The air here was next to nonexistent, filled with chemicals. He switched on the oxygen he carried, the battery thrummed at his upper back as it helped pump that oxygen, and he could breathe.

The middle of the wall was the easiest and worst part at the same time, because the heat wasn’t a wind he had to walk into, but it was chaotic, roiling, and he was caught up in pea soup. It was, he imagined, like being caught in rapids, while burdened with concrete blocks. Trying to push against the wind was tough but there was always the feeling that he could give up, let himself be pushed, and retreat to safe ground.

Here, he felt like he could find himself in a situation where no matter how he moved, he would be pushed back to center, left to either disable his power and find himself wading in molten metal, or to wait until his oxygen ran out.

He relied on the dense lines and numbers his lenses fed him to position his body and weave through the pockets of air and air currents. He approached a tough spot where something was burning on the far wall, and he adjusted settings, drawing on his battery for a bit of extra power. The benefit was slight, as the heat reached him less and the air worked with him a little more, and the battery power raced from a hundred to sixty in those long, long picoseconds.

He switched off the battery as soon as he was through.

The rest of the hallway was clear, except for a spot along the wall where the laser had punched through and raked it.

Reaching up to his ear, he adjusted settings, bringing up a menu that overlapped what his lenses fed him. He put a book on. It was already on chapter two from the last listen, something End of Days had recommended, and he didn’t feel like going back to the start to find the title. If nothing else, it would help him walk the walk and talk the talk, not that it seemed to matter when they made a misstep, as far as Cheit or the Fallen they’d managed to round up were concerned.

He waded through the mud that was the air around him, his power converting every quarter-inch into a medium he could breathe, at a rate slower than he walked. Air further away offered more resistance.

Oh. He’d offered to take the pictures with the camera. Might as well. Maybe he could use the currency of a job well done with minimal dead zombies or spent tinkertech to get the cute girl.

He stopped, training his eyes on the walls and floor, the flash from his own lenses more for his benefit than anyone else’s, his lenses keeping track of what had been photographed by coloring it pink, as opposed to the omnipresent red of his red lenses.