They swept the wing. Nothing lived behind them.

Back in the main spine, a team of eight tried to stack shields across the width of the hall. They were slow. They were loud. They believed numbers changed facts.

Elias put two rounds through the gap at knee height.

A man screamed and fell, shield tipping.

Alexei iced the floor out beyond the line in a thin, clear gloss.

The front feet of the remaining shields slid left, right, and then out. Lachlan surged through the mess, machete hitting hands and faces.

Zubair grabbed the top of a shield and tore it free, threw it into the line like a coin through glass. Sera stepped into the broken center, cut two throats with her bare hands, and walked out the far side before the rest hit the tile.

Silence came again.

Water dripped. Pipes ticked as they cooled.

Sera turned down a narrow service hall no one else would have chosen.

The men didn’t question it.

She led them through storage closets, a maintenance alcove, a short flight of steps to a half-height crawl with wire baskets for cable runs.

At the far end, a hatch stuck. Zubair tore it off. The space opened into a corridor full of people who didn’t expect death from the ceiling.

They didn’t have long to be surprised.

Elias fired first. Alexei froze two in place so Zubair could break them without fuss. Lachlan took the middle and laughed once, bright, feral.

Sera came down last, dropped into a crouch, and went to work like her hands had a list and a schedule.

They moved again.

Back through a room where someone had tried to scribble equations on a wall. Back through a break room where coffee had burned until it became something else. Back across a floor where boot prints had turned in circles and then stopped turning.

A glass corridor linked two old wings no one used anymore.

The outer panels were shattered.

The night air cut through, cold and clean.

Snow flurried in ragged lines as the wind found its way in. Alexei’s breath fogged harder. He didn’t need to lift his hands to hold the temperature down. It came up from the floor like a decision had been made there and the building agreed.

At the far end of the glass run, two guards braced a machine gun on a tripod, hands shaking, mouths hard. They lit up the corridor when the pack appeared, muzzle flash stuttering fast. Glass exploded.

Metal shrieked. Rounds chewed the edges of doorframes.

Sera ran straight through it.

Zubair was a half step behind her.

Elias and Lachlan split left and right and went low.

Alexei threw his hands up and a quick wall of clear cold leapt and shattered, taking the first third of the burst. The rest walked across Sera’s chest and arms, hitting meat that refused to accept holes for longer than a breath.

They were all on the gun before the barrel climbed to center mass again.

Zubair grabbed the tripod and folded it. Lachlan took the loader’s wrist and bent it until the bones gave. Elias shot the gunner in the faceplate when his head jerked back.

Sera caught the loader’s collar and pulled him into her knee. He fell. She made sure he didn’t stand.

They were close to the last rooms now.

The air felt different. Less fear. More empty.

Sera stopped at one more door. No sound behind it. No breath. No movement. She opened it anyway.

Rows of cabinets. Samples gone bad. Papers slumped in damp piles. A cup with the lip stained brown.

She flicked the light switch out of habit.

Nothing.

She shut the door behind her without a word.

Zubair touched her shoulder with the back of his fingers. Small. Quick. An anchor dropped and lifted in the same second. She didn’t move away from it. She didn’t lean into it. She turned left.

"Basement," Elias said. "Then the outer lock rooms."

Sera nodded.

They took the stairs down. The steps were wet. Luci’s nails clicked and skated and then found grip when Alexei roughened the ice with a thought.

Basement halls were low and tight. Pipes ran along the ceiling with dull, sleeping weight. Two power rooms stood open where Sera had gutted them earlier. The smell of copper and hot dust sat heavy and old.

They found four men in a storage cage with a bolt cutter and a plan. Their plan ended. Fast.

Zubair ripped the cage door up off its track and threw it at them.

Elias picked the one who still thought he could lift the cutter. Lachlan took the loudest. Alexei froze the floor so the last one fell. Sera ended him with her boot.

The last wing was locker rooms, showers, a wide space with benches and rows of metal cabinets dented by too many fists.

Two soldiers had chosen it as a place to make a stand. They had set up a table as cover and turned the lockers into a wall. They shouted at each other as the pack came in.

Elias shot one through the table. The other tried to draw a bead and couldn’t—Alexei froze the action on the bolt mid-pull.

The man yanked, scared, angry, and broke his own rifle. Lachlan went over the lockers and brought the machete down. Zubair grabbed the second by the vest and put him into a locker door hard enough to leave a Zubair-sized bend in it.

He slid down. Sera stood over him, watching to see if he had another choice he meant to make. He didn’t. She put her hand on his face and then she didn’t have to look anymore.

Silence stood up in the room and stayed.

They looked at each other.

Elias wiped the corner of his mouth with his wrist. Lachlan set the machete across his shoulder. Alexei rolled his neck and let the cold ease off his hands. Zubair watched Sera.

She listened. Not with her ears. With that other sense she wore like a second skin. When she was sure—fully sure—she faced them.

"Done," she said.

No one argued.

They turned for the stairs that would take them back up to the yard and the night.

Luci went first, the shadow of his back wide in the doorway, his tail low, head swinging left and right to mark a world that had finally gone quiet.

They made the ground floor.

The long hallway to the outer lock rooms lay ahead—double doors, blast frames, emptiness where defenders should have stood.

The air from outside crept under the seals and touched the blood on their clothes and turned it dark.

Zubair glanced at Sera. "Fire?"

"Fire," she answered.