“I said, who’s there?” the person on the other side demands. I can hear whooshing sounds, like fabric being flapped back and forth. The sleeve of his uniform. He’s waving his hand to somebody else. Soon, the entire army will come at me in every direction like starving wolves. I can already hear imaginary pack howls inside my head, ringing back and forth between my ears.

Oh well. At least I don’t have to ponder for solutions anymore.

I close my eyes and lift my chest.

Alice shakes my arm. When I turn to her, she mouths, “I hear footsteps.”

I cast my gaze upwards and take a deep breath.

She whispers, “You’re sweating.”

The guards’ voices creep inside my ears, bash into the back of my skull. My senses are now far sharper than I need them to be. I feel them all. The chittering insect from half a mile away, the gurgling water drops inside an incurvated sink, the heartbeat of the guard holding his KS-23 shotgun. They will come for my throat within ten seconds.

“Titon! Titon!” One of them whispers. “Check that corner.”

“Isn’t it Vlad?”

“Vlad wouldn’t have hid. Check the damn corner.”

The guard on the left loads his entire magazine in 4.6 seconds. Judging from that and the loading sound, he might be holding a PP-19, probably Korol*. The sounds of bullets are interrupted and unreliable; he may have trouble pulling the trigger. Assuming everything goes well, I will only have 0.5 seconds to react. The person on the right is not as worrying. His murmur echoed at the wall at a 45-degree angle, and it has to descend below, bouncing past two walls before reaching my ears. I can’t spot any temperature zone above thirty degrees within the distance of ten meters to the right. He’s a considerable distance away. Given that his latency is 0.2 seconds, I have more than a second to handle him before he responds.

I tap my left hip and press on the pistol holster. The gun pops up like a spring and I grab it. This is not going to be easy, especially when I only have one free hand.

One second. Time to feast.

My eyes spring open. I turn to Alice and say, “Shut up when I throw you into the air.”

“Pardon—” She opens her mouth, but I’ve already grabbed her. We rush out like a pair of deranged bulls. I swing my left hand and fling the girl upwards.

I haven’t caught glimpses of anyone, but I don’t need to. I can hear the shadows. Someone breathes on my left, and I fire two bullets. A loud “Hey!” resounds from my right, and I turn to the other side. A man is raising his rifle, his face distorts in a mix of panic and terror. I lower my body, do a U-turn, and open fire.

I rotate a full turn, extending my left forearm. I catch Alice as she falls in my arms.

She comes to rest against my chest in tandem with two thumps. The sounds of men dropping dead. One second passes.

“You’re still intact. Good.” I pat her head.

Her voice shakes. “What just happened?”

“Oh, we just dropped the bread.”

“I heard gunshots . . .” Her whole body shakes.

“Now we turn right, rush through the two corridors and turn left twice to get into the sewer underneath the kitchen. They might have set up blast mines in open spaces, so we just gotta walk around them to avoid getting blown up. After we climb, we’re gonna reach the back door of the control room, staying under the radar of some five hundred people. Objections?”

She still seems dazed at my barrage of words, so I repeat the question. “Objections?”

It’s only then she comes to her senses. “This sounds so dangerously silly,” she says with a scowl.

“Everything sounds silly when you describe it! It’s going to work out all right.”

“But your body is burning! You are sweating so much! Did you get shot?” Alice lifts her face to observe mine, but I shake my body so she slips deeper into my arms.

“No.” I reply.

“Yes, you are! Where were you shot? Please allow me to take a look. I know how to do first aid.”

“Hold on tight. I’m going to move very fast.”

I suspect the pistol I have is out of ammo, so I grab the one of another dead soldier on the way out. It should be fully loaded, judging from the weight. Damn, it doesn’t have a suppressor though. Not that I’m picky.

The two of us cross from corridors to corridors. The air smashes into my face. My vision gets blurrier second by second. The side effects are getting to me.

We jump into the sewer. The door behind the control room enters my field of vision at the other end. We skip to the end of the tunnel, then press ourselves on the wall as soon as I see the shadow of a person.

I only catch a glance of his hip, but I realize what’s going terribly wrong here.

A tear gas grenade. I’ve never seen it used in this facility before.

The footsteps on that hallway ahead are way too dense; it’s like twenty people are crammed together in a teeny-tiny space.

They are way too prepared. It’s as if they’re waiting for someone. Waiting for me.

But what choice do I have? The control room is my best bet. My only rational bet.

My body is sweating like I’m wrapped in ten cotton blankets. The throbbing headache starts to kick in, and I feel as though I’m suffering from a heatstroke. If I want to fight, I will have to do it now.

People always expect the rational—rationality is order. It is the erratic, unorthodox, and unpredictable that frightens them.

Defy rationality. Defy order. You will survive—or die a gruesome, morbid death. But you control your own destiny.

I run back, following the path we’ve just run through, pulling Alice along.

She asks, fighting back her shortness of breath, “Why are we going this way?”

“Tear gas grenade. PP-19 Korol. That means special squad.”

“I thought you can just kill those people in an instant,” she suggests with a slight hint of annoyance. “You can do that, right? Since you seem to be so fond of it.”

“I can’t. Not in this state. I’m not a god of war. I’m just an engine running out of fuel.”

“But you are not denying your fondness for blood.”

“What are you insinuating?”

She doesn’t reply.

We turn to the corridor near the main hallway. The two bodies are still lying there, but I can hear rattling rifle stocks and boots stomping in the hallway. They will find these bodies soon.

My ears pick up a click from across the pathway, the sound of a loaded weapon. I pull us behind the wall.

“Are we found out?” Alice asks, dazed.

Before she can utter another word, I signal her to keep quiet. I take a peek around the corner and stumble back a step when I realize who it is.

Maksim Maksimov.

*PP-19 Korol is the fictional upgrade to the PP-19 Vityaz that’s chambered for the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge and will also fire the high-pressure 7N31 round that can penetrate soft body armor. The Korol has an upgraded recoil damper that allows for a shorter barrel for comfort and muzzle velocity control, as well lower weight of the bolt and spring for higher rate of fire.