42.
I modeled an image of her progress up the stairs based on the speed of her footfalls.
43.
44.
I heard a door swing shut and lock. She had gotten off at 44, and I knew she wasn’t going any higher. She didn’t need to.
I ran the entire length of the building, back to the northeast stairwell, and as I climbed toward 44, I heard boot-falls on the steps above me and two distinct voices drifting down.
Had some of the JTF-Black team made it out of the helicopter? Because that was one thing to deal with. But if these were Kara’s people…
I strained to hear the voices.
Two men, talking a little too fast.
One saying: “…be safe, we’ll meet you there. Yeah, we’ll be fine.”
I knew that voice. It matched the one I’d heard perusing social media tonight—a video of Deshawn Brown from a year ago at his youngest daughter’s birthday party. Which would make the other guy Rodney Viana, the happily married cop from Ohio. Both upgraded special forces.
I was trying to think how I would take out the two of them. The chances were better than even, but not by much. In all likelihood, I’d kill one of them and they would kill me, their inherent training gifting them a huge advantage.
So I wouldn’t try to take them out.
I cut my light, needing to decelerate everything now more than ever.
Boot-falls, two different cadences, the lighter, shorter man in the lead.
Their scent preceding them—salt and the faintest remnant of a fragrance—Old Spice?—and the pungent reek of nitroglycerin from recent gunfire.
Their flashlight beams streaking across the walls.
I stood on the landing just below 43, and I could see the space perfectly in my mind’s eye.
They were fifteen seconds away.
In the pitch blackness, I climbed the steps to 43, hopped over the railing, and lowered myself until I hung from the second step from the top—out of sight from anyone descending.
They were two floors above me.
Now passing 44.
Now the landing between 44 and 43.
Then 43, one of their boots passing within millimeters of my fingers as I clutched the edge of the step. They were heading down to the 43/42 midpoint landing, both flashlights momentarily aimed at the floor, and I pulled myself up as they reached the landing, smoothly swinging my legs over the top of the railing and just out of their sight line as they made the turn, easing down silently, then rolling across the steps as they continued down the next flight.
A beam of light swept toward me, a second away—had one of them heard me?
I slithered soundlessly down the stairs, watching as the light passed over the steps where I’d just been sprawled, and I nestled against the wall as tightly as I could, not breathing, not moving, and their boot-falls still descending.
After a moment, I couldn’t see the lights anymore.
I waited, imagining their progress, just wanting them gone before I—
Shouting broke out, muzzle flashes lighting up the corridor eight floors below. They had engaged with someone. I came to my feet and ran up to 44. The door was locked. I pulled out a breach charge, set it for ten seconds, and ran down to 43.
The door exploded.
I rushed back up to 44 and raced through the open doorway.
The floor was wide open—nothing but the elevators and stairwells. It had been abandoned during a remodel, leaving ductwork exposed, electrical wiring hanging from the ceiling.
I saw a figure crouched down at the far end of the building.
I glanced back at the newly doorless entrance to the northeast stairwell—empty.
Eleven seconds from Kara.
She was crouched down, securing something to her back, and when she saw me, she sprang to her feet and began to run—just thirty feet back from a window that was missing an entire panel of glass.
I stopped at the bank of elevators, ninety-eight feet away, letting my consciousness divide and time slowing as I registered the pain in my fingers, gunshots still echoing several floors below, the cold wind blowing through the open window off New York Harbor, the lights of Jersey City in the distance, and a cascade of heartbreak at what I was about to do, which I immediately walled away.
I raised my pistol, focusing on Kara’s right leg, which now moved so slowly I had no doubt of my aim.
I fired, she fell—sliding across the floor toward the open window—and then I was sprinting toward her again as she rolled onto her back, facing me now, a weapon in her hand, her finger a split second from squeezing.
I fired again, hit her center mass, watched her punch back, her arms falling to her sides, the pistol clattering to the floor out of her left hand.
She was reaching for the gun when I arrived, and I kicked it across the polished concrete slab and through the open window frame.
Kara’s leg was bleeding, and I could hear in her respirations that her right lung had been punctured. With each breath she wheezed. Blood trickled out of the corners of her mouth, and I forced her right hand open. She clutched a bundle of black fabric, which was attached to an S-folded strap that connected to the pack she wore.
Her eyes were open, watching me, a deep pain exuding from them, and I could not let this emotion touch me.
“Are there still remnants of the viral upgrade in your lab?” I asked. “Something the government could take and—”
“Yes, but the lab won’t be here much longer.”
“When?”
She glanced at her wristwatch. “Ninety-two seconds.”
I loosened the leg and chest straps, Kara whimpering as I rolled her over and freed her shoulders. I awkwardly maneuvered the entire harness rig down her legs. She’d worn the Tumi backward, strapped to her chest. I ripped it off, opened it, stared down at roughly a hundred auto-injectors.
I inspected the harness and container for signs of damage from the bullet. I saw none. It was still inside of Kara. Stepping into the harness, I finally shouldered the pack. Tightened the leg straps. Cinched the chest strap. The cord connecting the pilot chute to the container had become tangled, and I stepped away from Kara, letting the bridle slowly unfurl.
“So this is it?” she asked, struggling mightily to speak. “Just going to let us destroy ourselves?”
I began to refold the bridle. No expertise beyond what I’d seen in Kara’s hand and a video I’d haphazardly watched about BASE jumpers on a bored Tuesday night, many years ago.
I lifted the Tumi bag, strapped it to my chest, said, “You can’t kill humanity to save humanity. Human beings are not a means to an end.”
Kara took a ragged breath. “Logan.”
“What?”
“I can’t see a thing.”
There were voices in the northeast stairwell. I needed to go. Instead, I sat down behind my sister and pulled her toward me, enveloping her in my arms.
“Don’t think of me this way,” she said. She was shivering violently, and I could feel the warmth of her blood running onto my leg. I smelled its coppery scent. “We were more than this.”
“I don’t just see you in this moment. I see you in all of your moments. All of our moments. We had some good ones.”
“Eighteen,” she said.
“What?”
She coughed blood. “We had eighteen perfect moments.”
I thought about it.
“Nineteen.”
“How do you get nineteen?”