I waited for sleep to come claim me, wondered if it would. I hadn’t heard from Bastian or Parks all day, which I took as a good sign; they were supposed to call if the world started to end around us. Personally, I suspected that would be something I wouldn’t need a lot of heads-up about. When Omega came, I kinda thought I’d know the hour and minute it started to happen. It wasn’t going to be subtle. Not this time.
My phone lit up and I pulled it off the nightstand at the first beep. The screen lit up when I thumbed the power button, and I swiped my finger across the message icon to bring up a text message. It was from Zack.
All other Directorate campuses evacuated and shuttered except Arizona. Will be by in a little while, finishing up a meeting with Kurt .
I sighed and lay the phone on my chest. I wanted him here with me now, not later. It felt like the next breath stuck in my lungs, caught there, like a stitch in my ribs, a pain I couldn’t dispense with. I wanted this over, even if it was going to end badly. When problems came at me, my philosophy was to confront them, because if you fear something and you charge into it anyway, odds were good you wouldn’t fear it for very long. Unless “it” was actually something gravely harmful, like a running chainsaw, in which case…yeah, I suppose you’d still fear it even after running into it once.
The stars were starting to come out to play now, and I lay on top of the bedspread, waiting. I looked at the deepening purple of the sky, the first twinkles of light out above the orange fade of the horizon, and I wondered again how long it would be. Wondered why they were coming for me. And then I wondered what Mom was up to. That one was really strange.
I saw the first sparkle of light on the horizon, a red light hanging over the campus like a falling crimson star, and I watched it descend with steady regularity past my window. No surprise attack, no explosions, no metas gone wild streaming across the lawns in attack formation. Just a flare. A simple, red flare, falling onto the south lawn. I watched it go, the very thought prickling my mind—we didn’t use flares, didn’t need flares, we had freestanding light posts all around the campus to illuminate the whole thing if we wanted it done—
I heard the heater cut out, the lights all died out in the main room. I heard the quiet, reassuring hum of electricity stop all throughout the building, followed by the last few dying sounds of the warm air pushed through the heat exchange. The vent above me quit making the whooshing noise that was incredibly loud to meta ears as it pushed out the last of its warm air.
A moment later, the first explosion rocked the campus.
23.
I was off and running, my feet carrying me down the stairs. I saw no one in the hallway outside my quarters, not Scott, not Kat, and none of M-Squad. I raced across the lobby, the lights casting dark shadows over the faces of people clumped inside, watching out the glass front of the building. As I shoved my way through a (very) small crowd, I saw Kurt Hannegan near the doors. “Keep ‘em safe,” I said to him as I passed, and got a nod from the big man in return. I paused at the entrance to the lobby, about to go out the front door. “Where’s Zack?”
“HQ,” he said. “Got a call from Old Man Winter a few minutes ago to run over there; he’s in charge of us, now.”
“You’re in charge here ‘til he gets back, right?” I asked, and watched him think about it for a second.
“Yeah.” Hannegan nodded, his jowls rocking in the motion. “Explosion sounded like it came from the science building.”
“On my way. You might wanna lock the doors behind me.”
Hannegan didn’t even bother to sneer. “You really think a lock’s gonna keep Omega out?”
I ran out the door, the cold night air cutting across me. The skies had turned overcast while I wasn’t looking, clouds moving in and darkening the sky further. It was night, blackest , the light of the nearby town shining off the clouds, miles away. I cut around the side of the building and stopped as my eyes beheld the spectacle in front of me.
The science building, the new and shining gem of the Directorate campus, was in flames—again—fire roaring where it had stood, as though it had been entirely replaced by an inferno. I ran, feet crunching in the leaves, the orange hues cutting through the blackness of the campus night, not sure if I should be afraid or not as I ran toward the destruction.
I slowed as I grew closer, and halted about forty feet from the entrance to the building. I saw a lone body on the ground on the walkway. I ran to it and fell to my knees, rolling the corpse over and smothering the fire that was licking at it. It was scorched up and down it, the flames having had a good bit of time to work.
It was Doctor Sessions, I realized from the half of a face that remained. I had pulled him from the flaming wreckage of the last science building still alive and he had been healed by Kat. This time, I realized, staring into the dead eyes of the doctor, there would be no last-minute healing, no ultimate salvation. I took off my glove and held my fingers to his wrist, trying to feel for a pulse against the burnt and blackened skin; there was none.
I stood, listening over the sound of the crackling fire, my eyes searching the campus for movement and finding none. I flinched as another explosion echoed across the grounds, and realized that this time it was the gymnasium, the brick building consumed in another blast of flame and wreckage. Pieces of brick and flecks of glass and paper rained down around me and I covered my head to shield myself from the falling detritus. A moment later, another explosion came and I watched the training center, the place where I had spent so many hours honing my skills, vanish in an orange-red conflagration that streaked up into the sky under a billowing black cloud.
I stood there, the night air eating at me under my jacket, feeling my hands sweat and chill in my gloves. I tried to gather my thoughts. I had no idea what was causing the explosions, whether it was a meta or some sort of bomb, but so far they seemed to be hitting the most abandoned areas of the campus. Since I hadn’t seen motion between the buildings, it seemed most likely that a bomb was responsible, rather than a meta like Gavrikov. I ran a hand through my hair and thought about the quietest buildings on the campus, thought about Zack, and the cold consumed me. I ran for the headquarters building, my feet pounding underneath me as I ran faster than I thought I ever had.
I hit the lobby, throwing open the glass door and dashing into the foyer. The place was quiet, but a single door was open in the distance, emergency lighting washing out of it—the stairs. I cursed and drew my pistol. I ducked into the back stairwell, using my gun to cover the angles as I descended. There was no noise from above me, but below I could hear something, motion, voices. I came down, the eerie floodlights giving me enough light to see by. I pointed my weapon down the long hall as I came to the bottom of the stairs. I could see movement down there, and the conversation was clear now.
“Come down, Sienna Nealon,” came the voice of a shadow, standing in the middle of the hallway. “Yes, I know it’s you, I can see you in the light. Like a little angel, really.”
“So…” I said, and cleared the corners as I entered the hall, waiting to see if someone was going to attack me. I couldn’t see ahead very well, and it looked almost like there was only the one figure waiting for me, a man, older, but still just one man. “Are you Janus?”