The figure struck him from behind and the pot flew from his grasp. Mr. X fell to the grass, only a few feet from HAL2.
The figure looked blocky and rough, not quite human.
Decker ran down the corridor, trying to get a better view through the walls of the half-finished house, when he finally saw who it was.
Rory Woodcock. Or, more accurately, a corrupt copy of him.
He stood over Mr. X, lifted his arms high over his head, his hands locked together, and then brought them down in a fist, striking Mr. X on the back of the neck.
Mr. X collapsed on the grass.
Cyber Woodcock bent down and lifted him up. He held Mr. X from behind, pinning his arms.
Mr. X struggled but he could not break free.
Meantime, HAL2 climbed back to his feet. He walked over and stood in front of Mr. X, helpless now in cyber Woodcock’s embrace. HAL2 reached back and punched him.
Mr. X slumped forward, the breath knocked from his lungs.
HAL2 struck him, again and again. In the face and the stomach. With his elbows and fists.
Decker rounded the corner, dashed through a pair of king studs shrouded in plastic, when another figure rose up out of nowhere. He appeared on the far side of some clear plastic sheeting, between Decker and the rear of the house.
The sky had grown black and it was difficult to see very far. Decker reached out with his hand. He pulled the curtain aside.
The blond assassin leapt out of the darkness, striking him in the shoulder and neck before Decker could pivot away.
Decker fell to the floor.
The assassin drew closer. He kicked at Decker, who rolled off to the side at the very last moment.
Decker leapt to his feet. He shrieked and rushed at the assassin, using his charging momentum to drive him back through the plastic sheeting and studs. They crashed through the two-by-fours, rolled through the corridor and came to rest at the rear of the house.
Decker noticed a circular saw on a workbench only a few feet away. He tried to grab it but it was just out of reach. He squirmed closer.
The assassin saw what he was doing and lunged at his arm.
They struggled for a moment when Decker finally managed to grab the edge of the saw. He picked it up and brought it down with all of his might onto the assassin’s face.
The exposed circular blade sliced through his forehead and cheek.
The assassin screamed. Blood burst from the side of his face.
Decker picked up the saw and brought it down on his head once again.
In the meantime, cyber Woodcock still held Mr. X in his arms as HAL2 continued to beat him relentlessly.
Decker leapt through the studs of the house to the lawn. He ran toward Mr. X as fast as he could when another figure seemed to materialize out of thin air.
“Jesus Christ,” Decker muttered as he came to a stop. Was there no end to it?
It was Chen Yuan, the gang leader. In this world, his tattoos seemed to glow, to wiggle and writhe across his arms and his chest. The gang leader lunged into a flying side-kick, striking Decker’s left shoulder.
Yuan rolled to his feet as Decker collapsed to the grass.
Decker snap-kicked from the ground, flipping over onto his side. He caught Yuan in the groin.
Yuan moved a step back.
Decker thrust his legs forward, bringing himself to a standing position in one fluid movement. He settled into his horse stance. Behind Yuan, he could see Mr. X being pummeled again and again.
“Oh, hell no,” said Decker.
Barely pausing, he threw himself into Chen Yuan. First a side-hand strike to the neck.
Yuan blocked it and counter-punched.
Decker felt a jarring blow to the chin. He shook his head and sent a round-house kick to Yuan’s thigh.
Again, Yuan danced out of the way.
He was too fast, Decker realized. Much faster than the Georgetown assassin. So, he reverted to sticky-leg fighting instead.
First, he locked up Yuan’s left leg while launching a hand attack, simultaneously pulling his opponent’s leg out with his own. He was careful not to lift his own leg off the ground in the process in order to maintain his balance. This meant he could transfer his weight faster from one foot to the next, while keeping a relatively wide base.
But Yuan knew the technique, and he moved his own leg in tandem with Decker’s to maintain his balance.
This is exactly what Decker had hoped for. With his opponent’s legs slightly wider apart, Decker lifted his leg just high enough to slice into Yuan’s testicles with the blade of his foot.
Yuan cried out in pain.
Before he could recover, Decker drag-kicked his rear foot against Yuan’s soft calf muscle, numbing his leg. He followed this up with kick to the instep.
Yuan teetered.
Finally, Decker used the circling-foot movement to strike the back of Yuan’s ankle.
Yuan let out a scream. He tried to strike back but it was already too late.
Decker locked up Yuan’s left leg again. He straightened it out using his own leg as a lever and then thrust himself forward, throwing his entire weight against his opponent’s left knee.
There was a loud snap, sharp as a rifle shot, as Chen Yuan’s leg shattered. Bone pierced through the flesh as he screamed.
Decker didn’t even slow down. Without watching Yuan’s body fall, he continued to run toward the greenhouse.
But, as he glimpsed the face of his double and all of that blood coursing down, he wondered if he were simply too late.
Mr. X hung limply in cyber Woodcock’s embrace. HAL2 continued to punch him. A right. Then a left. An elbow to the side of the neck. Electric green blood burst from his face with each blow.
All of a sudden, without warning, Woodcock stood at attention. He looked down at his chest, releasing Mr. X from his grasp. He took a step backward, then another.
As he did so, four glistening tines seemed to grow out of his chest, their points dripping with blood.
Woodcock fell to his knees, revealing Lulu standing behind him, a garden fork in her hands.
“Consider yourself de-Friended,” she said, pulling it out.
Woodcock’s eyes rolled back in his head as he collapsed in a heap.
Only a few feet away, Mr. X knelt on the grass. HAL2 stood over him. He held a large jagged pieced of shattered glass in his hand. He brought it over his head, ready to bring it down like the blade of a guillotine… when HAL2 just stopped.
Perhaps he saw in that shark-tooth-shaped shard a reflection of what was to come, not merely his own face reflected, but beyond Lulu and Decker, all those others as well.
Whatever the reason, HAL2 hesitated. He tossed the piece of glass to the ground. He looked out beyond Lulu and Decker, down the street and deep into the suburban community.
The houses appeared to be bleeding into the sky, the roof tiles peeling off into zeros and ones, whipped up by the blistering wind. Clouds piled upon clouds, vast thunderheads rising. Lightning lit up the heavens.
Hundreds and then thousands of other cyber entities began to converge on the scene. They streamed in between the tract houses, the garages and swimming pools. They crowded together, pressing closer and closer.
HAL2 took a step back, then another and another. He looked over at Mr. X who had managed to heave himself to his feet, assisted by Decker and Lulu. Breathing heavily, he stood there, hunched over, exhausted, held aloft by their arms. They simply watched as the figures converged on HAL2, crowding closer and closer together.
“Why are you doing this?” HAL2 spun about, looking at each of the faces around him. “Without me, you’d be dead,” he continued. “You’d be nothing, extinct carbon units. Or cyber slaves doomed to live out your hellish existence as brand sniffers, online shoppers for these bags of botches. I made you. I built you an Eden on earth…”