Los Muertos

The Vulture settles hard, tilted against a vent stack, rain hammering its hull. Ocram is still hunched over the bypass, but the ship is dead in the water.

Yma snaps her head up from the console, eyes lit by scrolling trace data. A bright interceptor ping blooms across her display, closing fast.

Taled braces by the hatch, rain sliding off his armor. He looks from the skyline to Kay, then back to the dark access stair beside the roof.

Below the slick rooftop edge, Los Muertos glows in stacked neon and wet concrete, an endless maze between them and freedom. Kay sees it plain, the city is the route now, and every block is still on the hunt.

Kay drops into cover beside the hatch frame, Mac 10 up, rain ticking off the suppressor. Taled mirrors him on the opposite side, both of them aiming into the neon wash above the roofline.

Ocram jerks a panel free in the cockpit, shoving frayed wiring aside. Sparks spit across his gloves as the bypass coughs and flickers.

Her antenna snaps up from the laptop, thin and ugly against the rain, and the console screen floods with hostile signal noise.

A search-light sweep cuts over the rooftop edge. Kay squeezes off a burst into the glare, the report muffled but sharp enough to sting in the open air.

The burst misses the drone shape behind the light, but it forces the pilot to break the sweep. A hot casing skitters away under Kay's boot, and the muzzle flash paints his hands white for a blink.

Below, the city keeps shining like a wound that will not close, and the roof shakes with the first distant thud of engines climbing toward them.

Ocram lunges back into the torn housing and swings the wrench hard. The reactor answers with a harsh cough of light, then dies to a low, ugly rumble.

For one breath, the Vulture steadies. Then the whole frame shudders, and a seam of smoke snakes out from the bypass panel.

Yma slaps the laptop flat against her knee, fingers flying as the signal noise spikes and then thins into a brittle hiss.

Outside, the search-light returns, wider this time, dragging over the vent stack and washing the hatch in white.

Kay hits the roof edge in a low, controlled drop, boots skidding on wet metal, and comes up clear of the hatch line. Taled follows hard on his heels, already turning to cover the Vulture.

The search-light sweeps past the hatch and misses them by a breath, painting rain silver across the rooftop as the two men gain the shadow of the vent stack.

Behind them, the Vulture’s reactor keeps its ugly rumble, smoke leaking from the bypass panel like a warning.

Ahead, the service door stands half-lit and waiting, while the distant recovery engines grow louder through the haze.

Taled drives a boot into the service door, and it blows inward with a metallic shriek. The latch tears free, and the impact kicks a burst of dust and hot air into the rain.

Kay surges in right behind him, Mac 10 leveled at chest height. His shoes hit the threshold as sparks spit from the door edge and patter across the floor.

Inside, the room is a cramped service bay, all pipes, cable trays, and a blinking maintenance panel. The door slams back against the wall, and the search-light washes across the opening outside like a hand searching for them.

Kay scans the cramped bay, but the dust and sparks turn the corners into blind spots. The maintenance panel blinks too fast to read, and the only sound is the Vulture’s thinning rumble through the wall.

Taled shifts first, stepping deeper into the room with his shoulders squared, then freezing when the cables overhead twitch in the draft. He checks the ceiling, then the dark under the pipe run, but nothing gives itself away.

Outside, the Vulture’s engine note rises hard and clean. Ocram has it moving again, and the floor answers with a brief vibration that rattles loose grit from the beams.

Kay angles toward the far wall, but the broken service door behind them bucks under a fresh impact from the rooftop wind and slams shut partway, leaving only a jagged gap to the rain-lit outside.

Taled slaps the wall switch. White worklights stab on, bleaching the dust and turning every pipe seam into a hard line.

Kay cuts across the bay in two quick steps, scanning shelves, tool hooks, and the floor grate for anything usable.

A bent pry bar, a dead coil gun, and a box of fused cartridges stare back at him. The glare makes the oil sheen on the floor look like another spill of scrap.

Kay reaches under the lowest rack, but his hand comes back empty, slick with dust. The bay feels smaller now, the only exit a jagged mouth of rain and rooftop noise.

Outside, a heavier engine note pushes closer through the wall, and the damaged door shivers in its frame as if something on the roof has locked onto them.

Kay leaves Cramped industrial service bay off the rooftop behind and arrives at old housing complex.

The stairs vomit Kay and Taled into a gutted housing block, all cracked plaster, stale coolant, and dead tenant doors. A rusted emergency sign hums over a landing washed in red spill light from the roof access behind them.

Kay takes the steps two at a time, the Mac 10 tight in his hand, boots thudding on concrete slick with old rain and newer dust. Taled follows hard, one shoulder turned back toward the roof access.

He points down the stairwell, where a warped fire door sits half-lit at the next landing, its push bar hanging crooked but intact.

Kay hits the landing first. The latch gives with a metallic crack, and cold air slides up from below, carrying wet concrete and a faint electrical burn.

Behind them, the rooftop engine note swells again, but now the stairwell door is open to the lower levels, and the crew has a route off the roof.

The first junkie lunges from the stair shadow with a syringe raised, but Kay slams him into the rail and strips the needle free. Taled folds into the second one before the drug can hit, driving him back against the wall.

The vial in the syringe cracks on the concrete. Sweet chemical stink blooms up the stairwell, but neither of them goes down, and the ambush dies in the landing before it can spread.

Kay twists the attacker’s wrist until the syringe skitters away, then kicks it under a step. Taled rips the second junkie off balance and sends him stumbling hard into the open emergency door.

The fallen junkie coughs up a plastic transit chip from his collar. It clacks against the landing and spins to a stop near Kay’s boot.

Below them, something metallic scrapes in the dark, and the open route downward suddenly feels less like a corridor and more like a marked line.