Chapter 36
The office blows open. One second I’m elbow-deep in a file labeled with my own goddamn name, the next I’m ducking a salvo of rubber bullets that turn the air to ricochet and ozone.
The sound slaps off the walls, sharp as a whip crack, and the stink of burnt powder mixes with the sting of glass dust cutting into my lungs.
The first two guards come through the door low and silent, Authority-smooth, not even waiting for the smoke to clear.
Behind them, a third with a face like gristle raises a riot shield and shouts something about “containment.” The glass panel by the desk explodes into a rain of shards, catching the light like frozen lightning before they bite into my skin. Kang and I are already moving.
He shoves me behind a stack of overturned chairs, presses the muzzle of his sidearm to my temple—not to threaten, just to steady his own hand. “Stay back,” he hisses, breath ragged, the heat of it cutting through the cold draft from the broken window. “You’re in no shape—”
I cut him off. “Fuck that.”
My legs want to fold, but the rest of me is already launching forward.
I see the med kit, mounted on the cinderblock with two strips of ancient adhesive.
The sticker on the front says EMERGENCY USE ONLY, but I’m way past emergencies.
I rip the plastic open, fingers working on muscle memory alone, and pop the cap off the red-labeled ampoule.
The needle looks dull, but the stuff inside is pure Authority: adrafinil-amphetamine mix, bright as summer in a bottle.
Kang is shouting something—maybe at me, maybe at the guards—but all I hear is the white noise of my own pulse. I jab the needle into my thigh and squeeze. The burn hits first—acid in my veins—then the world comes into sudden, crystalline focus.
I pop back up and grab the nearest body. This one’s still warm, Authority-issue, bleeding from the scalp where Kang brained him with a corner of the desk. His sidearm is a compact Sig, still on safe. I flick it off, chamber a round, and scan the chaos.
Three more guards through the door now, using gristle-face and his shield as cover.
Kang is a machine—no, he’s a goddamn training sim.
Each shot from his sidearm is a lesson in economy: chest, head, reload, repeat.
But there’s too many. They’re closing in, herding us toward the glass and the drop two stories down.
I take the opening: squeeze off two rounds center-mass at the closest, see the red blossom through the riot padding. I’m not sure if it kills him, but it slows him, and that’s all I need. I roll over the fallen shield, aim low at the next set of knees, and fire.
A baton grazes my ear and suddenly there’s a hand on my collar, hauling me up like I weigh nothing. Kang. He’s gritting his teeth so hard I hear the enamel grind.
“We’re moving,” he says, and then we are.
We barrel through the side door—bypassing the guard who thought he could cut us off—then into a corridor lined with blast-proof glass.
The walls are mirrored, the floor a checkerboard of black-and-blood, the smell of copper thick enough to taste.
The sound of our boots is swallowed by the hum of emergency power, broken only by the faint crackle of damaged wiring overhead.
We hit the next junction and Kang slams me up against the cinderblock, hard enough to bounce my teeth. He scans the hall, finger to his lips, then leans close. “Listen,” he whispers. “No alarms.”
He’s right. The halls are empty, the lights static. Even the ventilation hum is off, replaced by the weird, underwater hush of a building gone dead.
I lick the taste of blood from my lip and say, “So what?”
Kang’s face is unreadable. “Means Petrov didn’t want a panic. He’s just radioed the local patrols—no mass alert, no lockdown. We have a window, but it’s small.”
He pushes off, drags me along the corridor, and for a split second I catch our reflection in the mirror-glass: two animals, both bloodstained, both wild-eyed, both holding weapons with hands that shake for very different reasons.
We round another corner, the sound of pursuit receding behind us. Kang jerks his head at a steel door marked with nothing but a red stencil: MAINTENANCE. He cracks it open, peeks in, then pulls me through.
Inside is a tomb of pipes, wires, the skeleton of the prison’s infrastructure. The lights in here are anemic, the air hot and still, tasting faintly of oil and dust. Kang slams the door and shoves a folding chair under the handle.
“Can you walk?” he asks, voice low.
The stimulant is still humming in my bones, but I nod. “Try me.”
We climb the ladder up to the catwalks, the metal vibrating under our weight.
From the top, I see it all: the whole admin block, laid out like a circuit diagram.
Below, the yard churns with movement—guards, prisoners, maybe even scientists in their white coats, all moving in frantic patterns. No one looks up.
Kang points to the far end of the block, to a run of windows above the west gate. “We go there, then down. I know the code.”
We sidestep along the ledge, glass crunching underfoot, reach the service hatch at the end. Kang jams his shoulder into it, pops the latch, and we’re inside another maintenance corridor.
We move fast. At the final door—Security Control—Kang motions me flush against the wall. He steps in first, badge out, voice cool and clipped. “Status update for Petrov,” he says to the lone guard hunched over the console.
The man blinks, distracted by the grid of surveillance feeds. Kang slides closer, hand settling on his shoulder, grip tightening. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The guard’s fingers twitch over the keys. I shift in the doorway, my boot clipping a metal box. The crash is deafening.
The guard turns, hand dropping toward his holster—
Kang moves. Fast. He spins the guy, drives an elbow into the solar plexus, and in the same breath snaps his neck. The sound is wet, final. The silence that follows is worse.
The hum of the monitors, the faint click of cooling metal, the sharp, metallic tang of fresh blood — it all presses in.
Kang stands there, still holding the body upright. He kills like it costs him nothing. That should scare me more than it does.
His eyes finally lift to mine, unreadable.
“You didn’t hesitate,” I say.
A slow exhale. “Not when it comes to you.”
It hits me in the chest, harder than the gunfire. Something in me knots, sharp and sudden. I should hear warning bells, but all I feel is the pull of gravity.
Kang lets the guard’s body slide into the chair, settling it so the head slumps forward in front of the console. From the doorway, it could pass for someone dozing off at his post.
“Block D is yours,” Kang says, voice low. “All you have to do is say the word.”
I stare at the rows of faces on the screens — prisoners, guards, scientists — every one of them a loaded weapon, every one of them capable of tipping the balance. The monitors flicker under the bone-white light, each one showing a corner of this rotting place.
The idea settles like a live wire under my skin. I could set them all free. I could burn it all down.
I look at Kang, jaw set, eyes locked on mine. The air between us hums with the low throb of the server banks.
“Let’s do it,” I say.
His grin is sharp enough to cut.
He drops into the chair beside the dead guard and starts typing, his fingers blurring over the keys.
The hum of the electronics grows louder, the warm smell of overworked circuitry mixing with the faint copper tang of blood still clinging to the room.
I keep my gun ready, back to the wall, scanning for movement.
“Block D, manual override…” Kang mutters under his breath, almost to himself. “C, E, F, same… Disable collar lockouts…” His voice is calm, steady, like he’s dismantling a bomb he’s defused a dozen times before.
Three quick keystrokes. “Manual disengage in three, two—”
The effect hits like a detonation. On the screens, cell after cell shifts from red to green. Steel bolts groan, then slam back. Collars flicker, blue lights flashing in unison before unlatching and falling to the floor.
Across the prison, inmates step into open corridors like dreamers waking in the wrong place.
Some blink and freeze, others move instantly, purpose burning in their eyes.
I recognize faces: Stitch, the laundry twins, even a few of the warped sub-block mutants — all calculating, all looking for the nearest threat or the nearest way out.
The sound builds slowly at first — distant shouts, boots slapping tile — then swells into a deafening roar.
Fists hammer against steel, chains clatter, voices rise in a hundred languages at once.
Somewhere, a real siren wails — not a drill, not a contained alert — and the echo bounces through the walls until the whole building feels alive with it.
On the monitors, chaos blooms. A guard in the main yard tries to stand his ground and is swallowed by the rush. Another drops his weapon and bolts. The camera feed shakes as someone slams into it.
Kang leans back, watching his work unfold with that same unblinking focus. “Should be enough,” he says. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes before containment. Maybe less.”
His tone is almost casual, but the way his hand hovers near his weapon says otherwise.
I keep my eyes on the monitors, but part of me is watching him — the man who can shoot, snap a neck, or open a thousand cells without a flinch. He kills like it costs him nothing. And somehow, instead of pulling away, I find myself moving closer.