8. Yummy, yummy C4.
EIGHT
Glass containers filled with dust-infused gasoline lurked overhead, and I had two choices: I could waste time trying to pull down tiles, or I could take a bath in the brown fluid and make it easier for the napalm to do its job.
Since the gas wasn’t doing anything to me as far as I could tell, I decided to take the brute force route.
Grateful I could see in the darkness with a little help from the meter’s glowing screen, I bucked, slashed with my horn, and tore down every last tile in my effort to spread a swath of toxic destruction around me.
Among the broken glass shards were a network of tangled wires.
When I finished making sure all the containers in the reception were broken, I took the time to inspect the setup.
Picking up the camera in the off-chance it still worked, I reared and balanced on my hind hooves, craning my neck for a better look into the trashed ceiling.
More of the glass drums hung in the adjacent office space.
Dropping down to all fours, I dealt with the glass wall in the most direct fashion possible: I charged it, lowered my head, and plowed through it horn first. I punched my way into the next room and dropped my hindquarters to avoid crashing into one of the statues.
A gaping hole in the ceiling marked where the drums had burst. At least four broken containers hung from the support beams normally hidden behind the tiles. A tangle of wires hung down.
Someone hadn’t installed the explosives correctly; blasting caps affixed to wedges of C4 waited for detonation.
Yummy, yummy C4.
After setting the camera down out of the way, I dodged petrified victims, braced my front hooves on one of the drenched desks, lifted my head, and stretched to reach the tasty treat.
I snatched the wires in my teeth and yanked.
The tangle of cords and explosives separated from the glass drums. Backing up, I kept tugging until the C4, cables, and blasting caps pulled free from the containers.
Something banged in the ceiling, and a cascade of brown fluid splashed to the floor.
With a few more yanks, I had fifty feet of bundled wires and balls of explosives.
Lowering my head, I stepped on the wires to keep them in place and hunted down every last scrap of explosive, savoring its sharp flavor and the heat it birthed in my belly.
If anyone was actually watching the fish-eye camera feed, they were probably thinking I had lost my mind. Couldn’t a unicorn enjoy a special treat in a bad situation?
Once I disposed of all the explosives, I returned to my campaign of destruction, breaking every last one of the drums in the ceiling to ensure they were incinerated when the napalm ignited.
With the napalm order, I wouldn’t have to worry about the dust surviving long enough to get into the air.
The shields they used to protect the neighboring buildings would keep almost every known substance under containment long enough for it to burn to nothing.
Deeper within the office, another room waited.
Someone hadn’t been telling the truth when they reported the extent of the contamination.
While there were nineteen people in the first room, there were another forty-three statues, most of them seated at their desks, caught completely by surprise when the dust-contaminated fluid had rained down on them.
The dust hadn’t taken long to petrify its victims, seconds rather than bile’s customary five minutes.
Had it been gorgon bile, instead of condemning the sixty-two victims and possibly myself to death, I would have been gingerly torching their statues to neutralize the bile and turn its magic inert so no one else would be petrified.
In human form, I would have been doing the work with a sponge, a steel bucket, and a lot of water.
Once cleaned, I would have hosed them down with neutralizer to return them to living flesh.
I avoided the victims as best as I could while confirming there were no more unbroken drums in the ceiling.
The bomber had managed to detonate them all, leaving no part of the room untouched.
If I ever got a hold of the culprit, Chief Quinn would be arresting me for one of the most brutal murders New York had ever seen, and I’d smile through the trial and subsequent jail time.
Retrieving the camera, I set it up so I could drop identification cards in front of it.
Bracing for the worst part of my job, I shoved my nose into pockets to gather wallets, chewed through the straps of purses, and took everything to the camera.
Bringing the meter closer while it sang a shrill chorus promising death and doom, I planted my front hooves on the table, shredded through leather with my claws and teeth to locate the cards, and did my best to memorize the names of every victim in case the camera wasn’t working anymore.
If I lived, and I’d do my best to survive, at least the victims wouldn’t be forgotten.
There was nothing I could do for them beyond that.
Once the napalm hit, the sudden change in temperature would likely shatter their statues.
Maybe granite could survive it without melting, but I doubted they were granite; as far as I could tell, they were some dark and glossy stone, possibly obsidian.
The deep warning tone fell silent. A shudder ran through the floor beneath my hooves.
It wouldn’t take long for them to flood the place if they pulled out all the stops, and considering I had asked Janet to contact Professor Yale, they’d move fast. Professor Yale had one simple rule: if anyone asked him for help, it better be a doomsday scenario.
He’d kill anyone who involved him without just cause.
Sixty-two potential carriers and enough gorgon dust to infect Lower Manhattan in its entirety classified as a doomsday scenario to me. Even if I died along with them, the price was small to protect so many people. I could go out in a blaze of glory without a single regret.
If I died and my name was released to the public, my parents might even be proud of me—or at least satisfied by my demise.
Not only would I be dead, I’d get five minutes of fame as a hero, and they’d take full credit for my actions.
I turned my head and sank my teeth into the nearest chair, chewing at the upholstery so I wouldn’t snort flame and ignite the gasoline.
I forced my attention to my work, determined to survive so I couldn’t be used by the two people who hated me the most.
After I finished going through the identification cards, I took the camera and did a second inspection of the affected area.
I eyed a sturdy-looking desk far enough away from the statues I wouldn’t risk knocking them over.
Bracing for a potential collision with the floor, I jumped onto the desk, digging my claws into the metal surface.
It held under my weight. From my higher vantage, I stuck my head into the ceiling to examine the glass drums.
How had the culprit gotten them into the office?
A janitorial crew could do it over the course of a night or two.
But why? Was an epidemic the goal? If so, the culprits had made a lot of assumptions about how decontamination worked.
Assuming the cleaners were completely clueless, the neutralizer sprays would revert the newly whelped gorgons to flesh, triggering a petrification spree the likes of which New York had never seen.
From what I could recall, one in a thousand petrified by a gorgon carrier would become a newly whelped gorgon, although they wouldn’t be capable of infecting someone. Within days, there would be hundreds—maybe thousands—of new gorgons with no control over their abilities.
Manhattan would become a city of stone within a week.
Any trained and certified crew would use the meters, figure out gorgon dust was responsible, and initiate emergency protocols. Like me, the decontamination crew would end up living sacrifices to prevent the dust from spreading. The police would name them heroes along with the victims lost.
It hit home just how lucky I had been in my apartment. I could have easily been fried to mitigate the risk of the dust spreading. Had my precautions to prevent the dust from escaping made the difference between a stay in a glass coffin and a cremation?
I jumped off the desk and returned to the reception.
Had the culprit assumed that the poor bastard stuck with doing the decontamination would be unwilling to issue a napalm order?
Did they not know certified handlers could issue the order?
I certainly hadn’t told anyone the most dangerous element of my side job, which involved signing my own death warrant.
Could my unicorn’s inherent affinity with fire spare me from immolation? I’d find out soon enough.
120 Wall Street shuddered again and something gurgled overhead.
I turned to face the elevators in time to watch bursts of light surround the metal doors.
Thick gray fluid pushed through the gaps.
Sparks of gold and silver danced through the substance.
Thin pseudopods of the fluid stretched out to coat the walls in a wet sheen.
Showtime.
Still carrying the camera in my mouth, I cantered down the hall in search of the stairwell.
More sparkling ooze spilled through a doorway marked with a dark exit sign.
The pungent stench of gasoline and other accelerants filled my nose.
Had I been human, the first signs of asphyxiation would have begun.
Instead, I drooled in the presence of so much fuel.
Not only were they pumping napalm into the building, it was magic napalm.
Surely magic napalm tasted better than its mundane counterpart.
One lick wouldn’t change anything, would it?