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As we continued upward, it soon became clear that I was alone in our mission's sense of urgency, the only one who seemed acutely aware that the time before Tetsuo and the others opened fire outside was slipping away from us like drops of water from a leaky spigot. Our progression, which should have been a steady, rapid climb, stalled at every story's landing, thanks to Jo's determination to keep his promise to find Juno and Ito, and if his plans included more than quick scans through partially-open doors or solo prowls down dimly-lit corridors, he kept them to himself. Since our earlier confrontation, he'd adopted a silence that was unsettling in its stoicism.
Although we passed the first four levels without incident, the fire stair doors opening on a gallery with a view of the massive storeroom, a floor dedicated to medical and pharmaceutical supplies, and then, a unit that appeared part bakery, part poisons lab, I didn't entirely trust the drugged sentry's statement about security being at bare minimum. Even if it was true, in a facility this size (and a high-security one at that), all it would take to unmask our presence would be a single alarm raised by a suspicious lab tech.
Finally, I'd had my fill of the silent treatment. "Is this really necessary?" I hissed, as we made yet another unscheduled stop on the fifth floor.
"I want to know what we're dealing with," he whispered, his hand already reaching for the latch.
Behind the door, I heard the burble of voices growing steadily louder. "Jo!"
"Go! Go!" Motioning for me to take a position higher up the stairs, he leapt swiftly in front of me, narrowly missing a hit from the steel door as it swung open. Hidden behind it, though not for long, I crouched behind Jo, ready to defend him in the coming attack.
Plastic squeaked, then I heard a muffled cry. "Aina—ma'am, please, wait!"
"I'll only be a minute. I'm just getting supplies, Motoki," she replied, voice jagged with irritability.
Heavy footsteps thudded nearby. "No, we need you! It's Ippei!"
"What's that idiot done now?"
"I told him not—" he gasped, said something about a breach in PK-3, then said, "but he disengaged his—"
Someone's shout overrode him. "They're swarming him!"
"Damn it! I knew something like this would happen!" The door swung shut.
Soon, I heard more hurried footsteps and plastic squeals. As they headed towards us, now accompanied by the rumble of wheels, Jo slunk to the door and opened it a crack, allowing us a peek at what all the excitement was about.
A group of workers wearing full-body, yellow biohazard suits and domed respirator helmets sped past. On the stretcher, I caught a glimpse of the hapless Ippei, his head and upper body wreathed in an enormous, writhing white mass.
"Psyche scramblers!"
"Poor kid," Jo whispered.
"Come on, Motoki! You're in charge of containment," another woman cried.
"But the procedure!"
I couldn't hear the rest of the man's muffled plea.
"I need you in Medical! That's an order! Leave him!"
Soon, a heavy-set man in a misshapen, lemon-yellow suit lumbered past our vantage point.
Jo waited, watching. When no one else came, he opened the door and, after a quick scan of the hall, stepped outside. Knowing this was probably the stupidest idea in the long, sad history of stupid ideas, I followed.
Windowless, their openings sealed with type-coded airlocks, several chambers lined the white-tiled hallway. Affixed to their doors, gleaming brass plaques designated each one a "keep" for psyche scramblers. Leaning against PK-8, I pressed my ear against it, but heard only a faint sound from within like the hollow roar of the sea inside a shell. Casting frequent, backward glances, we passed more of these green-walled keeps, until the corridor veered off to the right.
One section of the hallway stretched into shadows, while another, narrower offshoot led to a series of glass-walled rooms, each equipped with a control panel set beneath viewing window. Behind the windows, a single chair or stretcher occupied the space between it and a grey wall with a small, round flange near its center.
We didn't have to progress far before finding ground zero for all the commotion. The door leading to PK-3 gaped open, revealing an overturned chair in its test area.
That, but nothing more.
Expecting to find their test subject, even a few stragglers from the swarm—ever since our tanuki encounter, I'd been itching to see if a psyche scrambler would disintegrate at the swipe of a blade as well as from a pistol blast—the scene came as a disappointment. "We need to get going, Jo. They'll be back soon." Reaching out to tug at his sleeve, my fingers found dead air.
"Down here." Jo, who'd made it further in his search, motioned to me.
I followed him around another corner in what was quickly becoming a warren of glass-walled rooms. In one of them, the air swirled like a ghostly funnel behind the glass. Psyche scramblers, dozens of them, whirled about the head of a man who'd been strapped to a chair. A man in a grey flight suit.
Rearing back, striking like poisonous snakes, the psyche scramblers assailed Ito, their lethal tendrils entering every available orifice, no matter how hard he squeezed his eyes shut, clamped his lips together or struggled.
"We have to do something! They're eating him alive!"
First into the control booth, Jo hurriedly scanned its mechanistic array.
Apparently, Motoki, the technician who'd abandoned him to their assault, hadn't bothered to check his controls before quitting his station. Horrified, I watched more and more of the horrible orbs waft out from the flange in the wall to join their ethereal companions. Licking along his skin, as if following the scent of the first onslaught, then extending and rearing, they struck, as the first group disappeared inside Ito's ears and eyes.
"I've found something called an 'E-Vac.' Fingers crossed!" he called to me.
I joined him, noting that Ito's struggles had become even more erratic. The chair juddered and rocked in time with his twitching limbs. As Jo depressed a button on the console, I heard a loud whooshing from inside the test area. While the vacuum this created sucked some of the mind-suckers back into their keep, it did nothing to remove those who'd already wormed their way inside Ito's head.
"We need more suction!" I cried, eyes darting frantically over the panel.
Grasping a lever beside the button, Jo began inching towards its highest point. "Let's hope this works!"
The whooshing sound increased, until every hair on Ito's head stood at attention. He threw his head back and screamed, body wildly convulsing, as the vacuum's forced dragged out a multitude of milky streams and sucked them back into the wall. As Jo reached for the keep's lock, Ito's seizures reached their peak. Still strapped to the chair, he pitched to one side. His head hit the floor with a crack I could feel in my teeth. His screams stopped, his legs twitched for a moment, but then, he fell terribly still.
On Jo's signal, I tore open the door and ran to Ito, who lay in a pool of blood and spittle. A few swipes of the naginata freed him, but I couldn't tell if he was still breathing, the dark stain spreading in his groin region the only evidence of bodily function. With Jo's help, I rolled him on his back. "Ito?" After a few more whispers and gentle prods aroused no signs of life, I looked over at Jo. "Is he dead?"
"He's alive, but just barely. His carotid pulse is so weak, I can barely feel it." Jo removed his fingers from the side of Ito's neck and sat back on his haunches.
"Ito, it's Renata. Can you hear me?" I shook one of his shoulders again gently, afraid any more jostling might trigger another seizure, or worse.
His eyes fluttered, opening as mere slits. When his lips slightly parted, I could barely hear him say, "Eh...nahhh..."
"Yes, yes, it's me." I wanted to rescue him, return him to his rightful place among the Shinu, but knew that any attempt to do so would've spelled certain suicide for our mission. In his present condition, he was little more than dead weight. Crouched at his side, I stroked his face and smoothed his hair. I didn't know what else to do for him.
"J-Ju-Ju,” he stuttered.
"Where is she, Ito? Where's Juno?"
"Gahh... Ithhssee... Mehss...ess...ka-ka-kaaa..." Features slackening, he fell still.
Jo palpated Ito's pulse again, shook his head, then gently closed his eyes with a sweep of his hand. "He's gone. I'm sorry, Renata.' He rose and started to the door.
"Did you understand any of what he just said?" I asked, as I followed him back into the hall.
"No."
We'd rounded the corner and were nearing the turn to the main hall, when one of the yellow-clad techs suddenly appeared around it. I recognized the chunky bastard immediately as the called Motoki—the bastard responsible for Ito's death.
Not expecting to meet anyone on his way back to the test area, Motoki nearly dropped the large vacu-cannister cradled in his arms when he saw us. Before he could react or Jo draw a bead on him, I flew past and buried the naginata spike in his chest.
Cries of pain muffled by his beehive-like hood, he staggered back, the cannister falling from his grasp and clattering against the tiles with a loud ring, as his hands scrabbled for purchase against the room's slick walls. Springing to his side before I could deliver the killing blow, Jo kicked the container through a doorway. Then, after hustling Motoki inside the empty test station, he entered the control room, locked the door, and opened the psyche scrambler keep.
"That was a rash move, about as subtle as a loudspeaker." Jo pushed a button on his wristlet. "Kim, where are you?"
"Heading out. Seismi-Shells are in position."
"Good. Any of the sentries with you?"
"Not yet."
"Next time you see one of them, have him ignore any incoming calls involving security breaches. We've hit a little snag on our end."
As Jo turned back to me, scowling, a woman hollered from somewhere down the hall, "Motoki, what was all that noise? Please tell me you didn't drop another container! Motoki, did you hear me?" Muffled cursing and the soft crackling of plastic followed.
Jo tugged at my sleeve. "Come on, we'll have to find another way out."
Retracing our steps, we scurried back down the narrow hall. Passing the room where Ito died, we veered left at another set of keeps. Grateful for the cover these afforded, though aware that our path was leading us even farther away from our original entry point, I followed Jo until the keep hallway ended in what looked like a t-shaped intersection with another, though even more dimly lit corridor.
At one end, another fire exit announced its presence in searing red. As we started to it, passing a large door with a vented window, I heard another door slam nearby.
"Quickly!" Jo pulled me back, flung open the metal door with the vent, and shoved me inside. Barely large enough to contain us, the alcove contained a set of metal stairs, a narrow spiral that climbed into shadows.
Without waiting for his permission or lead—because I'd had my fill of being pushed, tugged, and his Jo-knows-best crap—I made a hasty ascent. The higher the twisted route took me, the hotter and thicker the air became, its increase in temperature proportionate to the volume of mechanical clicks and thrums that soon filled the air in the dark, stuffy space. As my climb in near darkness neared what I hoped was its end, lights suddenly flickered on.
The stairs ended in a landing—one not designed for the acrophobic. Made from plates of warped black bar grating that rested upon metal beams, the rickety, see-through floor space stretched outward to a series of equally precarious, narrow catwalks that wound around thick pipes and silvery ventilation ducts, or ended at smaller sets of stair risers that allowed access to the cylindrical vats with pressure gauges. Work lights the color of day-old urine depended on extendable roving fittings from the heavily cobwebbed ceiling. While I stood, debating which path to take, behind me, I heard Jo creep onto the landing.
"Not much of in the way of hiding places, is it?"
"Looks like a great place to plant a bomb, though. The one you're carrying must feel awfully heavy by now."
Slowly scanning the room, he said, "No, we're not high enough, yet."
No, of course, we aren't. I took a deep breath, only to stifle a cough when all I inhaled was thick, dusty air.
"There has to be more than one exit," Jo said, more to himself than to me. Keeping close to the wall, he started down the bar grating, stopping to peer across each section of catwalk.
Walk, stop, look, repeat, stop, look, step, retreat—watching his overly cautious movements made my ears ring! If there was another exit, reason dictated it'd be somewhere on the other side.
I stuffed the naginata in my poncho and struck out for the nearest catwalk.
"Renata, wait! We don't know where it goes."
"Guess there's only one way to find out, then!"
Nimbly as a cat, I leapt onto the long swath of suspended metal grating. Using its suspension cables for supports, as well as balance—the sadist who'd designed this part of the building hadn't provided any kind of protective railings for its workers—I pulled myself across the swaying structure. As I progressed deeper into the room, small lights winking in the black depths that yawned through the holes beneath my feet, I soon felt the vibrations of Jo's boots behind me. After navigating around a cluster of thick, curved pipes, I spied a metal ladder bolted to the wall ahead.
Roughly a body length from it, the catwalk ended abruptly, its last section dangling precariously from a single bolt. Undeterred I launched myself at it.
By the time Jo finished his admonition, I'd easily cleared the space and was already climbing the ladder's slender rungs. Threading my leg through one near the top, I twisted around, inviting him to follow suit. Expecting to find a priceless expression on his face, one equal parts shock and admiration, I was surprised to see nothing but empty space on the catwalk.
"I don't think we'll find Mazawa over there, Renata."
The whisper originated roughly from the vicinity of my heels.
When I looked down, Jo sweetly smiled up at me. "Well, are you going or not?"
Disentangling myself with a sigh—because was there anything this man couldn't do—I clambered to the next landing.
Like the first, it boasted a similar layout and construction, only this time, the grating led to a vented door with another wall-mounted ladder beside it. A sign of sorts, hastily scribbled on the door in eerie phosphorescent marker, announced we'd arrived on the eighth floor.
Eighth?
While I silently prayed that Jo wouldn't opt for a tour of the three floors we'd missed, he peered out through the vent, angling himself to take advantage of every possible view the narrow opening afforded.
Finally, he shook his head. "I can see lab stations, multiple ones, but the space is too open on this side and there are too many workers. We'll just have to see where this takes us. After you, Renata." Flourishing one hand to affect a comical, sweeping gesture, he nodded at the ladder.