“Will we have enough juice to get home?” she asked, voicing their greatest fear. It’d be one thing to go down fighting, another thing altogether to get stranded out in the Clear.
“Gonna be tight, I think,” Skyler said. “You have this under control?”
She nodded, eyes glued to the hall beyond her barricade.
“I’ll head back down then. Retreat to the basement if things get interesting.”
“What about Jake?”
“Remind me to keep him on our side.” With that, Skyler turned and ran to the subbasement.
He followed the same path they took earlier and found Tania right where he’d left her.
“Did you reach Angus?”
“He’ll give us thirty minutes, all the energy we can spare.”
Tania studied the screen. The readout indicated thirty-eight minutes left. “I need more time,” she said.
“No choice, sorry. We stay any longer, we won’t get home.”
Tania searched his eyes. “I hope it’s enough, then.”
Skyler pulled a folded duffel bag from a pant pocket. “Going to scavenge a bit, won’t be far.”
Despite concern in her beautiful face, she managed a single, stiff nod.
Skyler moved through the computer room. From some of the cabinets near the back, which lacked power, he disconnected every cable he could find and tossed them in the bag. Spare parts always found a buyer.
From the front of the racks, he yanked out any removable component. Charred power leads marred some, but he bagged them all regardless of condition. Takai could sort them out.
Next he went to the power junctions along the sidewall. He kept his distance from the one that still seemed to be functional, not wanting to disrupt Tania’s work. From the others he removed circuit breakers and three large wiring harnesses.
Satisfied, he slung the heavy bag over his left shoulder and slipped the strap over his head, letting the strap run diagonally across his chest. He returned to Tania.
“You don’t fool around,” she said.
He turned so she could see just how full the duffel was. “Pays my crew.”
Tania frowned. “It does a lot more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“The work you do, people like you, it’s the only reason anyone can survive in orbit.”
In almost five years of scavenging, Skyler rarely went a week without someone offering thanks, praise, or a compliment. Even something simple, like a new bicycle chain, could make all the difference for someone trapped in the Aura. Every person who claimed the world would end without scavengers just added to the pressure.
Tania’s words cracked that barricade. She meant it with total sincerity, and Skyler knew in that moment that all of his work had been for her, and those like her. People striving to do more in the world than just survive. People who kept hope alive for a better future.
He found it impossible to articulate any of this, so he looked away and mumbled his usual response. “No offense, but we don’t do this for the greater good. It pays—well, sometimes—and keeps me and my crew fed and sheltered, which is more than most—”
Gunfire rang out, somewhere above their heads. Not the sniper rifle, with its loud single cracks, but the booms of a shotgun.
“Sam’s in trouble,” Skyler said. He checked his watch. “Ten minutes still. Son of a bitch.”
“Go help her,” Tania said. Her fearful tone contradicted her words. She was shaking.
He grabbed her by her upper arms. “Eight minutes, no more. Got it?”
She nodded.
“Can you find your way back to the stairs?”
Again she nodded.
“Deep breath, Tania. They won’t get past us, I promise.”
She drew a long breath and let it out slowly.
He gave her wrist a squeeze, using the opportunity to glance at the gauges mounted on her suit. The air level read just above half. Satisfied, Skyler ran for the stairs.
At the door he almost ran into her.
She backed up, and they stood side by side in the doorway at the bottom of the steps. Six bodies had already piled up on the stairs, with a fresh one just tumbling to a stop halfway up.
“Better position behind us,” Skyler said. “This is too close.”
“Lead on,” Samantha said.
He closed the door to the stairwell—a nearly useless gesture since it didn’t have a lock—and retreated to the data vault entry door with the shoulder-high window. Skyler slammed the door behind them, and with the butt of his rifle he smashed the glass.
Flipping the gun around, he pointed it through the space the glass had occupied, and waited.
Sam reloaded her weapon at the same time. “These fuckers are really far gone, Skyler. Never seen them so aggressive.”
“And in such a large group. I don’t get it.”
The door to the stairwell burst open and Skyler answered with a spray of bullets. With the awkward angle, aim was out of the question, so he fired for effect.
Another of the creatures dropped, skidding to a sickening halt, blood spilling from wounds on its chest and legs.
“I’m low on ammo,” Samantha said.
Skyler fired again, a short burst. “We’re going to be trapped in here.”
“Where’s the map?”
Skyler looked down at his jacket. “Inside pocket!” he shouted, over the crackling sound of his gun. Samantha reached and took it.
“Go get Tania,” Skyler said. “I’ll hold them off.”
“We can both go. Look, below the computer room. There’s a subbasement marked ‘Shipping and Receiving.’ A ramp leads out of it, back up to the surface.”
She set the map against the door. Skyler studied it and let off another burst from the rifle without even looking. Sure enough, a sloped road led from the subterranean loading dock to a parking lot some fifty meters distant. “We’d be far from Jake, and outdoors,” he said.
“Yeah, but all the subs will be in here. We can come back through the trees, to the rear of the building.”
He fired again through the window. A wild yelp of pain came from the diseased human sprinting toward the door. It fell in a heap.
“You’re assuming there’s a way through the floor.”
“I’ll make one if I have to. Beats the hell out of this.”
Skyler led the way, moving as fast as his legs would carry him. Behind, they heard the snarls and growls of subhumans trying to open the windowed door.
They found Tania in the data center, already packing up her equipment.
“You get it all?” Skyler asked.
She shook her head. “Eighty percent. It will have to do.”
Samantha turned the map in her hands, getting oriented. “Over here, I think.” They followed her to the back wall of the room. Samantha opened a door, which displayed an assortment of warning signs related to electricity.
“We’re fucked,” she said. The room inside the door was barely a meter deep and contained some sort of electrical junction, which filled the entire space.
“Down there,” Tania said, pointing at the floor. Conduits from the equipment disappeared through large panels, set into the floor like tiles. Skyler crouched and, with Samantha’s help, tried to dislodge one of them, but there was no gap to insert their fingers.
Tania turned and ran back toward the front of the room.
Skyler shouted after her, “Where the hell—”
“Help us, you bitch!” Samantha shouted.
Tania removed something from the wall near the front of the room and ran back to them. A metal handle, oversized, with two large suction cups on either end.
She slammed the thing down onto the floor tile, and then lifted. The square panel came away with ease. Tania tossed it aside and faced the two of them.
“Ah,” Samantha said, “Sorry about the ‘bitch’ thing.”
“Can we go?” Skyler asked.
Beneath the floor they stood on was a crawl space, packed with bundles of cables and a variety of cooling and power conduits. Below that, more tiles.
Samantha sat down on the edge of the opening, and kicked. The weaker tile below cracked in half and fell away. Through the hole, darkness. Skyler turned his flashlight back on.
“Four-meter drop,” Samantha said.
Skyler laughed. “You’re almost that tall, you go first.”
“Flip a coin?” Sam said.
In the hallway outside the computer room, they heard a crashing sound, followed by hideous screams.
“No time to argue. Down you go.”
Samantha lowered herself down into the floor between a gap in the conduits. She grasped the metal girder that framed the space where the tile used to be, and hung from it. Finally she let go, dropping down into the dark room.
“I’m okay,” she called up.
Skyler looked at Tania, found her white as a sheet, eyes wide with terror. He followed her eyes to see a subhuman turning the corner at the far end of the computer room.
Naked, covered with dirt, blood, and old scars—more gruesome than most. It had an open wound on the side of its face, rancid with infection, revealing the bone beneath. The creature tried to scream at them, but all that came out was a sick gurgling sound.
Skyler aimed and squeezed off a burst. Bullets tore through the pitiful being’s face, snapping its head back in grotesque fashion. It flopped to the ground, heaved once, and went still.
The noise from the gun brought a cry from Tania. She wavered on the verge of panic.
“Get below!” he shouted at her, but she was incapable of movement. Skyler slung his weapon and grabbed her wrists. He forced her over the hole in the floor and lowered her down as far as he could.
Tania stared into his eyes, tears streaming from her own.
He dropped her into the darkness below.
Another subhuman entered the computer room, and Skyler sprayed the last of his clip toward the creature. He managed to wing it in the leg, enough to put the creature on the floor.
Sucking in his gut, Skyler stepped as far as he could inside the little power closet. Then he grabbed the door handle and jumped through the hole in the floor. The fall, combined with his grip on the handle, caused the door to slam closed above him.
He hit the floor below and felt jarring pain shoot up through his knees. He toppled to the ground, grabbing his legs in agony.
Samantha was over him in seconds. “Fuck. Anything broken?”
He shook his head, grunting.
“Can you walk?”
“I’ll damn well try,” he said through clenched teeth. “Reload my gun.”
Samantha took the offered weapon and removed a spare clip from Skyler’s belt. The last he had.
“Tania, are you with us?” he asked the scientist.
She clutched the briefcase to her chest again. Her lip quivered.
“Brilliant idea, using that … whatever the hell it was. You saved our asses,” Skyler said.
“Slab sucker,” Tania said.
“Huh?”
“The boys on Green Level call it a slab sucker.” Her voice came from a faraway place.
Samantha whispered in Skyler’s ear. “She’s in shock.”
“I know,” he said back. Then louder, “Let’s keep moving, eh?” He let Samantha help him to his feet, ignoring the pain in his legs.
She cocked her shotgun and then led them toward the exit.
A large segmented door, big enough for vehicles, marked the rear of the building. They emerged to unnerving quiet, on a pothole-infested access road that wound up and out of view. Weeds grew waist-high from every crack in the surface.
Samantha led as fast as Skyler’s knees would allow. She stayed a solid ten meters ahead, her body in constant motion as she checked every direction for approaching subs.
At the end of the access road, she halted behind a thicket to surveyed the ground between their position and the cluster of buildings. Skyler judged them to be a hundred and fifty meters from the building where Jake waited on the roof. He couldn’t see the rooftop, or any subhumans on the ground around it. A parking lot filled the space between them. Wildflowers choked every gap in the asphalt surface. Scattered about were the remnants of vehicles, left behind to rot as people fled the disease.
Skyler couldn’t help but catalog useful parts as he surveyed the vast lot. A hard habit to set aside, no matter the imminent danger. Fabric from the car seats, LED bulbs in the headlamps, dashboard components—the list went on and on.
A deep hum filled the air. The Melville, Skyler realized, high overhead. The only thing that sounded better than those engines was Tania’s calm, measured breaths. Her gaze might still be vague and distant, but his confidence grew that she would recover soon.
Samantha rose from her crouch. “No time to waste.”
She ran. Skyler wanted to scream from the searing pain in his knees, but with each step the sensation abated. Despite his aching legs, he moved faster than Tania. She didn’t complain when he grabbed her elbow and pulled her along. Despite the weight of her environment suit, the woman showed no signs of exhaustion. Skyler realized she had not complained about the bulky outfit once.
The hum of the Melville’s engines grew like approaching thunder.
At the back entrance, Samantha flashed five-and-five to Skyler before rushing through the back door. She wanted ten seconds to clear their path.
Skyler guided Tania to the outer wall and hunkered down in front of her. He couldn’t see the aircraft, and had to gauge her distance by the engine tone. Close now, but still not in vertical landing mode.
“Mother of God,” Skyler whispered.
The cacophony generated by the ship’s engines drew subhumans like moths to a flame. He stared in horror at the tree line beyond the parking lot.