Somnus V - Chapter 39

Kat hovered quietly, her Pseudopod and gravity working together to move her swiftly down the hallway, past the bodies of the dead doctor and samurai and toward the door beyond. She paused for a second, closing her eyes to focus her hearing.

 At first the sounds blended together. The gentle hum of machinery. The soft whir of blowing air as a ventilation system did its job. A distant conversation between two people behind a closed door four or five hallways away. Then, there was a faint scuff of footsteps on concrete marking a person walking nearby.

 The rest of the sounds faded into the background. She held her breath for a second, focusing on the person.

 They were at least a hallway away from the next room and walking in the opposite direction. There might be a security camera, unlikely given how deep she was inside the enemy base but not impossible, but in all likelihood it was safe to open the door.

 Kat pulled the stun baton up into a guard position, electricity crackling around its head just in case she needed to use it on a moment’s notice. She increased her gravity slightly, giving her floating body just enough weight to push the door handle downward.

 The door opened with a rasp of metal on metal that assaulted Kat’s enhanced hearing. She winced at the noise, but there was no intake of breath or shout to mark that someone had spotted her.

 She floated inside and blinked in surprise.

 Kat was in a kitchenette. She didn’t know what she had expected, but something as mundane as a refrigerator, microwave, small oven, and a coffee machine wasn’t exactly at the top of her list. Realistically, any self contained building like a safe house would need one, but at the same time, it was a bit anticlimactic.

 Maybe the rest of the building was filled with barracks and armories. The next room over might have banks of monitors and computers tracking all incoming and exiting traffic. There might even be a secret stallesp lab buried deep underground. But for now, Kat was alone in a room with a bunch of budget plates and instant coffee.

 Before Kat could dismiss the room entirely, her stomach grumbled loudly.

 Her Pseudopod reached out, grasping the edge of a sink and pulling her toward the refrigerator. She opened it and almost rolled her eyes and how mundane its contents were. A couple see through containers with plastic wrap rubber banded to their tops contained what looked like leftover chicken and tuna salad. She didn’t bother with those, instead grabbing a brown paper bag that said in large black letters on it “Andrew’s Lunch DO NOT EAT.”

 Once again there was a twinge of guilt that she quickly buried. Andrew had clearly been out of his depth. Even if he had been carrying a weapon, it felt like she had offed a civilian. That didn’t sit entirely right with Kat, but with her survival on the line, she’d deal with those feelings through a therapist at a later date.

 She opened the bag, eating the sandwich inside as she floated over toward the cabinets next to the refrigerator. One by one she opened the drawers. The first was a bust, nothing more than sauce and sugar packets. The second was filled with cheap silverware.

 Kat picked up one of the butter knives, testing its weight hesitantly before pressing its edge against her forearm. It was light, had a terrible grip and balance, and was about as dull as the scissors that she had just wrecked. Still, despite everything, it was a knife.

 Stamina burned quietly and a dull red glow suffused the knife as she used Penetrate. A second later, Kat let the ability fade. She took a deep breath. The next test would be the real thing.

 Mana raced down her arm. Magic seemed to crackle and glow around the butter knife’s blade for a second as it grew rapidly warmer.

 The hair on the back of Kat’s neck suddenly stood on end as her instincts shouted a warning at her. Without hesitation, she tossed the butter knife across the room where it exploded in a ball of magic energy that sent superheated globs of steel flying in every direction.

 Her Pseudopod released the sink, zipping in front of her as it swiped the shrapnel from the air. One piece still drew a stinging line across her cheek, but other than that and a sudden spike in her heart rate, Kat didn’t suffer any ill effects from the small blast.

 She eyed the damage. The refrigerator had a dozen small holes melted in it but it was still running properly. Similarly, the back wall of the room had a number of smoldering globs of metal that were rapidly melting the paint.

 The effect wasn’t one that she had expected. Blade Burst had never applied so literally to an attack before. It was probably a result of trying to run mana through such an inferior medium. Still, this was something she could use. It wasn’t exactly a grenade, but if she could make a knife explode like that inside an enemy, that would almost certainly kill them in one hit.

 Efficiently, she raided the silverware drawer, emptying the dozen or so cheap butter knives into the pockets of her suit. They jingled slightly, drawing a wince from Kat. Stealth was the name of the game from here on out and she wasn’t exactly wearing top end equipment to conceal her and muffle sounds she might make.

 Luckily, she wasn’t planning on walking around the compound. Every step came with the risk of the loose knives clinking against each other, but floating around using the power of her gravity domain and Pseudopod changed that. All of her movements were steady and smooth. Kat would have to be careful, but she should be able to hide herself without making too much noise.

 Almost immediately, her mind flashed back to her history with stealth missions, and despite herself, Kat found herself smiling. It wasn’t her fault that most of those runs ended with everyone dead. They mostly died in sneaky ways. It counted.

 Finally, with all the silverware she could safely stow away in her pockets, Kat reached out with her Pseudopod pulling herself toward one of the small kitchen’s exits. Once again, she paused by the door, listening for the footsteps of a guard.

 At least three people were walking around the building, but none of them were terribly near. Mentally, Kat upped her assessment of the size of the safe house. She could still hear the machinery and people talking, but someone had turned on a smartglass and the sounds of a new episode of Chrome Cowboys drifted through the hallways.

 Kat opened the door, floating out into the open. After a quick scan confirmed that she was alone, Kat began looking for a place to hide.

 Unfortunately, she didn’t know the first thing about the building’s layout. She hadn’t even been conscious when they dragged her in and shackled her to the chair. Ordinarily, this would be when Whippoorwill would-

 Whippoorwill. Kat’s breath caught in her throat.

 She’d done her best to draw the attention of the Millennium samurai near the end, but there was no way of knowing whether Whip was safe. Shadow would have faded the second the gas knocked her out, but that didn’t mean that the samurai had managed to find Whip and Heather.

 Kat was willing to bet anything that the battle had dragged on far longer than the mercenaries had expected, and given how many of their number had died in the fighting, it was very possible that they hadn’t managed to thoroughly search the building. Unless they were fools, Ice Cobra had probably snatched Kat and ran the second she went down.

 Plus, Whippoorwill wasn’t in the truck with her. There was no way that Ice Cobra would’ve missed a chance to taunt her with Whip if they’d managed to capture or kill her.

Kat knew that she was trying to come up with excuses, some justification to slow her racing heart rate, but it was working. One deep calming breath followed another, and almost twenty seconds later she could think rationally again.

Whippoorwill was probably fine. Even if she had been injured during the fight- Kat’s thoughts shied away from any worse possibilities, there wasn’t anything Kat could do but try to stay healthy long enough to escape and make it up to her.

With that thought providing some fleeting comfort, she began moving again. After a minute or so, Kat reached a door and put her ear to it. Inside she heard nothing over the ever present sound of machinery. Then, a second later a woman greeted someone.

Kat’s heart began racing. As good as her enhanced hearing was, it wasn’t enough to pick out breathing through a door. It was an incredibly useful perk, but far from foolproof. She hurriedly turned around and used Pseudopod to pull her in another direction.

Passing through another hallway, Kat spotted an air vent in the ceiling. She floated upward, putting a hand on its grating and frowned. Maybe if she actually was a cat she could fit inside, but the opening was barely a quarter pace wide.

It felt like there was a massive clock in the sky, second hand ticking faster and faster. Cobra would notice the missing doctor before too long, and at that point, Kat needed to be safely hidden away. Unfortunately, that meant finding an actual hiding spot in the spartan hallways of a building that Kat didn’t know.

She levitated back down toward the ground and approached another door in the side of the hallway. Inside she could hear a man humming as well as a steady stream of water. A second later, there was a flush.

A bathroom. Perfect for her needs, but it was occupied and she only had seconds.

Quickly, Kat looked for hinges on the door. There weren’t any. It opened inward. She wouldn’t be able to duck behind the door itself as it opened.

A single footstep on tile ended her thoughts. There wasn’t time.

Pseudopod reached out, grasping hold of the air vent and pushing her into the corner. The second Kat’s feet touched the ground, she cast Shadow layering herself in a protective layer of darkness.

The door opened and a tall, well-built man stepped out. He stopped in the doorway, barely an arms-length away from Kat and his eyes unfocused as he stared off into space through a smartpanel.

“She escaped?” He asked, frowning.

That was Kat’s cue. The door to the bathroom was closing, but it was still open enough. She gritted her teeth against the pain and forced herself to move forward, using Shadow Step to jump through the gap behind him and into a dim area of the bathroom next to a paper towel dispenser.

“What do you mean she killed Andrew?” The man continued. “That idiot still owes me fifty credits.”

Kat licked her lips nervously, taking in the bathroom around her. There was one urinal in the corner and two toilet stalls, both closed. She reached out with Pseudopod, pulling herself forward as quickly as she dared and cracked one of the stall doors open before slipping inside.

“I just used the third floor bathroom,” the man said. “Unless she could literally phase past me, there’s no way in there. I’ll wait here guarding the door until Static Crash makes it down here. Then we can start looking together.”

She floated up a half pace, crossing her legs beneath her in the air to leave nothing visible to anyone walking past her stall. It wasn’t a perfect hiding place, but it would keep someone from immediately spotting her,

The compound seemed to erupt in sound. There wasn’t any audible alert, but Kat’s hearing was keen enough that it didn’t matter. The distant smartglass switched off, and she could pick out maybe a dozen people talking followed by hurried footsteps as people jogged through the hallways around her.

After maybe two or three minutes, Kat began to make out a pattern. Most of the Millennium samurai were clustering around her end of the safe house. It seemed that they were going to form a chain across the building as they moved through it in an effort to prevent her from slipping past disconnected individual parties.

That was the best possible option for her. If Kat’s corner of the building was considered ‘safe’ and already searched, that meant that-

“Hold up,” another man called out. “I need to take a leak.”

Kat barely had a fraction draw in a quick breath before the door slammed open. Heavy footsteps thudded past her as the man walked over to a urinal. A second later she heard the zip of his pants and a relieved sigh.

She held her breath. Kat doubted the man was paying attention or that he had the kind of hearing that might be able to notice her breathing in the same room, but she wasn’t going to risk it.

It might not be possible for her to notice someone through a close door, but if she was in the same room as someone else, Kat would almost certainly be able to pick out the sound of their breath.

The moment dragged on. Kat’s body began to flash warning signs to her about the carbon dioxide building up in her lungs, but the man just kept peeing.

Then the door slammed open again.

“Static,” the bathroom’s original occupant called out. “What are you doing? Frying a chicken in here? You know that Ice Cobra is pissed that the prisoner escaped. We need to get moving or she’s going to use that nausea poison on us again as punishment.”

Kat felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest as sweat began to bead her brow. Two of them. Even if she managed to take one by surprise, the second one would gun her down before she managed to bring her improvised weapons to bear.

“Hold on,” the man at the urinal grumbled. “I had a lot of coffee.”

Then, with the blessed sound of the urinal flushing. He stepped away, walking toward the exit. Kat began to relax slightly.

“Come on Static,” the man at the door chided. “What are you, an animal? Wash your hands.”

Instantly, any sense of comfort Kat had disappeared. The sound of the faucet turning on echoed like a gunshot in Kat’s ears.

“I thought you wanted me to hurry Revenant,” the man at the sink grumbled. “Now here you are telling me to take my time. Make up your mind man.”

The man at the door snorted, but he stepped out of the room. Kat could hear the door beginning to swing shut before the remaining samurai in the room put his foot out, catching it.

A second later, the paper towel dispenser whirred and Kat was alone with her thoughts. She exhaled and took a deep shuddering breath.

That had been far too close. Neither of the men was truly looking for her, but they had been barely three paces away the entire time. Silently, Kat reached into her pants suit pocket and pulled out one of the butter knives, gripping it against the side of the stun baton in her hands.

It didn’t exactly comfort her, but having a more familiar weapon ready to go at least made the situation feel a little more manageable.

Then, she floated and waited. The samurai combed the facility. She could hear them going room to room, looking under furniture and through closets as they tried to find where she was hiding.

They even checked the tiny air vent that she had already spotted. It was basically the second place they looked. Apparently, the guards had the same thoughts as Kat when she initially spotted it.

After about twenty five minutes of hovering quietly, she began to hear the samurai talking in the distance as they made their way back toward Kat’s end of the building. All of them seemed agitated. Evidently searching the entire floor and finding nothing but bodies had put them on edge.

The team regrouped some twenty paces outside the bathroom Kat was hiding in. At first she held her breath, straining her ears for the sound of one of the soldiers pushing the door open, but none of them even came in to pee.

Instead, they were debating how they would break the news to Ice Cobra. Apparently, she wasn’t the type to respond well to failure.

Just as they were about to do another pass, one that would surely involve checking the bathroom Kat was hiding in, a loud siren echoed through the building’s empty hallways. The guards froze.

A second later, they were all running in the same direction, presumably toward a staircase or elevator. The bathroom lights flickered as an explosion shook the building, bringing a smile to Kat’s face.

Dorrik was here. He’d made it in time.

Another explosion triggered a wave of dust from the ceiling. Kat summoned her Pseudopod and opened the bathroom door. Moments later she’d pulled herself into the hallway with the magic tentacle.

At least according to her enhanced hearing, the floor was empty. Above, the first rattled of muted gunfire drifted down followed a second later by the loud thump of the magnetically accelerated weapons used by the 3445.

There was a building full of heavily armed samurai between Kat and freedom, but rescue was so close that she could taste it.

Her Pseudopod reached out, grabbing another doorframe as it pulled her floating body in the general direction she’d seen the Millennium samurai running. The sounds of gunfire and explosions from overhead grew louder, and before long Kat spotted a stairwell.

She increased her personal gravity, pulling herself faster toward the exit. If what the guards had said was accurate, she was probably on the third floor of the basement. That meant that she would have another two staircase to find before she was in the clear, but it was looking more and more like it was only a matter of time before she could get out of here and check up on Whip.

Kat pushed the door open. Almost immediately, the sounds of combat grew louder.

 “-samurai can hold them off while we get to the escape tunnel.” Ice Cobra’s truncated sentence reached her ears just as the other woman thundered down the stairs.

 Both of them froze. Cobra was standing in full body armor with a handgun at her side on a staircase landing about two paces above Kat. At her side was the heavyset bald man wearing all red.

 Kat’s hand slowly crept toward the handgun tucked into her waistband. Her mouth twisted into a grimace.

 “Fu-”

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