The vent was a coffin made of galvanized steel.
It smelled of twenty years of dust, dead cockroaches, and dry rot. It was barely two feet wide.
Dante dragged the body forward, elbows scraping against the metal. His broken hand throbbed—a dull, rhythmic hammer blow with every movement—but he pushed the pain into a mental box and locked the lid.
Pain is just a warning light, he reminded himself. Ignore the light. Drive the car.
"He's still down there," Nova whispered from behind him. Her voice was thick with panic and dust. "Doc. We left him."
"Quiet," Dante hissed. He stopped moving.
Below them, through the thin metal of the ductwork, the sounds of the clinic were amplified.
They heard the heavy thud of boots on tile. The slide of a table being overturned.
"Please!" Doc's voice echoed up the shaft. It was high, shrill. "I don't know who—"
Crunch.
It was a wet sound. Like stepping on a ripe melon.
Nova gasped. Dante kicked back with his heel, hitting her shin. A physical command for silence.
"Heart rate," Dante whispered. "Control it. If you hyperventilate, you pass out. If you pass out, I leave you."
"You're a monster," Nova breathed.
"I am the reason you are breathing," Dante corrected.
Below, a new voice spoke. It was calm. Professional.
"The subject," The Silencer said. The voice traveled clearly through the ventilation grate a few feet back. "Male. Caucasian. Disassociative Identity Disorder. Where is he?"
"I don't... I don't know..." Doc wept. "They just... broke in..."
"Lie," The Silencer said.
Hiss.
The sound of a spray canister. Then a choked, gurgling scream that lasted too long.
Nova grabbed Dante's ankle. Her grip was iron hard. She wanted to go back. She wanted to scream.
Dante didn't move. He listened. He was analyzing the acoustic footprint. One attacker. No radio chatter. He is working solo. He is enjoying this.
"The chemical scent," The Silencer continued, his voice sounding like it was right next to their ears. "Neuro-blockers. Fresh. You cooked for him."
"Please..."
"If you cooked for him, you know the half-life of the isotope. How long does he have before the reboot?"
Silence. Then a whimper.
"Twelve hours," Doc sobbed. "Maybe less."
"Twelve hours," The Silencer repeated. "Thank you. That is a useful timeline."
Pop.
A single shot. Suppressed. A final thump of a body hitting the floor.
In the vent, Nova went rigid. She stopped breathing.
Dante started crawling again. He moved faster now, scraping his knees raw on the seams of the metal.
"Move," he whispered. "He's checking the airflow."
"He killed him," Nova said. Her voice was dead. "He just executed him."
"He removed a loose end," Dante said coldly. "Doc was a liability. Now he is a statistic."
"You used him as bait."
"I bought us time. Do not waste it."
They reached a junction. The main shaft went left, toward the roof. A smaller intake pipe went right.
Dante paused.
Left leads to the roof, he calculated. The Hunter will expect the roof. High ground. Extraction.
He turned right.
"Where are we going?" Nova asked.
"Down," Dante said. "Into the basement intake. We exit through the alley drainage."
They shimmied down the narrow slope. The air grew colder, smelling of rain and garbage.
Suddenly, a metallic clang reverberated through the entire system.
The ventilation shaft shook.
"He's in the vents," Nova whispered.
"No," Dante said. "He's not crawling."
A soft, mechanical whirring sound drifted down from the junction they had just passed. It sounded like a large insect.
Bzzzzzt.
Dante looked back over his shoulder.
In the darkness of the tunnel behind Nova, two small green lights appeared. They hovered in the air, stabilizing.
"Drone," Dante realized. "Micro-tactical."
The drone tilted. A red laser grid projected out, scanning the walls. It swept over Nova's boots.
"Go!" Dante shouted, abandoning stealth. "Slide!"
He threw himself down the steep incline of the intake shaft. It was like a metal slide, steep and slick with grease.
Nova screamed as she followed him.
The drone accelerated, the whirring turning into a high-pitched whine.
Pfft-Pfft.
Two small darts pinged off the metal wall inches from Nova's head.
"Toxins," Dante noted as he picked up speed. "Paralytic agents."
They hit the bottom of the chute, tumbling out into a pile of wet cardboard and trash in a narrow alleyway behind the clinic.
Dante rolled to his feet instantly. He ignored the bruising. He grabbed Nova by the jacket and hauled her up.
"The drone will track the exit vector," Dante said. "He will be here in ninety seconds."
Nova pulled away from him. She shoved him in the chest.
"Don't touch me," she spat. She was covered in grey dust, her face streaked with tears and grime. "You let him die. You didn't even try."
Dante looked at her. The rain was starting again, washing the dust from his face. His eyes were hard, unyielding.
"Arvin would have tried," Dante said. "Arvin would have cried. And Arvin would be dead in that room right now, and you would be next."
He stepped closer, towering over her.
"You want the nice guy? Wait twelve hours. If we survive that long. Right now, you are stuck with the Wolf. And the Wolf does not mourn the sheep."
He turned and looked up at the fire escape of the building across the alley.
"Now, are you coming? Or do I leave you for the man with the darts?"
Nova looked at the dark vent opening above them. She could hear the drone buzzing closer.
She looked at Dante. She hated him.
But she wiped her eyes with a dirty sleeve.
"Move," she said.