Paranoia

1.1
Armsmaster

With a practiced flourish, I spun, dismounting my motorcycle in a single fluid motion. The internal gyroscope made the retractable kickstand unnecessary, but to preserve the condition of the bike's finish and the sensitive electronics it carried I was willing to allow a few redundancies. Continuing the rotation of my dismount I ducked low to pass underneath the PRT barricade established around Winslow High: the primary quarantine line. There was a secondary perimeter established a block away that all civilians had been evacuated beyond, but we couldn't afford to be careless with a situation as volatile as this.

Straightening once I was past the barricade, I took a brief moment to survey the quarantine zone. Winslow High was a dark and dreary scene, and not only in an aesthetic sense. The instrumentation incorporated within the visor of my power armor informed me that the ambient light level had dropped a full 43% compared to outside of the secondary quarantine line. I made note of a few possible explanations including energy dampening or area reflection before turning my attention on the human element within the quarantine zone.

Groups of PRT soldiers stood at relatively even intervals around the circumference of the barricade, flanked by vans and armored vehicles with containment foam turret mounts on top. An alert pinged at the side of my visor's interface and with a brief eye movement I selected it, my behavioral profiling software suite opening in response. The program painted a picture of abnormally high area stress and widespread agitation and unease amongst the normally professional and strictly self disciplined soldiers.

This particular anomaly was likely a most troubling indicator. First responder reports on the emotional states of those students and staff that had managed to escape from the building before the situation escalated, painted a picture of near ubiquitous hysteria and fear. Most individuals had no idea why they were afraid, stating that they were suddenly gripped with blood chilling terror and suspicion before fleeing the premises. If the disciplined PRT personnel were experiencing this unease as well, it likely meant that there was a Master effect at work here: potentially a gradually increasing sense of fear and paranoia the longer one remained in the effected zone.

With a few slight eye movements, I opened my communications to transmit on all PRT channels. "Armsmaster: authorization 3-Alfa-4-4-9-Delta-Oscar-Delta-2-1-Juliet, initializing Master/Stranger protocols. Begin rotating PRT personnel out of the primary quarantine zone with fresh troopers every fifteen minutes. There is a high probability of a wide area master effect instilling increasing unease on those within range. Those who believe they have already been heavily affected inform your squad leaders so that you may be rotated out on high priority."

As I cut off the transmission another alert pinged in the upper corner of my visor. With a twitch, I accessed it and accepted the communications request from Dragon. Her animated avatar appeared in the corner of my interface.

"Colin, I have a high-speed recon suit equipped with mobile drones inbound: ETA 10 minutes, followed by a light armament defense unit that I rerouted from just north of Niagara Falls: ETA 25 minutes. I'll try to coordinate the Master/Stranger screenings from here. How would you like them handled?" I couldn't help but smile at the easy efficiency Dragon segued into the operation with. Working with her was always a pleasure and she was especially invaluable for scenarios with a possible Master or Stranger influence.

"Good to see you Dragon. See if you can't determine the approximate range of the fear aura by referencing with individuals on scene and have affected troopers placed under observation to determine the possible length of the effect once removed from the area of influence."

"Right," she replied as the eyebrows of her avatar appeared to furrow in concentration. "I should be able to tweak the Endbringer armband software to automatically deliver an abbreviated psych evaluation and tally the responses. Give me just a moment..."

As Dragon trailed off, movement to my left alerted me to the approach of Miss Militia. I turned slightly to acknowledge her presence while remaining angled to keep the school in my line of sight. Her power had currently taken the form of a heavy looking assault rifle attached by a sling to her right shoulder, the grip held firmly in her right hand as her finger rested on the trigger guard.

"Armsmaster," she called out to me in greeting. I schooled my mouth back into a neutral line as I took in her own expression. Though the lower half of her face was hidden behind her signature American flag scarf, the creased worry lines of her forehead were plainly visible for all to see. "We haven't been able to make contact with Shadow Stalker yet, and she's believed to still be within the premises. Her phone seems to be offline and landlines into the school are down. We haven't even been able to confirm the wellbeing of the faculty and students still inside the building thanks to some strange blackout effect on the windows."

"Blackout effect?" I thought aloud, turning to study the visible windows of the building. They did indeed seem to be hidden by thick shadows, preventing sight into the building. I took a moment to flip through several view filters on my visor: thermal, infrared, electromagnetic, etc, and found that the entire building appeared to be one giant cold spot, completely blank to all of my sensitive instruments. I called to mind the only known parahuman in Brockton Bay capable of producing a similar effect. "The entire building is a dead zone to my sensor suite. I've seen similar results from the darkness produced by Grue of the Undersiders. Coincidence?"

"It's similar, but I don't think it's the same." Dragon chimed in, likely broadcasting to Miss Militia's earpiece as well. "The dampening effect extends to areas intersected by walls perpendicular to the outside. As far as we've seen, Grue's darkness can't pass through solid matter, so if it were him you should still be able to see the electromagnetic interference from the wires in the walls."

"Not to mention, that attacking a school doesn't fit with the MO of a group like the Undersiders." I added to Dragon's line of thought. "They're a smash and grab group, targeting locations with a high ratio of reward to the relative risk and then fleeing at the first sign of confrontation. It's not like them to take and keep hostages."

"So then a new parahuman here in the Bay." Miss Militia concluded. "Or a new Trigger here in the school."

I frowned. Winslow High was an unpleasant location to be sure, what with the grimy broken down facilities and high levels of gang presence, but was it a bad enough environment to cause a Trigger Event? I had thought that things would have improved with Shadow Stalker's presence in her civilian identity, but she was only one individuals. It would certainly be difficult to keep watch of the entire school by herself. Regardless, thinking about it now wouldn't change the present situation. Perhaps after this crisis was resolved the Protectorate could consider measures for improving conditions, maybe by enrolling another Ward.

Pushing aside idle thoughts, I was preparing to ask Miss Militia about our preparations for storming the building, but was preempted by a sudden disturbance. There was a loud crash as the front doors of the school were violently flung open, followed by a chorus of panicked cries and whimpers. Reflexively, I grasped the halberd fixed to my back as I turned to survey the sudden commotion.

Four students were in the process of throwing themselves out of the entryway, tripping and pushing one another in their haste to be the first ones out. Behind me, along the immediate perimeter of the quarantine zone, the already high-strung soldiers tensed, leveling their weapons on the emerging group. Thankfully, they refrained from firing long enough for me to step forwards with Miss Militia to intercept the group.

"Stop!" I called out the terse order in an attempt to bring the three boys and one girl to their senses. They collectively flinched, turning to see me as I planted the butt of my halberd into the ground next to me. Instead of being shaken into compliance, the group seemed to be hysteric with relief at the sight of us. They immediately changed course, making a beeline for us.

"Help!" the boy in the lead shrieked, stumbling and clawing his way across the grass to reach us. "Please help us! They got Mike! They-" With a brief spin, I brought the butt of my weapon up to point at them in warning. With a slight twitch of my hand, the haft pulsed, releasing a high density low frequency sound pulse. The pulse washed over the frantic group and their already tenuous sprint faltered, sending them crashing to the ground in a heap. I gestured over my shoulder with two fingers and a squadron of troopers rushed over to intercept the four. Unceremoniously, they were scooped off of the ground by their underarms and rushed away from the school towards the edge of the quarantine.

Before turning to follow, I turned my sights on the open front doors. Measurements popped up on my visor, displaying fifteen feet of visibility into the school before the ambient light quickly faded to nothing. As the doors automatically swung slowly closed, the windows reduced that visibility further until the hallway was no longer visible.

Miss Militia hurried ahead of me, catching up to where the troopers were attempting to restrain the violently thrashing students so that paramedics could look them over.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's alright." She attempted to soothe the struggling group as she knelt down near them. "You're okay. You're safe now. We're not going to hurt you, we're here to help." Miss Militia leaned forward to lay a comforting hand on the head of the lone girl of the group. The girl immediately froze at the contact, dilated pupils locking intensely on the face of the heroine. "We're going to get you out of here, but we also would like to help the people still in the building. Do you think you could tell me what happened? What you saw?" The girl's eyes darted around, taking in everything fearfully. Eventually, she gulped down an exaggerated swallow and nodded furiously.

Miss Militia gave the troopers restraining her a brief nod and they released her. Keeping a gentle but firm hold on her arm to keep the girl from bolting and hurting herself, Miss Militia helped her sit up, rubbing her back comfortingly. The girl was shivering violently, likely more from adrenaline than the cool January air, and one of the medics draped a blanket over her shoulders before moving to her free side to shine a pen light in her eyes.

"What's your name sweetie?" Miss Militia began. I was never good at these sorts of delicate treatments so I simply looked on silently.

"J-j-j-jess." The girl forced out, teeth chattering together.

"Hi Jess, I'm Miss Militia."

"Know you." The girl mumbled an interruption, clutching the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. Miss Militis smiled warmly and pressed on.

"I know you're scared Jess, and we're going to get you away from here as soon as possible, but do you think you could tell me about what happened inside first? Anything at all that you can remember, no matter how big or small." Jess nodded furiously and blinked as the first tears began to trail out from the corners of her eyes.

"I- I was in class. History. W-w-when we all heard the scream."

"Scream?" Miss Militia clarified, speaking up to reinforce her presence and keep the girl on track.

"Yeah. It was loud. Sounded like it came from right next to me, or behind me, but I was in the back, and there was no one there. All of the lights exploded. I-I tried to cover my ears, to block out the noise, but it didn't stop the scream. It was like it was going right into my head."

I grimaced. A scream projected right into your head. That had bad connotations. Anyone would immediately draw connections to the Simurgh, hearing something like that. The Endbringer aside, if the sound was projected directly into their heads then it was another check in the master effect column. That could make this situation even more problematic.

"People p-p-panicked, jumping to the floor, hiding under desks as the glass from the lights rained down. It felt like it went on forever. When it finally stopped, everything was dark: unnaturally so. You couldn't see outside, or into the hallway." Hmm, perhaps the effect was created via electromagnetic manipulation. EM fields have often been attributed to certain sensations of unease or being watched. "Some of us- some of us just ran, as soon as the noise stopped. It felt like, if we stayed there we were goners, you know? It's crazy isn't it? Just getting scared and running off like that for no reason."

"You did what you thought you had to." Miss Militia interrupted what seemed to be an unhelpful tangent with a soothing tone. "How many of you ran, and what happened afterwards?"

"I- I dunno. Half the class maybe? It was a mistake though. A horrible mistake." She wrapped her arms around herself, clutching tight and rocking forwards. "They came from everywhere. Lockers, the ceiling, doorways. Grabbing people and dragging them off. They took Mike! He was screaming and we- we left him!"

"Shh..." Miss Militia cooed soothingly. "What things Jess? If we're going to help Mike we need to know what we're facing."

"I don't know. Monsters! Like human, animal, bug things. They crawled on the ceilings and walls, and- oh god..." Her hands went up to cover her face as she whimpered. For a few moments she didn't say anything as Miss Militia simply rubbed her back. "-and the fire." She broke back in suddenly. "There was so much fire. People were burning and they-" She broke off again, breaking into body shaking sobs.

I rounded quickly to study the building again. There was no smoke to be seen from these alleged fires. Perhaps it was some kind of hallucination? An effect of the fear aura perhaps? Whatever the case, people were likely panicking, and panic would only make things more dangerous for the people still inside. We couldn't afford to waste any time, if things were really as bad as this witness claimed. Thankfully, backup had arrived.

With a roar of turbine engines, Dragon's fast response suit appeared in the sky. It decelerated hard, banking into a turn that set it on an orbiting path around the school, tracing the primary perimeter. The suit itself was stylized as a Chinese dragon, its serpentine body long and sinuous, and composed of numerous interlocking sections that allowed it to slither through the air like a snake. Pairs of jet engines were spaced at key points along its length and a faint glow could be seen radiating from the gaps between each segment.

On several of the segments, metal covers pulled back to reveal circular openings. With a series of pneumatic puffs, a dozen objects were jettisoned from the open compartments. The objects tumbled briefly through the air before suddenly stabilizing. They were drones, each no more than half a foot in diameter and hovering freely above Winslow. Her payload delivered, Dragon allowed the suit to descend on the outside of the quarantine before landing in an open street. The drones zipped about overhead, spreading to position themselves near key entry points of the building. One approached their own group.

"My scouting drones are prepped and ready." Dragon announced over the communications channel. "How would you like to proceed Armsmaster?" Nodding to myself, I once again admired the efficiency of Dragon's creations. It was always a pleasure to work with the fellow Tinker, whether on collaborative projects or in the field.

Opening the Protectorate and PRT field communications channels, I announced my orders. "Breaching squadrons, gear up and move into position at your designated entry points. Assault, Battery, the two of you are to cover the rear exit of the building and await orders to proceed. Miss Militia and I will enter through the front once Dragon's preliminary sweep of the building is complete. Be ready in three minutes." I turned to face the drone hovering overhead and nodded, even as multiple display feeds were remotely connected to my HUD. "Whenever you're ready Dragon."

"Right, I'm going to take things slow. We don't want to spook the potentially new parahuman, especially if they've just had their trigger event." As she spoke, light was projected from the sides of the drones. It painted the surfaces, mirroring the visual data received from the opposite side. It wasn't perfect invisibility, as the drones were still recognizable as blurry splotches in the air, but it helped to hide their already small profiles, and with careful positioning they would be difficult to spot, especially if all of the lights in the school had been destroyed.

With a barely detectable whir, the nearby drone moved off in the direction of the front door, as the others approached their own respective entry points. I moved to follow, approaching the door and grabbing onto the handle to be ready to open it at Dragon's signal. I left coordinating entry help from the other breaching teams to her. She was more than capable of signaling them herself.

"Open now." Acquiescing, I attempted to pull the door open as quietly as I could. It was a futile effort, as the old and worn metal hinges groaned loudly anyway. When enough space was made, the drone banked and slipped through the open door. I released the door to swing shut behind it and stepped back a few paces, turning my attention to the feed from that same drone.

In spite of the lack of light, the drone's cameras were able to make out the interior of the hall more easily than when we were simply looking in from outside. The hallway was littered in places with broken glass, likely from the overhead fluorescent lighting. There were no people visible within the entry hall, and most of the doors along it were closed, the smoky glass offering no line of sight. The drone continued on, keeping near the ceiling of the hall as it slowly made its way deeper inside.

For several minutes I watched the feed in silence, looking for any individuals, any bodies or evidence of violence, or even just open doors allowing the drones access to classrooms. They found nothing. I frowned, studying the live feed more closely, as though I'd be able to force important details to appear through force of effort. I was about to ask Dragon for her opinion when she preempted me.

"Armsmaster," she called out, her tone subdued with a hint of trepidation. My frown deepened. "Something's not right."

"It is a bit odd." I stated. "There should have been signs of the reported panic by now, signs of people and-"

"No, not that." Dragon interrupted me. Blinking, I refocused on the video feeds as several more expanded to fill my view around the first as I attempted to pinpoint what had her worried. "I've been comparing the paths my drones are taking with the blueprints of the school. They don't match up. The length of the hallways, the number of rooms, the turns and intersections... no, even when compared with the observable dimensions from the outside of the building, Winslow High is much bigger on the inside than is physically possible."

The video feeds vanished as Dragon directly pulled two floor plan maps up on my interface. The one on the left was the recorded blueprints from the construction of Winslow High school. The one on the right was a model constructed with data from Dragon's drones as they moved through the school. As the map filled in, two drones would appear to come together at what should have been an intersection, only to find more straight hallway with no other drones. The map would then self correct, expanding the dimensions of the perimeter of the building to account for the drone's movement.

The model was already twice as large as Winslow should have been.

Closing out of the blueprint but leaving Dragon's updating map in the corner of my display, I flung open the front doors of the building, locking them open. That done, I unclipped a concealed oval at the waist of my powersuit and pulled it away. A thin but deceptively strong metal wire was attached to the back of it, the wire leading to a winch system in the lower back of my suit. The wire was infinitely fed by an ingenious little replicating generator I'd requisitioned from one of the wards in New York. Crouching down, I held the face of the oval to the concrete walkway and with a slight compression of the edges, four metal hooks fired out, biting into the concrete and securing the line in place.

"Are you planning on going in there? Before I finish mapping the floor plan?" Dragon asked, uncertainty coloring her tone. "With this type of spatial dilation and warping, the inside is a maze. I can't recommend you walk blindly into a situation with this many unknowns."

While I appreciated the concern, especially coming from Dragon, it was unnecessary.

"I don't believe this is the result of the actions of an unknown. There is only one Shaker in Brockton Bay capable of producing an effect like this." Though she couldn't view the maps Dragon was forwarding my way, Miss Militia still managed to make the connection based on the conversation alone.

"Labyrinth." She said aloud. "That doesn't make much sense either. What would Faultline's group want with Winslow High?"

"They're mercenaries." I replied as I stood, pulling on the wire coming from the back of my suit to make sure the feeding mechanism was functioning properly. "The only justification they need is payment. The reason is irrelevant. They've crossed the line this time."

"Are you sure?" Dragon asked, sounding reluctant to agree with the reasoning. "We have nothing on record about Faultline recruiting a Master with a fear aura. Isn't it possible that this was caused by some new element?"

"Occam's razor." Finding the wire functioning properly, I pressed the butt of my halberd to the wire extending from the clamp and triggered the firing of an additional metallic stake into the ground, offering additional binding to the wire's anchor. "When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is better. When there is already a known Shaker 12 in the city, assuming that a new one would come along capable of producing comparable effects is too outlandish."

"If you're sure." Dragon concede despite still sounding hesitant.

"Dragon, would you be able to supply the other teams with a display for the map you're compiling?"

"Yes," she acknowledged, sounding more sure of herself. "I always keep a supply of the Enbringer armbands in my fast response suits. It would be simple to temporarily repurpose them."

"Good. Distribute them to the other teams and have them begin cautiously clearing the building as soon as they're equipped. Miss Militia and I will go on ahead."

"Understood."

With a nod to Miss Militia, we made our way into the distorted school building, a flashlight in my helmet and at my shoulder clicking on. As we proceeded, the metal wire tracing our route behind us, we systematically checked every room we came to. The third door we opened revealed the first group of people to have been spotted since Dragon's drones entered the building. They were all slumped around the room, some laying haphazardly on the floor, while others limply hung over chairs and desks. Miss Militia checked each one for a pulse and responsiveness, and found them to be alive but unconscious, likely incapacitated by the tranquilizing chemicals secreted by another of Faultline's parahumans, Newter.

I asked Dragon to note the location for a PRT squad to come clear and we continued on our search. Our abilities would be better utilized finding the ones responsible for this attack instead of evacuating unconscious civilians.

It wasn't until we reached the last door of the first hallway that we encountered something strange. As we stepped through, instead of leading to another classroom or office, it opened into another stretch of hallway. This was clearly an unnatural aspect of the layout, as a convening hallway should not have been connected via a classroom door, and was likely the work of the Shaker attempting to cover their trail. As Dragon's drones had already swept the area of the hallway's continuation after the turn, I determined it would be better to continue on this unexplored and clearly suspicious path. As Miss Militia and I continued onwards, I noted that Dragon's model of the structure conveniently filled itself in on the path we were taking now as well.

This new path, proved to be a wellspring of new oddities in this strange situation. Most of the doors we came to were no longer closed. They now hung open, some permanently so as they leaned half off of their hinges, seemingly torn away in the haste of the occupants to escape. In addition, the rooms all proved to be empty, though they showed signs of being recently utilized. Desks were askew, in some places jackets hung on chairs, and in one, an ominous pool of blood sat at the front of the room. It wasn't unexpected, given the circumstances, but the absence of injured or additional incapacitated was strange.

As we turned into another shorter section of hallway, my profiling software alerted me of Miss Militia's stress levels. She appeared to have been growing increasingly agitated, frequently glancing over her shoulder or twitching to bring the barrel of her rifle up to point in random directions. After a moment of deliberation, I decided to address the issue.

"Miss Militia." My whisper echoed through the empty halls despite my attempts to be quiet and she flinched slightly in response. "Are you alright?"

"Ah, yes." She replied sounding sheepish. "I suppose this aura has me a bit high strung." As we approached the next door on our path, the first to be closed since entering this new stretch of hallway, my software noted as Miss Militia forced her body to relax. "It's sort of reminding me of a time in the pa-AH!"

Breaking into an alarmed cry, the gun toting heroine practically threw herself away from the door, rifle swinging up to be ready to fire as her finger twitched towards the trigger. I tensed, leveling the blade of my halberd on the doorway as I prepared for the threat. None appeared as the door slowly swung inward, revealing yet another empty room.

Miss Militia's breaths were short and quick as she waited for an attacker that wasn't there. I glanced away from the doorway to see her visibly force herself to calm, taking a purposefully deep breath and letting it out slowly. She didn't lower her rifle.

"Armsmaster, did you see a girl in the doorway?" I frowned and with a few quick movements of my eyes I pulled up the recording from my helmet rewinding a minute to just before the door was opened and then proceeding frame by frame. As I had thought, the doorway was empty and Miss Militia reacted suddenly without provocation.

"No, and there isn't one in my recording either. I ask again, are you alright?" She blinked a few times, eyes darting around the empty classroom before finally she shook her head.

"No. I- I think I just had one of the reported hallucinations. It might be best for me to backtrack and leave the affected area, until the effects dimin-"

A sobbing whimper echoed through the halls from around the corner ahead of us. Both of our heads snapped in that direction.

"You heard that, right?" She asked in a hurried whisper.

"Yes." I confirmed with a scowl.

Moving as swiftly as possible while trying to avoid making noise on the broken glass that littered the hallway, we approached the corner. The hallway turned to continue on to the left, and the far wall was lined with dark blue-green lockers. As we drew closer to the turn, a strange texture could be made out on the surface of the locker. They were words, scratched sloppily into the paint, the dull silver of the metal standing out against the dark surrounding paint.

I'm sorry.

Those two words were written over and over again, filling the visible surface of the face of the lockers in haphazard rows and columns. Stepping slowly around the corner, my eyes traced down the hall along the scratched words. The further down they went, the more haphazard the scrawl became. What started as relatively neat rows and columns devolved into scattered disorder, repetition abandoned for size and speed. Eventually, the silver of the metal was lost, replaced by an even darker color than the paint on the lockers. Now, the words were scrawled in blood.

Forty or so feet down the hallway, a girl knelt in front of the locker row, frantically scratching at the lockers' surface with her fingernails. She had long since worn the nails down to nothing and her fingertips were bloody and raw. I stepped around the corner, Miss Militia several paces behind me, and turned the light from my helmet on the girl. She didn't react.

"Hey!" I called out. "Are you alright?" Perhaps not the best question I could have asked, but I was more interested in getting her attention than her answer.

"Be quiet!" she hissed back at me, not taking her attention off of her frenzied scratching. "She'll hear you! You don't want that."

"Who will?" I called back in a hushed tone. I received no response. "What's your name?" I tried instead.

"Madison. I'm Madison and I'm sorry. I didn't want to do it. It wasn't my idea. It was them. They're to blame. I just couldn't say no. I should have said no! Oh god. I'm sorry." Her ramblings didn't seem to be directed towards me, or anyone in particular, and she continued mumbling unintelligible things at a lower volume as she slid her way across the floor to a clean stretch of locker. Once there, she immediately began scratching at its surface again.

As I continued to approach, I extended a needle from the tip of my halberd. I dialed down the concentrated sedative from brute levels to a dosage for a girl of her approximate size. She was clearly delirious, and attempting to move her while she was conscious could be dangerous for both parties. It would be best to sedate her and move her to a previously secured location for pickup by one of the PRT squads that would be following us.

There was a jerking pull at my back. It wasn't enough to make me lose my balance, but I was forced to stop moving forwards. A flashing indicator popped up on my HUD alerting me to a jam in the mechanism for the winch attached to the wire at my back. I reached back to grab onto it, attempting a few quick tugs in an attempt to jerk the mechanism loose. There was a startled gasp, and I looked up to find the delusional girl, Madison, fixing me with a wide eyed stare.

"Oh no." The words came out in a whimper. There was a sudden cacophony of crumbling stone and mortar as another sharp tug on the wire connected to my back dug into the corner of the wall causing stone tile to crumble to the floor. I was forced to take a step back to maintain my balance as I felt my stomach drop with a sudden sense of apprehension.

"She heard you."

An enormous tug on the wire ripped my feet out from underneath me and I face planted into the floor. I looked up in time to see the girl struggle to her feet in an attempt to sprint away from us down the hall before with the sound of grinding stone I was pulled by my wire back the way we'd come from.

"Armsmaster/Colin!" Twin cries from Miss Militia and Dragon called out to me before I impacted with the corner of the wall my wire was digging into, and rolled uncontrollably across the floor into the wall on the other side. Getting over the initial shock and disorientation, I consulted my HUD for proper orientation before driving the blade of my halberd into the ground behind my head. I barely decelerated as the pull on my wire was strong enough to tear the flat of the blade through the solid tile of the floor and the concrete beneath. Using what little control my weapon afforded me, I forced myself over onto my back so that I could see down the hall.

In that instant, I knew terror, as I laid eyes on her.

She wore the visage of a child, her slight stature hinting at an age no older than ten. She wore short black overalls over a white shirt stained red with blood. Her face was partially concealed by matted curly hair hanging around her head in a haphazard fashion and a pair of broken glasses could be seen dangling from one of her ears. Most importantly were her eyes, which gleamed in the darkness of the hallway with a demonic red glow.

My body locked up in terror. It was a primal, instinctual sort of fear: the kind you feel in a nightmare that tells you with certainty that you've just come face to face with the monster.

The girl stood unmoving in the open doorway of a classroom directly at the end of the hall. There was a sudden flare of light and the thermal sensors in my visor went spinning into the red. The classroom behind her had just ignited, flash heating to the temperature of a forge in an instant. The flames danced behind her, seeming to reach out of the doorway. I felt like I was being pulled inexorably towards the mouth of Hell, where the souls of the damned waited to drag me down into the abyss to share their fate.

"Colin. Colin! Colin!" I was roused from my petrifaction by Dragon's frantic calls to me. My eyes flashed to her avatar in the corner of my display. Her worried visage served as an anchor to my attention allowing me to process what she said. "You have to cut the wire, now!"

Without wasting time to think, I pulled my halberd from the ground trailing my head and swung it around, bringing the tip of the blade down right between my legs. With an audible snap, the wire was cut, lashing up towards the ceiling before vanishing in the direction of the girl. The groin of my powersuit slammed into the flat of the axe arresting my momentum and the sharp edge bit into the armor on the inside of my left thigh. My eyes flicked back to the girl and I froze again.

She was watching me. Even if I couldn't see the details of her face and eyes I was certain that she was. I could feel her attention focused solely on me.

She took a single step forwards.

Suddenly, the hallway was filled with the roar of automatic gunfire. Miss Militia was close behind me, having caught up after I was pulled, and was firing her assault rifle one handed with unerring accuracy. Unfortunately, the girl gave no sign of being affected by the attack and took another step towards us. With her free arm, Miss Militia hooked her hand underneath my shoulder and tried to heft me to my feet. Shaking my head, I managed to come to my senses and hurried to stand.

As the girl continued her slow unstoppable march towards us, I turned to Miss Militia and uttered a single word.

"Run."