They shoved into a hallway, walls on both sides. Their momentum chewed up two meters of wall, three meters of wall. And then they were done. Dust and disintegrated matter floated in the air, a minor cyclone of detritus, lit by the white headlights of their borrowed vehicle and the red emergency lights of the building.

Sam turned to look at Sarai.

“You OK?”

The girl was panting, hyperventilating, scared out of her wits.

Sarai nodded, again and again. “Yeah. OK.”

The doors on both sides were jammed. Sam popped the top hatch of the vehicle, pulled herself out, reached inside, pulled Sarai up.

Then she pulled her side-arm out.

It was eerily quiet. Except… Except for a deep bass thrumming. A rumbling sound, coming from below the floor.

Sam gestured for Sarai to stay behind her.

The girl nodded, wide-eyed.

Sam nodded back, then reached down, pulled up a piece of tile dislodged from the floor by their violent entry.

They crept down the corridor. Five meters ahead, the corridor turned to the left. Beyond that, if the floorplan was right, should be access to a service elevator. What better way to reach the levels below?

She turned to look at Sarai, then motioned her further back the hallway.

Sarai nodded and crept back quietly.

Sam stood at the edge, just before the turn in the corridor, her back against the wall, the pistol in her right hand, the chunk of broken tile in her left.

She closed her eyes, let her mind still.

The distraction of the visual world disappeared.

The rest of her senses opened.

The senses that had been enhanced, jacked up in their sensitivity, their pathways to her brain genetically expanded.

She could hear him breathing.

One man.

Frightened.

Maybe seven meters down that hallway. Not exactly where the floor plan said the elevators were. But close.

Sam was going to do her best not to kill this man. But one way or another she was getting to her friends.

She opened her eyes. With a flick of her left hand she sent the chunk of tile flying out against the far side of the corridor.

Then she was moving, turning, leading with the pistol, aiming for where she knew he would be.

Automatic fire rang out. He was there, a soldier, in uniform, firing with his submachine gun, shooting on reflex towards the motion and sound, the cloud of white dust that had exploded as the tile had hit the far wall.

Her burst of three took him in the shoulder, the bicep, the forearm, spinning him around.

She was on him a second later, prying the gun out of his hands, using his belt to make a tourniquet, to stop the bleeding.

The elevator door was right here.

“How do we operate it?” she demanded. “How do we reach Feng? Kade? General Singh?”