End Day Read Online Free Page B

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    Retreat was definitely no longer an option.
    â€œWe’ve got to reach the mat-trans,” he said. “Don’t waste ammo. Use the grens to clear a path. Let’s go!”
    With that, he and Jak led the full-out charge down the corridor. One hundred feet ahead was an intersection with another corridor. As they neared it, Ryan waved for Jak to slow down. They stopped and peered around the corners as the others stormed past. In the dim overhead light, way down the corridor on the right, he could see lumpy heads bobbing toward them. It was the same story when he looked in the opposite direction.
    He and Jak rolled incendies both ways, then without waiting to see the effect, chased after the others. Ryan knew the thermite grens would keep the enforcers back, but only the first wave, and only temporarily.
    In front of them, Krysty, Mildred, J.B., Doc and Ricky disappeared into a doorway on the left. Then the floor jolted violently under Ryan’s boots, sending him slamming shoulder first into the wall. Concrete dust rained down from the ceiling. Dozens of levels below, the generator’s whine died away, like a falling artillery shell, and the corridor lights winked out.
    For an instant it was so dark Ryan couldn’t see the end of his nose. Pitch-black, but not quiet. Over the pounding of his heart, he heard what sounded like dozens of bare feet slapping the floor. The generator recovered after only a second or two, starting the climb to peak power, and then the lights came back on.
    When Ryan looked behind them, he saw a corridor filled wall to wall with wide bodies, and they were bearing down fast. “Run, Jak! Run!” he shouted.
    The entrance to the mat-trans unit’s control room stood open. Ryan was the last across the threshold. He spun around, located the keypad and, desperately hoping that the usual codes worked in this redoubt, punched in the one that would close the door. It worked. Breathing a sigh of relief, he quickly entered another to lock out access.
    â€œWe’re too late,” Krysty said as he turned. “We just missed them.”
    He’d already guessed that. In a single go, something had drained the tremendous power load to zero.
    Ryan rushed past panels of blinking, multicolored lights and the madly chattering, predark machinery, into the anteroom. The door to this mat-trans had a porthole, and he could see the tendrils of jump fog slowly lifting. Though his view was obscured, there were no feet below the mist and no slumped bodies on the floorplates near the door—just shiny smears of sweat.
    There was no way to tell where or how many of their quarry had gone. Or even if Magus had jumped with them.
    A resounding boom from a foot or fist against the outside of the control room’s door put an end to that train of thought. More banging followed, and under the rain of blows, the barrier began to bulge inward. Amber thumb hooks poked between the edge of the door and its frame, bending back the double-walled steel as if it was pot metal.
    It wasn’t going to hold.
    Krysty pulled out a red canister.
    â€œNo!” he said, catching her hand by the wrist. “If we use incendies in here, we’ll end up cooking ourselves and the mat-trans.”
    Behind them, a knobby arm reached through the gap, a hand flailing clumsily toward its prey
    â€œInto the chamber!” Ryan ordered as the anteroom entry was pried open.
    The companions piled through ahead of him. Once inside, he shut the door, which didn’t have the usual lever for a handle. He dogged it with the locking wheel—just in time. On the far side of the porthole, inches from his face, enforcers tore madly at the hatch. The locking cams of vanadium steel were too strong for them, but the tips of their amber talons scored the glass, crosshatching it.
    Ryan knew he had only seconds before the automatic cycle started. He lunged for the unit’s Last Destination button.
    At almost the