The boiling runoff churned against the edge of the elevated passenger platform.
Thick white steam rose from the flooded transit tracks, obscuring the concrete floor below.
Caleb pulled his heavy surplus boots over the ledge.
He rolled onto his back against the cracked tiles, dragging hot, ozone-laced air into his burning lungs.
The dead weight of his waterlogged canvas trousers anchored him to the floor.
A few feet away, Iharu knelt near the edge of the stairs.
He kept the barrel of his scatter-gun leveled at the dense fog. Kikaru sat slumped against a shattered advertising billboard. Her white prototype armor bore a deep, jagged scorch mark across the breastplate. She pressed a trembling hand against her ribs.
Hiro stood frozen near the handrail.
He stared down into the white mist.
The mechanical clatter of gunfire had died out.
The only sound in the subterranean tunnel was the soft cooking sigh of the water.
Then a voice echoed from the shadows at the far end of the long concrete platform.
"Help me. Please."
It was Hiro's voice.
Caleb watched the color drain from Hiro's face.
The younger recruit gripped his rifle tight against his chest, his eyes wide with horror as he listened to his own nervous, cracking pitch echoing from the dark.
"I dropped my rifle," the voice pleaded from the gloom beyond the flickering emergency lights. "I can't get up."
The creature had not stayed in the water.
It had scaled the elevated walkway further down the transit line, using the thick steam rolling off its own superheated plating to mask its movements.
Caleb forced himself up onto his knees.
A sharp, tearing pain radiated through his right shoulder. He had ripped the stabilizing muscles around his collarbone when he tackled Kikaru out of the beast's path minutes ago.
The biological anomaly under his sternum reacted to the fresh tissue damage.
A hollow, hard starvation opened in Caleb's stomach.
Acid pushed up the back of his throat. His body demanded an immense influx of calories to fuel the rapid cellular repair, stripping the remaining energy directly from his bloodstream.
A wave of dizziness hit him.
He locked his jaw, forcing himself to breathe through his nose to fight the nausea.
The combat knife came free from his canvas belt. He had lost his rifle in the flooded tracks during the retreat.
"Where is it?" Iharu whispered.
He racked the pump of his scatter-gun. The metallic clack sounded loud in the enclosed space.
"Don't shoot wild," Kikaru ordered.
She struggled to stand, wincing as she put weight on her braced leg. "The kinetic slugs will ricochet off the support pillars. We hold this position until the surface divisions secure the breach."
Caleb looked up at the gaping crater in the ceiling.
Smoke and pulverized asphalt continued to rain down from the upper streets.
"The surface divisions think the zone is secure," Caleb said. The hard caloric drain left his voice rough and quiet. "We're on our own."
He checked the top right corner of his cracked visor.
The public broadcast icon glowed a steady green.
The algorithm was pushing his feed hard. The viewer count rolled over like a slot machine.
Forty thousand.
Sixty-five thousand.
Eighty thousand.
The public chat log flooded his peripheral vision in a blur of white text.
User99: What the hell is that thing?!
TitanSlayer: The surface feed missed this! The tunnels are breached!
RedLine: Look at the scrubber! He just crippled a Class-8 with a pipe!
GunnerFan: 80k watching a Rank F stream. Insane.
Caleb stared at the numbers.
The fifty-thousand-credit monthly debt penalty hung over his family. If he died down here, or if he washed out of the mobilization empty-handed, the collection agencies would seize his mother's housing sector. They would repossess his brother's life support augments by morning.
Those public engagement points needed to convert into credits.
He pushed himself to his feet.
Past Iharu, then to the front of the group.
"What are you doing?" Iharu whispered. "You have a knife."
Caleb kept his eyes focused on the dark end of the walkway. "Keeping it busy."
"Caleb," the voice whispered from the left side of the platform.
He recognized the wet, clicking resonance vibrating beneath the mimicked word.
The sound bounced off the tiled wall, intentionally masking its exact origin.
A heavy shadow detached itself from the gloom.
The beast stood over twenty feet tall. Its segmented, obsidian carapace glowed with an internal, molten heat. The thermal radiation baked the damp air, drying the sweat on Caleb's face.
It charged.
The heavy claws tore gouges into the concrete tiles. It swung a heavy, bladed limb in a horizontal arc aimed straight at Caleb's neck.
Caleb dropped his weight.
The heavy obsidian blade sheared through the air directly above his helmet. The kinetic fibers in his surplus suit whined, channeling the pathetic 1.2 percent boost into his legs.
Driving his body upward, his hand moved on muscle memory.
Five years of breaking down carcasses in the disposal yards guided the strike. He bypassed the impenetrable chest armor and aimed his combat knife at the soft, pale membrane hidden just behind the creature's armored knee joint.
The blade plunged deep into the synovial sac.
His wrist twisted.
Scalding black fluid erupted from the ruptured joint.
It splashed across Caleb's gloves and canvas jacket, burning the fabric.
The monster let out a deafening screech that sounded like tearing steel.
It thrashed hard. Its bulk smashed into a concrete support pillar. The ceiling groaned, dropping a sheet of gray dust over the platform.
Caleb ripped his knife free and scrambled backward.
He put ten yards of distance between himself and the flailing limbs.
His chest heaved.
The biological tax of the explosive movement hit him like a physical blow. Black spots danced in the corners of his vision. His legs felt like lead.
If the fight dragged on another sixty seconds, his energy reserves would bottom out.
He would collapse on the tiles.
The monster regained its balance.
It dragged its ruptured leg, steam pouring from the wound as the acidic blood melted the floor tiles. Its multi-faceted eyes shifted back to Caleb.
It opened its split mandible.
"Secure the perimeter," it said, using Captain Kade's authoritative voice.
It lunged forward, dragging its ruined limb across the concrete.
Caleb backed up toward the edge of the platform.
He checked the structural integrity of the concrete beneath his boots. The beast's earlier impact had spider-webbed the flooring with deep, jagged cracks.
The strength to pierce another joint was gone.
His vision swam.
The environment would have to do the work.
"Iharu!" Caleb shouted, pointing at the cracked base of the support column. "Shoot the pillar!"
Iharu swung his scatter-gun upward and pulled the trigger.
A deafening blast echoed through the station.
Heavy kinetic slugs pulverized the damaged concrete support column.
The creature stepped onto the compromised section of the platform just as the pillar gave way.
Millions of tons of pressure snapped the flooring.
The concrete ledge collapsed.
The monster shrieked, losing its footing.
Its heavy carapace dragged it downward. It plunged off the edge and crashed into the boiling floodwater below. Slabs of concrete and twisted rebar rained down on top of it, burying the glowing carapace under tons of debris.
A blinding geyser of steam erupted upward, showering the remaining platform in hot rain.
Caleb stumbled away from the crumbling edge.
He dropped his knife.
His knees buckled, and he hit the tiles hard.
His empty stomach heaved, forcing him to lean over and vomit a stream of bitter acid onto the floor.
The hard caloric drain left his muscles trembling.
He braced his hands against the cold tile, dragging oxygen through his teeth until the black spots faded from his vision.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his glove.
The visor display caught his eye one last time.
One hundred and fifteen thousand viewers.
Caleb closed his eyes, letting the cool draft from the surface street wash over his sweating face.
The debt was covered for another month.