Read Online Shadowboxer by Nicholas Pollotta - Free Book Online Page A

and it thunderously boomed twice, the muzzle flash illuminating the dim interior of the burned-out building to near daylight levels for half a tick. Each time a figure flew off the ropes, an explosion of red blood from the unarmored throats marking a lethal hit.
    Chatter guns don’t mean drek if ya can’t hit the target, Thumbs thought smugly, forcing himself to breathe as he moved painfully with every discharge so they couldn’t track his location. Spend time on the gun range, or forever in the dirt, as his daddy used to say. Nuff said.
    The remaining four reached the ground, and were in a circle firing wildly, high and low. Crouching behind a chunk of busted concrete, Thumbs hastily buttoned up his ballistic vest and heard flechettes ricochet twice off his impromptu barrier. Bad. This was bad. Three visible exits, but he was nowhere near any of them. No back-up, no grenades, not much ammo, and it was their home turf. Reinforcements could be on the way already. Pulling the long monofilament-edged knife from his boot, he hacked off a chunk of concrete and threw it across the open expanse of the dilapidated structure. It hit with a loud clunk-clatter-crash, and two of his attackers turned to fire that way, the others expertly concentrating on the exact opposite direction, neatly cutting off his bid for the open doorway.
    The wall aft of Thumbs and his concrete shield got hammered hard with dozens of rounds, and twice more his vest slapped him on the back, but now it was closed tight so the impacts were only an annoyance. Would have been closed before too, but it was just so freaking hot today! Ballistic cloth was thicker than end-of-the-year miso soup, and a troll’s gotta breathe. Well, not according to the Kings he don’t, that is.
    Maintaining their circle formation, the policlubbers were spreading out, firing irregularly to conserve ammo. Nobody called out for surrender or quarter. Thumbs knew he was a metahuman in racist territory. If they got him, his pointed ears would be nailed to their Wall of Honor. Horns carved into pistol grips, tusks sold to tourists, and the rest of him would go to feed their dogs and gators as a special treat, trying to cultivate in the beasts a taste for metahuman flesh. As if the freaking things needed any additional encouragement.
    Cutting off two more chunks of concrete, Thumbs sheathed the blade and then threw one of the chunks to his left and waited, standing erect. As the policlubbers fired in the same response pattern, he pulled back a powerful arm and threw the second chunk with all the strength he possessed. It hit one of the guards squarely in the face, and the man’s head snapped back so hard Thumbs could hear his spine audibly break. As the body dropped and the others turned for a moment to see their comrade mysteriously fall, Thumbs shifted position to a stinking pile of assorted junk where the dead gutterpunk had been hiding. Okay, three down, three to go. Without a doubt, he’d had fun before, and this wasn’t it.
    Firing twice more, then again, and again, Thumbs saw one guard crumple and another have her knee blown off before they all started firing in his direction. In counterpoint, the wounded fem started screaming curses in every language she knew.
    Hastily, Thumbs was reloading, pocketing the spent clip, when something hissed and crackled around the hot barrel of his Ares and the gun was brutally yanked from his grip. His eyes searched the darkness as he shifted position and the air hissed again. Stun baton? Drek! Reinforcements must have arrived! Drawing his knife, Thumbs shoved his back to the dirty wall, frantically searching for a way to escape, but saw only darkness and enemies completely surrounding him. No other choice then. Arctic. He touched the third molar on the right Side of his mouth with his tongue and felt his body vibrate with power. The reflex trigger would accelerate his reactions to triple-speed.
    “Rock and roll!” he screamed, charging headlong