Page 440 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

There’s a strange high-pitched whistle in the air.

A cut-through whine.

He barely has time to snatch a painfully cold breath into sore lungs before the world explodes into noise, heat and destruction.

The Tower is being firebombed.

Riley forces himself onto all fours, balance shot to shit but he tries to stand anyway. He keeps upright on his knees and stares at the Tower.

His home.

His prison.

It’s burning.

The air is sour with accelerant, scorched metal, burning insulation and rain flash-heated into steam. He smells blood and bodies and fear. He hears screaming. Gunfire. Yelling.

Boots.

Boots on the ground.

He turns to see the surrounding line of PMCs open.

Vehicles pull aside.

Barricades split.

Men withdraw from the cleared path.

The Resets charge through.

Riley would know them blind; their heartbeats always give them away. Too steady, too slow for bodies moving that fast. They never race with fear, never stumble with adrenaline.

Hundreds of hearts beating like one machine.

They come shoulder to shoulder in staggered ranks, silent and perfectly aligned, trampling through smoke, burning wreckage and anyone too slow to clear their path.

The PMCs part around them like infantry making way for heavy cavalry. The first rank reaches Iron Star’s clearance radius.

The Tower opens fire from above.

And inside Riley, something rips itself open.

‘No, no, no.’

Arms around his middle as if keeping his guts inside, he knee-walks over broken glass to get away. Fever-hot terror is boiling his blood.

The fucking thing inside him is screaming.

Alone! Alone! Alone! Alone!

He can’t calm himself down, he cannot make it stop.

His brother was always so good at that.

Just being near him was enough.

And now he’s gone.