"If one more person asks me about Q3 synergy, I’m going to throw myself off this twelve-story balcony," Zavier whispered, his voice trembling as he stepped through the shattered glass entryway of the financial firm."Keep your voice down and your eyes on the carpet," Maine muttered, crouching low with her cleaver held horizontally. "The dead don't care about your quarterly reports, but they definitely like the sound of whining."The open-plan office on the twelfth floor was a graveyard of corporate ambition. Rows of gray fabric cubicles stretched into the dim distance like a bleak, man-made canyon. Abandoned coffee mugs, moldering half-eaten bagels, and scattered papers littered the synthetic carpets. But it was the human remains slumped over ergonomic chairs and tangled in computer cords that made the air feel heavy."This place is a literal maze," Zavier complained, ducking under a suspended projector wire. "Why did corporations think open-plan layouts were a

"Are you telling me that a building worth four hundred million dollars doesn't have an interior elevator that goes straight to the roof?" Zavier’s voice cracked into a jagged, high-pitched octave as he stared out the shattered floor-to-ceiling window."The internal stairwell on thirty-five is completely collapsed into a pile of concrete shrapnel, Zavier, unless you want to sprout wings and fly past ten floors of structural damage," Maine retorted, already hoisting herself onto the narrow metal sill. Her cleaver slipped securely back into its belt loop with a practiced, metallic clack. "Now stop arguing with the architecture and grab the frame before the wind takes you.""The wind isn't going to take me, Maine, the void is going to take me!" Zavier pressed his palms flat against the cold glass, his knuckles turning chalky white as he looked down at the street three hundred feet below. "Look at that! Cars look like matchbox toys! People look like specks of dust! I have

"I have a strict policy against walking across giant cheese-graters suspended over an infinite abyss of rotting bodies, Maine!" Zavier hissed, his boots freezing halfway onto the perforated metal mesh of the catwalk."Well, your policy is officially overridden by the fact that the server room door just exploded backward into a wall of teeth," Maine snapped back, not even looking over her shoulder as she strode out onto the swaying span. "Are you coming, or do you want to stay and explain your safety regulations to the four hundred hungry receptionists currently stampeding down the server aisle?"Zavier swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper. He took a jerky step forward, his eyes refusing to look down, though his peripheral vision caught the horrifying truth: the grand central atrium of the Apex Plaza stretched out beneath them like a gargantuan concrete canyon. Down in the lobby, the purple industrial fog swirled thick and toxic, a shifting ocean of shadows and blindly wanderi

"If the wind up here decides to blow me off this concrete saucer, I'm taking you with me, Maine," Zavier muttered, his teeth chattering as he stepped out onto the wide expanse of the Apex Plaza helipad."Keep talking like that, and I won't even wait for the wind," Maine retorted, her dark eyes darting across the open gravel expanse of the roof while her hand rested on the hilt of her cleaver. "Secure that security door before something decides to follow us up the stairwell.""Secured. Locked, bolted, and barricaded with a very heavy artisanal marble coffee table," Zavier panted, dropping his weight against the heavy steel frame of the roof exit. He wiped a streak of soot and sweat off his forehead, his chest heaving as he stared out into the cold night air. "Are we actually safe? Tell me we're safe. My internal GPS is giving me a low-battery warning and my sanity bar hit zero three floors ago.""We're as safe as two idiots standing on top of a three-hundred-foot

"You want to do what with the service elevator cables?" Zavier’s voice cracked into a jagged octave, his eyes darting from Maine to the gaping, dark void of the service hatch. "We are fifty stories up! That is not a shortcut, Maine, that is an express ticket to a closed-casket funeral!""Walking down fifty flights of stairs means walking right back into a purple fog choked with rotting teeth, Zavier," Maine snapped, already wrapping a thick, oil-slicked industrial cable around her forearm with brutal efficiency. "Unless you have a better idea that doesn't involve us becoming mid-air snacks, grab the other line or help me tie this off.""I have fifty better ideas! Idea number one: we stay right here and wait for a helicopter piloted by friendly billionaires!" Zavier shrieked, backing away from the open drop as a gust of stale air puffed up from the abyss. "Idea number two: we dig a tunnel with a butter knife! Anything is better than trusting my life to frayed steel an