“Done for,” Frece said. “Thank God.”
“We have to find Dominik. He was out there when the blast went off.”
“He was out there? Then he's dead, man! We need to get out of here!”
“We are not leaving Dominik! Or Lucja! We're going to find them. We're going to find them, do you hear me?”
Frece looked at him like he was crazy, but Ari didn't care. Dominik and Lucja were his only family now. He'd thought about that a lot over the past month. Wife gone, no children, no reason to keep going, day after day. But they had given him one; he was Uncle Ari now, and he had a purpose.
“We're going after them.”
“With those things out there? There's more of them, more like Smit. Aren't they?”
“I don't know.”
“What do you mean, you don't know?”
“I don't know because I was down here with you, in case you forgot. Now, I'm going up there to look for them. Are you coming?”
Frece seemed to hover. “We need a gun.”
Ari felt a fresh wave of anger, this time at himself. “I dropped it.”
“I saw it, though! It's under the rafters!”
Richter's Walther PPK was lying in the corner beneath the debris. Ari could just make it out through the dust. He coughed again, the smell of the formaldehyde growing stronger. “Leave it. If I stay much longer, I'm going to pass out.”
“I'm not leaving it!”
Before Ari could stop him, Frece dropped to his stomach and began crawling through the wreckage. Ari debated chasing after. The thought of Frece with the gun was all kinds of bad.
The man moved along the ground, climbing over the wrecked pieces of the chair. He passed Richter. And Richter woke up.
The commander came to life with a howl, his arms flailing towards the sky. He was crushed, the lower half of his body pinned, but he sat up just the same.
He grabbed Frece's legs. “Where are you going?”
The other man yelled, trying to kick him off.
Richter's free hand fumbled along the ground, finding a piece of a shattered beaker. He shoved it into Frece's spine, and the blond man yelped, still groping towards the gun.
“You may wear a white man's skin,” Richter said, “but you're a mongrel lover. Aren't you? You just had to interfere.” He slashed him again. “We never”—slash—“should have”—slash—“kept you”—slash—“alive!”
Thomas tried to pull away, but his legs had given up, red soaking through his back. Richter dropped the glass and began to bite the man. In seconds, he was clawing and grabbing and sinking his teeth into the man's neck and head.
The sight finally broke Ari's paralysis. He leapt forward, oblivious to the shape now coming down the stairs behind him.
4
Dominik's first impression was that Richter had been infected with the black fungus, but when he saw the truth, it was somehow worse. Richter had never looked more human in his life. More human, and more monstrous.
The commander wiped his mouth, the body flopping off of him bonelessly. When he looked up, Ari stopped cold.
“So close, isn't it? The desire to be a hero.” Richter pulled himself an arm's length closer to the gun without taking his eyes away. “You should know better by now.”
“What are you doing?” Ari whispered.
“Maybe you should run while you have the chance.”
“I… no…”
Richter pulled himself again. Dominik didn't know how he was doing it. Surely, his insides could be no more than jelly.
“After more than half a century on this miserable planet, I think you should know you're no hero.”
“I know who I am,” Ari said, yet he didn't move. He was mesmerized by the force of that bloody smile.
And then, Dominik realized it was having the same effect on him. He wanted to rush in and kick Richter in the teeth, to stomp him, to break him, but he couldn't. The man was crippled at the waist, and yet Dominik stood paralyzed. He searched for a sign. He looked for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. His eyes settled on the metal shelf in the corner. All of the beakers had fallen on the floor and broken, all but one. It was resting on the edge, the top plugged tight.
Throwing himself across the room, Dominik grabbed the glass in one quick motion. Richter's eyes darted to him, his face black with hate, but he couldn't stop him. Dominik tossed the glass to the ground, and it shattered. The formaldehyde sprayed out in a whoosh, splashing Richter's face and mouth. It began to vaporize, transforming his head into a bubbling mass as he turned into the light.
Then Dominik heard something he never thought he would hear: he heard the commander wail. His limbs thrashed. His spine twisted. Foam began to run from his mouth, his cries becoming babble.
A moment later, Ari grabbed his friend around the arm. “Thank you, Dominik. Oh heaven, thank you.” He paused. “Ettore?”
Dominik shook his head.
“Then it's just you and me. We have to go, Dom. We have to go!”
Dominik let himself be led, knowing he had to get away from that thrashing form as fast as he could. Then as they passed the surviving tank, he stopped. “Wait.”
The lever on the tank hung in the air, beckoning. A single pull of that lever would open the valves, releasing the formaldehyde through the vents and up into the world above. That had been the plan: release the gas and choke them all, escape in the aftermath.
“I… I can't do it. I can't do it to all of them, Ari. I…” His voice broke. “I don't want to damn my soul.”
The other man hugged him, a gesture both incredibly welcome and incredibly out of place. When Dominik looked up, he saw Ari's eyes were gleaming. “No more,” he said. “I'm tired of being their plaything, Dominik. I don't care if they all end up like Richter. I don't care.”
Dominik shook his head.
“You know they'd do the same to us. What if we had a chance to end it right here and now, to save all the people who will come after us?”
“I don't know, Ari.”
“Well I do. I'm not leaving it to chance. You and Lucja are getting out alive. Me too, if I can, but I'm not risking your lives. Even if you don't want me to do it for you, let me do it for her. Her life is worth a thousand Richters. It's worth more than a thousand of any of them. Now step aside, and I'm going to pull that handle.”
They stared at each other, their friendship as deep as years and decades and millennia.
At last, Dominik nodded. “Together,” he said. “We'll do it together.”
He undid the safety catch, each of them placing a hand on the grip. When Dominik looked into his friend's eyes again, he knew it was time. They yanked the lever down as one, awaiting the hiss that would spell doom for the men they had known and despised for all of these terrible, long weeks.
But no sound came.
5
They breached the door and stepped into the yard, the plan forgotten. Frece was gone. Ettore was gone. Lucja had disappeared, and the tanks had failed when they had needed them most.
Outside, the soldiers stumbled about desultorily. The young ones scrambled for weapons. The older ones seemed to be looking for officers. But they were all lost, wandering through the explosion smoke as if they didn't know where they were.
“Where are you going?” someone shouted.
Dominik looked over and saw Doctor Gloeckner, the idiot physician. He and Ari kept walking. “Lucja!” Dominik called. “Lucja, where are you?”
The doctor came up behind them. “Take me with you! Take me with you if you're getting out of here!”