The chime was soft, pleasant, and utterly terrifying. It was the sound of automated grace, the gentle hand of the system announcing its discovery. Ksenia’s mind, a cold engine of probabilities, discarded the last vestiges of their stealth plan. The thirty-minute blind spot they had bought with blackmail was a wasted investment. The building itself had found them.
— Attention, — a synthesized female voice announced from hidden speakers, its tone one of placid helpfulness. — A routine diagnostic of memetic field integrity will commence in this sector in ninety seconds. Please remain stationary.
It was not an alarm. It was a death sentence delivered as a courtesy. Before the voice finished, a new sound began, a high, piercing shriek that clawed at the ears, followed by the rhythmic pulse of flashing red lights. The pristine white corridor became a strobing artery, painting their grey maintenance uniforms in shades of blood and panic. The system’s placid hum was gone, replaced by the shriek of a high-level intrusion alert.
— They know, — Zora hissed, her good hand gripping her pulse rifle.
Ksenia didn’t answer. She was listening. Not to the alarm, but to what came next. A sound from the far end of the corridor, down the long, thirty-meter stretch of polished floor. It wasn’t the scuff of boots. It was a heavy, hydraulic beat. A rhythmic, synchronized thump-thump-thump that grew louder with each pulse of the red lights. Pacifier Frames. The Ministry’s elite enforcers, encased in sleek exoskeletons of white and grey. Her internal clock started. Response time was under sixty seconds. They had maybe forty-five until contact.
She met Sineus’s eyes for a fraction of a second. His face was grim, but his eyes were clear. He understood. They all did. This was the contingency. The price of failure.
— Go! — Ksenia’s voice was a blade, sharp and absolute. She was cutting him loose, trading their lives for the one hundred and eighty seconds he needed. It was a simple, brutal calculation. She turned her back on him, a definitive act of trust and sacrifice, and faced the approaching sound. Zora was already beside her, her rifle raised, her body a tight coil of defiant energy.
— How many? — Zora grunted. Her face was pale in the flashing red, a sheen of sweat on her brow. The dark stain on her shoulder bandage seemed to pulse with the alarm.
— Enough, — Ksenia said, her gaze fixed on the far end of the hall. She checked the charge indicator on her own rifle. The small display read 98%. It would have to be.
The first Pacifier Frame appeared, a silhouette of clean lines and brutal function against the strobing red. Then another, and another. They moved with an unnatural, fluid grace, their blank visors sweeping the corridor. Ksenia didn't wait for them to acquire targets. She and Zora opened fire.
The corridor erupted in a storm of noise and light. White-hot bolts from their pulse rifles lanced down the hall, the sharp crack of their discharge echoing off the polymer walls. The air filled with the clean, sharp smell of ozone. Their fire wasn't aimed to kill; it was designed to suppress, to force the advancing Frames into cover, to buy seconds with every shot. The polished floor became a chaotic mirror, reflecting the strobing red alarm and the brilliant white energy bolts. In the distorted, flickering reflections, the approaching Frames looked like unreal monsters, wading through a river of light and shadow.
They found a rhythm born of desperation. It was a terrible, beautiful thing. Ksenia’s mind, the cold engine of logic, processed the geometry of the fight, the angles of fire, the moments of exposure.
— Two, left side, behind the pillar! — she barked, her voice cutting through the din.
Zora, all instinct and fury, shifted her aim without a thought. A sustained burst from her heavier weapon hammered the pillar, forcing the two Frames to pull back. The recoil sent a jolt of pain through her wounded shoulder, but she bit down on a curse and kept firing. Ksenia fired single, precise shots, aiming for the joints and optical sensors of the exoskeletons, forcing them to divert processing power to damage control. Logic and fury. The strategist and the warrior. The friction that had defined their relationship was gone, burned away by the heat of combat. All that was left was the mission.
Behind them, Sineus reached the door. It was not a door. It was a wall of light, a seamless barrier of glowing polymer at the end of the metal-reinforced corridor. He could hear the battle raging behind him, the sharp cracks of their rifles, the heavier thumps of the enemy's return fire. Every shot was a second of time they were buying him with their blood. He placed his hands on the warm, smooth surface. He closed his eyes, shutting out the red chaos of the corridor, and pushed his consciousness forward. Not against the door, but through it. The physical world dissolved. He was falling into a storm of light and sound.
Ksenia felt a subtle shift in the air, a change in the building’s ambient hum, as if a great lung had just taken a deep, shuddering breath. The light from the core door behind her pulsed once, brightly. He was in.
A pulse bolt hit the wall near her head, showering her with hot polymer fragments. She ducked, bringing her rifle back up. For a half-second, in the reflective surface of her weapon's scope, she saw her own face, stark and clear under the strobing red light. The reflection was perfectly stable. No flicker. Just her, here, now, holding the line.
The Frames adapted. Their advance had been stalled by the chokepoint, but their tactical AI was learning. They stopped moving in a predictable line. Two of the machines, using their augmented strength, ripped a large service panel from the side of the corridor wall. Hoisting it like a shield, they began to advance again, a slow, inexorable wall of metal. Ksenia’s precise shots sparked uselessly against the thick plating. Her internal calculation of their survival probability ticked down another 10%.
— They're pushing! — Zora yelled, firing a desperate burst that glanced off the makeshift shield with a high-pitched scream of tortured metal.
— Fall back to the doorway, — Ksenia ordered, her voice calm despite the hammering in her chest. They retreated two meters, making the glowing entrance to the core their final chokepoint. There was nowhere else to go. This was where they would die. She ejected a spent energy cell from her rifle. The metal was scorching hot even through her glove. She slammed a fresh one home. The rifle's indicator glowed a healthy green. She had one more magazine's worth of time to give him.
The air smelled of ozone and melted plastic. The only sound was the hum of her own rifle's capacitor charging for the next shot.
Behind her, the light from the core began to change color.
