No!

Ling abandoned all defense, reached out, and slapped at her father’s mind.

The monster struck her hard.

All went black.

Kade reeled, the world spinning, pain filling his head, all attack dropped, only on his feet because the gigantic door supported him.

Gun, he thought. I’ve got a gun…

Then suddenly Chen Pang stopped beating his head against the stone.

Kade blinked, tried to understand the world. Chen Pang was shaking his head, his eyes confused.

Kade reached down, into the thigh pouch of his chameleonware suit, unsnapped it.

Chen Pang’s eyes clarified. His face grew enraged again.

Kade put his hand on the gun, flipped off the safety.

Chen Pang reached forward, put his hands on Kade’s head.

Kade struggled to get the gun up, pointed at Chen.

His head slammed against the wall, painfully.

The gun was somewhere between them, the angle distorted by the press of their bodies against each other.

His head slammed again. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t think.

Kade pulled the trigger. His head slammed again. A deafening boom exploded.

He pulled it again. Another boom.

Chen Pang slumped to the ground, blood leaking from him.

Sam waited for the final blow from the Fist to come down and end her life.

Suddenly he was gone, rising, sprinting away from her.

She rolled to one knee, bleary, world spinning, head aching, wrist throbbing with pain, to try to see.

The Fist was heading for Kade.

Kade watched as Chen Pang crumpled to the ground.

Kade reached out to the monster. He could feel the virus taking hold in its mind, replicating at high speed, colonizing corner after corner, making cauterization impossible. He could feel it working. Ling had opened the door for him, and now he was going to save her.

Bits of the monster’s plan came to him, more details.

Then he saw the blur coming straight at him, beyond Chen Pang’s crumpled body.

He pulled the trigger of his pistol again, knowing it was hopeless.

More shots rang out, from elsewhere, and suddenly the blur stumbled, became a Fist, blood leaking from his chest.

Kade fired with his pistol, again and again.

The Fist punched him.

Kade felt the blow like a sledge hammer to the chest. He felt ribs crushed. Felt pain as bad as any he’d felt, from that single punch. It sent him spinning, toppling through the air, and to the stone floor inside the main chamber, on his back.

Somehow he still had his pistol.

He fired up, missed the bloody blur coming at him.

Then something black collided with it from the side, slammed it into the stone wall, hammered at it in a blur of fists and feet as it hammered back. Muzzle fire erupted at short range.

Kade couldn’t breathe.

And then the Fist was on his back.

And Sam was standing over him.

Feng wept.