Her mouth gaped in surprise for a moment, but then she blinked, and smiled again. “Yes, of course, but we're out of their range. If they could sense us, they would have attacked already. They're not smart enough to wait.”
George readied his minigun. “Didn't you say something about the screamers having both aggressive and defensive types?”
Laura nodded. “Correct. And these are clearly aggressive.”
“But they can switch, right?”
“Yes. Only from defensive to aggressive, but yes.”
“What if they were defensive before?”
Laura frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What if they were defensive, and ignoring us on purpose?”
She stared at him.
“Would an entire company of peacekeepers be enough to make that switch?”
Kelly, still looking down the side of the building, was the one who answered. “Apparently so. Or maybe they just want to say hi.” She stepped back from the edge and readied her pistol, a Necessarian model I couldn't identify. “Either way, they're coming.”
Adam looked around the roof and found a few tall air conditioning units arranged in a square, with only one space open so mechanics could get in for maintenance. He pointed to it. “That should help us hold them off. Force them to bottleneck themselves.”
“Unless they climb,” Alex said.
Adam grinned, trying to look more confident than he felt. “Aggressive ones are stupider, remember? Hopefully they'll go straight for the obvious route.”
“You're betting all our lives on that hope,” Kelly said.
Alex rolled her entire body in exasperation. “Ugh. Do you have a better idea? No? Then come on.”
It was a tight fit for all six of them, but they managed to get George's minigun pointed at the opening, which was pretty much all they needed. They waited anxiously for a few minutes, not even sure if they were coming.
Then Adam heard the screaming.
Quiet at first, but it built swiftly, that emotionless cry coming from every direction at once, as the zombies got closer and closer.
“Remember,” Laura said, “try not to kill them if possible.”
Adam shook his head as he pulled out his Sica. Anything bigger than a pistol would just get in his way in this enclosed space. “No way. We're going to have enough problems if we're willing to kill.”
“Plus, they can control their blood,” Kelly said.
Alex nodded. “Exactly. If they're wounded but alive, they might be more of a danger than if they were uninjured. Killing is the only option.”
“Silver and... fine. But when the helicopter drops the sleeping gas, we're capturing as many as possible.”
“Hopefully they send another company, too,” Adam said. MC hadn't said anything, but Necessarius wasn't stupid enough to think nine people—eight, with Derek unconscious—could tie up a thousand people in an hour. They probably had troops on the way.
Probably.
The first screamer poked his head into their makeshift fort, and Sax blew him away before anyone could move. George had his minigun ready, but he was saving it for large groups, like always.
Two more came. Adam got the girl on the left in the head, and someone else got the man on the right with a double-tap to the chest. A half-dozen more tried to get through at once, tripping over each other in the process, and George tore them apart with the minigun. The roar nearly deafened them, but it was temporary.
They were doing well, but they couldn't keep this up for long. And without Derek's shields, if the screamers got a chance to use their abilities, they were pretty much dead.
Another one jumped over the corpses of his comrades. Adam shot him in the leg, and as he stumbled, Kelly got him in the head. More came, more died. It got tedious very quickly. Luckily, the screamers didn't seem to know what to do with their ability in an enclosed space, so Adam and the others didn't have any real trouble.
To his surprise, though, the flow of zombies stopped after only about a dozen more tried to force their way through the gap. They stood there for a few minutes waiting for more, but none came, and the screaming had faded again.
“That can't be all of them,” Adam said.
Laura took out her phone. “Ling? You guys all right? The screamers stopped attacking us up here.”
Ling sounded exasperated on the other end of the line. “Yeah, probably because we've got the entire horde behind us. Can't talk. Bye.” She hung up before we could say anything else.
Adam cursed. “We need the screamers in one place. How big an area can the gas hit?”
Laura thought for a moment, then frowned. “No idea. I should have looked it up...”
“The bombs can be spread as far as a full square mile,” Alex said. “Though with screamers, I'm not sure the gas would be dense enough at that point to affect them.” She chewed her lip and adjusted the night vision goggles on her face. “As long as they stay on one street or intersection, it should be fine.”
“Okay, I'll tell Akane,” Laura said, typing out a text. That was a good idea. With her speed, Akane could read it even in the middle of combat if she really had to. “We should also keep them out of the buildings, so that they can't avoid the gas.”
Adam paused before answering, thinking of the full implications of that statement. “So that means it would be best if we were down on ground level.”
“Yes.”
“Among the screamers.”
“Uh...”
“Who can infect us very, very easily.”
Laura touched her necklace. “Well... yes, unfortunately. We don't have much of a choice.”
“There's a sloped 'scraper nearby,” Kelly said, pointing out into the darkness. The moon was still a little more than half full, so Adam could see a large skyscraper with one of the faces sloping upwards away from them at a steep incline, forming a very large and dangerous slide.
Adam scratched his chin. “I see your point. If we're up there, the bleeders will come up the slope at an angle we can shoot them.”
“They'll die from the fall,” Laura said, apparently already assuming that they wouldn't be going for kill shots.
“Probably,” Adam said. “But maybe not. They're hardy, you said so yourself.”
She frowned. “Not that hardy.”
Alex sighed. “Look Laura, this plan gives not just us a better chance to survive, but the screamers as well. I know... I know we all want a cure.” It was the first time anyone had actually come close to speaking about Kat. “And we might even find one. But right now we have to worry about ourselves.”
Laura looked at the rest of them, sighed, and nodded once.
“Good,” Kelly said decisively, putting away her binoculars. “Let's go. We need to find a way to cross that intersection full of screamers.”
Adam peered across. “The building right across from us is lower. We might be able to rig up a zipline or something.”
Laura buried her face in her hands. “Not again.” She looked up. “Derek and I did that with the burners. It wasn't fun, and it wasn't quick.”
Adam cocked his head. “A zipline wasn't quick?”
“He made a rope, and we headed across hand over hand. If we can find an actual zipline, then I'm all for it, but I don't think we'll have much luck.”
“Oh, you'd be surprised,” Alex said with a grin. “There's a hiking store just three floors down. I'm sure they have something we could use.”
It turned out she was right, and Adam came back in ten minutes with a zipline and a spike to attach it to. The spike then went in his shotgun, to be shot across the urban gorge. The box said the spike was designed to work with the Saint George specifically, but he was still a bit leery. One of the first things he learned about guns was that sticking things down the barrel and expecting them to work right was asking for trouble.
Turned out he was overreacting. He shot it across without any trouble, and it buried itself in the roof of the target building. They tied
it off on their side, tested the weight, and got out the zipline handles they had with us. Again, these things were pretty common in Domina, so carrying the handles was just the result of being even slightly prepared.
“I'll go first,” George said, lumbering up. As a giant, he outweighed the rest of them by a hundred pounds, so if the line could hold him, it could hold anyone.
Before he went, he locked his Minigun's safety and clipped it to the line, then let go. It zipped across quickly and smoothly, before they heard it thump into place on the other roof. The first time Adam had seen him do that, he had been worried, but apparently the GE XM134 was a sturdy model.
“Seems good,” George said with a grunt. He prepared the handle, took a deep breath, and leaped into the void.
The air conditioner they had attached their end of the line to groaned dangerously, but it held for the thirty seconds or so while he was weighing it down. He reached the other side, rolled once, then stood and gave them a thumbs-up.
The rest of them followed. Kelly went last, because despite the clear moonlight, she still had the best nightvision, and would be able to spot anything sneaking up on her. In the end it didn't matter of course, and she made it across safely.
Laura's phone rang just before Kelly started across, five simple beeps—MC's ring tone. She picked it up immediately. “What's wrong?” She paused, listening. She must have taken it off speaker at some point. “Okay, we'll let you know when we have them in position. Drop some gas masks for us, too.” She hung up.
“That was MC,” she said somewhat unnecessarily. “The helicopter will be here in a couple minutes, but Akane says the screamers are too far out of position. So we need to lure them back. And...” There was a thump from the center of the roof, and Adam saw that a duffel bag had apparently fallen from the sky. “I guess they're here. Well, those are gas masks, so we don't get knocked out with the screamers.”
“Did she say anything about more troops?” Adam asked as he grabbed one of the masks. He didn't put it on yet, though, just clipped it to his belt.
“Yeah, they're with the prison trucks, about a mile out. They'll come in once the place is gassed.”
Well, that was a better plan than last time. “We still need to get to that other building,” he said, pointing at the sloped structure next door. It was only about twenty feet away, but it was also a sheer wall with no windows or balconies. Adam couldn't tell what it was supposed to be for.
“That won't be a problem at all,” Kelly said. “Just get inside and take the elevator to the top.”
Adam stared at her. “Somehow, I don't think it's going to be that easy.”
She shrugged.
Well, they didn't have a better option, or any real reason not to take this one, so they rappelled down to the street below. A few screamers spotted us, but Adam killed them with his Caedes.
“That will draw there attention,” he said. “Alex, how are you coming on the door?”
When he looked over, the wide metal service doors were already open, with everyone else already piling through. Alex grinned at him.
“No need to show off,” Adam muttered under his breath. She just laughed and followed the rest of them inside.
Them barred the doors behind them, and made sure to block the stairs leading up as well. The last thing they needed was screamers attacking their backs.
They had to take the freight elevator up due to their combined weight, but otherwise the sixty floor ride was uneventful. They took the time to call Akane and Ling again, to get a status update and make sure they didn't think something was wrong. They had managed to throw off pursuit, which was perfect. The screamers were still scattered, but they'd come running soon enough.
The roof was completely bare, except for a trapdoor to the stairs. It was really disconcerting. With the slope, they only had about ten feet of roof in that direction, and Adam didn't have any illusions that he'd somehow be able to catch himself if I fell.
He took a deep breath. Nothing else to do but play out the plan.
“You ready, Alex?”
She nodded and put her gloves on, the ones with the magnifying glasses in the palms. A moment later she took off her night vision goggles. She was completely nightblind without them, but that wouldn't be an issue long. “Ready.”
They all lined up on the edge, weapons out. Adam had chosen his Athena. He hadn't really had much chance to use it outside the shooting range, so this was going to be a good opportunity for him. Jarasax and George would handle the bulk of the horde, while Kelly and Laura shot anything that got past them.
“All right,” Laura said. “Everyone else ready?”
They all chimed off, one by one.
She nodded. “Good. Alex, light the beacon.”
Alex stepped forward, held out her hands, and activated the patches of dayskin on her palms. Twin beams of light, too bright to look at, shone out like spotlights. After a moment, she centered them on their van, where a large number of the bleeders had clustered. She slowly began to walk the beams towards herself.
It worked perfectly, the zombies following the unexpected patch of daylight like a cat following a laser pointer.
“They're almost in position,” she said calmly. “We might not even need to fight. Just drop the gas on them straight.”
Of course, she spoke too soon.
While the bulk of the horde was still clustered around the end of the beam, others were already scaling the slope of their redoubt like rats, trying to get to the source of the light.
They climbed fast, despite the steep incline, and they were about half way up before Adam even knew what was going on. But, he was ready, so he sighted through his scope and targeted one of the screamers. Laura wanted them to shoot them in the legs, in the hopes that they'd survive to be cured later. But...
But they were too dangerous.
Adam adjusted his aim slightly and shot the first one dead center, in the chest. Her scream changed briefly to a screech of pain, and she fell backwards, tumbling like a rag doll back down the slope and to the street below, still covered in a writhing carpet of zombies.
Laura noticed immediately. “Adam, what the hell—”
“Talk later,” he snapped. He got another screamer in the chest, which managed to trip up another behind it as it fell. Behind him, Laura cursed, but started shooting as well.
“Get your masks ready,” Alex said, as Adam shot another screamer. “They're dropping the gas any second now.”
Adam put his mask on, as did everyone but Alex, who couldn't spare a hand. But Adam had a thought. Luckily, the masks had a simple speaker so he could still talk. “Wait, if they're dropping it down there, why do we even need masks?”
“The gas they're using is heavier than air,” Laura said, her voice tinny and mechanical. “They'll spray it from high up, and it will float down to cover everything.” She shrugged. “We're probably still safe, but best to be sure.”
Adam still couldn't see the chopper anywhere. There weren't very many clouds, but he was a little bit busy to be looking around the sky for anything. He just kept shooting, felling screamer after screamer. It was only when he stopped to reload that he noticed a fine mist, dappled with moonlight, falling from the sky.
The gas really looked quite beautiful, like a silver blanket slowly covering the streets below us. Alex's beams looked even more like searchlights than before, shining into the fog and highlighting it, rather than cutting through it.
Then the lights flickered and died, and Adam remembered that she wasn't wearing a gas mask.
Before anyone could do anything, Alex tumbled forward, rolling down the steep slope to a horrible death sixty floors below.
Adam cursed and holstered his Athena. He didn't have any choice. He jumped after her.
Of course, he went feet first, sliding on his rear, so he had a great deal more control over his descent than she did in her unconscious state. He managed to increase his speed enough so that he caught up with Alex. He grabbe
d her arm and pulled her close, using his body like one of those emergency sleds they had at ski resorts.
Except without safety straps.
Or brakes.
And they were both going to die.
While Adam clutched Alex to his chest with his left hand, he used his right to get the large combat knife off his hip and stabbed it into the slope of the building.
The walls of the structure—including the crazy ramp they were on—were made of relatively weak materials like plaster, rather than concrete or even sheetrock. This unquestionably saved their lives, at least for a moment. If it was anything else, Adam probably wouldn't have even been able to stab the knife in.
But luck was with him, and he did manage to create a crude brake. His arm was wrenched behind him at an angle it was not supposed to go, and he felt a long, sharp pain, which probably came from a dislocated shoulder. He screamed in agony, and the knife began to cut a long line through the slope. The same weak materials that allowed him to stab the blade in in the first place also kept him from creating a functional anchor.
Eventually, maybe a dozen feet from the end of the slope, the knife caught on something unyielding, and they stopped with another jolt. Adam felt like his arm was going to pop off, and he cried out again. He was having trouble breathing with the mask on, but he didn't dare remove it. The sleeping gas was so thick at this level that he could barely see a foot in front of his face.
He could see over the edge where the slope ended. Unfortunately, it didn't reach down to the street. There was a long, sheer drop of five or ten floors between me and the ground. The screamers could scale it easily, and Adam might have even been able to manage it in better circumstances, but he couldn't do it with a dislocated shoulder and an unconscious angel in his arm.
But now that he had a chance to pay attention, he listened closely—mostly in an attempt to keep his mind off the sharp, agonizing grinding sensation at his shoulder—and realized that he couldn't hear any screamers any more.
“Adam! Respond! You all right?”
It was Kelly's voice, coming from inside his mask. MC must have suborned the radio or something. A lot of Domina tech was designed to let her take over in an emergency.
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