VICTOR’S hand twitched, and two more soldiers went down screaming, before they cut the lights. A second later he heard the telltale sound of a metal clasp, the hiss of air, and then the canisters came rolling across the ground, filling the air with smoke.

“Hold your breath,” he ordered, dragging Dumont back against the wall as scopes traced red lines through the billowing white. The smoke burned Victor’s eyes, clawing at his senses, and through it all the crackle of energy was spreading through his limbs—warning.

Not yet, he thought. Not yet.

The service elevator groaned open, and Victor had time to see the barrel of a gun, the first traces of black armor, combat boots. He twisted sideways, releasing his hostage as he ducked out of the soldiers’

line of fire.

Dumont threw up his hands as Victor reached the stairwell.

“Don’t shoot!” called the doctor, coughing as the smoke hit his lungs.

The soldiers pushed past him as Victor surged into the stairwell and started down.

More footsteps rose up from below, but Victor had the high ground now. By the time the first soldier saw him, Victor already had their nerves in his grasp. He twisted the dial all the way up, and they fell, like puppets without strings.

Victor rounded their bodies and continued down. He was nearly to the third-floor landing when the first spasm hit.

For a second, he thought he’d been shot.

Then he realized, with horror, that he was out of time. The current arced through him, lighting his nerves, and he bowed his head, steadying himself against the rail before forcing his body onward.

He made it to the first floor, and opened the door just in time to see a soldier heading straight for him, weapon raised. Before Victor could summon the strength or the focus to bring the soldier down, someone else had done it for him.

A silencer swung into view, followed by three muted thumps as the gun fired point-blank into the side of the soldier’s head. It wasn’t enough to pierce the helmet, but it caught him off guard, and half a second later the shooter—a female doctor—stepped into sight. She stepped right into the soldier’s arms, and then—almost elegantly—drove a blade up under his helmet.

The soldier dropped like a stone, and the female doctor turned on Victor.

“Don’t just stand there,” she hissed, her voice strangely familiar.

Footsteps sounded overhead and below. “Find another way out.”

Victor had questions, but there was no time to ask.

He turned and continued down the stairs toward the hospital sublevels. Burst through a set of doors into an empty hall, the sign at the end marked morgue in small, mocking letters. But beyond that—an exit sign. Halfway there, the next spasm hit, and Victor stumbled, one shoulder slamming hard into the concrete wall. His knee buckled, and he went down.