shook his head. “Barriers can be blown up, if one managed to get inside. After that blast, I doubt any of the barriers are intact.”
The corpses stumbled in our direction, slack mouths open wide. Brynner drew his daggers and sprinted for them, burying his daggers in one after the other, but the wisps of smoke that came up looked more like steam than the clouds of darkness from the ones I’d seen before. He ran back to me, reaching into the bag. “Take this.”
He handed me the box of chocolate-covered scorpions.
Which felt quite heavy. I threw the box top off and found a Deliverator inside.
“They’re all special rounds.” Brynner took my hand for a moment, looking straight into my eyes. “Make sure if you point it at someone, they’re already dead. Otherwise, you’ll have to shoot twice. Once to kill them, once to keep them that way.”
As he pushed into the stream of frightened people leaving the building, I shouted, “Where are you going?”
“The nursery is on the second floor.” He pointed to the field. “Guide the evacuation, move everyone away from the building, and keep them safe. I’m going to make sure the nurses can get everyone out.” He disappeared, using sheer strength to swim upstream in the frantic crowd.
“Move,” I yelled, forcing myself to stand tall and act braver than I felt. “Move in a line, no shoving, no pushing. Proceed to the far end of the parking lot as fast as you safely can.”
After what seemed like an eternity, the gush of people in the emergency exit slowed, and my first nurse appeared, holding two babies in a sling and one in each arm. I grabbed her for a moment. “How many more are up there?”
She looked at me, her eyes wide. “They’re everywhere.”
“Babies. How many more babies?” I looked into her eyes, willing her to answer.
“Six. The other nurse will bring them. If she’s not—” A second explosion rocked the building. The nurse shrieked, throwing herself to the ground. “There’s oxygen tanks in there.”
I watcher her rise and run for the field. When I turned back to the stairwell, a nightmare waited.
A bloated, burnt corpse staggered out of the stairwell, one side charred to ash.
If I’d watched that nurse two seconds longer, I might have died. I stumbled backward, then set my stance and brought the gun to bear, lining up for a chest shot.
It stopped, wavering back and forth, then opened its mouth, splitting the skin on its cheek. “Grace Roberts. Come with me. Bring the books.” This voice was different. A different Re-Animus.
I shot it and kicked the body out of the way. Hearing my name spoken by co-orgs would have left me stunned if it weren’t for more pressing matters. Even if the nurses got the other babies out, what about the patients in the cancer ward?
Of course, if the Re-Animus was truly interested in me, the safest thing to do might be to flee, drawing the dead away from the hospital. What had I said to Brynner about running away?
I had a field team badge. Received field operative pay, and had a teammate missing inside the building. I ran for the remains of the emergency entrance. Where the security door stood, a naked man wandered, dazed.
He flailed at me, but I avoided him and ran for the nearest stairs. In the hallway, one of the nurses who treated me stumbled out, a metal rod driven through her chest. “Grace Roberts, come back,” said the same voice through her lips. A different voice than the one on the farm. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot her, even though I knew she was gone.
I dashed up the stairs to the second floor, where the fire sprinklers doused everything, keeping the flames at the end. Every crib lay empty, but from the sounds of crashing metal and breaking glass, I wasn’t alone.
I didn’t flinch as I shot the doctor who was missing most of his face and arm, not even when he mouthed my name. Beyond the neonatal ward, a crowd of corpses pressed in, hands outstretched.
In the middle of them stood Brynner, his daggers flying, leaping from side to side, on top of dead co-orgs. I picked two on the outside and shot them.
They stopped, letting Brynner tear into the nearest ones, and the crowd turned toward me. In one voice, they spoke. “Grace Roberts.”
“Get out of here,” yelled Brynner. “Get out and stay out.”