Bruce didn’t hesitate. He hurtled across the street toward the concert hall. Behind him, he could hear the police raise the alarm.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Civilian in the vicinity!”
In a few split seconds, Bruce had sprinted past the drone barrier and onto the path leading into one of the concert hall’s side entrances. The elastic, metallic armor of his suit seemed to give each of his movements strength, enhancing his agility and making each leap feel like little effort. He felt as if he were inside a gym simulation, running a circuit with the ease that came from years of practice. His breaths were steady. Behind him, he saw the two hostile drones advancing on his own. Already, someone from inside was overriding the controls that prevented them from firing on each other. He’d hoped he would have more time—but as he looked on, one of the hostile drones reared up, pointed an arm at Bruce’s drone, and opened fire.
The second drone caught sight of Bruce hovering near the locked side entrance. It craned its neck, then lunged over in his direction. Its eyes flashed scarlet, a clear warning, and it raised its arm at him. “Stand down, civilian,” it said. “You are not cleared for this area.”
Was Madeleine behind the eyes of this drone, looking at him? Would she even recognize him, with his disguise on? And if she did know it was him…would she still attack? Bruce crouched, tense, as the drone stared him down, waiting for him to step away. He stayed where he was. The drone reared higher.
“You are under arrest for resisting police orders,” the drone said. “Hands in the air.”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Go ahead, then,” he replied as if he were talking directly to Madeleine.
The drone hesitated for a second—perhaps it was her hesitating. Then it raised its weapon. A slight blue glow came from the end of its arm. It’s going to attack.
The arm shot toward him. Bruce threw himself to the side a split second before the arm struck him—instead, it smashed into the door, shattering it in an explosion of glass. Bruce shielded his neck and face with his arms. As the drone shifted in his direction and reared back to attack again, he sprang to his feet and lunged through the gaping hole in the door. The drone followed in pursuit.
Bruce entered a narrow corridor. Two Nightwalker guards dressed all in black hoisted rifles and pointed them at him. Their jaws dropped in surprise as the drone crashed in after him. Bruce reacted on instinct—he dove into a roll in front of them and swung a leg out at the first guard, knocking him clear off his feet. As he fell, the drone reached forward and caught him, its grip closing tight around the man’s chest and lifting him up in the air. The man let out a shout—he pointed his rifle at the drone and opened fire. The shots ricocheted off the metal surface. Bruce ducked. The bullets hit the second guard in his legs. He fell to the floor, screaming.
Bruce seized the injured guard by his arm and dragged him down the corridor and around the corner to safety as the drone behind them realized it had seized one of the Nightwalkers. A glitch that would need fixing.
The injured guard gave Bruce a bewildered look, but Bruce didn’t have time to explain that he wasn’t here to hurt people. He left the man where he was and sprinted on.
Bruce had been in this concert hall twice before in his life—he recognized this level as the corridor that led into the smaller of two lobbies. Where were the Nightwalkers holding the hostages? Behind him, he could hear the shouts of the first guard, who had been released by the drone. “Someone’s inside!” he was saying. “I—I don’t know—maybe a cop—he had a black helmet on—”
Bruce toggled one of the panels on the side of his helmet—and suddenly the walls around him turned grid-like and transparent, heat signals of six Nightwalkers lit up behind the walls, each one turned in his direction and heading his way. He glanced up at the ceiling. That looked transparent now, too—and three floors above him, he saw a dense cluster of heat signals, all gathered in what must be the upper mezzanine area of the concert chamber.
The hostages.
His corridor suddenly opened up into a lobby, the gala’s silk ribbons and long banners now jarringly out of place. Bruce took a sharp turn away from the center of the room as several heat signals from an adjacent hall rushed closer to him. As they reached the lobby, he darted into an empty corridor and continued sprinting. Shouts went up behind him. They had slowed in confusion, trying to figure out where he’d gone. Bruce turned his attention toward the nearest stairwell. There were clearly heat signals coming from inside it, but only three—if he played his cards right, he could get past them. He reached the end of the hall and slammed himself into the stairwell door. An emergency siren blared.
Bruce looked up the stairwell. He didn’t need his heat tech to see that two Nightwalkers were running down toward him, their boots echoing on the metal steps. As he went, he took out the small, round bomb from his backpack. He ran to meet them, jumping up the steps two at a time. As he reached the top of the first flight, he threw the bomb against the wall as hard as he could.
An ear-ringing boom rang out in the stairwell. Smoke exploded from the bomb and surged up in the blink of an eye, engulfing everything in near pitch-black. Bruce had the sudden unnerving feeling that he was back inside his mansion when the Nightwalkers’ leader had vanished in a cloud of smoke. Bewildered shouts came from the Nightwalkers on the upper flights. Through his shades, Bruce could still see the grid outline of the stairs and the heat signals of his attackers. One of them fired shots, each one looking like a faint red-gold burst. He darted up through the smoke like a ghost.
Halfway up the second flight, he came face to face with the first Nightwalker.
The man opened his mouth in a shout, raising his weapon. But it was too late. Bruce struck him viciously in the side of his jaw. The blow hit true; the man’s limbs sagged instantly. Bruce caught him before he hit the ground, then set him down, limp and slumped, against the stair railings. He continued up.
Two more Nightwalkers came into view. Bruce darted to the floor as the first one fired at him, sending bullets whizzing past his shoulder. Don’t think, just move. He caught the first by his legs and sent him careening backward. The second flung her elbow at him, aiming for his neck—but Bruce spun out of the way as another round of bullets chipped against the wall. He vanished into the gloom of smoke before the two could turn back on him.
A voice suddenly rang out over the hall’s speaker system. It was a voice Bruce recognized, and for an instant, he paused on the stairs.