Chapter 15

I staggered down the hall toward the stairwell, my legs growing stronger with each step. Diana was ahead of me as she started to grab for the door when it burst open of its own accord, smacking her square in the temple. She reeled backward onto the ground, but I didn't see how she fell. My eyes were riveted on the blue-clad figure that now stood in the doorway.

Fortunately for me, the yabo in front of me was as surprised as I was. He lurched backward, holding his arm out toward me as the submachine gun in his hand spat lead like a mechanized cobra. I was faster though, dodging to the side and slamming the door on his outstretched arm. The Warhawk was in my hand in an instant, and I shoved the barrel into his trapped wrist. I pulled the trigger and the hammer tripped forward. Then the man's wrist burst apart in an explosion of gore and bone as the Warhawk's magnum round tore through ballistic weave and tender flesh alike. The trooper screamed like a wounded goat, dropping the machine gun and reeling backward into the stairwell.

I slung the door open and started to advance forward, meaning to finish the job on the wounded sec-man—but the squad of blue-clad troopers coming down the stairs behind him weren't going to let me. I threw it into reverse faster than a crystal meth junkie and spun back out into the hall just as a burst of autofire slammed into the door behind me.

"They're on the stairs!"

"No drek!" Sugar shouted aloud. "So what now, Einstein?"

I pressed my back against the door, racking my brain for another way out. The sudden jolt of someone throwing his shoulder into door behind me must have jostled something in my brain, because it suddenly came to me. Diana threw her weight against it along with mine, pausing only to scoop up the submachine gun that had fallen at my feet.

"The elevator," I said, looking around at the others.

All I got were blank stares in return.

"That's not going to help us, Peaches," said Diana. "It's broken, remember? It's stuck on the seventh floor."

Again something struck the other side of the door.

"We don't have time for this," I growled. "Just trust me. Now get moving!"

Sugar growled something under her breath, but she and rest of them headed off down the corridor anyway as I reached around the door, blindly firing a pair of shots where I thought the sec-men should be. A cry and groan issued from the stairwell, but I didn't linger to see what the aftermath was. I was already rushing back down the hallway after the others.

Diana and Blitz made the turn toward the elevator and dashed down the connecting hallway just as the stairway door burst open. Bullets chased my coat tails as I dashed after them and the others. I scrambled around the corner, my shins aching as if someone had taken a crowbar to them for an hour or two, but I stubbornly kept going, rebounding off of a wall before staggering into Rei where she and the others stood before the elevator.

"What the hell do we do now?" Sugar fairly screamed.

"Just help me with the door. Diana, Blitz, cover us as best you can."

"Easier said than done," Blitz grumbled.

Diana gave him a withering stare. "Don't worry, Peaches. We'll get it done. C'mon Blitz. Let's go." She unslung her submachine gun and headed for the corner. Soon they were trading shots with the Ayanami troops in a fusillade of automatic fire.

"So what do we do?" Rei asked.

"You are going to sit there. Sugar and I are gonna get this door open."

Sugar and I moved to the door, hooking our fingers into the crack of the rusted elevator doors. We heaved with all of our might, struggling and grunting with a kind of reckless abandon known only to sex-fiends and chip heads. At first they didn't budge an inch, but thanks to our orkish strength, they slowly began to groan open, revealing the yawning blackness of the elevator shaft.

I peered into the darkness, looking up at the taut steel cables as they snaked downward from the gloom above. For once, I was thankful that this was such a decrepit building. Newer elevators used magnetic tracks and grooves set into the walls of the shaft to move the car up and down—it was safer, more economic, and less likely to have a catastrophic breakdown. But this one still had the older model used late in the twentieth century with cables and pulleys and a generator. Switching to thermal vision, I could just barely make out the form of the elevator suspended above overhead, which was definitely a good thing, because that meant the Ayanami men couldn't use it to get to us.

I had to tighten my grip on the doorway as a sudden explosion rocked the building like the grumblings of an awakening giant. I reeled backward into the hallway, drawing the Warhawk once again as I called down the hallway to Diana and Blitz where a cloud of hazy smoke was billowing out to envelop them. "What the hell was that?"

Diana gave a hacking cough, covering her mouth as she scrambled back toward the elevator. "God damn grenades. I don't think they're playing nice anymore."

"Are you still alright?"

"Yeah," she wheezed as she tossed away her gun. "I'm outta ammo. I've still got a couple spells under my belt though."

"Do what you can. Blitz, you're heading down first. Get the doors open and Sugar and Rei will be down right after you."

The young rigger gave me a quick nod and holstered his machine pistol, clambering out onto the steel elevator cable and beginning to shimmy his way down. I wanted to watch him make his way down and make sure that he didn't run into any trouble, but the Ayanami goons weren't going to give us that opportunity.

The first one came around the corner with his gun blazing. He evidently thought to take us by surprise before we could react, but he was in for a surprise himself. The slug from my Warhawk caught him just below the chin, puncturing his carotid artery and sending up a plume of bright red arterial spray as he toppled backward. His dying moans forced his friends to rethink their strategy.

"Alright, I'm at the bottom!" Blitz called up from the elevator shaft.

"Sugar, Rei," I shouted. "Go!"

Sugar took a short leap off the edge, clinging to the elevator cable as she began to make her way down. Rei took off her jacket, wrapping it around her arms before she too began her descent.

I turned away from the shaft just as a small roundish object bounced and clattered its way down the hallway.

"Grenade!" Diana shouted.

I sprang forward, a nervous ball of adrenaline and fear. I didn't have time to think. I merely reacted, lashing out with my foot. My toe connected with the grenade and sent it spinning in the other direction. It rebounded off of the wall of the other hallway and then detonated in a halo of concussive force that shook the floor like giant's footfall.

I had hoped for a brief reprieve, but the sec men down the hall really didn't care what I wanted. They came around the corner en masse, filling the air around us with a hail of lead. I shrank back to the elevator, firing my Warhawk as I went. The hammer tripped forward and the cylinder spun, and suddenly the lead trooper was sprawling backward against his fellows with two copper-jacketed slugs flattened on the front of his armored vest. I worked the trigger again, but I all heard was a hollow click. I was out of ammo.

I swore and holstered the weapon, looking back to Diana where she had flattened herself out against another apartment door. "I'm out! Going to secondary weapon."

"Gimme some cover and I'll see what I can do."

I nodded and leaned out around the hall, my cyber-hand leading the way. The Ceska Black Scorpion installed within its metal parts spoke, spitting a pair of bursts at the advancing sec-men. The small caliber bullets didn't do much against their armor, but the impact did send one or two of them reeling, and forced the others to press up against the walls for cover.

Diana used that time to finish her spell. At first I couldn't see what happened, but the heavy footballs behind the knotted sec-men told me something was up. Then a monstrous figure rounded the corner—a troll easily four meters tall, stooping in the confines of the low hallway and carrying a massive mini gun slung under one arm. He paused a moment only to offer a sardonic grin before opening fire, churning out bullets like a mad organ grinder. The Ayanami troopers hit the floor, trying to make themselves as small as possible against the withering fire.

At first I balked. The figure seemed somehow familiar. And then I realized who he was. That "troll" was the street samurai Brumby from the TV show "Shadowalk." Across from me, Diana had a big grin plastered on her face.

"Nice, huh?"

"We're through down here!" I heard Sugar call up from the bottom of the elevator.

"Alright, we're coming down!" I called back. "C'mon, get moving!" I yelled to Diana.

I took her arm, steadying her as she moved to the edge of the floor and reached out to take hold of the cable. I still had my hand on her arm when the muffled explosion sounded from above. Diana was teetering on the edge, fingers grasping for the cable when I glanced upward—and saw the elevator car hurtling down toward us.

My chemically enhanced reflexes sprang into action. I snatched her back from the yawning abyss just as the elevator car careened by, trailing its broken cables behind it as they whipped about, lashing at the sides of the shaft like maddened snakes.

"What the hell?" Diana gasped.

I leaned into the shaft and looked up, spying a window of light where the top floor elevator doors had been opened. "They must have planted a charge on the cable above the car on the top floor," I said as I leaned back in.

I looked back to where the sec-men were just starting to realize that the bullets that were supposedly flying at them weren't hitting anything—and that the mass of muscle standing in front of them wasn't really even there to begin with. We didn't have much time.

"How the hell are we going to get out now?"

"I've got an idea," Diana said.

"What is it?"

"Just hold on to me."

"What the—"

She cast a glance back to where the sec men were just beginning to pick themselves up off the ground. "Just do it!"

I growled under my breath and stepped forward, wrapping my arms around her shoulders as she pressed her body into mine and laced her hands together around the small of my back. I could feel her hands moving in some intricate pattern, but what spell she had in mind I couldn't imagine.

"I don't think this is what they mean when they say 'embrace death with open arms,'" I grumbled.

"Quit talking and jump."

"What?"

"Jump!" Before I knew it, Diana had thrown her weight into me, sending me toppling over into the yawning chasm of the elevator shaft.