anders/book-1/4.tex

\chapter{4}

He was an excellent shot. The blue bolt of light that his weapon spit out pierced Scarhands chest, bursting out the back in a cloud of blood and shredded tissue and spending the rest of its energy ripping an almost meter large hole in the brick wall behind him. Scarhand threw his arms in the air, stumbled back a step, and fell in on himself as if he were hit with a bolt of lightning. Andrew could only suppress his scream due to the paralyzing effect the gruesome scene in front of him had.

And it wasn't over. The man that had shot Scarhand quickly walked over, bent over to examine him. The second helicopter that that was still hovering motionless above the courtyard turned on a second searchlight that swept over the rest of the courtyard and its surrounding buildings like a searching hand.

Nick quickly ducked below the window sill as the circle of light moved in their direction, with Andrew following suit. Not even a second later the spotlight came through the window above their heads and tore the corresponding scene of rubble and hard shadows out of the darkness. Andrew's eyes didn't have enough time to adjust to the new lighting conditions, but the fragments that he saw were enough to send a wave of goosebumps along his spine. They had taken refuge in a mortuary.

The searchlight moved on and the darkness surrounding them seemed to deepen. Andrew closed his eyes and counted to five in his head before opening his eyes again. At first he only saw Nicks face as a pale blotch, with the contours and depth filling in as his eyes adjusted.

Even so he could see well enough to recognize and comprehend his vigorous gesticulation. Instead of saying anything or asking a question, he carefully stood up and peered out of the window.

More men had gotten out of the helicopter and Andrews heart almost jumped out of his chest when he saw that two or three were moving in their direction.

Nick touched his arm and motioned for him to stay still, as if that were necessary. Andrew nodded and Nick made a motion towards the darkness behind himself. Andrew was anything but thrilled to follow him, but he also hadn't forgotten what had happened to Scarhand. Maybe he won't ever be able to forget it.

At least his eyes had somewhat readjusted to the darkness so that he could at least recognize the outlines of his surroundings. Not that there was much to see. They were in a large, nearly empty room that was littered with debris and rubble. But something was missing.

Andrew didn't know what it was, but it was missing.

Nick motioned forward and sped up, with Andrew not hesitating to keep up. He didn't even think about how Nick kept his orientation. The worst thing he could currently think about would be to get lost by himself here. He laboured through the pain in his left knee, bit his teeth together and limped up to Nick.

Outside a particularly long muffled rumble rang out. Andrew recoiled and ducked instinctively, which probably saved his life as a second finger of light tore through the window, missing him by a few centimeters. Andrew instinctively threw himself in the opposite direction and spotted a low, especially edgy outline. As fast as he could he limped over to it. The light followed him like the feeling finger of a predator that had smelled the scent of its prey but wasn't entirely sure where it was. It suddenly stopped as it left the window frame, lighting up almost twice as bright at the next window frame. At the last moment Andrew reached the heap of rubble, diving over it and ducking. His already damaged knee thanked him with an angry pain attack for the rough handling. His knee folded away beneath him. He fell, and while he was falling the pale finger of light glided over him where he had been not a split second earlier.

The one and a half years of begrudging Judo training had finally payed off as Andrew not only caught his fall with a roll, but also slid completely behind the cover of the at least meter high pile of rubble. The finger of light wandered on to the next window, but it came back! Holding his breath Andrew pressed himself against the floor, his heart beating faster than before as he saw a second finger of light join the first, searching for his hideout. They had seen him!

For a moment panic almost took him over. It wouldn't have taken much to make him run, even though the beam of light would have definitely found him then. Only by scraping together his strength was he able to suppress the fear and stay laying down.

At least the flashing the lights gave him a better overview of his surroundings. The room that they had fled to was the size of a small cathedral and seemed to be an old fabrication floor before something catastrophic happened here and in th rest of the city. A large part of the ceiling had fallen in and there were piles of rubble and large pieces of concrete with the bent remnants of rebar sticking out their ends littering the floor. Through all this Andrew could still recognize the large concrete bases that enormous machinery used to sit on. The completely black floor had kept the layer of dried oil, grease, and the tracked in dirt of half a century had survived the fire storm that had ravaged the city without giving up any of its stickiness. As the searchlight crossed the back wall Andrew saw a rusty fire door that probably weighed half a ton, but was still bulged inwards and crushed like a can of cola that someone had punched repeatedly.

Nick sat crouched behind one of the man-sized pieces of ceiling and waved him over hurriedly. Behind him Andrew saw something that reminded him of a heap of burnt spaghetti before he could identify that it was a twisted flight of stairs leading upwards.

Andrew answered Nick's waving with a quick nod and turned back towards the searchlights. With a type of exhausted horror he saw that there were now three of them. Now there was no doubt.  Even if he was a hundred percent sure the searchlights hadn't seen him, they knew he was there. And Andrew hadn't forgotten about the three masked figures that were on their way over.

One more reason to hurry. For a moment he tried to find a pattern in the searchlights, maybe a hole in the net of light that seemed to close in tighter and tighter around him, but here was none. He had to risk it and rely on his luck. He carefully lifted himself upright and carefully shifted some of his weight to his left knee to make sure it could support his full weight instead of giving out at a critical moment. It hurt, but it would work. Andrew wasted another precious half second searching for a hole in the grid of light that he knew didn't exist --- and almost screamed. For a split second the light tore a face out of the dark that was peeking out from behind a pile of rubble. But this face was\dots

No. Andrew pushed the thought from his mind. His nerves were really playing \textit{awful} pranks on him. Which wasn't really a surprise. He breathed deeply one more time, gathered all his courage together and sprinted off.

Every single step was hell. Glowing knives stabbed into his knees and radiated pain all the way up to his hip. Andrew whimpered from the pain. Tears shot into his eyes and worsened his vision even more, and after the first couple of steps he wasn't running any more, just limping in some form of a zig zag in the approximate direction that he thought Nick was in. He couldn't tell if one of the searchlights caught him or how long it took. Eventually a hand reached out towards him and pulled him around with such a hard tug that he almost fell into Nicks arms as he ducked behind the concrete boulder. Whimpering he broke down completely and wrapped his arms around his knee. An army of tiny rats with red hot teeth were biting their way up his leg.

``What's wrong?'', asked Nick. Despite all the concern that bordered on panic he had lowered his voice to a whisper. He bent down over him and stretched out his hands but didn't risk touching him.

``My Knee'', Andrew pressed out in between his clenched teeth. He had trouble not sobbing. ``Something inside \dots Is broken.''

``Can you run?'', asked Nick.

Andrew carefully rolled around, stood up with his right leg and tried to carefully put weight on his other one. At first it seemed like it would simply break, but then the pain disappeared as if someone had turned it off and only a dull, pulsating pressure remained.

``I think so'', he said. \textit{If I'm careful and don't do anything stupid,} he added in his head. \textit{For example walking.}

Nick looked at him with blatant doubt for another moment, but looked up to the still moving searchlights and pointed decidedly at the burnt out stairs. Just the thought of struggling up those stairs with his injured knee sent a cold shiver down his spine, but of course Nick was right. They couldn't stay. It was already a miracle that the men in the black suits hadn't reached them yet.

Nick signaled him to go first. The pale beams of light seemed to follow his movement, following the metal stairs as if to taunt him and show him the lunacy of their plans. In the short while that the searchlights were focused on the stairs, Andrew realized that the stairs were in bad condition but were functional. The railing looked like it would crumble under the lightest load, some of the steps were missing, but it would be doable. The stairs lead to a type of gallery that had mostly broken away. In the split second before the lights moved on, plunging the gallery back into complete darkness, he was able to see that there were many doors up there that led further into the building.

It was time to go. The stairs groaned audibly under his weight and as Nick stepped on after him he felt the whole thing wobble back and forth for a second as if it were about to crash down to the ground. Andrew suppressed the images of the collapsing stairs and limbs pierced by metal rods that his imagination was torturing him with and limped up the stairs as quickly as he could.

A third of the way from the top he almost fell. He was able to maneuver around the missing steps easier than he had imagined possible, but one of the burnt out grates gave way under his weight and thundered to the ground with an immense clatter. If Andrew had used his good knee on the step he probably would have fallen to the ground with the grate. Luckily he was able to take a quick step to the next step, taking him to safety.

Being quiet now had become useless. Andrew recklessly stormed up the rest of the stairs, reaching the gallery in a few steps, stepping aside to let Nick pass him. A pale beam of light glid past him half a meter away, hovered at the newly mangled metal stairs, and turned off.

Nick stormed up the rest of the stairs after him and veered towards the first door haphazardly. It was locked. Nick swore, rattled the doorknob again as he was turning away, and went to the next one. This time he had more luck. He had to brace himself against the door and push with all his strength, but the warped door finally budged with a screeching that would have been heard on the other side of the courtyard. Nick grimaced as if it were the sound of his joints breaking, increasing the force on the door to increase the gap so he could squeeze through.

He got ready to push but froze mid movement.

Below them the footsteps had loud. Andrew turned around and froze from terror as he recognized the three figures that had followed them into the building. In the stroboscopic light they appeared at one spot then disappeared and reappeared a ways away in a different pose, which made them seem more uncanny and bizarre than they already were.

Even with the flickering light Andrew could look at them better now than when they were outside on the courtyard. If you ignored the weapons that were as if they had been taken from the prop room of a science-fiction movie, they really didn't look as strange as they did at first. The black uniform that seemed to cover every square centimeter of their body seemed to be poured out of a single piece. From closer Andrew could recognize that they carried flat satchels on their backs that were connected by thin ribbed hoses to their helmets. Their faces were hidden behind mirrored visors. But as eerie as their uniform looked, Andrew could tell that thew were nothing special at all. They were simple HAZMAT suits that firemen or the military used.

Other than the Star-Trek weapons of course.

He wanted to turn around, but noticed an almost horrified look from Nick and stayed perfectly still.

The three figures started to slowly spread out, turning around them selves and sweeping left to right. They were looking for them, and Andrew had the distinct feeling that they didn't rely on the light of the searchlights to pierce the darkness.

Nick had turned himself into a pillar of salt until all three were facing the opposite direction, then he flitted through the split in the door with Andrew quickly following. He was barely through the door when Nick pulled him to the side and breathed audibly.

``Movement sensors'', he whispered. ``But I don't thinking they saw us.''

A glaring blue bolt of light stamped a fist-sized hole in the metal door between Nick and Andrew, raced along the hallway they were in and in the same split second smashed in the back wall.

Nick swore, grabbed Andrew at his wrist and stormed off. Behind them a second bolt of light rammed the door completely off its hinges and tore off a part of the ceiling. In the glow of the sparks raining down Andrew saw that they were located in another hallway filled with doors. Nick stormed recklessly towards the nearest one, turned around at the last moment and ran further away, giving no heed to Andrew and his injured knee.

He repeated this seemingly pointless maneuver three or four more times before one of the doors finally got his mercy and he stormed through. The pattern finally made sense to Andrew: Behind the door were stairs that lead upwards and downwards. Nick stormed up the stairs, pausing on the first landing, shoving Andrew along which made him stumble up two, three more steps before clumsily falling on his injured knee.

Red flashes of pain exploded in Andrew's eyes. As he hastily rolled to the side to take the weight off his knee, Nick also fell to his knee, pulling the pistol out at the same time. Below him the door blew up in a flickering blue light storm and a figure in a black HAZMAT suit stormed through the door.

Nick and the attacker shot at the same time. The bolt of light missed Nick by only a few hairs and punched a meter sized hole in the brick wall behind him. While pieces of brick and dust hailed down on them the bullet hit the man in his chest and threw him backwards.

Nick didn't wait to see what would happen next. Instead he jumped up and hastily pulled Andrew up with him. They limped forward as fast as his knee could take it.

In the pale light that came in through the violently created hole in the wall, he could see the stairwell a little better. The walls were made out of the obligatory red bricks that were coated in soot, and there were many rectangular openings with torn off cables and melted wire ends sticking out. Even the lights that used to hang from the ceiling were missing, but here and there he was able to spot molten glass that had burned into the ceiling. The feeling that he knew what had happened here snuck up on Andrew, but he didn't let the thought take its full form.

The stairs led further upwards, but Nick stormed through the door that was on the next landing, shoved Andrew to the side (this time much more gently), got back in his combat stance by gripping the pistol with both hands ad aiming at the landing below them. While he was waiting for his pursuer to follow them, Andrew took a look around the room. They didn't end up in another endless hallway of doors, this time they were in a special hall that seemed to extend up the whole level. The wall opposite of them used to be a large factory window, but all the glass had disappeared, leaving only an asymmetrical grid of burnt out metal that let the pale grey light in.

The largest part of the hall was empty; there were some empty metal shelves that didn't hold anything other than a thick layer of burnt paint and dust. A bit away from that there was a construction that seemed to be in a slightly better state: A rectangular platform that stood on four slim pillars. Andrew wasn't sure what it was for, but he didn't really pay much attention to it, instead unsurely looking at Nick, who was still kneeling, focused on a target that probably wouldn't be appearing. Then he turned away and limped across the hall to look out of the window.

It hadn't really gotten that bright outside, but the storm had finally cleared up and in the dark grey twilight that it had left behind he could see a few streets of the burnt city before his line of sight was broken by taller buildings. What he saw didn't make his scary thought from earlier a certainty, but made it impossible to deny.

Without exception each house below was burnt to a crisp. There was not a single window with glass in it, and the few doors that he could find were made of metal. The streets were strewn with rubble and piles of debris and if you looked close enough you could almost see a sort of pattern, a pattern that also continued into the houses. The whole city looked as if it had been moved to the left by just a little bit; not far enough to make the buildings completely collapse, but far enough to disturb the strict geometric lines. He heard Nick's steps behind him but didn't turn around, instead staring down at the scenery of unimaginable devastation spread out below him.

``You should step away from the window.'', said Nick. ``If they see you from the street \dots''

``What happened here?'', whispered Andrew. Even speaking these few words cost him a lot of strength. There was suddenly a bitter, hard lump stuck in his throat that would not go down, no matter how hard he tried to swallow.

``I think you know what happened here.'', Nick answered quietly.

``And?'', Andrew laughed bitterly. ``Does it even make sense to run away, or are we already contaminated?''

``No'', replied Nick. ``Don't be scared, they were clean bombs.''

Andrew stared at the scene in front of him for another breath, then abruptly turned around to yell at Nick: ``What happened here?''

``Not what you think'', Nick said quietly. ``At least not because of the reason you're thinking of.''

``I want an answer, not a saying from a fortune cookie!'', hissed Andrew. ``What happened here? Who did this? And why?''

``I can't tell you, Andrew. I can't and I won't. You weren't supposed to see any of this. And now we need to go. I scared them a bit, but that won't last long. They'll come back.''

Andrew shook his head. ``I'm not moving until you tell me what happened here.''

``Then they'll kill you.'', answered Nick seriously. ``And me. Do you really want that?''

The second part of his question was pure extortion and Nick knew it --- but it worked. Andrew stubbornly looked at him for another second, but obediently turned away from the window and followed Nick who had crossed toward the other end of the hall in quick steps.

``We need to get out of this building'', warned Nick. ``When they realize that they can't catch us they will probably just blow the whole place.''

Andrew didn't doubt that the men in the black HAZMAT suits were already preparing for that. Everything else would be pretty dumb. Their behaviour didn't point towards them having any plans to capture Nick and himself alive, and Nick had just showed them how high the price could be to capture them. Why would they risk losing another man? Nick was right.

Regardless, he slowed his pace as they neared the odd platform and finally completely stopped. Something about this strange construction caught his eye, maybe unsettled him. In the process of looking at it closer there was nothing out of place on it. It was comprised of a 2m\texttimes 2m platform that was roughly put together from parts from different places. The legs were the same height, but different widths and shapes. A bizarrely deformed sculpture that was reminiscent of the ladder it used to be led up the 2m to the platform.

And all of a sudden it was clear what had made Nick so uncomfortable with the structure that even he, despite his warnings of hurrying up, had stopped to look at. The mysterious structure was not only built with little attention to aesthetic, but it was hastily cobbled together in utterly primitive ways. There were no welds or screws. Any connection was either pinned or somehow wedged together or roughly bound together with wire. The whole thing looked like it was put together by a kid that didn't have much dexterity or experience, but pieced together with even greater enthusiasm. It didn't fit in here. Whoever had built this structure was here \textit{after} the catastrophe wiped out all life in the City. While this thought only \textit{irritated} Andrew, it seemed to more than \textit{disturb} Nick.

Nick stepped back and looked up at the platform, then scrutinized the deformed aluminum ladder as if he were contemplating if it were stable enough to carry his weight. Andrew found the thought that he could climb up there quite unsettling.

Instead of climbing up the ladder, Nick squatted down. Andrew just now saw that the ladder --- just like the legs of the giant table --- was not directly touching the concrete floor, but was sitting in a dented zinc tub that had a couple centimeters of clear liquid in it. A putrid stench emanated from the tubs that Andrew couldn't quite place. Nick carefully dipped his finger in the liquid and smelled it.

``Gasoline?'', asked Andrew.

Nick shook his head and stood up. ``Petroleum'', he answered. ``At least something similar.'' He stepped back two more steps and craned his neck to look at the bizarre construction with more scrutiny. The concern on his face turned into something different.

``What's so bad about this?'', Andrew asked straightforward.

Nick tried not to lie. ``It shouldn't be here'', he mumbled.

A sudden blast of wind blew through the glassless window. Andrew turned around and Nick turned around as if he were bitten by a tarantula, but it was too late.

A flying black shark had appeared in front of the window, and in the exact moment that Nick turned around the Pilot turned on the giant spotlights. The light was so unbearably bright that Andrew screamed and threw his arms up in front of his face.

The Helicopter fired. The two glaring bolts of blue light --- not those pencil-thin, elegant projectiles that the men in the black suits shot, but arm-thick, roaring monstrosities made of pure destructive power that pulled red-glowing ionised air behind it --- missed their target and lit almost the whole wall behind them on fire. It nicked one of the legs of the platform, which was enough to bring the whole construction toppling over. At the same time glowing pieces of metal fell in the petroleum-filled tubs and set them alight with an enormous bang. All of that only took a fraction of a second, but it gave Nick the opportunity to save his life again.

As the platform was crashing onto its side, dissolving into its individual pieces on its way down, Nick pulled Andrew around and pulled him along, running in a zig zag pattern. To Andrew's horror he was heading straight towards the still burning brick wall.

The helicopter swayed lazily towards them. The pilot had turned off the spotlights so that he wouldn't unnecessarily blind himself, but probably had other methods of tracking his target. Even with that the next two shots missed them. The wave of raw energy made most of the metal shelving crumble into piles of glowing scrap, and the rest of the energy was enough to make the wall in front of them fully collapse.

Nick turned sharply, thoughtlessly pulling Andrew with him and changed direction again to head towards the door they came in. Andrew turned his head while he was running. The entire left side of the hall was in flames. The collapse of the wall must have affected the rest of the structural integrity of the building as part of the ceiling was visibly sunken. Andrew thought he felt the floor beneath them move with the speed of a gigantic ice floe that was being influenced by a new current. The helicopter had moved away from the window a little more and had also simultaneously swung around to get in a better position. But the pilot did not fire.

``Why are they not shooting?'', yelled Andrew.

Nick stormed through the door in front of him and the hail of needle-thin blue blasts of light that flew up at them from below answered his question. Nick fired back without hesitation. This time he missed his target, but the black clad figure at the bottom of the stairs hastily pulled back and Nick stormed up the stairs further, pulling Andrew along with him. One moment later and a whole salvo of blue lightning turned the door that they had just come through into scrap.

They arrived at the next landing but the door was locked, with their pursuers not giving them time to forcefully open the door. A shower of blue lightning hammered holes in the wall of the stairwell, getting closer by the second. Their pursuers were careful not to get in Nicks field of fire, even though they didn't really need to worry about it with their superior weapons. Andrew guessed that there were at least three of them. Sooner or later they would have to hit Nick or him by chance if the entire building didn't collapse on them first.

``They're forcing us to the roof!'', Nick panted.

And he was probably right about that. They only had one more landing between them and the top. If this door were also locked they would have no place to go except the roof, where the helicopter was almost guaranteed to be waiting for them.

The door \textit{was} locked. This time fate was against them. They had no other choice but to run up the last flight of stairs and storm onto the roof. Andrew's worst fears weren't coming true; there was no steel shark hovering above them waiting to hurl its burning breath towards them, and there also weren't any men in black HAZMAT suits.

Nevertheless the roof was a dead end. The building stood by itself, and there was no other way off the roof. On the opposite side a small collection of ventilation shafts and spherical ventilators that through some miracle seemed undamaged. The nearest roof was at least 20 meters away; They were stuck in a trap. If that wasn't enough, orange-red flames licked up the edge of the roof behind them and Andrew was sure he felt a faint but heralding vibration underfoot.

Nick pointed toward the other end of the roof. ``Come on! Maybe there is a fire ladder!''

They hurried off. Andrew counted on the door behind them flying open at any second, if the whole bulkhead\footnote{There isn't really a good translation for "Dachaufbau" which is a roof access stair enclosure.} didn't just explode with men in black rubber suits and frightful weapons.

Neither of those happened. They neared the edge of the roof and Andrew's heart jumped when he saw the end of an outdated iron fire ladder that protruded above the knee-high parapet. He hurried forward and when they were two steps from the ladder a black behemoth with glowing eyes raised from the deep. The sound of sword blades cutting the air and an ice-cold wind whipped their faces.

Nick yelled, yanked his pistol into the air and shot the helicopter three times. The bullets glanced off of the armoured glass of the cockpit and screamed away as ricochets. In response the helicopter inaudibly glid back and pivoted ever so slightly. Then \textit{he} fired. The pistol disappeared along with Nick's entire left hand and the majority of his lower arm. On the other end of the courtyard a small building lit up in flames.