Glowstick in hand, Gaylen walked the hallways again. Finding his way around was a lot easier when he could actually spare more than an instant for each opening, and soon enough he finally found a damn staircase. He’d passed it earlier, in fact.

All the spent adrenaline made his legs tingly and shaky, but it was a familiar feeling. He wasn’t through this night yet: He was in, or at least near, the lair of his enemies. But all that was familiar danger. Boring danger, if anything. By comparison.

Each landing was marked, and so he immediately knew when he’d reached the ground floor. He allowed himself a long, satisfied breath, then kept on going to the lobby, and the front door. He blamed fatigue for his assumption that the footsteps belonged to Bers. He didn’t realise there was more than one set until the men were in sight.

It was the Green Jackets. Three of them, at any rate. Two of them had lights of their own, and each man had a holstered pistol at his hip. Outside the entrance was the large bike they’d apparently arrived on, small lights glowing on it.

Gaylen tossed the glowstick a few feet in front of him, and put a hand on his own useless firearm. The men reacted by touching their own, presumably perfectly functional guns.

“Who are you?!” the one in the middle barked, and set Gaylen’s nerves slightly at ease. These men hadn’t been with Sammy during that first encounter, nor at the catastrophic meeting.

“Scavenger,” Gaylen said.

He moved the huge axe a little.

“See? For getting panels off. Who are you?”

“You’re in our turf, is who we are,” the man told him, as Gaylen estimated how he would close the distance, and the odds of the men managing to draw aim before he could swing the axe.

“This tower?” Gaylen replied.

“This whole place!” the man said, and took a few steps forward, away from his comrades. “You are in our fortress, man! And we keep having to drive people out! We patrol to keep out people like you, and now we hear all this noise! We come over and find… what? A scavenger with no bags, or skiff, or anything?”

“This place sure is more crowded than it seems,” Gaylen commented, as he peeked past the man.

“No, it’s not crowded! It’s not supposed to be crowded! We want a big, empty space for-”

“Put your hands up,” Gaylen told him sternly, abandoning the scavenger pretence.

“Hah. Sorry? What? It’s three guns against one, my friend.”

“Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.”

“What are-”

One of the other two men made a shocked noise, and the one who had been speaking turned around. Both of his buddies suddenly found their guns gone from their holsters. Ayna had them, one in each hand, and was aiming them at the group.

“Hellooo!” she sing-songed cheerfully.

Gaylen drew his pistol and took six quick steps up behind the man. Before the Green Jacket could fully turn or draw his weapon, Gaylen brought the butt down on his head. There was a solid impact, and the man collapsed with a pained cry. Ayna made quick warning noises at the other two men as they moved a little. Gaylen holstered his own gun and pilfered a replacement.

“Up against the wall, boys,” Ayna said to the men she was covering. “Come on. Come on.”

Gaylen strongly doubted she would actually shoot them, unless they came at her. But they didn’t know that, and most people didn’t argue with guns. And so they moved, up against the wall by the entrance.

The third fellow, with the bleeding scalp, was recovering his bearings a bit, and Gaylen put the axe down so he had a hand to grab him with, while poking the gun into his ribs with the other.

“Move. Move!”

He got the guy up, enough to fling him into a stumble to join his comrades. Then he gave Ayna a quick look. She was squinting in the light, but caught the silent question.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“When everything went south, I fell into trailing those agent boys,” she told him. “They seemed to know which way to go, and I was hoping to steal a comm from one of them. I stayed outside when they entered this place. I, uh, didn’t know you were inside, boss-man.”

“Probably for the best you stayed out of it,” he told her. “Does your comm work?”

“No. Not yours either, I’m guessing.”

“No.”

“What happened, anyway?? I didn’t see or hear anything that made any damn sense.”

“I’ll explain later. Oh, Bers: Punch them.”

The big Fringer, just entering, did a quick left turn. Three quick, brutal bodyshots sent the Green Jackets to the ground, and Gaylen holstered his new gun.

“Alright, let’s move quickly. Ayna, keep covering them.”

He hadn’t gone to that meeting as prepared as he’d thought. But he had been ready for various scenarios. One of them had been the chance to interrogate Sammy, or perhaps some other Green Jacket, with Kiris on hand. So it was that soon all three men were bound hand and foot with zip ties, and gagged with tape. They didn’t like it, but didn’t like being shot either. They had hidden knives, which Gaylen and Bers confiscated, and of course they had comms too.

As Gaylen fiddled with one, seeking contact with Jaquan, Bers fetched his axe and then gave Gaylen a look.

“Dead? Hmm?”

He pointed up at the ceiling.

“You kill?”

Gaylen looked up from his task.

“I kill. Yes.”

“HAH!”

The man’s ugly face split into a large, congratulatory grin. He thumped his own heart again.

“Good! Good job! You got wari!”

Gaylen didn’t quite know how he felt. Whether that whole horrible chase would haunt him in years to come, or whether he in fact now felt more at ease with strangeness. The mental dust hadn’t settled yet, and only time would tell. But right now there was a strange feeling of satisfaction.

“Thanks.”

And he made contact.

“Jaquan, it’s me.”

“Gaylen!”

“I have Ayna and Bers with me too. We just joined up. None of our comms work, so I stole one.”

“Is everyone alright?”

“Yes, we’re fine. Listen, we are in that dead core. The one-”

“We are on our way there,” Jaquan told him.

“What?”

“Kiris questioned one of the Green Jackets. They have a sort of stronghold there. Kiris got him to tell her exactly where.”

“Oh, that’s useful.”

“I know I am,” Kiris interjected.

Gaylen smiled softly.

“We have all the guns we stored outside the ship,” Jaquan went on. “We are a few minutes away from the core.”

“Make sure you come in quietly,” Gaylen told him. “I don’t think the gang, as a group, knows we’re here. Let’s keep it that way.”

“And then what?” Jaquan asked.

“Then we lure them out. We have a bargaining chip.”

# # #

Jaquan did arrive quietly, with the engine set to low power, and without the aid of external lights. The dead core wasn’t trashed enough for there to be any issue with the streets, and so the car soon came to a stop in front of the building. Jaquan, Herdis and Kiris stepped out, holding small lights.

Kiris walked straight towards him, and Gaylen met her halfway.

“I, uh, didn’t go off on my own on purpose that time,” he told her.

“I know,” the golden woman said, and hugged him.

He hugged back. It felt good. His body was pained in various ways, and this night wasn’t over yet. But her feel, her warmth, her scent… it felt good.

“I will explain later how much I’ve wanted this,” he whispered.

“Alright,” she replied, after giving him a quick, examining look.

“I’m glad you’re okay, man,” Jaquan told him as the two of them separated.

“Oh, so am I,” Gaylen replied, and they smiled at each other.

He cleared his throat and took in his team. Ayna was just inside the door, still watching the three bound Green Jackets, while Bers stood just outside.

“Our biggest problems are out of the picture,” Gaylen said. “And we are near the finishing line. But let’s not get cocky and careless. We need to pick our ground for this next part, and make sure we are better prepared than the Jackets. Kiris, you said there were eight of them in that lair of theirs?”

“The man I questioned believed there were eleven men there, at the time I asked him,” Kiris replied. “He didn’t seem to know it with absolute certainty, but with Sammy that would make twelve.”

She pointed in the direction of muffled, slightly strained breathing.

“That would make nine left, I suppose.”

“We’re outnumbered, then,” Gaylen replied. “Except we’re better than any petty gang, aren’t we?”

Bers hur-hurred.

“And if we’re smart about this, the odds will be even better in our favour.”

Gaylen gave each person a look.

“Let’s wrap this whole thing up.”