The enforcers, clad in dark, layered carapace plates, moved into the hall with leveled carbines. Two entered from the far archway, two more from the near, their sights sweeping the pooled amber fluid. Kasia, still crouched near Vargos’s chair, did not wait for an order. She shoved herself off the floor, a blur of motion, tucking into a low roll that carried her past the gurneys and treatment tables. An arc of ionized discharge scored the chair's plasteel backrest, reeking of scorched resin. Miros lunged toward a maintenance cart parked against the tile. His gaze had lost its usual academic hesitation. He tore open a satchel hooked to the frame, pulling out a rough-spun pouch of anthracite grade. He upended it into a mop bucket, then splashed in a caustic, emerald-green cleaning solution from a nearby bottle. The liquid hissed. “Get clear, Kasia!” he shouted. He stirred the slurry with a snapped mop handle, caustic vapor billowing upward. Kasia scrambled behind a bank of monitoring consoles, cold green readouts lighting her skin. The lead rifleman squeezed another trigger, the report cracking off the tiles. Concussion shuddered through the housing, and glass popped into static. She drew the jagged knife tucked behind her belt. Miros gripped the bucket with both hands and slung it across the aisle. It shattered against the wall ahead of the advancing squad; coal dust and solvent flashed with a hollow whump, spitting greasy viridian fire that choked the passage. The front men stumbled, coughing into their respirators as their muzzles dipped. “Hold your positions!” a new voice roared, cutting through the chaos. A figure in gray gendarme wool stepped through the haze, brass buttons dull in the soot. It was Zoya. Her jaw was rigid, eyes locked on Kasia. Kasia’s knuckles whitened against the hilt. Zoya held an issue carbine, standing among the squad sent to harvest them. Zoya raised her weapon, aiming straight past Kasia toward the two staggered riflemen. “Clear the lane!” she barked, and squeezed the trigger twice. Two copper-bright discharges punched through the squadmen's breastplates. Both men collapsed onto the tile, their guns skittering away. Kasia braced against the console. Miros paused, fingers slack against the empty sack. Zoya spun toward the blast doors barring the way back to the intake tunnel and slammed her heel into the manual release, but the steel slabs stayed shut. “Lockout engaged!” she shouted. She pivoted, tracking fresh footsteps rushing down the northern approach, and fired three spacing rounds into the doorway. “It’s a failsafe,” Miros yelled, suddenly understanding. “The system won’t allow a manual breach when a ‘harvest’ is underway. It needs a massive overload!” “Then burn it!” Zoya shouted. She emptied her magazine into the casing; copper arcs sprayed out, but the hydraulics remained clamped. “It’s not enough!” Kasia shouted, the reality of their impossible situation crashing down. A stray round clipped the jamb by Zoya's cheek, burning wool. A heavier blast followed, striking her center mass. The force slammed her into the bulkhead, bone giving way with a dull snap before she slipped down the steel. She propped herself against the casing, breath bubbling through red foam. “Kasia… the secondary cell,” she whispered, fingers clawing toward the dropped carbine. “Thermal release… bypass the gate…” Kasia recognized the underside toggle on the stock—an emergency heat vent meant for clearing jammed breach bolts. Kasia scooped the hot metal from the tiles. Instead of firing at the heavy steel slabs, she swung the muzzle straight up toward the exposed thick-gauge trunk line running above Vargos’s chair, toggled the dump switch, and pulled. A blue core erupted into the ceiling harness, showering molten lead across the tile. The overhead filaments popped in sequence, plunging the bay into smoke and stuttering amber emergency lamps. Deprived of current, the heavy pneumatic catches failed; the exit barriers dropped three inches, then shuddered outward under pressure. “Miros, run!” Kasia barked. Miros, seeing the opening, surged forward, limping but determined. Kasia threw the spent chassis aside and bounded onto the dais. Strapped into the frame, Vargos thrashed against his leather cuffs, breath wheezing through clenched teeth. “I have allocation codes,” he choked out. “You need my signature for the Writ—” Kasia reached the chair. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her hand, steady and unyielding, plunged toward the array of thick, clear tubes snaking into Vargos’s arm and neck. These were not mere IV lines; they were the direct conduits feeding the youth-serum, siphoning life from the harvested, pumping it into him. She clamped both hands around the central manifold and wrenched backward. Needles tore free from his throat and forearm with a tearing sound, venting dark fluid and saline across her knuckles. Vargos bucked against the straps, gave a strangled heave, and went slack. “Contract fulfilled,” Kasia said. Heat beat against her back as the burning chemical pool spread toward the linen hampers. At the far threshold, hydraulic pistons hissed, beginning to drag the exit doors shut once more. “Kasia, move!” Miros called from the exit passage, half-shrouded in drifting ash. A shriek of sheared bolts cut through the roar of the fire. Overhead, an iron support beam twisted free from the ceiling mounts and crashed down across the threshold, catching Miros across both shins and driving him flat against the concrete.

The Price of Ash