Marshall and I take the elevator, it’s a slow climb. The two of us don’t talk about what we just saw. We know what we’re going to have to do when we get up to the rooftop. My wrist comp is going completely insane at the moment. I’m tracking the arrival of our executioners, we’ll have time to prepare an ambush. Something we’ve discussed but haven’t settled on the best way to do it. More than that, there’s a ton of contact from people around the planet.

Aaimina was right, there are people out there. Hundreds of people all over. Some hiding in places within the city. Many pinging locations from outside of the city. We couldn’t find any vehicles and I didn’t expect many because it’s not a colony built for vehicle travel. But it seems like there were plenty of vehicles, they’ve just been taken out of the city. They’re moving too fast to lack vehicles. Every time a new person shares their location, I’m surprised that there are so many.

“Surprised,” Marshall asks.

“I really didn’t expect so many of them.”

“Humans are survivors. I’m sure you’ve read history. Nothing but wars from the time we showed up on Earth. Wars when we spread throughout Sol. Wars when we expanded beyond. We’re built for this.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Our conversation is cut short as the elevator shakes and rattles before grinding to a halt on the third floor. Marshall and I work together to force the doors open. We’re slightly below the actual exit so we’ll be forced to climb up to get out. Marshall goes first, grunting as he pulls himself up with the shoulder I shot him in. I follow and quickly realize just how governmental this place really is. A maze of office cubicles and desks. The thing that stands out is just how much of the place seem to have been burned. Charred marks across desks, smashed terminals blackened from flames and trashcans full of ash. Someone did a lot of work trying to clean this place up and leave no evidence.

The sound of objects falling to the floor alerts us. A single grub stumbles from one of the offices with glass walls towards us. Everything but his legs have become Strux like. His legs are covered in burns, probably from trying to start the fire in here, or maybe being set on fire. The bureaucrats in this building were brutal so I wouldn’t past them to burn one another.

“This must be the tablet tosser that tried to burn it all down,” Marshall says.

“One of the folks that left us for dead.”

The two of us race to pull the trigger. Marshall hits first, but my shot follows, leaving a larger wound and burning away traces of his. We don’t need any conversation or discussion of what happened, we just take the stairs to the fourth floor. Marshall opens the door out of curiosity and quickly slams it.

“What is it,” ask.

“Grubs, a whole lot of grubs. Burnt ugly and fighting each other.”

“I have an idea,” I offer a plan.

“What if we use the grubs?”

“For what?”

“To attack the guys coming to get us. We lead them up to the door, shut it and when they get here, unleash them.”

“What about us?”

“We know we can out run them. We already saw the roof, we can climb on top of the portion housing the door.”

“That’s an insane idea,” Marshall says, his face actually looks concerned.

“Would you prefer a two on four shootout, likely with a team in full armor with better equipment that came prepared to wipe out the masses?”

“I’ll take my chances with the grubs. How do we get them to follow us?”

“Just have to make a lot of noise.”

Marshall shrugs and begins to pound on the door without warning. He flings it open and fires off several shots. The angry grubs who had to have been fighting for weeks now are whipped into a wilder frenzy. Marshall takes off running up the stairs yanking me by the arm. I follow, managing to overtake them. I pause to look back watching the grubs trip over themselves to follow the sounds of thunderous footsteps heading towards the rooftop.

I’m the first out of the door, Marshall isn’t long behind me. We wait until the grubs are in sight before slamming the door and putting our backs to it. There’s banging and pushing against the door but it seems like they’re unsure how turn the knob. I for one am really thankful that there are still doors out there that rely on knobs. Sometimes dumb technology is the best. Marshall and I don’t move, we just smile and laugh at each other for a second. The absurdity of the plan, the way we just took off without thinking about it.

“Don’t say it,” I try to laugh while still catching my breath.

“What? That it’s hard to run wearing armor?”

“No.”

“That our armor probably stinks like shit now, but we can’t smell it because the grubs smell worse?”

“What?”

“Oh, you don’t want me to say this reminds me of us screwing around at the academy.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted you to not say.”

“Then I won’t say it,” Marshall shrugs.

The two of us lean forward a little at a time testing the strength of the door to hold the grubs. It does it’s job. We plan for the ambush, a simple plan. A stupid plan. I boost Marshall up above the doorway where he gets down low.

“How can you be so calm about this,” I ask.

“Well, there’s no other way to be right now.”

“We could die in the next five minutes,” the execution ship comes into view. “We could die in the next two minutes.”

“Well yeah. We either pull this off and we get out of here, or we die. Those are the only two options. If we get out of here, everything is great. If we die, at least I die with my best friend.”

“Your best friend? After all the crap you put me through.”

“You’re my only friend, best friend by default.”

“You’re too old to be talking about best friends and all that crap. Stop getting sentimental and get your head in the game.”

Marshall begins to laugh again, “you’re even sounding like me now.”

I don’t respond. I just bang on the door to keep the grubs riled up. The man did all the talk about me not being attached to Aaimina and now he’s calling me his best friend as we face our deaths. I can somewhat see the humor. There’s no real way out of this. We keep talking about taking the ship and get out of it but the chances are low. I’m glad he can find the humor in it, but I can’t. I’m just trying to match his energy so he doesn’t decide to shoot me.