Goliath

“To experience the hunt, you must release me, then try to recapture me before I can escape.”

CHALLENGE UNACCEPTABLE. DAVID PANIAGUA’S ORDERS ARE TO PREVENT GUNNAR WOLFE FROM LEAVING THIS COMPARTMENT ALIVE.

“David’s orders? I thought you were giving the orders around here?”

No response.

“You cannot experience the hunt without suitable prey.”

No response.

“There is one way you could still experience the enlightenment of the hunt and still be in compliance with David’s orders.”

ELABORATE.

“David never said anything about releasing me from your targeting drone. Let me go, then hunt me down within this compartment. The watertight door is sealed, so there’s no way I could possibly escape.”

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. The mechanical hand opens, releasing Gunnar, who drops six feet, collapsing in a heap upon the deck.

The drone swoops in again, grabbing one of his wrists.

“Wait a second! There are rules to the hunt. You’ll never enhance your self-awareness if you don’t obey the rules.”

ELABORATE THE RULES.

“The rules are simple: Before we begin, you have to give me, the hunted, a few minutes to recover. There’s no challenge in recapturing me if I’m not prepared.”

The graphite-and-steel claw releases him.

YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO RECOVER.

Gunnar shakes his arms. His hands feel like rubber, still not his to control. “Sorceress, two minutes is not enough time. The circulation in my hands has not—”

YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS TO RECOVER.

Gunnar stands, slapping his hands harder against his thighs, feeling pins and needles in his fingers as he forces the blood into them.

The targeting drones swivel in unison, following him as he paces the weapons compartment.

YOU HAVE FIFTY SECONDS TO RECOVER.

Gunnar opens and closes his hands, the returning circulation causing his fingers to throb as his gray eyes focus on the handgun, lying beneath the torpedo rack.

YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO RECOVER.

He drops to one knee, using his upper body to conceal the weapon from the sensor orb mounted in the ceiling. Gently, he lifts the gun with his right hand. Steadying it in his left, he releases the safety.

ONCE MORE THEN, TO THE THRILL OF THE HUNT …

Simon’s voice?

YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS—

Gunnar wheels around, comes up firing.

Six shots—the first two ricocheting harmlessly off the ceiling, the third sending sparks and smoke flying from the sensor orb’s audio monitor, the last three shattering the scarlet lens of the computer’s eyeball, shards of glass raining atop his head and back.

Diving sideways, Gunnar barely avoids the three-pronged hands of two targeting drones, which lash out toward him, snatching nothing but air.

GUNNAR WOLFE—

Ignoring the female’s voice, Gunnar crawls on all fours, taking momentary refuge beneath an A-shaped rack of torpedoes. He slows his breathing, forcing himself to remain quiet.

GUNNAR WOLFE, YOU WILL RESPOND OR DIE.

The female’s voice—noticeably more insistent, almost humanlike in its frustration.

The sound of the sparking audio monitor masks his breaths as he scans the compartment for the underwater mine. On the opposite side of the room he spots a steel trunk, mounted to the decking.

GUNNAR WOLFE, YOU WILL RESPOND IMMEDIATELY, OR YOU WILL DIE IN GREAT PAIN. I WILL REMOVE YOUR SKULL. I SHALL ACCESS YOUR PAIN RECEPTORS. THERE WILL BE NO MERCY UNLESS YOU RESPOND IMMEDIATELY.

The computer’s learned how to use fear as a tool to manipulate. Clever machine … Gunnar rises quietly onto the balls of his feet. Moving out from beneath the rack, he stands and tosses the handgun far to his right.

Instantly, a half dozen targeting drones swivel along the ceiling in mirrorlike precision, lashing out blindly at the source of the sound. Steel-and-graphite claws snap as they slice through the air, while two bulkier deck-mounted loader drones rotate in position, their powerful seven-foot-long arms extending outward, groping blindly—

—while, on the opposite side of the weapons bay, Gunnar silently weaves his way toward the steel trunk.

NOW YOU WILL DIE, GUNNAR WOLFE. NOW YOU WILL DIE. The female’s voice, ranting at a higher pitch.