Free Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2) by Christina Westcott Page A

slammed into her shoulder, knocking her to the side. She went down,
her hold dragging him from the gurney. They crashed to the floor together, him
on top, and his weight drove a sharp expletive from her. Her grip loosened
enough for him to pull free. She swung for his jaw, but the blanket that had
been covering him fouled her blow and he jerked back in time. He jumped to his
feet, the world twisting around him oddly, skewing his perception. He stumbled,
his bare feet slid on the slick tile floor, and he clutched at the bed to stay
upright.
    Gray Eyes threw off the
encumbering blanket, but before she could rise, he tipped the gurney over on
her. He lurched back, blundering into another woman in a white medical coat. A
cup of coffee flew out of her hand.
    Escape. He had to get out of here. If he didn’t, he was a dead man.
    He leapt toward the
door and flew several meters in a shallow, uncontrolled arc, his legs churning
and arms flailing. He managed to get his feet underneath him as he landed, but
he moved too fast to keep his balance. The blank white of a tiled wall rushed
at him with unbelievable speed. Twisting at the last second, he collided with
bone-jarring force. Tiles cracked; pain lanced through his shoulder. His ears
ringing, he staggered back, blinking, but his perception felt all wrong. The
doctor he’d knocked down still hung suspended, falling backward, arms
outstretched. The tumbling coffee cup hadn’t reached the floor yet. Initially,
he thought time had stalled, but a brown blob of liquid appeared at the lip of
the spinning cup and swam out.
    The Nameless Man
laughed as he recognized it. It had to be the weird hyperawareness cyborgs
slipped into to comprehend the world around them when moving at hyperkinetic
speed. He raised his hands and stared at them.
    The things he could do
now. No one could stop him.
    The gurney clattered
and bounced across the floor, propelled by an awesome force. The gray eyed
woman flipped to her feet with frightening grace. For the first time he noticed
her black uniform. SpecOps. A Black Jacket. That meant another augie. She
charged, ripping through the slow motion blizzard of data cubes, tablets and
broken glass still raining down around her, moving like a projectile through a
snow storm.
    Get out. Get out, now.
    He sprang for the door,
desperate to evade her, but she tracked him with the focus of a missile’s
guidance system. The force of her body slamming into him drove him face first
into the wall. Blood filled his mouth as his teeth snapped shut on his tongue.
With her fist tangled in his hair, she clawed at the back of his skull.
    He couldn’t let her
pull his spike and shut down his cybernetic functions. If she did, he would
die, cease to exist. Of that he had no doubt. With all his augmented strength,
he pushed back, forcing them away from the wall. He reached behind him, seized
her collar, and flipped her over his shoulder. Her grip tore free, at the cost
of a handful of his hair, but in his panic the pain was easy to ignore. Her
fingers wrapped around his ankle and brought him down as he tried to leap away.
She straddled his chest and pinned his head, her hands a vice on either side of
his face. She leaned in, screamed at him.
    “Stop it, Wolf. Just stop
it .” Her voice had the knife-hard sting of command, but tears streamed down
her face.
    He swung, a wild,
uncontrolled flail, driving her off to the side. Before she could rise, he
gained his feet, grabbed her jacket and belt, and hoisted her over his head. He
tossed her high and hard into the plexisteel wall of the tank with a crack that
set its robotic arms rattling and swaying. At first he feared the tank would
rupture, flooding the room, but the plexisteel held. Her body slid down the
glass.
    Only a small dusky-skinned
woman stood between him and the door now, bringing a pistol to bear on him.
Hesitation hovered in her dark eyes as he charged her. He smashed the weapon
aside. The hot flash of the belated shot