“Shut up! Shut up!” I scream over the gunfire. “Everything was a lie? You only told me that so I wouldn’t warn Kaloaan?” 

“Yes exactly!” she cackles. “I’m lesbian, do you think I would ever fuck you? Even if I wasn’t, you’re the least attractive creature alive! You’re ribs look like a bird cage and you smell like a compost bin! Even a rat wouldn’t settle for a scarecrow!” 

“For what?” I holler. I point the gun she gave me back at her. “Zorikan failed. You fucking failed! What did this achieve? We’re all going to die now because of his fucking power trip and you all indulging him! You think you’re fighting a system when you’re just emulating it! Fucking ants!”  

Deqar barrels into the bathroom, just as a flurry of bullets rip through the open door, tearing it off its top hinge. He sees me pointing the gun at Skarisa as she’s bleeding out on the ground. He aims at me. “Ha, you just found out. Took you long enough,” he says under his ragged breath. He’s bleeding in six places.  

I shift my pistol to him.

Skarisa pulls her pistol up, reloading it and pointing it at me. Her movements are sluggish. The pool of blood expands. 

“You’re not going to use that thing. I can tell how weak you are under all your muck and grime,” Deqar sniggers. 

My finger twitches on the trigger. “You want to fucking try me? We’re all dead anyway, thanks to this bitch.” I look at Skarisa. “How does it feel knowing you died having failed? You’re precious bdsm daddy got all of you killed because his information was wrong and the bomb wasn’t here?” 

As I look away, Deqar pulls the trigger. 

The bullet hits the barrel of my pistol, knocking it from my hands, and deflects to the left, grazing my shoulder. “Alright now calm down, runt,” he says, setting his rifle down, grabbing a stimulant shot from a shelf and implanting it into Skarisa’s thigh. 

She screams, her nails digging into his saggy skin. 

“Are you going to help or not?” he asks, grimacing as she draws blood with her talons. “Hand me that cable, we need to stop the bleeding.” 

I kick him straight in the face, knocking him backwards. He almost falls out the door. A bullet shaves a shred off his mohawk before he grabs the door frame and pulls himself back in. I land a punch, this one in his gut. 

“Fucking…” his words trail off as he pushes off the back wall, tackling me. He rams me into the disinfectant sink. Blunt force trauma explodes across my side as my ribs nearly crack. I try to swing at his face but he’s pinning me down, and I only land a pathetic slap. 

Why is he so fucking strong? I grunt, trying to move but he leans back a second and head buts me directly between the eyes. 

I feel my brain jostle, slamming against the back of my skull. I crumple to my knees. What is happening? How did I end up here? 

Vaguely, I can hear officers shouting. “I think we’ve got most of them, only one left. We can charge through and clean this up.” 

Firida responds. “Good. On ten. Don’t discriminate. We know the chief’s brother is in there, better get him now then have to deal with him later. Bullet in the head so the chief knows it was painless.” 

Deqar grabs rips the cable from the shelf and ties it around Skarisa’s leg. “We’ve got about five seconds,” he says. “Do you have the schematics? Do we have a way out?” 

Skarisa winces, face twisted. “No… they’re with Varan.” 

My vision is blurry, but I can see the pistol. I try to stand, wobbling, and stumble to it. I pick it up. There’s a dent in the barrel. But it will still work, right? Steadying myself with a shelf, I try to aim at him. My hand sways. I try to blink my vision clear but its not working. Is my brain bleeding? Is the blood pouring into my eyes? They’ll burst and my brain will pour out my ears… “Gonna kill you…” I mutter. “Gonna kill you, then her, then them…” I try to hold the gun up. Deqar’s purple head is my target.  

Someone hollers from across the room. Varan. He’s still pinned behind one of the bombs. “Blue coat fuck heads!” he shouts. “I hope you understand that I am behind an infernal fission reactor.”

 I hear the sound of a sheet being ripped off. 

“Your dumbass engineer left both patch keys on his desk! Do you know what happens when I activate this?” 

“Don’t be an idiot, kid,” Firida says. “You don’t want to know what it’s like to die to one of those. Your eyes boil before your skin melts and your lungs pop.” 

“Exactly. But I’m already dead.” 

I hear a clink. 

“That was the first key!” 

Deqar finishes working on Skarisa’s leg. “Good. I’m gonna need you to stand, alright?” He glances back, seeing my wobbly arm pointing the pistol at him. He ignores me. 

Skarisa nods. She slings her arm over his shoulder and he lifts her onto her functional leg. She hisses like a kettle. I’m still pointing the pistol at them. They don’t seem to care. 

“Kid, be reasonable,” Firida presses. “We’re behind this vault door. The armory is designed to contain machinery failures. It will incinerate you and your friends, but it’ll just be a day in the hospital for us.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, fuck face. You shattered the glass with your bullets. The fumes from this will seep all the way up to the highest floor. Everybody’s getting burnt to a crisp.” 

“Stop your bluff, kid, we know what you’re trying to do.” 

“I’m insane enough to rob these barracks, you think I’m not willing to do this?” 

Another officer is tapping her shoulder. “Deputy, he’s serious. I can see the desk from here, the keys are gone. You know how careless Zepista was. This will be more than bad.” 

Firida mutters orders under her breath. “Radio the chief. No shots fired until he responds, ok? None.” 

“Now,” Varan urges. 

Deqar moves as fast as possible, carrying half of Skarisa’s weight. They exit the bathroom, heading for the opposite door of the armory. 

My head still spinning, I watch them as they move almost in slow motion. I see Varan, crouched behind the fire bomb. He has no keys in his hands, only a lock pick which he’s stuck in between two pipes. “Move, idiot! Go! Now!” 

I stumble after them, gun still in hand. 

Deqar reaches the door. It is unlocked from the inside. He pushes it open. I follow, and Varan explodes after us, sliding through just as the blast door locks shut behind us. 

Deqar’s comm crackles from his belt. 

Varan snatches it. “Blueberry’s rotten,” he says. 

“No its not,” Eresek responds through the com. “Get out the way we came in, if you can, get to the alley on the far side of the unloading dock.” 

We begin up the stairs, as fast as we can go. Skarisa drapes her other arm around Varan. She’s smiling. No, she’s grinning. “Blueberry’s not even rotten,” she giggles. 

“Give me the gun if you’re not going to use it,” Deqar says. 

I want to kill him. I give him the gun. 

We’re quick, but it feels like walking through molasses. Only one officer is coming our way from above, and Deqar blasts them without hesitation. 

Firida called them all to that side of the armory. Ha. Hahaha. Ha… 

We reach the door to the unloading dock. Skarisa scans her eye and it opens. 

She could’ve done that the whole time. I thought that we had used my eye because she didn’t want them to know that she was a cop. But they had known the whole time. They used mine because they didn’t want me to know that they all already knew she was a cop. Or rather, pretending to be one. I thought I fucking had them. 

We squeeze around the streetsweeper. Varan hops on the control panel, opening the door. It’s now fully morning. The sun beaming bright grey through the blanket of clouds. A symphony of sirens wailing in the distance as reinforcements rush. 

“What did he say? Far side of the loading dock?” Deqar asks as we move down the sidewalk. A pedestrian walking a robotic dog stops, seeing us. They pull out their phone and begin recording. 

“Yeah, that’s here,” Varan confirms, turning to the left. There is an alley wedged between the loading dock and the massive industrial processing plant to the left. Zorikan stands like a chiseled statue at the end of the alley. Rieka is by his side, carrying a duffle bag. 

Really? Right next to the fucking police station? We couldn’t move at least a fucking block away? 

Deqar and Varan help Skarisa down. She’s grinning maniacally. “The blueberry’s not even rotten! Ha, see Kallix? You must always trust in the Shark.” 

Zorikan is staring at me with his ghastly, pale eyes. His dark skin is even darker in the shadows. His grey, sleeveless hoodie is unstained. His one silver earring hangs, unmoving. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I groan, pressing my hands to my eyes. “That was a mess. We got completely fucked over and the EMP wasn’t even there.” 

Zorikan shakes his head. “No. That was essential. The EMP was being moved discretely to East Side to be used in the war zone in the dunes. I needed all the attention here in West Side, in order for us to slip in and take it.” 

Rieka shoulders the duffle back. 

“This is how you treat your own people? And you respect this monster?” I ask, incredulous. “We got torn apart!” 

He shakes his head again. “Eresek and Yuli are being patched up right now. Oresek was captured yes, but since he’s the only one, he’ll be kept alive for questioning. I’ve planted a bomb in the vehicle that is carrying him to the facility. The detonator is in his tooth. He’ll be fine. The lot of you are all ok. Thank you, Skarisa, Deqar, Varan… fantastic work.” 

“There wasn’t even a single casualty?” Varan sighs. “That’s incredible. This is huge.” 

“No. There is one casualty.” Zorikan pulls out a pistol from his pocket and loads it. 

All of their eyes, slowly drift to me. 

Shit. 

The alley walls are smooth. There’s a dumpster but its behind Zorikan. Maybe if I can get to the back of the building there could be a way, but I’d have to go through him. If I go back the way we came I can alert the police… but I’ll be dead before I can scream. 

“That was very useful, Kallix, but unfortunately, that’s the last I’ll be needing from you.” 

“You really want to do this here? Jeopardize all your guys with a gunshot that will tell all the police that you’re right next to them?” 

“You’re brother will be next, if that’s any concern to you.” 

“And I’ll get to kill him, right?” Skarisa breathes, leaning her head against his leg. She holds him like how I held her on the streetsweeper. 

“If all goes to plan. As it always does.” He raises the gun, pointing it at me. 

I look at Deqar. At Varan. They’re both looking at the ground. 

Rieka is looking me straight in the eyes. I can’t read her expression. She’s not sad. Not nearly. I’d rather die looking at her than Zorikan. She holds my gaze. Nobody can ever hold my gaze. 

“And my dad?” 

“Don’t need him anymore, but he knows too much to keep alive.” 

I sigh. “Yeah… fair enough.” 

Zorikan pulls the trigger. 

Skarisa’s skull rips open. One of her eyes pops. Blood splatters from her mouth and she collapses to the side. 

Deqar and Varan flinch, leaping inside their skin. 

Zorikan wipes Skarisa’s cranial blood from the barrel of the pistol. “The police have her DNA. They have her eye scan. The skylight drones can track her not from a device, but from her brainwaves. She’s no longer an asset to us. Keeping her would’ve compromised the group. Letting her go would’ve risked her capture, and she has far too many of our secrets for that to be an option. She was a great Swifter. One of the best.” 

My breath is gone. The sirens grow loud, but I can’t even hear them. I only see this beautiful person, with pieces of her skull scattered on the ground. Her forked tongue is hanging between her red teeth. “You kill your own people as well…” 

“Not because of that. Those factors made her a risk. Her skills, in my opinion, outweighed her risk. I killed her because my I could feel it in my gut. It was the right thing to do. If you wish to continue working with us, Kallix, you will need to learn how to trust your the unconscious signals.” 

I can’t even speak. How can words respond to this level of depravity? My breath hitches. I can feel my blood boiling. 

“The unconscious force is powerful, Kallix. It knows everything. It will speak to you if you learn to listen. When it does, you must trust it. That feeling in your stomach comes from a more divine place than your brain can access.” 

“My gut is telling me to kill you,” I shout, at last. 

He holds the gun by its barrel, offering it to me. 

I snatch it, and point it at him. 

“Are you able to trust it, Kallix? Can you hear it whispering without words? No matter what you’re thinking, no matter what you want, there is something else guiding you. Can you feel it? Can you follow it?” 

I check that he didn’t turn the safety off, or jam the gun. No. It’s fine. I aim, hands slippery with blood and sweat. The sirens grow closer. The cops inside the barrack heard the gunshot. They’ll be here in seconds. 

I don’t care.

I’ll take a lifetime in jail if I can kill this creature in exchange.

Zorikan turns to the others. “See? He’s unable to. If any of you wanted to kill me, you wouldn’t stand there, jittering like an epileptic.” 

I pull the trigger. 

There’s no bullet. The magazine is empty. 

Zorikan smiles. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him smile. His teeth are perfectly lined and white. His left canine replaced with silver. “My gut tells me that you are true. My gut tells me that you’re not like the other wretches of this city. That’s why I’m alive, because I believe in your ability to follow through, Kallix.” He takes the gun back from me. 

Rieka opens a manhole. “We’re pushing it, time to go.” 

Zorikan nods. “I’m not going to ask you to come with us, but I will have a job for you in the future. You won’t be able to refuse. I look forward to then. We are the sculptors of this new city. A free horizon awaits us. Here.” He tosses my pills onto the ground, along with a stack of credits that skitter apart. “That’s your cut.” 

Deqar, Varan and then Zorikan climb down. Rieka looks at me one last time, giving me a nod, and then follows them down.