What’s one more corpse to a monument?

Jin shot twice. Two bullets bounced back, dented and harmless.

Shit. The homunculus, twice as tall as she and half as thin, crashed onto the roof, and the elevator buckled. The metal beneath caved under the impact. The steel cables holding it up made a whip-like crack, then went taut.

One claw flashed out. Jin barely twisted away in time, one of the bony fingers nicking her stomach before stabbing into the wall behind. In a single motion, she drew her sword, carving an arc through the extended limb. The blade was blinding blue in the darkness, and leaked azure along its path.

Hissing, the homunculus drew back its stump. Her night vision dyed the wound red, but she knew better. Homunculi never bled red.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Faust shouted underneath.

“What does it sound like?” Jin dodged another blow. “Someone’s trying to break you out!”

Her sword lunged for the monster’s neck. It sunk deep into the flesh with a wet puckered noise and froze there. Jin yanked back, but the weapon didn’t budge. She released her grip, a moment too late. The homunculus thrust its arm into her stomach, flinging her back. Her head cracked against the wall; her vision sprouted black, and blood pooled in her mouth. Real blood.

She forced her sight back, blinking the static away. The homunculus was closing its talons around her blade. The metal shrivelled under its strength, and once it was pulled out, snapped like a toothpick.

I’m next, she thought. She braced herself for pain, but none came. One moment, the homunculus was readying a vicious strike; the next, it craned back, gasping. A neon chain looped around its neck, digging into the skin. Dimitri Faust was pressed on the creature’s back, garrotting it with the neon chains of his bondage. The veins in his neck bulged from the strain. His eyes were tightly shut, his lips moving. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he mouthed.

The homunculus kicked its legs against the ground. The holes of its eyes seemed to widen, as if aghast by betrayal. A high whine escaped its jaws and finally, when Jin thought the creature couldn’t take more punishment, it lunged into the shaft wall, back first. All the weight of the homunculus rammed into Faust, and the shaft wall dented behind him. He gasped, loosening his grip.

The homunculus took the opportunity to seize Faust’s leg, dragging him over its shoulder. Its claw whipped, and Faust came flying through the air. Jin barely managed to catch him before he split his head.

“Hang on,” said Jin. The palm of her hand sprouted open like a flower, with petals of cobalt flesh.

Without another word, Faust knew the plan. He clung to her while she took a knife in her free hand. She flicked hard, and the blade sliced through the elevator cable holding them aloft. Then, they started falling.

Their hearts dropped and swelled, their hair thrashing from the sudden wind. Thankfully, the sensation of freefall lasted only a moment. Jin aimed high and fired out a wire from her flowered palm. It zipped skywards, hooking into a panel of the shaft. Their bodies jolted from the whiplash, and Jin felt some of the muscle in her arm tear.

Still, it was a better fate than the homunculus. It realised Jin’s plan too late, and when it tried to dig into the wall, the momentum hauled it back, towing it down into the darkness along with the elevator. The homunculus, as terrible and eldritch a monster as it was, was turned prey by the most terrible and eldritch monster of all: gravity. Its final howl echoed as it fell.

Jin planted her boots on the wall and inch by inch, scaled the shaft. When she found the next elevator door, Faust helped her wrench it open. They tumbled through, heaving. For a minute, all they did was gasp for air.

“It’ll be back,” Faust said between breaths.

Jin blinked off her night-vision. “It just fell eight hundred feet.”

“And it would’ve taken another eight hundred to kill it. That was a post-war model, bred specifically for endurance.”

“A post-war model?” She gripped his shoulder. “Can it use Axiom?”

He batted her hand away and fixed his glasses. “Thankfully not. It’s only meant to catch people, not kill them. Search and rescue is the priority.”

Jin checked her interface. “It’ll take the bureau ten minutes to send reinforcements.”

“What, there’s nobody else in the prison?”

“The homunculus got into the elevator shaft at around floor seventy. If it’s made it that far down, the guards will all be dead.”

“Ah.” Faust fidgeted with his glasses again. “Then that means– “

“We survive for ten minutes,” Jin finished, standing. “Let’s get moving.”

Eustachia prison, the labyrinth of which they were traversing now, was a monolith; an ugly titan of metal, jutting out from the sea and accessible only via air. Yet, despite being the federation’s most infamous prison, the facility was actually quite empty. The minister of defense claimed this was proof of how safe the nation was. In truth, during the war, the federation had maintained a policy of taking no prisoners.

There is no strategical benefit to keeping homunculi alive, her instructor had said. They cannot be interrogated for they have no concept of tactics. They cannot be tamed for they are too feral to be disciplined. Most of all, they cannot be used as bait, for homunculi are incapable of empathy, even for their own.

Thus, homunculi were either killed or, if rumours were to be believed, kept as exotic pets by wealthy corpos. It was only in the war’s waning years that the federation agreed to keep some homunculi alive for research purposes in a specialised menagerie. Unsurprisingly, it was Dimitri Faust who proposed the idea.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a cell,” said Faust.

They had stopped in front of a door, or at least it seemed like one. The door was camouflaged with the rest of the white corridor, with only a faint groove to mark its presence. Jin scanned her keycard, and the ivory slid open.

The room was small, not much bigger than Faust’s cell. Not small, Jin corrected. Cramped.

Racks of guns lined every wall from ceiling to floor. Pistols on one side, rifles on another. Sheathed swords rose from the ground, devouring what precious legroom remained. The whole place stunk of gunpowder and carnage.

“An armoury,” said Faust, bumping his elbow on the stock of a burstgun. “How quaint.”

“The armoury’s on the top floor.” Jin plucked out a sword to replace her lost one. “This is one of the caches.”

“One of? As in there’s multiple of these?”

“Yes.”

“Right, and how many prisoners are kept in Eustachia?”

“Seventy-four.”

“That aren’t in cryo.”

Jin paused. “One.”

“Yes, one,” Faust mused. “The one that’s going to die in an hour.”

“Two hours,” she corrected.

“My oh my, what am I going to do with all that spare time? You reckon they have magazines in the execution chamber? I knew I should’ve brought my book.”

Jin just rolled her eyes and kept lining arming herself. She had a rifle strapped to her back, a heavy pistol on her belt, and was in the process of taking off her cybernetic arm. She detached it easily, and with the same nonchalance as one would take off their shoes or jacket. Then, just as casually, she replaced it with another. Bureau policy required every Runner to use the same full-body model so that all equipment could be standardised. Same blood type, same proportioned uniforms, and in this case, same sized cybernetics.

“This isn’t something you can do alone.” Faust raised his hands, still shackled. “You’ve read my file. You know I’m a strong esper. Unchain me. Let me help.”

“I can’t.”

“Why? If I wanted to escape, I would’ve used my get-of-jail free card back there.”

“I can’t go against command. I was given strict orders to not release you from your bindings under any circumstances.”

“Would you rather the homunculus break me out, take me back to its lair so I can graft wings onto it or something? Help them kill more people?”

“Orders are orders,” she insisted.

“They won’t fire you. You’re a war hero. You’re the war hero.”

“Orders are orders,” repeated Jin, louder.

“Fine, whatever.” Faust massaged the bridge of his nose. “You have more guns than the Darra Village. We’ll be fine. You can use Axiom too if worse comes to worst.”

Jin froze up, grimacing. It lasted only a split second, but she knew that was all he needed.

“Bloody fuck,” he realised. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. You can’t use Axiom?! You’re an elite Runner!”

“I’m first rank!” she flustered. “And I can use Axiom!”

“Then what’s with the reaction?!”

“It’s just unstable, alright? Dangerous. First time I used it, I almost blew up a city block.”

“And the last time you used it, you won the war.”

“Look, it’s too volatile.” Jin stepped out of the cache, Faust close behind. “And Eustachia’s too important. I don’t have the clearance to use it.”

“Even if you die?”

Jin’s lips moved to speak.

“No!” he cut her off. “No. No. Don’t fucking say it.”

“Orders are orders,” she finished.

Faust buried his face into his palms, groaning. He sucked in air between clenched teeth.

She rolled her eyes, ignoring him as best as she could. They made their way down the corridor in silence, back the way they came. At the elevator door, Jin peeked a head into the shaft. Her night-vision wasn’t far enough to see the bottom, but if the homunculus survived the fall, it would be down below, climbing its way back up. Yet, there was no sound of talons on metal. Were they just lucky and the monster died in the abyss?

No, Jin reminded herself, cocking her grenade launcher. Rule one of being a Runner: you’re never that lucky. The homunculus must be biding its time at the bottom, playing possum, trying to get them to lower their guard. Or maybe it was planning a counterplay, waiting for them to make their move first.

Fortunate for them, time was on their side.

“Faust,” said Jin. “You would agree that I saved your life back here, yes?”

“I would have fallen to my doom otherwise, yes.”

“I think you owe me an answer then.”

“Firstly, I saved you first so we’re technically even. Secondly, you saved the life of a dead man. Prolonged my life by what again? Two hours? I hardly owe you something for that.”

“That’s exactly my question,” said Jin. “The homunculus was there to rescue you and clearly you’re plenty capable even without your esper powers. You could have escaped. Why didn’t you?”

“What makes you think I want to escape?”

“You said you’re scared of dying.”

“Fearing death and wishing for it are not mutually exclusive.”

“You’re scared of dying, but you also want to die. What kind of sense does that make?”

“You can say the same for a woman saving the life of a man she has every reason to loathe.” He met her gaze. His eyes were softer now, in a way that felt natural. The federation called him a mad scientist. A deranged criminal who hated his own kind, who tore off the hand that fed it. That was not the man who stood beside her.

“I’m…I’m tired, Ms Yurinhalt,” he said. “I want to rest. Please allow me that mercy.”

Jin turned her head back to the elevator shaft. “One last fight. You can rest after.”

Without looking, she removed her pistol from its holster. She held it by the barrel, presenting the grip to him. “Orders were to keep you chained. They said nothing about handing you a weapon.”

Dimitri Faust chuckled. He took the gun into his palms, feeling its heft. “One last fight,” he agreed. “What’s one more corpse to a monument?”