As they raced along the mansion corridors, Aiden couldn’t help but notice the odor of smoke growing stronger. The man who had killed McCourt had said that shooting missiles at the house hadn’t been his top priority. If that were the case, what was?

Burt led Aiden up a service stairwell, pistol drawn. So far, they’d encountered no resistance, but in the minutes since they’d ascended, there was no telling if the attackers had finally gotten past the gun turrets and broken into the house.

Once they reached the fourth floor, Burt silently motioned for Aiden to keep back. He transferred his pistol to his right hand, and with his left, wrenched the door open. He brought the gun up and swept it up and down the hallway.

“We’re clear,” he said.

They ran to Tancy’s door. Burt touched the auto-switch, but the door didn’t move. He tried to pry it open, and it refused to budge.

“Try the override,” suggested Aiden, casting a nervous glance at the other end of the corridor.

Burt tried it. Still no response.

“Aiden?” came a muffled voice at the other side of the door. “Is that you?”

“Tancy!” Aiden rushed forward. “Are you okay? Can you open the door from your side?”

“Yeah, I’m fine — what’s going on? I heard explosions, but I can’t call or net-message anyone.”

“Somebody’s attacking us,” said Aiden hurriedly. “I’ll explain later, but we need to leave right away. Burt is helping to get us out.” He looked anxiously at Burt. “You can get her out, right? Maybe shoot the locking component?”

Burt was unclipping what looked like a short, curved pipe from his belt. “Bullets might ricochet. I’ve got a better solution. Tancy, stand away from the door.” A small, dagger-like flame flared into being. Burt knelt and put a pocket blowtorch up against the surface of the door, the metal quickly heating to a cherry-red. “These doors are tough, so this might take a minute. Watch the exits, Aiden.”

“Hey, it’s kinda getting hot in here,” said Tancy uncomfortably.

“It’s all right.”” said Aiden reassuringly. “Burt’s using the blowtorch for a little bit.”

“No, there’s smoke in my room. It’s like there’s a fire coming from — yeah, it’s…oh my God, it’s right against my window!”

“Stay low to the ground,” said Burt steadily. “Do you happen to have a respirator?”

“Uhh..no.”

“Then use a shirt and wrap it around your mouth. Take shallow breaths. Conserve your air.”

But Aiden wondered if his advice was futile. The smell of smoke was getting even stronger, and the hallway was turning hazy.

Outside, gunfire rattled. A soft whump sent a shudder through the building. Below them, there was a muffled cry of “Fall back, fall back!”, and then another explosion shook the floor under Aiden’s feet.

“What was that?” said Tancy anxiously.

“I…I don’t know,” stammered Aiden.

“It’ll be fine,” said Burt. “Be calm. Another thirty seconds at most.” Little by little, the blowtorch was making a rectangle large enough for Tancy to step through.

Another round of gunfire erupted, causing Aiden to flinch. This time, it sounded much closer, like it was on the stairwell at the other end of the hallway.

“Burt —”

“Aiden, get back into the service stairwell,” said Burt sharply, taking up his pistol, one hand still holding the blowtorch against the door. “If someone comes through the other door, run down to the underground garage. The access code for all vehicles is BY0609. An emergency feature will tell the computer to take the backroads out of here.”

“No way!”

“I told you to do what I say!”

“I’m not leaving you and Tancy!” snapped Aiden.

Suddenly, the door at the other end of the hallway blew off its hinges. A black-armored soldier stepped through, raising his rifle, his mirrored visor reflecting the flames licking at the windows.

It was as if things were moving in slow motion. Burt lunged in front of Aiden, arms splayed wide, and the muzzle of the soldier’s gun inched up, drawing what felt like an invisible line to Aiden’s head. He raised his arms sluggishly, expecting to feel bullets puncture his skull.

Then he heard a click behind him as the service stairwell door opened. A metal cylinder flew past his ear, bounced off the ground, and went off with a colossal bang of blinding light and smoke.

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A hailstorm of gunfire filled the hallway, as deafening as a thunderstorm. Aiden fell to the ground and curled into a ball with his hands squashed over his ears, waiting for it to be over, waiting for himself to die…

When the haze cleared, the room was suddenly, eerily quiet. The air was acrid from both the gunsmoke and the fire.

Aiden felt someone lift him to his feet, but he kept his eyes screwed tightly shut.

“Young master, are you all right?”

“Check his vitals,” came Susan’s voice. “Burt, status.”

A pause, then: “I’m fine.”

“They’re spreading napalm gel over every surface they can find,” said Susan urgently. “They mean to burn this place to the ground very quickly.”

“Shit.” There was a rustle of clothes, then the soft howl of the pocket torch igniting once again. “Tancy’s trapped in her room. Cover me while I cut through the door.”

Aiden felt fingers pause against his neck and lift away. “He’s alive,” reported the man holding him.

“Take the door, Jim,” Susan’s voice was close now, and she cupped Aiden’s face. “Aiden, look at me.”

Aiden hesitantly opened his eyes. Susan’s face was grimy, her dark hair pulled away from her face in a tight ponytail. Her machine-uniform was scorched in places, exposing the shock-absorbent mesh underneath, but she was otherwise unharmed.

Aiden was shaking so much he thought he’d pass out. “You’re not — you’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine,” said Susan gently. “We’re going to get you and Tancy out of here. But I need you to stay alert, okay?”

Aiden nodded dumbly. The hallway was filled with the bodies of black-clad soldiers, guns fallen from their hands. One of them was crawling backwards across the floor, fingers frantically tapping at a data pad on his wrist. Susan’s partner leveled his rifle, but then the man shivered violently before letting out a rattling gasp and slumped down, his hand flopping to the side.

On the other side of Tancy’s door came the sound of hacking coughs. “Please hurry, I can’t breathe —” There was a shattering sound, followed by a billowing roar. “The fire’s outside my —” more coughs “— outside my window! It’s coming in!”

“Hang on!” said Burt. The glowing rectangle he was carving in the door was halfway complete. “I’m almost done! Get ready to kick the panel in!”

Loud cracks pierced the air as one by one, the windows along the corridor shattered from the heat. Fire surged inward, licking hungrily at the air. Susan shielded Aiden’s face from the spraying glass.

“It’s getting noisy in here!” yelled the other bodyguard, Jim, who was crouching by the other wall as far away as he could. “We need to extract before the —”

Susan turned, her eyes widened in panic. “Jim, look out!”

Something glinted in the air, spinning, and a knife materialized in the middle of Jim’s forehead. As he collapsed, there was a blur of motion from the other end of the hallway, and an iron-like palm struck Aiden in the center of his chest, sending him flying down the hallway.

Red-hot agony flared behind Aiden’s breastbone. He tried taking a breath and failed; it was like he’d been struck by a wrecking ball. Through blurred vision, he saw Susan spring into action, grappling with a tall, emaciated figure in a white hat. Burt rolled away, raising his pistol, but the skeletal man whirled and landed a scythe-like kick to Burt’s head, knocking him over with such speed that it was like a line had yanked Burt’s feet from under him.

Catching Susan’s punch in one hand, the skeletal man drew a shining energy blade in the other and, with devastating ease, slashed her head off in one brutal swipe. Blood sprayed from her neck stump all over the walls, and Susan’s corpse fell bonelessly to the floor. Without missing a beat, the man stepped over her body and kicked Susan’s pony-tailed head out a glassless window to be swallowed by the flames.

Aiden tried crawling backwards, but Tancy’s survival pack hampered his progress like the humped shell of a beetle.

The fire surrounding the outside of the building continued to roar.

The skeletal man inspected the neon-orange edge of his short sword, the blade kinked in the middle like a boomerang. He was dressed in a semi-formal machine-suit without the flex-tie, and on his head sat a cream-colored fedora. He looked odd, like one of those corporazzis that were sometimes seen debuting a new look to amplify or conceal their newest cosmetic enhancements.

Then there was a blip of motion in Aiden’s field of view, a zipper of movement in the air, and the man seemed to materialize right in front of him. He was even thinner up close — lanky and square-jawed, crimson locks of hair spilling out beneath his fedora.

The man leaned forward, thrusting his bony face close. “A pagan as well. How interesting.”

Aiden grabbed his arm and thrust a palm out, the implanted gauntlet unsealing over his wrist to reveal its crackling charge. “D-don’t come any closer, or I’ll hurt you.”

“Mmmm…hurt….” The man extended an arm.

“I’m not bluffing! Touch me and you die.”

The man halted. “Is it true you really hold no awe of a god? A divine appreciation? A capacity for wonder?” He cocked his head at Aiden’s numb expression. “Nothing at all?”

Faster than thought, he whipped an arm out and grabbed Aiden’s neck …which was just what Aiden had been waiting for. At a mental signal, his anti-bio field went into full effect. Invisible but deadly, it would cut off all the molecular elements of oxidative phosphorylation, stopping the very mechanism of life in its tracks.

Aiden expected the man to topple over, his muscles seizing, eyes bulging, his neurons switching off signals, the cells shriveling in their membranes. His anti-bio field was top-of-the-line, or so he’d been told by the family-sourced biologian that had installed it.

Instead, the man smiled distractedly. His hand was cool on Aiden’s skin. “Yes…you are truly mundane. Not like me. Not like Fedral. Just another object of whimsy, I suppose.”

His fingers wrapped around Aiden’s throat like a vice. He lifted Aiden into the air and slammed him against the wall. Aiden gasped for air, digging his fingers into the man’s wrist, but he might as well have been clawing at a steel cable.

“Yesss…” The man’s voice was sibilant hiss. “Test my faith. ”

A gunshot rang out, and a bullet punched into the side of the skull of the man calling himself Fedral. He dropped Aiden and Burt advanced, his face murderous and stone-cold, as he fired his pistol again and again, causing the skeletal man to stagger back.

When his bullets ran out, Burt ejected the magazine — it hit the floor with a dull thump — and swiftly inserted a new one, clicking it into place, and kept firing. Aiden propped himself by Tancy’s bedroom door, clutching his throat.

Finally, Burt’s pistol clicked empty. In front of them, the skeletal man was hunched over but still on his feet. His chest was heaving. They watched in disbelief as Fedral uncoiled himself to his full height. Blood was quickly drying on his immaculate, white suit. A beatific smile spread slowly across his face.

"Magnificent," he rasped. "Absolutely magnificent."

At that moment, a high-pitched scream emanated from behind Tancy’s door.