The nearest G-Young lunged before he finished speaking.
Ryan pulled the trigger. The Desert Eagle's blast split the narrow tunnel wide open, and the three lead creatures popped like rotten fruit, dark green fluid hissing against the pipe walls.
More behind them. They boiled out of the sewage, squeezed through cracks in the masonry, dropped from the ceiling. Dozens, shrieking, the sound ricocheting off every surface until his scalp prickled.
Ada braced against his back, suppressed pistol firing in controlled bursts, each round finding its mark. She burned through a magazine, ducked sideways to reload, and stole a glance at him.
He hadn't moved. Feet planted like they'd been poured in concrete. The Desert Eagle held level, muzzle tracking in tiny increments, and every shot dropped a G-Young. He didn't pause to aim or reload, and the muzzle didn't climb at all. The gunfire ran continuous, steady as a belt-fed weapon.
With a Desert Eagle. A .50-caliber hand cannon that could dislocate a normal person's wrist.
The corner of Ada's mouth twitched. She slapped the fresh magazine home and kept shooting, but her eyes kept drifting. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. The rhythm never broke, mechanical and precise, every round a headshot.
Ada's heart skipped.
A piercing screech tore from above. Three Lickers launched from the ceiling shadows, blindingly fast, claws shearing air, aimed straight at their heads.
Ada snapped her pistol up and fired. The rounds punched into the Licker's body, sprayed blood, did nothing to slow it. Claws filled her vision...
Three shots rang out almost as one. All three Licker skulls burst apart in midair, rotten gore spattering across her. The twisted bodies crashed to the ground, claws less than two feet from her face.
Ada froze.
She saw it clearly. Ryan hadn't even turned around. A slight tilt of his head, the muzzle angled over his own shoulder, three casual squeezes. Three Lickers. Three headshots.
Why is it always three? Ryan thought wearily. Because the damn author loved spawning monsters in batches of three.
The tunnel went quiet. The last G-Young corpse slid into the sewage with a small splash. Nothing left but running water and two people breathing.
Ryan lowered the gun and rolled his shoulder. The scrapes on his back from the debris earlier had soaked through with sewage, and the wet fabric stuck to raw skin. He winced.
"Tch." He looked down. "That stings."
Ada didn't move. Her grip tightened on the pistol, eyes fixed on him.
She'd seen plenty of impossible things in her career. Tyrants, Lickers, the G-Virus. All insane enough. But this man made less sense than any bioweapon. Her mind cycled through explanations and discarded them one by one. None of them fit what she'd just witnessed.
She drew a long breath and steadied herself. The look she gave him now carried fresh wariness, layered with curiosity.
"What are you, exactly?" Cold voice, but a faint tremor bled through.
Ryan turned to face her. Sewage dripped from the pipes. The green emergency light caught her face in shifting bands of shadow and glow, and most of that razor sharpness had left her eyes. What remained was harder to read, caution and shock and underneath it the smallest trace of fear.
He laughed, quiet and short. Holstered the Eagle, wiped the grime off his face with the back of his hand, casual as someone finishing a morning at the range.
"Nobody special." Flat, unbothered. "Lucky, and hard to kill."
Ada watched him. Said nothing. She knew he was deflecting, but she also knew this wasn't the time to press. New sounds were building at both ends of the tunnel. More creatures inbound, and more than the last wave.
She lowered her weapon, took a measured breath, and packed the turmoil away. The composed operative slid back into place.
"Let's go." She turned and headed deeper into the tunnel. "There's a maintenance shaft ahead that connects to NEST's underground service corridor. Stay close. Don't fall behind."
Ryan followed.
Two steps in, he spoke up. "Hey."
Ada glanced back.
"Your shooting's solid too." His tone was the same as commenting on the weather. "Little slow on the reaction time, though."
Her stride hitched. She opened her mouth, groped for a response, and found nothing worth saying.
The green emergency lights stretched their shadows long down the tunnel.
Far off, the massed shrieking started up again.
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