Doom

And it was as if the confrontation triggered something in both of them — an outpouring of sheer power, issuing from their newly transformed cells.

Sarge rushed Reaper, who used the rush’s momentum and his own enhanced power to throw Sarge — and was amazed himself to see how far: Sarge was flung up to a metal catwalk overlooking the chamber. Sarge was momentarily stunned and in seconds, leaping and pulling himself up, Reaper was there beside him, grappling with Sarge, pinning him facedown against the catwalk’s tubular metal railing with such force that the railing began to bend, to crack. But it was Sarge’s neck Reaper was trying to crack, to choke, as he pressed it against the metal. Feeling Sarge gathering his strength, Reaper braced, but it was like trying to hold down a volcano as Sarge erupted, and Reaper felt himself tossed like a projectile, off the catwalk, to tumble through the air and slam to the floor below.

Stunned, Reaper looked up to see Sarge ripping off part of the broken metal railing, then leaping down at him.

Reaper got his feet under him, jumped back, set himself…

And then stared, as he saw Sarge bending the long chunk of metal in his hand, effortlessly twisting it around his lower right arm, wrist, and fist, making a gauntlet edged with ragged metal.

Reaper’s reactions were a little slow — he was still slightly stunned from the fall. Sarge was on him before he could sidestep, slamming into him with the improvised gauntlet, pummeling Reaper, throwing him against the wall, hitting him and throwing him once more, so that Reaper felt like he was inside a cement mixer, tossed back and forth between unforgiving slabs of metal and stone…

Reaper blocked what blows he could, landed in ways that protected him from the worst of the impacts, waiting for his chance — and it came when Sarge tripped, fell, blinking, black blood running from a dozen wounds in his face and neck.

Reaper set himself for a final, killing blow, planning to dropkick Sarge’s head into the pillar behind him.

Then Sarge looked up at him, holding Reaper’s eyes with his. Making him hesitate that fatal split second…

And Sarge grinned as he said: “Welcome to the new school…”

Reaper stared, fascinated, as Sarge began to change — the transformation that had begun in him thickened his skull, deepened his eyes, turning them demon-yellow; his hands grew claws.

Reaper knew he had to take the offensive, and he lunged at Sarge — but Sarge reacted with superhuman speed, catching Reaper’s fist in his claws, digging his talons into his wrists, pushing back…

And they held the pose, straining there, the two warriors, human and inhuman, going eyeball-to-eyeball. The two of them struggling to overbalance the other, turning like dancers — so that the Ark, with its ever-shifting mercurial droplet, hung in the air right behind Sarge. Reaper reached deep inside himself for strength and braced, then threw Sarge to one side — just long enough to reach over and stab the buttons activating the Ark.

Reaper turned to see Sarge twisting a piece of metal on his gauntlet into a spike, and he lunged at Reaper, who sidestepped, but not fast enough to avoid a slash from that improvised dagger. He threw a hand out to block it and Sarge plunged the raw blade into Reaper’s right hand — and through it. Reaper reeled with pain, as Sarge pressed the blade, and Reaper’s hand, back toward Reaper’s head, his other hand clamping Reaper’s left…

Reaper tried to put all his strength into his left hand, but it was like he was trying to stop an onrushing rhino.

A voice spoke from a nearby comm screen:

“ARK ACTIVATED…”

Reaper had one second and in that one second, one chance. “Like the Kid said, Sarge…Go to hell!”

He shifted to his left foot, pivoted, ignoring the pain, and body-kicked Sarge hard with every ounce of strength left — so hard that Sarge was propelled backward, the spike and Sarge flying back…

And Sarge was swallowed up by the Ark.

Reaper stared at his injured hand — the change in him had already absorbed much of the injury, and the pain was fading.

He smiled thinly, then reached into a pocket, pulled a grenade, activated it — and tossed it into the Ark after Sarge.

Roaring with rage, Sarge spun and whipped and plummeted between worlds, falling and flying both…to tumble, at last, into the Ark facility on Olduvai…on the planet Mars.

Sarge, at the other end, leapt to his feet, roaring with fury at Reaper’s success. He was blind with rage, looking for his enemy.

Then he stared at something that clattered from the Ark, following him through from Earth, rolling to a stop right in front of him. Inches away from his foot.

Reaper’s grenade, pin missing.

Sarge opened his mouth to curse, but the curse was already spoken and the grenade exploded, consuming Sarge and the Ark in a ball of flame…that only got bigger. And bigger.

The chain reaction grew exponentially in heat and velocity, a quantum–fusion reaction expanding to culminate, to fulminate, in the power of an unleashed thermonuclear warhead.

The wormhole chamber on Mars, the atrium, the entire facility — all traces of Carmack’s experiments — were consumed, vaporized in the growing fireball. It was a white-hot fiery roar of rage, a conflagration that seemed to express, all at once, the horror and fear and anger at what had taken place here: a blinding light of thermonuclear catharsis.

Instinct, enhanced psychic sensitivity, led Reaper to his sister. She was only dimly conscious as he picked her up, murmuring to soothe her, carrying her to the elevator. It rocketed upward, carrying them to the surface of the facility at Papoose Lake, to the glorious open air of the Nevada wilderness. The explosives he’d set would destroy the last of the genetic demons.

Looking up through the open top of the elevator, he could see the sunlight reaching down to greet them.

He looked fondly down at her. The sunlight streamed across her face.

“Almost home, Sam…” he said.

She smiled up at him — safe in her brother’s arms.

eBook Info

Title:

Doom

Creator:

John Shirley

Date:

2005

Type:

novel

Identifier:

ISBN 1-4165-2410-X

Rights:

Doom, the movie novel © 2005 by Universal Studios Licensing LLLP.