Except for movement, Kira thought, cursing her lack of stealth training. Heron couldn’t link with me, but she could hear my movements. She decided the best course of action was to move as little as possible. Instead, she reached for a spare ammo clip attached to her belt and slowly, carefully, making as little noise as possible, pulled a bullet from it. The bullets beneath were spring-loaded, designed to snap up and into place each time a bullet was fired, so she kept her finger in the way, letting the spring ease up instead of clicking. She dropped the bullet in her pocket and did it again, slowly, listening for any sign of the intruders. A third bullet. A fourth. She kept each one in a different pocket so they wouldn’t clink against each other. Slowly she raised the first one in her hand, cocking it back, and threw it, arcing it high over the computer towers and into the far wall. It clattered against the plaster, bouncing back and into a computer tower before rolling to a stop on the floor. Through the link she felt her attackers snap to attention, alerted by the sound, followed a split second later by a tactical warning: IT’S A TRICK. Kira shook her head, angry at herself for thinking it would work, but an idea struck her. She pulled the second bullet from a pocket and threw it lightly at the tower nearest her, listening to it smack into the side and bounce across the concrete floor. The link lit up again, sending the same coordinating message: I HEARD A SOUND. IT’S A TRICK.

The next footstep she heard was moving away from her. Her double fake-out had worked.

She twisted to the side, peeking past the tower she was using for cover. One of the towers, maybe ten rows down, was misshapen in the darkness, lumpy and round. One of the attackers, she guessed, his knee or elbow disrupting the silhouette. She hugged the floor, readying her flashlight again, watching the malformed tower. It moved, expanded, separated into a vaguely human shape as the Partial stepped out from behind it. He was moving away from her, a thin pistol raised in front of him—the tranq gun. Kira rose to her feet and slipped after him, stepping slowly to keep her bare feet as silent as she could. He moved two rows and she moved two; if she could keep this up, she’d be in effective range to shoot him. There was still one other, though, and she didn’t know where he was. Every time she crossed an open aisle, she ran the risk of exposing herself.