Awakening by K. Gorman

Author:K. Gorman [Gorman, K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The rear of the compound squatted onto the back like a square, concrete toad. It was five stories tall and about as uninspired and utilitarian as it could get with its interior layout. Four hallways on each level, forming an inset square, with rooms, offices, closets, and bathrooms lining both their outside and inside walls.

There were only two stairwells going up, which made it tricky. Luckily, the second level also connected to the front of the building.

She and Marc eased open the door, wincing as it made a creak, and slipped through it as quietly as they could. After a careful listen, and a pause while she slipped her shoes back on—she had a feeling there was about to be a lot of running involved—they crept over to the left.

Fear sent a spike of adrenaline through her chest as she came even with the doors to the next stairwell. A raw pulse of energy burned in her stomach.

Gods, I wish the comms were working. Nomiki could have given her updates on the Powersuit’s position. Right now, all she had were the faint, metallic stomps she could hear through the stairwell and the vague sense of where that placed it in her internal map.

Good thing it had heavy feet. So far, it sounded like it had come close to the end of the hallway.

She needed to act. Fast.

The front level of this floor had an almost opposite approach to its design from the first. Instead of a mostly-blocked-in middle with an open space at the front, both ends of the long hallway were taken up by rooms, and the middle space had been opened in the center. For the first and second levels, the two stairwells acted as bridges between both sections of the building, the first level mitigating the awkward height disparity between them with a single long stairwell leading up and a short set descending to the basement—the basement level was roughly two meters below the front level of the building. For the second level, that meant she had two choices when she finished climbing the stairs: either keep going and head straight into the back portion of the building, or loop around in the stairwell and head up a small transversing hallway to the front.

She wanted it to go to the front.

There was more room to run, for one. For another, it would get it farther away from the side door she suspected they were planning to bring the Cradle out of.

Plus, the back hallways were tight and tricky, and she did not want to play run-around in them.

Which made her a bit leery about the plan that was forming in her head.

She took a slow breath and let it out. Then, she turned to Marc and let out a flurry of whispers.

“Okay—and, sorry in advance, but you’re the better sprinter.” She shot him a guilty look, then swallowed hard against the ruffle of emotions that followed in her throat—gods, she was about to put his life at risk.

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