The Rigging

  Marcus unspooled the heavy canvas utility webbing, his breath pluming in the freezing air of the roof.

  "Six hundred pounds of dead weight," the former Peacekeeper muttered, looping the thick nylon straps under the base of the hazard-yellow tank. "If the center of gravity shifts even an inch while we're on the stairs, it’s going to pull Thomas backward. And if Thomas goes backward, we all go down."

  Thomas didn't say anything. The cybernetic giant was kneeling next to the tank, his massive steel arms still steaming faintly from the extreme cold exposure. He positioned himself with his back against the frosted cylinder.

  "Pull it tight, Marcus," Thomas ordered, his voice a low, mechanical rumble.

  Marcus threw the straps over Thomas’s broad shoulders and locked the heavy titanium carabiners across the giant's chest. He pulled the webbing taut. The canvas groaned, stretching under the immense tension.

  "Locking servos," Thomas announced.

  The hydraulic pistons in Thomas’s legs whined with a high-pitched, agonizing frequency. Slowly, the giant stood up.

  The tank cleared the concrete. Thomas’s heavy steel boots sank a quarter of an inch into the roof's waterproof membrane under the sheer, concentrated weight. The synthetic muscles in his back bulged beneath his ruined skin, fighting the brutal downward pull.

  Elias watched from a few feet away, leaning heavily on his rebar cane. He felt completely useless. His ribs were a cage of fire, and his vision was swimming with dark, exhausted spots. "Can you balance it?" Elias asked, his voice rough.

  "The load is... acceptable," Thomas grunted, his jaw tight. "But my center of mass is severely compromised. I cannot pivot quickly."

  "You don't need to pivot," Marcus said, clicking on his tactical flashlight. "You just need to walk in a straight line, turn at the landing, and repeat. Fifty times. Let's move before the internal heaters in your legs burn out from the strain."

  Elias grabbed the edge of the roof's access door, holding it open.

  Marcus stepped into the pitch-black stairwell, shining the beam down into the abyss. Thomas followed, turning sideways to fit his massive, burdened frame through the doorway. The hazard-yellow tank scraped against the steel doorframe with a sound that made Elias’s heart stop—a loud, screeching SKRRRRK.

  Thomas froze. Marcus whipped the flashlight back up.

  The tank was fine. The valve was intact.

  "Clearance is tight," Marcus whispered, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Watch the walls, big guy."

  Elias followed them in, letting the heavy door click shut behind him. The freezing air of the roof was instantly replaced by the stale, suffocating gloom of the emergency stairwell.

  The Ticking Clock

  The descent began. It was a masterclass in agonizingly slow repetition.

  Marcus walked backward, two steps below Thomas, keeping the flashlight focused on the giant's boots to ensure perfect footing. Thomas descended one step at a time. Both feet on the step. Pause. Then the next.

  Clank. Squeak. Clank. Squeak.

  The sound of the heavy metal boots hitting the grating, followed by the terrifying groan of the canvas straps, became the only rhythm in the world.

  Elias trailed behind them, gripping the rusted handrail with his left hand and leaning on the rebar with his right. He was moving slower than the giant. His body was shutting down. The adrenaline had burned out hours ago, leaving only the systemic shock of his fractured ribs and the massive bruises covering his torso.

  Floor 40. Floor 30.

  By the time they reached Floor 25, the air in the stairwell felt completely devoid of oxygen.

  "Stop," Marcus commanded sharply, holding up a hand.

  Thomas halted instantly, his leg servos locking with a loud hiss. The giant was sweating profusely, the organic skin of his face pale and drawn.

  Marcus shined the light at the main valve of the LN2 tank protruding over Thomas’s shoulder. A faint, white mist was beginning to leak from the brass fitting.

  "The purge valve," Marcus whispered, his eyes wide. "The vibration from the steps... it’s loosening the seal."

  Elias forced himself to hurry down the half-flight of stairs, biting back a groan as his boots hit the landing. He looked at the leaking mist. The temperature in the immediate vicinity of Thomas's head was dropping rapidly. Frost was beginning to form on the giant's collar.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "If that valve blows in here," Elias wheezed, "the liquid hits the ambient air. It expands instantly. The gas displaces the oxygen. We suffocate before we can even run up a single flight."

  The Stranger flickered into existence, hovering over the railing, staring blankly at the leaking valve. "PROBABILITY OF CATASTROPHIC RUPTURE INCREASING BY 4.2 PERCENT EVERY SIXTY SECONDS. THE THREADS ARE COMPROMISED."

  "I have to tighten it," Marcus said, reaching for his utility belt. He pulled out a heavy steel wrench. "Hold absolutely still, Thomas."

  Marcus stepped up onto the stair right next to Thomas. He reached over the giant's shoulder, securing the wrench onto the brass fitting of the purge valve.

  "Brace," Marcus warned.

  Marcus pulled. The metal shrieked.

  For a terrifying second, Elias thought the brass had sheared off entirely. The white mist puffed aggressively—and then stopped completely.

  Marcus slumped against the cinderblock wall, exhaling a long, shaking breath. "It's seated. The threads caught."

  Thomas let out a slow, rumbling breath. "We need to accelerate the descent. My hydraulic fluid is overheating. I am losing torque in my left knee."

  Elias looked down the dark shaft of the stairwell. Twenty-five floors left. "Go," Elias ordered, his voice cold and hard. "Don't stop again. Even if I fall behind. Do not stop."

  The Ground Floor

  Floor 10. Floor 5.

  Elias was practically dragging his right leg now. His vision had narrowed to a tiny, blurry tunnel. He could hear the Stranger’s voice in his ear, a constant, static murmur listing his failing vital signs, but Elias ignored it. He just watched the bobbing beam of Marcus’s flashlight below him.

  Finally, the beam hit a heavy steel door marked "01".

  Thomas didn't wait for Marcus to open it. The giant kicked the fire bar with his right boot. The door slammed open, rebounding against the marble wall of the lobby.

  Light. Grey, miserable, beautiful ambient light.

  Mara was waiting. She had dragged a heavy-duty, four-wheeled industrial flatbed cart from the loading docks into the center of the ruined lobby.

  "Over here!" she yelled, her voice echoing off the bullet-scarred marble pillars.

  Thomas lumbered forward, his leg servos grinding with an awful, metal-on-metal screech. He reached the cart, turned his back to it, and dropped to one knee.

  Marcus unclipped the carabiners. The canvas straps slacked.

  With a deafening THUD, the six-hundred-pound tank settled onto the reinforced steel of the flatbed cart.

  Thomas collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, his chest heaving, his cybernetic limbs hissing as they vented superheated steam. He had done it.

  Elias stumbled through the stairwell door a minute later, collapsing immediately against a pillar. "Is it... is it stable?" Elias choked out, clutching his ribs.

  "It's on the cart," Mara confirmed, rushing over to Elias with a canteen of water. She helped him drink. "But Elias... things are getting worse outside."

  Elias looked through the massive shattered windows of the lobby.

  The street outside was no longer empty. The panic from the Commercial District was spreading. Hundreds of people were milling about the plaza, looking up at the dead Tower. Some were carrying makeshift weapons. They were cold, they were thirsty, and they were looking for someone to blame.

  "We're out of time," Marcus said, looking at the growing mob. "If they realize we have a vehicle, they’ll swarm us just to take the wheels. We need to get back to the No Man's Land now."

  The Ignition Problem

  Thomas forced himself back to his feet, grabbing the heavy push-bar of the flatbed cart. Marcus took the lead, pistol drawn, while Mara supported Elias.

  They pushed the cart out of the lobby, merging into the chaos of the street. They didn't look like an army; they looked like scavengers hauling industrial scrap. The crowd ignored them, too consumed by their own growing despair to care about a yellow cylinder.

  Twenty minutes later, they arrived back at the burned-out delivery truck at the edge of the No Man's Land.

  The Perimeter Wall loomed in the distance, a hundred and fifty feet of flawless black poly-ceramic. The red laser line at the top pulsed with its slow, lethal heartbeat.

  Thomas rolled the cart into the alleyway, hiding it from the wall’s line of sight.

  "Okay," Marcus said, wiping the grime from his face. "We have the nitrogen. But Elias... how exactly do we deploy it? If we just crack the valve, it’s going to hiss out slowly. The wind will blow the fog away before it gets thick enough to blind the thermal optics on the wall."

  Elias stared at the yellow tank. Marcus was right. A slow leak wouldn't create a smokescreen. It would just create a localized cold breeze. To blind an orbital laser, they needed an instantaneous, massive cloud of ultra-dense fog covering two entire city blocks.

  They didn't need a leak. They needed a detonation.

  Elias looked at the Stranger, who was standing perfectly still, watching the red pulse of the wall. "Stranger," Elias said, his mind clicking into overdrive, analyzing the variables. "Liquid Nitrogen expands at a ratio of 1 to 694 when it hits the atmosphere."

  "CORRECT. IT IS A RAPID PHASE CHANGE."

  "If we crack the valve, it's a slow leak," Elias muttered, mostly to himself. "If we shear the valve off completely... the pressure drops instantly. The liquid flash-boils."

  "Shear it off?" Thomas asked, looking at the thick brass fitting. "I could crush it with my gauntlets."

  "No," Elias shook his head. "If you're close enough to crush it, you'll be caught in the epicenter of the phase change. The temperature drop will freeze you solid in a second. You’ll die, Thomas."

  Elias looked at Marcus’s holstered kinetic pistol. "Marcus. If you shoot the brass valve from a distance, will it shear?"

  Marcus drew the weapon, checking the magazine. "Standard 9mm kinetic rounds. Against industrial-grade brass? It might dent it. It won't shear it clean off. We need something with massive kinetic impact. An explosive, or an anti-materiel rifle. We don't have either."

  Elias closed his eyes. They had hauled the bomb all the way down here, and they had no way to trigger it.

  "Wait," Mara said quietly.

  Everyone looked at her. She was standing at the edge of the alley, looking out over the flat, black asphalt of the No Man's Land. She pointed a trembling finger toward the top of the Wall.

  "You said... the wall shoots anything that steps onto the asphalt, right?" Mara asked, her voice tight. "It shoots it with a laser."

  "Directed energy. Yes," Marcus said, confused.

  Mara turned to look at Elias, her eyes wide with a terrifying realization. "A laser is heat, Elias. Massive, instantaneous heat."

  Elias’s eyes snapped open. He looked at the wall. Then he looked at the heavy, pressurized tank of sub-zero liquid.

  "Oh my god," Elias whispered, the horrific, beautiful perfection of the equation snapping into place. "Thermal shock."

  He looked at Thomas. "Thomas. How hard can you throw a six-hundred-pound tank?"

  Using the enemy's weapon against them.

  The Strategy: They don't need a detonator. The Wall is the detonator.

  Next Chapter: The Blindfold. It’s time to throw the bomb and run the gauntlet. Sector 5 is on the other side.