AN: Hello once again, here's another chapter for your reading pleasure, please enjoy (and maybe leave a review if you want (please?)). Oh, also you could probably guess from the fact that I bumped the rating up, but there is some gore in this chapter. You have been warned.
**5**
Elegant court halls gave way to the swarm. There might have been half a second between my seeing the CEO run down a corridor and moving. Racing down the more narrow side hall I didn't bother to rethink my actions. The bastard that had allowed Mount Massive to happen was within my reach, that's all I needed to know.
Doors slammed out of panic. I had no interest in anybody else here but the Walrider would be gunning for anything it could touch.
Each time I tried to reach out to it to find some direction I only met a roar of static. Running through the cloud just as blind as anyone else would be, I slowed my pace. As I stopped the voice rang in my head.
Don't just stand there, don't ruin everything we've worked for!
"I don't know where the hell I'm going!"
I had to yell above the raging noise.
Somehow the world around me got even louder, the haze even darker. If I didn't know any better I'd say that time had stopped. Suddenly I knew everything. Where every particle of the swarm lay, the layout of the hall, every detail right down to the words printed on each and every paper that lie in view of a single speck of swarm.
The weight of too much information sent me to my knees.
The sight of a single man running down the hall in a panic launched me back to my feet.
There, about twenty feet from a dead end was the man. He took a terrified, wild eyed look into the monster his company had created, then threw himself into a small room to the side. On my feet and back after the man I flew down the hall, it was at the second door from a dead end that I changed my direction. Without stopping or hesitation I ran through the door. Thick wood gave way like wet tissue paper underneath me and the swarm. I landed in the room upright, the man stood, back to the the farthest wall. I could nearly hear his heart beating out of is chest in fear.
With all the will power in the world, I reigned the swarm in; I wanted to do this with my own hands.
"s-s-stay back" he huffed out the words
"I take it you don't like it when your past catches up with you, do you?"
The guy was probably scared enough to piss his pants at this point, but a flash of confusion showed though the fear painted over his face.
Stop toying with him, just kill him now!
No! I want him to know what he's done.
I continued on despite the Walrider's trying to lunge at the man "you know, given all the shit you've caused I wouldn't be surprised if you forgot about Mount Massive."
That registered on him "Mount massive... " I could see the gears turning "wha- but the Walrider project was a failure!"
The swarm was on the verge of bursting out of my control, gray tendrils whipped forward and back "obviously not."
Before he said another word I lunged forward, swinging my fist. My knuckles popped as I made contact with the man's jaw. Under my hand I felt his bones giving way and muscle being bruised. The rage I felt in that moment washed the swarm away, I wanted to beat the son of a bitch on my own; the Walrider left me once again, it was just in this 'for the fun of it', I was in it for revenge.
Roberts went down to the ground, I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, slammed him against the window and repeated until the glass spider-webbed and threatened to shatter. On the edge of my consciousness I knew that the Walrider commanded the swarm in the hall, that the whole building had gone to hell, but in that moment it didn't matter.
The CEO slumped to the ground once more. I kicked him square in the gut then dragged him back to standing. Blood poured from a gash in the back of his head, his face was mostly unscathed. I had to fix that.
I took a second longer than I should have between beatings and he got a word out.
"why…?" sticky red spit and a broken tooth came out with the word.
The piece of shit knew why! "you killed to many people, too many lives!"
I let him huff out a couple of strained breaths, I wanted to hear what his excuse was.
"It was nothing personal…"
Fuck this guy.
With all the force I could muster without the swarms help I sent him face first into a heavy oak desk. Between meaty slaps of his head on table it seemed like he was trying to reach for a placard on the desk to fight back with so I snapped his arm at the elbow. With a gleaming white bone piercing through his arm and thread like slivers of muscle and sinew clinging to his skin I sent him flying to the window once more. This time when I looked down at him there was exposed muscle throbbing and blood dripping from his chin.
I punched him, his limp head smashed through the battered glass window. I swung again at him from the left, under my heavy hand his jaw popped from its place. His swelling face twisted and sagged under the weight of the dangling bone. My right hand landed a blow to his stomach. The CEOs crumbling body lurched upward, a sticky red spray carrying the scent of bile escaped his distorted lips.
His skin had turned a deep purple under the assault. I relented for a second to wrap a hand around his bile-slickened neck. My grasp tightened until the distorted pleading for mercy drowned in a crushed throat filled with saliva and stomach acid. The gasping and gurgling that had been frantic a second ago slowly drained away through my fingers. One of his eyes had swollen shut, the other bulged and threatened to pop from its socket.
I expected myself to be yelling, but when I spoke my words came out in a maddened whisper that reminded me too much of the broken men at the asylum "it's personal now"
I pulled him forward again, ready to throw him into another piece of furniture. As I began to swing into motion a roar filled the room and pain blossomed into my shoulder. I dropped the CEO but continued my turn. Without the Walrider or the swarm, blood ran down my arm and dripped from my hand. Standing in the doorway was a cop. Maybe young, maybe new to his job, I didn't care.
"Get on the ground!" he yelled with his gun still in hand.
I didn't move, I must have looked like a madman.
"On the ground!" he repeated himself.
I didn't move, I could feel the Walrider returning from its massacre in the courthouse. The sound of the swarm drawing near wasn't lost on anybody in the room, for a fraction of a second the cop stood still, then burst into motion to enter the room and escape the hall. I didn't make a move, instead opting to let the swarm hit me full force. As the black cloud flooded into the room, there was no way of hearing the screaming that must have been ringing the the air. In a flash the screeching died down, the blood stopped running from my wound and I swung around to face the CEO for the last time.
When I stopped I found the bastard half hanging from the window trying to make his escape. On reflex I reached out to grab him. Lines of the swarm burst out of my hand and wrapped around the CEO's own. He tumbled back, the majority of his weight out of the window; I felt the beads of the swarm digging into the muscle and bone of his wrist. More of the cloud flowed out, it moved too fast. As my hold on his wrist became tighter, the connection from his arm to hand became less stable. The flesh of his wrist was being eaten away by the swarm.
Slow down!
There was no reply of words, just waves of anger and force.
Something else made contact with my shoulder, another bullet. I made a final tug to bring the CEO back inside. His arm gave, there was a scream and a thud out of the window. The remaining bones of his hand turned to powder in my own.
In a flurry of frustration I swatted at the cop with a wall of nanobots. He flew into the hall like a rag-doll and landed with a thud, I don't think he was dead, but he didn't move after that. Looking out the window I was just in time to see the CEO being dragged off by some other police officers and civilians who thought they were being good samaritans.
I screamed out of pure frustration. It was something primal that even the Walrider joined in on. The muscle of my throat was rubbed raw, the walls shook and lights popped, even the electrical outlets began to fizzle and smoke. I charged out into the hall, more police and who knows what other kind of law enforcement would be getting here soon.
The CEO was gone, out of my reach, and some primal part of my brain knew that I had to make my escape.
Don't stop now! Find him, we're so close!
I didn't respond. I ran, every bone in my body urged me to smash in every door I passed and to level the building. To chase down the man I'd been after and rip the city apart. But I didn't. I ran. I ran and I plotted on what to do next.