The gunfire from Andy’s rifles diminished as Clara ventured through the vault’s habitation quarters. The door before Clara opened and closed on its pistons like chattering teeth, barring their way. Clara pressed her palm into the door’s control panel, her Current Control module painting a picture of the circuitry–she knew just where to press to stall it. With a spark, it stopped moving. Shoving it aside, she darted into the chaos beyond. The civilian block rose five-stories above her head into the roof of Habitation Sec. Pockets of light defied the darkness–pockets of survivors clinging to life. Clara ran towards a small rectangular courtyard beneath the column of balconies. Three people huddled back-to-back, armed with tasers, flashlights and firearms. Blood streaked down one man’s face, his knees and head slumped as he staggered and absently batted at the darkness with an electrified baton.
Clara arrived at their aid, clutching thunderous energy in her palms like two glowing golden boxing gloves. Her artificial intelligence had coined the ability Guiding Light, but against the shadow demon, her fists were as powerful as furnaces, eviscerating the dark. She threw her fists and felt the impact of the shadow like pools of water. Releasing light in arches, she waded through the dark, casting the shadows back. “Here,” she shouted. “Join us. We’re evacuating.”
Her team of combatants trailed her, assimilating the three newcomers into their group, assessing their injuries and briefing them on their plans. At first, Clara had just intended to hold the exit elevator, but she’d been captured by cries for help, screams of pain. She couldn’t turn her back on anyone that had survived. She had to rescue them all. O'Neill's team was nowhere in sight. They were probably still alive, fighting inside one of the four civilian blocks.
The fighting to get here had been tight, she couldn’t risk electrocuting the survivors in a Teslatic Burst or Thunderlance. Instead, she pounced on the congealed darkness where she saw it, carving a path through the dark. Twice already, Clara had been cut by dark daggers. The wounds stung, but they were bearable. Her heart raced–she barely felt the pain. Here at least, in this small courtyard, they had some space.
“Hold this point,” Clara said, then pointed at three uninjured men, including the soldier with the shock rifle. “You three with me. We’ll rescue who we can.”
A scream sounded shrill, reverberating off of cold metal walls. Clara winced, but gritted her teeth. A flash of light illuminated a window ahead. Clara ran inside the dorm room, like ducking into a cave, the small ceiling pressed down on her. A terrible void rose out of the floor at the back of the room, dagger limbs poised to strike at two people trapped in the corner. There was no time for caution, Clara pressed her hands together and surged the energy to breaking point, readying a Thunderlance. But before she could, the shadow demon struck at one of the survivors. Its dagger limb pierced his chest. He slammed his taser into the outstretched blade, shocking it with blue energy, severing the limb. Then he fell to his knees. Behind him, a woman shrieked, hands over her mouth, cowing in the corner.
Clara launched her Thunderlance. It stretched across the room like a laser beam, then sprung forward, detonating with a flash as bright as a car’s fog lights. Beside her, the engineer with the shock rifle opened fire, dousing the shadow demon’s burning remains in bursts of electricity. Clara put her hand on the stock of his rifle, lowering it, before running through the scattered furniture towards the two survivors. The man was already still, dead. But he had bought a few seconds for the woman. She was curled up on the floor, shaking. Clara clenched a surge of golden electricity, casting her in a halo of protection, then patted her on the back. The woman lurched, eyes wide, and kicked Clara in the shins. Clara brought her Guiding Light close to her face, forcing her to lock eyes with her. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re the rescue team. We’re evacuating the vault.”
“Lisa.” The vault dweller behind Clara reached out. “Lisa, it’s time to go.”
“Where are we going?” Lisa said numbly, in shock.
“Outside,” the man said, reaching out. Lisa took his hand and crawled to her feet. She was bleeding badly from the stomach. Clara grimaced. She wouldn’t survive, but at least she wouldn’t die in the dark. Clara could do that much. Together, they backed out to the open balcony area.
Glancing down, Clara checked that the majority of her force was still alive and defending their exit, then she climbed the stairs upwards towards another stab of light. Her heart raced. She was flushed hot with exertion and sticky with sweat.
“How many more survivors are there?” she radioed to Gabriel.
“Erm, I can see pockets of light on the camera feeds. Those that are still working anyway. Most of the cameras-”
“Gabriel,” Clara snapped, but he hadn’t released his finger yet to receive a transmission. She couldn’t interrupt him.
“-it seems, so given all of that, I can confirm about fifteen flashes, but predict maybe double that, going as high up as the fourth floor of this civilian block. The soldiers who ran down here into Habitation initially came here first, so this is where most of the survivors are. I don’t think they managed to assist any of the other three civilian quarters. Those, erm… There’s less lights in there.”
Finally, the transmission ended. “Fifteen here?” Clara asked.
“That’s right. They were split up. The civilian population managed to use flashlights and little things like that for a while, but they have seemed to stop working.”
Fifteen flashes of light. Fifteen places where people were fighting to survive.
“Your brother,” Gabriel radioed. “I think you should know, he’s fighting something… freakish.”
“What?”
“Something meaty… Well, something like… Have you ever seen Akira?”
“What?”
“Have you ever read the manga?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. It’s like… a lot of flesh.”
“Is he winning?”
“I think so, wait. Okay, I’m not so sure.”
Clara ran down the balcony towards where she had seen a glimmer of light in the window at the opposite end. “You hearing this, Andy?” The radio channel was silent, but she knew not to worry. He could handle himself.
Approaching another dorm room, Clara tapped the control panel. It opened for her obediently, and she dashed inside. Clara used her Guiding Light to wave a golden glow across the room, her headlamp providing a pale assisting shimmer. It was empty, but an orange glow permeated from the bottom of a corridor beyond. The civilian quarters felt like a maze, Clara still hadn’t gotten used to their layout. So many of the rooms looked the same, with the same furniture and features, then out of nowhere, there would be an adjoining corridor or staircase or dead end. It hardly mattered though, she was drawn towards the dwindling lights, wherever they survived. As for getting lost, so long as people guarding the exit remained where they were, shining torches and firing tasers, she would be able to find her way back out.
Jogging down the corridor with her men in tow, Clara kept her bright fists at the ready. The stench of smoke filled the air, fumes pooling on the ceiling, following invisible currents to the suction fans whirring in ventilation systems. She reached the doorway and peered inside. A fire was burning in the centre of the room, consuming the carcass of a mattress and bedframe. Smoke filled the room, too thick for the vents to clear in time. A group of people huddled at the back of the room. A family: two adults and three children, one of whom was a teenage girl just a little younger than Clara.
“Come to me,” Clara said. “We’re evacuating the vault.”
The adults rose, shadows dancing up the wall behind them, cast by the firelight. Clutching their youngest, they ran around the room’s edge towards her. Clara’s eyes stung from the smoke. She fought to keep them open–to look out for threats–but tears blurred her view. A soft body brushed past hers. She followed the civilian back out into the corridor, where the smoke was thinner. Rubbing her eyes, making sure to keep her fists clenched so as to contain the light within, she retreated into the living room with the family. “Are there any more of you?”
“Yes,” the father said. “On the upper levels.” He had blue eyes which twinkled in the glow of her headlamp, swimming with intensity. A young child buried his face in his arms. “Do you have any weapons?”
“We’ll protect you,” Clara said, nodding towards the two remaining vault dwellers accompanying her. “Stick together.” She ran back into the balcony area and pointed at the nearby stairs. “Take them to the main group. Guard the exit. I’ll join you in a bit.”
“Where are you going?” asked the engineer with the shock rifle.
Clara glanced around the open balcony space. No lights were visible on this level anymore, but a glimmer shone on the ceiling high above. “Up another level.”
“We shouldn’t split up,” the other vault dweller of her team said. “We’re useless without you.”
“Rejoin the larger group,” Clara repeated bluntly. “Hold the exit and fend them off.”
“We can’t fight them,” the man said. His voice shook with panic and he slurred his words. “What, with this?” He held up the modified taser he was wielding, a circular riot shield in his other hand. “I can’t do that. I can’t kill them with this.”
“We’ve saved everyone we can,” the engineer said.
“You’re wrong,” Clara snapped. “These are your family and friends, right? You’d abandon them like that.”
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“My family’s fucking dead,” the engineer said woodenly. Tears welled in his eyes, but his expression was a void. “Why did you come here?”
Clara’s heart sank, but she swallowed the guilt. “Shit happens. We’ve got to deal with this.”
One of the men wielding a taser clutched a child to his hip, sheltering her behind his riot shield. Her eyes were as crazed. The man glanced upwards through the maze of balconies and rooms, then shook his head. The others were as still as him. They’d already given up and cut their losses.
“Then go,” Clara hissed, shoving past them. “I’ll do my job.” She ran up a nearby staircase onto the second floor and radioed to Gabriel, “Direct me.”
“I… I can’t see anything.”
Clara ran through the dark, burning a path with her Guiding Light, scanning for a penetrating light. The rooms encircling the balcony area were all dark except for tiny dashes of LED light, like blinking stars in a cloudy sky. “The third floor then?”
“Yes, two areas of interest. Two places where there’s light, that is.”
“Keep it snappy,” she growled. He was hogging the transmission. She wanted to lecture Gabriel on airwaves etiquette, but didn’t have the time. “Direct me.” Reaching the staircase, Clara began to climb when a sound distracted her. There was fighting beneath her, the crackle of tasers and shouts of men. A girl screamed. Clara stole a glance at the courtyard two stories below. Her team had rejoined the survivors, clumped like cattle protecting their young. Those armed with weapons had taken to the front of the group, darting in and out of the darkness, thrusting the super-charged tasers at semi-corporeal shadows, which spat back at them with razor sharp claws, closing in.
Shaking with the effort, Clara summoned an orb of Guiding Light and cast it down over the courtyard. It flickered and dimmed as it drifted through the shadows, but burned them away, buying the survivors another minute or two. Clara’s knees wobbled as a heat dizzied her vision. Gripping the balcony railing, she steeled herself and started out even before her vision returned. A glimmer reflected in a nearby window. Clara ducked inside the dark room, forcing an electrical glow into her fists.
Upturned furniture displayed a scene of carnage. Bodies littered the floor, twisted and frozen. Clara tore her eyes from the destruction, focussing on one of the connecting rooms. “Survivors?” she shouted.
Flashes of light responded, sieving through a small fist-sized crack in the jammed door. Clara vaulted over a couch and grabbed the door, bracing her foot against the frame, trying to rip it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Instead, she pressed her palm into the door’s control panel. Static electricity shot up her spine and down her arms, prickling her fingertips. The tesla electricity felt distinct to her thunder abilities; it was more erratic in nature, surging through her nervous system like the circuitry of a motherboard, whereas her thunder abilities such as Guiding Light and Thunderlance amplified in waves of condensed electricity, much easier to contain and direct.
The small display panel glitched, spewing a string of gibberish as sparks flickered from her fingertips into its circuitry. The door remained jammed.
“Help!” The sound came from the room beyond, followed by flashes of light. The voice as familiar, though coated in panic. “O'Neil?” Clara yelled, peaking through the crack, scanning the darkness.
She activated her radio. “Gabriel?”
“I can’t open the door,” he radioed. “It’s not responding.”
“You good sis?” Andy chimed in.
“Fine,” she said. But before she could have a go at Andy for going off on his own, something slammed against the door from the other side. Clara jumped, then O’Neil’s face appeared in the crack. “Help me!”
“I’m trying,” Clara said, zapping the control panel again, this time giving it some more juice. The device sparked as its circuits overloaded. That had worked before on doors in the vault, but not this one. The metal panel remained lodged in place. Clara braced against the door again, as O’Neil gripped the other side, trying to pry it open. It wouldn’t budge more than a handspan. Clara scanned the room of a crowbar-like device, but the room was dark and scarce.
“Fuck, this is it.” O’Neil’s arm appeared before her, pressing through the gap up to his shoulder. His cheek pressed against the gap, and the corner of his mouth stretched over the frame. He panted, staring at Clara wide eyed and red faced. “My Janey, did you get Janey?”
“Who?”
“My girl!” He heaved, gritting his teeth.
Clara pulled on the door with all of her strength. She could feel the door’s gears grinding reluctantly.
The door jolted on its tracks. O’Neil stuck his chest through the gap, wiggling to get his hips through. Then his spine arched and he screamed in pain. He grabbed Clara’s arm, fingernails digging through her combat jacket. His jaw clenched, face vibrating, eyes bulging out of his skull, drilling into hers. Then he released his grasp and fell halfway to the floor, jammed limply between the door and its frame.
Blackness oozed over his corpse like oil leaking from a shattered engine. Clara took a step backwards, shocked. Minutes ago, he’d been alive. O’Neil had been hopeful, and he’d followed her orders bravely. And this was his fate.
Clara’s heart pounded, each beat wobbled her vision. A tide of emotion welled up inside her, but she pressed it down. Not now, not yet. Backing away from the door, she retreated into the balcony area. A cold resignation froze her limbs. Numbly, like watching through the eyes of a waking dream, her mind trod familiar pathways. Ever practical, she took stock of their situation, making a quick tactical assessment. Above her, the orange glow of fire had faded to a soft shimmer, only visible in her peripheries. There were definitely more people up there, trapped and fighting for their lives. But she couldn’t save them, let alone find them in the dark.
More screams. Men roared–a swell of fear and anger. Something clattered against the floor. “Help!”
Clara lingered beside the staircase, then circumvented it, heading downwards. The distance from one stair to the next felt like falling down a canyon. Her heart sank, and the golden glow of her Guiding Light diminished to a muddy bronze. That was it then. That was all she could do. This was the limit of her powers.
Swallowing the dread was like passing a stone down her throat. Steeling herself, she ran.
A dark rippling river streamed down the walkway pillars, flooding into the courtyard where the survivors were gathered, fighting for their lives. The pool coalesced in patches, forming cruel stabbing arms which shot at the survivors. One man had fallen on his back, raising his riot shield to his chest, jamming his taser into the floor beneath him. The weapon sent shockwaves through the blackness, which stabbed at him furiously, glancing off his shield and piercing his legs. He screamed and kicked at it as two more vault dwellers were attempting to drag him backwards by his collar.
Clara condensed the Guiding Light in her hands into a powerful Thunderlance and threw it into the black river as she leapt from the balcony. The explosion bore a flaming hole in its centre, sending a shockwave through its surface, bright sparks showering it like shrapnel. Dagger forms collapsed into the shadow like the sails of ships sinking below the sea. Clara landed and rolled to her feet. She had injured the demon, but still, streams of the black liquid-like substance streamed down from above, gathering on the floors and walls.
“Run!” she screamed. Channelling teslatic energy, Clara’s fingers splayed uncontrollably as blue lightning slashed out of them. She braced herself, rattled by the energy sweeping through her. Each Teslatic Burst burned the air above her, lighting a thousand small fires in the shadow’s encroaching form. She gasped between each burst, pumping the energy through her body like a hose, then when she could take no more, she turned and ran for the exit.
It felt as though she was wading through sand. Her body was on fire, she had sweated through her combat jacket. She relied on her headlamp to guide the way, too weak to summon a Guiding Light. Ahead, the rush of bodies reached her in the dark. Clara followed the noises, trying to remember the path out.
Danger, Ohm chimed. Overload detected. Reduce the usage of uncalibrated Augmentation powers.
“Not possible,” Clara said, bursting through a door into the wide open space of Habitation sector. The sound of gunfire echoed through the cavernous space. “Andy, do you read me?” she radioed, pushing to the head of the group of survivors, coming up alongside the engineer wielding the shock rifle. There was no reply over the feed. “Gabriel, what’s Andy’s status?”
Gabriel’s voice came in over the radio in chunks of static.
“Do you read?” she repeated.
“-control-” he said. “-mainframe is- -delays in the- -hello?”
“Do you read me Gabiel?” Clara said.
Clara turned towards the sound as muzzle flashes and spotted Andy standing at the edge of the canteen, wielding an assault rifle in each of his hands. All about him, shadows loomed in the fading light of some huge bonfire at the bottom of one of the main corridors. Smoke billowed in the high ceiling like foreboding storm clouds. The ruins of some enormous creature lay crumpled, crackling in the flames. That must be what Gabriel had meant about ‘flesh.’
“Andy,” she shouted, firing a Teslatic Burst into the ground around her, clearing a path through the pooling darkness for the survivors to follow. “Disengage.”
He reloaded, kicking over chairs as he ran to meet her at the canteen kiosk. Behind him, the shadow swept in like a tide.
“Help me hold it off,” Clara said. The vault dwellers trailed behind her, then began climbing over the counter, but many were injured, or children. They weren’t as fast as her and Andy. “Get to the elevator,” Clara shouted. “Quickly.”
She strode out into the canteen area, to join Andy. All about them, flickering wall-mounted bulbs and the wavering firelight extinguished before a massive black expanse, like a starless sky, impossibly deep, the oblivion of deep sleep, the inevitability of death. Golden light swelled as Clara raised her fists, casting a sheen over the darkness. The demon recoiled at the light’s touch. Clara panted, beyond fatigue, into a new level of exertion. Her senses heightened, but something distracted her–a trepidation, not as obvious as the demon before her. She pushed the feeling from her mind, focussing the electrical throng in her palms, flowing throughout her body, pulsating with power.
The radio on her lapel buzzed as Gabrile’s voice came in choppy. Then something lashed at her–a black blade. Clara clapped her hands together before it struck, detonating a Thunderclap in the space before her eyes. The flashbang effect disintegrated the stabbing shadow, pushing against the pitch black wave like dynamite struck in a cave.
Her radio crackled again as Andy opened fire beside her, waving his rifle’s flashing barrels in arcs. The density of blackness gathered above him, probing blades protruded from its surface, waiting for a break in the gunfire to strike. This close, she saw bloody cuts covering his face, tearing his jacket. Screaming her hatred, Clara threw a Thunderlance into the desolate sky, annihilating the looming demon like the flash of a shooting star.
Pain cut through her as something struck her in the hip. Clara spun around and thrust her hand out, firing a Teslatic Burst into the attacker. The spike of pain added to the electricity’s intensity, a hail of blue lightning cutting through the dark.
“-the mainframe,” her radio squawked. “Can you hear-”
“Gabriel,” Clara radioed, hand extended, fingertips spitting out blue sparks. “What’s the issue?”
“-corrupt.” His voice returned, followed by a wave of static, then silence. It was then that her mind pieced together what had been bothering her. The jammed doors and unresponsive control panels, and now the decaying communications channel. The shadow demon’s invasion into the vault went far beyond turning out the lights, it was gutting the vault’s systems. The mainframe… The vault door. As their control over the vault’s systems dwindled. The vault door which she’d ordered Gabriel to remain locked was now a massive steel slab, high above their heads, blocking their access to the outside world. A boulder for a tomb.
“Open the door,” Clara screamed into her radio. “Open the vault door. Do you read me, Gabriel. Open the door now!”
There was no response. Darkness enveloped them.