State of Decay by James Knapp Read Free Book Online Page A

the dock. It hurt when I forced in a breath, and spots were swimming in front of my eyes. I felt like I’d just been hit by a train.
    The guy was wearing a navy jumpsuit like one of the dockworkers might wear over a thermal body glove. He had dark skin and wavy black hair that stuck out from under a gray wool cap. He put the automatic weapon he’d been carrying down on the ground, the clip expended. He didn’t bother to go for my gun, so he knew the grip was keyed to me.
    “I’m a federal agent,” I said, but he didn’t show any sign that he cared or that he even understood me. I went for my gun and he threw a kick, catching me in the chest and knocking me back.
    I was lifted up by the lapels and felt my heels brush the ground for a moment before the back of my head crashed into the metal wall. Everything went white for a second, and his hand began to squeeze around my neck, crushing it.
    I was going to black out. Warning lights were flashing red across my field of vision. I caught a brief glimpse of an override code flickering by as the world spun around me, and one of the internal stims popped and released into my bloodstream.
    My adrenaline shot through the roof. About half the warning indicators blinked out and half stayed on as my EKG spiked and every muscle in my body jumped like I’d grabbed a live wire. I shot out my palm and his nose crunched underneath it, spattering us both with blood. I grabbed his head and jabbed my knee up into his jaw. The grip on my neck released.
    I fell to the ground and tackled him, knocking us both onto the dock with me on top of him. I started hammering him in the face and neck with my fists, splitting his cheek open and shearing away his two front teeth before he could get his arms up between us.
    The stim wasn’t going to last forever; I put three right hooks into his ear as he got a hand on my chest and shoved me back. My last punch hit air as I floundered, and he kicked me square in the chest. I fell on my back and saw him getting up.
    Blood was running out of his nose, dripping off his chin. His lips were red and his right earlobe was smashed. He grimaced, flicking a tooth out onto the ground with his tongue. A crimson strand of saliva from his busted lower lip waved in the cold wind as his breath plumed out of his mouth.
    I tried to kick away and he grabbed me, pulling me up by my collar.
    We’ve got him.
    It took me a second to realize what the message meant; my backup was there, targeting him from somewhere nearby. The stim was wearing off, and I could feel the strength draining out of me.
    Don’t kill him.
    Roger that.
    He pitched back and dropped me just as I heard the shot ring out. I saw his leg collapse into a Z shape between the right knee and ankle as the flesh and bone were torn away and he fell to the ground. He rolled over on his side, staring bug-eyed at his leg.
    Do I need to hit him again?
    No.
    I found my weapon and limped over to it. I knelt down and picked it up, then vomited.
    You okay?
    I watched the steam rising off it, waiting to see if there was any more coming.
    Wachalowski, you okay?
    I’m fine. Get a coroner down here.
    After they were done scraping the kid off the dock, maybe we could pull something off him. The department would never foot the bill to buy up exclusive rights in order to sit on the footage. If it was bad enough, they could file an injunction and put a freeze on it, but not before it aired.
    Two men were cuffing the shooter, while a third tended to his leg. Another man was approaching the body of the kid, not looking optimistic.
    “You’re a dead man,” the shooter growled through his wrecked mouth, glaring up at me.
    “I know.”
    “He knows who you are,” he said. I was about to ask him what he meant by that when one of the men jammed a tranquilizer into his neck and he went limp.
    “Have the medics pin his leg back together and make sure he doesn’t bleed to death,” I said. “Then I want him back at HQ and three