The Man of Bronze by James Alan Gardner Read Free Book Online

the villain on the table didn’t know that . . . and by the time he realized Jacek posed no threat, I was hurtling across the room. The gunman tried to bring his Uzi back to bear on me, but I cleared it away with a crescent kick that knocked the gun from his hands. I tried to follow up with an ax kick—up, then straight down—with the intention of slamming my heel hard onto the shooter’s stomach. The man saw it coming and threw himself back off the operating table. My boot made a heel-shaped dent as it struck the table’s metal surface but otherwise had no effect.
    If I’d had enough clearance, I would have vaulted over the table and landed feetfirst on the man, now sprawled across the OR floor . . . but Jacek and his nurses were in the way. If I took the time to run around the table, the man would have ample opportunity to yell for help; so I dived straight forward, arms out, legs extended, much like the position for leaping headlong into a somersault. Instead of jumping all the way over the table, I let myself land half on, half off: my hips and legs on the tabletop, my upper body hanging over the far edge. I had just enough arm reach to get my hands around the gunman’s throat, choking off any cry he might make to his comrades.
    It was hardly a ladylike position—my backside up on the table, the rest of me dangling head downward while trying to strangle someone on the floor—but none of the half dozen people in the room showed any inclination to lend a hand. Through gritted teeth I said, “Would someone please stamp on this fellow’s face? Or inject him with anesthetic. At this point, I’m not picky.”
    Under normal conditions, my opponent would have wrenched my hands off his throat within seconds—I had no leverage to hold him down. But he must have been weakened from getting shot, not to mention his jarring drop off the operating table and whatever pain medication Jacek gave him before surgery. All the man’s flailing couldn’t break my hold. When Reuben started forward to get in on the action, the gunman gave up fighting me and shoved a hand into his pocket. “He’s going for a weapon!” I yelled; but no one was fast enough to intercede.
    The man’s hand emerged from his pocket, holding a spherical silver grenade like the one I’d found on the thug upstairs. “This is not good,” I muttered. Still squeezing the man’s throat with my right hand, I swatted at the grenade with my left . . . but the mercenary avoided me and pressed the grenade’s buttons. With no other options left, I inhaled fast and deep in case the room filled with toxic gas.
    But the grenade wasn’t filled with poison vapor. Instead, its mirror surface liquefied like mercury, pouring over the man’s hands and running up his arms: a thick silver gush that spread over flesh and clothes, coating his fingers, his wrists, his sleeves. A moment before it touched my hand—the one I still held on the man’s windpipe—I felt glacial cold from the air in front of the advancing fluid. I tried not to flinch as the silver washed against my skin, bitterly sharp, like instant frostbite. It oozed its way under my grip, forming a frigid barrier between my hand and the man’s throat. In a heartbeat, my fingers went numb with cold. I jerked my hand free; the tissue had already turned a bloodless white, and I shook my wrist hard to get circulation flowing again.
    Meanwhile the silver spread faster, enveloping the man’s head and running down his body—changing him into a featureless mirrored humanoid, like some computer-generated figure intended to show off software graphics. I saw my own face reflected in its surface; then Reuben appeared beside me in the reflection.
    “What the . . . ?” Reuben said, looking at the spreading silver.
    “I quite agree,” I told him.
    Staying atop the operating table, I reached for my belt sheath and drew the Kaybar knife. The mercenary was now encased in silver. The whole process must have taken less