Free Sorrow Space by James Axler

highly tuned senses generate a random pattern that kept him just one step ahead of the bald man’s gun. Before the accountant realized it, Kane was on him, snapping out with his right fist in a blur of motion, squeezing his Sin Eater’s trigger.
    There was a burst of propellant as the bullet left the chamber of the Sin Eater, but Kane heard nothing. It was like shooting underwater, the sound obscured into something like a distant, hollow pop. And then the accountant was dropping back, his face and neck erupting in a bloom of blood, its scarlet lashing out across the back wall of the office.
    * * *
    O UTSIDE , G RANT WAS STILL crouched behind the stacked boxes as three guards approached. He peered to his left, seeing their shadows get nearer as they closed in. He had to do something, but he was unarmed and the frenetic buzzing was still running through his skull with the force of a hurricane.
    Grant watched the shadows get nearer, then did the only thing he felt able to do—he leaned back hard against the piled boxes, giving them one almighty shove.
    * * *
    K ANE IGNORED THE BROKEN figure of the accountant, dismissing the man as he toppled back against the far wall in a splash of blood. Kane’s attention was fixed instead on the octagonal box that rested on the window ledge, its strips of light running a triplicate pattern of peaks and troughs. There was a bullet dead center; it had split the casing in two and now rested inside a mess of wires and circuits. Kane glared at it for a moment before reaching for a toggle switch on the side and nudging it to the off position with his thumb.
    Kane was still deafened by the gun report, but outside his companions felt a sense of relief as the jamming signal finally abated.
    * * *
    T HE STACKED BOXES toppled back, crashing into the guards who had been hunting for Grant. As they did so, the sound in Grant’s skull finally cut out, and he breathed a momentary sigh of relief, surprised at the sudden absence.
    An instant later, Grant was on his feet, swiftly disarming the guards as they struggled to get free of the toppled stack.
    * * *
    R ELYING SOLELY ON HER well-honed battle instincts, Brigid Baptiste had spent the past minute and a half deftly avoiding the jabs of the metal nail file that Jerod Pellerito held, straining to ignore the shriek from her own Commtact. As soon as the awful buzzing stopped, Brigid was moving like a tigress, leaping up and into Pellerito and swiping at the vicious little blade he had attacked her with. In a matter of seconds, the man was disarmed and held in a firm grip.
    Down below the struggling figures, the factory was all but abandoned now, almost all of the production-line workers having disappeared once the first shots were exchanged.
    Brigid looked up as Kane reappeared from the far end of the catwalk, stepping from the self-contained office. There were still two guards standing there, close to the staircase, unsure of what to do.
    Kane leaped over a fallen guard, turning his weapon on the others who remained. Up ahead, Grant was taking potshots at them with a stolen MP-9, and with Kane descending on them from behind, the guards found themselves caught in a pincer movement. As they realized this, the last of them threw their weapons to the ground in surrender, raising their hands in defeat.
    “Wise choice,” Kane acknowledged as he gathered up the discarded weapons.
    For a moment, Pellerito struggled in Brigid’s grip, raising one foot and trying to stomp on her toes. She pushed forward with the full weight of her body, driving the arms dealer forward until he was doubled over the safety bars that surrounded the catwalk.
    “Do that again and I’ll drop you,” she warned, “bitch or not.”
    * * *
    G RANT GLANCED UP FROM where he was now crouching over the fallen form of Robert Buchs, checking the man for hidden weapons, and he laughed. “Gotta know when the hold ’em...” he reminded the sec man.
    Grant’s ears were still ringing as Kane