33. The Unit.

Dan.

We waited; waited until the cuffs bit into my metal wrists and scratched them; waited until the hallway outside was silent. Waited until a burly guard had switched in to watch us, back pressed to the door, gun pulled tight to his chest. He stared straight ahead, not even looking at us.

Perfect.

Unit Reboot: 5% complete.

One thing I'll give Jin was that he was a great actor. Stock still, head hung, black hair obscuring his face. He was the more flexible between us, so he'd had to flip himself up and snap away the cuff attached to his red metal arm. The forearm wasn't even connected to the rest of his arm anymore, he'd sworn a storm when it ripped away, but it meant he had a little moving room. Just enough to work his way out of the other cuff on his normal arm.

He toyed with the idea of leaving me behind for a while, but he eventually played ball.

Unit Reboot: 10% complete.

So there he was, pressing his normal arm against the wall with the cuff switched off. His right forearm was just about attached to the rest of his arm. My cuffs were off as well. I stared at the floor, waiting for the guard to stop gazing around the room and look back into the shadows away from us. His eyes hovered over us. He nudged my bleeding side with the butt of his rifle.

I groaned.

He chuckled.

I fought down the urge to throw a hook. Maybe with the Unit on, I could do that. But not right now, not now with a rifle muzzle an inch away from my midsection.

Unit Reboot: 15% complete.

He moved onto Jin, grabbed his jaw, and tilted his face upwards. Out of the very edge of my sight, I saw the inkling of a suppressed smile. But his lips were so thin, so pale you could barely see it.

The guard dropped his head and marched back to the door, pressed his back to the metal, and stared into the dark.

Unit Reboot: 20% complete.

Jin chuckled.

The guard straightened. "Hell do you have to laugh about?" he sneered. He marched towards Jin and slammed the gun's butt into his side. "No more of that. Lucky the boss told me not to fire." He spat at Jin's feet. "Would have been a blood stain if it was my choice. Damn Units."

"Shame you won't be able to protect yourself then," I muttered.

"What was that Stray?" he growled. "Got a mouth on you, too, huh? Maybe I should beat that bravado out for you. Soften you up for Grace."

Unit Reboot: 25% complete.

I flexed my hand, barely, just enough to move my fingers an inch. We'd be blind, storming through the dark, nowhere to go but out; just until the Units were back online, until 100%. And then we wouldn't be blind, and then the darkness would be our friend.

"Big talk from a little man," Jin said, glaring through his veil of hair. "Sure you want to keep talkin' like that?"

The guard flexed his sharp jaw. "She said don't kill. But I can hurt."

"Nice mantra." I spat out a clot of blood sitting on my tongue. "Opposite for us, right, Jin?"

"Yeah." Jin spat at the guard's feet, saliva landing on his boots. "Sure as hell right about that, Stray."

The guard swung the gun into Jin's side, he yelled in pain, and the guard hit him again.

Unit Reboot: 30% complete.

His screams scraped down my spine.

Screw it. The plan was bound to blow apart sometime, and not now, then when?

I lunged away from the wall and tackled the guard. A searingly hot pain shot up my side with the jerk of the impact. I punched him, his head whacked against the floor, and his body went limp. I groaned onto my feet.

"You were supposed to wait, remember?" he growled, pulling away from the wall. He flexed his normal arm and grimly stared at the stump of his red arm. "Wait until 100%. That was the freakin' plan."

"Well, sorry that I didn't want you passing out from the pain." I tossed him the rifle. "I'm terrible with guns."

He shoved past me and stepped over the guard's body, slowly walking towards the door. "Well, I'm taking lead like we agreed."

"We didn't agree on that."

"Like hell am I going to follow you anywhere," he spat. "Look what happened the last time I did." He said, with a jerk of his chin towards the door, toward the piles of bones wrapped in white coats, draped in uniforms, in prison jumpsuits.

I put my hands up in defeat. "Fine. Loud and clear."

He stepped away from the door.

Unit Reboot: 35% complete.

He slammed his boot against the door, and it burst open.

We rushed out into the hallway, immediately swallowed up by the darkness. An overwhelming silence held us, our breaths tight, constrained to wheezes. Trying to look for anything was pointless; it was just the darkness we stared at.

Jin tapped my back twice, his boots slowly stepping away from me. I watched his back, keeping my arm up, guarding my injured side. Every step sent a jolt of pain into my skull. I bit down on my tongue and ignored it. Later. I'll deal with that when we make it out. Not if.

The others are out there, fighting, protecting. I'm not missing out on that.

Mei hummed next to me.

Unit Reboot: 40% complete.

Just a little more, and this would be nothing but a bad memory.

Gunfire ripped the heavy silence, shredding the shadows. I dived away, smacking straight into a wall. The orange bursts of light showed off a grimy, soot-covered corridor. Jin crouched in the hallway opposite me and returned fire. His face was a mask of…elation. A sick smile on his face as his hair flicked back from the recoil.

The gunfire down the hall faltered and died out.

The silence sat back down in the corridor. The only sound was the hiss of heat coming from the guns, as well as a man's groan, a plea of help, and the sound of shuffling as he pulled himself away.

Jin pressed the rifle to the back of his head and stopped it.

"You better not freeze up on me," he warned.

I rifled through the man's pockets. Nothing, well, not nothing. A picture of a little girl holding a balloon. A silver ring. A lighter. But no knife.

I sighed and picked up the rifle, awkward and heavy in my hands. "I won't. Just decided I didn't want to get turned into a haze of red."

He continued forward, stepping in the pool of crimson around the man. He left behind a trail, I couldn't see it, but I could hear it. Squelch, squelch, squelch. Each one makes the darkness heavier.

Unit Reboot: 45% complete.

Mei's humming became louder. Ear ringing loud.

My grip tightened on the gun.

We turned a corner, pausing before we did, pausing to listen: nothing. It was almost like Grace had disappeared along with her soldiers. A spotlight of pale orange light broke the inky black. We dived back into the shadows and waited. I swallowed down a raging heartbeat, a beat trying to rival Mei's singing.

Nothing.

I peeked around the corner. The light focused on the floor. A small circle of white; dust floated past the shaft of light. It was from outside. Daytime, just about at least. The orange was too light, too hollow to be the sun's full strength. Early morning, barely morning.

Jin jerked his head, and I followed.

Unit Reboot: 50% complete. Now I could hear a faint voice, not Mei's. She never speaks, just hums and smiles. It was a faint voice, distant. Robotic.

"Hey," I barely whispered.

"Yeah. Me too." Jin paused. "Should be coming up to the eating hall. We go round, stick to the shadows, and down the opposite hall."

I nodded, and then when he didn't reply, I said, "Alright. Lead. I have your back."

The faintest of eye twitches could be seen in the dark.

We continued down the infinite corridor.

A plan is always way easier said than done. The first thing I knew was wrong was the heaviness as soon as we stepped foot into the cavernous room. The centre of Young Haven. Where a broken glass dome, like an ancient eye, stared down at us. Sand filled the corner of the room. The glass stained, the centre dark with grime.

The plan went wrong as soon as we touched the light.

A bullet pinged off of the metal right next to my foot. I jerked back into the shadows, Jin doing the same. The bullets followed us, sparking the metal and zipping past us.

Mei's hum silenced the raging gunfire in my ears.

Unit Reboot: 55% complete.

Jin fired back, dropping down to a knee and squeezing the trigger. The bullets came from the shadows and behind flipped tables. They came from guns we couldn't see.

You don't have to be a great shot to fire blind.

I gripped the gun and fired. The thunderstorm in my hands was immense. Consuming. It felt…amazing. I stood up from the corridor and sprinted forward, still firing, running towards the light.

"Stray!" Jin raged above the gunfire. "What-"

That was the last thing I heard before I jumped over the side. I paused in the air for a split second, enough to catch my breath, enough to feel each click of the bullet lock into the chamber and explode out.

Enough to see the bastards hiding in the shadows.

I hit the floor, rolled, and slapped my back against a metal table. Gun empty now. Fine. Didn't matter. I had what I needed: metal. I gripped onto a crudely ripped out re-enforced metal pole attached to the table and tore it out of the metal. A screech louder than the guns filled the room. It was jagged and sharp on one end; but too long.

It didn't matter. I had a makeshift knife.

Unit Reboot: 60% complete.

I threw the gun; it clattered against the floor and thumped against a pile of sand. The gunfire drew away from me, and I sprung up and over the table. The pale light above reflected off the old silver tables, just enough to blind the poor guard huddled behind one.

I slammed a kick against his head, and he crumbled.

Bullets tore the concrete floor in front of me.

I threw the makeshift knife, nowhere near as good as I used to, but enough to hit the now shrieking woman. The blade was firmly in her shoulder. Shock firmly in her face. Blood staining her dirty white uniform.

Unit Reboot: 65% complete.

"Jin!" I roared.

He'd stopped firing, but now he was leaping. He leapt right over the railing, boots thudding against the floor, and rolled. I threw him the man's rifle. He caught it and returned fire without hesitation.

He shot the screaming woman.

"You freaking idiot," he snapped. "Do you have any idea on how to follow a plan?"

I yanked him behind the table before gunfire could rip into his back.

"Not really. Not my thing." I scampered towards the woman's body and pulled out my knife. "But I sure as hell know how to improvise."

Unit Reboot: 70% complete.

My palm bit into the metal of the knife's handle. Time to get back to everyone else, but first, it's time to kill my cousin.

Jin flipped over the table we'd used as a barricade and charged. He dropped and slid as soon as they returned fire, coming back onto his knees and returning his a volley of bullets.

I sprinted towards the other end of the large hall, avoiding sand mounds, jumping round metal benches.

I flipped the knife in my hand and threw it. It cut through the air and impaled a man too focused on Jin. He screamed and dropped his gun; Jin coated the silver with the man. I yanked it out of his back and searched. I needed one alive, at least clinging to it. Deal with Grace now, and the rest would come down with a little more ease.

A kid, barely my age, whimpered in a corner. He pressed his hand to his side and cried out. A patch of blood was quickly growing, soaking his uniform.

Jin's gun barked, and there was a sudden silence.

I trudged towards him, leaving behind my own trail of blood. The knife dripped with it. My side didn't ache as much, but my t-shirt stuck to it with drying blood.

Unit Reboot: 70% complete.

"Please," he moaned. "It's all a mistake. Please don't."

Jin stopped next to me, stinking of gun powder. He raised the rifle.

Unit Reboot: 75% complete.

I pushed Jin's gun down. "What do you mean mistake?"

His face was slick with sweat, each one sparkling in the faint light. "We….weren't meant to be here."

Unit Reboot: 80% complete.

"We?" Jin's eyes darkened. "Who the hell's we?"

My grip tightened on the wet knife.

Unit Reboot: 85% complete.

The boy jerked his head and spread his arm. The bodies lying lifeless, eyes glassy, mouths hanging open. Jin had been busy, deaf to my ears over Mei's singing. There were a lot more bodies than I'd thought, all hunched over themselves, all along the far wall.

Unit Reboot: 90% complete.

Jin spat, "He's talking out of his ass. Let's kill him and go."

Unit Reboot: 95% complete.

"Hey." I crouched and held his face up, snapping my fingers. "Grace. Where the hell is Grace?"

He spluttered and coughed; bloody saliva splattered my face. "She's…she's…"

"Where?" Jin snapped.

The boy smiled, a weak, teeth covered in blood smile. "Everywhere."

Unit Reboot: 100%.

For the first time, the Unit spoke to me.