Taking a firm grip on Brigid’s arm, Kane raced along the walkway, followed in close formation by Grant, firing the Copperhead ahead of him. The howling hybrids in their path were driven to the rails, and they slipped over, preferring the thirty-foot drop to facing the crazed humans in the narrow confines of the catwalk. The floor plates were slippery with blood and viscera, and Kane booted several corpses out of his way.
When they sprinted past the two-tiered generator, Kane briefly considered planting the rest of his grens around it, but since he had no idea if the explosive loads would have any effect or an apocalyptic one, he discounted the notion.
A group of hybrids danced after them at a discreet distance, a hurried babble of hate-filled words rising from their tongues. They heard a few faint hums, and once the walkway under their feet vibrated strangely, but the range for the ultrasound weapons was too great to have any meaningful effect.
When they reached the booth, Grant paused inside of it while Kane and Brigid made their way out into the hallway. From his bag, he took a pair of flares, shut his eyes and snapped the rods in half. A blinding violet-white light splashed the room with an eerie luminescence. The blaze of light was so intense that even through Grant’s visor and closed eyelids, it registered.
He tossed them against the hanging decam coveralls, and the old material ignited immediately. Before Grant rushed through the opposite door, flame flashed throughout the booth. He had reached the same conclusion about the creatures’ sensitivity to high light levels, and he prayed the fire and the near-blinding incandescence of the flares would discourage further pursuit.
He rejoined his companions halfway up the ramp. Because of his broken wrist, Kane had trouble clambering over the turnstile. His feet caught in the prongs and dumped him unceremoniously to the floor, but he shook off Brigid’s helping hands and started running again. All three were gasping and aching when they reached the landing. Fortunately the bulkhead was still open.
They staggered up the stairwell and, forgetting their earlier caution, clung to and hauled themselves up by the handrails. The door was unlocked as they left it, and as they entered the dim corridor on Level Four, Kane heard the distant whine and hydraulic hiss of an elevator.
“On their way by the elevator,” he gasped out. He checked his chron. “Let’s hope they don’t arrive in the next two minutes.”
They turned the corner and saw the open door of the control room. Approaching the door from the opposite direction was a group of small, pale figures. The two groups saw each other at the same time.
The three of them surged forward in a wild rush. Grant snapped off a couple of shots, aiming into the press of bodies, hoping to knock down his targets and trip up others. The hybrids kept coming, voicing sobbing laughs.
One of the hybrids outpaced the others and waved a silver wand over his head like a saber, racing bravely forward. Suddenly, with a spurt of speed, Brigid bounded ahead, head back, leg pumping. The pair met in the corridor when they were abreast of the open door.
The hybrid slashed down with the wand, its point aiming at her. She left her feet in a long dive, her shoulders catching the smallish hybrid at ankle level, smashing him sideways, bouncing him off the doorjamb and sending him careening into the room. She pounced atop him, wrestling with him for the rod.
She got the heel of one hand under the hybrid’s pointed chin and threw all her weight into a sharp push. There came a snapping sound, and the hybrid’s grip on the wand weakened. Brigid wrenched it from his hand, turned it and touched the left side of his head with the humming, vibrating tip.
His skull collapsed where the point touched. A small, perfectly round hole was punched through the epidermal layers, splintering the bones, liquefying and blowing most of his brains through his tiny right ear.
Kane and Grant shouldered their way into the room, sending covering fire down the corridor. Kane back-kicked the door shut behind them, and Grant wrestled a heavy chair across the floor, jamming the back beneath the knob.