Page 170 of Pulse Zero
Beside me, Cason rolls his shoulders once like he’s trying to shake the tension loose before we walk through the front doors.
I don’t think it works. I can feel it on him anyway.
On all of us.
Sebastian checks the magazine in his gun one last time before sliding it back into place. Mia cracks her neck and mutters something under her breath that sounds vaguely homicidal. Behind them, two of our newer Ascended recruits, Rory and Delilah, along with a couple of others from the nearest safehouse, spread out slightly, already preparing for things to go wrong.
Notif. When.
The doors slide open automatically, and there they are.Waiting. Malcolm’s soldiers stand scattered across the lobby like chess pieces, calm and ready beneath the sterile fluorescent glow of the lighting that only kicks on when the sun has vanished. Reflections fracture across the towering glass walls behind them, turning bodies into splintered shapes.
The kinetic installation still turns slowly overhead, a depiction of emergent systems and self-correcting chaos.
I fucking hate this building.
“Well,” Samantha says from the center of the lobby, arms crossed, hip jutted out, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. “This feels dramatic.”
The second we cross the threshold, my shadows disappear, snuffed out instantly. Beside me, Cason’s electricity flickers once across his fingertips before fading too.
Samantha smiles. “Sorry. Occupational hazard.”
“Yeah,” Mia mutters. “You continue to suck.”
Samantha ignores her, eyes settling on me instead. “Reese.” Her tone softens, almost imperceptibly. “You really should’ve listened.”
“I get that a lot.”
“You could’ve stopped this.”
I glance around the lobby, at the armed guards, the Ascended. Malcolm nowhere in sight.
“We were invited,” I say as I move my gaze back to Samantha. “Would’ve been rude not to show up.”
“You know, this doesn’t actually have to end violen—”
I pull my gun and shoot her between the fucking eyes. The crack of the gunshot detonates through the atrium, and Samantha drops instantly. Dead before she hits the floor.
Then, suddenly, my shadows explode back into existence.
Darkness surges back through my veins as shadows spill across the marble floor in violent ribbons. Around me, powers ignite like someone cut loose a live wire. Blue-white electricitysnaps across Cason’s skin, illuminating the sharp line of his grin for half a second.
Holding my arms out to my sides, I ask, “Did any of us really have time for a monologue?”
Then chaos erupts.
Gravity slams sideways, the entire lobby tilting viciously as Ethan Kade throws out his hand, increasing localized pressure hard enough to crack marble beneath our feet. Delilah gets ripped off balance and crashes shoulder-first into one of the decorative stone structures.
Mia retaliates instantly.
The air around Ethan warps, and his expression goes unfocused, then alarmed, as her disorientation hits. He stumbles backward, suddenly unable to tell up from down.
“Good luck figuring out where the floor went, asshole!” Mia shouts.
Sebastian fires twice while Ethan’s distracted. One bullet hits him in the arm. The other stops midair. A woman near the elevator twists her fingers, freezing the projectile in space before hurling it back. Sebastian catches it out of the air. Literally. In his fist. The force of those powers transfers into him instead of tearing straight through his palm.
Then he throws the energy back, along with the bullet.
The woman launches clear across the lobby like she got hit by a fucking train, smashing through part of the kinetic installation overhead. Metal filaments snap. Glass panels shatter. The entire sculpture groans as pieces rain down into the atrium below.
