Vs. Blocky and Bombhead

Time, which had been inching forward almost imperceptibly, blasted ahead in a gut-lurching blur. My pneumatic quadriceps launched me straight ahead. I was fifteen feet from the tree line, an impossible distance to cover without taking a bullet. Machine guns erupted on both sides. I dove, rolled once, and came up directly between the two shooters. In a blink of the eye I’d flattened our triangle to a straight line. They hadn’t expected me to move so quickly, not in calf-deep snow, and now they were in each other’s crossfire.

The gunfire ceased. I didn’t. A savage impulse threw me straight ahead into the trees. I dodged left then right around birch trucks, my rocket-fuelled legs churning like pistons. I don’t remember forming a plan. I didn’t have one. It was all instinct. Savage memory from epochs past. Survive. I angled toward Blocky. I couldn’t have voiced it, yet I knew his ungloved trigger finger would be slowed by the cold.

Through the trees I saw Blocky pivot toward me. His gun come up, spurting fire. But I’d zigged to the right behind an eight inch birch. Bullets sprayed the snow where I’d been. I’d be dead in a second unless I came up with something drastic. My eyes fell upon the birch. Its once paper-white bark was spotted with cubical rot. Was it possible? Probably not. Did I have a choice? No, I didn’t. I lowered my shoulder and rammed the tree, hoping to fell it straight atop Blocky just like the steel warehouse door.

Pain exploded in my hardened colar bone as the rot-brittled trunk buckled with a deafening crack. The tree shook, angled forward . . . and held.

My one shot at survival had air-balled.

With death imminent, I spun off the the tree to the right. Blocky stood ten feet from me now. Nothing between us but snow. All he had to do was put a bullet in me. But suddenly it was snowing. No. Not snowing. A thick blanket of white glommed down onto Blocky’s helmet from the branches of the birch I’d just slammed, momentarily blocking his already limited vision. His left hand released his rifle to clear his visor of snow. He shook his helmeted head, right, then left, and found me barrelling down on him. His hand flew back to his rifle, but the falling snow had bought me the extra quarter second I needed. Fist and helmet collided as the HK416 erupted beneath me.

Was I hit? Who fucking knows. The Leviathan had taken over, and he didn’t feel pain. My flying superman punch had knocked Blocky’s helmet clean off his square head. We fell to the snow in a tangle of limbs. A savage wrestle ensued, life and death hanging in the balance. He was strong. Incredibly strong. Bucking and jerking beneath me, he hammered my head and neck with heavy blows, any one of which would have felled a normal man. But at the moment, I was no man. My forged steel fists reared back wide, then descended like twin wrecking balls onto the sides of Blocky’s snarling face. Knuckles collided where once had been brainstem. Loosing a savage roar I ripped free my hands and surveyed the wreckage. Blocky was very, very dead.

Then, all at once, a colossal weight descended upon me, as if the air itself had turned to lead. Every superpower has its drawback. The last molecule of adrenaline inside my body had been used up. An overabundance of tryptophan flooded my cells and I collapsed backward into the snow. I lay there, barely able to lift an eyelid. A crunch of footsteps reached my ears. The second shooter edged slowly into view, rifle raised.

I searched desperately within me for The Leviathan, but as quickly as he’d arrived, he was gone.

Full-blown central nervous system fatigue is just as shitty as it sounds. As I said, every superpower has its drawback. Hysterical strength is great, but in just over a minute I’d burned through every last molecule of glycogen in my body, and now my cells were quite literally running on empty. I’d mega-bonked. I felt as though I’d been hit by a cement truck. My brain, which had been functioning at hyper-speed, was suddenly stuffed with cotton, and despite the machine gun aimed at my face, the best plan I could come up with on short notice was taking a nap.

I closed my eyes. It was very quiet. Peaceful. I almost drifted off but a crunch of snow jolted me back to consciousness. I kept my eyes closed, pulled in a lungful of air through my nose. Let it out. After a couple more I found the strength to force one eyelid open a crack. It felt like sprinting a mile.

The second gunman edged toward me through the snow, aiming his rifle as best he could in that ridiculous helmet. He tip-toed, carefully, as if on thin ice. Thirty feet away. Twenty-five. I closed my eye again and focused on my breathing, trying hard not to fall asleep. Somewhere far off the careful crunching continued, the only sound in the silent night. I breathed in and out. It was extremely hard work. I searched high and low for a couple molecules of ATP. Found enough to crack my eyelid again. The guy had stopped twenty feet away. I wondered why. It was almost a guaranteed killshot from that distance, even with that stupid helmet, but closer was better. I had no clue why he hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a weird moaning sound and a bit of drool. The effort awarded me a brief spat of unconsciousness. When I came to, the guy was still standing there. I needed energy. It took me a good few minutes to process the next thought: In your pocket you fucking moron. Oh yeah. The chocolate chips.

Pulling my right hand back six inches felt like free-climbing El Capitan, but somehow I managed to get my right hand to my jacket pocket. The gunman didn’t react. Again, I wondered why. The zipper was next. The coordination needed to pinch my fingers and pull the fucking thing felt like solving the Unified Field Theory. Part of me hoped the guy would just shoot me.

More time passed. Mysteriously, I stayed hole-free. I got a thumb to the zipper. Then an index finger. Somewhere I found the strength to paw it down a few inches. Chocolate chips cascaded in mini-avalanche into my open palm. Bingo. Now I just had to get hand to face.

Still no new holes. What was the guy doing? Probably laughing as he watched me spend my last few seconds on earth trying to eat a few fucking chocolate chips. I scraped my hand across the snow toward my mouth. One inch. Two. It made a hell of a racket in the silent night.

...

“For what’s it’s worth,” he said. “I would’ve bet on you.” I said nothing. After a moment, he raised the rifle. “Sorry,” he said. I gave a thumbs up.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

The bullet struck home before I ever heard the shot.

...

“So what was the plan?” asked Kiira. We were back at Maldonado’s eating what was for Kiira and Gow an early dinner and for me a very late breakfast. After returning from the Death Match I’d skulled a gallon of chocolate milk, thawed out in the sauna for half an hour, then slept most of the day. I felt ok, all things considered.

“Stay near the fence,” I said, forking steak and eggs into my mouth. “So Gow could put a bullet in anyone who looked likely to kill me.”
-Sledge vs. The Labyrinth, pg. 183-193