Jay’s arms hung above him, fastened to the water pipe. Yep, it didn’t get any better than this. What if a shocktrooper or Blue Beret walked in right now? There was nothing he could do to stop them putting a round between his eyes. They could just wander in to relieve themselves and he’d be screwed. What was he going to do: offer to shake it for them when they’re done?

With his back against the wall, he bent his knees one after the other and inched his way into a crouch. He turned to face the wall, but only made it halfway. The plasticuffs cut into his skin. He grunted in pain. If he wasn’t tied to the pipe, he could’ve used the 550 paracord he'd laced his boots with as a friction saw to melt right through the plasticuffs’ polycarbonate resin in seconds. Or if he had a knife.

He tried to raise his hands up and pull them down hard on his body. The force of his wrists striking his ribs would snap the plasticuffs. Problem was, his arms were cuffed too high above his head. Another option would be to remove a bobby pin from his belt and shimmy the cuffs off. Kind of hard to do with your teeth. He should’ve had another means of escape, but being tied to a urinal wasn’t exactly something he’d anticipated.

Hell, this whole shit-fuck wasn’t something he’d anticipated. Lucia was probably going to slot Damien. Why not? Damien’s worth had expired, just like his own. Jay shook his head. There was Damien worrying about Denton screwing them over. And it turned out to be Nasira. That Sun Tzu guy had it right: deception was the art of war. And he’d been deceived like . . . well, like someone being deceived. Now he was basically useless.

What he couldn’t understand was why Nasira had left him alive. Did she want him to suffer the embarrassment of being beaten by a girl? At least until he was vaporized by a missile, anyway.

He couldn’t save Damien. He couldn’t even save his own brother all those years ago. His mind rolled back through everything significant in his life, only to find there wasn’t much. God, he was pathetic. It made him feel empty just thinking about it, so he stopped. Not much point doing anything really. He just sat there feeling sorry for his nondescript canvas of a life. It was all shit.

He had no idea why, but his eyes were filling with tears. He rubbed his face on his arms before any could escape. He pressed his teeth together. His fingers closed into fists. The thought of the pointlessness of everything made him angry. At what, he hadn’t a clue. But it burned inside.

‘Right, so I’m just going to sit here and wait to die?’ He laughed. ‘Fuck that.’

He pulled himself to his feet and his bound wrists dropped to the right side of his chest. He tested the plasticuffs against the pipe. Nasira had pulled them tight. They had nowhere to go but tighter. He took a few deep breaths. Calm. Think. Something sharp.

His eyes ran across the pipe to the left and then the right. There was nothing that immediately drew his attention.

No, wait.

There was a slight protrusion on the right side of the pipe. He ran his wrists along the pipe, stepped around the next urinal. But the cuffs hit a bracket and refused to go any further. Swearing, he kicked the ceramic urinal. It disconnected from the wall and smashed at his feet. He stared at it, surprised it had been mounted so poorly.

He looked back at his wrists, at the pipe they were attached to. He tried to clench his fists but his hands weren’t responding. Placing a boot on the wall, he pulled hard. The pain was unbearable. The ties cut deep into his wrists. He pulled harder. The pipe groaned. The bracket snapped. The plasticuffs sliced flesh. Then the pipe split.

Jay fell back. His shoulder blades crunched against something hard. A restroom door. The pipe had broken; both ends swayed before him like a pair of large antennae. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His wrists were still bound, close to his chest. He glanced down at his restrained arms and realized he probably looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex on acid.

He straightened up and went straight for the paper-towel dispenser, pressed the nylon plasticuffs against the metal teeth and raked them back and forth. The dispenser moved with him; it wasn’t even bolted to the wall properly. He growled, and pressed his head against it to keep it in place while he worked the cuffs. The dispenser came free from the wall, sending him reeling backwards. It bounced off his knee and landed on the floor.

His wrists were still bound. He kicked the dispenser into the wall.

Vaguely aware of how stupid he must’ve appeared, he sat down in front of the dispenser and clamped it between his legs. It might’ve looked like some prenatal birth maneuver, but from there, he was able to saw the plasticuffs off.

He kicked the dispenser for good measure and got back to his feet. The red cuts on his wrists were slowly becoming thinner and thinner, until they’d disappeared entirely. Circulation returned, pricking his hands with invisible needles.

The ceiling lights dulled and flickered, then resumed their garish luminescence. Hiccup. Nasira had disabled the emergency power. He was meant to contact Damien when it was done. He reached for his throat mike, then remembered Nasira had taken it.

‘Fuck.’

He punched the wall. Tiles shattered; flakes of plaster fell on his head. He caught sight of himself in the mirror. It looked like an extreme case of dandruff.

Boots echoed down a corridor nearby. Shocktroopers. Nasira was in trouble.

Well, that’s her problem, he thought.

But then he reconsidered.

She was an arrogant bitch, but at least she hadn’t killed him.

***

Jay could hear the faint sound of metal being cut open with a blowtorch. An elevator further down from where he was. Guessing sub-level three, he got in the elevator, hit the SL3 button and the close door button at the same time, overriding any other requests.

The elevator took him down the north shaft, stopped one level below the other elevator in the south shaft. Nasira had to be inside. He crawled out the emergency hatch on the left side of his elevator and up onto its roof, then climbed through the upright zigzag of steel beams to get to the south shaft. Staring him in the face was the emergency hatch on the side of Nasira’s elevator. He could see the actinic glare of a blowtorch as it burned the outer elevator doors on sub-level two.

He thrust his foot against the hatch door. It cracked inward. He yelled Nasira’s name, then prayed she didn’t shoot him. Her face came into view. He offered her his hand. She ignored it and crawled out to the steel beam beside him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped.

‘Your knight in shining armor.’

‘Moron in tin foil,’ she said.

Jay heard someone entering her elevator. Clasping his hands together, he gave Nasira a boost. She leaped to the elevator roof.

‘Why’d you come help?’ she asked.

‘You didn’t kill me,’ he said.

She didn’t respond. He heard the boots. A shocktrooper on top of the elevator. With Nasira. Instead of helping her avoid the shocktroopers, he’d sent her right into one. You stupid fuck, he thought.

He looked down to see a shocktrooper crawling through the escape hatch by his feet. He made the choice: deal with this one now, help Nasira after. He hoped it was the right choice.

He dropped down, driving his boot into the shocktrooper’s back. She turned around. Jay drove his other knee into her throat. At least the knee helped him balance on her chest.

The shocktrooper drew her pistol and aimed. Jay closed the gap quickly and wrapped his armpit over her pistol. He brought his hand in and under, thumb below her ear. Press. Hard. Maintain. Then something smashed into the side of his face. She’d kicked him. He fell backwards, onto the roof of his own elevator. One ear was ringing.

The shocktrooper was already in front of him. Jay got to his feet. She reached for his rifle. Jay closed fast, before she had a chance to aim, smashed his heel into her knee. He drove his knee upward, knocking the rifle into his own hands. She barely seemed to flinch from the blow, hands still wrapped over the rifle. Now they were both holding it.

Before Jay could think, an actinic glare seared the corner of his vision. From the nozzle of what looked like a garden hose, a tongue of white-hot plasma burned at some ridiculous temperature. Then he realized. She was holding a plasma cutting torch, the same one she would’ve used on the elevator doors. The torches had been around since the 1950s, but in the nineties the Fifth Column labs had deployed mobile versions that ran off a portable battery pack.

He brought the rifle up to deflect the torch. The plasma sliced right through the barrel. Jay held the rifle against the torch-wielding hand, released the rifle magazine and slammed it into the shocktrooper’s windpipe. Rifle to torch; magazine to throat.

She knocked the magazine aside. Jay sidestepped her and drove the molten end of the rifle right into her face. Say goodbye to depth perception, bitch.

The glowing red metal hissed into her goggles. She stumbled back, pulled the rifle from her face and flung it down the elevator shaft. The left side of her goggles melted over her face.

She weaved the torch through the air. She was a bit clumsy at first, but then it sliced over Jay’s arms and grazed his shoulder. OK, maybe not so clumsy. Jay could feel his cheek hot and wet. Something burned inches into his forearm. He looked down to find the torch hadn’t actually burned his skin; it’d cut clean through and cauterized the wound. Fucking hell. He nearly passed out from the pain.

He dropped around behind the steel cables that held the elevator in the shaft. The shocktrooper didn’t follow; instead she thrust the torch directly through. Jay barely moved his head in time.

Dropping the remains of the seared rifle, he seized a steel cable with each hand. They were taut, but had just enough slack for him to trap the shocktrooper’s torch-wielding arm. Gripping the cables, Jay hauled himself up and slammed the heel of his boot down onto her head.

She dodged the blow. The torch sizzled through the cables and came free. Another arc of plasma. It slipped through Jay’s vest, through more layers of skin than he would’ve liked. He stumbled back, the pain locking him down. This was insane. He had to get out of here.

He dropped under another strike, rolled back to the steel cables. The shocktrooper came at him with a blinding series of cuts. Jay ducked, rolled and weaved out of the white plasma’s path. It burned his vision like the sun.

He moved behind the cables. The shocktrooper sidestepped. Jay matched her movements, kept the cables between them. He could hear scuffles and grunts from the roof of Nasira’s elevator in the south shaft. The torch came through. Jay weaved out of its path. Plasma scythed after him, cutting two more cables. Another strike.

He darted clear. The superheated, ionized gas sang for his flesh. He bowed his torso inwards, the plasma passing before him, severing three cables.

Only one cable remained, yet still the elevator held.

The shocktrooper moved quickly around the cable, on the same side as Jay. The torch swept down Jay’s chest. He shrank back, avoiding it. She smiled, reversed her grip and came in again. Jay rolled sideways, legs spinning into position around her knee and ankle. Pulled her ankle and pushed her knee. Her knee straightened out and she fell backwards.

Jay was on his feet. He dived through the air, past the cable, and sank into a roll. Up again, he pivoted his body. The cables were between him and the shocktrooper again. She launched after him, torch still in hand. Jay waited for the cable to break, but the shocktrooper bounced off it instead. She knew what Jay was trying to do.

Another barrage of attacks. Back and forth they danced across the roof of his elevator, while Nasira and her attacker did the same on the other one. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. He moved carefully, deciding what to avoid and what to deflect. One wrong decision and the shocktrooper would slice him in two. He slipped in beside her, his chest to her back. He wanted to take the opportunity to attack, but thought again and did the opposite. He leaped away, towards the steel beams.

He could see Nasira from the corner of his vision. She was still alive.

Jay put one foot out before him and pushed off a steel beam. Twisting around, he leaped over the shocktrooper and onto the dangling cables. The shocktrooper jumped towards him, the plasma cutting through air.

Jay gripped the cables and hauled his legs up, using the momentum to pull his stomach from the plasma’s unforgiving path. For a moment, he felt like he was lying facedown on an invisible table.

‘Nasira!’ he yelled. ‘Jump!’

‘You’re trying to get me killed!’ she yelled back.

‘Just jump!’

Jay kicked the torch-wielding hand. The plasma flame thrust in the direction of the last steel cable. Still in mid-leap, the shocktrooper could do nothing to correct the movement. The plasma cut the cable.

Jay watched the shocktrooper land on the elevator roof. Then the elevator plummeted. The shocktrooper instinctively jumped for the steel beams, but the elevator dropped only a few inches before the safety mechanism kicked in. The pull rods clenched furiously onto the rail guides, locking the elevator in position.

The movement hurled Jay upward, past Nasira. She leaped forward, arms outstretched. He saw, extended an arm of his own. And missed.

Her arms wrapped tightly around his legs.

He held the cable with clenched fists as the counterweights slingshotted them up the shaft. The colors in his vision bled into one another. Then the counterweights stopped. Jay bounced and dropped hard. His grip slid down the cable. Tightening it, he grabbed the end of the cable before it slithered from his grasp.

He looked down. Nasira was still there, her grip cutting off the circulation to his feet. Beyond her scarlet-dotted face, the shaft receded into a tiny square of darkness. The possibility of falling made his mind swim.

‘Stop hanging around!’ Nasira yelled. ‘Swing!’

‘Easy for you to say,’ he mumbled.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

He hated heights. Really, really hated them. He clenched the cables, his body freezing up.

‘Swing, you twat!’ she yelled. ‘Shocktrooper’s climbing the ladder!’

Breathe. Concentrate on breathing. Look ahead, not down. God, whatever the fuck you do, don’t look down.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Nasira yelled. ‘Swing!’

Ignoring all common sense, Jay leaned out to one side, then back in. He repeated the movements until they began to sway from side to side. It was taking forever. Slack, severed cables brushed across his face.

From somewhere around the region of his ass, Nasira said, ‘Keep going!’

The swing motion was starting. He pulled with it, relaxing into the momentum, then pulled further. Nasira let go. He watched her dive across the shaft towards the ladder, arms out. She gripped the ladder’s sides, knees folding in, heels on rungs. Below her, he could see the shocktrooper climbing right for her. No, he wasn’t climbing. He might as well be gliding, he was moving that fast.

‘Move!’ Jay yelled.

In the south shaft, Nasira’s elevator dropped, then ground to a halt. For a second Jay didn’t know what was going on. He watched the shocktrooper in the south shaft become larger, clearer. Then he realized she’d pulled the same stunt he had, cutting all of the cables and propelling herself upwards at incredible speed.

The sheer drop below him came into painful focus. Jay shut his eyes and held on tighter. He had to get a hold of himself. Focus. He forced himself to open his eyes and look ahead. The shocktrooper shot past him, a smear of limbs. The only thing between them were steel beams with rail guides mounted on both sides. Through the beams, Jay saw the counterweights shift, then catch. The shocktrooper bounced and dangled. She was directly opposite him.

Without even waiting to catch her breath, she swung her cable through the loose ones. Since she was still bouncing, her swings came easier and faster. Jay’s heart skipped more beats than he cared to count. His cable was still swinging but not enough for him to reach the ladder. Even if he could make the jump, the shocktrooper coming up after Nasira was too damn close. He was caught between two shocktroopers. Fuck.

The female shocktrooper swung under a steel beam and, still clinging to the cable, crossed over to the north shaft. Her boots slammed hard into his shoulder, sending him into a violent spin. His right hand came free. His blurred vision showed him the male shocktrooper going straight for Nasira.

Jay’s left hand loosened from a blow he didn’t see coming. The shaft spiraled around him. His vision popped and crackled. He held onto the rope with his left hand. Sweat ran into his eyes. He blinked but they still stung like hell.

Bring the right arm up. Keep the legs still. Raise the right hand. Above the left. Hold. Don’t fucking let go. Both hands on the very tip of the cable.

The shocktrooper swung back in. No kick. Silence. The cable jerked. The bitch was on his cable. Right above him. The bottomless shaft was all he could think about. Every time he opened his eyes, his mind was an ice blender on fucking high.

The shocktrooper slid down. Her boots smashed into his head. His spine jarred. Phosphenes danced around his vision. His hands slipped. He couldn’t see. Then realized why. His eyes were closed. He opened them. He was falling. Not straight down. At a forty-five degree angle. The swing of the cable had thrown him out. Straight for the steel beams.

Oh well, fuck it. He hugged the first beam. Pain slammed his ribs. He could feel his feet. Every breath was hell. A burning itch in his ribcage. He looked up. Didn’t feel dizzy this time. He craned his head.

The shocktrooper was waiting for another swing on the cable. It came. She leaped right for him.

Jay did the only thing he could do. Let go.

With his arms above his head, he grabbed the next steel beam down. Held on, hauled himself up. His ribs no longer itched. He could breathe without pain. Stale air punched down his throat. He told himself not to look down.

In the south shaft, he could see steel cables, tangled and thick. From the corner of his vision, he caught a blur of movement. The shocktrooper was almost on him.

He launched himself into the shaft, his arms out for the severed elevator cables. His hands closed over them. He didn’t care which one he got, as long as he got something. Each hand grasped a different cable and they pulled away from each other, stretching him like a starfish. He drew his arms in, muscles quivering from the strain. He climbed as fast as he could.

The cable jerked. He looked down. The shocktrooper was below. Beyond her was a drop that made him instantly sick. He kept climbing. With each hoist, he used his feet to trap a cable between the heel of one boot and the top of another, locking his position in. He didn’t know what the shocktrooper was doing: inserting a fresh magazine into her pistol, or jumping onto his cables to kick him off, or whatever the fuck shocktroopers did whenever they were kicking the shit out of poor fucks like him in an elevator shaft. He tried to focus on his painfully slow climb, desperate to gain some distance between himself and his