Chapter 5

 

Thunder flooded the air as Mark and Michael began their dance and filled the courtyard with .45 bullets; in the sheer volume of fire, Mark took a pair of slugs to his tactical vest, while he grazed Michael's left arm in return. Both men soon lost sight of each other as they brought the large temple between them. Mark didn't even stop to pause his breath; with confident moves, he reloaded his handguns and rounded the corner, intent on climbing the temple roof again. Michael was already waiting, his 1911s similarly replenished, and he opened fire on the Enforcer. Mark felt more bullets tug on his vest as he dove to the side, returning fire and forcing his clone to retreat.

 

Mark was certain he had felt the strike plate covering his chest crack.

 

Then again, that might have been a rib.

 

He got up from the ground and slowly poked his head around the next corner, just in time to watch Michael level an M4 assault rifle at him. Mark actually felt the heat of one bullet passing just inches from his eyes and drew back, waiting for his clone to stop firing. As if on a dare to make this even harder, Mark watched one of the guards climb back onto the wall from his dive - he'd start firing in a few second, and Mark had absolutely no cover from him.

 

3...2...1!

 

Spinning out from behind the building like a bada$$ ballet dancer, Mark spread his arms out wide, covering nearly 180 degrees of room as he started spraying in opposite directions, finally clipping the last guard with a solid center mass hit, and pummeled Michael's leg; the clone responded with a quick 5.56mm burst as he dragged himself back behind cover. The bullets punched through Mark's vest as if it was paper, and Mark felt their searing heat caught between his skin and the - still intact - strike plate covering his back. Visibly pained, he reloaded his guns once more with his final set of spare magazines and walked after Michael, only to find that the trace of blood ended touching the temple's wall.

 

Melonfarmer!

 

Mark dropped on his back and fed his last .45 slugs upwards at a pouncing Michael, but the clone was on him before he could score a solid hit. The two rolled over the sand, each desperately trying to disengage and be the first to draw another gun. Mark had a certain edge via his USPs; once on top, he clobbered Michael's face with the butt of one, breaking the man's nose, but Michael had come out ahead in the injury department and seized Mark's wrist in a powerful grip, forcing him to drop the gun. Grimacing with pain, Mark brought up his other USP for a shot, but Michael swatted that away and grabbed Mark by the vest, hauling him off his knees and letting his face kiss dirt. With a quick swipe, Michael liberated one Hi-Power from Mark's left hip and earned a kick to the throat for his efforts. Mark spun around for a kip-up and rushed Michael to throw off his aim.

 

The clone put a 9mm round in Mark's arm to keep the earlier injury company. Mark didn't even feel that anymore.

 

With a series of punches and kicks, elbows and knees, hands and guns, the deadly brawl continued as Mark forced Michael back against the temple wall; neither gave any quarter, desperate to inflict as much pain on each other as humanly possible. Guns went off in the scuffle; some shots hit home, some went wild, but none managed to stop the deadly dance. Finally, Mark misjudged a pistol-whip and found himself disarmed again. With a last desperate grab, he went for Michael's pistol, but all he managed was to release the magazine before the clone gave him the mother of all headbutts, leaving Mark to tumble onto the ground in an altogether pathetic-looking mess.

 

Mark tried to get up, but he couldn't. His entire chest was burning, particularly the left side - not just bullet wounds, cracked ribs and probably a collapsed lung. This was bad.

 

"That was..." Michael began, then spat a wad of saliva and blood at Mark. "That was fun. Any last words?"
"Two," Mark said, his breathing labored and weezing. With every bit of energy he could muster, he turned his face to look at Michael, stared down the barrel of his gun and smiled. "Magazine safety."

 

Michael pressed the trigger on his gun, but found that it would not budge. Then he caught Mark's hand snaking out for the Hi-Power he had lost a minute ago; the Enforcer pulled the trigger on his gun and found no such problem.

 

Realization went through Michael's head, followed shortly by a 9mm bullet. It was amazingly bloodless for what it was; some red dripped out of Michael's nose and eyes, as well as the new hole in his temple, but from a distance, it looked as if he'd simply collapsed in a heap. The clone fell onto the original, as if to embrace his brother. The last thing Mark saw was the frozen look of terror and surprise on Michael's dead face silhouetted from a chopper's searchlight, then everything began to fade, save for his own heartbeat.

 

Thump, it went. Thump.

 

Thump.

 

 

 

Thump.

 

 

 

 

 

Thump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a shock of white hot lightning, everything snapped back into reality; Mark's eyes flew open to a bright, unfocussed view of the night. Unfamiliar faces surrounded him, but he had no energy to fight back or even speak.

 

"...got a pulse! Multiple gunshot wounds, start two IVs..."
"...morphine...," Mark managed to cough, finally. One of the faces turned to him; he could barely make out the delicate lines of feminity.
"God, he's still conscious!"
"We need more painkillers!"
"...painkillers...," Mark agreed as he watched another man jab a syringe into his arm. Compared to the stabbing pain in his body, the prick of a needle was nothing, and soon everything faded away again in a slightly more pleasant manner. He watched as they lifted him towards the chopper, curiously disconnected from his own body. Everything moved slowly, like underwater, and his head turned almost automatically towards the sight of Black Tiger ordering a strike team around.

 

"Secure the area, and make sure you bag everything!"

 

He drifted off into a dreamy haze, vaguely unaware that the true pain was yet to come.