Negasi dove to the floor as a squad of Royal guards opened fire, guns blaring in the enclosed space. Bullets smacked into the wall and floor all around him.

By some miracle, he wasn't hit. He rolled to the other side of the doorway to get behind the cover of the thick concrete wall. Ogedai was already there, firing back, blood oozing from two grazes on his arm and side.

They didn't seem to slow him down. He took out two soldiers before they retreated under cover of their own doorway.

"We got to … " Negasi's words trailed off as he leveled his primitive rifle and saw the barrel was bent. A bullet must have hit it as he threw himself to the ground and the impact of hitting the floor meant he didn't notice.

Throwing the useless gun aside, he drew his flechette pistol and fired at the first soldier who showed himself. The man cried out, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and disappeared back around the doorway.

For a moment, none of the soldiers showed themselves.

"They're going to hold us here while reinforcements flank us," Negasi said.

Ogedai checked his wrist screen.

"They're already—"

His words got cut off as two soldiers showed themselves at the same time on either side of the doorway, firing wildly. Negasi and Ogedai ducked back into cover.

"What was that?"

"They're already flanking us. Let's go."

Ogedai slammed the door, which immediately got perforated by three bullets. Negasi leapt across the space, praying the soldiers wouldn't fire again, and followed the Mongol across the room and into a lab.

Ogedai was watching the security cameras, flipping through various points of view as he ran. He suddenly took a right turn through another series of rooms Negasi hadn't been to, then positioned himself behind a heavy desk. Negasi hunkered down.

"What's the plan?" he whispered.

"Try not to get caught."

"That's not a plan. That's a hope. They're going to sweep the place until they find us."

"Sssh," Ogedai said, watching the door.

"This room is a dead end."

"If we went any other way, we would have bumped into a patrol. Now shut up."

Negasi shut up. Through the ringing in his ears, Negasi heard the crackle of a radio, quickly switched off. The Royal guards weren't very good at moving silently.

More accustomed to stomping on peasants. They don't need to be quiet for that.

Ogedai showed him the scene. A pair of Royal guards were nervously searching the rooms beyond. They were one of the patrols sent out into the complex when they thought they were only hunting unarmed scientists and these two guys did not look like they relished the thought of hunting armed resistance.

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Still, they did their duty.

They were a couple of rooms away. Hopefully they'd get called away to regroup and that would give Negasi and Ogedai a chance to slip away.

Negasi glanced at his companion's wounds.

"You all right?" he whispered.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

He was dripping on the floor.

Negasi's heart turned to ice. His gaze moved from the spatter of drops by Ogedai's feet and followed a steady trail all the way to the door.

He took another look at Ogedai's wrist screen. One of the soldiers pointed at the floor. The other nodded and they moved toward the door leading to the room just beyond the one in which Negasi and Ogedai hid. One pulled out a grenade.

The Mongol's eyes widened as he realized what Negasi had just figured out.

Negasi motioned for him to stay put and tiptoed up to the door, positioning himself out of sight right next to it.

Ogedai motioned that the enemy had moved into the room just beyond. Negasi couldn't hear them. They were getting more careful.

He motioned for Ogedai to get down behind the desk, holstered his pistol, and got ready.

The door burst open. A hand appeared, tossing a grenade. Negasi batted it back the way it came.

The guards cried out. Negasi dove to the side.

There was a deafening thud and shockwave as the stun grenade went off. While the doorway sheltered him from the worst of the shockwave, the sound jabbed at Negasi's eardrums. He stumbled and fell hard against the wall, then righted himself and drew his pistol. Staggering a little, he rounded the corner.

The two guards lay on the ground, eyes glassy. Negasi grabbed one of their rifles, a spare magazine, and a couple more stun grenades.

"Do you think they heard that?" Negasi asked.

"Stop shouting!"

Negasi hadn't actually heard him. He had read his lips.

"I can't hear myself otherwise. Do you think they heard that?"

"What? They probably heard that."

He checked his wrist screen and nodded.

"Yeah, they heard that. We got to get out of here."

"I feel favorable to furiously fleeing. Ow! I thought you couldn't hear me!"

"I'm reading your lips like you're reading mine, dumbass. Let's go."

They hurried into the rear area of the building, Negasi's shoulder aching and Ogedai's wounds still dripping blood. Negasi made him stop at a bathroom and stuffed a wad of paper towels in his shirt to soak up the blood. He wrapped more around Ogedai's arm and tied them off to make a crude bandage. They didn't want to leave a trail of blood like last time.

They kept going, the security cameras steering them away from the soldiers. Negasi wondered how long they could manage it. The troops had organized into two squads and were taking opposite sides of the building and working their way back. While they didn't know the layout, the building wasn't big enough that they could play hide and seek forever.

"We need a new plan," Negasi said.

"What?"

He turned to face Ogedai and enunciated. "We need a new plan."

That logic pierced even Ogedai's thick skull. He studied the security camera feeds, flicking from one to the next. Negasi studied them too, trying to hear any sound of pursuit through his ringing ears.

The Mongol nodded toward a room and they passed through. A door led beyond. They entered a lab and Negasi saw from the wrist screen what Ogedai had planned. The soldiers were advancing along two paths. Apparently, there was a way to get between them. From there, they could double back and hit one column from behind.

Negasi spotted a first aid kit hanging on the wall. He ran to it.

"We don't have time."

"You're leaking again. We can't leave a trail."

Ogedai hesitated, then nodded. Negasi ran back as Ogedai tore open the rents in his clothing to reveal the wounds. They weren't all that deep but they bled freely. The paper towels had done nothing. Negasi was surprised the blood loss wasn't slowing the guy down. Probably took a lot more than that. Together they put some bandages on both wounds. The nanobots would start to do their work and the bandages also had a local anesthetic that in Ogedai's case was probably unnecessary. He hadn't even seemed to notice the pain.

Ogedai checked his wrist screen again.

"Cack! Now we really need to hustle."

Negasi tossed the first aid kit aside. As much as he would have liked to bring it along, he didn't have any way to carry it.

They passed through another couple of rooms and Ogedai cut to the left. The ringing in Negasi's ears had subsided a bit and he could hear footsteps and hushed conversation up ahead where the hallway turned.

Ogedai gave a thumb's up. Negasi readied one of the stun grenades and together they crept toward the corner.

Before they made it, three soldiers came around. They jerked back, surprised, then raised their rifles.

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