The screams still sound and there’s a snapped transmission—“Engaging”—then the distant sound of beanbag pellets. Dull thuds carry on the air. Liz tries to get a better angle on the screens and sees the figures jump and jerk with each painful hit then keep staggering forward. More thuds and finally all bar one drop.
The last attacker, a huge bloated form that fills the doorway, keeps coming on despite the non-lethal rounds, his arm seeming too long, unnaturally elongated—
“Weapon!”
The SOG split to one side and the rear-guard officer steps forward.
“Drop it!”
A dark barrel raises on one of the screens, but the man doesn’t stop and there’s a flash then a concussive BOOM through the mic as the officer fires the lethal Bennelli shotgun, and the crazed man’s arm blows off — literally blasts off still holding the machete; Liz can make out its spiral through the cordite smoke like a tossed snake.
The man doesn’t slow.
“Jesus.” Liz doesn’t know who says that one. Maybe it’s her. She notices Fozz zooming in to catch the encounter and Collins covering the lens.
“Stay back!” The barrel centers on the man’s head and there’s a collective silence around her as everyone watches held-breath. One of the SOG tazers the guy from the side, but the wired barbs don’t even register on his huge expanse and he keeps coming, he fills the screen—
A second BOOM. The man’s head disappears in a cloud of red and he pitches forward, spasms then stills.
“Shots fired. Suspect down.”
“Damn it,” someone at the table says softly.
“Roger that Alpha. EMT on standby.”
The screen holds on the dead man a second. Bit late for that. “Suggest the body snatchers.” Then the unit pushes up the stairs.
“Acknowledged.”
Liz can feel Austin and Collins watching her like she’s a live grenade. “You know they didn’t have a choice—” Collins starts to say.
“I know. I’m not a turncoat.” She curses herself. It’d taken her weeks to win the squad over. Shepherd had planted doubt there now.
“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Fozz grumbles.
The team moves in and down the hallway beneath sporadic fluorescent lights, kicking in doors and clearing room after room, then continuing on. The apartments are all empty, most trashed and filled with detritus. None contain hydroponics banks.
“Where are all the families?” Liz asks. Most new refugees were funneled into the government-owned towers upon entering the country. There should be hundreds of people within.
Austin glances at her. A moment of hesitation. Then he must take pity. “Ground floor’s buffer space. Leave it empty, they don’t lose anything if they’re breached. Everything must be on the upper floors, so the guys’ll have to clear each one—” He breaks off, stares at the screen.
A shape sprints ahead down the hallway.
“Contact! Police, halt!”
Then there’s just chaos as the officers pursue the figure, the world tilting and crashing on screen as the soggies sprint and Liz has to look away. When she glances back, they’ve captured a thrashing, raving gangbanger, the man’s eyes like white bulging circles onscreen.
“You see the truth! We have you now!” the guy’s ranting, a frothing explosion of spit and bared teeth, and the unimpressed police turn him over and pin him, then strap his wrists with plastic ties.
“Ground floor clear. One captured.”
“You’re trapped in here with ME!”
“Roger, Alpha. Proceed to First Level.”
“There is no First Level. We DOWN. We beneath in the pits. ALL laid out.”
“Wait, Alpha. What’s he saying?”
Shepherd crackles in. “Suspect’s reality-challenged, Chief. Proceeding to stairwell.”
“—walking over it right now. So close. You keep going, you keep going—”
“Shepherd. Eyes on a lower level?”
“Observed no stairs down.”
One of the other SOG steps toward the man: “Someone shut him up—”
“Alpha. Hold.”
Someone: “What’s God saying?”
“All, hold,” Shepherd commands. “Awaiting instruction, Command.”
“We’re coming in.” The Head of Operations rips off his mic, signals some of the uniforms to shadow paramedics to the downed residents at the front of the building, another group to accompany him to hold the stairwells. “You—” He points to her two favorite drug squad detectives. “With me.”
Austin takes off at a run. Liz and Fozz stand a moment, stunned.
“Shit!” Fozz yelps. “Go!”
Before she can follow him, the Deputy Commissioner grabs her arm.
“Why should I let you?”
“I can play the game, Daniel.”
He says nothing. Just keeps giving that hard look.
“I’ll make sure I forget to mention the Commissioner. This is your op after all, right? Should help your tilt.”
He lets her go.
3 — RE-ORGANIZATION PROTOCOL
IT’S WEIRD. THE incapacitated gangbangers in the courtyard are already rousing when they pass, and, before the paramedics can tend them, are fighting to get free. The uniformed police have to cuff them and end up dragging them away even as the frenzied residents bite at their metal bonds, breaking teeth and tearing their mouths to shreds. Liz tries not to look at the smeared concrete spreading out from the big man’s body.
The corridor smells dank and the carpet squelches beneath their feet, as if the whole building’s begun to liquefy. Black mold honeycombs the ceilings in some of the rooms. Liz covers her mouth and follows the thick backs of the detectives down the long hallway and around a bend, passing guards training their weapons up at silent stairwells. At the end of the next corridor, the black-clad soggies guard a hogtied and very agitated man. As they get closer, Liz can see his pinprick pupils and she fights a sudden burst of anger. How anyone can give their life away—
But she knows why people succumb to drugs. She’d seen firsthand those who choose the easy way out.
“—on the list?” the Head of Operations is asking the drug squad detectives ahead.
Collins nods. “The second in command. ‘Roach’. Real name: Pharcel Ibrahim.”
“Pharcel?” Shepherd says. “That’s sweet.”
Roach grins at them. Casts his rolling eyes at the Head of Operations. “And God saw all that he had made, and behold the world turned to black.”
The Chief stares at him, at the use of his name. “Hell you say?”
“Where are your soldiers?” Detective Austin steps in. “You going to let us just waltz in here?”
“No, no, they went to meet you. They’re out there now, still running.” The banger giggles and his eyes become whites as his head lurches back.
“This is a waste of—”
Collins cuts off the nearby SOG officer. “How many of your friends you want to lose? How many residents endangered as we work upwards? Map the building and we’ll cut a deal. Reduce our risk; we’ll make sure you get an easy ride.”
“Ride, ride. We ride the pony. And she smiles just before she falls, but we’re too far to catch her—”
Detective Collins gapes at him. Then launches in, grabs the guy by the throat before anyone can stop him. “The fuck, you talking about my daughter?”
“Falling. Always falling. We’re all falling.” Roach cackles laughter as Collins squeezes.