With resignation to the fact that he would probably soon be killing again, Shahim leant forward to climb through into the other basement, noting with some curiosity the large, metallic seeming pillar that his sensors told him was just to the right of the entrance, but seeing a moment too late that it was wearing clothes.

* * *

Just inside the door, John Hunt stood above him. He was not using active scanning so as not to alert the other Agent to his presence, but Shahim was pumping out so much IR, X-ray, and microwave pulses, he was like a beacon.

He saw the other Agent’s head start to come through the gap. He had hoped that it would not come to this. He had hoped that Shahim would not look behind the curtain.

* * *

Shahim saw the front of a shoe, he did not see any heat from it so he assumed it could not be on someone’s foot. He saw, overlaid with heat imaging, that it was dead and metallic inside. No, not metallic. What was it made of? He turned his head, looking up. His scans told him with certainty that this was not a person, so what was it, a mannequin?

Fractions of a second passed as his eyes moved up the side of the object just inside the room, while his tactical analysis tried to reconcile the information being returned with known human material science to provide some kind of reasonable conclusion.

As John saw the threat was not going to pass, he knew it was time.

The scene changed with blinding rapidity.

John flexed his hand down in an impossibly fast movement, his fingers aiming for the other Agent’s left eye.

Shahim’s machine brain registered the threat coming at him a moment later, tactical analyses springing to life in the nanosecond before his consciousness could even work out what was happening. The analysis showed the only conclusion it could: he was being attacked by another Agent.

Several automated responses kicked in, and within a tenth of a second Shahim’s weapons array was already starting to deploy, John’s hand flying through the air in front of him, even as Shahim’s fake left pupil started rolling down.

Shahim started to pull away, back through the hole he was coming through, and John reacted. Shahim could not be allowed to escape. Redirecting his hands’ movements, he went instead to grab the other Agent’s head, turning and dropping to the floor as he did so, to try and get the purchase he would need to drag Shahim into the room by force.

As John began dropping into view, Shahim’s head was still coming up, his left eye still receding, his weapons array still emerging. This was only the first tenths of a second, but these moments were vital, as the two combatants made their first moves in the deadly game, getting in position, pawns moving forward to try and establish control.