Edge Walkers

by Shannon Donnelly

  Both men glanced at Carrie. Vial gripped tight in her hand, she left Zeigler braced against the wall, walked back to Temple’s device. She forced herself not to run, not to rush this—they couldn’t afford any mistakes. She glanced at the doorway once more, wet her lips, and went down on one knee. Adrenaline pumped fast, left her stomach churning with its urgency. Pulling out the knife Shoup had given her, she dragged out a blade and fit the edge to the vial’s seam. Her hands kept shaking, so tightened her focus onto just her hands.

  The discipline of science. She could do that.

  Noise faded—the pound of the rain on the roof, the echo of shots behind her. She shut out the smells—wet clothes and the acrid bite of blood in the air. Slowly the vial’s lid lifted and detached. She studied the device, found a spot that looked about right on the side. It had to be a place to pour something inside. Tipping the vial, she poured in half the phosphorescent liquid. Nothing happened. She added the rest.

  Nothing.

  Damnation.

  With a huffed breath, she stood and gave into her frustration. She kicked the thing. Not hard, just enough to rattle it and set it swaying. A soft hum lifted. Okay, shake before using, and how about that—brute force could work. The glow spread from the base to the top of the crystal pillar and out in a halo of light that grew brighter. Stepping back, Carrie’s nerves lifted with the luminosity.

  Stepping back, she watched the device, the empty vial clenched in her hand. The jagged line on her chest was burning again, bleeding again from her movement. She took another step back as the device gave a pop and shuddered. Was that a good thing?

  Striding over to the image of her lab, she touched the shimmering doorway—this time it gave to her. She jerked her hand back, and glanced over to Jakes and Shoup…and to the empty doorway behind them.

  Jakes had been watching her, and now he yelled, “Shoup get those two through.”

  Carrie braced her feet wide. “Gideon?”

  “Don’t think I won’t have Shoup carry you through.”

  She glanced at Shoup and back to Jakes. “I’m staying until—”

  Gunfire from outside cut off her words. Jakes and Shoup whirled to face the sound. Throat clenched tight, Carrie took a step forward, but Zeigler started to sink to the floor. She ducked over to his side, pushed his shoulders against the wall. Twisting, she tried to see out the door. Hard reports from the guns echoed again. Temple burst into the room at a run with Gideon behind him, gun in hand.

  Breathless, Gideon slammed his back into the wall next to the open doorway. He rasped the words out. “I think it’s every Walker in this city out there.” Looking up, he held Carrie’s gaze. “Go. We’ll cover you.”

  “With what?” She pulled Zeigler’s arm over her shoulder, shuddered from the deadweight of his limp body. She dragged him in front of Gideon. “You stay, you both die.” She glanced at Temple. Heart thudding, she knew she didn’t have time to convince Gideon of anything. Mouth pressed tight, she glanced out the door, glimpsed a flash of light. The ache from the gash Walker had given her sharpened.

  Gideon glanced once over his shoulder at her. She met the weight in his stare and knew he wasn’t going to come with her—he couldn’t, and she couldn’t blame him. But she couldn’t leave him to die, either. She looked behind Gideon to Jakes, met his stare, willed him to get with it—she wasn’t saving her own ass at the cost of others.

  Lips thinning, Jakes swapped a stare with Shoup and made some sort of gesture Carrie knew had meaning as a silent hand signal.

  The blare of static from outside lifted. Carrie braced herself, but Jakes grabbed her. He wrapped his arm around both her and Zeigler, dragging them both toward the doorway to her lab. She yelled at him, tried to hang back. An explosion just outside the building shook the rattled the beams overhead, cracked one and sent it slamming to the floor. Rain poured in through the hole in the roof, and Carrie yelled for Gideon.

  He was there, behind her, shoulder to shoulder with Temple and Shoup, the three of them edging back from what had been a doorway and what now was rubble and fallen beams and hands clawing at the chunks of wall that filled the space.

  Shoup had blown up the front door to try and seal it.

  Jakes yelled at Shoup, who dropped his weapon and pulled a square block of something from a vest pocket. Carrie guessed it wasn’t anything safe in his hands. Shoup tossed the block in front of him. He turned and she saw the detonator in his fingers. She yelled Gideon’s name, but the flash went off, the shock wave from the blast hit her, swept her back, slammed her into a wall—one that gave to her falling weight.

  She fell, and kept falling. She remembered this sensation of being ripped apart, of being pulled so thin she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything other than fall into nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  If ever there was a time I needed to keep on being that overachiever who really does know better, it’s now. — Excerpt Carrie Brody Journal

  Noise.

  Banging and voices. She was rocked—something soft cradled her head, and she thought of Gideon holding her, but he couldn’t, could he? Light stung her closed eyes. She wished the voices—urgent, loud—would go away, leave her alone, and they did. She wished Gideon would hold her a little longer.

  She muttered his name on a breath and shifted.

  Pain lanced through her—sharp agony sawed on her bones. She stilled against it and wanted to sink back into Gideon’s hold. She’d be safe there. But urgency nagged at her. What was it…? Gideon, that was it. He wasn’t…wasn’t what?

  Licking dry lips, she pried open sticky eyes. A narrow strip of gray appeared and…okay, that really wasn’t right. Panic fired, flared, faded back into that haze of aching bones. She let out a complaint that made it to a soft moan that scraped her throat.

  Who the hell kept yelling at her?

  Pushing at the fog, she got her eyes open. She licked her lips again, blinked, and turned her head.

  She lay in a hall. On something. Squinting against flickering overhead lights, she recognized the gray walls of EnraTech. But this wasn’t her lab. Relief flashed through her, and fled as fast, because this wasn’t the sane homecoming she’d imagined.

  The corridor seemed crowded with people, rushing past or huddled in small groups. She tried to push up onto her elbow for a better view. Her head spun. Her arms wobbled, and her muscles cramped and gave out. She fell back onto hard softness. Chest burning, she put a hand up to a bandage that crinkled under her fingers. She had gauze wrapped around her arm and an IV dangling. She glance down and saw a gray blanket over her and steel railings. Ah—she was on a stretcher. That had to mean someone was at least looking after her.

  So why was her blood singing with the sharp edge of fear?

  Maybe it was because she couldn’t see Gideon—or anyone else who’d been with her.

  “What…?” The rest of the sentence tangled on the fluff in her mouth. She tried something else and mumbled, “Getting old.”

  She wasn’t sure if she meant herself, or this pattern of waking up and not knowing what had happened. Or maybe she meant Kerrou.

  He stood next to her. She could see the wrinkled leg of his suit trousers. He was doing some of the shouting. Overhead, lights flickered, blacked out and came up with the green glow of emergency exit signs, and Kerrou kept yelling, desperate, fear-soaked words. Kerrou never lost his cool, but he had now. That set Carrie’s pulse hammering in her throat.

  In the shadowy lights, Kerrou snapped on a flashlight and the backwash showed lines cut deep around his mouth. He’d lost his coat, and his tie hung loose. His had his shirt unbuttoned at the top, the white linen rumpled like he’d slept in it. Or maybe he hadn’t slept, going by the dark smudges under his eyes. It seems she had—but for how long?

  Memories swam up and lifted in a surge of shattering clarity.

  Someone grabbing her—her and Zeigler. Falling across the Rift. Guns…guys in lab coats… She remembered the crossing. Kerrou, had
been yelling then, too, amid confusion and the heavy stink of ozone.

  He was saying something now, “…generator on. We can’t carry every damn stretcher up fifteen flights of stairs.”

  “Every?” she muttered.

  She wasn’t the only one hurt, and she glanced around but still didn’t see Gideon. Three other stretchers blocked the hall and one guy in a blood-spattered lab coat seemed to be trying to patch up the worst injuries.

  Pushing up, she got to one elbow. The world spun and her arm shook. Blood pounded in her throat, and the need to lay down again dragged at her. But she reached out and grabbed Kerrou’s pant leg.

  “How long?” she yelled at him. She heard the slur in her words, mouthed the dryness slowing her tongue.

  He stared at her as if he didn’t understand. But he bent down, put his hand on her shoulder. “Carrie…lie down. We’ve got it handled.”

  “Like hell—what’s…how long?”

  “A few hours. You’ve got a severe concussion, and you were missing even longer. Now stay put. They’ve got a special op team coming in to run a sweep, and I want you out before then.”

  She shook her head—and that was a mistake. The room swam. She had to tighten her hands on Kerrou to stay upright. Bile burned her throat, but she swallowed it and threw off the blanket. Panic sizzled under her skin—this was all wrong, and she wasn’t done with trying to fix things. The worry twisted inside her chest that maybe it was too late—maybe there wasn’t anything anyone could do now.

  But she could hear her father in her head—You don’t know what you can do until you’ve done it.

  Yeah, yeah—well, let’s hope you were right about that.

  Biting her lower lip, she forced herself to straighten. The shaking moved from her arms into her chest, jabbed pain into her. She pushed herself up and slid her legs over the sides of the stretcher. She had to sit still and pant for breath.

  Overhead the lights flickered back on. Kerrou swore, low and harsh, and Carrie glanced at him. She knew what that had to mean. “You didn’t get it shut down, did you?”

  He looked at her, his eyes wide and dark, his own panic etched on a face too pale and too taut, but he kept his voice steady. “We did. I’d swear we did. That level’s been sealed.”

  She shook her head. They were all hip-deep and sinking. “How long, David. How long?”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Just lay down—”

  “No. How long was I gone? Missing? How many days?”

  “Days? It’s been ten hours since whatever the hell went wrong in your lab. Power’s out to most of the facility now, but that’s a different problem.”

  Wetting her lips, she stared at him. Hours, not days. Time flowed at different rates in the different realities? Not a lot of use knowing that. The lights overhead brightened and faded again.

  “Different? Like hell. What’s...?” she gestured to the chaos around them. She also grabbed his arm to steady herself. She had to hold her sides as pain danced over her ribs.

  Kerrou balanced her with one hand and turned to look up at the flickering lights. “Started about an hour ago. Power surges, systems sorting, electrical burns. Critical systems—air, temp control—just went out. I’ve got people running diagnostics, but we can’t keep the elevators running, and the evac…”

  “Isn’t going to help.” Bracing her feet wide, she let go of Kerrou. She yanked the IV from her arm—it stung like a bastard, and distracted from the itching, pull of the bandage on her chest. A dozen other aches twinged in her joints and dragged on her muscles.

  “Where’s Gideon? Temple? Jakes?”

  Pushing a hand through his hair, Kerrou left the strands disordered. It showed the thinning spots. He had stubble coming in dark and thick. He looked red-eyed exhausted and he sounded it as he said her name on an exhaled breath.

  She shook her head. “Don’t tell me they’re dead.” She locked her back teeth and clenched a fist. She wouldn’t believe it. But the fear crawled up her spin in a cold shiver.

  “No. No. But…Carrie, four men from Jakes’ team are still missing, and we...” He swallowed hard. “We found Dr. Thompson. Or what was left of him. And your tech, Stevenson, in your lab. I’ve seen…are we even going to find Dr. Chand?”

  Mouth pressed tight, she shook her head. She kept her breaths shallow so her bruised ribs would stop screaming, but nothing eased the pounding at the back of her skull. She needed a painkiller—and a whole lot more. “I’m going to need your help.”

  Kerrou stared at her, and she knew he was trying to come up with soothing words, something to get her back on that stretcher. She could see it in his eyes and in the worry tightening his mouth. She also knew she didn’t have time to explain everything—the flickering lights told their own story. There had to be Walkers here, and when they got done with draining power systems, they’d turn to the next best food source—to the people. She gestured to the lights, asked, “Have you talked to Gideon? To Jakes and Shoup?”

  “Carrie—”

  “No—do not try to placate me. Things are going to hell around here. If you don’t believe it, take another look at the marks on me. I didn’t get these playing hide-and-seek. Thompson didn’t…he didn’t die from an experiment gone wrong. And the others…we’re all headed that way if you don’t listen.”

  Frowning, Kerrou licked his lips. They were already chapped and dry. He glanced at the confusion milling around them. A crew had gathered around the elevators at the end of the hall, and others bent over pried-open electronic locks panels. The men kept jumping back as current surged and sparked. Radios blared static and controlled shouts kept everyone else who could walk moving toward the stairs. Security teams stood ready at the stairwell, and Carrie kept looking at their guns and thinking about them turned loose in this facility when she still didn’t know where to find Gideon.

  Kerrou turned back to her. He stepped closer and his voice dropped. “There’s no reason the power should have stayed on in your lab for the last ten hours. We cut the main circuit to that level right after it happened. We cut the circuit, but everything stayed operational. It doesn’t make sense and I’d swear, after you showed up, it was like lightning jumped out of the wall sockets, and...”

  “Lightning?” She grabbed his arm. “Jagged balls of light? Did they get into anyone?”

  “Into? You mean did they burn anyone?”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She shook her head. Vertigo washed over her. Kerrou reached for her, but she waved him off, stood still, pain lancing through her like someone had a drill going into her chest. She wiped a hand over her eyes, kept seeing a brighter glare in her memories.

  Lights? That explosion? Something else?

  “Where’s Gideon?” she asked again. Worry for him wrapped around her stomach like a fist, kept wrapping tighter with every second.

  The lights flickered again, went out. Flashlights popped back on around them. Next to her, Kerrou shifted and his flashlight came back to life in his hands. “God, we’re going to lose every cent of our funding.”

  She couldn’t stop the harsh bark of a laugh. Kerrou frowned at her, but she put a hand to sore ribs and told him, “If that’s all we lose, I could live with that. So could you.”

  In the glare of his flashlight, she saw his mouth thin. She knew he was thinking she’d been hit too hard in the head. It was more than possible—concussions weren’t the best at helping you think straight.

  But memories were fitting back into place, along with the realization of what was nagging at her. She glanced at the light in Kerou’s hands and thought about the batteries—power that an Edge Walker would be drawn to. Turning from it, she glanced at the other stretchers. she didn’t see any familiar faces among the injured. Thank god. Fast beats of fear pounding through her, she had to ask, even though she feared she knew the answer, “David—where’s Zeigler?”

  He pulled in a breath and let it out in a slow exhale as if he was trying to use it to hang onto himself. “We�
�we don’t know. We had him stabilized. He kept seizing..and then that damn lightning burst out...”

  “And into him—they were waiting here for him.”

  “Who was waiting? What are you talking about. These people?” He gestured again to the people on the stretchers. “A security team found them—most of them have electrical burns.”

  Carrie pressed a hand over the gash on her chest. It had started to ache. She knew now that they hadn’t gotten Zeigler back home—they had never even had him safe and with them. But what had they brought home with them?

  She could swear Zeigler wasn’t carrying Walkers. He hadn’t had light leaking out of him. But what else could Walkers do to someone? Had they left him a fried shell that they could manipulate—a…a walking zombie under their control?

  They’d wanted him to come back here, and she was pretty certain it was so he could finish opening the door way. Some Walkers must have been waiting here, pushing power into her computers to keep the doorway open on this side. Now Zeigler was loose—and he was going to try and get the doorway open again so Walkers could come through from Temple’s world.

  They needed to stop this, and for that she needed help.

  She turned to Kerrou, pushed out the words with more force, “Tell me where to find Gideon.”

  Kerrou gestured to the security teams striding past. “We should leave this to them—they’re the experts.”

  “They have no idea. Will you at least cover for me?”

  He dragged his hand into his hair again and turned away. But he turned back and took her arm. “Fine. Okay. And, no, I’m not letting you go into this alone. Hell, maybe I can at least keep them from shooting you.”

  “David, I can’t—”

  “Carrie, I saw Dr. Zeigler. I saw…saw what was left of Dr. Thompson. I know this…” He waved a hand. “This isn’t anything we understand. I’m not letting you do this on your own. And I’m not letting this facility go to complete hell. So, stop bitching and start explaining—what do we need to get this mess cleaned up?”