concussive force, and felt the man's reinforced ribs crack. But the soldier barely registered the pain, lunging forward to lock Daniel in a crushing bear hug.
A second trooper rushed in, driving an electrified stun baton into Daniel’s side.
Fifty thousand volts of electricity surged through Daniel’s frame. The agonizing shock caused the nanites in his blood to go berserk. Sparks literally erupted from Daniel’s pores. His vision strobed red and silver.
"Warning: Neural load exceeding tolerance," a robotic voice chimed inside his mind.
"Shut up!" Daniel roared, his silver-lit eyes blazing with terrifying fury.
Channeling the electrical charge through his own augmented nervous system, Daniel reversed the flow, grabbing the stun baton with his bare hand and sending a massive kinetic-electric surge backward into the weapon. The baton exploded, vaporizing the second trooper's arm and sending him crashing over the railing into the abyss below.
Daniel broke free of the bear hug, grabbed the first soldier by the helmet, and slammed him face-first into the steel deck plates until the concrete underneath cracked.
Meanwhile, Julian was fighting for his life.
Two shock troopers had flanked the server banks, cutting off his escape route. Julian fired his rifle until the bolt locked back empty, dropping one soldier with a shot through the throat. But the final trooper closed the distance instantly, striking Julian across the face with the butt of a heavy carbine.
Julian crashed against the computer console, his vision blurring, blood pouring down his temple. Lily rolled out of his arms, hitting the floor and crying out in agony as the fever wracked her small frame.
The massive trooper stepped forward, drawing a combat knife to execute Julian, then reached down toward Lily.
"Don't... touch... her..." Julian wheezed, desperately clawing for a dropped sidearm.
From across the platform, Daniel saw the soldier's hand closing around his daughter.
A primeval, paternal rage shattered the last fragments of artificial programming inside Daniel's mind. The nanites didn't control him; his love for his child controlled the nanites.
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With a deafening sonic boom, Daniel tore across the catwalk at speeds that defied the laws of physics.
***
