Z 2134

storage room, just above them, crying as she ran.
    Ana pulled away from Liam, shoving him back, and reached up for the floorboard, to get to the girl before The Watcher.
    Ana looked up, seeing the girl’s eyes look down at the floor. She saw them hiding, knew they were there. She cried out something, but her cry was cut short by the blast of the shock stick, which reverberated through the room.
    The girl, or what was left of her, hit the ground with a sickening thud, and blood poured through the thin slits in the floor.
    Ana screamed.
    The Watcher stomped across the floor and immediately ripped the false floorboard away, exposing her and Liam. He grabbed Ana by the hair and yanked her up while aiming his shock stick at Liam. “Up! Now!”
    Ana screamed as she was dragged from the hole. She glanced down and immediately regretted it when she saw Iris’s body with a giant, charred hole eaten into her back. Ana nearly vomited and was shoved forward, snapping her attention back to the men with weapons. A third Watcher stormed into the storage room and forced Liam out, gathering them in the room that everyone had been chatting and eating in just moments ago.
    “Hands up!” the first Watcher ordered. Two aimed guns, while a third held his shock stick, poised to deliver pain or death.
    Ana raised her shaking hands, unable to stop crying over the murder of the little girl.
    Liam raised his hands slowly, then said, “Easy, guys. We can work this out. You want The Underground, and I’m not Underground. But I can take you there, and we won’t even have to get in a van. We’re close. Real close.” He paused and said, “The leader’s here.”
    Liam pointed his finger outward and aimed it at Duncan. “Right there,” he said.
    Two of the three Watchers spun toward Duncan, weapons ready. The closest, and the one with the best shot, stayed trained on Liam.
    Duncan said, “OK, OK, you got me. I’ll confess everything, but first, I need to get your word on something.”
    “What is it?” one of The Watchers said.
    “I need you to take off your helmet and look me in the eye.”
    All three Watchers were looking at Duncan, waiting for him to make his request.
    That’s when Ana realized it was all a ploy, maybe even one Liam and Duncan had coordinated in advance, just in case of such a situation.
    Unwatched, Liam pulled his a pistol from behind his back — an antique from back before The Walling — and squeezed the trigger twice, both shots tearing through the black material that covered The Watchers’ necks, sending them to the ground, writhing in pain.
    Liam shoved his elbow into Ana, sending her flat on her ass before turning to fire two shots at the third Watcher as Duncan grabbed one of The Watchers’ sticks and bashed it into one of the wounded men’s helmets, cracking the glass. He sent an electric shock into the man’s helmet, causing his whole body to shake and burn. Liam fired two more shots into the glass masks of the downed men, killing them, too.
    Ana stumbled to her feet and raised her head to Liam, shocked. Duncan was blinking slowly, without surprise. “Get out of here, NOW!”
    Liam nodded, a silent confirmation, then pulled Ana’s hand and dragged her past Duncan and up the stairs.
    Just as they hit the top stair, they heard footsteps thundering toward them — more Watchers.
    Liam shoved Ana down the stairs just as bullets split the door behind them.
    Liam followed her, tumbling down to the cold basement floor as bullets blasted the stairwell above them.
    “What are we supposed to do now?” Ana cried out.
    “Just wait,” Liam said, holding up a finger as if waiting on something.
    Ana wasn’t sure whether Liam knew what would happen or simply had faith that something would.
    Gunfire erupted upstairs, not as loud as The Watchers’ weapons, but faster.
    Liam laughed, “Fuck yeah!” and headed back upstairs, carefully, his gun held out in front of him.
    Red Beard, the guy from the bar who had slipped her the message on the street, was suddenly in the doorway, holding a weird-looking gun that Ana had never seen before. It looked like a shortened rifle, and antique.
    His eyes were all business, no celebration of the three Watchers lying dead on the ground behind him.
    “What’s the score downstairs?” Red Beard asked.
    “Three Watchers dead. But they killed Rose and Iris. Duncan’s all alone downstairs now.”
    “Fuck,” Red Beard said, looking down for only a moment since a moment was