The sound was not a sound. It was a pressure in the bones, a high-frequency vibration that made the teeth ache and the air taste of burnt copper. It emanated from the Iskra-7 Memory Core sitting on the dusty desk, the decoy Kestrel had led us to, the prize that was now a screaming beacon. The polished brass spheres seemed to thrum with a malevolent glee, a silent alarm broadcasting our failure to anyone listening on the right frequency. Petrova was already moving, her hand reaching for the satchel. Her objective was clear: silence the beacon.
She never made it.
The world dissolved into a roar of shattering glass. The boarded-up windows of the dockmaster’s office exploded inward, spraying the room with a hail of wood splinters and jagged shards. Ten figures in black fatigues poured through the empty frames, moving with a fluid, unnatural coordination. They wore no insignia. Their faces were covered by simple black masks, but their eyes were visible, and they were utterly vacant. There was no flicker of personality, no spark of life. Just a flat, dead purpose.
Sineus felt for their psychic signatures and found nothing. It was like looking at ten holes cut in the fabric of the world, ten voids of perfect, humming silence. They were shielded. This was The Chorus.
I grabbed Petrova, pulling her down behind the heavy wooden desk an instant before the air where we had been standing was shredded by automatic gunfire. The room erupted. Bullets chewed through the brick walls, kicking up clouds of red dust. The old radio on the desk disintegrated into a spray of Bakelite and wire. The odds were simple and brutal: ten of them, two of us. A fight we could not win.
— They move together, — Petrova’s voice was tight, her words clipped by the percussive rhythm of the gunfire. She had her pistol out, a small, dark shape in her hand. — Like a hive mind.
She was right. They didn’t shout orders. They didn’t use hand signals. They simply acted, two providing covering fire while a third advanced, then a different two taking over. It was a seamless, rolling assault, a machine of flesh and lead designed to corner and crush. A low, psychic hum pressed in on Sineus, a wall of coherent static that felt like the collective will of the men outside. It was the opposite of the chaotic noise of an Echoed Asset; this was disciplined, weaponized emptiness.
— Embrace the static, — one of them hissed as he vaulted over a windowsill, his voice a dry rasp. The words were not a threat. They were an invitation to oblivion.
I fired twice. The man’s advance faltered, his body jerking as the rounds hit his chest, but he didn’t go down. He staggered, raised his weapon again, and was still trying to aim when I put a third bullet through the dead space between his eyes. The man collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Nine left.
A stream of bullets tore into the top of the desk, splintering the old wood and sending a shower of debris over us. I pushed Petrova further down. I saw her clutching the heavy case containing the Aegis Conduit, the light-devouring artifact that was our only hope. A stray round sparked off the case’s metal hasp. Without a thought, she twisted her body, shielding the case with her own back.
In that instant, my objective clarified. It wasn’t about survival. It was about the case. The mission was the box.
— We can’t hold here, — I yelled over the din.
— There is no way out! — she yelled back, firing two rounds blindly over the top of the desk.
He scanned the room. The windows were death. The door was a coffin waiting to be nailed shut. But the floor… the floor was old wood, stained dark with a century of grime and moisture. The building was a relic from a time when things were built to be replaced. He saw the rot in the planks near the wall. It was their only chance. A desperate, suicidal gamble. The price of escape was their only piece of cover.
— The floor! — I shouted, grabbing her arm. — Get ready to drop!
I didn’t wait for an answer. I rolled away from the desk, exposing myself for a dangerous second. I aimed my pistol not at the black-clad figures, but at the floorboards at my feet. I emptied the rest of my clip, the roar of the gun deafening in the small office. The bullets punched through the rotten wood, tearing a ragged, splintered pattern. The smell of cordite and damp decay filled the air.
The Chorus shifted their fire, concentrating on his new position. Bullets whined past his head, close enough to feel their heat. He ignored them, kicking at the weakened section of the floor. The wood groaned, then gave way with a sharp crack. A black, gaping hole opened up beneath him.
— Now! — he yelled, grabbing the Aegis Conduit case from Petrova.
He shoved her toward the hole. She fell without hesitation, disappearing into the darkness. He followed a half-second later, diving headfirst into the abyss as the desk behind him was finally torn to pieces by a concentrated volley of gunfire.
The fall was short and brutal. He hit cold, rushing water with a jarring impact that drove the air from his lungs. The darkness was absolute, a thick, liquid blackness that smelled of filth and time. He fought against the current, his lungs burning, the heavy case dragging him down. He kicked his way to the surface, gasping for air.
He was in a sewer tunnel. A narrow brick channel, the water moving fast and cold around his waist. A faint square of gray light marked the hole they had made in the warehouse floor above. The sounds of the firefight were already muffled, distant.
Petrova surfaced beside him, coughing, her face pale and streaked with grime. She was alive. He still had the case. They had escaped.
The light from the hole above was suddenly blocked by a silhouette. One of Kestrel’s men, peering down into the dark. The figure raised its rifle.
I didn’t think. I fired upward, my last bullet a desperate prayer. The shot was a flat crack in the enclosed space. The silhouette jerked back and vanished.
The sounds from above faded into the gurgle of the water. The hunt was not over.
Now the hunt would begin in the dark.
