Weir Codex 1: The Cestus Concern Read Online Free Page B

five inches from contact.
    Panting and spitting gobs of thick, dark blood, Mal thought, what the hell is going on here? How do I fight someone who doesn’t have to touch me to hurt me?
    “Designate Gauss is equipped to affect, alter and manipulate magnetic fields in his immediate area,” responded the calm voice that Mal thought sounded more and more like something you’d hear while on hold.
    At least it’s answering me now, Mal thought to himself as he blocked a leaping over-hand martial arts strike from Gauss that sent cracks throughout the floor beneath them and further threatened a collapse. If Mal didn’t figure something out soon, he was a goner.
    “Initiating dipolar counter charge in five seconds,” the voice stated as a plan laid itself out for Mal.
    “Four seconds.”
    The ferocity of the battle increased with the countdown. If Mal understood things, angling his back toward the window was going to be his best chance of getting away, and that whatever was going to happen was going to be rather impressive in nature.
    “Three seconds.”
    Landing a particularly nasty cut down the face of Gauss that nearly took out his eye, the barest hints of a smile curled the edges of Mal’s mouth. Gauss stumbled back a few feet in surprise. He was shocked Mal was able to hurt him.
    “Two seconds.”
    Face flushing red Gauss put all of his power behind a strike he was sure would kill or incapacitate his opponent.
    “You’re dead!” screamed Gauss and his arm pistoned forward with the force of a canon.
    “Dipolar counter charge initiated.”
    Hearing the words in his head and feeling the strange tingling in his arms, Mal lashed out with his own fist, directly into the path of the one Gauss had launched. The two hands, moving at rocket-like speeds, closed to within millimeters of one another before the reverse polarity field Mal’s arms were generating took full effect, halting their power.
    The resulting explosion caused the smoke-filled air to clear and, in a semi-circle of devastation, destroyed ceilings, knocked down walls and punched through concrete floors. The concussive force blew the three Gomer units spinning uncontrollable down the hall, quickly followed by an unconscious Gauss.
    Mal blacked out from the powerful discharge.
    He awoke less than three heartbeats later to find himself hanging over seventy stories up in the airspace just outside of the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, surrounded by falling glass and debris. A cool wind massaged his body in some very intimate locations, reminding him of his lack of clothing. For a moment, just before mistress gravity reasserted herself on him, Mal felt just like Wile E. Coyote.
    Mal wondered where he’d put his tiny ‘HELP’ sign.
    “Y-Axis position: nine hundred sixty-three feet and falling. Time to ground impact, sixteen point three two seconds,” Mal’s inner voice told him in a flat, emotionless tone. “Chances of survival: zero point zero five nine one percent,” it added.
    “Oh, hell,” was all Mal could manage before he dropped like a rock.

CHAPTER 3
     
    When the security alarms began their shrill cackling, Gordon Kiesling cringed just a little—the sound reminded him very much of the way his mother-in-law cackled at the twice-yearly holidays of Christmas and Thanksgiving. During those times the only thanks Kiesling was giving came from the knowledge the old bat was old and would be dead soon.
    As Kiesling reached for the intercom switch on his telephone, his tanned, manicured hand knocked over a pile of paperwork in transit, causing the handsome man to sigh. There were quite a few stacks of paperwork cluttering his desk, far more than he liked.
    Although Kiesling absolutely relished the amount of power his position gave him—the power of money, the power of political influence, and the power to defend his country from threats both foreign and domestic—the man loathed the tedium that it came with. He wished to himself, not for the first time,