But the other doorknob opened easily in his hand, revealing a perfectly normal patient room.

Mac took two strides into the room, scanning the tops of the walls where they joined the ceiling. There was a vent up there, but it was quite small. Far too small to crawl through. Still, there had to be a way around, and Mac gave the barred window a hard stare before he grabbed the foot of the narrow twin-sized bed and yanked it off the wall.

Bingo. Second vent on the floor. Just big enough for a full-sized man to crawl through, if he was skinny enough.

The thought crossed his mind that Murdoc had probably measured it to fit. To just fit.

"Got a vent," he told her, again completely on reflex, dropping to his knees and evaluating the grate before breaking out the SAK and selecting the flat head screwdriver. "It's gonna be a tight squeeze."

There was a sound, halfway between a scoff and a cough. "Check fer'ats."

There was a definite odor of urine, under the must and dust, but Mac was going to put money on it having come from a human bladder, not a Rattus norvegicus. He managed to get the grate off without getting buzzered by Murdoc, and he tucked it aside hastily and swapped from the bit to the flashlight. There was dust and other—less savory things coating the floor of the vent, and what looked like cobwebs but he knew had to be the cotton variety. "Well, he didn't skimp on atmosphere," Mac murmured, shining the light around and noticing there was a 90 degree turn, about eight feet in.

"Why star'now," Riley asked rhetorically, sarcasm heavy in her voice. "Y'know somethin'll be in there."

Given the continued suspenseful music in his ear, Mac didn't disagree. But it did make him wonder. "Can you hear the music?"

"Y'mean the 'Best'ov Outlas'?" Riley let out a quiet snort. "Yeah, but I think iss'bein' pumped in separate fr'm'you."

That was something Mac hadn't factored in. Real mental patients being subjected to unsettling music, complete with occasional jump-scares. Something to really wind them up. "Any other noises on your side?"

"Nuthin'new." He knew she was trying to be calm, but he could hear the strain in her voice, and Mac quickly slipped off his backpack—no point getting it hung up on an errant screw or deliberately bent vent cover—and pushed it experimentally into the space.

When nothing happened—and he had no idea what he was expecting—Mac took a quick breath and ducked his head into the vent.

There was a scant inch in all directions, forcing him into a modified and highly compact army crawl, and Mac quickly found the easiest thing to do was place his hands flat along the walls and push himself up and forward with his toes. It allowed him to slide more than crawl, and also allowed him to wriggle just enough to see that his 90 degree turn was followed in two feet by another 90 degrees, that put him back in a generally easterly direction. He got his first surprise—there were other grates, large enough to crawl through, letting in both air and light. They undoubtedly led to patient rooms that he'd have to break out of as soon as he bellycrawled past the barricade.

However deep into the hallway it was.

Mac sucked in dust and God only knew what else with his next breath and that, coupled with the tickle in his lungs that had been growing for some time, led him to an explosive coughing fit, ending with a choke. When he blinked the water out of his eyes, he could see that he'd stirred up every molecule of dust between himself and the end of the very long vent. The globules were floating prettily in the air, reminding him of the spores when he'd watched Bozer playing the Last of Us.

Great. Because he needed zombies to go with mental patients and religious fanatics.

"...y'okay?" Her tone was almost tentative, and it occurred to him that she had no idea. She'd disappeared on her play for the hacker while they'd still been getting stabilized in a Canadian emergency room.

"Yeah, I'm good," he assured her, with the hoarse voice of a chainsmoker, and made a face at himself that he hoped Murdoc couldn't see. Way to exude confidence. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We're all good, Jack and Boze too. Just dusty in here."

Once he navigated the second turn he made much faster progress, and decided to bypass the first grate altogether. That would be way too easy, and besides, he figured he was only even with the beginning of the furniture barricade. He was still shoving the backpack along in front of him, and the moment he pushed it even with the grate, a filthy hand tore through the flimsy grate metal and grabbed it simultaneously with a scream that Mac was only about eighty percent sure was part of the soundtrack.

Whoever had it tried to snatch it away from him, but their closed fist—full of backpack strap—was too big to fit back through the bent metal. Someone shrieked again, definitely a feminine voice, and any hope that it was an actor died when Mac saw the torn ends of the grate bite deep into that scrawny hand, immediately drawing blood.

"Whoa—" he shouted, trying to wrestle the pack away, but she wouldn't let go, and an overwhelming cloud of body odor swept through the vent, enough to make Mac's eyes start watering again. It took a few tries but he overpowered her and was able to tear it away. She fought with the grate another moment, tearing more serious wounds in her hand before it occurred to her to open her fist, and the moment her hand pulled back Mac shoved the backpack down the vent, beyond her reach. The moment it went by, the bloodied hand came clawing right back in after it, and then her entire arm, up to her shoulder. There were no words in the shrieking, just a terrible desperation that was almost as powerful as the smell.

"Stop, you're hurting yourself," he tried, pitching his voice low, and the terrible scrabbling paused for a moment—only for the arm to swing back for him. Her fingernails were long and unkempt, and they stopped a scant inch from his face, digging and sliding around on the vent metal.

"Stop moving and I'll help you," he promised, but he wasn't sure she even heard him over her own shrieking, and Mac scooted back a few inches, just to give himself some buffer.

Not an actor. Desperate and dirty, like a few—but not all—of the patients he'd encountered in the basement. The way her skin was tearing and bleeding on the metal, she was definitely dehydrated, and that kind of stink could not be manufactured. She had been lying in her own sweat and filth for days, if not a week.

"Please, listen to me. Listen to my voice. You're okay. Just take a breath."

In the end he had to wait her out, and it didn't take long. She was too exhausted to keep up that kind of struggling, and soon her frantic cries broke off into gutwrenching sobs. Her bloodied left arm sank to the floor of the vent, fingers still searching the metal for something, anything to latch onto.

"Hey," Mac tried tentatively, and she lunged for him suddenly with a wordless cry. He stayed at a safe distance and she gave up much sooner the second time. The third time he spoke to her, more gently still, she barely twitched before her fingers fell lax to the metal, utterly spent.

"Hey," he tried again, even more softly. "I'm Mac. I'm not gonna hurt you."

A sob was his only answer. Ever so carefully—and mindful of her sharp and now jagged and broken nails—he gently touched the back of her hand.

She withdrew it as if burned, catching her flaccid brachii muscle on the grate and flinching with another cry, this one full of pain. Mac silently laid his hands flat on the walls of the vent and dragged himself within reach, and when she tried for him again, he was close enough to simply catch her wrist and twist it, folding her arm up at her elbow and effectively preventing her from grabbing him.

She struggled wildly a moment, and Mac winced but held her firm and away from the jagged metal edges, and she tired immediately. He used his toes to shove himself up even with the grate, and finally got a look at her.

Woman, Caucasian, mid to late thirties. Maybe a hundred and ten pounds, completely wasted. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes were helpless, and he knew immediately she was no mental patient. She hadn't had a square meal, let alone a regular one, in ages.

She was homeless. That was how Murdoc had gotten away with it, gotten so many people into this facility. Some seemed to truly be violent criminals, some were actors, and some were simply homeless people he'd had rounded up off the streets to round out the background.

"Here, let's get your arm back through here, okay? Slowly." He released a little pressure on her wrist, trying to judge her reaction, but she was through. Her eyes were weepy and fearful, and she allowed him to maneuver her badly lacerated arm back through the grate. Once he'd set it down—on the floor inside her room—she drew the wounded appendage closer to her chest, laid on the floor, and cried.

He had nothing, no food or water, nothing he could give her. She needed medical attention, and the quickest way to get it to her was to end this fucking game as quickly as he could. Mac gave her a sympathetic smile, and then moved past her grate, as quickly as he safely could without snagging his own shoulders or side on the inwardly bent grate.

He could already see a shadow moving at the next grate, and Mac came to the realization that he was going to have to fight his way past these people, who were literally starving, as stand-ins for zombies. If that woman had been any healthier, she could have broken through that grate and crawled in after him. And he had no doubt they could and would hurt him, as badly as they felt they needed to, to see for themselves that he had nothing for them.

Mac looked uneasily at his swiss army knife. It was many things, a tool that could get him out of any problem, but he had never used it to injure someone. Not like that. And if they were desperate enough to slice themselves to pieces on the metal, the knife blade, as sharp as it was, was not a good tool to disincentive them.

Mac dragged himself up to his backpack and had just enough room to pull it over, hunting around in the larger outer pouch before his hands closed on something small and oblong, about the length of his palm.

Hoping against hope he wasn't going to have to use it, Mac pressed on.

The second room contained a male patient, who was at least semi-communicative. He'd pressed his face as tightly against the grate as he could, but it didn't seem to occur to him that he could rip through it.

"Hey, hey, hey missah. Hey missah. What's good, yeah, what's good?"

"I'm going to get help," Mac promised, quickly shoving the backpack past him, even as he jerked hopefully in its direction and bent the flimsy metal of his own grate. "There's a catering truck around here somewhere. All you can eat, I just gotta get through here and it's all yours."

Whether the man believed him or not, he nodded repeatedly, babbling "Yeah, missah, yeah missah, yeah that sounds good missah." and Mac was able to shimmy past him without incident.

The third patient room had neither a shadow nor a voice, and though Mac shoved his backpack past as before, nothing happened. He waited a few seconds, but eventually dragged himself close enough to the grate to see into the room, only to find it seemingly empty. Not terribly strong odor, though Mac wasn't sure he'd be able to tell at this point.

He crept a little closer, trying to get eyes on all corners of the room, and then a face bent down from above, and hard brown eyes bored into his.

Not wasted, not starving. Not homeless. And Mac was willing to bet, also not an actor.

The man rolled off the squealing twin bed onto his feet, drawing one back, and Mac nailed his head on the top of the vent as he tried to dodge the vicious kick that sent the flimsy grate into the space his face had occupied moments before. It didn't completely break free of the frame, forcing the man to drop to one knee and grab it, and Mac tried to use the opportunity to haul himself past as fast as he could.

But this guy was strong, the bent and battered grid snapped off the frame almost immediately. Mac was only halfway past, the vent was just too narrow and there was nowhere for him to go.

"Hi, little rat!"

The next kick hit him right under his floating ribs. The one after that hit him lower, just above the button of his slacks, and there was a third but at that point he was coughing so hard his abs saved him from any more serious damage. What felt like steel dug into his hips, yanking him against the frame of the missing grate, and Mac gasped around his spasming diaphragm and dug his fingertips into the next seam in the vent until he felt the skin split.

He just didn't have enough space. He couldn't even get a hand back down to his waist to try to pry the guy off.

"Skinny little rat," the patient snarled, and once again yanked him via his pants, as hard as he could, against the frame. He was trying to drag him into the room, and only the fact a human spine didn't bend that way was preventing him from succeeding. He was terrifyingly strong; Mac knew instantly that he wasn't going to win this tug-of-war.

And as breathless as he was right now, he wasn't going to win the fight that happened after, either.

Mac glanced as far down as he could see, wincing at the sting on his scalp, and did some quick geometry. Then he folded up his knees, as much as he could, and relaxed.

His attacker took that for surrender, grabbing onto his knees to drag him partly into the room. Mac hooked the tops of his feet on the vent wall, preventing the man from being able to pull him any further into the cell, but he had dragged Mac far enough back that he could finally maneuver his hand—and the object in it—down to hip level.

The guy cursed as he realized Mac's feet were hooked on the grate frame, and reached his arm in further to get a grip on Mac's shoes—exposing his forearm. Mac flicked the object in his hand and swung his right hip over, rolling as much as he could and trapping the patient's arm in the vent with him. Then he held the open flame against the man's skin.

The reaction was immediate; the patient howled in pain, trying to rip his arm away from the lighter's flames. Mac grit his teeth and continued putting as much power as he could into his hips, pinning the man's skin there to get roasted. After a few seconds of frantic struggle, the patient was able to extricate his arm, and Mac lifted his knees into the freed-up space, getting both feet against the grate frame. He pushed off as hard as he could, trying to keep his body on its side to reduce friction with the vent. It pushed him just far enough; a little scrabbling with his toes and his free hand pulled him just out of reach.

The patient screamed in rage and threw himself at the grate frame, but he was much too large to squeeze in, and Mac allowed himself a quick second to cough before he continued squirming—now one arm down, it was pinned to his side and there wasn't space to extricate it—towards the next cell.

He stopped to catch his breath equidistant between the last grate and the next, and that was when he heard Riley.

"Mac...Mac!" She was trying not to raise her voice too much, but Murdoc had cranked the volume as soon as the patient had gotten hold of him, and only now that the 'danger' was past was it low enough to hear her.

"'m fine," he managed, then let loose with another set of chest-rattling coughs. The dust in the vent was not helping. "Patients—reaching into the vents."

Riley was quiet a moment. "Zombie run," she realized out loud. "Y'okay?"

"Yeah." He was pretty sure the back of his head was bleeding a little, and it hadn't done much for the headache he'd had since the explosion, but it was nothing incapacitating. His lungs, on the other hand, were definitely more of a concern. Adrenaline had allowed him to run around to this point, but the worst was likely yet to come, and the muscles in his chest, shoulders, and his shins were burning from the unusual position and exertion.

However, there was hope in the fact that each of the patient rooms were at least ten feet wide, meaning he'd bellycrawled forty feet and it was pretty unlikely the barricade extended this far. He pushed through the pain, arriving at the fourth grate in the same cautious manner as the others. This one appeared to be as empty as the last one, and Mac readied the lighter again.

He did end up needing it, but not the way he thought he would.

The patient room was empty. He just had to get through the grate that was much easier to push into the vent than it was to push out of the vent.

Mac was right up against it so it was easy to see the old rubber gasket that was partially keeping the grate in place. He considered his options, potentially using the SAK to try to pry it a little at a time, and then he shoved himself up a little further, until his trapped right arm was about level with the grate, and he set the cracking rubber gasket on fire.

It burned with an acrid smoke that did nothing for his lungs or his eyes, and the heat caused the grate to expand in its frame, bending itself slightly out of shape. Without the gasket gumming up the works, Mac easily found the right points to crack the grate out of the frame, using the plastic lighter as an improvised hammer as needed until he got enough of it out of the frame to push it the rest of the way.

Mac emerged, still coughing, into the empty patient cell, and carefully stretched out his aching arms and legs, sucking down deep breaths of cleaner air. He heard Riley's breath hitch, but she didn't say anything or call out, and he wondered exactly how much he'd just scared her.

"I'm out of the vent," and he rolled to his knees before pushing himself to his feet, eyes on the door's observation window. "Looks like I'm clear of the barricade."

"Iss'gettin' tighter." Her voice was just a breath, strained and shaking, and Mac froze in his tracks.

"What's getting tighter?" he asked sharply, pressing his earwig in deeper.

She gave a little gasp, then that curious, dry cough, and this time he recognized it for what it was. "Thing around m'neck." The fear in her voice was unmistakable. "Iss'gettin'tighter. I though'd'I was jus' freakin', but id jus' clicked'ighter."

The black choker.

Mac quickly navigated back to her feed on his phone, watching her shifting restlessly on the gurney. The medical restraints looked like the real deal, she was having zero luck getting a hand free, and her eyes were squeezed shut again. Her mouth was half-open as she tried to gulp air. But he couldn't see any other details, couldn't see any mechanism.

It could be pressed into the pillow under her—

Like the device that had been put around her mother's neck, when her old hacker colleagues had kidnapped Diane to force Riley to hack the NSA again.

How Murdoc would know that was no longer pertinent. It made sense. To know she was going to die like her mother almost had, gasping for breath while the ribbon sliced into her throat—

It was a timer. He had to get to that room before the choker strangled her.

"Riley, listen to me." He wasted no time at the door, examining it quickly before he broke out the swiss army knife. "Listen. Try not to swallow, and keep your breathing as even as you can. The more you tense up against that ribbon, the more localized swelling it'll cause. You've gotta relax."

"R'lax?!" It was almost a shout, and despite the situation, the sheer incredulousness in her voice encouraged him. She wasn't giving up just yet. "Mac, iz'chokin' me!"

Mac had the door mechanism in pieces in under ten seconds, and he reached into the door to manually wrench the latch assembly away from the magnet holding it in place. "We've got time, Riley. Just—stay as still as possible and breathe as normally as you can." The more she struggled—honestly the more she panicked—the quicker she was going to use up her available oxygen.

He was able to pull the latch assembly off the magnet—there simply wasn't enough area on the mating of the armature and the electromagnet for the magnet flux to overcome direct backwards force—and shouldered the door open. No one was in the hallway to greet him, and Mac eyed the barricade behind him to ensure it was covering the real mental patient's door before he ventured out into the space.

The upstairs had been riddled with boobytraps, and Mac didn't have the time to dally around looking for other clues or objects. This was a race, him versus the choker, and he wasn't going to lose. So with his eyes on the ground for tripwires or mislaid tiles, and on the rooms for any patient surprises, he hurried unmolested to the end of the hall, which terminated in a pair of double doors. He didn't need the digital or paper map to know what he was looking at; these doors were labeled.

Gymnasium.

Mac quickly pushed himself up against the wall to one side, carefully peering through the observation windows, and confirmed for himself that it was the same view from the security office. A bear of a man was still pacing restlessly along the perimeter of the large room. He'd torn down a few pieces of infrastructure, including a couple feet of old pipe, but there wasn't much else. Just two basketball goals, tucked up too high for him to reach, and that was basically it.

If Mac went in there, it was him versus Goliath. Nothing to dodge behind, no cover. And the lighter and the SAK weren't going to do him much good.

Mac cast a glance back at the barricade, and in his ear, over the soundtrack, Riley sucked in an unsteady breath.

Trying to root through that pile for a weapon was out. Too much time.

Mac ran a hand through his hair, executing a slow spin and trying to keep his eyes wide open, cataloging everything. If they both panicked, this was over, and Murdoc won. It was just another mission. He and Riley had been in tighter squeezes than this.

You can do this, Mac.

There wasn't any other choice.

There also wasn't much in the way of other options. Not a lot of infrastructure for him to rip off the walls, either, though there was a oddly placed electrical box panel in the wall. Or rather on what looked like part of a vent built vertically into the wall. Mac hurried over and ran his blood-crusted fingertips over it, sucking air through his teeth as the action reminded him that he'd ripped them back in the other vent.

"—Mac—"

"I'm okay," he said immediately, unable to find a hinge. It was weird, a metal panel that was easily big enough for him to crawl through, but no way to open it. He grabbed the SAK and selected the prying blade. "I made it to a gym, but there's a freakin' Uruk Hai in there. Trying to find a way around."

For whatever reason Murdoc didn't buzzer him, letting him pry the metal plate off, and Mac was surprised to find it glued, rather than welded. Once he loosened the top corner he could use his fingers, and he caught the heavy plate as it finally came free, setting it down carefully to lean against the wall. No point in letting Andre the Giant know someone was outside.

The hole in the wall revealed a small maintenance ladder inset into the wall, bolted to the interior concrete block, heading up into the ceiling, and Mac realized what it was. Access to the catwalk above the gym, so maintenance could change lights and raise the basketball hop assemblies. He kept a groan to himself, staring up into the dark tunnel a moment before forcing his hands to wrap around the appropriate rung.

"Found a ladder," he told her, forcing his voice calm. Then he started to climb.

Some of the anchor bolts had been artfully loosened, leaving segments of the ladder less secure than others, but Mac was able to scurry up it in record time, and besides, the channel was narrow enough that even if the ladder failed, he could reach all the walls and pull a Spiderman if he had to. Fortunately it wasn't necessary. Unfortunately at the top of the ladder another metal plate had been glued onto the wall, and this time Mac was on the inside.

Dropping a big metal plate would be a dead giveaway of his presence, so Mac was very careful as he started loosening the glue. This time he started at the bottom, pushing it forward until he could get a couple fingertips under it, and while it stung, it allowed him to keep hold of the plate as he worked. Once he had it free he nearly lost it, but managed to get a hand far enough up the side to prevent it from tipping forward.

Setting the plate down gently with a sigh of relief, Mac got his first look at the catwalk.

The breath he'd just taken choked him.

It was every rusted catwalk over an enemy warehouse in every video game he'd ever played. There was one option that ran the entire perimeter of the gymnasium, with two very narrow, railing-less walks bridging the gap over the gym, one on his right and one on his left. The ones spanning the open space had only ceiling anchors holding them, whereas the perimeter walk was bolted to the wall and ceiling, and Mac knew which one he was supposed to take.

Murdoc knew he was afraid of heights. Sprint across the open space and hope for the best, or take the long way around the perimeter of the room. Speed or safety. Leap of faith.

Had he taken that extension cord down from the ceiling, he could have thrown a loop and pulled an Indiana Jones and avoided the whole thing, but he sure as hell wasn't going back for it now.

"I'm—I'm on a catwalk," he whispered, knowing the cadence of his breathing had changed and knowing Riley could hear it. "Over the gym. Trying to find a way across."

"Mac, hurry," Riley gasped in reply. She was trying to hide the panic welling up inside her, but Mac heard it anyway.

The blond agent swallowed, staring out at his options. He knew what the "right" answer was—cross one of the narrow, railingless catwalks to the other side—and he was sure one of them was actually perfectly safe.

Taking the perimeter route would take more time. He should cross one of the catwalks. But with how slow he'd have to go across the narrow paths to maintain his balance and composure...the perimeter might actually be faster. Never mind safer, since the perimeter catwalks had two anchor points and would be harder to sabotage.

Before he could point out to himself that he was just making excuses, he started making his way to the right around the perimeter, staying close to the wall and moving as quickly as he dared.

"I'm on my way," he reported quietly, still trying not to make much noise. The patient below him hadn't noticed him yet, and he hoped to keep it that way. "Just hang on; I'm on my way."

"Don't tell me t'jus...hang'on, Mac," Riley snapped, channeling her panic into anger. "In case y'missd it, tha...psychopath pudda...noose aroun' m'neck!"

"I'm aware, of that, Riles," Mac assured her, feeling his jaw tense up.

"Then hurry!"

Mac frowned to himself, but hurried along the catwalk, rounding the corner to walk along the short side.

He was about half way across when it happened.

When he took a step, the metal groaned loudly and jolted beneath his feet. For what felt like an eternity, Mac was frozen as the catwalk shuddered and swayed. He realized, almost detachedly, that a large section of the catwalk—a section he was currently about a quarter or a third of the way across—was about to give way. It wasn't until the metal beneath his feet dropped another inch or so that he snapped out of it enough to leap back towards the safety of the catwalk behind him. As he leapt, the walkway finally gave out, plummeting to the gymnasium floor with a tremendous crash that shook the walls. Mac barely managed to get the upper half of his body onto solid steel; his stomach slammed into the catwalk and his feet dangled helplessly until he grabbed one of the metal bars supporting the railing with his right hand. He dug the fingers of his left hand into a seam in the metal and dragged himself painfully upwards, collapsing onto his back.

The blond agent took a moment to catch his breath, coughing as he did so. It took him a second to realize that Riley was trying to get his attention.

"I'm okay," he assured her, rubbing his stomach as he stood up on shaky knees. The patient had noticed him now, obviously, and was below him, climbing all over the broken piece of the catwalk and yelling incoherently. He was slamming the pipe in his hands against the wall and the mangled catwalk. "The catwalk gave out; I'm gonna try to find another way across."

In response, the phone on his arm—still miraculously intact—buzzed insistently. He looked at it to find a single word.

Forward

Mac cursed under his breath, clenching his teeth and trying to maintain his composure. He looked out at the empty space in front of him where the catwalk had been and frowned. A section of roughly eight to ten feet had collapsed, and the railing on both ends was bent downwards. The edge of the catwalk in front of him looked a bit jagged and sharp where the weld had torn off.

This certainly wasn't going to be pleasant.

The blond agent took a second to think about his options, eyeing the distance he had to cross—and the distance he would fall before he hit the floor. If he had to guess, the catwalk was about twelve feet up—that much of a fall wouldn't necessarily kill him, but landing on the mangled remains of the catwalk might. And if it didn't, well...he almost certainly wouldn't survive a fight with the pipe-swinging mental patient waiting for him.

He had to jump. He had no other choice. A diving leap would be his best bet; even if he got a bad takeoff, he'd likely still be able to grab something. The section that fell had tugged the panel closest to him down a few inches, which was comforting; he wouldn't have to get much height. He just couldn't let himself think about it.

"Okay," he muttered to himself. "Okay. Okay, I can do this. I can do this."

He turned and jogged back a few feet, then spun to face the ledge. The agent aimed for a little farther than the edge of the remaining catwalk, counted to three in his head, then broke out into a sprint. When he reached the edge, he launched himself forward into the air with all his strength.

On the liftoff, he felt the metal beneath him give a couple inches, eating up a fair amount of the power he'd generated. His arms windmilled a couple times, and then he was falling.

His chin and sternum took the brunt of the impact, and it was sheer luck that he didn't bite off a chunk of his tongue as he scrambled to grab hold of something. He'd hit the catwalk at just below his collarbones, so he only had a split second for his hands to find their purchase. His left hand grabbed one of the bent railing support bars, and he clung to it for dear life as he dangled awkwardly above the gymnasium. He felt the fabric of his polo shirt snag and tear as his pitiful claim on the catwalk slipped away. Before he even processed what happened, his left hand was the only thing holding him up.

Gasping and fending off vertigo, Mac heard Riley trying to talk to him only in a vague sort of way. His attention was quite literally pulled when he felt a hand close around his pants near his right calf and yank on them. The agent nearly lost his grip, but his right hand flew up to grasp the support bar, and he looked down to find the pipe guy perched on the mangled catwalk, trying to pull him down to the gym below. Mac used his left foot to kick out at his attacker, and the man fell back with a shout, releasing him. Immediately, Mac turned his attention to trying to swing himself up.

Below, pipe guy picked himself up, retrieved the pipe he'd dropped, and scrambled around to Mac's other side. There was little Mac could do to brace himself when his attacker swung the pipe into his left knee with surprising force. The agent shouted in pain, gritting his teeth and looking up at the railing he was hanging from as it groaned. It wasn't designed to support a full person dangling from it, and with it bent as it was, he didn't have much time to spare.

The next hit from the pipe made contact with his left hip, and again he yelped, feeling his grip falter slightly. His heart slamming against his bruised sternum and lungs straining, Mac looked down and kicked the pipe away when it was swung at him again. Pipe guy actually seemed shocked, and Mac used the distraction to plant his left foot on the top of the man's head and push off, giving him the added momentum he needed to swing his leg up and over onto the catwalk. He bent his knee, pulling his lower body up until he could once again collapse onto the metal.

The blond agent groaned as he lay there gasping. His body was aching, with his knee and hip throbbing incessantly. His chin was bleeding pretty decently, and there were a few cuts on his chest.

But he was alive. He could still save Riley. That was all that mattered.

"I'm okay, Riles," he panted out at last, slowly and stiffly climbing to his feet. He used the hem of the polo shirt to put some pressure on his chin, pressing onward with a bit of a limp.

"Wha happnd?"

"Ah...I jumped across the gap," the blond man explained, moving with a mixture of caution and urgency. He didn't even realize that the box of paperclips he'd grabbed at the start of this game—what felt like months ago—had fallen out of his pocket until the patient below began throwing handfuls of the metal at him, to no real effect. A quick check of his pockets revealed that the pens were gone, too.

So much for preparedness.

"Didn't—didn't quite go according to plan. But don't worry; I'm on my way."

"...don'worry?!" he thought he heard Riley mutter incredulously as he limped across the catwalk to the opposite side. He wasn't totally sure; she was hard to hear over the angry screaming coming from under him. However, the patient and his pipe were no longer a threat, and Mac made quick, noisy work of prying the metal plate off the entrance to the other maintenance ladder and slipping his aching left leg into the space. He put an experimental foot on the ladder, shoving as hard as his knee would allow, and even though he'd been testing for it, he still flinched in surprise when the entire thing broke off its wall anchors and dropped a couple of feet to crash onto the floor. Even if he'd had his weight on it it wouldn't have hurt him—the ladder itself was still intact, and it wasn't like it had far to go.

Just a little extra love note from Murdoc.

"Still okay," he assured her with a grunt, trying to walk the base of the ladder back against the wall. "How are—you doing?"

"''s'tight," and he could hear the proof of that in her voice. "Di'you ser'ously jus' tell me 'don' worry?'" she added, still clearly hung up on it.

Mac grimaced a little and swung himself onto the ladder, waiting for it to tip and push his back against the other wall before he started down. It wasn't perfectly stable but the space was so small it didn't really matter. "Yeah. Sorry."

"I swear'd'god Mac, if'y'apol'gize one mor'time-"

"Try to stay calm," he interrupted, unable to completely keep the forbidden apology from his tone. "It's been about fourteen minutes since we got audio. Does it feel like the rate of tightening is constant, or—or is it happening in time with certain events?" Once back on terra firma, Mac pivoted in the tight space and got to work on hopefully the last metal plate he was going to have to move. His left knee was burning but it was holding—for now.

Riley was quiet in his ear, for so long that he nearly repeated himself. "Con'sn't." He heard her try to clear her throat. "But th' doors...tha's'appening when y'clear an ob's'cle."

Mac froze in the act of taking the panel off the wall. "What doors?"

He heard Riley take a rough breath. "Th'—whoever's'ere is geddin' closer...heard th'l'ck r'lease."

The patients she could hear banging on the doors. As he cleared Murdoc's little exercises, they weren't just beating down the doors. They were being let through.

Mac took a breath, to reassure her, to ask her how close they sounded—and the acrid stink of burnt flesh grabbed one hundred percent of his attention.

Sound was not a problem at this point—the falling ladder had made sure of that—but Mac still set the mental of the wall panel down gently, simply staring.

No one in the hallway cared either way.

It was a mirror of the hall he'd just come through, complete with another barricade, but this one had been breached from the outside in. It looked like a—a round ball of plasma had forced its way through, had bent and melted the metal bedframes and torched the warped wood furniture impossibly to make a smooth tunnel through the detritus.

The hallway tiles were buckled from the extreme heat. The ceiling had been partially melted. There were only five doors between the gymnasium and the burnt barricade, and four of them were melted closed. In front of each was the charred remains of what was meant to be the tenants.

Only that was impossible. The heat wouldn't have warped metal but left the rest of the barricade intact—the whole thing would have burned to ash. The amount of heat necessary to warp tiles or the subfloor would have burned through it. And the kind of heat needed to melt the doors would have left piles of carbon, not intact skeletons.

Having been to burnt-out buildings, the aftermath of bombs and incendiaries, he also knew that what he was smelling was raw meat that had been set on fire with gasoline, but it wasn't human.

This was definitely a set. A terrifying set, but a set nonetheless. With all the same details that tv shows and movies got wrong. And Murdoc would know that.

And with four doors melted shut, the fifth one—absolutely pristine—was clearly his destination.

Once he'd checked it for traps and found none, Mac let his hand hover next to the doorknob. "Riley, I'm going to open a door to the next section. Tell me if anything happens."

He heard a harsh exhale, Murdoc still had the battle music low. "Mac—th'thing'on'muh neck is geddin' tighder no'madder'whut. Move y'ur ass."

He knew she was right, so he tapped the doorknob—which didn't shock him—and then he turned it and pushed through.

It was a patient room, or at least it was meant to resemble one. Twin bed, immaculately made. Old timey dresser with a dingy white ceramic pitcher and bowl. Every available piece of wall and ceiling covered in hanging symbols of religion. There were Stars of David, triskelions, wheels of Dharma, Oms, a few Eyes of Horus, but the vast majority were the Christian cross. Some with Jesus, some without, in every size from tiny silver pendants to enormous plaster monstrosities.

Mac scanned the room, taking it all in, and then carefully crossed to the dresser. The pitcher on top contained what seemed to be clear water. He tried the first drawer and it didn't open, and when he tried the second he realized his error. Mac felt around the sides of the dresser a moment, and once he found a hinge, he started prying the other side open.

Instead of drawers pulling open, the entire face of the dresser opened from the side, like a cabinet. Inside was a plain, half-height locker, the kind you found in gym locker rooms the world over. Locked.

In his ear, he heard Riley struggle to swallow. "Y'through?"

"Yeah, uh—yeah. Think demons," and he quickly emptied his pockets of his two sets of keys. He tried the dead suit's keys first, since they were smaller. "Anything on your end?"

"...no." She didn't sound completely certain, and Mac frowned as the second key didn't fit either. "Wha'daya mean'demon?"

"Theme of the game," he said quickly, swapping to the janitor's keyring. "A demon took over a mental hospital, and it's up to the plucky alarm technician to avoid the patients and save the—damn it—innocent nurse that the patients think is controlling it."

The janitor's keys didn't fit either. Neither did the priest's.

"Lemme guess." Even strained and scared, Riley managed to put an edge of snark on it.

"Oh yeah," Mac confirmed, scowling at the locker a moment before attempting to rip it off the wall. It was bolted on like it meant it, and the dresser didn't budge either. "...Riles...I—"

"Foc's," she snapped in his ear. "Is'a game, yeah? Whaddaya see?"

"Uh." She was right, and Mac backed up, giving the room another look. "Patient room, gotta be...almost two thousand religions symbols, necklaces, mostly, hanging on all available ceiling and wall space. Twin bed—" and even as he described it he crossed to it, checking the pillowcase before ripping the sheets off. "And a dresser that's got a hidden locker in it. Need to find a key."

He thought uncomfortably of all the rooms and bodies he hadn't searched, but discarded that line of thinking immediately. He couldn't go back even if he could go back; Riley didn't have time. This seemed more like a themed challenge, almost like an—

"Escape room," he muttered aloud. "It's an escape room."

More confident now, Mac braced his good leg and tipped up the bedframe, and there, nestled between the mattress and the springs, was a well-worn piece of folded paper. Mac hurriedly fished it out and dropped the bedframe, turning to sink gingerly onto the mattress as he quickly unfolded it.

The Holy Spring guides the way to the Gates of our Salvation

"Crap, not this again," he growled to himself. "I found a clue." He read the paper to her, then inspected it for further clues, but there were none to be had. "That's all it says."

"Whadd'are...gates of 'alvashun?"

"The religious theme. A patient has taken on the role of Head Priest to save the true believers, and the Chosen One, who only he can identify, is going to lead them to the Gates of Salvation. Big surprise, I'm the Chosen One. I locked up the priest and his followers and I have his key, but it didn't work in this lock."

If Riley had questions about his summary, she kept them to herself. "Whaddabout...th' Holy Spring?"

Mac licked his lips, glancing around the room again. "Got a pitcher and washing basin. Holy Spring could be..." He glanced up at the ceiling. "...holy water...but there are way too many crosses to fit into one pitcher. Besides, what's the point," and even as he asked the question, he limped over to the pitcher and inspected it.

"Not a weight thing...there's no scale," and he could pick up both the pitcher and basin. "And I don't see what good water, or any fluid is going to do getting a lock open...unless it's an acid...or a lubricant—" He spun, taking in the room full of pendants. About half were metallic, another quarter wood, the rest either stone or resin—

"Y'said...y'already met th'pries'...did he'ave a cross?"

...had he? Mac squeezed his eyes shut and went to rub a sore spot on the bridge of his nose when he rediscovered the glasses. "Ah...uh, no, he didn't," Mac said slowly, and the more he thought about it, the surer he became. Even the chain with the key had been hidden in the generous folds of that robe. If he'd had a cross or rosary beads on him, Mac hadn't seen it.

Shit. Was it going to come down to some prop that one of the legitimately insane patients had tossed before he'd even had a chance to interact with him?

"K..." Riley coughed, and the end of it had a little wheeze to it. "Whaddabou'd th'room?"

"Chapel," he corrected absently. "It was a chapel, and it was supposed to be non-denominational..."

Except that giant candelabra. Hugely ostentatious and on an otherwise plain granite altar. Mac pictured the thing, when he'd grabbed a candle from it just for something to do—

Gold. Gilded. Three tiers—kinda Knights Templar from Indiana Jones vibe.

"You're a genius," he told her, immediately scanning for bright gold. There was plenty of it in the room, but it narrowed the scope significantly, and the cross of the Knights Templar was a very distinctive shape. He found it hanging on the wall, about three feet off the ground, and tore it free of its hook. The moment he touched it, he realized it wasn't metal; beneath the shiny paint it had a grainy texture.

"Here goes nothing," he murmured, then hurried back to the pitcher basin. He laid the large cross in the basin, then carefully poured water over it.

For a split second, nothing happened—and then the water penetrated the paint to the substrate beneath, and it began to foam. Mac stiffly hopped back but the reaction didn't foam out violently; it was closer to some kind of salt dissolving. And as it dissolved, a glint of silver caught Mac's eye.

"The key's inside the cross," he murmured, and actually reached towards it before he realized how incredibly stupid that was. For all he knew, that solution was an acid. As soon as the key was basically exposed, Mac grabbed his SAK and selected the pliers. He didn't get buzzered, and was permitted to fish out the metal and carry it to the bed, where he used the discarded sheets to carefully wipe it clean before he used his fingers.

Ten seconds later the locker was open.

Inside of it was a bomb.

Mac froze absolutely still the moment he realized what he was looking at. Trigger mechanism, processor, board, multiple resistors leading off to other, smaller boards that looked almost like Raspberry Pis. The entire thing was protected by a sheet of Plexiglass, with about an inch of space at the top to dangle tools into. The scent of vinyl wafted out of that gap, telling him exactly what kind of device he was dealing with.

Plasticized RDX. Back of the locker was probably packed with it. Enough to blow him and the entire area to kingdom come, and possibly destabilize the floor above.

This time it wasn't his breathing that tipped Riley off—it was the soundtrack, ticking up to over 130 beats per minute. Mimicking his racing heart.

"...thad...Mac, another'door—"

Damn it.

"Riley, how close are they?"

Her voice was nothing more than a strained whimper. "...close. Really—close."

This was a complicated bomb. Set up by a computer genius, clearly bluetooth and network attached. And with that plexiglass in the way he couldn't use his SAK, couldn't use any of his tools. It had to go first.

Mac still had his multitool in his hand, and the moment that hand twitched in the direction of the plexiglass, the gameshow buzzer went off.

"—Mac—"

"I'm okay," he said quickly, glancing at the phone. The crafting icon was once again crossed out, and the Pass button was available.

"—whud—"

"I'm not allowed to—improvise," he said quickly, inspecting the inside of the locker door for a clue. "It's how Murdoc's been keeping me from—from what he calls cheating. I have to use video game logic, not actual logic. If I try to solve a problem off-script, or use a pass..."

There was some kind of writing on the inside of the locker door, coded in more religious symbols. He was sure if he turned around he'd be able to find a pendant that looked like all of these symbols, and probably those pendants would—maybe magnets, to scramble or deactivate the Raspberry Pis, he'd have to dangle them through the gap in the plexiglass and get them to the right place in the right order.

Riley took another wheezing breath, and Mac curled his shaking fingers into fists. He knew what this was.

This was a problem that was supposed to force him to use a pass. To hurt Riley. Especially if there were loose patients in her vicinity. If she made a sound, they'd know exactly where to look, meaning the pass that was meant to buy him time would actually cost her time.

She was already having trouble speaking, having trouble breathing. He didn't have the time to do this the way it was intended to be done.

Mac stared at the bomb in front of him, at the design, trying to find a flaw. Murdoc was many things but he wasn't a bomb maker; that was why he'd acted as a distraction for the Ghost to set up the bomb under his house at Christmas. And this wasn't the Ghost's style, it wasn't elegant enough. It truly looked like a prop from a video game, it was all electronic components—

Mac blinked, and then he realized there was a very simple solution.

An actual solution.

...but did that constitute 'improvising'?

Murdoc had to figure out what Mac was going to do before he could judge whether or not it was allowed. The glasses were giving him a first person view, and of course there were cameras all around, but in this room, the cameras were probably slightly impeded by all the damn hanging things. Mac glanced off to the side, staring at the locker clue again, before he mashed the 'Cancel' button with a frustrated growl. He forced himself to his feet and cast his eyes up at the ceiling, as if looking for the right pendant.

As he shifted his weight, he casually brought both his hands up onto the top of the dresser, as if using it to stabilize himself. As soon as he was in the position he wanted, he half turned, putting his body between the dresser and the rest of the room, and without looking down, without so much as glancing at what he was doing, he silently picked up the basin of 'holy water' and tossed the contents into the dresser.

Some of the liquid splashed onto his hands, it was unavoidable, but the vast majority ended up sloshing right where he wanted it, into that one inch gap, soaking the electronics inside. There were a couple little pops, nothing nearly as flashy as it would have been in a video game, but the end result was the same. The board was dead.

Mac carelessly plopped the basin back on top of the dresser, and when he reached into the locker, he found that the plexiglass piece now swung open on concealed hinges. The 'bomb' also opened from hinges on the same side, and revealed a simple black lever. Mac blinked at it, then reached out a slightly reddened hand and grasped it. When he pulled it down, the locker, the dresser, and the wall shifted backward with a grind of cement on cement, and Mac straightened to find the secret door sliding away to reveal what looked like some kind of medical storage room.

The ball of plasma—or more accurately, the 'demon'—had clearly been through this room too, because it was blackened from some kind of blast, and ruptured tanks of various medical gases were hissing. Some were alight. Even as Mac warily crept closer, apparently a tank of oxygen had leaked enough O2 for the cloud to drift towards open flame—there was a small but powerful explosion that had Mac flinching back for the safety of the escape room.

The medical storage room was about twelve feet by twenty, and there was a pock-marked door on the other side. It was a relatively simple challenge.

Get across the room without getting burned or blown up.

In his ear, Riley gasped, clearly preparing to ask him something. Urge him to hurry. Encourage him. Waste what little oxygen she could get trying to help him.

Since a cloud of O2 had just ignited, the odds were as good as they were going to get. His body would displace air, might waft something else explosive towards those flames—

Without another thought, Mac ripped off the backpack and threw it towards the far door at roughly chest height. There were several fireballs, and then he held his breath—no telling what gasses these were, some could be anesthesia—and sprinted the same path.

Flames shot out at his left and he ducked his head, but he was moving too fast for it to do more than singe. In a few seconds he was through, and he barely had the presence of mind to snag one of the backpack straps before he slammed into the pockmarked door and threw it open.

Or tried to. It was bent in its frame, he had to drive his already aching shoulder into it to get it to budge. And this time he didn't need Riley's gasping cry in his ear. He could see clearly through the gap in the door.

There were people there. Patients.

Mac pulled back and rammed the door as hard as he could with his good shoulder; the metal screeched in protest but it gave enough for him to get an arm through the gap, and after that it was just a matter of bench-pressing the damn thing open enough to squeeze through. He was now in the treatment area of the wing, a hallway he didn't remember seeing from the security office but it didn't matter. It was a mess, medical carts overturned and a body dressed like a nurse that had been—

Mac let his eyes slide right over it, but the damage was done. Had been done to her, and real body or not, it was what was going to happen to Riley if the patients got hold of her.

Down the trashed hallway were double doors, the kind in every hospital the world over, and through them he could see three patients—all male—all gathered off to one side of the hallway. He was too far to see what they were pushing against, but he could hear the echo of the pounding in his own earpiece. If that wasn't Riley's room, it was damn close.

Too close.

Mac fumbled with the backpack, hurtling down the hallway and digging in his pocket for his security badge. Only when he got closer did he notice the flat badge reader panel was cockeyed. It still had power, the red light was on, but when he waved his security badge nothing happened.

Mac tried it again, then grabbed the reader, and it basically disintegrated into parts in his hand. Clearly it was meant to show him that the patients had broken it trying to get to Riley, and the mechanism had failed closed.

He punched the doors, shouting in frustration, and they didn't budge.

"C'mere! Hey, hey, over here!" he shouted, but none of the three so much as glanced at him, and he pounded hard on the doors again with his fist, barely feeling it.

Just like the freezer and Bozer. He could see but he couldn't get there.

And Murdoc wasn't going to let him cut a hole in the wall this time.

Mac searched the frame of the door frantically, there had to be a way, a video game way through, and that was when he noticed the flat push panels on the doors, the kind that allowed you open them by shoving into them with a gurney.

There was a round lock.

"Keys, keys," he muttered, fumbling with the rings. It was a small lock, maybe dead suit's keys— "Riley, I'm right here, just hang on—"

She wheezed in another breath, but whatever she said, he couldn't make it out.

The key slid into the lock smoothly, and turned on the first try. Mac pushed through the doors, just in time to see the three patients shoving through the next one.

It wasn't coincidence. Opening this door had triggered that one.

In his ear, he heard Riley force out a low, guttural yell. It was supposed to be threatening, but all he heard was fear.

That was her room.

He sprinted the ten or so yards, it was just enough distance that the door swung itself closed about two strides before he could get to it. Same situation—the security panel was damaged, and Mac didn't even try to use the badge. They were already on her, trying to rip her off the gurney, and Mac dug his numbed hand into his pocket, coming up with the priest's key.

This wasn't salvation.

He heard himself cry out, his fear welling up his throat, and jammed his hand back into his pocket, finally digging out the janitor's keyring. Three keys, he fumbled to get his weirdly tingling fingers to grab just one—

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

It was Jack's voice, soothing and calm, and it flipped just enough of a switch in his head that Mac was able to freeze, then carefully select a key. Use both his reddened hands to grasp the doorknob. To not look at what was happening inside.

The door was the obstacle he had to clear first.

And this key wasn't the right one.

He didn't look up, he didn't listen to Riley gasping, somehow audible over the soundtrack picking up tempo every second. Trying to force him to rush, make a mistake—

The second key was the right one, and the knob turned in Mac's hands.

He threw it open with a furious shout, as forceful as he could make it, and two of three men crowded around her gurney turned towards him. He didn't look at the bed. He didn't look at Riley. Beside the door was a cart he'd seen earlier in the video footage, and he knew there was a pair of old-fashioned electroconvulsive therapy paddles sitting there, heavy and metal. He grabbed one left-handed and swung from his hips.

The metal paddle struck the first guy on the crown of his skull; there was a crack and the man ragdolled. Mac used the momentum from the hit to pivot, putting his weight on his right leg and striking out at the next patient's knee with his left foot. The kick connected solidly, he saw the joint dislocate but didn't stop, and in the same motion he brought the paddle around again, striking the falling man in the face.

The force of the swing pulled Mac's weight onto his left foot and his hip buckled, sending Mac stumbling towards the wall. He had to drop the paddle to catch himself, pushing himself around to see the third patient was on the gurney, trying to yank Riley off of it by the neckline of her uniform and her hair. Her ankles and wrists were still tied down, but she was fighting him as much as she could—

Mac launched himself at the man with a shout of pure rage, barreling into his exposed side with his right shoulder, exactly the way Jack would have. He felt the man's ribs crack as they crashed into the wall behind Riley's bed, and then Mac straightened and threw a hard right hook at the stunned patient's temple.

There was blood on his fist when he pulled it back, but his hand was so numb he wasn't sure if it was his own or the patient's. The guy slid down the wall like a wet noodle, and then Mac turned to the gurney.

Riley's mouth was stretched open in a frantic attempt to breath, her eyes wide and wild, and there was blood on the pillow that had been knocked aside in the struggle. There was more of it, dribbling out from beneath the black choker, and Mac froze for a split second as he recalled how this had worked back when it was her mother that was being strangled right in front of them.

The mechanism had been inaccessible, he'd had to use the scissors on his swiss army knife, and he'd needed leverage to cut through the aircraft cable. The arms of the gurney might work if he had something to—

In front of him, Riley managed a high-pitched squeak, and he actually heard the mechanism click as it tightened again.

"Sorry, Riles," he muttered, and god did he mean it as he took her head in his hands and turned her face away from him, turned her onto her left shoulder so he could see. And there on the back of her neck, right where her skull met her vertebrae, was the box. Mac ripped the black ribbon choker away so he could see, the cable was already cutting into her skin.

The mechanism was a simple metal box, held closed with a single screw, and Mac swore and went for his swiss army knife. His fingers were shaking but he got the driver bit extended in a few seconds, and got to work. Riley arched against him, frantically trying to breath, and he clenched his jaw and set his right shoulder against her back, pinning her on her side to keep her from moving.

"I'm sorry, Riles, I'm so sorry, almost done, just a few more seconds—" He didn't know what he was saying, he didn't know if it was helping. The screw was impossibly long, it took an eternity to get it out and pull the cover off to find a simple ratcheting gear, an axle, and the spool of cable.

Unlike Diane's, this one was intact and he jammed the screwdriver bit into the rachet, raising the gear, which allowed the cable spool to turn easily. He gave the entire mechanism a yank, he knew it would dig the cable deeper into Riley's skin but it was the only way to loosen the cable since he had to hold the screwdriver bit in place. It worked, and the cable spool spun until it ran out of cable, and then it was over.

Mac tossed the device over his shoulder, quickly leaning up and unwrapping the cable from around her neck as Riley coughed and gagged. She was bleeding, but it didn't look like the cable had cut deeply enough to hit her jugular or carotid, and then he followed the smears of blood down her throat to her chest, and saw that the already low-cut uniform had lost a couple buttons. He averted his eyes instantly and focused his attention on her nearest wrist.

"You're okay, Riley, you're okay, I've got you, just breathe." The medical restraints were old and leather, but easy enough to unbuckle, and Mac hurried around the gurney, releasing them in turn. The second he got both her ankles free she curled up on herself, still lying on her left side, still coughing and gasping. When Mac got around to the left side of the gurney he slowed down a little, offering his hands palm out, and she started fumbling with the last restraint by herself.

"Hey, Riley, hey. It's okay. I can do it," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. She answered him with a sob, and he heard one of her fingernails snap, but she did it herself. The second she was free she curled that arm to her chest as well, holding the torn uniform closed with trembling hands.

Mac took a shuddering breath of his own, then straightened so he wasn't looming over her, and took a quick look around the room to give her a moment. The three patients he'd taken down were down. He could only see the one, the one whose knee he'd dislocated, and his stomach clenched uncomfortably as he realized exactly how hard he'd hit him.

How hard he'd hit all of them.

"Just breathe," he heard himself say, his voice still believably steady while his entire body started to tremble. He almost flinched when she shifted on the bed, hesitantly pushing herself up, and he reached out cautiously to help her, and then he suddenly had his arms full of Riley Davis.

Mac held her as tightly as he dared, sinking onto the mattress beside her, and for a few seconds the only thing they did was breathe. Even though he wasn't the one who had almost been strangled to death, his chest was tight and he felt a little lightheaded.

"Just breathe," he repeated softly, and Riley sucked down a loud, ugly sob. He sat there with her as long as he dared, until she seemed to regain at least part of her composure, and then he loosened his grip a little, judging her reaction. "Easy, take your time."

She swallowed loudly, her face buried in his neck. "...we don'ave it." The fact that she was still slurring made Mac really study the equipment around her bed, but the patients had done a bang-up job of ripping all the leads off her, and he didn't see any IVs or bags of liquid.

"For this we make time," he told her simply, carefully running a hand up and down her trembling back. "I'll take care of anyone who comes through that door."

She sniffled, loudly in the relative silence, and only then did Mac realize that the soundtrack wasn't going anymore. He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but he used the silence and lack of anxiety-inducing music to try to visualize the map of the hospital in his head. "How do you feel? Do you think you can walk?"

"Y-yeah." He felt her nod quickly into his neck, then pull away, and he let her. Her left hand was still clutching the torn neckline of the dress closed, and Mac deliberately didn't look at her hands, deliberately didn't permit the camera on his glasses to see.

"Let's get that fixed, yeah?"

Without waiting for her to agree he stood, favoring his left hip as he bypassed the two patients on the floor and checked out that cart. Besides the other paddle, there were the standard boxes of latex gloves, tubes of electrode gel, tongue depressors, ball cotton that was already bloody—

Mac blinked, watching another drop bleed out of the cotton balls, and then he reached up and touched his chin. His numb fingertips came away bloody.

Frowning and pressing the aforementioned cotton to his face, Mac continued hunting around and in an empty antiseptic wipe box, he found a handful of paper clips.

"...that's fucking hilarious," he spat venomously, but he grabbed them anyway. Just because they were a wink from Murdoc didn't mean they weren't useful.

And Murdoc didn't buzzer him as he returned to the gurney, where Riley had sat up and was massaging her scalp, her eyes wet and narrow.

"Uh, stab one end of these into the fabric where the buttons were, then you can run them through the buttonhole and twist them down." He was proud that his hand was steady as he held them out, and Riley dropped her eyes to them and stared for a second before she accepted them.

Again, Mac averted his eyes, moving to stand guard at the foot of the gurney. This lull wasn't going to last forever.

"Wha's'wit'the glazzes?"

Mac continued applying pressure to his chin, glancing down to see about his chest. Not that he had any gauze or tape, just cotton balls. Nothing he could use to bandage up her throat, unless he made a cotton ball necklace and used the choker to tie it down. Somehow he figured Riley wouldn't go for that. "First person camera. Not allowed to take them off. Can't even get punched in the face," he added, knowing that she just needed to hear someone's voice while she did what she was doing. "Murdoc has spares staged throughout the hospital just in case."

"...y'know y'got a black eye," she told him, still shakily, and he listened to the sounds of the cheap fabric rustling.

"Probably." From the glasses getting crushed into his face, or maybe from the generator chassis. "Got a phone, too, acts as a head's up display. Pretty sure you're not allowed to have it," he added, just in case that was her next question. "It's how he gives me objectives, and how I was able to get your camera feed and find you."

Riley made a small noise of frustration, then coughed, and Mac forced himself not to turn, to keep an eye on the eerily empty hallway. He heard her slide off the gurney, then the sound of her bare feet slapping on the tile. Even without turning it sounded unsteady to him, when she was even with his shoulder, he turned just in time to catch her. Her right arm was still wrapped around herself but at least the dress was more or less covering everything again. She winced when his hand closed around her right bicep, and he realized fingerprint sized bruises were starting to become visible on her arms and legs. "Sorry," he told her softly, adjusting his grip so he was sure he wasn't hurting her. "Do you need a minute?"

She gave him a stilted shake of her head, then the arm holding herself reached up and gently touched her neck. He opened his mouth to offer the cotton ball necklace, or even just ripped up sheets, and she cut him off before he could speak.

"Izz'fine." Her voice was a little stronger, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were dark not with fear but with anger, so much so that he almost flinched. "Whuh's th'next objective?"

It was like Murdoc had simply been waiting. The phone vibrated on his arm, and Mac angled it so they could both see.

Objective: Escape the hospital


Almost there! One more piece before the exam is over. All written up, just needs some edits. Hope you guys are getting excited! I definitely am.

As always, thank you to Haven126 for her undying support and also for writing most of this exam.

I hope you enjoyed, and don't forget to review!