"I cannot breathe."Malcolm spoke the words into the dead air of his helmet, but only the sound of his own rasping lungs returned to him. The suit was a tomb. Each shallow intake of oxygen felt like he inhaled grit and stagnant despair. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic frantic bird trying to escape a cage.Calm down, he commanded himself, forcing his muscles to release the tension that locked his limbs. Panic is the poison. The suit is just a container, and containers can be breached.He closed his eyes to ignore the oppressive blackness of the visor. His pulse surged, a roaring tide in his ears that threatened to drown his focus. He focused on the sensation of his own skin against the undersuit, the grit of his teeth, the sharp ache of his fractured bones. He was the anchor. He had to be the steady weight that held his mind in place.The steel plates are bolted to the chassis, he thought, his mind racing through the schematics he memorized. They are not part of my anato

"Malcolm, you need to drop the tow cable and run."Kira sent the desperate plea across the crackling analog radio frequency while the frost thickened across the control monitors of the dead Leviathan. Her breath formed a dense white fog in the freezing cabin as she listened to the rhythmic boots of the Military tunnel rats echoing down the subterranean ramp.Malcolm stood paralyzed in the pitch black void. He released his grip on the rusted steel wire and let the heavy fusion engine rest against the concrete incline. The freezing air bit into the thin fabric of his undersuit and stung the open wounds on his bare hands."Running generates friction and friction generates a heat signature," Malcolm whispered back.‘My heart is beating too loud’, he analyzed the frantic thudding in his chest. ‘If I elevate my pulse the ambient heat will bloom across their optic lenses and paint a target on my back.’"They are wearing advanced infrared goggles," Kira warned him. She curled her knees to her

"Take the shot."Kira heard the execution order echo through the freezing cabin of the Leviathan. The words spilled from the analog radio receiver she clutched in her numb hands. Her breath caught in her throat. She gripped the edge of the mahogany desk while the creeping frost bit deep into her bare fingers.She sat alone in the absolute dark. The ambient temperature inside the dead mobile fortress was identical to the howling winter storm raging outside the thick titanium hull."Are you listening up there in the snow?," Lieutenant Cross laughed into his shoulder microphone. The harsh audio fed directly into the unshielded frequency. "Your billionaire architect is standing against a rusty turbine in the Roosevelt Avenue sub basement. He is unarmed and he is bleeding. Say goodbye to your ticket out of the city."Kira pressed the transmit button on the heavy radio console. Her hands shook violently from the severe hypothermia but raw fury anchored her voice."If you pull that trigger I

"Tell me about your life before the quarantine zones, Kira."Malcolm wrapped the steel tow cable around his bleeding forearms and pulled the fusion core another grueling inch up the concrete ramp. He needed to keep her talking. The radio static hissed in his ear like a ticking clock marking the final moments of her life."I lived in a small brick house on Elm Street," Kira whispered over the crackling analog frequency. Her voice sounded fragile and hollow. "My father planted a vegetable garden in the backyard every spring. We grew tomatoes and green beans. I hated weeding the dirt when I was a kid.""I owned a luxury penthouse overlooking the midtown financial district," Malcolm said. He anchored his heavy boots against the slick incline of the Roosevelt Avenue transit station. "I hired a landscaping firm to arrange imported orchids in the lobby of my corporate headquarters. I never planted a single seed with my own hands.""You missed out," Kira slurred the words. "The dirt smells go

"They are knocking on the front door."Kira whispered the warning as she stared at the frosted reinforced glass of the command center viewport. The thud of combat boots echoed off the impenetrable titanium hull outside the Leviathan. The soldiers were testing the structural integrity of the dead machine.Malcolm turned away from the window. He grabbed the tow cable and dragged the experimental fusion core deeper into the dark engineering bay. The cylinder scraped against the floorboards."Let them knock," Malcolm said. His voice echoed in the pitch black cavernous space. "They cannot breach the external airlock without anti-tank ordnance. We have a brief window of operational silence to install the power source."He dropped the tow cable beside the primary generator housing. The archaic diesel engines sat silent and cold beneath the floor.Kira limped into the engineering bay. She kept her thermal cloak wrapped tight around her shivering shoulders. She held a small flashlight in her