I spent several precarious minutes trying not to get shot while sending my senses outward to weed through the myriad of thoughts in this compound. At last, I found the ones I was looking for, and for once, he wasn’t singing something to himself. Madigan was implementing emergency security procedures that had never before been needed, all while rushing to get to a safe place in the facility.

I focused on his thoughts as if they were a homing beacon. Then I used the straps to hang two M-4s around my neck before I yanked up a large thermal control unit. Holding the metal machine in front of me, I flew toward the opposite corner of the enclosed space, wincing as more rounds found their mark. Still, none of them were near my head. I couldn’t fire back while holding the bulky unit, but it was an effective, if crude, bulletproof shield.

I also used it as a battering ram when I shoved it above my head and propelled myself upward at the same time. Debris hampered my vision, and my lower half took the brunt of gunfire as I forced myself through concrete, wood, and steel to the next level above me. It took longer since this section was far more reinforced than the other one I’d blasted through. Then, amidst a cloud of dust and insulation particles, I looked for Madigan. He wasn’t here, but from his thoughts, he was close. Before I could leave to search for him, a new set of guards rushed up to the single doorway. Without hesitation, I chucked the demolished coolant machine at them.

With the supernatural speed I’d used, it made a smear out of the ones it hit, but sadly, that was only a few of them. The rest poured through the door while opening fire.

I tried to escape by smashing through the nearest wall and ended up splatting against it as though I were in a cartoon. The room I’d forced my way into had steel walls that had to be two feet thick and its single door sealed shut with the ominous sound of heavy locks. When I tried to force my way through the roof next, I had the same dismal results, with an added detriment of cracking my skull hard enough to daze me.

This was no ordinary office. With its lack of furniture or other fixtures, plus its incredibly thick steel walls and door, it had to be a panic room. The only way out was down, and a glance into the hole I’d made showed almost a dozen guards with weapons aimed right at me.

Son of a bitch, I’d trapped myself in Madigan’s panic room before the bastard made it in here!

“Switch to silver ammo,” a helmeted guard barked, to the accompanying sound of multiple magazines being slammed home.

Uh-oh. I tried to jam their weapons with my borrowed telekinetic abilities, but it didn’t work, probably because my head still really hurt. I didn’t think all the cracks in my skull had knit back together yet, and I didn’t want to know what the wet, sticky thing was dripping down my neck.