Countdown 3 Hours: The True Game Begins
---
"Captain Reeves, pull your men back. Don't let them get killed."
"Don't worry. Damian only shot out their tires. He doesn't actually want to kill anyone."
I drove to the scene of the accident. The ambulance wasn't badly damaged, and none of the officers had been shot, but with blown tires, they couldn't give chase.
But Jessica was gone.
I didn't get out of the car. The detectives stationed there seemed to have received orders and didn't stop me. One of them pointed toward the distance beyond the highway.
It was nearly nine at night, pitch dark beyond the road. Without his indication, I'd never have spotted the car about two hundred meters away, its hazard lights blinking.
I drove another twenty meters forward and found a gap in the highway guardrail where it had been rammed open. Following the gap, I drove off-road, keeping it in second gear, slowly approaching the car with the hazard lights.
It was the police cruiser Damian had hijacked.
I understood why he'd stopped.
He was waiting for me.
150 meters. 100 meters. 80 meters. 70 meters...
Just as we closed to 50 meters, his car suddenly started up and drove further away, maintaining the same distance.
50 meters—the effective range of a police sidearm. Beyond that, even the best marksman couldn't do anything.
Damian's car matched mine at a steady 60 kilometers per hour across the dark wilderness. Given the terrain, that was the maximum speed. Clearly, Damian wanted to draw me away from the highway, away from the city—so that even if I had a tracker, he'd have enough time for a confrontation or casualties.
About half an hour passed. His car suddenly decelerated, and I matched his speed to avoid giving him a chance to blow my tires. Without mobility, he'd finish me quickly.
When our speed dropped to 40, he suddenly slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel, spinning the car 180 degrees to face me, then slowly came to a stop, opening the driver's door. I braked too and opened my door.
We both stepped out and took cover behind our respective car doors.
Heavy clouds hung low, the sky dim and lightless. No wind. No one around.
Our headlights faced each other, letting us make out the other's silhouette. At 50 meters, with terrible visibility and limited ammunition, neither of us could reliably hit the other.
But neither of us dared to leave the cover of our car doors.
Then, my police radio crackled. It was a transmission from Damian's cruiser.
"You guessed right. The bomb was fake."
"I know. If it were real, you would have placed half of them around the house and detonated them when people left."
"What else have you figured out?"
"You just destroyed the parameters before you stopped. So now, you're starting to eliminate witnesses."
He laughed on the other end, laughed for a while before stopping.
"Kid, what do you think I'm going to do next?"
How would I know? He held all the cards—the wormhole parameters, Jessica, either one could force me to surrender. I'd driven here because I had no choice. I needed to kill him, avenge Victor Zhou, remove a threat to the 2017 world, and most importantly, save Jessica.
I had almost no chance of succeeding.
But I had no choice.
"Think harder," Damian said. There was even disappointment in his voice.
Two minutes of silence followed as we faced off across the dark expanse.
"You'll die by my hand."
"You still don't understand, kid." Damian's voice carried a trace of disappointment.
Then, the radio crackled again.
"Marcus."
"Damian."
"Last time in the lab, we didn't settle things, did we?"
"We didn't."
"I... want to fight."
"Yeah. Me too."
---
He didn't use his high beams, and neither did I, allowing us both to see the other's outline.
In the distance, Damian raised both hands. He held a pistol, and with his other hand, swapped in a fresh magazine.
I drew Captain Reeves' pistol, raised it high, and changed my magazine as well.
We both assumed two-handed grips, arms extended, aiming at each other.
In the pitch black, on the boundless plain, dust began to swirl. The wind had picked up.
Bang.
The first shot.Two reports blended into one.
Under the headlights, muzzle smoke rose pale and dissipated.
Bang.
Another shot. Our bullets flew past each other's cars into the darkness, drawing two lines of light through the black.
Bang.
A sharp metallic clang came from Damian's side, and on mine, a hole appeared in the windshield.
Bang.
The Type 64 pistol weighed only a single jin, with a maximum rate of fire of one round every two seconds, and a magazine of only 7 rounds.
We both fired at intervals of three to four seconds, trying to reset between each shot for the best possible trajectory.
But neither of us had achieved a single effective hit.
Bang.
Damian's left-side mirror shattered.
And a bullet grazed my cheek, drawing blood.
Bang.
He flinched slightly. I thought he'd been hit, but clearly not badly.
At the same time, a bullet sliced open my left arm. I didn't have time to check, but the wound was deep.
One bullet left.
We both paused twice as long to re-aim.
Then—
Bang.
Despite the extra time, the final shot from both of us was futile.
But we both knew that these seven long-range exchanges couldn't subdue the other, and what came next would decide everything.
The bullets were gone. The real game was just beginning.
---
I immediately crouched behind the door and swapped magazines.
Damian was the finest soldier trained in Britain, but with a police sidearm like this, he couldn't be more familiar with it than me. My magazine change should be at least two seconds faster.
Two seconds. I needed to get out of cover and into effective range.
The magazine clicked home. I burst forward, moving diagonally for a dozen meters, taking myself out of Damian's headlight range, then dropped to one knee and aimed at his car door.
By my calculation, he should have just finished reloading and re-aiming—or trying something new. As long as he appeared near the car door, I could take him out.
But as soon as I raised my gun, I saw that someone was already standing behind Damian's car door.
No.
It wasn't Damian.
It was Jessica.
She was handcuffed to the upper window frame, struggling to break free. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes filthy, and from the way she moved, she was clearly exhausted.
Why was she there? Why her?
I froze for an instant. Just that instant, a figure burst from the darkness.
It was Damian.
In those few seconds, he hadn't reloaded at all.
He'd set a trap.
He was always one step ahead.
---
My wrist struck his knee and went numb. The pistol flew from my grip. He had a gun in reverse grip, the butt swinging down at me with the force of the wind. I dodged, but the kneeling position I'd taken for shooting worked against me—I fell onto my back.
I could only roll sideways and use a ground defense technique I'd only ever seen in training, waiting for him to attack so I could kick him in a vital spot. But he just stood there, not advancing.
"Get up." He beckoned. "Come on."
I scrambled to my feet, paused, and charged again.
Step forward, front hand jabbing at his eyes. When he raised his guard, I shifted half-step left, and threw a hook at his liver.
It was a nearly foolproof combination. Even Captain Reeves couldn't dodge it.
But Damian caught my right hand at the last instant.
Then drove a knee into my left ribs, and the gun butt cracked against my left cheek.
"Again."
I feinted left, stepped right, grabbed his waist, tried a bridge throw.
But Damian stepped back as I grabbed him, preserving his center of gravity, then drove another knee into me.