Speed’s fingers brushed the decaying flesh of her chest. A slow testing touch, the specific stupidity of soone who had grown up behind walls and had never learned what touching things on the plain actually ant.
A touch wakes it up. My mother’s voice, arriving from sowhere I hadn’t accessed in years. A touch always wakes it up.
"That thing is going to kill—"
The zombie’s hand shot up and grabbed his wrist before I finished the sentence. Speed reacted fast, I’ll give him that. He lifted it and drove it hard into the ground.
"Wow," rcury said, watching through the windshield.
For a mont Speed stood over it like he had handled the situation. Like that was the end of it. Then I watched the zombie’s chest rise from the ground. Its mouth opened.
Even through the thick armored glass, my body heard the sound. That wet, rattling shriek that had been burned into my nervous system for twenty years. The sound that ant the plain had stopped pretending to be quiet.
Shit.
They ca from everywhere.
Every frozen figure on the plain gained life simultaneously, the specific horrible mont when the plain stops being a landscape and becos sothing that is moving toward you from every direction.
They staggered toward whatever living body they could sll, and there were a lot of living bodies standing outside their cars in the dark.
The post-trauma hit before I could stop it. I felt teeth in my neck that weren’t there. My muscles locked. I sat in the back seat of the car and watched through the glass and couldn’t move, which had never happened to before. Not once in twenty years.
"All personnel outside. Now." Sinn’s voice through the speakers.
I heard it. I couldn’t react.
Sherry woke up. I felt the mont her body registered what was outside the window. She looked at .
"Bram."
She was the only active person in the car. rcury had frozen sowhere too, hands still on the wheel, eyes sowhere that wasn’t the windshield. Sherry moved between the front seats and locked May’s door before any of it could get through. Then she turned back to .
"Bram. Bram. Braaaam."
The shout broke through whatever had locked . I ca back. rcury ca back at the sa mont, so shared frequency in Sherry’s voice reaching both of us.
Outside, it had already beco sothing else entirely.
Students were fighting. Code was moving through the infected like he had been waiting for exactly this, blades extending from his hands, each one he passed going down. He was singing. I couldn’t hear the words but I could see his mouth moving and his expression was not the expression of soone in danger. It was the expression of soone who had found their environnt.
Oddo was tearing them apart with his hands. Close combat, close range, completely in his elent.
Harmione was burning anything in front of her, fire at level six making space around her, but they kept coming. The more the Guardians fired the more arrived from directions nobody had anticipated.
"Don’t fire," I shouted at Sinn as I got out, Sherry behind . We locked rcury inside.
Sinn heard . Looked at . Made a decision.
"Hold fire," he called to the Guardians.
Gunshots brought more. Gunshots brought everything within earshot from every direction you couldn’t predict. The plain had taught that before I could read.
[Charge: 1900]
Every infected that touched dried and dropped. The electrical body doing its work automatically. But each contact cost one charge and the infected were everywhere and 1900 was a number that could run out.
This is why the system told to stock up, I thought, watching the number tick down with each contact.
General Sinn appeared at my side, breathing hard, his scarred face now carrying the look of a man whose entire understanding of the mission had just been shredded in ninety brutal seconds.
"Kid," he said. He hadn’t learned my na yet. "What do we do?"
"Retreat into the cars," I said. "Now."
Sinn didn’t hesitate. "All units back to vehicles! Formation!"
The cars opened one side of their doors, soldiers holding the periter on the other sides, keeping the line while people moved toward safety. I stood with Sherry at our door.
May appeared first out of the chaos, moving with the uncanny efficiency of soone who had known exactly where to be. She got in.
Code carved through a cluster of infected like a dancer, blades singing from his hands, mouth still moving in so private, joyful song. His face wasn’t afraid. It was ecstatic.
Oddo smashed his way forward like a human wrecking ball, infected flying in broken heaps. Harmione burned her way to safety and got in.
We got in and locked the doors. Through the glass I could see two students still outside. Owen and Speed.
Speed was running, his super speed buying him distance, pink hair flashing under headlights as he sprinted toward the vehicles. Owen was tracking him. I watched Owen’s glowing red eyes follow Speed’s movent and I felt sothing wrong about it before I could na it.
Owen’s eyes narrowed. He discharged. A bright crimson arc of electricity slamd into Speed mid-stride. Speed convulsed, went down hard.
The infected sward him instantly. A writhing pile of teeth and claws swallowed him whole.
Owen turned and walked calmly back to his vehicle without a backward glance.
General Sinn stood outside for one frozen second, watching the boy die. Then he pulled back into his own car and the last doors slamd shut.
Inside our vehicle, the air was thick with heavy breathing. May’s usual chaos had gone quiet. Sherry’s face was pale but steady. rcury stared straight ahead, hands still shaking slightly on the wheel. A ten minute break on the way to the actual mission.
One student gone. At least ten Guardians already turning. The cars were completely surrounded, hundreds of infected clawing at the armor, rocking the heavy vehicles.
Sinn’s voice ca through the speakers. Slightly different from before. The specific quality of a man whose confidence has been accurately updated.
"Outside kid," he said.
. He still didn’t know my na.
"What do we do now?"
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