The good news was that I had a plan to do just that.
I slipped on a gas mask as I stood in the shadows, unobserved by everyone. It was a newer model with a wider lens for me to see out of, one that dipped back further so it didn’t obstruct my field of vision like a lot of the old bug-eyed models did. I thumbed a canister of tear gas off the belt I had grabbed from the armory and then another, pulling the pins loose with my index finger before I heaved them toward the middle of the lobby.
That drew attention immediately, causing three mercs to look back at me. I met their gaze with quick bursts from my submachine gun, which roared in the hall and lit the walls with muzzle flash. I ran forward and slid feet-first like a baseball player behind a makeshift barricade that the mercs had set up from a table they’d dragged out of the security room. I fired blind over it twice, letting the rounds rip with the best aim I could from my hidden position. I heard bullets come back at me, tearing into the surface of the table and ripping through, showering me with splinters. I tried not to pay attention to how close they were getting, but it’s tough to ignore it when bullets are tearing through your cover.
I heard the sound of the tear gas canisters burst, and I smiled. I counted to five then rolled right, coming out and surprising a guy who had been creeping toward me trying to flank me. I pegged him in the head, landing a few rounds in his neck before I kept rolling right, coming up in a squatting position after my next roll. I shot to my feet and fired left, hitting another guy who was emerging from the growing fog as he looked up, shocked to see someone coming at him.
I could see flashes in the tear gas, could hear the sound of gunfire and coughing in the midst of it, my finely tuned meta senses combining with adrenaline to keep me on point. I dodged left as I felt bullets whipping to my right and I grabbed at another dark figure emerging from the mist as he came within arm’s length of me. I threw him without letting him get close, just whirled and tossed him by the front of his vest before he could whip his gun around or react to me in any way. I heard him land after a twenty-foot flight, and it didn’t sound like one he’d walk away from. I was already moving on, though.
I came upon two more figures, huddled behind the security desk. They were emerging as they coughed, and I mercilessly hit the first in the neck with a knifehand strike that sent him to his knees, choking even worse than he already was. The next caught a perfectly aimed kick to the knee that caused him to scream in pain as he fell toward me, head thumping against the Kevlar on my chest. I saw him fumbling for his gun and knew I couldn’t chance it. I grabbed him around the neck just like you see in the movies, and I wrenched it so hard it broke his vertebrae. It was instinctual, it was thoughtless, and he fell from my grip like the dead weight he now was. I shoved aside the thought of what I’d done, pushing it off to the back of my mind for later.
I was in my groove now, and the tear gas was starting to clear, dispersing in the massive atrium of the dormitory building. As it thinned, I caught glimpse of another cluster of three, just catching their collective breath, hands still on their guns. They were carrying European assault rifles, bullpup design, which I didn’t recognize right off because of the fog of tear gas in the room. My face was starting to sweat inside my mask, making it more difficult to see.
I charged the three of them and swatted away the barrel the first pointed at me as he fired. I heard glass breaking as the rounds shattered the windows out front and then a sound of clanging metal as the round met the shutters outside. I jerked the barrel down even as I felt the hot metal in my hand and pulled my weapon around, firing a three-shot burst under his visor, which looked like an oversized motorcycle helmet. Crimson splattered the clear mask, and blood pumped down his neck as he fell limp to the floor.
I didn’t spare any mercy for the next either, booting him in the groin with a kick that would have scored a fifty-yard field goal if it had been aimed at a football. The man on the receiving team screamed and dropped to his knees, all thoughts of keeping a grip on his rifle forgotten. I raised a knee to knock his helmet off and then finished him with a backhand to the face that shattered any semblance of a nose that he might have started out with.
The last of the triad caught a shot in the gut, and when he doubled over I knocked his helmet off and planted a palm on his forehead, then shoved as hard as I could. From a normal human, it probably would have staggered him. Because it was me, the back of his neck cracked, his feet flew out from underneath him, and his skull hit the floor hard enough that it made a wet spot on my shoes that probably wouldn’t ever come off.