Boyd and Wong were in the process of changing their magazines while two injured Variants and the hobbled Alpha stumbled toward them.
Timothy tried to keep his rifle steady, but he was too shaky and didn’t have a clear field of fire.
“Out of the way!” Ruckley shouted.
She stepped between Wong and Boyd and drained her magazine into the two beasts, then Boyd and Wong finished off the Alpha with bullets to its milky blind eyes.
The giant finally slumped forward, dead.
A cloud of gray dust and debris flooded around them as they rushed past the dead creatures.
Timothy tried to breath, but choked on the dust, coughing.
There was no going back the way they had come. There was only one direction to go now, just like his father had said.
Forward.
Covered in dust, Wong led them to a short ladder that took them to a loading dock for the Venetian.
A pair of Variants hunched near the entrance, on alert from the noise that had erupted from the tunnels. Ruckley and Timothy fired a few suppressed shots that killed the beasts, then hurried past the fresh corpses.
They followed the loading bay to the maintenance corridors that ran behind the shops and guest rooms. Wong took them through another door that opened into a wide space with a faux sky and false façades that made Timothy think he had stepped straight into Europe. Canals ran alongside the shops. The water had long since drained from them, and a pair of long gondolas lay sideways on the bottom.
Red webbing smothered everything, throbbing and squirming. More bodies hung from the walls and the ceiling, like a spider’s web filled with fresh prey.
Ruckley pointed at Wong and Boyd. They prepared the fuses and detonation charges for a pair of C-4 explosives and set them into the corners of the wide atrium, then started to move to the next space.
Before they climbed a short bridge over the dried-out canal, a rumble shook through the hotel. They froze as another quake shook the walls.
A low explosion sounded in the distance.
Had one of the other teams detonated their explosives early? Or had Recon Sigma missed the mark and set their explosions late?
Ruckley looked between them frantically and broke radio silence. “Command, Recon Sigma One. We heard explosions. What’s going on?”
“Recon Sigma, other units are reporting blasts from unknown sources.”
Another explosion boomed through the walls, this one sounding closer to the Venetian. Cracks formed in the ceiling and chunks of plaster rained down.
Somewhere deeper in the hotel, another blast went off. This one was nearly deafening, and the whole building quivered as if it might fall.
Timothy stared at the empty corridors, realizing suddenly why the only resistance they had faced was outside.
“Guys, what are those drums doing down there?” Boyd asked. He shone his flashlight over a cluster of barrels with wires coming away from them.
“Those aren’t ours,” Wong said.
“Run!” Ruckley shouted. “Go!”
They were nearly at the loading dock when an explosion ripped through the hotel and shops, fire bursting through the doorways and windows. Ruckley and Wong disappeared behind a screen of falling rubble.
“Ruckley!” Timothy yelled.
He rushed back to the mound of broken wreckage, choking on the dust and smoke. Another fissure ripped across the ceiling, spilling debris and fire that blocked his path.
“This whole place is going to come down!” Boyd screamed.
He grabbed Timothy and pulled him away from a fragmented hunk of ceiling that crashed to the ground. Another rumble tore through the building. The wall to the loading dock collapsed, and Timothy stumbled through a billowing cloud of dust and ash.
Lowering his helmet, he pushed through the grit. Boyd was just ahead, almost to the open loading dock. Another wall crumbled, coming down with the ceiling, and burying them feet away from exit.
***
“Hostile down,” Beckham said.
He lowered his rifle after dispatching a rogue Variant. It was one of the only creatures they had encountered so far. He was starting to worry Kate’s team had been wrong about the Prophet being located in the Palazzo. The booms and explosions from nearby blasts that had rocked the building worried him even more. If they were on the wrong track, it could prove deadly.
A few teams had reported seeing explosives that did not belong to the Allied States, and command had warned all ground forces to keep an eye out for improvised explosive devices.
He had heard Recon Sigma, Timothy and Ruckley’s team, calling command to request clarification on the explosions. Since then, they had been silent.
He hoped that was a good sign. That it meant they were still on target. But he could not help the worry filtering through his mind that maybe he was wrong.
Nonetheless, he continued to lead Horn through the Palazzo’s casino.
Webbing stretched from the ceiling between the slot machines and card tables. They sifted through a lounge with dusty booths and toppled tables and chairs.
A wave of explosions rocked through Vegas, small columns of dust falling from the ceiling. Their time to find the evil creature responsible for this madness was definitely running out, and his pulse thundered in his ears with each consecutive blast.
The radios came alive with the voices of frantic soldiers calling for help. Quakes shook the Palazzo.
Horn shifted around nervously. “That sounds close.”
Another boom shook the tower. This time it sounded like it had come from the Venetian, where the Recon teams were supposed to lay explosives to bring down the Variant hives.
That was the second blast near Timothy’s location.
“I’m breaking radio silence,” Beckham said, no longer able to contain his worry. “Recon Sigma, Reaper One, do you copy?”
No answer.
“Recon Sigma, do you copy?”
Come on. Come on.
Still no answer.
They had to move.
“On me,” Beckham said.
He took them back through the casino, smashing over the organic webbing. They raced toward the lobby just as another rumble tore through the building. Marble columns fell on either side of them, slamming into the floor.
“This way!” Beckham said, taking them out of the Palazzo and through the shops in front.
They raced between the stores, the whole
