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Willis turned his back to Buzzer, finished the conversation and laid the small headset on the desktop. As Willis turned back to face Buzzer, he gave a slight hand signal to the security guards who were surrounding the Guarder.

Buzzer took a small step back as all ten men swung up their half-chargers and aimed at him. Willis stood relaxed and smiled. "Would you please come with me, sir?"

"I'm sorry, no."

Willis blinked in reaction to the blunt refusal. "I think that you are far too outnumbered to play these kinds of games, policeman..." Willis drawled the last word as the ten men surrounding Buzzer snickered.

Buzzer unholstered his blaster and brought it up to bear on Willis' head. The move had been so quick that most of the security guards were still snickering among themselves before they realized the sudden change in events. Willis stared wide-eyed at the small black hole of the blaster's muzzle in front of his face. "Any one of those men fires at me and I'll be dead. That doesn't bother me, I accepted the hazards of this job the day I was sworn in. But rest assured, Mr. Willis, I've never missed an intended target in my life, especially at this range. If I die here in this building, you will die right alongside me."

Buzzer felt the electricity in the air. Willis was frozen with fear, his eyes totally fixed on the weapon in his face. The room was silent, the only sound was the heavy breathing coming from Willis. "Put down your Goddamn guns already!" Willis snarled, eyes unmoving.

Eight of the guards responded to this order immediately by lowering their weapons, the other two looked skeptical. Willis glared at them and snarled. "Do it now!"

"Negative, Mr. Willis," one of the guards rasped as his finger began to tighten on the trigger of his powerful weapon. "This man is outnumbered and outgunned and he is mine."

The huge blast from the half-charger rocked the wall on the other side of the room. Buzzer came out of his dive and crouched behind one corner of the reception desk. He had fired twice while maneuvering and saw two men go down hard in a spray of blood and gore, one of them being the man who had fired first.

The other eight men scattered throughout the lobby trying to find any cover they could. Willis pulled out his blaster and scanned the large open area for Buzzer. From another position and two blasts later, two more Duncan Enterprises security personnel went down. Buzzer was up and running now, only seven opponents left in the field of battle. Although he was well aware that the entire complex would soon be swarming with well armed security guards, these seven were his most pressing problem. He had to move quickly or he would surely be pinned down somewhere in this room. Buzzer did not intend to allow that to happen. Poorly aimed fire followed him in his sprint down a side corridor. He swung around on the run, fired several rounds from his blaster and watched another man fall dead as several others who were beginning to pursue dove, once again, to the carpeted floor.

Buzzer turned a corner and fired again, hitting another target squarely in the chest from a distance of about ten meters. The body immediately hit the carpet and tripped up another who was close behind. Buzzer took advantage of this man's sprawl in the hallway and put one in the top of his head, the body spasmed jerkily as blood washed into the carpet. There were only four opponents left. He raced down a connecting corridor and found himself surrounded on two sides by lift terminals, with a closed door straight ahead. It was a dead end. Cursing to himself, he searched for any type of alternate route out of there. At any moment, any one of the lifts could open up and disgorge another dozen or so of Duncan's guards.

The lone door flew open in front of him and he leveled the first man to show himself with a blast to the mid-section. The door closed quickly but would soon be opening again. Buzzer went to the corner of the corridor and chanced a quick look around the connecting hall searching for Willis, couldn't find him, and fired on two approaching guards instead. Both men dropped to the floor, neither of them dead but both badly wounded and screaming in pain.

Two sets of lift doors suddenly slid open and men in uniform began streaming out. Buzzer fired quick bursts into one of the cars and saw blood splatter the walls as he quickly leaped into the other car. The five men still inside were taken completely by surprise as the new occupant began to fight furiously. Two well placed kicks knocked down two of the guards. The other three tried to rush him simultaneously in the small space. Buzzer dropped into a crouch and fired his blaster. The lower leg of one man disappeared in a red spray of blood and bone. The howling shrieks pierced Buzzer's ears as he brought an elbow up under the man's chin, knocking him unconscious. Someone grabbed him from behind and Buzzer threw his weight to one side, throwing the man over his shoulder to land head-first against the lift-car's control panel. He heard a sickening crunch, and the body slumped to the floor as the car abruptly began to climb. The sudden buck of the car threw the last man off balance and Buzzer took the clear shot at the man's head. Buzzer found himself breathing hard as he scanned the five men and determined any remaining threat. Only two of the men were conscious and moaning, grasping their badly bruised groins, the targets of Buzzer's first two kicks. One other was unconscious, one's head was bent at a very lethal angle and the headless one would never move again.

Buzzer leaned against the wall and tried to control his breathing. The two conscious men would become potential threats once they regained their composure, and thus had to be rendered inoperative, at least temporarily. He bent down and grabbed each of them by the jaw. "Clench your teeth hard," he told them. "Or you'll bite off your tongues."

The two guards looked at him through painful and confused expressions just before he rammed their heads together. Both men slumped on top of each other, unconscious. Quickly scanning the control panel, Buzzer punched in for Level#56. The car rapidly decelerated and came screeching to a halt. The doors opened. Buzzer was ready for a firefight but there was nothing there to meet him. The sounds of people in the surrounding offices reached his ears slightly. It seemed that even at this late hour, Duncan Enterprises still bustled with activity. He would make it a point to steer clear of the innocent employees.

He stole a quick glance into the corridor and found it empty. Buzzer punched in a command for the lift-car to stay put on Level#56 and walked out of the car, blaster up and ready.

The sudden noise of other lift-cars approaching made him swing suddenly toward the shafts. Three sets of doors slid open and guards began pouring out. Buzzer burst into action. His back- up mini-blaster filled his left hand and both guns began firing on the ill prepared security guards. He fired at men, light fixtures, control panels, and everything else that would cause confusion as he dove back into the lift he had just vacated and destroyed the car's control panel with a quick blast. The car immediately began to descend, following pre-programmed fail-safe procedures in case of damage.

This little quest of his had fast turned into something ugly, he thought as he tried to plan out his next move. The car rocked violently as it came to an abrupt stop, stuck between levels. Buzzer was thrown to the floor of the car but quickly scrambled over to the destroyed control panel to see if he could remedy the situation.

Blasts from weapons powerful enough to be half-chargers shook the car as guards fired from the open shaft above. Buzzer understood now just what they intended to do. If they could succeed in destroying the mounting clamps which held the car to the shaft, the lift-car would plummet more than forty levels and he would be crushed on impact from the force of the downward plunge.

The sudden rush of rapid falling told Buzzer that the guards had succeeded. He blasted a hole through the roof-hatch, leaped to grasp the jagged edge, scrambled out of the lift-car and stood on top. In the very next shaft, another lift was climbing up, probably full of fresh security guards eager to join the hunt. Leaping off of his doomed car, he landed hard on the roof of the other. The loud thud caused him considerable pain and the sudden attack of angry voices coming from inside the car made it clear that the men inside knew that something strange was going on up top. Buzzer had a momentary vision of the men below blasting their way through the roof-hatch of the car, and blasting him to pieces in the process.

The car he'd just leapt off of disintegrated as it hit the bottom of the shaft. Buzzer quickly reached into a pocket and brought out a single marble grenade. Activating the tiny explosive device, he blasted a hole through the roof-hatch, threw it inside and flung himself to the side of the car.

In less than three seconds, the men inside discovered the small object, realized its purpose and began to panic. The small explosion buckled the walls of the car and silenced themen inside forever. Buzzer couldn't wait for the smoke to clear and jumped into the hatch as fire poured down from above. The men who had destroyed the mounting clamps on the original car were now firing down on this one but the car quickly passed their level and kept on climbing. Blood and body parts littered the floor panels and walls of the

damaged lift. He looked over the damaged but still operational control panel and punched in for Level#160, Kelsington Duncan's penthouse suite. The panel declined the command and asked for a security code.

Buzzer had no idea what type of code would be used by Duncan himself so he settled on punching for Level#150. He would work his way up from there, play it safe and test out the area. He hadn't realized how much security Duncan possessed. Even if these men were not really qualified for their positions, their sheer numbers and firepower proved them to be serious threats to his chosen mission. He had also miscalculated Duncan's nerve and gall.

The man had ordered the death of an U.E.N. Guarder, an act that would bring the wrath of every single Guarder in the ranks, all two-hundred of them, upon him. The Squadron wouldn't rest until Kelsington Duncan had paid for such an act, paid equally, with his own life. Sergeant Jekel would make damn sure of it.

But for now, he was still alive and Duncan was his target. A man responsible for most of the illegal drug-trade in the NorthEastern Corporate Grid-Sector, a host of illegal practices and countless murders. Although Duncan himself had probably never directly pulled the trigger on any other man, his voice commands had been responsible for nearly 3000 deaths over the past several e-years. The U.E.N. Judiciary Board had never collected enough solid evidence, concrete proof, to put this man away for his crimes. To obtain such proof was the official reason that Guarders had been called in on the investigation but Buzzer wasn't naive enough to think that Duncan's crimes were the only reason the Board would like to see his empire come crumbling down. The economy of the entire NorthEastern Corporate Grid-Sector would benefit greatly if the operations of Duncan Enterprises & Affiliates were to be disrupted. Free-trade and new markets would spring up everywhere and many more big businesses would be attracted to Duncan's former turf. Duncan's vast organization was just shy of monopolizing four-hundred Interplanetary Markets. If his power was stripped and his operations discontinued, the opportunities for the local businesses to thrive would be unlimited.

The eventual extinction of drug lanes in the NorthEastern Grids would also benefit the entire quadrant. The major supply of Morphus-3, Socoa, Nytrodrome, Synth, and Colboquik would abruptly disappear. Connections and dealers would dry up, especially with the increased presence of the U.E.N. Military that would be sure to follow Duncan's demise. Users would have no choice but to move to the areas where their bad habits were still available.

Yes, the Board was not only concerned in wiping out one ugly character and his shady business practices but they also wanted to see the cleansing and subsequent rebirth of a major portion of Grid-Space. The big picture was the real interest here, not just justice.

Buzzer didn't actually care about the politics of it all, he just had one thing on his mind. Four good men, fellow Guarders, had died just days ago and he meant to repay the man who was responsible. Kelsington Duncan was somewhere in this building, Buzzer could sense him, feel his fear. Soon he would find the man. And soon after, this mission would end.

The lift-car stopped on Level#150 and Buzzer stepped out. Nobody was there to challenge him. The entire floor was totally quiet. In no time at all, he found the stairs and began his journey upward. Kelsington Duncan was now all that mattered...


	Excerpt \| home Excerpt \| Reviews Willis turned his back to Buzzer, finished the conversation and laid the small headset on the desktop. As Willis turned back to face Buzzer, he gave a slight hand signal to the security guards who were surrounding the Guarder. Buzzer took a small step back as all ten men swung up their half-chargers and aimed at him. Willis stood relaxed and smiled. "Would you please come with me, sir?" "I'm sorry, no." Willis blinked in reaction to the blunt refusal. "I think that you are far too outnumbered to play these kinds of games, policeman..." Willis drawled the last word as the ten men surrounding Buzzer snickered. Buzzer unholstered his blaster and brought it up to bear on Willis' head. The move had been so quick that most of the security guards were still snickering among themselves before they realized the sudden change in events. Willis stared wide-eyed at the small black hole of the blaster's muzzle in front of his face. "Any one of those men fires at me and I'll be dead. That doesn't bother me, I accepted the hazards of this job the day I was sworn in. But rest assured, Mr. Willis, I've never missed an intended target in my life, especially at this range. If I die here in this building, you will die right alongside me." Buzzer felt the electricity in the air. Willis was frozen with fear, his eyes totally fixed on the weapon in his face. The room was silent, the only sound was the heavy breathing coming from Willis. "Put down your Goddamn guns already!" Willis snarled, eyes unmoving. Eight of the guards responded to this order immediately by lowering their weapons, the other two looked skeptical. Willis glared at them and snarled. "Do it now!" "Negative, Mr. Willis," one of the guards rasped as his finger began to tighten on the trigger of his powerful weapon. "This man is outnumbered and outgunned and he is mine." The huge blast from the half-charger rocked the wall on the other side of the room. Buzzer came out of his dive and crouched behind one corner of the reception desk. He had fired twice while maneuvering and saw two men go down hard in a spray of blood and gore, one of them being the man who had fired first. The other eight men scattered throughout the lobby trying to find any cover they could. Willis pulled out his blaster and scanned the large open area for Buzzer. From another position and two blasts later, two more Duncan Enterprises security personnel went down. Buzzer was up and running now, only seven opponents left in the field of battle. Although he was well aware that the entire complex would soon be swarming with well armed security guards, these seven were his most pressing problem. He had to move quickly or he would surely be pinned down somewhere in this room. Buzzer did not intend to allow that to happen. Poorly aimed fire followed him in his sprint down a side corridor. He swung around on the run, fired several rounds from his blaster and watched another man fall dead as several others who were beginning to pursue dove, once again, to the carpeted floor. Buzzer turned a corner and fired again, hitting another target squarely in the chest from a distance of about ten meters. The body immediately hit the carpet and tripped up another who was close behind. Buzzer took advantage of this man's sprawl in the hallway and put one in the top of his head, the body spasmed jerkily as blood washed into the carpet. There were only four opponents left. He raced down a connecting corridor and found himself surrounded on two sides by lift terminals, with a closed door straight ahead. It was a dead end. Cursing to himself, he searched for any type of alternate route out of there. At any moment, any one of the lifts could open up and disgorge another dozen or so of Duncan's guards. The lone door flew open in front of him and he leveled the first man to show himself with a blast to the mid-section. The door closed quickly but would soon be opening again. Buzzer went to the corner of the corridor and chanced a quick look around the connecting hall searching for Willis, couldn't find him, and fired on two approaching guards instead. Both men dropped to the floor, neither of them dead but both badly wounded and screaming in pain. Two sets of lift doors suddenly slid open and men in uniform began streaming out. Buzzer fired quick bursts into one of the cars and saw blood splatter the walls as he quickly leaped into the other car. The five men still inside were taken completely by surprise as the new occupant began to fight furiously. Two well placed kicks knocked down two of the guards. The other three tried to rush him simultaneously in the small space. Buzzer dropped into a crouch and fired his blaster. The lower leg of one man disappeared in a red spray of blood and bone. The howling shrieks pierced Buzzer's ears as he brought an elbow up under the man's chin, knocking him unconscious. Someone grabbed him from behind and Buzzer threw his weight to one side, throwing the man over his shoulder to land head-first against the lift-car's control panel. He heard a sickening crunch, and the body slumped to the floor as the car abruptly began to climb. The sudden buck of the car threw the last man off balance and Buzzer took the clear shot at the man's head. Buzzer found himself breathing hard as he scanned the five men and determined any remaining threat. Only two of the men were conscious and moaning, grasping their badly bruised groins, the targets of Buzzer's first two kicks. One other was unconscious, one's head was bent at a very lethal angle and the headless one would never move again. Buzzer leaned against the wall and tried to control his breathing. The two conscious men would become potential threats once they regained their composure, and thus had to be rendered inoperative, at least temporarily. He bent down and grabbed each of them by the jaw. "Clench your teeth hard," he told them. "Or you'll bite off your tongues." The two guards looked at him through painful and confused expressions just before he rammed their heads together. Both men slumped on top of each other, unconscious. Quickly scanning the control panel, Buzzer punched in for Level#56. The car rapidly decelerated and came screeching to a halt. The doors opened. Buzzer was ready for a firefight but there was nothing there to meet him. The sounds of people in the surrounding offices reached his ears slightly. It seemed that even at this late hour, Duncan Enterprises still bustled with activity. He would make it a point to steer clear of the innocent employees. He stole a quick glance into the corridor and found it empty. Buzzer punched in a command for the lift-car to stay put on Level#56 and walked out of the car, blaster up and ready. The sudden noise of other lift-cars approaching made him swing suddenly toward the shafts. Three sets of doors slid open and guards began pouring out. Buzzer burst into action. His back- up mini-blaster filled his left hand and both guns began firing on the ill prepared security guards. He fired at men, light fixtures, control panels, and everything else that would cause confusion as he dove back into the lift he had just vacated and destroyed the car's control panel with a quick blast. The car immediately began to descend, following pre-programmed fail-safe procedures in case of damage. This little quest of his had fast turned into something ugly, he thought as he tried to plan out his next move. The car rocked violently as it came to an abrupt stop, stuck between levels. Buzzer was thrown to the floor of the car but quickly scrambled over to the destroyed control panel to see if he could remedy the situation. Blasts from weapons powerful enough to be half-chargers shook the car as guards fired from the open shaft above. Buzzer understood now just what they intended to do. If they could succeed in destroying the mounting clamps which held the car to the shaft, the lift-car would plummet more than forty levels and he would be crushed on impact from the force of the downward plunge. The sudden rush of rapid falling told Buzzer that the guards had succeeded. He blasted a hole through the roof-hatch, leaped to grasp the jagged edge, scrambled out of the lift-car and stood on top. In the very next shaft, another lift was climbing up, probably full of fresh security guards eager to join the hunt. Leaping off of his doomed car, he landed hard on the roof of the other. The loud thud caused him considerable pain and the sudden attack of angry voices coming from inside the car made it clear that the men inside knew that something strange was going on up top. Buzzer had a momentary vision of the men below blasting their way through the roof-hatch of the car, and blasting him to pieces in the process. The car he'd just leapt off of disintegrated as it hit the bottom of the shaft. Buzzer quickly reached into a pocket and brought out a single marble grenade. Activating the tiny explosive device, he blasted a hole through the roof-hatch, threw it inside and flung himself to the side of the car. In less than three seconds, the men inside discovered the small object, realized its purpose and began to panic. The small explosion buckled the walls of the car and silenced themen inside forever. Buzzer couldn't wait for the smoke to clear and jumped into the hatch as fire poured down from above. The men who had destroyed the mounting clamps on the original car were now firing down on this one but the car quickly passed their level and kept on climbing. Blood and body parts littered the floor panels and walls of the damaged lift. He looked over the damaged but still operational control panel and punched in for Level#160, Kelsington Duncan's penthouse suite. The panel declined the command and asked for a security code. Buzzer had no idea what type of code would be used by Duncan himself so he settled on punching for Level#150. He would work his way up from there, play it safe and test out the area. He hadn't realized how much security Duncan possessed. Even if these men were not really qualified for their positions, their sheer numbers and firepower proved them to be serious threats to his chosen mission. He had also miscalculated Duncan's nerve and gall. The man had ordered the death of an U.E.N. Guarder, an act that would bring the wrath of every single Guarder in the ranks, all two-hundred of them, upon him. The Squadron wouldn't rest until Kelsington Duncan had paid for such an act, paid equally, with his own life. Sergeant Jekel would make damn sure of it. But for now, he was still alive and Duncan was his target. A man responsible for most of the illegal drug-trade in the NorthEastern Corporate Grid-Sector, a host of illegal practices and countless murders. Although Duncan himself had probably never directly pulled the trigger on any other man, his voice commands had been responsible for nearly 3000 deaths over the past several e-years. The U.E.N. Judiciary Board had never collected enough solid evidence, concrete proof, to put this man away for his crimes. To obtain such proof was the official reason that Guarders had been called in on the investigation but Buzzer wasn't naive enough to think that Duncan's crimes were the only reason the Board would like to see his empire come crumbling down. The economy of the entire NorthEastern Corporate Grid-Sector would benefit greatly if the operations of Duncan Enterprises & Affiliates were to be disrupted. Free-trade and new markets would spring up everywhere and many more big businesses would be attracted to Duncan's former turf. Duncan's vast organization was just shy of monopolizing four-hundred Interplanetary Markets. If his power was stripped and his operations discontinued, the opportunities for the local businesses to thrive would be unlimited. The eventual extinction of drug lanes in the NorthEastern Grids would also benefit the entire quadrant. The major supply of Morphus-3, Socoa, Nytrodrome, Synth, and Colboquik would abruptly disappear. Connections and dealers would dry up, especially with the increased presence of the U.E.N. Military that would be sure to follow Duncan's demise. Users would have no choice but to move to the areas where their bad habits were still available. Yes, the Board was not only concerned in wiping out one ugly character and his shady business practices but they also wanted to see the cleansing and subsequent rebirth of a major portion of Grid-Space. The big picture was the real interest here, not just justice. Buzzer didn't actually care about the politics of it all, he just had one thing on his mind. Four good men, fellow Guarders, had died just days ago and he meant to repay the man who was responsible. Kelsington Duncan was somewhere in this building, Buzzer could sense him, feel his fear. Soon he would find the man. And soon after, this mission would end. The lift-car stopped on Level#150 and Buzzer stepped out. Nobody was there to challenge him. The entire floor was totally quiet. In no time at all, he found the stairs and began his journey upward. Kelsington Duncan was now all that mattered...