Sara flung out her hands to try to do something to catch her fall. She knew she was going to hit the awning below her, but she didn’t feel that as she descended.

The claws built into her lion’s paw shot out and latched on the side of the building. She clutched her hand into a fist as the gauntlet yanked her arm over her head. She ignored the pain in her shoulder as she swung into the face of the hospital. She caught herself with her feet before smacking face first into the window.

“Who knew?,” Sara asked herself. She wondered how to string the lines out so she could safely drop to the ground. She decided to release her grip a little to see if the lines naturally played out. She fell slowly to the sidewalk next to the awning over the main entrance of what used to be a hospital.

She flicked her wrist. The claws popped out of the wall. The lines retracted into the lion paw.

Now she had to get out of the ruined city she was in, get to the tower, and live again. She shook her head as she started out. That would be a lot easier said than done.

Zombies flooded from the buildings around the hospital. She shook her head. Jogging out in the open made her an easy target, and the energy pistol was no help against the numbers she faced. Where was a gatling gun when she needed it?

Could she swing over the zombies with the ropes in her gauntlet?

She also realized there were no vehicles anywhere for her to use for her escape. She had to make it away from the dead on her own two feet.

Sara broke her problem down as she ran from the converging zombies. Single pulses of light dropped the leading pursuers as she looked for a way out of her predicament. If she could just stay ahead until she could think of something, that would be good. She knew that she couldn’t run all day, and they could keep walking until she got out of their range if she could get out of their range.

She wondered if she could climb the outside of a building. What would they do to catch her if she did that? Could they do anything other than flooding the inside to keep her on the roof?

The one thing she knew she needed was to get off the street. Everywhere she looked, zombies were staggering into view. The constant whine of the pistol and the screaming alerts pointed them right at her.

The climbing paw had to get her to where they couldn’t reach her. That seemed to be the only viable option. She didn’t want to pull the short blade from the back of the gauntlet and cut and shoot her way through that mess. She didn’t think she would last five minutes if she tried that.

She ran to the edge of her target building. It was a two story jewelry shop next to a bakery. She snapped her wrist. The talons leaped away. Only one grabbed hold as the rest retracted back to the gauntlet. She closed her hand as that single thread lifted her off the street. She helped it with little kicks against the wall.

The zombies piled against the wall to reach her. None of them tried to go inside, or climb the ladder at the back of the building that Sara spotted as soon as she was on the roof.

She had to move away from this building to somewhere higher up and toward the edge of this section of the city. The hospital gleamed as she looked around.

She frowned. It looked normal again. The zombies seemed clear of it. She sat down on the roof as she thought and kept an eye on the ladder.

She thought about the situation. What had Doubtless said? The hospital was neutral. What about the zombies? She nodded her head as she thought about a possible answer.

As long as she was in the hospital, the dark could come get her. As soon as she was out, the dark had to recede. If she got hurt, she could go back, but as soon as she was declared ready, she had to get out as fast as possible.

Doubtless was probably going about fixing other dead people with the two agents offering their choices. She wondered how many would do what she was doing.

And what she was doing was insane by any measure of the word, but she didn’t care.

She looked at the tower in the distance, light shooting up in the air like some weird morse code.

I’m coming.

Sara shot the first head to peek over the edge of the roof. She had to move before she was overwhelmed.

She swung her arm. Strings stretched out and three talons struck a window and ledge within inches of each other. She ran to the edge of the building and jumped in the air as the strings pulled her through the space like a bird swooping on target. She grabbed the ledge outside an office. She looked up. A giant sign pronounced that she hung from the side of GENERIC BANK and TRUST. She blew out the window so she had a firmer footing to make her next move.

She didn’t dare try to use the inside of the building. Everything outside of the office would be full of zombies. She knew that from her experience at the hospital and the streets below. This office was a momentary refuge. She had to get to the roof from where she stood.

She swung her hand and sent the strings up to the roof. Maybe they wouldn’t catch. One did. It started pulling her up as the loose threads retracted back into their housings.

She climbed on a ledge before the lone talon could retract and send her falling to the ground below. Zombies piled up against the bottom of the bank to reach for her.

She sent her threads up to the roof. She waited for them to catch on something. The first attempt netted her nothing. She looked up. She tried again.

The threads wrapped around an antenna on the roof. They yanked her off the ledge. She grabbed the rampart of the bank roof and pulled herself over the edge. She walked toward the antenna as the threads retracted. Their grip lessened and they snapped back to the gauntlet.

All right. She had time to plan. She needed a car, but didn’t see one below from her new perch. She frowned. They had a zombie outbreak with no cars. She doubted there were survivors to drive all of them away.

She looked around to try to plan a path out of the city. She saw that the city scape she was in stood in a bubble of darkness. Bubbles of light and darkness formed around the section but she couldn’t see what was in them.

She decided that light and dark controlled the individual bubbles that she saw. She nodded at that. Once she was over the line in a lit bubble, she would be in the Light’s territory. They wouldn’t hinder her, but they wouldn’t help her either.

It probably meant they wouldn’t let her in their redoubts to recharge either.

Could she get help from other freelancers? They were all trying for the tower. Could they team to reach the objective? Would they team up with her?

That was a question that could be answered when she met the next intelligent person she came across.

She had no doubt some would try to kill her for her weapons to improve their lot. She didn’t like the thought, but everyone could be an enemy here.

She put that down for consideration in the future. She had to get out of this dark bubble and over to the light so she could rest.

She hoped they allowed that before they kicked her out.

She also needed to check what the other things she had did. She was relying on the gauntlet and pistol for the moment, but the other things had to be weapons to be in an arsenal. They were just strange weapons.

She also needed someone honest to talk to about everything, and a second opinion. She knew there were things she was missing thanks to the way her interview had gone.

And she felt both of the agents had told her the truth except for the things that was the most important to her. Doubtless had shown her that much with his casual pronouncements.

And showing her how to open a closet and armory had been looking out for her more than the agents.

Hospitals and doctors were neutral. They wouldn’t help her except if she was hurt. She knew that.

Who had set this up? It was insane as far as she was concerned.

So her next move had to be get from her spot on the bank to the edge of the light bubble, cross over, travel along the edge, and then try to navigate her way to the tower without actually having to cross the dark bubbles.

She knew that was easier said than done. If everyone could walk the edges of the light, all the freelancers would do it. She had an idea this world didn’t allow that.

She was going to try it that as long as possible. She wasn’t a checker to be moved along the board until she could be a king to wipe out the rest of the forces arrayed against her.

And thankfully she hadn’t met the general of the dark army in this bubble. She

doubted she could take him with a laser gun and a metal glove. She would try if he stood in her way.

She wondered how many freelancers were killed by the zombies. She wondered how many zombies were former freelancers. She shut down that thought before it dug into her brain.

She wasn’t going to be a zombie, no matter what.

She looked out over the city. She could get to the next building in the row, and then drop back down to ground level. Open space stood between her and the edge of the bubble.

Sara nodded as she went to the edge of the roof. She had to get over to that other building. It looked like another four story office building. Beyond that could be a train station. She wasn’t sure.

It had been a welcome respite, but the zombies had probably reached the third floor while she had been taking stock. Soon they would be reaching the roof, and trying to kill her again.

She swung her arm to let the threads in her gauntlet reach for the other building. They dug into metal tracks around a window she could use as a target. She fired the pistol at the glass to shatter it out of the way before holstering the pistol and letting the threads retract.

She flew across the space, dropping as the lines retracted to pull her toward the broken window. She caught the wall with her feet and started running up the windows toward the one she wanted. She rolled inside and pulled the talons loose so she could move through the building.

She reckoned she had seconds before the zombies in the building tried to get in her way. She had to move fast to make this part of the plan to work like she wanted.

She cleared the office, crossed a central corridor, then blew a hole in the door in her way. She entered the opposite office. She paused to listen. Silence greeted her effort. Maybe there was a finite supply of zombies that could try to stop her.

She blew out the window. A train station sat below her. She looked at the tracks. They didn’t go to the neighboring bubble. They curved away and hugged the inside of the dark bubble as far as she could see.

And she hadn’t seen a train on the tracks. If she dropped down to ground level, she would be on foot over open ground until she reached the border.

Was she fast enough to do that?

She had to be.

Time was not on her side. The zombies were close enough to keep trailing her. Her lead would vanish under their endurance.

She stabbed the window frame and dropped down as slowly as the threads would let her. She waited until she was almost down before yanking the talons loose. She dropped the rest of the way. The lines retracted as she moved toward the station.

Once she was on the tracks, she could use the flat path to get as close as it would allow her to the next bubble. Then she could cross the border.