As Delta drops, Harry roars past to slam into the first few coming from the stairs. Huge hits are given by his big fists bunched and ready. Men sail over the balcony, to land with sickening crunches of bones breaking. Harry attacks anyone foolish enough to come near him. Booting operatives and soldiers back into those coming up the stairs, who cannot fire for fear of striking the agents behind Harry.
One agent ducks, feints and rolls to come up behind Harry with a knife pulled from a belt. He surges in, the blade lifted and ready to sink in. The shot comes from outside, taking him off his feet and into the wall. The huge boom clear above the heli blades thundering overhead. Another shot comes. Another operative is taken off his feet. Harry rages. Battering everyone around him as soldiers and operatives are snatched away by the gunshots booming outside.
‘WHO IS THAT?’ Safa bellows, rolling away before jumping to her feet to run and join Harry.
‘TANGO TWO, WHERE ARE YOU?’ Mother’s voice clear on the radio, demanding her location.
‘Landing, middle floor.’ Alpha snatches a reply amidst the carnage.
Tango Two blinks in the confusion at hearing her name. No time to think why. No time to think of anything. She looks back to see Bravo and Alpha trying to rise, and Ben rolling away from Echo before surging up to his feet and kicking the agent in the ribs so hard it sends Echo scooting across the floor. She sees Miri grabbing Bertie back to his feet and wrenching the door open. She sees Harry and now Safa dominating the group still trying to breach the stairs. She sees Ben launch himself into Alpha and Bravo as they try and rise. His skill way below that of everyone else, but viciously violent nonetheless.
Wild and chaotic. Frantic and frenzied. Bertie is the important one. She runs for the door, reaching it at the same time as Susan, who once again tries to gain time for Bertie to get away. Tango Two slams her bodily into the wall, reaches down, grabs an ankle and pulls up as she runs on.
‘BEN . . . DOOR . . . GO GO GO . . .’ Safa yells.
Ben bursts away from Alpha and Bravo. A hand shoots out, grabbing his boot. He goes down hard, but scrabbles to keep going as Alpha and Bravo lunge after him. Harry spins, seeing Ben held, and starts running towards him.
‘BERTIE, NOT ME . . .’ Ben screams out.
‘WHERE IS TANGO TWO?’ Mother demands again. None of them can reply. None can free the seconds to press the radio button and speak.
Harry falters, turning for the door as Delta takes him from the side through the doorway of the second flight of stairs. Safa screams out and runs to go after them. Roland pushes in, clambering over Harry and Delta fighting on the floor, his mind lost to panic and thinking only of escape. Ria grabs at Delta and heaves back with enough force to allow Harry to rise and surge up the stairs. Delta goes after him, heedless of the screaming woman grabbing him from behind.
Ben pulls his leg free and runs for it, gaining the doorway a second before everyone else. Instant compression as they all surge in and up. Echo screams at operatives to follow him as he runs for the main stairwell.
Eight
Miri gains the top of the stairs with Bertie. The pains in her hips and back are immense. Her vision swims. She cannot take this kind of movement now. Her body is too battered and broken from the things she has done. She grits her teeth and ploughs on, with the sole focus of getting him through the portal to safety. She fires her gun as she runs, sending rounds back, heedless of who they hit. Tango Two drops flat as the bullets go whizzing overhead. Harry and Delta still scrapping in the confined space. Safa and Ria behind them. Ben behind them. Everyone else coming up the stairs.
Miri’s gun clicks empty. Tango Two rises to sprint hard. Powering down the corridor as she watches Miri run while changing magazine. Everything frantic. Everything a blur of instinct and countermove to the things everyone else does.
Delta heaves Roland aside. That slight motion buys time for Harry to grab at Delta’s hair and launch him backwards and down to the floor. Harry drops hard and sends a fist into Delta’s face, knocking him clean out.
Miri bursts on to the top landing. Her right hand holding the gun up. Her left hand gripping Bertie who runs on, shocked to the core and rendered mute.
‘HERE,’ Doctor Watson shouts. She rushes towards him as Echo throws the flash-bang up the stairs and sprints up with his eyes squeezed closed and his hands clamped over his ears.
The detonation is sickeningly loud. Bertie takes it open-eyed, and screams out at the pain. Miri staggers into the wall. Her legs suddenly weak and rubbery. Her head swimming.
Hands grip her arm. She tries to throw them off, but hears the tones of the doctor shouting at her to run. She keeps her grip on Bertie. Dragging him towards the room as the doctor looks back to the stairs now alive with soldiers and black-clad operatives.
‘STOP,’ Tango Two shouts. Doctor Watson goes faster, his own heart thundering as he heaves Miri and Bertie through the door. Only one room to cross to reach the glowing portal at the back.
Bertie’s legs give out. The pain in his eyes and ears is too much. Miri sinks down with him, unable to take his weight. Doctor Watson tugs at them to get up.
Harry dashes out from the door into the small group of operatives running past. That impact sends several sprawling, buying a second’s worth of distraction for Safa, Ria and Ben to come through after him. Safa and Ben go straight into the fight. Fists lashing out, grabbing arms to break and using legs to trip. Roland crashes through. Seeing his daughter jumping on the back of an operative, he runs on past towards the door to the room holding the portal.
They fight as they run. All of them. A pressing, seething clash of form against form. Harry plucks Ria from the back of the man she is trying to blind with her thumbs before booting the almost blind operative away.
Tango Two runs into the room, seeing an old man trying to help the target male. Doctor Watson snaps his head up, his face full of fear. He screams out and charges. His hands lashing out wild and unaimed as he thinks to beat the woman back. Tango Two side-steps neatly, letting him sail past as Miri blindly raises her gun in the direction of the noise. Tango Two darts to the side and rushes for the hand holding the pistol. Miri fires, the gun slamming up from the recoil as Tango Two snatches it from her hand.
Tango Two spots the blue light shining from the open door of the walk-in wardrobe. Mesmerising colours that ripple and dance across the surface. There it is. That’s the time machine. The doctor bounces off the wall with a gargled yelp and staggers back. He turns and screams out again as he commences his second charge at the woman. Tango Two again steps out of his way and sends a foot into his arse, propelling him into the closet and straight through the portal. She sees it happen. She sees the man go through.