X was right. God damn it, he was always right—which, of course, was why he had survived so long in this dangerous world, and why she had a hole in her helmet.
She reached up to check the damage. The tusk had punctured the crest but not her skull. A few centimeters more, though, and her scalp would have been oozing brains instead of just a little blood.
Patience saves your life. Rushing gets you killed.
“You were right, X,” she muttered.
She was lucky this time. The mistake hadn’t gotten her killed, but she wasn’t sure Miles would be so lucky. The vulture had pulled him into the sky. She would never forget the raw scream from X that followed. He had taken off running after them, yelling at Magnolia to stay put.
She sat with her back to the wall, head throbbing and heart pounding. A single tear streaked down her cheek. X still hadn’t returned, and all she could do was sit here, hoping for the best.
You’re a Hell Diver. You know better than to hope.
Hell Divers didn’t sit around and hope for something to happen—Hell Divers got up and made something happen.
But what could she do? If she did leave, she could get lost in the jungle or eaten by the monster hogs.
Using the butt of her rifle, she pushed herself up, taking a moment to let the wave of dizziness pass and to think about her next move. She checked her HUD. The readouts were good, at least. Radiation levels were minimal, and her battery unit was at 70 percent.
But she still had no idea how long she would be here. Better to use her flashlight instead of the NVGs, which drained the battery unit.
Switching on the beam, she played it across the room. Dust particles floated in the air like fine snow. Two tables lay upended in the middle of the space. Several chairs were on their backs nearby, legs angled up at the ceiling. The light hit thick cobwebs stretched across the metal pegs. Cabinets, a bookshelf, and a desk stood against the opposite wall. Cracked lightbulbs protruded from sconces on the walls.
Every window had been boarded up with metal hatches. Whoever had taken shelter here did a good job sealing the structure, aside from the front door that X had kicked in.
A T-shaped bar was now locked in place over the metal entrance. It seemed the former occupants had left without bothering to secure the door when they abandoned the place. A second door led into another room, which she hadn’t checked yet.
A loud crack of thunder rattled the window hatches. She moved toward the door she still hadn’t opened. Halfway there, she stopped and closed her eyes. “X, do you copy?”
It was the third time she had tried him in the past few hours. Only static crackled from the speakers. The sound filled her with dread. He either was dead or had gone radio silent to avoid detection by the hogs.
Magnolia sucked in a breath of stale air and opened the door to the other room. A monitor the size of her wrist computer was mounted to the wall right of the entrance.
She played her light over computer equipment in the corner of the room.
“What the…?” she whispered. These were not the type of computers they had on the Hive or Deliverance. This stuff looked ancient. Boxy computers and monitors were stacked on tables.
She swung the beam to the left. A pile of rubble covered most of the floor in the center of the room, where the wall and part of the roof had caved in.
Two thunderclaps shook the structure, rattling the metal hatch over a window at the far end of the room. She shined her beam in that direction, hitting a row of chairs and more desks. Facing the central desk sat a skeletal figure, head hanging at an odd angle. The top part of the skull was missing, and raising the light, she saw on the ceiling the brown stippling that had been this person’s brains.
The gun was nowhere in view, which told her someone else had taken it before abandoning the building. But what really interested her was the radio equipment in front of the corpse.
She made her way over and flashed the light over all sorts of devices she remembered from textbooks in school. A switchboard with dozens of toggle switches, a ham radio, and what looked like an archaic Morse code transmitter key.
Grabbing the back of the chair, she gently moved it out of the way, trying to make as little noise as possible. Despite her efforts, the metal legs scratched the floor, and a leg bone cracked off the corpse.
Magnolia held in a gasp as a furry spider pulled itself out of the home it had made in the skull. It raised its head, brandishing fangs, then clambered away.
She followed it with her light till it took refuge in the debris pile. Then she turned back to the desks, astonished at how well preserved the room was. Maybe it had lasted long after the apocalypse.
Using her light, she scanned the switchboard. Symbols and text marked the different buttons, though she doubted that anything worked. Even if this place had continued operating after the nuclear fires, it couldn’t possibly still have backup power.
From what she could tell, this wasn’t an ITC facility.
“X, do you copy?” Mags said into the comm. “I found some radio equipment. I’m going to try and get it working.”
Static once again crackled in her helmet.
She lowered her light and fished out a thin cable, which she patched into her wrist monitor. Then she plugged the other end into a second cable, which divers used to hack into old systems such as this. All she had to do was get enough juice to turn the radio back on.
Next, she plugged the other end of the cord into her chest battery slot. The charge would, she hoped, be enough to power the equipment.
Clamping the flashlight between her teeth, she pulled off her gloves, then tapped the screen of her wrist computer, bringing it online.
A distant wail broke over the thunder outside. Something massive rammed the outside of the building. Her eyes darted over to the debris pile.
“Mags, do you copy?”
The sound of X’s voice in her helmet startled her.
“Yes, I copy,” she said softly.
“Where are you?”
“Same place you left me. Where are you?”
“I’m tracking Miles, but those things are hunting me.”
She could hear snorting in the background. It sounded nothing like the dog. A flurry of gunshots rang out. These she could hear inside the building. X and the hogs were close.
The wrist monitor blinked. The main dashboard on the desk suddenly flashed with colors. The radio equipment crackled to life, and several monitors came online.
“Oh, shit, I did it!” she said. “I got a radio working here, X!”
“Screw the radio, Mags. I’m about to be hog shit, and Miles is still—”
More gunfire popped in the distance.
“Mags, those things are on my six. I need help.”
Magnolia unslung her rifle and looked at the radio one more time, wondering whether she should try to connect with the Hive first.
There’s no time. Just as she started to turn away, she saw a symbol on the switchboard. She hesitated for a moment, then moved back to the equipment.
“Hold on, X. I’ve got an idea.”
“I don’t have time for ideas!”
She flipped the button with a horn symbol below it.
She turned the light off and bumped on her NVGs as an emergency siren blared outside, drowning out the screeches of birds and even the crack of thunder.
Moving into the other room, she shouldered her rifle and trained it on the metal door.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” she muttered.