“What do you think I’m doing now?” she said, but she squeezed him so hard his armor pressed in on his rib cage.
He grabbed the toggle again, blade in hand, and watched the number on his HUD tick upward. The wailing was so loud now, it sounded like standing beneath a klaxon on the Hive.
Michael’s heart was fluttering, but he remained calm, remembering the fortune he had handed X all those years ago: Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear.
At 850 feet, he cut through the lines attached to their balloons. Layla screamed, and Michael didn’t have the breath to reassure her. He watched the towers rising up to meet his boots as the Sirens screeched in confusion directly overhead. He didn’t need to look up to see they were seconds from being snatched away by those talons and torn apart in midair.
So far, his timing was spot-on, but they still had the landing ahead of them.
Michael waited five beats before pulling the ripcord on the new chute. The lines snapped taut and yanked them up, and for the moment before the wind caught them again, the chute seemed to pull them toward the monsters above. Now they were sailing straight toward the bunker. A single white light, like a beacon in the night, shone from the side of the concrete structure.
“Give us some covering fire, Weaver!” Michael shouted. “And if you haven’t already gotten a window open, break one quick!”
“It’s open, but I told you I don’t have a rifle!”
Michael cursed. In the chaos, he had forgotten that detail. They weren’t going to get any help in the final stretch. Worse, they were descending too quickly. If they continued to drop, they wouldn’t make the window. The only way this would work was if he held them steady and sailed right through the opening.
This would require a perfect flare.
He bumped his chin pad.
“We’re coming in hot, Weaver. Clear us a path. As soon as we land, you need to close the window behind us!”
Michael brought his knees up as they soared over the spilled entrails of buildings. His boots were just feet away from a bent girder rising up in their path. He toggled again to adjust their trajectory one final time.
Inside the bunker, he could see a room furnished with desks and computer equipment. Lots of corners and hard surfaces to run into. There was no way around it—this was going to hurt. It was a good thing Layla couldn’t see the approach, but she could still see the monsters.
“They’re almost on us!” she shouted. “Michael, hurry!”
“Pull up your legs!”
At the last second, he flared his chute and they sailed inside the room, both of them bringing their boots up just in time to avoid injury. Michael hit the ground hard and tried to run out the momentum. He made it two steps before her weight pulled him down. They crashed in a heap, rolling and tumbling across the floor until they fetched up against a desk. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs.
“Layla,” he gasped. “Are you…?”
Weaver darted forward, hauled in the tail of Michael’s canopy, and slammed the window. Thick metal shutters clattered over it. Seconds later, the monsters slammed into the hatches. Claws slid down the metal outside.
“Jesus Christ!” Weaver shouted.
Head pounding and stars drifting before his vision, Michael closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he saw a pair of bloody boots hurrying away from the windows.
Michael pushed at the ground and looked at Layla, sitting beside him with one hand on her helmet.
“Nice job, Commander,” she said, flashing a weak smile.
He helped her to her feet. When they turned, they saw Weaver standing next to a hologram of a man in an immaculate suit. The contrast couldn’t have been sharper with Weaver, who looked as though he had been dragged through hell and back. The man was covered in blood and dirt, and his visor was cracked.
“I got your gear,” Michael said, tossing him the bag.
“Thanks,” Weaver grunted. He jerked a thumb at the ghostly image beside him. “This is Timothy. He runs this madhouse.”
“Welcome to ITC Communal Thirteen,” the hologram said.
A gunshot sounded from somewhere inside the facility.
“That must be Magnolia,” Weaver said. He ran over to the desks that had been hastily pushed against the door. “Help me with these!”
Michael joined him, and together they pulled the desks away. Two more shots went off, and a squawk sounded from the passage beyond the door.
“Get ready; they’re going to have company,” Weaver said.
Michael unslung his rifle and raised it at the battered metal door. Weaver grabbed the handle and yanked it open. The light from their helmets shone over a landing. Weird tubes as thick as Michael’s waist crawled over the walls and stairs below. Sprawled in the middle was the body of a mutant creature unlike anything Michael had ever seen. Blood pooled around the carcass.
“What the hell is that?” Layla said.
“Vultures,” Weaver said. “If you see any more, shoot ’em! Sirens aren’t the only things that want to eat us.”
Light beams danced up the stairwell. Michael still couldn’t see the other divers, but he could hear them.
“Weaver!” Magnolia shouted. “Get that door open!”
Michael squared his shoulders and readied his rifle at the landing. Another gunshot reverberated off the walls. The squawks that followed were different from the screeching of the Sirens, but that was small comfort.
He moved his finger to the rifle trigger as two figures bounded around the corner. It was Magnolia and Rodger, and they were running for their lives. They raced past him without stopping.
Movement flickered over the stairs below as Michael backpedaled after them, but he had trouble focusing on the creature, which seemed to blend in with the shadows. At last, he caught the gray, feathery thing in his crosshairs. He squeezed the trigger, and nothing—the magazine was dry, the action open on an empty chamber.
A single eyeball on a stalk roved toward him. The creature cried out, and suddenly, the passage was alive with the beasts Weaver had called vultures. But where had they come from?
Staggering back toward the doorway, Michael lost his footing and fell on his butt. Hands grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him into the room.
He reached for his pistol as the other divers dragged him to safety. A dozen of the little beasts bounded up the stairs, a dozen single eyeballs peering at him.
Rodger and Magnolia slammed the door and helped Layla push the desks back into position. The hands under Michael’s arms relaxed their grip, and Weaver limped over to help reinforce the barrier.
Dazed, Michael stood as the vultures clawed at the door. All around them, the Sirens were still slamming against the metal hatches covering the windows. The divers were surrounded, but at least they were together.
Magnolia and Rodger were both bent over, hands on their knees, panting. Weaver was resting his back against the barricade of desks. His lungs were crackling with each breath—a bad sign that he had breathed in something toxic. After a moment, Weaver crossed his arms and looked at each diver in turn.
“First, get Magnolia’s wounds disinfected and dressed, and get that suit closed and sealed. Meanwhile, somebody’s going to tell me what the hell is going on.”
“It’s a long story,” Michael began as Layla fished a medical kit and a suit repair kit out of the backpack.
Magnolia cut him off. “Jordan tried to kill me. Now he’s sent the rest of you down here to prove some psychotic point about the ship not being able to return to the surface. Ever.”
“Point received,” Weaver said. He unfolded his arms, and for the first time, Michael saw the extent of his injuries. Multiple tears in his layered suit revealed blood gashes where the beasts had torn his flesh. But it was the cracked visor that concerned Michael the most.