Conquest ~ Indian Hill 3 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (65 page)

“I don’t think that’s really how it works
,” I said
.

His door swung inwards, my face flushed
,
and I involuntarily
took a couple of steps
backward
, Durgan stepped through the door.

“You’re dead
,” I said
,
softly pointing at him.

“We’re twins
—who’s
the dumbass now?”

I wanted to tell him that it was still him, but I was
having great difficulty forming words
with
my mouth hanging open. As my mind raced to catch up, I began to notice subtle difference
s
between the two
;
Du
nner
was maybe
twenty
to
twenty-five
pounds lighter and although he was crazy
,
the torch
of insanity didn’t burn quite as bright within him.

“Mike
,
I can kill him, we’ll take our chances with the bomb
,” Paul said
.

That sounded like an incredibly awesome plan at the moment.

Du
nner
ignored it completely. “I was supposed to go to that concert with him. Ended up in jail for a domestic dispute.”

“Imagine that
,” I said
,
still backing up warily.

“We would have been unbeatable in those games together.”

Games? Funny
,
I never thought of them as games. I didn’t have the heart or enough moisture in my mouth to tell him the aliens probably would have squared them off against each other for the mere sport of it. And something
tells me they
both
would
have tried to do the other in.

“I’ve watched you since you’ve come back and I still can’t figure out how a spindly little fuck like yourself took my brother down
.
B
est I can figure is that you drugged him.”

“Yeah,
we were in the sauna together and I slipped him a mickey
,” I said
as my back came in contact with the wall behind me. My survival instinct kept me
from turning and looking. Whip
lash fast, Dunner struck.

I deflected his right-hand roundhouse with my left arm, but still the force of it sent me to the ground.

“You ain’t shit
!” he screamed
. “My brother was five times the man you are, there’s no reason he s
houldn’t have killed you!” Rage-
fueled spittle flew everywhere. “And I’m twice the man he was so this
oughtta
be pretty easy
!” he said
as he advanced on me.

“Mike?” Paul shouted.

“Not yet
,
Paul
,” I said
standing back up. “Get some people in there though and see if there is a bomb because if there isn’t I would rather you just shot him.”

Dunner smiled. “Bet you’d like that, because you’re chicken shit. That’s the only way you could have beat him.”

Dunner rushed me again, I slammed a fist into his cheek it was pretty much like hitting a rhino with a fly swatter. He grabbed me around the waist and had me suspended in the air. I knew this was going to hurt badly as he drove me to the floor. The thin commercial carpeting did little to shield me from the brunt of the concrete underneath. All of the breath had been knocked out of me and I was paralyzed for a moment with pain.

Dunner stood up to admire his handiwork. “Shit
,
my woman used to put up more of a fight than you, you fucking pussy.”

I noticed he had a
rug
burn
on his knuckles from our encounter so far, at least I had caused some damage.

I was wincing with pain
,
but still able to get the understanding that yes indeed there was a bomb attached to a timer in Dunner’s room
as Paul nodded sternly in my direction a scowl lining his features.

I slowly stood
, taking in small
breath
s
,
each one sending electrifying shocks of pain down my spine.

“Didn’t think you’d get back up
,”
Dunner said
,
looking over to me.

“Glutton…
for…
punishment
,”
I whispered.

He started coming
toward
me again.

“Wait, one second
,”
I begged. “Just in the off-
chance I win, how will I get the code?”

“Not that I think there’
s a chance but
…
” Dunner walked over to me quickly, I’m ashamed to say I flinched badly
.
He
laughed as he got
close to my head and whispered,
“
Five-two-zero,
”
i
n my right ear. “
N
ow before you go getting all smart and thinking you can run away and tell them the code
,
that’s only the first three numbers out of four and you only get two chances to get it right before the f
ail
safe kicks in.”

One-in-
five still sounded like better odds than me beating this
guy in a fight.

“You ready
?” he asked
,
stepping back a pace.

“No
,” I told
him honestly.

He smirked before he bull
rushed me again. I was more prepared this time as I moved slightly to my left, his head missed my gut but his right arm wrapped around me as I brought my left knee up into his nose. He immediately let go and went a few steps past. He whipped his head up, blood flowing freely from his damaged sniffer. His eyes were watering
like lawn sprinklers.

“Fucker
!” he shouted
.

I wasn’t Dunner, I saw no need to talk when an opportunity presented itself. I turned to deliver
a hard
punch to his now tender spot.
H
e
saw
it coming and turned just enough that
it
hit his cheek
.
S
omething snapped,
either my hand or his cheek
bone. My hand w
as throbbing, but he was howl
ing
in pain and rage.

I was about to move in for a more decisive blow, but he lashed out with a roundhouse kick that
would have taken
my head off if I hadn’t ducked
.
H
e still caught the top of my dome
,
sending me off target.

I wouldn’t have thought he
had the room for that maneuver.
I
would’ve
thought wrong. And more importantly for the last time.

“Like that
?” he asked
as blood ran across his snarling teeth.
“My brother never saw the benefit in it but I’m a black belt in karate.”

“My lucky day
,” I told
him,
looking
for an opening.

He got into a classic Bruce Lee pose, he even did the finger ‘come hither’ move. I’d seen the movie
,
I didn’t ‘come hither’
.
I
’d seen
what had happened to Chuck
Norris
.

He did the gesture again, I did my own and gave him the finger. He charged me again, he might
have
know
n
martial arts
,
but anger was clouding his judgment. I moved
faster this time, getting my foot out as fast as I could, he nearly tripped
over my extended appendage, his head mere inches from crashing into the cement wall in the hallway
.
H
e put his hands up just in time to keep from crushing his skull. I turned and kicked the back of his knee collapsing his leg so he was halfway down. My next kick
hit
his exposed rib cage. I laid every ounce of my body weight into that and was rewarded with a sound
more akin to dry branches snapping on a cold winter day.

Before I could revel in my win
,
Dunner righted his ship and was once again standing and facing me. A glimmer of a grimace crossed his face but otherwise he looked fairly intact.

“I didn’t think you had it in you
,” he said
much more warily and with much less swagger in his voice. “My brother was an asshole.” He coughed, the grimace came back with a vengeance. “But he was my brother.” Dunner had been playing possum, he launched at me, his fist caught the side of my neck as I twisted away. I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to me. If he had hit my Adam’s apple
,
I
was
pretty sure he would have killed me.

I punched him hard in his already damaged side, my fist sunk much deeper than it should have. Dunner dropped to his knees.

“It’s over
,” I said
,
making sure I was out of range of his arms.

“For all of us.”

“You promised the rest of the code if I beat you
,” I told
him.

“I never promised and I’m as big an asshole as my brother
.
Y
ou’ve got no chance of getting that last digit from me.”

“How much time on the counter?” I asked out loud to the
s
ergeant who had gone into Dunner’s room to verify its existence.

“Four minutes, thirty seconds
,”
w
as his reply.

“Evac everyone as far from here as possible
,” I said

P
aul issued a couple of commands
and residents began to scurry for their lives. Paul came up to me. “He won’t give the code?”

I shook my head. Paul didn’t hesitate as he put a
bullet
through
the man’s forehead.

“Holy shit
,
Paul!” I said.

“I didn’t think you had it in you
,” Paul said
to me. “The fight
,
I mean, I really thought he was going to tear you apart.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice
,” I told
him
,
still staring at the
body
that
had been
Dunner
.
A
spreading pool of blood
was
blossoming around
his head
. “And I could say the same about you.”

“This man had threatened our very existence
.
I feel nothing for him. I feel worse for the personnel that will have to clean this mess up.”

“
Sir,
there’s a keypad for entering a stop code, should I try it?”
t
he sergeant asked. “We’re down to
three
minutes.”

“Whoa
,
hold on
,” I told
him, “He gave me the first three digits.”

“You sure about that?” Paul asked. “Because if this place goes up I would rather you weren’t anywhere near here
.
N
o matter what happens here you could still stop the invasion.”

“Let me try
,
Paul.”

“Mike
,
you have to look at the bigger picture.”

“Paul
,
I’ve got three out of four digits
,
just let me try. We get two tries.”

“And then?”

“We run like hell
,” I told
him.

I quickly
went in
to
the room. The bomb was ticking down just like you’ve seen on a hundred different shows and movies
,
but it’s much more intimidating when it’s your body parts
about
to be dispersed
.

“Alright,
so he told me
five-two-six
.
I’m thinking
 
he won’t have any repeating numbers, that leaves
zero-one-three-four-seven-eight-nine
, that’s a two in seven shot of not blowing up.
”