Feng’s foot collided with his brother’s head in mid-air. Flame burst from the muzzle of the other Fist’s assault rifle. Bullets slammed into the stone centimeters from her, ricocheted through the space.

Sam’s half-flip brought her over closer to the console.

Feng’s attack carried him, and the unknown Fist he’d kicked, out of Sam’s sight.

Where were the other two shooters?

Then a second Fist slammed into her from out of nowhere, his foot colliding with her mid-section.

Pain burst through her. The force of it knocked her off her feet, toppled her back. Her head collided with the polished stone floor as her body slid back. Stars appeared in her vision.

Sam looked up and the Fist was flying through the air, coming down on her with all his momentum led by the heel of one foot, aiming at her chest.

She rolled, brought the assault rifle around and up, pulled the trigger, pulled it again.

The Fist twisted somehow in midair, landed sideways, one foot slamming down on her hand that held the assault rifle, brutally pinning it, trapping the arm, sending more pain flaring up through her wrist.

He brought his own fist down in a hammer blow at her head.

Sam blocked with her left arm, barely got it up in time.

The blow slammed down through her block, through the layers of armor built into the visor and the hood, brutally hammered her skull against the hard stone floor.

Pain exploded through her head. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. He was too strong. Too fast. Not human. She was going to die here.

The Avatar shredded the viral attack to pieces, sent messages to her servants, prepared to pounce on the boy in a new way.

Then she moaned in pain as something reached out through her from below, disrupting her, pushing aside her efforts, interrupting her phage transmission for a millisecond.

More viruses landed in that millisecond, some slipping past firewalls.

AAAAAH!

Ling!

The girl was rising up, into the nanite nodes the Avatar had been forced to cut out of her network, using them to disrupt her mother’s plans!

Viruses were replicating, taking hold, spreading out of control!

She struck out viciously at the child. She’d kill her if she must! This was the most crucial moment!

Kade pushed forward, mutated the attack again, red lights flashing, his head throbbing with pain and heat. Exhaustion pushed through him.

Then something grabbed his head, slammed it against the hard stone of the door, again, again, again.

Thought turned to confusion. He looked up, caught a glimpse of a middle aged man in a suit, his face enraged.

Chen Pang slammed Kade’s head into the stone of the giant door again.

Ling felt the monster attack her, all out this time, no mercy. She could see the beast’s thoughts. See what it feared.

See Kade. See Feng.

See her father killing Kade.