At that instant, Patrick leaped off the floor with a sharp hiss of compressed air and slammed into Wohl full force in a flying body tackle. He landed on all fours and got back up to his feet after taking a moment to get his bearings, but Wohl sailed over backward like a small wide receiver hit by a speeding linebacker. “I said hit me, dammit!” Patrick’s electronic voice shouted. “Just do as you’re goddamn told!”

Chris Wohl got on his feet like an enraged grizzly bear. He picked up the steel pipe and swung it with all his might, hitting Patrick squarely in the left shoulder. They all heard the dull thud and Patrick reeled, stumbled slightly over to the right, but did not go down. Wohl swung again. The pipe landed on Patrick’s left rib cage. Again, no effect. He blocked two even harder blows with his forearms. The next blow, weaker now that Wohl was winded, landed right on his head, across his right temple. His head jerked to the left from the impact, but he remained standing. Then, as if from the depths of a wild-boar pit, Patrick cried out, a loud, almost animal-like cry, and clutched his head in pain.

“Patrick!” Masters shouted. “Are you all right? Doc, help him!”

Carlson Heinrich ran over to Patrick, ready to get him out of the suit and administer first aid, but Patrick swung his left arm and swatted Heinrich away. One of Heinrich’s ribs cracked loud enough for everyone in the hangar to hear it.

As Wohl looked at him in amazement, Patrick stepped over to him and rammed his left hand into his chest. The blow felt like a sledgehammer. The wind gushed out of Wohl’s lungs, and he fell to his knees, grasping his midriff in pain. Then Patrick reached down, picked up the steel pipe-and hit him square on the side of the head with a tremendous swinging blow. Wohl’s head snapped over to the right in a cloud of blood. He landed flat on his face and lay still, blood oozing from his ears, his mouth, his eyes. Then, with another growl, Patrick raised the pipe over the fallen man, aiming one end of it at his skull…

“What the fuck!” Hal Briggs shouted in shock. Patrick McLanahan, their friend and colleague, was going to kill Chris Wohl! He ran over and body-tackled Patrick. They both fell over onto the concrete floor, Briggs on top. “Patrick, what the hell are you doing, man?” He intended just to hold Patrick, to calm him down-but both of Patrick’s arms swung up and hit him in the jaw. Briggs felt as if a steel girder had hit him-the force was no different from being hit by a man, but it didn’t feel like arms striking him; they felt like huge steel rods, completely unyielding. Briggs’s head snapped upward, blood spattering from a chomped tongue and broken nose, teeth flying.

Shouting like a madman, Patrick struggled to his feet, again clutching his helmeted head. He picked up the steel pipe and turned on the first person he saw: the prone Chris Wohl. He raised the pipe like a woodsman getting ready to split a log and…

“No!” Briggs shouted. He pulled his.45 Colt from his holster, aimed, and fired three rounds, hitting Patrick twice in the back and once in the helmet. Patrick screamed, the electronically distorted voice sounding like the squealing brakes of a locomotive against the rails, metal on metal. He dropped the steel pipe and again clutched his head, writhing in pain-but still on his feet. He turned toward Briggs, screamed again, and charged.

“Patrick, stop!” Briggs fired five more rounds, emptying his Colt. Patrick fell to his knees after the last slug hit him. The air was filled with blue smoke and the walls echoed from the gunshots. The scene was surreal: a costumed figure howling like an animal, writhing in pain, crouched on the concrete floor.

But he still wasn’t down. Patrick crawled to his feet, his chest heaving, his electronically amplified breathing heavy and labored. Briggs couldn’t believe his eyes. Patrick had just taken eight slugs from a.45-caliber automatic from no more than twenty feet away and he was still alive. Or was he really alive? Was this some kind of sick, homicidal automaton? Briggs dropped the empty magazine, pounded a full one home, and took aim…

“Wait!” Masters shouted. He ran over to Patrick with Heinrich, plowing into him from the right side and tackling him back to the floor. Patrick swung an arm, clubbing Heinrich painfully on the right arm. Heinrich cried out in pain and rolled free, clutching a broken arm, but it gave Masters enough time to touch a tiny hidden switch under the left edge of Patrick’s helmet. An invisible seam appeared, and the helmet popped open and clattered to the concrete hangar floor.

What they saw made their blood turn cold. Patrick’s face was contorted in agony. His eyes were bulging, his mouth wide open. The veins on his head and neck protruded so much that they looked ready to burst through his skin, and his neck muscles were horribly swollen. His maddened eyes rested on Briggs. He scrambled drunkenly to his feet, ready to pounce again, ready to rip Briggs’s heart out, ready to spill his blood. Briggs aimed for the contorted head and closed his eyes…

“Don’t, Hal,” Jon Masters said in a remarkably calm voice, holding up both hands. “He’ll be all right now. The power in the suit is deactivated. Just stay away from him.” He stooped to help Heinrich, who was clutching his fractured arm against his body. Patrick got to his feet and charged, but Briggs sidestepped him easily, pushing him away to keep clear of those pile-driver arms.

He watched the way Patrick’s eyes darted from side to side; he’d clutch his head and then they’d flash sideways again. He stumbled about, trying to regain his footing, before finally collapsing to his knees on the floor. “What’s he doing?” Briggs asked. “Why are his eyes doing that?”

“He’s trying to activate the eyeball sensors,” Masters explained. “Trying to activate the systems in the suit. He still thinks he has his helmet on. Don’t touch him, Hal. The effect will wear off, but you might set him off again. Look after Chris.”

Keeping a wary eye on Patrick, Briggs went over to Chris Wohl. The big Marine commando was moaning in pain, trying feebly to raise a hand to his head. He looked in very bad shape. “I think Patrick fractured his skull,” said Briggs, “but he’s conscious-though barely. He needs an ambulance.”

“I… I already called for an ambulance,” they heard Patrick say. His breathing had returned almost to normal. He was still on his knees, his head listing to one side as if he couldn’t hold it upright. “As soon as I hit him, I got on the VHF radio and called the security office for an ambulance. It’ll be here any second now.”

“What the hell were you trying to do, Patrick?” Briggs spat. “What got into you, man?”

“I… I don’t know, Hal,” Patrick said weakly. “It was as if I were… I don’t know, on speed or something. When Chris pushed me, I felt-I just felt like I had to kill him. He was the enemy. I could see everything so clearly, as if I were watching myself. When those bullets hit me, I wanted to rip something apart-anything. I wanted to kill you, kill Chris, kill anyone who came near me. I knew what was happening. I knew who you were, I knew where I was-and I also knew I had to kill all of you.”

“Jesus. I think that suit messed up your head,” Briggs said. “Jon, help Patrick out of here before the ambulance comes. I’ll stay with the doc and Chris.” Masters helped Patrick to his feet and supported him to an adjacent office. When the ambulance arrived, he went back to see Wohl safely loaded in, issued instructions to the security crews, and returned to look after Patrick.

He found him where he had left him, sitting on a bench with his elbows resting on his knees, looking down at the floor. He had opened the top of the suit so he wouldn’t pass out from the heat. Jon disconnected the backpack power unit, then helped him strip off the suit. Soon Patrick was sitting in a chair, wearing only a sweat-soaked light cotton undergarment. He was staring straight ahead, his lips parted, the expression on his face suggesting he was replaying the past twenty terrible minutes in his mind’s eye.