"Asset Retrieval?" Sarah read the words over Leo's shoulder, a deep frown on her face. "What asset?"
"Us, maybe?" Ben the engineer squeaked, his eyes wide with terror. "Is he here to clean up the 'survivor' problem?"
Leo didn't think so. The man in the suit, "The Adjuster," moved with a terrifying sense of purpose that had nothing to do with random slaughter. He was scanning the ruined lobby not like a predator, but like an auditor looking for a discrepancy in the books. His presence felt different from the other monsters—less like chaotic nature and more like cold, ruthless corporate policy.
On the monitor, the Adjuster took a small, silver device from his jacket pocket and held it up. A holographic map of the hospital shimmered into existence above his hand. A single, blinking red dot pulsed on the third floor. In their wing.
"He's not here for us," Leo said, his voice grim. "He's here for something specific. Something he's tracking."
The red dot on the Adjuster's map was pulsing in the approximate location of their barricaded ward. But what could he possibly be after? The survivors were just regular people. The medical supplies were useless to a creature like that.
His eyes fell on the peacefully sleeping child, Lily.
No. It couldn't be.
The Adjuster lowered his map, his unnervingly calm gaze still fixed on the camera. He spoke, his voice not carried by the air, but transmitted directly through the monitor's speaker, a technological violation that made the hairs on Leo's neck stand up.
"To the occupants of the West Wing, third floor," the voice said, smooth as silk and cold as a morgue slab. "You are currently harboring an asset belonging to my employers. The asset is designated 'Specimen 734.' It is small, female, and human in appearance. It has recently been purged of a necessary control apparatus."
He was talking about Lily. And the "control apparatus" he meant was the Night-Stalker's fear-symbiote.
"This is a non-negotiable repossession," the Adjuster continued, his smile never faltering. "Surrender the asset, and I will permit the remainder of you to continue your... survival exercise. Obstruct me, and I will be forced to liquidate all biological and structural impediments. You have ten minutes to comply."
The screen went to static.
The room was silent, save for the steady beep of Lily's heart monitor. The survivors stared at each other, a new, more calculated fear in their eyes. The monsters they had faced before were forces of nature. This was different. This was a bill collector.
"What do we do?" a woman whispered, looking at the sleeping child. "He said he'd let us go."
"You can't believe that!" Sarah shot back, moving to stand defensively in front of Lily's bed. "Look at what he called her. 'Specimen 734'. She's a little girl, not an 'asset'!"
"She's right," Leo said, his mind already working the problem. "This isn't a negotiation. It's a threat. And he wouldn't offer a deal if he thought he could just take her easily. It means he has rules. Or limitations."
Or, Leo thought, our 'obstruction' is a genuine problem for him.
"Ten minutes," Ben muttered, wringing his hands. "He'll be up here in five. The barricade won't even slow him down."
"Then we won't stay here," Leo declared. He looked at Sarah. "We have to move her. Now."
"Move her where?" Sarah asked. "We're trapped on this floor. That thing is downstairs, and the Night-Stalker is still out there somewhere."
"We don't go down. We go up," Leo said, his eyes gleaming with a desperate idea. "Ben, the roof. Is there access from this wing?"
Ben's eyes lit up with understanding. "The helipad! Yes, there's a stairwell at the end of this hall that goes straight to the roof."
"Good. Here's the plan," Leo said, his voice taking on the authority of a field commander. "We are the obstruction. We slow him down, we misdirect him, and we get Lily to the roof. Sarah, you stay with her. Ben, I need you to create a distraction. A big one."
Ben nodded, a frantic, almost manic energy replacing his fear. "The ORs. We're right above them. They have reservoirs of pure oxygen. If I can get to the floor below and rig the release valves... I can flood the central lobby with it."
Leo understood immediately. Pure oxygen wouldn't be explosive on its own, but combined with any spark—a stray gunshot, a supernatural energy discharge…
"Do it," Leo ordered. "Everyone else, help Sarah. Get Lily onto a gurney. Move as fast as you can to the rooftop access."
The survivors, now galvanized by a plan and a leader, scrambled into action.
Leo stood alone for a moment, facing the direction the Adjuster would come from. This would be a fight unlike any other. He wasn't facing a beast or a psychic parasite. He was facing a supernatural corporate agent. You don't fight a man in a suit with brute force. You fight him with red tape, with bylaws, with procedure. You fight him by making his job more trouble than it's worth.
He walked over to a fire hose cabinet on the wall. He pulled out the thick, canvas hose. He took an IV stand from the barricade and a full canister of oxygen.
His face was grim. The Adjuster was coming to liquidate assets. Leo was about to show him what a hostile liquidation by a truly motivated janitor looked like.