"I hear more of them coming," Kaia repeated, her voice a sharp contrast to the wet, echoing drips of the tunnel.Roderic wiped a smear of oily sludge from his cheek, staring at the black water soaking into his trousers. "Move? Move where? I’m currently standing in a soup of city-wide failure, Kaia. My shoes are ruined. My life is ruined. My peaches are—""Safe in your bag, mostly. Look, do you want to keep a tally of your losses or do you want to keep your head?" Kaia didn't wait for an answer. She splashed forward, her tactical boots crunching on the silt-covered concrete."I’d like both, actually! Is that too much to ask?" Roderic scrambled after her, his backpack clanking with the sound of several surviving tins. "And for the record, that wasn't a 'tactical descent.' It was a plummet. A very loud, very expensive plummet through my bedroom, my living room, and my peace of mind.""I hit the target, didn't I?" Kaia tossed over her shoulder, her blue eyes scanning the darkness ahead."

"I hate the future," Roderic sobbed, his voice muffled by the rusted iron lining of the vent. "I really, really hate the future!""Will you stop whining and move your heels?" Kaia’s voice came from right behind his feet, punctuated by the metallic thud of her boots hitting the vent floor as she crawled. "Your backpack is taking up eighty percent of the structural integrity of this tunnel.""It’s not my fault! This pack was designed for a man who values survival, not a woman who falls through ceilings for a living!" Roderic grunted, his fingers scraping against a particularly sharp weld. "And for the record, this vent smells like a wet dog died inside a battery factory.""That’s the smell of the Deadzone Pigeons, you idiot," Marius shouted from somewhere behind Kaia. "Their feathers are coated in a synthetic pheromone-gas. It’s what triggers the lung-melt. Keep your head down and don't breathe too deep!""Oh, great! Don't breathe! Why didn't I think of that?" Roderic’s glasses slipped

The red dot didn't waver. It was a perfect, malevolent ruby, boring a hole through Roderic’s sweat-slicked glasses and right into the center of his panic-stricken mind."Kaia," Roderic whispered, his voice vibrating with a frequency usually reserved for dogs. "There is a laser on my face. I’m pretty sure this is the part where the laser turns into a bullet. My brain is not ready to be a mural on this planter.""Stay. Still," Kaia hissed. Her eyes were darting toward the upper floors of the twin towers flanking the sky-bridge. "Marius, can you scramble the optics?""With what, Kaia? My hopes and dreams?" Marius whispered back, his hands trembling as he clutched his rucksack. "I need a dish or a transmitter to bounce a signal that far up. Right now, I’m just a guy with a soldering iron and a high probability of being collateral damage.""I have peaches," Roderic whimpered. "Maybe they want peaches? It worked with the birds!""The Sniper Sisters don't eat peaches, Roderic. They eat peopl

"Fifty-nine," the voice on the PA system purred, the distortion making it sound like a snake sliding over gravel. "Fifty-eight. You always were a procrastinator, Kaia. It’s one of your more endearing flaws. Right up there with the tendency to shoot your employers."Roderic felt the air leave his lungs. He looked at Kaia, who was staring at the speakers with a mask of frozen, white-knuckled rage. Her hand wasn't just on her gun; it was shaking against it."Kaia?" Roderic whispered, his voice cracking. "Who is that? And why does he sound like he’s about to ask you out on a date while he melts the building?""Shut up, Roderic," Kaia snapped, though there was no heat in it. Only a cold, hollow dread."You worked for them?" Marius asked, his goggles slipping down his nose as his jaw dropped. "The Iron Tithe? Kaia, they’re the guys who burned the whole East Sector because someone stole a crate of lithium batteries!""I said shut up!" Kaia turned on them, her eyes wild. "It was a long time a

The silver-plated can opener caught the light of the setting sun, its polished surface a cruel mockery of the rust and decay Roderic had spent the last week dodging. He stared at it, then at the man behind the desk, then at the bowl of apples. His brain, usually a finely tuned engine of inventory and logistics, stalled."Is that... a silver-plated can opener?" Roderic asked, his voice cracking like dry parchment.The man in the white shirt smiled, a thin, rehearsed expression that didn't reach his eyes. "Presentation matters, Roderic. Even at the end of the world. Please, sit. You look like you’ve been through a lot of stairs.""I’ve been through a lot of everything," Roderic snapped, though he didn't move. He felt Kaia’s presence behind him—stiff, silent, and terrifyingly still. "Who are you? And why do you look like you’re waiting for a quarterly earnings report instead of the apocalypse?""I’m Director Sterling," the man said, leaning back in his leather chair. He picked up an appl