The Legion of Nothing

The world around me blurred as Jaclyn began to move. I might have felt grateful that I'd already been floating, but I didn't have time. Still, if I'd been tied behind Jaclyn without armor and pulled forward, I could have died simply from faceplanting, but more likely by being ripped in two by the rope around my waist.

Fortunately, I wore armor with an anti-gravity pack. The armor had inertial dampers and anti-collision protocols. Also, we'd staggered everyone so that nobody flew directly next to anyone.

We'd even used redundant cables for everyone because you never knew if one might break.

Jaclyn didn't go straight down the stairway. She jumped over the concrete wall and railing to the concrete wall on the other side. All of us flew behind her, eleven people and a giant dog.

I could only imagine what the other side saw.

We were camouflaged, but our suits adjusted chameleon-style to whatever was behind us. Traveling at somewhere between 200 to 800 miles per hour, depending on the moment, didn't give the suits time to adapt fully to any spot. On the other hand, the concrete walls and stairway were all grey.

Figure we were only partially invisible, but at the same time, moving so quickly it was hard to see us. Unfortunately, they seemed to have planned for invisible people.

The guns started firing the second we started moving. They must have detected changes in air pressure or maybe sound.

Both of which moved slower than light, making it hard to aim with either—which explained a lot. Whoever had designed the defenses must have gone with a quantity over quality approach that assumed that you'd hit if you put enough bullets in the air.

It did not assume that Jaclyn would run fast enough to run on the outside of the stairwell, the part with the multi-story drop.

That opened us up only to shots from the opposite side of the stairwell, which is to say either places that we had been, so they were firing at nothing or places where we would be, so they weren't firing yet.

That's not to say we didn't get hit. We did, but not much. Sure, those could kill people, but we were in armor and not any armor. I'd made it using a mixture of alien technology, Grandpa's work, and my own ideas.

Bullets weren't a big deal. What I feared were energy weapons and big explosions.

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We were protected from those, too, but not as well.

For the first few levels, though, it was all bullets and guns that had obviously been set to fire based on a trigger event. Jaclyn, aided by her implant, moved too quickly for whatever the trigger was.

Even better, she'd sometimes jump down a level or two, throwing the pattern off.

For the record, that was heart-stopping when it happened. Even with the inertial dampers preventing us from getting a concussion (not to mention hitting things) from the sharp direction change, the drop still felt like a 700 miles per hour dive.

Everything blurred, and then she'd reorient herself to running on the side of a different level.

About six levels down and right after one of those drops, something changed. If I had to bet, someone took manual control of the defenses because, at that moment, all the guns started firing continuously.

Bullets flew everywhere, not just at us, ricocheting off the concrete to hit more concrete until they stuck into the wall, the stairway, or lost enough momentum that they fell.

Jaclyn, though, using her implant, realized that running around the spiral meant we were now always in the way of a bullet and changed course. They'd placed the guns at regular intervals and hadn't changed the location with each level.

That meant that if you paid attention to the gaps, you could run straight down, jumping from one level to the next, covering more ground than she had been.

In short, they'd made it easier.

To be fair to them, all of this had taken place in seconds. Somewhere near the bottom, some poor fool had to be slapping buttons without having time to think.

Jaclyn ran faster, faster than I could fly. We, meanwhile, were experiencing the world's worst or best, depending on your opinion, roller coaster. We were gasping, making small squeaks or even shrieks, and muttering words that none of us could decipher.

It was obvious they were getting more desperate, though.

The first bomb went off when we were more than three-quarters of the way down, brightening the entire stairwell. It went off above us, so it wasn't as if we were in great danger, but I could feel heat through my suit. Even with my helmet's flash suppression system, the brightness still surprised me.

The blast lit up the entire shaft as far as I could see, allowing me to view the bottom for the first time. Like the rest of the place, concrete covered the floor and walls except for one spot to the left. Two metal doors stood there, and from the flash I knew they were painted blue.

That was only the first explosion.

Another blast shook the room and I could see Jaclyn almost stumble and catch herself, pushing off as that section of stairway began to fall.

It fell on top of the one below as Jaclyn pulled us across it.

I'd speculated that they might blow the whole place to get us, but I couldn't quite believe they were actually doing it. Worse, I couldn't do anything about it but hope Jaclyn made it through the door.

Funny thing? As much as I'd thought Jaclyn had been running full out, she hadn't been. We all felt the burst of speed, heard the hum of the inertial dampers working ratchet up, and saw the floor move toward us as if we were about to hit it.

Except we didn't. Jaclyn hit the floor with her feet, shattering concrete, but never stopping, running toward the blue, metal doors, sticking her hand into the right door near the hinge, and wrenching both doors to the left, dragging all of us inside.

Behind us, more explosions shook the stairwell.