Thunder

Chapter Fifteen - 4

The next floor was silent. The bodies of a few Celestrian police officials were lying discarded on the floor, one nearly falling through a hole in the floor, their arm dangling limply over the precipice. Blood trickled down it and dripped from it with a 'plink, plink, plink' into the dust of the floor below. Shot blasts riddled the walls, and it became obvious to Z9 that this had been one of the major stands of the fight from before she got there.

Z9 wasn't sure exactly what Evangra wanted, other than utter chaos, seeing as though most of the officials had been escorted out of the building or were at the bottom. And it didn't seem as if she was going to detonate the whole place just yet, as would have been a typical terrorism plot. Evangra, as Z9 reminded herself as she strode over a severed limb, wasn't a typical terrorist. Prosterothal must have done something to her mind, not just her body. And Z9 was beginning to think that she had a personal grudge against the organisation, something that she didn't know about.

'Anyone there?' She said into the Halo-Chip in her ear. She hadn't expected a response, and she didn't get one. All the best agents were elsewhere in Celestria, two of them in KF-8, the great mortuary of The Empire, on about something to do with a possibly contagious disease that could wipe out half of The Empire. It was going to take Celestrian police at least another twenty minutes to realise that most of their guys were dead and more reinforcements were needed, and most of the Region was going to be blocked off by now as well, with evacuations from nearby residences having to take place and plug up the roads. Here, in the flickering neon of a bombed, battle-worn building, she was now alone, a single ship in the black of the night.

The building shuddered on its ever-weakening, groaning foundations, and behind her a crack began to open up, a fissure ripping across the width of the corridor. It connected up with the hole the corpse was nearly falling through, and a large chunk of the building fell away behind Z9, a hole three floors deep and a gap too far to jump. The stairs were gone.

'Come on then, Evangra,' Z9 muttered to herself, the grip on her pole tightening. Her other hand was clenched in so tight a fist that her nails, once beautifully polished in crimson, were now ragged against the flesh of her palm. They began to dig in, and blood was beginning to match its colour to her nail polish. Z9 exhaled, a cloud of dust shifting from her as it fell through the air. She moved on.

The next two corridors were silent, and not a single body was there. Z9 opened doors that were swinging limply on their hinges, but nobody was hiding inside waiting for her. There were not even any bodies of people who worked in the building. A table would be overthrown, papers strewn and glass shattered in the chaos that had ruptured and swept through the place, but there wouldn't be a corpse underneath it, half their torso corroded away by the gun blasts. There weren't the signs of slaughter or butchery, just anarchy. Endless anarchy.

*

Z9 ascended another flight of stairs, now on floor five. Nobody here either. Z9 was starting to get worried. Evangra liked to play games, liked to put on a show, but even she, the mistress of mayhem, would put someone here. From her knowledge of the building she expected Evangra to be holed up in the Great Chamber Room on Eight. Z9 was over halfway there now. Evangra was being seriously risky, or seriously cocky.

Z9 guessed the latter.

She reached the main corridor for floor five. At the end of the hallway was a left which lead down to the stairs up to Six. The neon flickered above her. Shouts from down in the building, where the guys investigating floor three had obviously found a group that Evangra had left there for them. It was almost code now. Evangra played two games. One against Celestria, and one against Z9. Z9's opponents were to be, if they ever showed up, armed with only close combat weaponry; no guns allowed. Anyone down below was allowed a free-for-all.

As more blasts shook the floor, rattling the pole in Z9's hand, five figures emerged from the end of the hallway. Three humans, a Soorvite and a Torkaxion. The humans had large swords, the Soorvite a particularly lethal-looking chakram. The Torkaxion held a morning-star down by his side, the ball dangling and almost touching the floor, its spikes glinting as it swayed back and forth like a leaf in the breeze.

'Looks like you guys are the welcoming committee,' Z9 said. 'Do I get a free coffee as well?'

There was no reply from the party at the end. They simply stared back at her. Z9 brought her pole up and held it out, pointing to them. 'You've got one chance to move aside before I kill the five of you, and that's it.'

The Soorvite raised her chakram and pulled it back, ready to throw.

'Boring fuckers,' Z9 complained, pushing off and sprinting towards her enemies with death's arms open wide.