Physics of the Crowbar

Administrative Ammunition

He steadied himself on the wall and stood. The high-security vault would have the perquisite high-security supplies office, with useful things like ammunition and yes, grenades. He was very pleased with this development, though he realized he wasn't familiar with the explosive range of the grenade. A gun's physical application of force and destruction was easier to control; a grenade would wound or kill him as easily as any other organism.

A staircase led up. Normal people, people not crawling through vents and ceilings, accessed the vault through a series of double-locked doors where identity was verified and paperwork checked. Around the corner of the stairs a living security guard hailed him. "You alive too, friend? Let me come with you, I'll watch your back." The man shot two parasites off the stairs and nodded to him. "I remember you, I used to work the tram station. Freeman, right? You know how to use that thing?" he asked, eying the shotgun.

Freeman answered both questions with one sharp nod and headed up the stairs. The guard was familiar, vaguely, and the man's friendliness disconcerted him. Another scientist barricaded in the security office shouted encouragement but declined the guard's invitation to come.

Then the guard shouted and charged past Freeman, into a conference room. He dove over the table, sending papers flying, and grasped for a pair of white-trousered legs just as they vanished into the vent.

Screams echoed down the vent and the man's shin bones, with feet and leather shoes still attached, fell back out. The guard dropped them and vomited.

Freeman left him behind.

The dry labs and conference space off the vault were designed for board member visits and government oversight. The organic contours made the space feel less sterile and utilitarian, but tricked the eye into ignoring blind spots and shadowed places.

Freeman spun at the dry crackle of a rift. Bright yellow lightning danced over the checkerboard floor and two bipedal aliens materialized, hissing venomously at him. He caught one through the head with the shotgun but the other lashed his legs with electricity. He went down on his knees at the sudden numbness and shot up into its gut as it prepared a second blast.

Three more searing balls of lightning, three more elongated bipedal shadows emerged around the corner. He cocked the shogun and-

From over his shoulder, shots rang out. His right ear howled in pain.

"Got one!" the guard hollered.

Freeman shot the other two bipeds and stood, stiffly, shaking the numbness from his knees. The suit told him he was not significantly injured. He limped to around the corner and into the little green-carpeted office at the end. It had once been a chemical storage closet, before someone's expansion and someone else's budget cut had converted it into the joke of a workspace it was now. But it had the world's ugliest plaid couch, a tiny desk, a recycled banker's light and a drawer full of pistol ammunition.

And the chair behind the desk was empty.

Freeman clutched the back of the folding chair, knowing if he sat down he might not get up again. Thornton, the only man in the entire mountain he'd truly trust at his back with a gun, wasn't here. The man was as eccentric as any physicist and he loved firearms. He had a concealed carry permit and always brought a pistol to work. And because he was Thornton, it was a special silver-plated engraved fancy limited-edition gun with the date of his doctoral dissertation defense stamped on the butt.

He'd known Thornton probably wasn't in the mountain, but he'd hoped. Silently, without letting himself know he'd hoped. And he knew it now by the crushing sense of aloneness he felt at the sight of that cheap empty chair and sagging plaid couch. It was Tuesday, and Thornton never came to work on Tuesdays.