Read Who Hunts the Hunter for Free Online Page B

shut behind him and he’s enveloped in pitch blackness, a dark so complete he can’t see a fragging thing.
    “Uh ... hello?”
    “Who’re you?” a gruff voice asks.
    “Hit the lights, willya?”
    “I asked you a question, kid.”
    So much for automated security systems. Confirm name, rank, and ID: nothing new about that."Guerney. Brian. From Metro Two. My super told me to report—”
    “Who’s the Deputy Director for Metro Operations?”
    “What?”
    “Answer the question!”
    “Uh ...” What the frag’s the name? “I guess that’d be Orly. Michele Orly, I think.”
    A match flares so near Brian’s face he jerks back involuntarily. In the light of that small flame, he sees a man’s round face, a face with a balding pate, a thick black mustache, heavy black brows, and eyes that gaze at him intently."Close enough,” the slag says.
    “Who the hell are you?” Brian asks.
    The guy lowers the match. He’s wearing a black vest, like an armored vest. On the left breast is an oval patch with broken block capitals that read, “Art”.
    “You the site manager here?” Brian asks.
    “You ask too many questions, kid.”
    What’s with this “kid” scag? And what the hell’s going on here, anyway? This guy “Art” is starting to look kind of lu-lu."Hey, if it’s a problem, I can head back to Metro Two. It’s lunch break anyway. Art .”
    Art sneers."Union man.”
    “You ever meet a D.W.W.M. worker who ain’t?”
    “I’m a G-67. What does that tell you?”
    Brian frowns, uncertain. He’s a G-8, himself. His super is a G-12."Nobody’s got a tech rating that high.”
    “You got a lot to learn, kid.”
    Without warning, the lights snap on. Brian covers his eyes briefly, then gets his first clear look at his surroundings and “Art.” They’re standing in a narrow hallway that leads toward the back of the building. Art is about as tall as Brian, which makes him about average height, but he’s chunky, stout. There’s a kind of pitbull-something in his expression that hints he could be a dangerous man in a fight. Beneath the vest, he wears black fatigues stuffed into the tops of mil-style boots.
    They watch each other a moment, then Art reaches behind his back and takes out what Brian recognizes as an Israeli heavy automatic."Know how to use one of these?”
    “What the frag are you talking about?”
    Art flips the pistol to him. Brian has the choice of catching it with his hands or with his face. He uses his hands. Art immediately puts his back to the wall on the left and points toward the end of the hallway, lost in blackness."There’s your target!”
    Something comes rushing out of the darkness. It looks like a gangbanger, maybe one of the Blood Monkeys, outfitted in gleaming synthleather and studs and spikes and chains. The ganger points a submachine gun at Brian’s face. Brian’s reaction is nearly automatic. He drops into a combat crouch and snaps off three quick rounds: two to the chest, one at the face.
    “Bingo,” Art says."We have a bingo.”
    In that instant, the figure rushing up the hallway comes fully into the light. It’s a dummy, like a clothing store mannequin, hung on a wire from the ceiling. The dummy’s weapon, though, looks as real as they come, a Sandler TMP."I’ll take that,” Art says, extending a hand.
    Brian considers the heavy automatic in his hand, and the man before him. Definitely lu-lu-land. Brian pops the ammo clip and ejects the one shell in the firing chamber, hands Art the pistol, but keeps the clip."I’ll hang onto this if it’s all the same to you.”
    “Suit yourself.” Art doesn’t looked pleased, but then he reaches into a pocket of his vest, pulls out another clip and slots it into the pistol, and goes on to cock the slide and return the weapon from where it came, somewhere behind his back.
    “Not bad,” he says, then turns toward the dummy."Chest shots’re okay, but the head shot’s dead on. I guess you gotta be good to make Commando