"Lydia, report to Kate. Full disclosure. No one enters this building under any circumstance."

  "Yes sir."

  She turned slightly away from the corridor, hand pressed to the side of her helmet as she activated her mic.

  I heard none of what she said. The odour that flooded the hall barely registered anymore. My thoughts were fixated on the dead. Well, one in particular. It lay just outside a doorway, collapsed on its side. A torso in business attire, soaked through in red. The absence above the shoulders impossible to ignore.

  They likely arrived to work this morning with a routine in mind. Coffee. Idle complaints about workload. Perhaps a meeting they were dreading. Ordinary expectations for an ordinary day. Instead, their life had ended without even the mercy of a painless death.

  For a moment, I felt it fully, the random cruelty of it. The brutal arithmetic of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anyone. It could have been me.

  It wasn't fair.

  I bit down hard, snapping out of the spell. Was I here wallowing in pity for a person I never knew? Fairness was not a factor in the world I operated in. It never had been. I tore my gaze away. This was not the time for indulgence.

  The perpetrators were still in the building. That much was certain. Yet they hadn't engaged us. They could either be wary of us or waiting for something. Either way, it was positive. We still dictated the tempo. At least for now.

  Charging blindly through the building would be reckless. We had no numbers, no profile, no understanding of their capabilities. Backup would come. Gathering information was the smarter choice.

  "Mous," I said, regaining myself. "Let's take a look, see what we can find."

  She crossed to a clearer section of the hall and gently placed Brittney against the wall. Her distress was obvious, eyes red and swollen. She looked at the bodies, then quickly away, as if afraid prolonged eye contact might implicate her. In any other circumstance I might've pitied her. Not now. Not here. I wasn't buying any of that. I would address her later.

  I stepped forward, boots ripping away from the sticky puddles of blood formed on the ground. The closest body lay less than a foot away. I knelt carefully, keeping my hands to myself, scanning before touching anything.

  It was a female in a lab coat. At least the dismembered torso of one. The garment was saturated, but an identification card remained clipped to the chest pocket. I leaned in just enough to read it.

  Sarah Newton. 65. Pharmacology Department.

  The face in the photo was composed, professional. The remains before me bore no resemblance.

  As I moved on to another body, I ran through all the likely suspects. This was not indiscriminate slaughter or a public statement. That ruled out the terrorists. They would've broadcast this in minutes. Cults were not this bold, at least not the ones in Conrad. I also found it hard to believe that a bunch of mostly untrained fanatics could pull this off on their own. Whoever did this knew exactly who they wanted.

  And why.

  "Any luck?" I called out to Mous.

  "No."

  Figured. This scene was far too messy to make out anything meaningful. The next body had minimal external disruption compared to the others. A precise wound to the chest. Another identification card.

  Jason Williams. 54. Pharmacology Department.

  Quite young. It was unfortunate. At least he could be buried in one piece.

  I shifted to the next body. This one had not been dispatched with the same restraint. The violence here was excessive. Eyes gouged out, long deep cut across his chest, hands and feet cut off. I avoided lingering at the details and located the card clipped near the waistline.

  Xavier Cheng. 87. Pharmacology Department.

  I paused.

  Three in a row. All in the same department.

  "Mous," I called without looking back. "The ones you've checked. Departments?"

  There was a brief pause as she glanced down at a card in her hand.

  "Pharmacology," she replied. "All of them so far."

  "Lydia," I yelled, already moving to check the others. "Give us a hand. Check the cards and confirm the departments."

  "Sure thing."

  The three of us spread out, careful with our footing, minimizing disturbance. I crouched beside the nearest one and unclipped the identification card.

  Fallon Park. 82. Pharmacology Department.

  Next.

  Helen Gary. 74. Pharmacology Department.

  Next.

  Terry Barth. Pharmacology Department.

  Tyrese Maxey. Pharmacology Department.

  Kevin Yale. Pharmacology Department.

  It was practically confirmed. I stood up and scanned for more. There were none. Mous and Lydia were also done looking.

  "That's all of them," Mous stood, wiping her hands with a piece of cloth. "Nineteen bodies between the two of us. All from the Pharmacology Department."

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  That made twenty seven dead. All from the same department. I turned slowly toward Brittney. She had gone unnaturally still. Her eyes were lowered, fixed on a point somewhere near her shoes.

  I walked over and crouched in front of the tiny receptionist. Up close, I could see the salt trails on her cheeks. Her breathing was shallow but controlled now. I reached forward and removed the gag. She inhaled sharply, as if the fabric had been the only thing holding her together.

  "Brittney. Look at me."

  For a while, she didn't. Then slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her face.

  "You're going to cooperate," I continued. "You're going to tell us exactly what happened here. Start at the beginning."

  Silence.

  Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

  "Brittney," I said, my tone tightening despite myself, "twenty seven of your coworkers are dead. Every one of them from the same department. If you know something and withhold it, you will be obstructing an investigation."

  Her eyes widened slightly.

  "That carries consequences."

  "I—I don't know anything," she whispered. "I swear. There was a meeting. They called them in this morning. It was supposed to be important. And then… and then…"

  Her voice fractured.

  "It happened so fast."

  The vagueness scraped against my nerves.

  "Who called the meeting?" I pressed.

  "I don't know! Upper management. I just forwarded the notice. I didn't—"

  Frustration surged before I could suppress it. My hand came up to my face, dragging down slowly. Control it. But the image of the hallway, of the bodies, collided with her uncooperative attitude so far, and something misfired inside me.

  My fist struck the wall beside her head. The impact echoed down the corridor.

  "Cap," Lydia's voice warned.

  I raised a hand slightly without looking at her. The silence that followed was heavier than before. I exhaled slowly and forced my hand open, fingers uncurling from the fist.

  "Lydia," I said quietly, standing. "Take over. I need a minute."

  I walked away toward the end of the hallway. The anger didn't dissipate immediately. It simmered, directionless. Why had I reacted like that? I leaned against the wall near the far door, staring at nothing.

  It was the look in her eyes. That helplessness. That smallness.

  For a brief, unwanted moment, I wasn't in the hall anymore. I was somewhere else. Smaller. Holding a hand that grew colder by the second. Not understanding why it wasn't squeezing back. A little boy that could do nothing but weep.

  Powerless.

  I shut my eyes. That boy was no more. I buried him in that coffin with her corpse.

  A sharp inhale cut through the memory, carrying an irritating whiff. It penetrated through the thick coppery, mist stuffing the hallway.

  Ammonia. Diluted.

  My eyes opened immediately. Urine

  Not from any of the bodies here. I would have noticed. This was fresh and close. I straightened slowly, tracking the airflow. It wasn't coming from this main hallway. It was faint, but present, through the door to my right. I stepped toward it, ignoring the dark smear across the handle, and pushed it open carefully.

  The room beyond was not an office. It was another corridor. Wider and brighter. Lined with additional doors. In the middle, an elevator bank. A whole section behind what appeared to be a standard office entrance. I sighed. We should have swept the area more thoroughly.

  "Captain," Mous called, approaching from behind. "We accessed the staff registry. Apart from the dead, there are fifty-six additional employees."

  "Unaccounted for," Lydia added from behind her.

  The newly revealed corridor stretched ahead.

  "They're somewhere in the building," Mous said carefully.

  The scent drifted faintly again, still barely perceptible but now unmistakable.

  "They are," I said, stepping into the corridor. "And I think I know where to start looking."

  The first door opened into an empty office. Chairs aligned. Desk intact. No signs of struggle. Clear. We moved to the second.

  This one told a different story. Two chairs overturned. A smear across the tabletop. Dried droplets on the floor near the far wall. But no bodies.

  I closed it slowly and stepped toward the third door, closest to the elevators. I stopped directly in front of it. The air was denser. I focused. There were people behind this door. And fear. A lot of it.

  I switched to thermal. The display flared with clustered heat signatures. At least twenty, maybe more. Packed tight behind what appeared to be a long central structure. No immediate sign of a separate, isolated heat source suggesting a standing aggressor.

  But that meant very little. A smart one could blend easily among captives. I stepped to the side of the frame and gave the breach signal. Mous carefully lowered Brittney and positioned herself opposite me. I raised my fingers and counted down. Three. Two. One.

  Lydia kicked the door open.

  We stormed inside. I took point, scanning corners, ceiling lines, under the table, behind the chairs. It was a conference room. Large oval table dominating the center. People clustered behind it. Some crouched, some kneeling, some lying flat against the floor. Screams erupted as we entered.

  "Don't shoot!"

  "Please!"

  "We didn't do anything!"

  Hands shot into the air. Several people dropped fully to their stomachs.

  I continued clearing angles, checking blind spots, watching for sudden movement that wasn't panic. There wasn't any, just terror. Even in their distress, it seemed they started to recognize our gear and uniform. They murmured among themselves, some of them sighing in relief.

  "All clear," Lydia confirmed from my right.

  I took a few steps forward, lowering my gun slightly but keeping it ready.

  Up close, the damage was evident. Several of them were injured. Deep cuts, blunt trauma, one woman with both legs bent at unnatural angles. A man clutching his upper arm with a makeshift tourniquet fashioned from a torn sleeve. The ammonia smell intensified near the injured woman on the floor. She appeared to be in a great amount of pain.

  I addressed the group.

  "As you have likely deduced," I said evenly, voice carrying across the room without shouting, "we are marshals. You are secure for the moment."

  The shift in atmosphere was immediate.

  Relief rippled outward in uneven waves. Some of them began crying openly. Others sagged in place as if invisible weights had been lifted. A few embraced the nearest person without thinking. One man let out a laugh that bordered on hysterical. I allowed it for a few seconds. They needed the release. Then I raised a fist.

  "Quiet."

  The noise tapered off, replaced by expectant silence.

  "We are still operating in an unsecured environment. The perpetrators are likely still inside the building. You will remain calm and follow instructions exactly. Reinforcements are en route."

  A few nervous glances.

  "We have a medic," I continued. "The injured will be triaged immediately."

  "Mous."

  She stepped forward, already scanning the wounded.

  "I need the injured moved to the far wall," she said briskly. "If you can stand, help someone who can't. Anyone here trained in first aid?"

  Two hesitant hands lifted.

  "You're with me."

  They moved quickly. The woman with the broken legs cried out as she was carefully repositioned. Mous knelt beside her immediately, assessing, issuing calm instructions. The man with the tourniquet stumbled forward and she intercepted him, reinforcing the binding before he lost more blood.

  I clapped once to recapture the attention of the rest of the staff.

  "Who here holds the highest authority?"

  There was a brief pause. Then several heads turned toward a woman near the center of the room. She was younger than I expected for senior staff, mid-forties perhaps. Blonde hair pulled back tightly. Pale but composed. She stood and approached without prompting.

  "I'm Caitlin Vance," she said. "Head of Safety."

  Her voice was steady. Measured.

  I studied her posture. No visible shock response beyond baseline stress markers. She seemed competent. I removed my badge and held it up briefly.

  "Captain Aldrich. Class One Marshal."

  She nodded once. "Captain."

  "We found twenty-seven deceased individuals in the adjacent corridor," I said directly. "All assigned to the Pharmacology Department."

  "So you've seen it," she said quietly.

  "Yes."

  I held her gaze.

  "I need you to tell me exactly what happened here."

  She inhaled, preparing to answer.

  The building rumbled. Violently enough to vibrate through the floor beneath us. Several staff members gasped.

  The lights flickered once. Then stabilized. A half-second later, a mechanical tone echoed through the PA system.

  "Emergency lockdown mode initiated."