Nothing I could do about that. I was out of time.
As I eased the door open, I heard machine-gun fire high above, followed by the deeper, locomotive chugging of a chain gun.
And then a shuddering boom.
I charged into the light, my Five-seveN up, fluorescents burning down on a white corridor, something pulling at my attention from the left—
I turned just in time to see a burning Black Hawk falling past a wall of windows, the rotors still spinning, cutting through the building in a cataclysm of exploding glass and cloven metal, the pilots screaming in the cockpit—and gone.
Then 3.8 seconds later, an explosion rocked the building as the helicopter smashed into Cedar Street.
And I was on the move, jogging down the corridor past rooms filled with cots and medical equipment, wondering if this was where Kara’s viral test group had been given her experimental upgrade for the first time.
On the other side of the elevators, I saw a stainless steel bioreactor.
Glass columns.
Centrifuges.
I crept into a sprawling lab that took up the eastern half of the thirty-fourth floor, unable to escape the thought that Kara was already gone.
All along the far wall, server racks whirred quietly. Behind a metal door, I could hear the louder, muffled humming of the generators that powered the lab.
I moved past a -80° C refrigerator, then two controlled rate freezers.
Through the potent smell of solvents, I caught a familiar scent—it was the same shampoo Kara had been using at our mother’s house in Colorado.
I heard something around the next corner: the soft clink of metal. From my pack, I pulled another breach charge and set a timer for three seconds.
I peered around the corner.
Kara stood at a biosafety cabinet, her back to me, frantically loading what appeared to be auto-injectors into a small backpack. Beside her was Madeline Ortega, holding an H&K MP7 that was already swinging toward me, our eyes locking, hers flashing surprise.
But she had the drop.
I wouldn’t be able to place her in my sights before—
I swung back behind the corner as 4.6×30mm armor-piercing bullets shredded through the wall at 950 rounds per minute. Ortega’s body language had indicated she’d be coming after me, so I engaged the door-breach timer, dropping the charge as I ran.
Three.
Two.
As I approached the elevators, I glanced back.
One.
Saw Ortega rounding the corner, raising her H&K.
She disappeared in a bright, loud bang, and I turned into the bank of elevators as Kara shot past down the north-side corridor.
Where was she going?
The northeast stairwell couldn’t get her to the ground floor. Neither could the southwest or northwest. They all had barricades between floors 30 and 32. She’d have to take the southeast stairwell to 26, cut over to the northwest stairwell, descend to 6, then over to the southwest stairwell, which was the only one with no reports of wire or claymores in the first six floors.
If she was heading down, I needed to wait in the southeast stairwell, which she’d have to pass through. But that didn’t feel right. Even if she got through me, it’d be far too easy for forces to surround the four building exits on the ground floor.
But if she went up, she’d just be trapping herself—right?
No. Fuck. Of course. She was heading up. It all made sense now. I knew where she was going, what she was trying to do. And I didn’t have long to stop her.
I turned around, rushed back down the corridor toward the southwest corner of the building, leaping over what was left of Madeline Ortega.
Ten seconds from the stairwell, the door exploded.
I recognized Noyes and Brandes through their face shields. They were standing in the doorway, and I was absorbing it all at once:
Noyes’s eyes going wide in the clearing smoke.
Brandes raising his assault rifle.
Ortega’s blood running down the walls.
Everything decelerating.
I could’ve put them both down in less than a second, but I didn’t want to kill them; these were cops who’d been roused from their beds in the middle of the night, with no concept of what they’d walked into.
I was still running toward them, a half second having passed since they’d blown the door off its hinges, and the thirty-fourth floor layout flaring into focus in my mind’s eye—straight ahead, there should be a hallway that bisected the floor.
Brandes pulled his rifle snug against his shoulder, hesitating, aiming for my legs, and Noyes drew an X-30 sidearm—a military-grade nonlethal munitions weapon that fired Taser-like bullets.
I veered left—the smallest feint—and saw Brandes and Noyes overreact, the muzzle flash blooming out of the assault rifle in a flower of fire, rounds raking the wall, and as the recoil pushed both men slightly off balance, I launched right down the other hallway.
Narrow.
Fluorescent lights flickering.
Four doorways on the left, four on the right.
The first two opened into an office and storage closet, respectively, the third a breakroom, which I ducked inside.
Two circular tables. A kitchenette. A water cooler. The smell of old, burned coffee and something rotting in a trash bin.
I stood just inside the threshold, their footfalls coming.
A door opened, closed.
Then another.
Noyes saying, “We found Logan on thirty-four. Get up here if you can. We’re engaging.”
Their Tyvek suits crinkling.
Close now.
Brandes said, “Cover this door, I’ll open it,” and the way his voice carried, I could tell they were clearing a room across the hall, which meant their backs would be facing me.
I charged out of the breakroom.
My consciousness dividing—
I’d caught them off guard, Noyes spinning toward me at a creeping pace, and I was accelerating at him, reaching, not for the weapon, but for Noyes’s trigger finger, breaking it as he put me in his sights, and Brandes ages behind—I could see the slowly dawning horror in his eyes as he realized he was fucked. Noyes shrieked as I snatched the X-30, ducked a haymaker, and shot him point-blank in the leg to avoid any body armor. As he seized and toppled over, I sidestepped Brandes’s frantic firing and shot him in the leg as well. Both men twitched violently on the floor, the electrified bullets short-circuiting their systems. I grabbed zip ties from the bundle on Noyes’s waist, then quickly fastened each man’s wrists and ankles, hoping I still had time to intercept Kara.
The southwest stairwell was hazy with smoke.
I turned on the flashlight and raced up the stairs.
As I reached the landing between 36 and 37, the door to 38—one and a half floors above me—burst open. I hid my light, glimpsed another flashlight beam streaking the walls, heard the lightning-fast patter of my sister’s footfalls rushing skyward.
I followed carefully.
Heard a door creak open.
Her light vanished.
I felt confident she’d left the stairwell at 40, and as I reached it, I eased the door open and slipped through, just as the northwest stairwell door clanged shut.
I ran across 40.
Sweating again, past abandoned offices, a copy room, restrooms, until I reached the northwest stairwell door.
I pulled it open to the sound of footsteps climbing above me. The walls were strobed with my sister’s light, but I didn’t give chase this time. Just listened. Counting the floors as she continued to climb.