But to Remo, the plate moved through the air so slowly that even a small child could have avoided it. The spectacle bored Chiun. There was no subtlety to it. He withdrew his hands from inside his sleeves and covered his shell-like ears to protect them from the crash of weights hitting the floor. As the four big men used up all the metal plates, they grew visibly weaker. Patches of sweat appeared on their chests and under their arms. Their breathing became labored. They leaned on the steel contraptions for support. Chiun carefully watched the man Emperor Smith had sent them to interrogate. Number 96. Animal Man. Chiun had never seen a creature quite like him. A creature with such density of muscle. The corded flesh on the backs of his arms looked like the mooring lines of a freighter. And the covering skin was almost blindingly shiny, stretched tight, almost to the splitting point. Nothing the least bit subtle there, either; as such, he was hardly a worthy opponent for a Master of Sinanju.
Chiun could sense Number 96's desire to enter the fray. The man was chomping at the bit. What held him back? Not fear, certainly. Like the others, he was too ignorant to be afraid. Perhaps another desire, a more powerful one, kept him in check?
Even from across the room, Animal Man's smell was overwhelming. That Remo couldn't detect it didn't surprise Chiun. A man who had once indulged in the cheesy burger, the Camel, the Budweiser, couldn't be expected to have an undamaged sensory system. The aroma Number 96 gave off wasn't the smell of a human, not even a dirty human. This puzzled Chiun.
In point of fact, the Master hadn't paid much attention to the background details of the mission as laid out by Emperor Smith. Something about a drug. Such things were usually unimportant, mere trifles when compared with the truly significant-how he could leverage upward the gold payment for the next negotiation.
When Bradley Boomtower suddenly turned on his heel and headed for the nearest exit, Chiun was after him like a shot.
"Hey, get that guy!" the right guard wheezed. Before the offensive line could respond, the Master had slipped past them.
Chapter 11
Bradley Boomtower let the eight-hundred-pound load roll off his shoulders and crash to the weight-room floor. His intention was to snatch hold of the two intruders who had violated his territory with their ghastly fish smell and then tear their soft bodies into thin, bloody strips. His outrage at their presence inside his domain was too terrible to be held in check by the threat of league banishment or by the upraised hands of his fellow players. Boomtower could no longer think in terms of the future. As far as he was concerned, next week's game might as well have been next century's. There was no longer a barrier between what he felt like doing and what he did. The barrier that kept human society from ripping itself apart. In a way, what he possessed, or what possessed him, was absolute freedom; in another way, it was absolute slavery.
To get his hands on those who muddied his urine-marked perimeter, Boomtower would have thrown aside his teammates. He would even have killed them if they had tried to stop him.
The enormous nose tackle took a step forward, then hesitated as another, even more powerful need filled him. All around the squat rack were heaped empty boxes of Manteca. It had been eight minutes since his last "energy" snack. And already the hunger pangs were starting up again. These were no sudden cravings for a particular food. He wasn't responding to mouth-watering mental images of pork chops or rib roast. The feelings of aching emptiness were so intense that they were impossible to ignore. The inside of his belly clanked and shuddered like a length of steel chain caught up in the blades of a madly revving lawn mower.
A small bit of the pre-WHE Bradley Boomtower remained, self-aware, imprisoned in the giant body. And that man, who had earned a business degree from a Big Ten college, who had over eight million dollars in cash stashed in a Cayman Islands bank, was frightened by the intensity of the urge. And by the fact that he was eating more and more, and was never satisfied. Only for a second did this fragment of his original personality surface, then it was sucked under, down into the whirlpool of wolverine neuropeptide.
Boomtower spun away from the spectacle of flying dumbbells and pushed out the weight room's exit. Ahead of him was the Riots' deserted practice field. As he loped across the five-lane track that circled the playing area, he sensed someone or something behind him.
He turned and saw the old fish-eater. He wanted to turn and kill the intruder, but the ache in his belly would not permit it. At the back of the near end zone, he broke into a trot. A trot for Boomtower in his present physical condition was like an all-out sprint for anyone else. For a ninety-year-old Oriental, it should have been impossible.
Should have been.
The fish-eater not only matched his sudden burst of speed, but even gained on him.
Confidently, Boomtower increased the pace to a sprint. High-kicking, he could feel the huge muscles of his quadriceps shudder at each impact with the natural sod. His size-18 feet felt light and quick under him. And they were. Since he started using the patch, he was easily the fastest man on the team. Faster even than Regional Parks, the NCAA hundred-meter record holder.
The biggest and the fastest.
His superbody sliced through the air, which screamed around his ears. He passed the twenty-yard line, the fifty, and with the opposite goalpost looming large, took the opportunity to look back over his shoulder. He expected to see the old man falling back somewhere around seventy yards behind, or perhaps even collapsed on the field. Instead, to his shock, he discovered the old guy running right at his back.
Well, maybe running wasn't the right word.
It didn't appear that the Oriental geezer's legs were moving at all. And his arms weren't pumping, either. He had his hands tucked inside the baggy sleeves of his robe. Yet, there he was, serenely drafting in the wake the nose tackle left behind.
Boomtower blinked once, and like the pop! of a dream coming to a sudden end, the old man was gone. When Number 96 turned his head back toward the goalpost, he witnessed a vision that made his jaw drop. He saw the fish-eater descending, from a height of at least thirty feet, his robe flapping in the breeze. The old man's somersault ended as his slippered feet came down on the goal post's cross bar. He stood there, not waving his hands around for balance, but rock steady like he was standing on flat ground.
Boomtower didn't plan on stopping, but the fisheater dropped from his perch, light as a feather, right in front of him, blocking his path. The absolute strangeness of all this made the nose tackle skid to a halt.
"Get out of my way!" Boomtower said. The sweep of his enormous right arm sent a rush of wind that stirred the tiny old man's straggly beard. The Oriental did not so much as blink.
Beyond the end zone Boomtower now faced, beyond the track, was the training center's parking lot. From where he stood, he could see his white 500-class Mercedes two-door with its one-way windows, its gold-plated bumpers, side-trim molding and wheel covers. Two days before, he had had both the front seats ripped out. No bucket seat on earth could contain his five hundred pounds. He had had a specially designed leather-upholstered bench seat installed. Also, the frame and shocks on the driver's side had been reinforced to keep the vehicle from listing too much to the left. Boomtower wanted to get to his car and drive to the nearest source of dietary fat without further delay. Over the power lines, he could just make out the gaudy signs lining the main boulevard, signs that advertised All Things Fried.
Craftily, he inched forward on the little fish-eater. And when he was well within reach, with a mighty grunt he unleashed a backhanded swing at the old man's head, a blow intended to send him flying, if not kill him outright.