Ruins

“Do you want to escape or not?”

A gun clicked, a slide racking back. They sound close enough to be on the second floor now, and almost to the final set of stairs. Green’s link was boiling over with terror. “What do we do?”

Kira didn’t have time to plan; she had to wing this as best she could. She put her face against his ear, whispering softly so the Ivies couldn’t hear. “They can’t link me. Lead them out the window.” She pushed away from him and slipped away on all fours, her toes and fingertips barely touching the floor as she stole around the corner to the hallway. Green hesitated, but seemed to understand her plan; he jumped up suddenly and ran to the window, tearing down the blanket and climbing out onto the slanted roof beyond. He disappeared past the edge of the window frame just as the first Partial came into view up the stairs.

“They’ve gone out the window,” said one.

“Check it.”

Kira pressed herself back against the wall, out of sight around the corner, trying to tell how many Ivies there were. She’d heard only two speak, but without looking there was no way to tell for sure. She had to act fast. This part of the hallway contained more broken furniture, neatly stacked like firewood, and the room beyond held the disassembled metal shell of a dryer, which the prisoners had folded out into a flat platform to contain their fires. A table leg in the pile of wood looked like it might make a good weapon, but Kira knew she had no chance in a club-versus-assault-rifle fight. She needed something better, something that used the only advantage she had right now: surprise. There was a large, ornate mirror leaning against the wall, which would be deadly but far too unwieldy to fight with, and an old 3D projector, which would be too lightweight to do any damage. She swore silently and reached for the table leg, knowing she was running out of time.

“They’ve jumped down to the balcony,” said a voice from near the window. They were talking softly, rather than coordinating over the link, but that made sense: They were chasing Partials, so the link would give them away. They didn’t know Kira was listening in. “I’ll follow—you go back down and cut them off.”

Kira saw the scene clearly in her head—one Partial gone out the window, the other walking back down that deep well of a staircase. She made her decision in a flash, grabbing the giant mirror with both hands and heaving it up, holding her breath to keep from puffing with the effort, padding across the floor as fast as she could without making any noise. The frame weighed at least forty pounds. She reached the wall around the staircase and hefted the mirror up and over, pausing only half a second to aim before letting go. The Partial heard her, or saw the motion, but it was too late; he looked up and the mirror crashed into his face, the full forty pounds focused in on a single edge right on the bridge of his nose. His faced caved in, his body crumpling to the stairs below, and Kira raced down after him.

DEATH

Already the link was broadcasting his death; even outside the building, his partner would know. Kira grabbed his gun and turned to look back up the stairs, bringing the rifle in tight to her shoulder. The starlight through the open window made a small trapezoid of light, and she watched it intently, her finger hovering over the trigger, waiting for the other Partial to come into view.

WHAT HAPPENED?

She didn’t know if that was Green or the gilled Partial; the cold blast of FEAR that followed could have been either as well. She thought about Green, trapped outside with a scared, angry warrior, and moved slowly backward. After a few steps away from the stairs the window disappeared from view, and she spun around to confront any other horrors lurking in the darkness. No one had approached her from behind, so she assumed there were only two Partials—or that any others were waiting in the boat. The hallway was dark, with few openings to the light outside, and after the starlight upstairs, her eyes had to readjust. She held still, listening for footsteps or breathing, trying to sense on the link who might be lying in wait beyond the next shadow. All she could feel was the lingering DEATH, bitter as old metal on her tongue.

She looked into the first room she passed; a bedroom, she guessed, the furniture gone and the clothes piled up in the corner. A little girl’s clothes, pink and frilly and eaten through by worms. The next room was an office; the next another bedroom. The house was empty and silent and choked out the light.

A tendril of link data tickled her nose: SOMETHING’S HERE. She moved swiftly to the next room in the hallway, a master bedroom leading out to the balcony. The wide glass doors were all broken, but the curtains still hung across them, thin and frail as ghosts. They billowed gently in the night air, and Kira almost fired her rifle when the shadow of a figure passed across one. The silhouette of a man outside on the balcony, too ill-defined to distinguish.