The drainage canal ended at a rusted grate. Beyond it, the air smelled of gasoline, burnt rubber, and rot.
Zarek pushed the grate aside and climbed into the garage beneath the commercial plaza. After the cramped conduit, the open space felt almost inviting. Almost.
Fluorescent tubes flickered overhead and threw long shadows over rows of abandoned cars. Some had been smashed into pillars. A few had their trunks forced open.
He stopped behind the fender of a crushed sedan and looked before he moved. Wet boot prints led off toward the ramps. A shopping trolley lay on its side with one wheel still turning. Torn packaging was scattered across the concrete.
"Someone’s been through here," Elsa whispered, pry bar low. "Not long ago."
"Vance. Ways up?"
Vance sagged against a wheel. "Main ramp goes to the shopping levels. There’s a service staircase by the maintenance door, forty feet that way. Quieter."
An open garage was a killing floor for anything hunting from the dark. Zarek crossed to the staircase door, listened, tried the handle, and checked the dust on the first steps. Nothing had disturbed it. He went in.
The service corridor at the top was wide. Torn cartons and scattered pill bottles covered the floor. Halfway down, someone had built a barricade out of overturned shelving and wire carts.
A thin man in a torn winter coat popped up from behind it. He took one look at the sword, the blood on Zarek’s jacket, the pry bar in Elsa’s hands, and screamed, "Don’t move!" Then he turned and ran for the upper doors, boots slapping on the floor. He hadn’t even been holding a weapon.
"Should we chase him?" Elsa asked.
"To do what?"
"He’ll tell people we’re here."
"Chasing someone through a building I don’t know is how you get ambushed." Zarek stepped over a crushed crate. "Stockrooms first. Supplies are real. He’s not."
"Left, through the inventory doors," Vance said. "I can’t promise it’s clear."
The stockroom was huge, its ceiling held up by steel girders. The lower racks had been stripped, but the first wave of panicking civilians had only taken what sat in reach. Everything above shoulder height was untouched.
"Ladder," Zarek said.
Vance dragged a rolling steel ladder to the third rack and locked the brakes with shaking arms. Zarek climbed three rungs, pulled down a dust-covered crate, and slit the tape with his sword.
Twelve sealed bottles of water, six boxes of dressings, and three pairs of leather work gloves.
The shelves below had been stripped, but whoever searched this place hadn’t bothered climbing for the rest.
He flattened a hand over the crate. A soft chime, and it was gone. He tossed the gloves down to Elsa.
"For the bar. You’ll tear your palms open."
She pulled them on, flexing her fingers. Then she frowned at the next aisle over. "Zarek. This one’s different."
Everywhere else the shelves had been ripped open and dumped. In the medicine aisle, the shelves were bare and the leftover boxes were stacked in neat rows.
"Whoever was here knew what they wanted," she said.
"Good eye. Doesn’t tell me who."
"That’s far enough, friend."
Three men stood in the doorway, blocking the way out.
The one in the middle was heavyset, in a stained mechanic’s jacket, with a three-foot length of rebar held like a club.
On his left, a young guy gripped a rusty claw hammer with white knuckles, his legs visibly shaking. On his right, a pale middle-aged man held a crowbar too tight and kept looking at the sword.
They weren’t soldiers. They were hungry people who’d decided this floor was theirs.
"We cleared the garage," the heavyset one said, trying to make his voice deeper. "Whatever’s on these racks belongs to us. Drop what you took and go."
Elsa went stiff beside Zarek. Vance edged back into the shadow of the shelving and tried to turn himself into furniture.
Zarek took in the doorway. The hammer kid kept glancing at the exit behind him. The crowbar man was watching the sword, not the room. And beside the leader’s shoulder stood a tall steel rack, top-heavy with boxes.
"How many of you are covering the other doors?"
The leader’s jaw twitched. "Enough to split your head open."
It was a bluff. A crew with enough men wouldn’t be standing in a doorway with three scraps of iron trying to talk down someone with a bloody blade.
"I’ll give you two bottles of water and a box of bandages," Zarek said, in the same tone he’d have used to haggle over a used car. "We walk out, nobody bleeds."
"We take all of it."
"No." Zarek reached inside his jacket and a soft chime sounded where nobody could see it. He set two sealed bottles and a box of bandages on the concrete between them and stepped back, hand on the hilt.
"That’s the offer. If this goes bad, you’re the first one I cut down. The kid with the hammer runs, and your friend gets crushed trying to get past that rack. You’ll all walk away with less than you have now."
Nobody moved for three long seconds.
"Frank," the hammer kid said, staring at the water. "Take it. We need the water. We don’t have to fight this guy."
Frank looked at Zarek’s face and saw nothing in it: no fear, no doubt, no bluff. He lowered the rebar. He bent down, scooped up the bottles and the box, and stepped aside.
"Pleasure doing business," Zarek said.
They went down the corridor without looking back. The three men watched them go, hugging their water.
On the stairwell landing, Elsa let out a breath she’d been holding. "You could have killed them. You killed those things in seconds. Why give them anything?"
"Winning a fight isn’t the same as making a good call." He didn’t slow. "I don’t know how many are upstairs, and you’re still fighting with an injured arm. Two bottles of water is cheap."
She hated how reasonable it sounded. He hadn’t spared those men. He’d priced them, and picked the cheapest way through. She had no argument for that.
He checked his System Space as he climbed. They had enough basic supplies to keep moving. Elsa still needed better protection and more training if she was going to survive the next fight without relying on him. He kept the thought to himself.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The stairwell rattled.
A woman screamed from the floors above, followed by the long crash of shattering glass.
Vance flinched against the wall with his hands over his ears. "Main atrium! That’s a rifle!"
Zarek stopped on the landing, one hand on the rail, and listened. The sound had direction and range. Whoever was shooting wasn’t running.
A gun would be useful. A whole group armed with them could be trouble. Still, if they had weapons and ammunition worth taking, he wanted to know. He could always leave if the price was too high.
"There’s an exit at the bottom of this stair. Wait there, both of you."
"Where are you going?" Elsa asked.
"To see who’s shooting. Five minutes. If there’s nothing worth taking, we’re gone."
He climbed toward the gunfire, sword held low.