They found a manhole, Malus unhitching it and Bestun climbing inside.
Before going down, Malus took out a bar, raised it, then clicked it, both ends of the bar shooting out so that the manhole was now blocked. Another click and the bar began to hum.
When Malus reached the water Bestun's gun was already trained down the sewer. A hollow light stretched from some unmanned place deep within.
One foot forward, then another.
"Did you--"
A hundred lights, bullets ricocheting off the walls. They tried to duck but it was too late. Malus grasped at his stomach to keep his guts from spilling out. Then--
Casey snapped the receiver shut. One monsieur was cause for alarm. Two usually meant death.
"Think that's it?" Bailey said, taking a pull from a cigarette and swiping away the smoke.
"I don't know."
Casey reloaded the clip, then flipped the lights back on. Colorful graffiti covered the sewers. Casey inhaled, forgetting about the stench, forcing her to cringe.
"You're gonna throw up if you do that," Bailey reminded her, his men fanning out and dropping to the water below, slowly edging towards the bodies.
"Sandra said it helps you acclimate."
Bailey rolled his eyes. "We're going back up. C'mon."
They'd managed to unhitch the tanks by pulling until the screws came out. It took longer than it should have, Bailey huffing and cursing under his breath until finally the tanks were theirs. Bailey tapped the glass and nodded, motioning towards the nearest ladder.
They emerged to a gray dawn. There was a body off to the side but this was not so uncommon these days. Casey lingered, the flap of the dead man's jacket turning slightly with the wind, crackling thunder echoing beyond. She checked her receiver, switched the screen on, tapped it. A red zero flashed.
"Nothing," she told Bailey.
Bailey began coughing, nearly retching. "Fuck," he managed to say, then covered his mouth with a free hand.
"You okay?" one of Bailey's men asked.
Bailey waved them away, sinking to his knees and then rising up again, grease now covering his pants.
Casey holstered her receiver. "You're exhausted. Do you think Gordon is going to keep pushing like this? The rats are out. Think that's as good of a sign as any."
Bailey wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, exhaling. "Gordon can go fuck himself for all I care."
"But we're on his side. At least, that's what you said--"
Bailey silenced her with a look. "You really think I give half a fuck about any deals we've made? Look around you, Casey. We aren't in decent society anymore."
Casey closed her eyes and sighed, pawing her receiver.
There was a man watching them from afar. He looked like a bum, but Casey still didn't like the way he was staring at them.
"We need more people," she said.
Bailey scoffed. "No shit. You got any ideas, I'm glad to hear 'em. Sandra and Pearson might talk big, but they aren't out here, not with you and me. They can't see what's happening."
"They think they can wait it out. Maybe they're right."
"Bullshit. You think the monsiuers are gonna, what--wait around? They're already taking blood. You know why."
Casey didn't answer at first, staring at the man staring at them, eventually wandering away like a child who had been caught stealing.
"There's always a better way," Bailey eventually said. "Gordon's not gonna sit around anyways."
Casey looked towards the dead sky.
"Sandra will know what to do."
"Yeah, good luck with that."
Bailey went over and turned the dead man on his side. He was older, with a strange tattoo going up and down his arm, a snake with three heads. After reaching into the dead man's jacket and pulling out a pistol, a cigarette carton and three random bullets, Bailey got up and shoved the body a little, sighing and wiping his brow.
Gunshots. Casey took out her emitter, the device glowing strange-blue as smoke screamed out from one of one the vents that ran throughout the city. She noticed now the bodies hanging from windows. They all seemed borne out of a nightmare and so Casey chose to ignore them for her own lingering sanity.
Bailey and the others surrounded her, Bailey taking out his torch, the tip crackling with electric energy.
"Where'd it come from?"
Casey peered ahead, then pointed. "Down there, I think."
A dark, foreboding crevice and inside lingered rats and lizards, crawling out of the earth and taking back the land which had been taken from them.
Casey pocketed her emitter. "We need to go."
"This," Bailey said, waving the pistol he'd stolen from the dead man in Casey's face, "is not good enough. We need food, and water. Or a transistor--"
"If you wanna stay, fine," Casey said. "I'm going back."
Bailey grasped his forehead and rubbed it.
"Fine, just...fine. Let's not get split up."
And so, they left. They resumed their previous candor, their easy stride. Casey kept quiet, unsure of her position in their ranks. If Bailey was seeking a new path then surely he envisioned himself at the head of it.
The city, all alive with lights and darkness. This was a place Casey had once called home, now abandoned save for the malcontents.
There was a crunch, followed by a curse as one of Bailey's people stepped on something that scurried away.
Bailey exhaled sharply. "If any of you make another sound I swear to god--"
A shout, then the street lit up. One of Bailey's men took a shot meant for Casey, landing face-first on metal, a sickening crunch followed by blood bubbling out of the face and pooling below. Casey watched for a few seconds in horrid fascination, then dove forward, finding a hovercar that was already covered in bullets. Casey managed to fire a few shots, completely unaware if she'd hit anything.
"Casey!"
Bailey was over there, hiding behind a gravestone, clutching his chest. He looked on the verge of tears.
Casey leaned against the back of the car and closed her eyes.
Red lines stretched from the corners of her vision, and even though her eyes were closed she could see everything, every sewer, every rat, every man, woman and child, and as she craned her head back she drank the energy within, coursing through the lines that made up each person and street, the entire city one organism pulsating with organs and blood and sinew.
Casey kneeled and touched one of the leylines, debris and dust kicked up by bullets, covering her.
Throwing herself back, Casey aimed her emitter and clicked open the screen, racing across the street and aiming the weapon, bullets erupting from the canister and flailing until finding the heat-signatures and digging ahead, killing three.
Too many of them. Casey grabbed Bailey and ran away from the grass, tombstones poised towards dead sky.
"Holy shit," Bailey wept, still holding his stomach. "I'm going to die."
Casey laid him down. Monsiuers came out of their holes, laughing to one another, calling out for survivors.
"Calm down. I can fix it."
Bailey grabbed her hand and stared hard into her eyes, and yes it was not so unlike staring into the eyes of God, creation itself lingering, receding.
"I'm okay," he said, shaking his head. "I'm okay."
"Bailey, just... lean on me."
He wasn't so heavy but Casey was having a hard time with it. Her entire body shook, adrenaline still coursing through her as she managed to get up the hill and through a set of gates leading into another part of the city. She tried to find a landmark, a street that she recognized.
There, looming above was a sign riddled in bullets. Casey could just make it out: Crater Street. Hefting Bailey, Casey managed to get across. Someone was shouting but they sounded far away.
"Shit," Casey muttered as she almost lost Bailey's grip. Too much blood. It was getting hard to keep him upright, and when he did talk he spoke only in tongues.
"Hey!"
A man poked his head out from what looked like a storm cellar, waving so that Casey could see him. Not knowing what else to do, Casey came forward, Bailey groaning in pain.
"What are you doing out there?" the man said. He looked haggard, probably in his forties. "Oh Jesus, what happened to him?"
"He's shot," Casey managed to say, still shaking. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd have the strength to keep going now--with or without Bailey.
The man seemed to mull over his options, biting his lower lip and then finally nodding. There was a loud bang, then a nearby door opened, a hooded woman scrambling over and helping Casey with Bailey as they were led inside.
When they were in Casey was met with a new swath of guns.
"I'm not giving up my shit."
"Just help her," the man from before said, coming into the room. His clothes were stained all over with what looked like oil.
Two of them helped Bailey along, his head sagging from side to side.
"Thank you," Casey managed to say, sneezing into her sleeve.
"Sit down," said the man. "Here, we have some water."
"No--"
"Miss, if you don't drink something you're probably going to faint."
One of the women came over and dabbed at Bailey's lips with a dirty piece of cloth, then looked up to Casey as if in mourning.
Casey's mind seethed. She accepted the glass of water handed to her and drank greedily, tilting her head back and exhaling.
"Thank you," she told the man.
"Don't know what we're going to do if we can't trust each other. I'm Finley, by the way. You with Gordon?"
He nodded at the black slash-mark on Casey's hand.
"We'll leave," Casey said. "As soon as he's ready. You shouldn't have taken us in."
Finley chuckled, adjusting his cap. "Just curious. Funny to see what comes up out of the cracks when the world goes to shit. Oh, look at this."
He came up to one of the windows and searched the street.
Dogs: an entire pack, rolling across and sniffing at the air, their eyes black, teeth cut. Casey shrunk away, keying her emitter and then going over to Bailey and slapping him lightly on the cheek.
"Bailey, c'mon. We have to get going."
He groaned, a trickle of blood going down one side of his mouth.
"Casey? I...thank you. For trying..."
The dogs began to bark.
"We have to get under," Finley said, eyes-wide. "Hurry."
They lifted a part of the floor, Casey helping Bailey below. She crawled in after, suddenly aware of the stink of death coming from Bailey. She made sure he was alive by feeling his breath with the back of her hand
More barking, sending tremors of fear down her spine as she attempted to make more room for the others. Bailey groaned again, clutching his chest, covered in sweat.
Someone pounded at the door.
"What?" Finley shouted.
"Open it," came a cracked, warbling voice.
"Monsieur," someone beneath the floor whispered.
"You're going to need a warrant or something to come into my house. We got ten people in here, all armed. We'll defend ourselves if we have to."
For a while Casey couldn't hear anything, and in a way this was more terrible than the churning. Finally, the board was lifted, and there with a smile on his face and a helping hand was Finley. Casey smiled in return, taking the hand and helping Bailey back onto a seat. He was breathing heavily. So pale.
"Casey..."
She came close, forcing herself not to breathe in that rancid scent. She was going to ask him what she could do to help ease his passing when barking erupted from behind the door.
"Shit," Fiinley spat, aiming a pistol. "Get down--"
The door, the walls, the windows erupted as bullets chewed into the complex. Men and women fell all around Casey. She pushed Bailey and dove for the floor. She looked up to see Finley, laying off to the side. He'd dropped his gun, a trail of blood leading to it.
"...should do it," a muffled voice said behind the now torn-side of the complex.
Casey forced herself to rise even as her body screamed against it. She took Bailey, surveyed the dead, then booked it for the back of the room, hoping there was a way out.
She sped down dark hallways. Every once in a while someone would poke their head out of a door then slam it shut, deadbolts clicking as Casey passed room after room, so many watching as Bailey bled out.
They came to a stairwell and began down. They managed to make it to the next level when Bailey fell from her grasp, her hands slick with blood, body tumbling to the ground, dust rising, settling.
"Christ," Casey spat. "Bailey, I need help man."
"Hey. Can...can you hear me?"
She came closer, to be with him as he died.
"Thank you," Bailey said. "I know we never really liked each other, but...thank you."
"I can get you out,"she insisted.
"Uh-huh. Just tell Sandra I tried, okay?" Bailey's teeth were red. "One more lie can't hurt."
Casey passed a hand over her face, finding it hard to remain upright.
A dog's yelp. They were coming.
Bailey handed her his pistol and nodded. "I hope it gets better," he said.
"Me too," Casey managed to say, her voice shaking.
She got up and--after checking one last time on Bailey--continued down the stairs.