The stairs were devoid of smoke, the fire not having made it into the depths of the structure, yet Nicole could tell that all the oxygen had been sucked out by the rising heat. The emergency lights remained on despite the chaos above which gave her some hope that survivors might be located.

  It was slim, but she had to hold onto it. There was a reason they directed her towards this location, no normal firefighter would have made it through that inferno, potentially for days. Chemical fires didn’t burn out until they exhausted their fuel, and some of these were supplied by pipelines that took time to isolate and shut down.

  Automated systems often failed in such disasters and weren’t always widely implemented due to cost savings and deregulation, which meant it took dedicated teams time to isolate every feeder line. Until then, the blaze would burn unchecked. Containing it would fall to the emergency responders as well as the rest of her team.

  “This is creepy as fuck,” Grace said, following behind her.

  Not for the first time Nicole envied the Daytona Rangers with the headlights on their helmets. The darkness was cloying, yet her helmet still allowed her to make out her surroundings as they followed the spiraling staircase down. Yet another feature she would need to thank Sinclair for.

  There were many things that Nicole expected to find at the bottom, but two dead men in full combat gear certainly wasn’t it. The vault door they were slumped against also rated rather high on the list of things she wasn’t expecting for that matter.

  “Well, that’s ominous,” Nicole said. “So, should I rip it open?”

  Grace immediately shook her head. “Oh hell no. That’s how you kick off a horror film where the zombies get loose.”

  Nicole chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Yes, zombies fleeing into an inferno. We live in a world under alien invasion, I highly doubt we’re about to find something like that down here.”

  “Your funeral,” Grace muttered.

  “It’s not like I can just phase through right now,” Nicole snapped, then immediately wilted when she heard her shout echo around her. “Sorry. Just feeling my lack of power right now.”

  “What about your radio?” Grace asked. “Can we call this in and just move on?”

  Nicole wanted to slap herself, then reached up to the mic and hit transmit. “This is Ranger Black reporting.”

  Crackling static answered, then a high pitched shriek of feedback as Nicole recoiled from the volume, turning it down as she did. Sinclair’s helmet was good at filtering noise, but not to the degree of the actual Ranger helms. Her ears were still ringing when the ground violently lurched, knocking her over with what could only be described as an earthquake.

  Grace had dropped to one knee beside Nicole, hovering over her protectively as the tremors settled. Slowly Grace stood once more, helping Nicole back to her feet. Neither spoke as they took stock of the situation. Nothing seemed changed on their end, which meant something had exploded elsewhere. Nicole was just about to suggest going back topside when a hiss had their eyes drawn to the steel door.

  The seal had broken, and smoke flowed down the stairwell in a rush, suctioning through the broken seal in the door as it whipped around Nicole and Grace violently. It only lasted a handful of seconds, but it was enough to unsettle the pair.

  Grace glared at the now open door. “Why would something like that be hermetically sealed?”

  “Zombies,” Nicole answered without missing a beat.

  Grace’s helmet turned, and Nicole could just imagine the glare contained within. “I will so kick your ass if it’s true.”

  “You said it first,” Nicole chided as she approached the opening. “That said, I’ll be sure to save a few of them for you.”

  Grace flipped her off and Nicole laughed as she gripped the massive door and pulled. Steel strained but Ranger strength won out and slowly the thing opened. Nicole was grinning under her helmet right up until several red beams pierced the smoke, pointing right at her chest. She barely had a moment to yelp before the first retorts of gunfire sounded and she jumped away, rounding behind the open door for cover.

  Sentry turrets.

  Whatever the hell this place was, it had lethal security measures!

  “Well, it’s not zombies,” Nicole said dryly.

  “No shit,” Grace yelled over the thundering gunfire. “What now?”

  “I think it’s safe to say this place would be too dangerous for regular firefighters,” Nicole said, turning to face the steel bulkhead once more. “And something tells me that those guns won’t run out of ammo anytime soon.”

  “Wonderful,” Grace said. “And here we are without a way to call it in.”

  Nicole eyed the door, weighing her options. “Do we try to push forward, or report back to the Chief?”

  As if to answer her, something burst far above them, rattling the structure. Grace’s helmet turned slowly, then she shrugged. “Something tells me that they’re pretty occupied up there.”

  “They probably have their hands more than full but they have three other Rangers besides helping,” Nicole agreed. “Secret tunnels are not something they should be messing with. Us either for that matter.”

  “Secret tunnel…” Grace sang gently. Nicole elbowed her and she laughed. “Okay, we’ll go inform the crisis coordinators and get put to work elsewhere.”

  Nicole nodded even as the facility shook once more. She looked up, but something felt off about that explosion. Rather, it felt more like it came from below rather than above. Another followed a moment later and a sudden dread filled her then the very air seemed to glow a translucent blue.

  “Why do I get the feeling that this situation just got worse?” Nicole asked.

  Another tremor, and this time one of the lights fell loose from the ceiling.

  “Because we’re Rangers and that’s our lot in life,” Grace said with a groan. “Dinner tonight says that whatever that was is somewhere behind that door.”

  “No bet,” Nicole said, moving over towards it. She drew her knives and Grace matched her with her axe. “Alright, may as well get to work.”

  Each took hold of the massive door, their strength proved to be more than a match for the best that Earth had to offer. It took a few moments to pull the door open wider, all in the name of having room to work around the active turrets.

  Grace held up her hand, three fingers extended. She then counted down wordlessly, two, one, fist. Grace burst into motion with the full speed being a Ranger afforded her, axe in hand as lasers attempted to track her. A beat later Nicole was right behind her, blades in hand. Bullets traced after their moving forms, even as one of the guns couldn’t decide which of them it should be tracking.

  That didn’t stop the turrets from firing. Bullets tore into the concrete, kicking up shards of chipped stone as Nicole moved. Her breathing was steady, the warmth slowly growing with each breath. It was as though the fire was still around her, and she could only hope that it didn’t progress to the point where the power cascaded out of control once more.

  Grace hurled her axe, the steel tore through one turret before embedding itself in the ceiling. Her girlfriend didn’t recall it immediately, and instead continued to move. Nicole saw the shape of her plan and could only grin. Leaving that aside, Nicole focused on one of the turrets, dancing side by side as she approached at a lightning pace.

  She jumped, just as Grace’s axe tore free. It flew through the air with a spin, the red dot from the turret just managed to center on Nicole as it zipped past, catching the gunfire before it continued on to slam into the third turret. Nicole’s blades lashed out, one jammed into the spinning barrels before the first round could impact her, the other cut the ammunition belt, ensuring that the machine was out of commission.

  Metal screeched as Nicole wrenched her blades free and fell back to the floor below. Her lungs heaved for air even as the warmth settled back down, but didn’t quite fade completely. That was concerning, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it at the moment. More concerning was how the blue glow seemed to be just a touch brighter within.

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  “Ominous,” Grace said.

  Whatever it was, it seemed as though it possessed a physical presence that was almost like a mist that twined with the smoke, pulling it to the ground as it twisted in the flashing red emergency lights. Their helmets filtered most smells out, but there was something in the air that still made it though, which was concerning.

  “The hell is this place?” Grace asked. “It feels like we just walked into a dimension we shouldn’t be in or something.”

  “Oh good, it’s not just me,” Nicole said. She hesitated for just a moment, then stepped beyond the destroyed turrets to take in the rest of the facility. The halls were dark and the air was almost thick and cloying. Her visor adjusted quickly to the shift in lighting and she could see just fine, but everything was cast in an off-colored hue made worse by the mist that was pooling around their feet. “Spooky is definitely one word for it.”

  “If I see a facehugger I’m screaming,” Grace said, stepping up behind her. “I trust these helmets to handle most shit, but I draw the line at alien parasites and acid blood.”

  “That’s fair,” Nicole said, swallowing to hide her own nerves.

  Though, it would be strange to find something like that running around in a human run facility, but at the same time it would make some sense given Sinclair Industries were doing experiments on Sylan developed technology. Knowing how much of it was biomechanical in nature, finding a lab attempting to recreate it wouldn’t even be all that strange.

  “A lab like this,” Grace said, her head on a swivel, “why the hell would someone think this is a good idea? Putting it in the middle of a major city was just asking for a disaster like this!”

  “Right? Minneapolis is a prime target if the invasion picks up,” Nicole said, eyes darting to shapes in the mist, her mind finding phantoms in the twisting motions through the sterile halls of steel and white tile. “Why not just put it in the mountains somewhere far from people?”

  Grace nodded along, her axe held in a death grip. “Imagine some beasts being cloned in here and running rampant through the streets. They would be doing the Sylan’s job for them!”

  Thanks to her near death, she knew that Sinclair had some labs deep in the earth, but this seemed completely at odds with that. It truly was strange to have a lab so close to so many people. They were in the midst of an invasion, which made it even more of a risk since population centers would be first to fall. What could possess whatever group that built this to do something so risky? It was almost as if—

  Nicole stopped, her eyes widening. “Shit, what if they built this place here to make it harder for the Sylans to justify attacking it?”

  Grace paused just before one of the corners, looking back and Nicole could almost see the look of bewilderment on her face. “Where did that leap in logic come from?”

  “How many would notice an attack in the mountains?” Nicole asked. “Especially compared to how fast we notice an attack here?”

  “Or if they set a fire to distract from something,” Grace said with dawning horror creeping into her voice. “Shit, this just got worse.”

  Nicole snarled. “If that fire turns out to have been a distraction for something down here, I’m going to kill whoever is behind this.”

  “Get in line,” Grace said, then they both froze.

  Something was clicking against the tile, straining her ears. She could hear it coming in a pattern, each a bit louder than the last. It was a moment right out of some of her favorite campy horror films, and given some of the things she had fought since becoming a Ranger, it would take something truly special to scare her now.

  Daggers in hand, she stood ready as Grace nodded and held up three fingers, then only two. One finger remained and then the Rangers moved. Dashing around the corner with inhuman speed, Nicole kicked off the opposite wall and scanned the hall for the source of the noise.

  She blinked, soaring over a small cleaning drone as it scooted along the floor and nearly stumbled her landing. The click sounded, spraying a small amount of cleaning fluid onto the floor before resuming its task. She shared a look with her girlfriend who was currently sprawled out on her ass, barely sitting up on her shoulders. Nicole couldn’t help it, she started to laugh. Grace joined in a moment later, and it was nice to let all the tension out.

  Shaking her head, Nicole looked up and in the next instant she’d cleared most of the distance between herself and Grace, her blades streaking through the air ahead of her. Behind Grace, emerging from the mists, was some mechanical creation with six legs and two bladed arms. It wasn’t a Sylan machine, but something else.

  Her blades sheared through it like wet paper, then Nicole crashed into it, shoulder first, sending the machine into the far wall with a shriek of abused metal. Nicole barely had a moment to process how she had done that as that seemed to have kicked the nest. Dozens of the things flowed out of the darkness, not a single light on them, her visor cycled, settling onto a thermal band where the machines radiated warmth through the cool mists.

  “Incoming!” Nicole shouted, bringing her blades back up in a close guard. “Looks like we’re getting our horror moment after all.”

  “Please,” Grace said, throwing her axe down the hall where it cleaved clean through one of the machines before recalling it in a way that sheared through another. “These aren’t Sylan creations, they’re using Earth metals. We’ll have these cleaned up in seconds.”

  “You shall do no such thing!”

  The pair paused, Nicole looking up at the ceiling where the voice had originated. “Then fucking call them off!”

  “You’re the trespassers here,” the voice answered. “Why did you break into our facility?”

  “Did you miss the fucking inferno happening up top?” Grace shouted, waving her axe as she did. “We were sent to search for survivors!”

  “If you haven’t noticed, we were fine before you ripped down our doors!”

  Nicole was quickly growing irritated with whoever was yelling at them, and to punctuate the point she began to walk towards the machines, twirling her blade as she did.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Cutting this conversation short,” Nicole said, and cleaved through another machine. “Evacuate, now.”

  “We can’t jus—”

  Nicole cut through another. “For each excuse I destroy another of your precious knock offs!”

  “This is an isolated facility!”

  Another machine fell to her blade.

  “Each of those cost—”

  Another.

  “STOP!”

  Nicole did.

  The lights in the hall came back on, her visor immediately adjusting for the shift to avoid blinding her. Each machine backed away, stepping to the sides of the wide hall. Nicole couldn’t help but smirk, especially since it was hidden by her helmet.

  “So, who do I need to talk to about this shitshow?” Nicole asked, eyeing the stamped insignia on the machine. “Oh hell, this really is one of Sinclair’s ops. Just what did you bastards fuck up to cause the fire above?”

  “That is none of your concern,” the voice said.

  Grace snorted. “Given my partner here is wearing Sinclair issued armor, I would bet against that.”

  The line fell silent for several moments before someone much more familiar took over.

  “Follow the escort, they will lead you to the shift manager’s office,” Kelly Rivers said.

  “Thank you,” Nicole said, ignoring Grace’s giggles as they walked down the hall. “I’d appreciate clearing this up quickly, that fire won’t put itself out.”

  “It actually would,” a second voice said over the intercom. “The pipes only have so much fuel to vent between here and the nearest cutoff, which was finally triggered ten minutes ago. The blaze will cease in less than an hour.”

  “That does nothing for everything else on fire,” Grace said, irritation right back in her voice. “What I want to know is who the hell builds a factory underneath a chemical plant?”

  A door hissed open and a man stepped out. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and had messy hair. Nicole vaguely recognized him from some TV interview she’d seen, mostly because of his horrid fashion sense, but other than that?

  “Welcome to Sinclair’s Robotics, premier contractor for all your robotics needs,” Franklin Frederick said. “We use those chemicals in the manufacturing process, hence the plant above to save on logistics.”

  “Cool,” Nicole said, crossing her arms. She knew that a lecture from the big boss was likely in order, but she had her own opinion that she fully intended to cram down his fucking throat for allowing something of this scale to go wrong. “Now get the hell out, that’s an order.”

  “Um, on whose authority?” he asked.

  “The pissed off Ranger who was sent in to save your sorry asses.”

  Grace stepped up beside her, her axe slung over her shoulder. “That and the state of emergency declared by the Governor. Since we’re both part of Minneapolis FD, that means we can and ARE ordering your ass out of here.”

  Nicole nodded. “What she said, now get the fuck out of here before—”

  The lights flickered as a dull rumble shook the entire facility. Nicole spared the disturbance a glance, wishing she had working comms at the moment so she could know what sort of mess was going on above. Her helmet leveled upon the fallen eccentric man, the lights still flickering despite the rumble having ceased.

  “Sound the evacuation, we’re leaving.”

  “But—”

  “NOW!” Nicole yelled as yet another shudder ran through the building. “Unless you want to end up buried and make a two minute blurb on the evening news.”

  “But, the shareholders…”

  Was it a bad thing she would rather be in the middle of the blaze above without her Ranger powers than dealing with these idiots?

  “Oh, and while you’re at it,” Grace added. “Explain the blue mist, because like hell that was caused by the shit you’re working on.”

  As if invoked by her question, blue sparks crackled through the air as anything inorganic not held down began to float into the air. The heat in Nicole’s chest was growing by the second, the sensation well familiar to her after the battle with Bartran and Guiana.

  “That’s not good,” Franklin said just as the whole structure lurched.

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