building across the street through the hole behind me, then hit the floor with my hands over my head.
Dust and grit fell over me as back across the hall, the wall into the war room got carved out. The conference table inside was blown to sawdust, and the people around it popped into clouds of guts. Some guy’s arm spun in the air as the wall behind him disappeared.
“Nico!”
I couldn’t hear shit. The turret ripped open the floor, and bodies fell through. I saw a bank of screens go down after them, spitting sparks, before a wall of smoke blew over me and the lights went out.
I couldn’t see shit either. I could just make out shapes of people as they got back up on either side of the missing floor. The Chimera peeled off, but I heard it bank back to make another pass.
Cold wind blew through from outside and cleared the air at least a little. Wachalowski got up and jumped the gap between us. The tile broke away under his heel, and I grabbed his wrist, then hauled him over.
I ran to it and turned the handle, but the wall had shifted and it was stuck. I put my shoulder to it twice and it banged open as the chain gun went off again and the wall across the room exploded.
The kid.
Nico slammed into me and shoved me through the doorway and into the hall. He’d made for the stairs when he saw me stop short.
She was back in the conference room. There was still a clear path to it. I ran for it, Nico on my heels. I cut across the hall and heard him yell, right before the sound of the turret drowned him out. Hot air hit my back, and the floor dropped out from under me. I grabbed the door handle as tiles fell away, hanging on while my boots dangled in the open air. On what was left of the hall in front of the door, I got my footing and climbed back up.
When I pushed open the door I saw her there, up against the far wall. I turned back toward Nico and saw that the hall behind me was gone. He stood on the other side of the gap, ready to jump.
“Kid, come on!” I yelled. I dragged her to the door while she screamed something from behind me. I looked down through the hole and saw a two-story drop to the offices below.
“Hold still!”
“Don’t. We’ll fall!”
I cinched her around the waist and she screamed as I hoisted her up on my shoulder, then took two steps and jumped.
I cleared it, but when my foot hit the other edge, the floor buckled, and for a second I thought I’d go right through. I didn’t. I fell forward on one knee and Nico caught me. He grabbed Vika as she flipped off my shoulder, and dragged her back from the edge.
Vika stumbled after him, and I kept to the rear to make sure she didn’t fall behind. He took us down another hall to a stairwell. He opened it with his badge and signaled for us to go through.
The stairs shook as we went down. Behind us the wall blew out and sparks sprayed as the metal rails were shredded. Cold air blew in from outside, and as rubble came down, I saw a body fall end over end through the snow.
I hit the floor on the landing and Vika came down on top of me. Nico slammed off one wall and reached for me. A chunk of concrete banged off the wall next to his head. I put my boot on the kid’s bony ass and shoved her down the next flight of stairs as the turret turned its fire back the other way.
For the next eight flights we ran, the sounds of the attack slamming through the stairwell from above. Then it stopped. I could barely hear through the ringing in my ears.
Nico cracked open the door and looked through. He signaled it was clear, and we followed. Outside it was a mess. Glass and concrete covered the street where cars were stuck end to end. A desk had come down through the roof of one of them, and I could see bodies in the road. My bike was totaled, crushed under an avalanche of shit. Blood and oil ran down the blacktop.
Everything sounded like I was underwater, but through the ringing, I could make out the sound of rotors. They were pulling up and away. Nico had his gun out as we followed him to the sidewalk. Up in the air I could see the shadow of the Chimera as it banked around the side of a building down the street.
I looked back at the FBI building. Ten floors’ worth of the face was gone. Junk had spilled out of the hole, down onto the street. A million papers fell through the snow. Vika watched one of them come down like she was in a trance.
Wind sheared down the street and stirred up a cloud of dust. Orange light sparked in Nico’s eyes as he checked for survivors.
“Wachalowski!” The voice came from the gate to the garage. It was Van Offo.
“Come on,” he called. “They could be back.”
“Come on where?” I asked.
“There’s still people in there,” Nico said.
“Rescue’s on their way,” Van Offo said. “We need to go now. We’ll take a vehicle from the lot.”
“Go where?” I asked.
“Stillwell’s got a foothold a few blocks up,” he said. “Your squad will meet us there. Come on, we’ve got to move.”
“They’re here,” Vika said. A burst of static popped in my head.
I turned, and across the street, I caught a flash of moonlight white from a pair of eyes. A jack had been watching us. Behind it, I saw there were more.
Off to the left, another one moved out of an alleyway, then another. The static turned loud and steady.
“Let’s go,” Nico said.
Paper blew down the street like snow as we made for the garage.
5
EVENT HORIZON
Zoe Ott—Alto Do Mundo
By the time I could see Alto Do Mundo through the helicopter’s windshield, I’d thrown up everything there was to throw up. My stomach twisted into a knot, and my throat burned as sweat rolled down my face. I was concentrating, my jaw clenched, on the huge, lit spire at the top of the tower when I heard the pilot shout back at us.
“Hold on!”
I felt Penny’s hand on my back as I bit down and held on to the metal rail beside me. Something whipped through the air in front of us, and as it spun back around, the helicopter dropped underneath me.
Spit sprayed from between my teeth, hanging in a long strand. The lights outside spun by the window, and over the rotors I heard a high-pitched whine. There was another helicopter up ahead—no, two—and a huge muzzle flash flickered from underneath one of them. As the pilot spun us around and I slammed into the wall, I saw sparks and shattered glass explode in a trail across the side of a building. It rained down toward the street far below. A huge mob was forming down there around the building.
