Chapter 14 - Chapter 14: Let the City See You

The tunnel door stood open, and a line of rifles stared back at Noah like teeth. Harrow's people were waiting in a clean, bright corridor with plastic curtains and white floodlights. Noah's eyes watered from the sudden light, but he still saw the details that mattered: four guns, one shield, and a man in a helmet holding a tablet like it was a leash."Hands where I can see them," the helmeted man said. His voice was calm, like this was a drill.Owen sagged in Mara's arms. His face was gray, his breath thin, and the bandage on his scalp was soaked again. Noah felt the pulse in his own nose, warm and wet, still bleeding from the last crystal. He kept his pistol low, hidden by his thigh, because the moment they saw it, they would shoot first and talk later.A speaker crackled above them. Dr. Harrow's voice slid through the hall like oil. "Daniel Cross. Step forward."Noah did not move. He kept his eyes on the shield carrier, because that man would be the wall if they rushed. "My name is Noah Carter," he said, slow and clear. "Owen can't walk. If you want him alive, you let us move."The helmeted man lifted the tablet. A blue screen showed a single line of text, big enough to read from the doorway.ROUTE B AUTH: CROSS, D — RETRIEVAL PRIORITY: ALIVESo Harrow wasn't bluffing. He had written it into their orders.Riley jerked beside Noah, wrists bound with a plastic tie. Her eyes flicked to the rifles, then to Noah's pistol hand. "Don't be stupid," she hissed. "Just give him the boy and walk. You can't win."Mara's jaw tightened. "Shut up."Behind them, deep in the tunnel, something hit metal. Once. Twice. The sound traveled like a cough through the concrete. The zombies had found the service hatch. They were coming, and they didn't need to be smart to follow a trail of screaming and gun oil.The helmeted man heard it too. His head turned for half a second, and that half second was a crack in the wall.Harrow spoke again, pleased. "Time is short. Owen is my property. You will place him on the floor. You will place the shard beside him. Then you will step forward, Cross."Noah tasted iron. Property. That was the word Harrow used when he was done pretending to be a doctor."No," Mara said at the same time Noah did. Her voice shook, but she didn't back down. "He's a kid."Harrow sighed. "Then I will take him."The shield carrier shifted his feet. Another soldier raised a small metal canister, thumb on the pin. Noah saw the label wrapped around it in black letters: SLEEPING AGENT. The same kind Harrow dumped into Bay Two.Noah's mind snapped tight. If that canister went off in the tunnel, they were dead. Not maybe. Dead.He stepped forward one pace with empty hands up, like he was giving in. "Wait," he said. "If you gas us, Owen dies too."Harrow's answer came fast. "Acceptable."Noah didn't give them a second canister.He fired one shot.The bullet hit the metal canister in the soldier's hand, not the soldier's head. The canister spun, sparked, and burst with a hiss that sounded like a snake tearing open. White mist flooded the corridor in a hard wave, cold and thick.The helmeted man shouted. Rifles snapped up. The shield carrier lowered his slab of armor, blocking the doorway.Mara coughed once and staggered, but she didn't let Owen go. Riley screamed, more anger than fear, because she understood the math now.Noah grabbed Riley's collar and yanked her down. "Breathe shallow," he said, and it came out like a threat. He pushed her forward, into the cloud, because the gas would hit her first, and he hated himself for it even as he did it.That was the debt. Another one.The tunnel shook again. A wet, hungry roar came from behind them. Zombies were already in the tunnel, drawn by the shot and the shouting. Noah felt the air change as their stink rolled forward, hot and rotten, like a furnace full of meat.A shape rushed out of the tunnel shadows.It wasn't slow. It wasn't dragging its feet like the early ones. It moved low and fast, almost on all fours, and its head was tilted like it was listening.One of Harrow's soldiers fired. The bullet punched the runner's forehead and didn't drop it. It only snapped the head back and made it angrier.Old tactics fail, Noah thought. Today, a clean headshot is a lie.The runner slammed into the shield carrier's leg and bit through his boot. The shield carrier screamed and fell, and the shield went sideways, opening a thin lane into the corridor.Noah took it.He lunged forward, shoved Mara through the gap with his shoulder, and pulled Owen's weight with her. The gas clawed at Noah's throat. His vision blurred at the edges, but he forced his feet to keep moving.The helmeted man raised his rifle toward Owen.Noah threw Riley into the helmeted man's line, hard. Riley hit the soldier's chest and both of them stumbled. The rifle's muzzle swung away.Riley spun on Noah with pure hatred. "You're dead," she spat."Not first," Noah said, and then he was past her.---The corridor was narrow, lined with plastic curtains that fluttered in the gas. Red EXIT lights flickered above a steel door marked GARAGE LEVEL -3. The door had a keypad and a palm scanner beside it.Noah saw the scanner and felt a cold drop in his gut. He knew what it would say if he touched it.Cross, D.Authority.Harrow's leash.Gunfire cracked behind them as Harrow's team tried to clear the runner. The bullets were loud enough to be heard by the whole building, and Noah could already hear more movement in the dark spaces beyond. The clinic was turning into a drum.Mara half-carried Owen toward the garage door. Her breath came fast and ragged. Blood ran down her forearm from a graze where a stray round had nicked her in the chaos. She didn't complain. She just kept moving.Noah grabbed the fallen shield carrier's rifle as he passed. It was heavy, but it felt like oxygen in his hands. He checked the magazine by touch because his eyes were still swimming.Behind them, the runner crawled on the floor, still moving, jaw snapping at air. Its skull looked thicker than the others, like bone had grown into a crude helmet.Noah fired twice into the runner's face. The first round cracked bone. The second finally punched deep enough. The runner went still.He could have run. He should have run. But a cold thought pushed through the gas fog: crystal.Noah dropped to one knee and smashed the runner's head with the rifle butt. The skull gave with a sick crunch, and dark fluid spilled out. He forced his fingers in, ignoring the heat and slime, and found the hard lump inside.He pulled the crystal free.It was small, cloudy, and sharp-edged, like a broken tooth. In his palm it felt warm, almost alive.The moment he had it, the risks multiplied. The guns behind them. The zombies coming. The door that might lock. The air full of sleeping gas.He didn't have time to hide it. He didn't have time to save it.Noah raised the crystal to his mouth and bit down, grinding it with his teeth until his gums bled. He swallowed the grit and forced it down like poison.Pain hit him so hard he almost blacked out.His stomach twisted. His muscles seized. The rifle slipped from his hands and clanged on the floor. A hot wave rolled up his spine, and his hearing sharpened until every sound was a knife: Mara's breath, Owen's weak whimper, Riley's boots scraping, the click of a safety switch behind them.Then the world went wrong.For one heartbeat, he couldn't remember where he was. The corridor became a white blur. His mind flashed a sterile room, a hand pressed to a scanner, a voice saying "Cross, D," like it was a sentence.Noah bit his tongue until he tasted blood again, just to anchor himself. He grabbed the rifle back and stood up shaking.Mara stared at him. "Noah—""Move," he snapped, too sharp. The crystal was making him fast, but it was also pulling his temper loose, like a wire coming out of a wall.He shoved his palm onto the scanner by the garage door.The screen lit up.ROUTE B AUTH: CROSS, D — ACCESS GRANTEDThe lock clicked. The steel door opened an inch.And then it stopped.A second line appeared beneath the first.CONFIRM SECONDARY SUBJECT: 13Noah's throat went dry. "Owen," he said.Owen's eyelids fluttered. He looked at Noah without focus, like he was looking through him. Then his body jerked once, hard, and his hands clawed at his own scalp.Mara caught him before he fell. "He's seizing."Noah heard boots pounding closer behind them. Harrow's men had cleared the runner, and now they were coming down the corridor, angry and awake. He also heard something else beyond the garage door: a low, wet scraping, like bodies dragging across concrete.Zombies were in the garage too."Get his face to the camera," Noah said, and it tasted like ash in his mouth.Mara hesitated, because she hated that this door needed him like a key. Then she did it anyway, because Owen was still breathing and that was all that mattered.She lifted Owen's chin toward the scanner.The screen flashed. A small red dot searched Owen's face.A rifle bolt clicked behind them.Riley's voice rose, sharp and quick, just a little too eager. "He's right there! He needs the boy to open it!"Noah turned his head a fraction. Riley was on her knees with her hands up, talking to the helmeted man like she was already being paid again.Noah felt the crystal's urge twist inside him, hot and violent. He wanted to shoot her. He wanted to make the problem stop.Instead, he forced his finger off the trigger. "Later," he told himself.The scanner beeped.ACCESS GRANTED.The garage door swung open into darkness and cold air. A wide concrete ramp ran upward into a parking level full of shadows. Half a dozen cars sat dead with doors open, like someone left in a hurry. Far ahead, a floodlight snapped on, bright as a sun.A drone hovered near the ceiling, camera pointed straight at Noah.Harrow's voice came through a speaker on the drone, calm and delighted. "Good. Now walk out, Cross. Slowly. Let the city see you."Noah stepped forward one foot, and the shadows moved.Zombies stood between the cars, heads lifting toward the light, drawn by the sound and the heat. Their bodies were thicker than the street ones he used to know. Some had bone ridges on their foreheads like they were growing armor.Behind Noah, rifles closed in.In front of him, the garage woke up.He was trapped in a bright circle, with teeth on both sides.