Tale of a Vampire Assassin

Chapter 10

The hamster wheel is this conveyor belt looking apparatus in this otherwise empty room.  You get on it, someone in control turns it on, and you run.  Mostly it's used to study the mechanic movements of the body.  The gear heads use this to determine whether you need help moving or not with high-tech shoes or if you deserve the better, new equipment.

Apparently my team deemed that the new armor was fit to hold up to everyday movement.  Honestly I didn't run that much even if I was built for it.

After They decided I was finished with the hamster wheel I was told to report to the obstacle room.  There it is basically an underground cityscape.  Here I'm given an objectives, targets, and a time limit that my objectives must be completed in and my targets captured or preferably killed if I'm ordered to do so.  Of course I finish with time to spare.

York isn't satisfied.  He wants to see me fail; I know it.  I'm sent back into the cityscape with an almost impossible mission.  I have to rescue hostages, capture one target, kill another, and beat my time limit while firing that damned new gun through it all.  This is impossible even for me.  For any vampire.

I'm nearly finished when my second target surprises me by nailing me in the jaw.  From around a corner no less.  I wrestled him to the ground and hit him exactly where he'd hit me.  Once I'd gotten him unconscious I shot him in the vest.  Stupid trainers.  I've always hated them.

I ran for the giant timer in the center of the cityscape.  On my way there I passed the observation window into the control room and saw Max standing by the controls and giving orders.  I ignore the slide of my fangs at the thought of his blood and flip him the bird.  Suddenly it's started raining and I know he's spotted me.  Oh well, I needed a shower anyway.

I begin running for the giant timer.  There are trainers planted everywhere in the cityscape now.  Some of them move out of my way, others I have to shove aside or elbow my way past them.  When I finally reach the timer I start to climb the latter to the top when I hear someone  shooting at me.

For a moment I turn to shoot back at then before I realize this is planted here to distract me.  I continued to climb the latter to the top, stared down Max through the window and punched the buzzer to end the timer.  You have just been called out, I think at him as I narrow my eyes in his direction.  His eyes lock with mine thorugh the window and he knows that my actions are a challenge directed at him.  I can see on his face that he doesn't like it as he glares back at me.  His brown eyes look as if they'll catch fire if he doesn't relax.

When the clock ended and a loud obnoxious buzzer went off I watched as York and Max banged their fists into the control panels and threw things across the room.  Gear heads were going behind them trying to clean up what damage they left in their wake.

I leaped off the top of the timer, landed in a crouch, then stood and walked back to the door of the control room.  No sooner than I walked through the door I was pinned to the wall by an angry Max.  His fist made a hole in the wall inches from my face.  That wasn't normal.  My eyes bulged in surprise. He could have hurt me had that fist of his been aimed for my face.  Any part of me actually.  I didn't understand how he was so strong.  His fist went right through the concrete.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  No human had the strength to do that.  Not a single one.

My eyes went to the angry vein that always popped out of Max's neck when he got like this.  There was a square cotton bandage taped to his neck.  That's when I realized I hadn't licked his wounds when I'd bitten him.  He's supposed to be dead . . .