Push

CHAPTER SEVEN

LUKA AND TYRONE CURL THEIR FINGERS INTO THE NARROW crack and slowly, slowly drag the door open, revealing a patch of light and a sliver of white floor and white walls.

I signal for quiet, then point at Luka and Lien and cock my head to the right. I point at Tyrone and Kendra and cock my head to the left.

For an instant, Kendra hesitates and I think she’s going to argue. But I can’t pair her with Lien. Enough of this our-team-your-team crap. We are one team and she needs to get that right now. And Lien and Luka need to stop glaring at each other. Pairing them up seems like a good plan.

I stare Kendra down and she falls in beside Tyrone. She closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep breath before opening them again and offering a tiny nod. I guess it’s her way of telling me she knows what I’m doing and she knows I’m right.

I hold up my thumb and two fingers, then just two fingers, and finally, one finger alone. We explode out the door, my team going right and left, me going straight.

“Clear,” I call.

“Clear,” Luka echoes back at me a second before Kendra says, “Clear.”

I take a second to evaluate our surroundings. The walls aren’t white; they just looked that way in the initial burst of light. They’re pale gray, polished concrete, smooth, a little shiny. The ceiling overhead appears to be made of corrugated metal—like the door we just burst through—with rows and rows of bright inset lights.

“Still weirdly familiar,” Lien says softly.

Luka frowns. “Yeah, sort of like Halo, but not quite.”

Tyrone shakes his head. “More like Resident Evil, I’d say.”

“Creepy,” Lien says.

“They’re close,” Kendra whispers. “I can feel them.”

We can all feel them. My gut writhes with the certainty that the Drau are just around the next corner or maybe the one after that. Too close for comfort.

When we were in Vegas, Tyrone told me that when we get dropped in, it creates some sort of rift that alerts the Drau. In highly populated areas, we get dropped fairly close because the other people around can help mask our presence. If we enter the mission in a more isolated spot—like the caves—we respawn farther away to decrease the risk that the Drau will pinpoint our location right away. For an added layer of stealth, our cons scramble our signal once we’re here, and that makes it even tougher for the Drau to find us.

Where we are now definitely doesn’t feel like a populated area, so we ought to be far from the Drau nest, not right on top of it. But my whole body’s on alert, every neuron pulsing the word: enemy. From the intensity of the urge to flee, I’m guessing we’ll run into them within minutes.

“Clusterfrack of the first degree,” Tyrone mutters.

Kendra and Lien exchange a veiled look, and Lien whispers, “You do what I told you.”

Kendra nods.

I hope Lien gave her some advice on how to deal, because the possibility of her freaking out on a mission is terrifying. It could put all our lives at risk.

My con tells me which direction to go. I point and say, “Stay behind me. Stay paired up, no matter what. Follow my lead. From here out, stay quiet.”

Luka’s mouth draws in a taut line. I suspect some inner well of machismo makes him want to offer to take point, or makes him want to point out that I’m not partnered, that there’s no one to watch my back. But he swallows any argument because my con’s the one telling us where to go, which means everyone else gets to follow, like it or not.

The corridor’s wide and cold. We move forward silently, except for this weird flapping noise . . . I turn and glare at Lien’s flip-flops. They’re pink with white cartoon kitties festooned with a bow on top. I stare at them, feeling very much like we’re a bunch of kids and not at all like a group of soldiers who can save the world.

Lien steps out of the flip-flops, leaving them behind. Not ideal, her going barefoot, but the noise and the risks of trying to run in flip-flops aren’t ideal, either. Barefoot on cold concrete’s better than dead.

Still following my con, we go straight, then left, then left again. I feel like a mouse in a maze. This place is just a jumble of corridors. Every hundred feet or so, we get to a three-way split with hallways running at right angles to one another. We pass a few doors but not many. So why all the corridors? Where do they lead?

We round another corner and another. I stop dead.

Ahead of us is a huge group of Drau, glowing like hundred-watt bulbs. They’re in neat rows, weapons drawn, aiming down the corridor.

Facing the wrong way.

All we see are their backs. I didn’t just feel like we were walking in circles. We were walking in circles. The Committee brought us around behind the enemy.

I’m not a look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth kind of girl. I signal my team to fan out to the sides, backs to the walls, firing as we move.

The Drau barely realize we’re here before we take down the rear line. I’m guessing about a dozen of them get sucked into the oily, black, speed-of-light ooze that comes from our weapons. They’re swallowed whole. My stomach turns as two get pulled in at once, limbs melting together, fusing them into one writhing, shrieking entity. Their comrades fire, raining pellets of light and pain down on us like a storm.

Chaos.

They move at impossible speeds.

We hit them hard with the element of surprise, but that’s gone now. And there are way more than a dozen of them.

Luka and Tyrone work in unison, shooting, taking down anything that comes at them.

I aim. Shoot. My shot wings one of the Drau, but doesn’t take it down. Lien’s right beside me, but it’s Kendra who fires, killing it before I can take a second shot. There’s barely time to nod my thanks before I have to take down the next one and the next.

“Fall back,” I order, staying in front while my team backs up, covering them. Luka’s right behind me, covering me. I want to give him hell. He isn’t exactly following orders, but I’ll save it for a moment that isn’t quite so . . . hectic.

We back around a corner.

“Stay with Lien,” I snarl at Luka. I’m surprised that he listens. He falls back a couple of steps so he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with her, and I catch a glimpse of Tyrone and Kendra a few steps behind them.

I do a quick assessment of our surroundings, trying to pick a direction. My con’s no help. It’s showing five green triangles clumped together, but no hint of the best route to take.

The Drau surge forward, almost on us.

My blood races, my heart jackhammering in my chest. I have to choose. Right now.

“That way.” I pick a corridor at random. “Go!”

They go.

Taking down as many of the enemy as I can, I back away as I shoot and shoot, my kendo sword held at the ready.

There’s a cry behind me. I don’t dare look back.

“Luka?” I call.

“Lien took a hit to the thigh.”

Damn. “How bad?”

“I’m still standing.” And still sounding bitched out, which at this moment makes me very happy.

The Drau advance as we retreat.

We’re all firing—us, them. Despite their speed, we hold them back, mostly because we’ve moved to a narrowed corridor that isn’t wide enough for them to all come at us at once. But how long can we hold them off? What the hell was the Committee thinking, sending us in here alone?

They push toward us, a wedge driving us apart, me and Luka and Lien into one branching corridor, Tyrone and Kendra into another. We were a unit of five, and now we’re a fractured five.

We don’t stand a chance.

I stomp on that thought like the crawling slug it is. I can’t think like that, not even for a second.

A Drau comes at me, so close I can see the jagged edges of its teeth. Its form is basically humanoid—arms, legs, head, face—but that’s where any similarity to a human ends. It’s a pure, eye-numbing white, the surface of its body polished and smooth, like opaque glass that flows and glides.

It’s beautiful.

And deadly.

A predator that wants to make me its prey.

I almost make the mistake of looking in its eyes, drowning in them, dying in them. At the last second, I jerk my gaze away and hack with my sword at the same time as I fire.

I take it down, but not without a price. Pinpricks of pain erupt across my shoulders and upper chest. With a cry, I stumble back, shoot, retreat. I try to catch site of Luka and Lien. But they’re gone.

I’m alone, cut off from my team by the sheer number of Drau that fill the space as they surge into the gaps created by their downed comrades. I feel like they’re herding me in the direction of their choice, and each time I try to veer aside, they force me back the opposite way.

There’s no chance to assess or plan. All I can do is keep moving, keep killing, because the option is to stand still and die here.

I stay close to the wall so they can’t get behind me. My weapon cylinder hums, black sludge eating my enemies whole. I hack at sunlight-bright bodies with my sword, not even pretending to maintain proper stance or form. There’s no honor in this. Only ugly, raw death.

My arms burn in all the places that their light droplets hit me, leaving scorched holes in the sleeves of my shirt and open wounds in my skin. Blood trickles down my arms, drips off my fingertips to the floor.

There’s one of me and maybe ten of them. They could take me down anytime. They don’t. They’re toying with me. Playing with their prey.

Fear is like an avalanche, a heavy, crushing weight, tumbling and roaring until there’s nothing but blinding, white terror.

A burst of pain explodes above my eye. My vision blurs as I fire again and again, aiming at nothing, reckless and desperate.

I won’t die here. I can’t.

Instinct takes over, honed by eight years of kendo training. Sofu’s voice echoes in my thoughts. Your opponent strikes and you do not merely defend. You counterattack. Oji waza. But better that you do not wait. You initiate. You attack. Shikake waza.

With a kiai shout, I run directly at them instead of away, adrenaline pushing me to a place I never would have imagined. Pinpricks of light rain down on me, pain so bright it blurs my thoughts. It isn’t like in the movies. I don’t run up the wall or leap ten feet in the air and do aerial cartwheels. My soles slam against the floor; my heart slams against my ribs.

I fire, up close and personal, the lightning-fast black ooze eating my opponents while their screams flay ribbons from my psyche and the light from their weapons flays my skin. I don’t look into their shimmering eyes—mercury gray, indescribably lovely, terrifying, and deadly. I don’t give them the chance to suck out the electrical action potentials that power my nerves, my muscles, my brain. My life.

From the corner of my eye I catch a flash of movement. I spin, feeling like the whole world’s slowed down and there’s just me and the Drau standing an arm’s length away, lowering its weapon to firing position. This close, the blast will blow me away.

I lift my sword so it’s pointing back and up at a forty-five-degree angle; then I step forward and swing at the Drau’s forehead. Men-uchi—the move is as familiar to me as breathing. The black blade sinks deep in the Drau’s skull. With a cry I tighten my hold on the silk-wrapped handle, yanking the weapon free as I shoot lightning-black ooze to my left, annihilating yet another enemy.

Glowing forms fill my field of vision, too many of them, all firing at me. All wanting me dead.

I wish I had a shield. I wish—

A Drau comes at me, a blur of light. I feint left, right, surge forward, and duck.

I cry out in rage and desperation, forcing all my strength into a tsuki thrust, sending my sword through the Drau’s chest, through its back, impaling it. I hold the squirming body before me as a shield, bracing my elbow against the arc of my hip bone to help me bear the weight. Adrenaline and terror make me strong.

Them or me.

My mantra.

Grunting and gasping under the weight of the Drau pinned at the end of my sword, I back up step by step. It stops struggling. The tops of its feet drag along the floor. The shots of the other Drau fall on their comrade, making his corpse jerk and twist as I shoot a stream of black death that swallows them whole.

My arm and shoulder are on fire, screaming under the weight. Nausea curls in my belly at the horror of what I’ve become. I push it down, lock it away.

There are fewer Drau now. I lower my sword and let the body slide off as I back into another corridor. They follow. I cut them down with my weapon cylinder, shooting anything that moves, sweat trickling down my spine.

I’ve lost any sense of orientation. I don’t know where my team is or if they’re okay. There’s no chance to look at my con and see if there are still five green triangles in place.

Please, I whisper silently. Please.

Opportunity presents itself in the form of a door. I shove it open and slam it behind me, panting, shaking. A lock. I turn it, nearly sobbing with relief. They’ll get through it. I know that. But at least I’ve bought myself some time.

Minutes.

Seconds.

I glance at my con. Two green triangles somewhere to the left of me, so close together they almost overlap. Two more triangles a bit to the left and behind, touching at a single vertex. My team’s alive and still paired up. The frame of my screen’s dark yellow edging to orange. My health bar’s not looking so healthy.

Tears drip down my right cheek. I lift my hand to swipe at them and it comes away red. Not tears. Blood.

I jump as something slams against the door. It shakes on its frame, but holds. For how long? I hear a sizzling sound, like bacon in a hot pan, and I figure they’re trying to fry the lock. I need to find a place to make a stand.

The room is massive. Rows of metal shelves stacked with black barrels run a grid with aisles in between. I run down the first, stop, turn left, keep running, turn right. My one thought is to get as far from the door and the Drau as I can. Is there another exit? I try to picture the corridor and fail. But I do remember that when we first left the elevator, I noticed that there weren’t many doors along the hallways.

I’m almost at the far wall. The sound of Drau bodies slamming against the door carries to me.

I dart right again.

Hide? Keep going?

Terror clouds my thoughts.

I keep running and at the last second veer left.

Good choice.

There’s a door on the opposite wall, one with no Drau slamming against it. Chest heaving, I skid to a stop, press my ear to the metal. I don’t hear anything on the other side.

I grab the handle . . . slowly . . . turning . . .

Sounds of battle carry to me, muffled, distant. I dart into the empty corridor and quietly shut the door behind me. No lock on this side, but maybe they won’t find this exit right away.

Run, or hide?

I glance up. There’s ductwork running along the ceiling, and vents. I can’t reach them, and even if I could, they’re too small for me to fit through. I try to remember which way I moved when I was cut from the rest of my team, which corridors I took in the heat of the fight.

Two options: right or left. Only one will take me back to Luka, Tyrone, Kendra, and Lien. It should be an easy choice: pick the one that runs in the direction of the green triangles on my con. But it isn’t that easy because all the corridors here branch and angle, so even if I run left now, I might end up running right in a few turns.

I’m alone. And I’m lost.

I’m no fricking leader. I don’t even have eyes on my team.

“Pull it together, Miki,” I mutter.

A crash echoes from behind me, the slam and rebound of the first door against the wall. They’re through. They’ll find me.

I run.

Straight into a Drau.