I grabbed his gun as he fell and braced the stock against my shoulder. Seeing action heroes fire two guns in movies always made me cringe because normal humans can’t really do it effectively. The aim goes all to hell because the recoil throws it off with every shot and their reflexes aren’t good enough to bring it back to center in a time-efficient manner. Rapid fire is an even worse idea because accuracy progressively deteriorates every time the gun fires and the barrel rocks back.
I had meta strength, however, and the recoil didn’t affect me at all. I kept the submachine gun and the rifle fairly steady as I fired them both at two clusters of targets, men in black who were emerging from the fog. Six of them came out firing or ready to, and I pegged the first with enough bullets to send him to the ground with a pain in the chest. The next two on each side took rounds to the chest and neck respectively, ending at least one of their breathing careers. I adjusted my aim upward for the third on my left, and he took three bullets to the helmet, shattering the visor and splattering it with gore. The other guy got hit in the chest and staggered back, landing hard. I surged forward and kicked one of the survivors in the guts, taking all the wind out of him, sending him flipping in a roll straight into a wall. Another was starting to get up, gun in hand, so I raised the rifle and fired into him only a few feet away. I could see the bullets penetrate his Kevlar and red begin to run down the black vest he wore. I shot the next two who were also moving, scoring a hit to the side of the helmet that penetrated through and one to the other guy’s legs that hit his femoral artery. His leg started to gush blood, and I knew he had only a minute or two of life left in him before he bled to death.
“Looks like you guys are the Expendables,” I said, “but without the benefit of having Sly Stallone as the brains of your operation.”
The tear gas was almost clear, and I knocked my mask off my head with an offhand flick of my wrist. The once-stale air now caused a sharp tingle when I breathed it, like I’d bitten into a jalapeno. I could see five more guys ahead, toward the hallway opposite where I’d entered, and I fired at the first with the rifle because they were far enough away I didn’t want to chance it with the submachine gun. I veered right and ducked behind the corner of the wall before peering out and firing again, using my precision to blast one of the guys in the head. I didn’t see him for more than a second before I had to duck behind the corner of the wall as it started to absorb a hail of bullets, but I knew he wasn’t getting back up.
I took a few steps back from the corner as the drywall continued to break down from the gunfire of my adversaries. The entire corner was just about chipped off now, with a half-foot indentation from where they’d tried to shoot through the wall to get to me. It wasn’t a bad idea, actually, but I’d backed about six feet away from the corner, anticipating that exact strategy. The further away I got, the less likely they were going to hit me on a blind shot.
My shoe squeaked on the tile and I was thankful yet again that I always stuck with flats instead of heels. I was also wearing pants instead of a skirt because I knew what kind of job I was really in. Paperwork and desk bullshit aside, this was my office, in the thick of the fight. My purpose was to save metakind, and wearing heels and a skirt while sitting behind a desk was never in the job description.
I dropped the submachine gun and took off at a run for the corner. Just as I reached it I slid like a baseball player, letting the seat of my pants slide on the tile. My momentum carried me forward across the unresistant surface and I went sliding across the mouth of the hallway, rifle at the ready. As I went past, I heard the remaining three open fire, but they were too slow and I was too fast. I opened up with the rifle and caught the first one under the chin. He sagged, all the starch taken out of him. The next I caught lower, just under his vest, bullets tearing into his belly, and he groaned in pain and started to drop.
I couldn’t get a bead on the last of them before I disappeared behind the corner of the other side of the hallway. I pulled the rifle sling off my shoulders because I knew I was just about out of ammo. I reached to my hip and pulled my Glock and sprang to my feet. I ran at the corner again, but this time instead of sliding I jumped into the air, starting to execute a flip.
In the movies, they show this sort of thing in slow motion, two guns firing simultaneously. It was utterly ludicrous for a normal person to even think about trying, but again, I was not normal. Even with my dexterity and reflexes, though, it was a hard shot with just the one gun I was holding. I managed to land two out of the five shots I fired, one hitting the last mercenary in the torso, the other knocking his helmet off without breaking through it. I could see him trying to shake off the shock of what had just happened, even as he staggered under the pain and bruising from the gunshot to the chest. He bounced off the wall, trying to catch his balance, and took aim at me just as I landed, flat on my back.