A white lab coat lay draped casually over the back of a chair. A half-full mug sat on a desk near the window. Mould grew across the top of the coffee. Ten steps away, a spray of dark brown obscured her view through the glass. The tables beyond weren’t as orderly or clean. Vials had been overturned and smashed on the ground. Equipment had been broken. One table had been broken in half, showing the dark grey of the interior carbon. Beside it was a body, sprawled at a bad angle, bloating as it decayed. Mitzi spared it only a glance before continuing past the windows. Mir swore quietly, but her team was silent.

They reached another set of doors. A dark stain smeared outwards from it, as though a painter had dragged a giant brush along the hallway. Mitzi took a deep breath. “Brace yourselves. I don’t think we’re going to like what’s behind the door.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Mitzi heard Mir and Skye raise their flamethrower nozzles as she typed the passcode into the access panel. The doors slid open, and the large circular room beyond looked completely different from the immaculate hallway.

Mitzi stifled a moan. Only two of the eight ceiling lights were still intact. A third blinked fitfully, its cover broken and a wire hanging loose. The white tile walls were marred with cracks, black smears, and bloody sprays. The round reception desk in the middle of the room was missing one side, and the counter had been torn away and thrown against the opposite wall with enough force to break the tiles.

In the middle of the room, corpses were piled higher than the reception desk. Mitzi thought there must be at least forty of them. The exposed faces were contorted into bloated grimaces. Some were missing limbs. All wore the same silver uniform that Mitzi knew belonged to the science workers.

“Did the Cymics put them there?” Mir asked. Her voice was thin, bordering on panic.

Mitzi put out a hand to pat her shoulder. “I think so. Probably to clear the walkways. It must get inconvenient to climb over bodies all the time. They probably did the same through the rest of the station, which is why we only saw bodies on the surface.”

Mitzi’s voice was calm, but her insides felt so hot that she wanted to scream. Sitting at home during those two weeks before her summons, she’d absorbed every trace of information about the Cymics that she could. She knew the destruction they left in their wake—entire stations of thousands wiped out, without regard for gender or age and without mercy. Seeing so fully and completely that she understood it in her soul, not just her mind, was a very different matter. It made her lightheaded. It made her furious.

“C’mon,” she said, still keeping her voice light for the sake of her team. “Not far now.”

Not far until we can roast these monsters like they deserve.

Dried blood had seeped from the corpse pile, spreading over the tiled floor. Mitzi led her team in a wide circle, skirting the blood even though it meant climbing over the reception desk. She couldn’t stop watching the pile out of the corner of her eyes. She knew her companions probably were, too. The bodies, as limp as ragdolls, had been thrown there without care. Limbs poked out at odd angles. Some were so mangled that it was hard to guess what body part she was looking at. And the faces, frozen in the grimace they’d worn during the final seconds of life…