The creatures streamed from the forest. Some galloped on all fours, like apes. He’d never seen so many in one place, focused on the same goal, as if they’d formed a clan.

Tania gasped. She clutched at Skyler’s sleeve.

“Run,” he said. “Don’t look back. Go!”

She ducked inside to the sound of shotgun blasts from deep within.

We’re surrounded, Skyler thought.

All the while the thunder from the approaching aircraft grew, until the noise drowned everything, even the cries of the subhumans.

Skyler saw no point in wasting bullets. There were far too many. The roof was all that mattered. He followed Tania, pausing only to shut the door.

She waited at the stairwell entrance. Samantha stood at her side, her breaths loud and labored. A few pitiful bodies were sprawled in the corridor beyond.

“To the roof, now,” Skyler said. He went first, and heard their footsteps on the stairs behind him.

Two flights above he stepped around the body of a subhuman, shot in the throat. Jake may have come down, he realized.

At the top he found the door to the roof open. Bodies littered the gravel surface. Beyond them, the Melville rested on the building’s landing pad, her engines at idle now. Skyler could see Angus’s face in the cockpit window, white with fear.

He paused. “Is Jake aboard?!” he called.

Angus read his lips, then shook his head.

Skyler looked across the rooftop. “Jake?” he shouted out.

No response came.

“Jake?!”

“He must be inside,” Samantha said. “You saw that body on the steps. Give me your weapon.”

He handed her the gun. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Bracing her shotgun on armpit, and holding the submachine gun in her other hand, Samantha disappeared into the darkness without another word.

Not five seconds elapsed before Skyler heard gunfire below.

He removed his pistol from the holster on his leg. “Let’s get you aboard,” he said to Tania.

She set the pace, somewhere between a walk and jog, crouching under the swirling winds of the Melville’s thrusters. Skyler threw an arm over his face to fight off the maelstrom of dust and rock kicked up by the engines.

“Where are the others?” Angus shouted from the open cargo ramp.

Skyler waved him back. “Be ready to take off!”

Angus hesitated, then returned to the cockpit.

Skyler ushered Tania through the door and tossed the duffel bag in after her. “Close the door, but be ready to let us in.”

“Skyler—”

“Do it!”

Tania flinched at the barked order, and pressed the button to close the ramp. The captain disappeared out of her view as the cabin sealed.

She found herself alone, the aircraft dead quiet save for the faint hiss from the engines. There were no windows in the cargo bay. She threw her briefcase into a seat and went to the cockpit door.

Angus glanced back at her and offered a sympathetic nod. She leaned in to see through the cockpit window. An odd angle with her bulky suit helmet.

One of the aircraft’s engines blocked much of her view. She could only see Skyler from the torso down.

He ran from the ship to the stairway entrance, his pistol held in both hands, aimed dead on the open door. The wind generated from the Melville’s engines whipped his clothing about and filled the air with dust. Bodies of subhumans lay everywhere.

Tania held her breath. The contrast of death and paradise brought tears to her eyes.

Skyler entered the stairwell, and darkness, gone from her view.

The stairs had become a slaughterhouse. He stepped over two more dead subhumans before reaching the bottom, and guessed the carnage wasn’t over yet.

A shot rang out from the direction of the barricaded alcove, and Skyler ran.

He found Samantha kneeling over Jake’s limp body. She cradled his head in her lap, tears streaming down her cheeks. Skyler stopped and fell to a seated position a few meters from them.

A pistol dangled from Jake’s fingers. A stream of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and down his neck, smearing on Samantha’s pants. The woman’s hands, which held the dead sniper’s head, were coated in blood.

“He ate a goddamn bullet,” Sam muttered. “Rather than letting them—”

Skyler clenched his teeth and looked away, fighting his own tears. He wanted to punch something, to exact some kind of revenge. “It’s my fault. We should’ve landed together. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Samantha came to him. She gripped his shoulder with one hand and squeezed. Her other hand, coated with Jake’s blood, slipped around his neck and she pulled him toward her until their foreheads touched. “We don’t always see eye to eye, Skyler, but I don’t lay this at your feet. I’d never do that.”

He blinked tears away and looked at her. “You have to crouch for us to see eye to eye,” he muttered.

A laugh escaped both their lips. Sam head-butted him, a gentle rebuke to his gallows humor. “That’s the Skyler I know. Enough of the waterworks, all right?”

“What do we do about Jake?” he asked, staring at his friend’s limp form.

“We’re scavengers,” Sam replied, dragging the back of her hand across her nose. “We take his shit and get the hell out of this godforsaken place. Just like he would have done if it were one of us lying there.”

Five long minutes passed with no sign of them. Tania stared at the maw of the open stairwell, ignoring the pilot Angus as he fretted nervously. For now, at least, the subhumans were gone. Elsewhere, she thought, or all slain.

A figure emerged from the door—Samantha, alone, her head down and shoulders slumped.

Tania’s breath caught in her throat. Then she saw Skyler, just behind the stocky woman. A few steps into the sunlight, the captain faltered, his knees buckled. Samantha turned and caught him in stride. She carried him toward the plane, out of view.

Tania felt an enormous pit open in her stomach.

She raced back to the rear door of the craft and opened it just in time for Samantha to climb the ramp and dump Skyler on the floor.

Unchecked rage showed on the tall woman’s face. She slammed the “close” button and the red intercom button in unison, so hard Tania thought they would break.

“Get us the fuck out of here,” Samantha said.

The pilot made no reply. The engines answered for him. They roared back to full strength and the craft tilted as it left the ground.

“Belt in,” Samantha said to Tania, without looking at her.

Tania moved to help Skyler up, but he stubbornly waved her off and pulled himself into a seat. Feeling lost, she took the seat next to him and buckled herself in.

Samantha pounded the butt of her shotgun against the wall, over and over. Each impact was weaker than the last as her strength, if not her rage, drained. In the end she stumbled through the cockpit door and closed it behind her.

Tania watched Skyler for a time, as the Melville sped away. He slept, or pretended to.

She felt numb, completely exhausted. Eventually she reached out a gloved hand and took his, held it firm. When his fingers tightened around hers, she fought to hold back tears. They’d lost one of their crew for her mission. A man had died, somewhere in the depths of that horrible building. Alone in the dark, those creatures cackling as they tore at his face …

Guilt would hang over her for the rest of her life. She knew that with total certainty. Tania retreated, found a place in her mind that she could make sense of. The lab on Black Level, her work, her research. She wanted nothing more in the world than to be back there now, and so she closed her eyes and took herself there.

Chapter Seventeen

Darwin, Australia

27.JAN.2283

From his vantage point, Darwin looked like scattered glowing embers, as if God himself had stood at a fire pit and kicked the smoldering coals in pure frustration.

Russell Blackfield liked to imagine himself in the role of God.

He spent most nights here, relaxing on a tattered old recliner on the roof of his headquarters in Nightcliff, a patio umbrella to keep the rain off his head. He brought three things: a lantern, the shipping manifests for the next day, and whatever bottle of alcohol he could get his hands on.

From midnight to dawn, he memorized the shipments that would come through Nightcliff the next day. It was his secret. Among the administrators and inspectors, his knowledge of all things coming and going had acquired legendary status. In truth he was never more than a day ahead, and the memorization process took him hours.

He allotted himself two swigs from his bottle per climber memorized, until the task was done. Then the floodgates could open. He would drink, and watch the city wake up. A million souls, or so the estimates went. His own sleep would come with the sun.

But tonight his mind drifted. Events beyond his control clawed at his attention, like hungry kittens. Word of a subhuman running loose in orbit had spread like wildfire across the city. It dwarfed the news that a few had appeared inside the city as well—that, at least, could be explained.

Power outages continued to plague the climbers, more occurrences happening by the day, and no one had a good explanation. Not even the council. Or perhaps they just weren’t sharing. Scared shitless, more likely.

Russell took a swig of vodka and drew his arm across his mouth. Change didn’t scare him. Change meant opportunity for those willing to grasp it.

He heard footsteps behind him and sat up slowly. His staff knew to leave him in peace up here. Footsteps meant something important.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” came a voice.

Russell turned to see a uniformed guard. Too dark to distinguish whom, not that he cared much. “What is it?”

The man stopped at a respectful distance. “The missing worker from yesterday’s climber.”

“What of it?”

“There was a scavenger ship that went up just after—”

Russell felt his temper rising. “The Melville, yes?”

“It just returned, sir.”

Russell set his bottle down. “To the old airport?”

“No sir,” the man stammered. “We ordered it here. It’s in the yard. The crew has been quarantined.”

Russell held back his surprise. Quarantined, no less! Competence like this deserved a toast, so Russell pressed the bottle to his lips and tilted it back. “And our missing woman?”

“One of them matches her description. We’ve put her in a separate room.”

“You …” Russell started, then paused. “You’ve done well. I’m shocked.” He handed the half-full bottle to the man. “Get yourself rotten. I’ll take it from here.”

Quarantine situations were handled in the basement of the old asylum, conveniently situated within Nightcliff’s walls. Russell strode inside and was greeted by the nurse on duty.

“Status,” he said.

The heavyset woman fell in step next to him. “Got three of them together in room D. The fourth I was told to set aside, so she’s in room H. Real looker, she is. You’ll like her. In shock, I think.”

“Shock? From being captured?”

The woman shook her flabby head. “Nah, she was like that when they pulled her from the ship. Seems they got into a bit of a scrap out there.”

Russell picked up the pace. “Out where?”

“Hawaii, they said.”

That matched the flight plan put in when the Melville’s captain purchased lift rights.

“Is she exhibiting any symptoms?” he asked.

“She had a hazmat on. The rest say they’re immune.”

“They are, I know them. Room H first,” Russell said.

The obese woman had to jog just to keep up with him. Waddling on her stubby legs, she led him through a series of empty hallways and abandoned waiting rooms.

The quarantine rooms consisted of two sides, one for the patient and one for the observer, separated by a wall-sized one-way mirror. Russell entered the observation area ahead of the nurse and looked through the glass at the woman on the other side.

Tile covered the walls, floor, and ceiling in the holding cell. Once gleaming white, the grout had now blackened, and mildew stains bloomed everywhere. The detainee sat on a metal bench, the only furniture in the room. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked gently back and forth. Her eyes were closed.

“She is lovely, isn’t she?” Russell asked.

“Told you so,” the nurse said. The hag licked her lips.

“You get a name?”

“No,” she said. “She keeps mumbling about someone named Jake, that they left him behind. Then she said she wanted to speak to Neil Platz. Can you believe that?”

Russell smiled. He could believe it, in fact. “She looks a bit dirty,” he observed. “We should clean her up. What do you think?”

“Very prudent, sir.”

Russell found a simple chair in the corner of the observation room and pulled it close to the glass. “Right, then. Get someone in there and give her a good scrubbing.”

The ugly woman broke into an evil grin. “Right away,” she said.

“Tell them,” Russell said, “to be thorough.” He settled into the chair, leaned back, and crossed his hands behind his head.

On the whole, the resulting show disappointed. The gorgeous woman had an exceptional body, no question. But she never struggled.

He sighed. His cock barely twitched the entire time.

“In shock. What an understatement,” he said to himself.

They left her sitting naked on the narrow bench, still dripping from the buckets of cold, soapy water thrown on her. She made no effort to cover herself after the medics left the room. Instead she stared straight ahead, straight at Russell, as if she could see him through the mirror.

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