TWENTY-SEVEN #2
Ewan lifts his hand between us and says, “I’m in full support of that legal framework.”
“Shut up and listen,” I whisper, the words having far less bite in them than they would have yesterday or the day before.
He does as he’s told, though. And so does Kaito. That’s how I know something is wrong.
Ewan turns his head slightly toward the lobby behind us. Kaito’s eyes lift to the ceiling above the maintenance stairs. And honestly? It ruins my fucking day in an instant.
Fletcher’s rifle shifts, just as he whispers, “What?”
Ewan points back at the way we came, and Kaito points up the stairs.
Great. Just great. We’ve got ourselves a full-service nightmare, just as I anticipated. Stupid stairwells. Stupid Zeds. Stupid Vector. Stupid goddamn apocalypse.
I listen harder. Behind us, somewhere close to the lobby, metal creaks. Above us, something drags across concrete.
Ewan whispers, “One above. Maybe two.”
“Behind?” Fletcher asks.
Kaito’s voice lowers as he says, “Human.”
My skin goes cold, not because humans are worse than Zeds. But because humans always end up bringing decisions with them. And those decisions always end up ruining my whole week, month, and maybe even the entire year.
The lobby door squeaks a little wider, and a man’s voice drifts through the service hallway.
“...fresh track.”
“Could be them,” another voice replies, and my stomach sinks at the same time my hand tightens around the handle of my knife.
Them.
That’s what we are. I can't say I much care for being a them. Especially because I don’t know exactly what part of us they even want. Could be the pilot. The cargo. O’R. Omega.
No. No way. They can’t possibly know that. Not unless someone scented me through everything. Not unless the blockers are failing worse than I even realized. Not unless the world has decided to upgrade from an inconvenience to full-blown actively malicious.
Fletcher leans close enough for me to hear him without his voice carrying, “Options. Back through them, up through the maintenance stairs, or stay here and get pinned.”
I look at the locked gate. It’s an old lock with no windows. It’s a me kind of problem, so I whisper, “Cover the noise.”
Ewan grins faintly. “With pleasure.”
Then he pulls a loose screw from an exposed wall bracket and tosses it down the service hallway, letting it skitter loudly toward the lobby. The sound pings and clatters across the tiles and behind us, the voices stop. Right before one of them asks, “What was that?”
While they look away, I work on the lock. It’s stiff but not overly complicated, and it should only take me roughly twelve seconds to get it open.
I get it open in eleven, though no one is actually timing it.
We take the maintenance stairs fast, but not loud.
The steps are made of grated steel, cold even under my boots, and every small scrape sounds like the deepest betrayal.
The pilot’s breathing turns wet halfway up, and Xeon mutters something to him, too soft for me to catch.
Fletcher keeps one arm around the pilot and one hand on his weapon, because apparently being inconveniently competent is just a part of his tragic little personality.
At the top, the second floor access door opens into a residential hallway lined with apartment doors. Some are open, some have been barricaded as I expected. Some have been scratched up from the outside, and some from the inside, but I refuse to think about that.
On one door, there’s a kid’s drawing taped to the front, faded to almost white. I can still make out the five stick figures standing under a corner-drawn sun, and I force myself to look away.
The covered walkway should be at the far end, so we move toward it, as quiet as we can with one fevered pilot, two bleeding men, and my knee still trying to draft its resignation letter that includes several words that would get it fired before it could quit.
Halfway down the hallway, I see it.
A metal canister wedged under a radiator.
It’s not old, because it’s too clean. It’s too deliberate. And that thought chills the blood in my veins.
“Stop,” I whisper.
Everyone does without question. Fletcher doesn’t immediately question why, which is terrible timing for growth.
Crouching carefully, making sure not to touch the canister, I inspect it closely. It’s small, black, and wrapped in tape, with a battery pack strapped to the side that includes a small, blinking red light.
Noise charge.
Basically a dinner bell with batteries.
My gaze flicks down the hallway, and I spy another sitting near the walkway doors. A third rests under a pile of broken picture frames, and it’s very clear they haven’t been thrown. They’ve been placed deliberately, and my stomach twists uncomfortably.
“They baited this route,” I whisper as quietly as I can.
Ewan’s voice loses all of its usual humor. “Timed?”
“Maybe,” I say, shrugging a shoulder. “Motion, remote, pressure. Honestly, pick your favorite flavor of fucked up.”
Fletcher’s voice is just as low as he asks, “Vector?”
“Who else could be this annoying and organized?” I mutter.
Kaito’s gaze moves over the hallway. “They wanted us inside.”
And that little sentence hits, and it packs a fucking punch when it lands. Not because I hadn’t thought of it, because I did. But it’s more than he says it out loud and the thought grows claws.
Above us, something screams.
Not a Zed.
Too fast.
Runner.
The sound splits through the building from somewhere on the upper floors, followed by a heavy crash of furniture and the growing groans of dead things that have been disturbed from their depressing, miserable little naps.
The canister nearest to the walkway wakes up, and a thin electronic whine steadily grows from it.
Ewan swears. “That’s not fucking ideal.”
“No shit.”
The whine suddenly snaps into a screeching alarm, and every single Zed in the building answers. The hallway erupts. Doors start to bang and from behind us, the service access door slams open.
Then I hear human voices shout.
“Contact! Second floor!”
Fletcher fires once down the hallway. “Move!”
I don’t argue with him this time. We all run, and the pilot almost drops.
Xeon catches him under one arm, and Fletcher takes the other side, hauling him forward.
Kaito turns and throws a blade toward the service door, and someone curses colorfully.
Ewan kicks the nearest noise canister under an open apartment door, then slams the door shut as the alarm continues screaming inside like a trapped demon with a battery pack.
“Bought us thirty seconds,” he shouts.
“Fucking optimist,” I shout back, just as an apartment door to my left explodes open.
A Zed stumbles out, followed by another, then a third crawls out with broken ankles. I slash through the first one’s throat to knock it off balance, then drive my knife through its temple. The second Zed lunges, and Fletcher shoots it past my shoulder, close enough that heat brushes my ear.
I glare at him, but he offers no apology. That’s fine. We don’t have time for one anyway.
The walkway doors are just ahead, and so is the second canister, still blinking. It’s too close to the exit. A trap on top of a trap. Beautiful. Absolutely love this for us.
The Runner screeches from above, sounding closer now, and I look up just in time to witness a ceiling panel near the end of the corridor buckle.
No.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
“Runner in the ceiling,” I snap.
Fletcher’s gaze follows mine. “Canister?”
“I see it.”
“Can you disarm it?”
“What the fuck do I look like to you? You think I have a tiny engineering degree hidden up my snatch?” I growl.
“Dakota,” Fletcher pushes.
“Fine,” I snap once more, right before I sprint ahead.
Kaito calls my name from behind me, but I ignore him, because that’s actually one of my best skills.
The canister is wedged near the door hinge, probably placed to scream the moment anyone tries to open the walkway. I drop to one knee, knife in hand, eyes scanning the wiring. Battery. Speaker. Motion switch. Timer already activated.
The red light flashes faster.
Wonderful.
The Runner hits the ceiling panel above me, and cracks spiderweb across the plaster. Fletcher shouts something. Ewan shouts something else. The words blur together until it’s all just noise.
I slide my knife under the tape, pry the battery connection loose, and yank. Hard.
The alarm dies.
The ceiling panel bursts.
And the Runner drops.
Right before it comes straight for me.
I launch myself sideways, but my bad knee catches. Pain flashes bright enough to blind, and the Runner lands where I was kneeling a split second before and skids, claws scraping sparks off the metal doorframe.
I lift my knife, only I’m too slow. Again. I officially hate that word.
Fletcher is still hauling the pilot. Kaito is too far back. Xeon is pinned by the pilot’s weight. And Ewan is fighting off a Zed with a piece of broken chair. Where the fuck did he even get that?
That’s absolutely not the problem here. The problem is that this is all on me.
The Runner throws itself at me. I roll under its first swipe, feeling claws catch the sleeve of my jacket and tear the fabric away from my injured arm. Fire shreds through the old wound, and my scent punches right out of me, sharp with pain.
Of course, the Runner snaps toward it. Of course NOVAC made even pain into a fucking invitation.
I kick its knee, and it folds. It doesn’t fall, though. Its hand closes around my boot and yanks. My back slams into the floor hard enough to steal the breath out of me, and the Runner uses that opportunity to climb over me.
Teeth.
Rot.
Clouded eyes.
My knife is pinned between us, and my arm is screaming in agony. For one icy second, I know exactly how this ends.
Then Kaito appears above us with a sound that is nowhere near human enough. His blade drives through the side of the Runner’s skull, and the weight falls onto me. Dead, heavy, and fucking disgusting.