At the top of the stairs was the long tunnel of Admin Sector, with many smaller corridors branching off. By the flickering light of the remaining bulbs, Andy could see the exit elevator leading to the surface at the far end. Their escape.

“Where’s the extract team?” Clara said, but she was ignored. With the exit in sight, the civilians fled for themselves, charging down the tunnel. “There was a team up here,” Clara said. “Some with weapons, a lot of civilians.”

“Maybe they’re upstairs,” Andy pointed to the ceiling.

“Do you mean above ground?” she said, activating her radio. “Gabriel, do you read me? Come in. This elevator is stuck. If you can hear me, please bring it up. Open it. There are people trapped inside.”

A sparkle of light, like a welding torch set to metal, cast sharp shadows up the walls as Clara tampered with the elevator’s controls. Andy strayed down the tunnel, Clara’s voice accompanying him on the radio. The clamour of stampeding vault dwellers rang around him, catching him from all sides, disorientating him. Something tickled his nose–the smell of blood. Streaks of it painted the white walls, seeping through cracks in the walkway. But there were no bodies in sight. “Clara,” he called. “Let’s bounce.”

She caught up to him, a stern look on her face. “I can’t… People are trapped in that elevator.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“We have to try something.”

“I’m guessing the controls don’t work.”

Clara paused. “Is that all you’ve got?”

“Don’t get mad. I don’t have a clue.”

“We can’t just leave them.”

Andy looked towards the elevator, already shrouded in a pool of shadows, and shook his head. Clara followed his gaze, the golden light of her hands diminished as she paused. His sister spun back towards the exit, her expression stone. Ahead of them both, the vault dwellers crammed into the final elevator leading to the surface. It appeared to be inoperable as well, so they were climbing through the roof hatch, passing up the children, leaving behind the injured and elderly, and scrambling up the elevator shaft towards the surface vault door.

“I can’t reach Gabriel,” Clara said. “We might have a problem.”

“You’re telling me.” Andy pointed at the blood streaking the walls.

Clara held the light of her hand up to the wall, then shone it into a nearby alcove, peering down adjacent corridors. “See any survivors?”

“I don’t think there are any.”

“Hello?” she shouted into the dark. “Evacuation. Everyone get out. Don’t hide.” She ran from corridor to corridor, repeating the message. “Leave now. We’ll cover you.”

There was no response. No sound of movement. Just an icy breeze on Andy’s back. Trailing behind her, he peered into shadows left behind by Clara’s aura, readying himself for what was to come. Towards the end of the tunnel, Clara dipped into the Head Honcho’s office and returned, pocketing a small dome-shaped device. Together, they met the remaining crowd of vault dwellers at the foot of the final elevator shaft.

Sitting on the floor was an elderly woman clutching her chest with ragged breath. There were a few more, too injured to climb up through the escape hatch in the elevator chamber’s ceiling two metres off the floor. Andy could smell the blood on them. One man in torn blue overalls was soaked in a dark purple patch, clutching his arm against his chest. Another lay on the floor, his leg a bloody mess, mute, staring up at Clara and Andy for an answer, awaiting his death.

“Help me,” Clara said, offering a leg-up to one of the injured. The young girl’s hair stuck to her face, sticky with fresh blood. Andy gagged, his stomach churning. He pushed the girl up, trying not to breathe through his nose, as she stood on Clara’s hands and scrambled through the hatch. On the other side, Andy recognised a man’s face in the dark. White overalls with a blue-rimmed military cap. Blue-Cap grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her into an embrace.

“I’ll take her,” he stammered.

“Wait,” Clara shouted upwards. “There’s more.”

Blue-Cap trembled. “They’re…” He shook his head.

“No they’re not,” Clara argued, though the subtext was lost on Andy. “Help me here.”

“It’s too late,” he said.

“Send someone down,” Clara said desperately. “Help them. They’re your people.”

“There are injured above,” Blue-Cap protested, hugging the girl close to his chest. “We’ve done all we can. My arms are full.”

“I’m not leaving them.”

Blue-Cap backed away. His voice grew grave. “I have to save this girl.”

Clara paused for a moment, then nodded. Pain flickered over her face–perhaps one of her wounds causing her discomfort. Then she burst into gear. Leaping up through the hatch, she turned and struck her hand down. “Pass them up.”

“What, these?” Andy said, waving at the enfeebled vaulties, too injured to stand.

Clara snarled at him, so Andy got to work. The first man he chose to help could barely get off the floor. He’d clearly lost a lot of blood, and was slipping out of consciousness. Discarding him, Andy moved onto the next–a young woman doubled over in pain clutching her gut. Andy tried to lift her up but she screamed at him, dropping to the floor.

“Fuck sake Andy,” Clara yelled. “Be careful.”

Andy flung his arms in the air as though he was surrendering and shook his head. “What?”

“Help her up.”

“None of these people are going to survive, they won’t even stand up.”

“Just help them.”

“How?”

Clara paused, her expression, at first angry, recoiled with bitter scrutiny. “You really don’t care.”

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’m trying,” Andy said, grabbing the woozy fellow by his collar and lifting him up.

“Pass me him,” Clara said, her voice subdued into an eerie calm.

Andy strained to lift the man onto his shoulders, then braced his knees and lifted him overhead. Clara grabbed him, taking some of the weight, but the man wouldn’t help, his body was almost limp. He was too heavy. Andy shrank beneath his weight until his forearms gave out. Clara clung to his wrist above for a split second before letting him go.

“Hold on,” she said, rummaging in her rucksack. “I have some rope.”

“Don’t you have a zipline, pulley thing?”

“That broke,” she said. “I’ll tie a couple knots.”

Andy glanced back down the tunnel. The darkness was palpable. Encroaching. “There’s probably not the time, sis.”

“Hold it off.”

“You wanna swap? I’ll tie the knot and you fight the evil demon?”

“Done,” she said, passing down a length of rope. There were two extra knots in the middle for footholds.

“Alright, now what?” he said.

“Now help them climb up.”

“Hey you,” Andy nudged the young woman with a gut wound with his boot. “Fancy a climb?”

The woman rose to her feet shakily and grabbed the rope.

“That’s it,” Andy said. “One hand over the other, come on now.”

Clara dropped into the elevator and shouldered past Andy, wading into the dark tunnel, fists clenched with a defiant light.

“Come on,” Andy said. “Hop up.”

“I can’t,” the vaultie wheezed, falling backwards into the wall and sinking to the ground. “Kill me.”

“Now that, I can help you with.” Andy drew Julie and pointed her at the woman’s skull. Then he thought about how Clara would react. She might not believe that he had shot her out of mercy. His sister thought the worst of him sometimes. Granted, he was cold, but not gratuitous. She’d definitely find a way to judge him if he put the old lady out of her misery, which over the years, she’d find a way to bring up again and again, subtly or directly. A little exertion now could save him a lot of hassle in the future.

Stowing Julie, Andy pointed at the man with the gammy leg. “You there. You’re gonna die anyway. Help me with this.”

The man stared at him blankly, lost in a daze.

“Old lady?” Andy said, addressing the third of the stragglers in the elevator. “Fancy going out in a blaze of glory.”

The old woman’s hands shook as she drew them off her chest. “How can I help?”

“Lift this one up with me.”

“I’ll try,” the old lady nodded.

Drawing the younger woman’s arm over his shoulder, Andy slung her onto his back. She screamed in agony, mouth muffled against his leather jacket, and kicked her legs.

“Not helping,” Andy grunted, wrestling with her and the rope. “Hey, robot. Can we just pretend this bitch is a machine gun?”

Negative, his AI voice chimed, drowned out by the woman’s screams.

“Come on, just this once, don’t I have a special ability for that?” Andy said, reaching for the rope. “I’ll pretend she’s a rocket launcher or something, and gain superhuman strength.”

Your ability Heavy Weaponry engages through the reflection and absorption of excess kinetic and thermal energy transmitted by high-calibre, high-temperature and explosive weaponry. The AI’s voice was less robotic than usual, with a silky feminine quality to it.

This energy is redirected into your musculoskeletal structure, assisted by combat enhancing hormones, allowing an adaptive response to weapon mass, recoil dynamics, and operational parameters. Note: This ability does not extend to the operation of organic materials.

“Spoken like a true psychopath,” Andy said, gritting his teeth and pulling on the rope. Behind him, the old lady stroked the woman’s head and cooed, calming her. She stopped wriggling, and Andy managed to snatch the line. Flashes of golden light lit the tunnel behind him as Clara sent thunderbolts whizzing into dark. They exploded like discharged shotguns. Andy could feel the electricity in the air, prickling the hairs on his flesh like the primordial anticipation before a thunderstorm. Meanwhile, he struggled to climb the rope, gripping it with the soles of his boots, the rough coil like sandpaper in his hands. “Are you helping to lift?” he accused the old woman.

“I’m weak,” she moaned.

“You’re telling me.” Determined not to be shown up by Clara’s combat effectiveness, Andy dug his feet into a knot in the centre of the rope and pulled himself up the short distance to the elevator hatch. Bracing his forearms against the roof of the elevator, he strained to bring his injured cargo through the gap.

“Climb out,” he said through clenched teeth. The woman wriggled on his shoulder, squeezing through the narrow gap. She kneed him in the face as she did so, and he almost lost his grip. Andy growled, his nose stung. Finally, her weight was lifted from him. Crawling on his belly, Andy pulled himself over the edge and lay on his back beside the lady. Something dug into his spine, but he didn’t care, he was exhausted. Panting, he sat upright and cupped his mouth to shout down into the elevator. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Flashes of light responded, puncturing the darkness, growing brighter, then Clara’s face appeared beneath him. Andy offered his hand down to her, but she paused, glancing at the three remaining in the elevator shaft, too injured to make the short climb.

“Wait,” she said, frozen in place.

“No,” Andy said. “It’s done. Come on.”

“We can…” the words fell limply from her lips like droplets from a leaky roof. “Maybe we can-”

“Sis,” Andy shouted, stealing her attention. He thrust his hand towards her like a command. Closing her eyes, she took it. As she climbed through the hatch, the light in her fists went out, leaving only the soft glow of her headlamp remaining.

Once on the roof, Clara fell onto her back panting.

“You okay?” Andy asked. It was rare that his sister seemed so out of shape.

She closed her eyes and nodded. Sweat poured from her brow, tuning the rim of her cap a darker shade. “It’s the new stuff,” she panted.

“What’s that?”

“Uncalibrated,” she said, flexing her fingers. “I’ll be fine.” Opening her eyes, she stared past him up the shaft, some five metres to the surface cave. “Can you climb the ladder?” Clara asked the injured lady.

“Yes,” she whimpered.

“Good,” Andy said. “Cause my arms are killing me.”

“Go first,” Clara said, helping the young woman to her feet, directing her towards the narrow ladder built into the groove of the elevator shaft. She climbed slowly, followed by Clara, who wove her arms under her shoulders, providing a frame like a turtle shell in case she fell. Andy lingered behind, patiently waiting for their slow ascent. He checked his ammunition situation–there was plenty for Julie, and a bandolier of grenades in his rucksack, but that was all. Perhaps, with his new vampire powers, he could be useful in some other way?

The quiet vault dwellers in the elevator chamber below came awake, yelling in terror, beseeching god for mercy, praying to their mothers for relief from agony. All the usual stuff. Andy shot each of them dead, then finished Julie’s cylinder with two Vortex Shots into the elevator chamber. The backdraft wooshed up past his face like a plume of steam, dissipating the shadows in the shaft, and turning the vaultie’s corpses to mush. It might hold the demon back for a minute or two. Slamming the hatch shut, he turned to climb after Clara. After a minute more of exertion, he rose into the large cave’s entrance and breathed in the wet, almost-fresh air. Survivors dotted the walkway steps, sitting or lying in each other's arms, crowded as far away from the elevator as possible. Andy strode through them towards the large steel door. Clara was running her hands over the metal slab, a faint glow seeping between her fingers.

“What’s the holdup,” he said. At the foot of the vault door sat a group of men, their heads bowed, riot shields lay at their feet. Blue-Cap and his merry band of revolutionaries, reduced from eight men to just three. The child with long ginger hair had joined their ranks, clinging to Blue-Cap like a baby monkey to its mother. Though, they looked nothing alike. Andy wondered if the kid was his.

“It’s not working,” Clara said.

“What isn’t?” Andy said. “Just press a button.”

Blue-Cap raised his voice. “The controls are in the Head Honcho’s office.” He sounded hoarse from shouting.

Andy sighed. “Well why didn’t you say earlier?”

“He did, over the radio.” Clara answered. “I checked. We tried. They’re unresponsive. I thought maybe the dimachaeron device which Gabriel gave us would work if we applied it directly to the door, but there’s no control panel here. No nothing. No electronics.” Clara lowered her arms, her back to him, staring at the impassable wall. “Nothing.”

“Stand back,” Andy said, drawing Julie. “I’ve got this.”