[POV Era]

  The ptop screen had turned bck minutes ago, but the image of the harvester ships remained burned into my retina with the persistence of a sunburst. The knowledge of what had happened—the Great Harvest—had changed the atmosphere of the police station. It was no longer just an abandoned building; it was an empty mausoleum, a monument to the impotence of the human species.

  I shook my head, an unnecessary human gesture for a computerized brain, trying to reset my priorities. Knowing the truth wouldn't help me survive the next ten minutes. I needed supplies. I needed defense.

  I stepped away from the captain's desk and began a systematic sweep of the office. My golden eyes functioned like a high-precision scanner, ignoring irrelevant trash and highlighting objects of potential utility.

  I opened the top desk drawer. Dried-out pens, paperclips, traffic ticket reports that now looked like relics of a golden age. Nothing.

  I opened the bottom drawer. It was locked.

  Without hesitation, I hooked my alloy fingers under the edge of the wood and pulled. The lock snapped with a sharp crack, the wood splintering as if it were cardboard. The sound was loud in the silence, making me pause and listen. Nothing. Only the wind outside.

  Inside the drawer, resting on top of a mani folder, was a matte bck object that made my phantom pulse quicken.

  A pistol.

  I picked it up with reverence. It was heavy, cold, real. My visual interface immediately jumped onto it, projecting blue analysis lines over the metal.

  <[OBJECT: SEMI-AUTOMATIC HANDGUN. MODEL: SIG SAUER P320. CALIBER: 9MM PARABELLUM. STATUS: OPERATIONAL/MINOR BARREL FOULING.]>

  It was the captain's service weapon. He had probably left it here in his drawer, thinking he’d return after his shift, or perhaps he stashed it there in the initial panic and never got the chance to use it.

  I ejected the magazine. It felt light.

  <[AMMUNITION IN MAGAZINE: 5 ROUNDS.]>

  Five bullets. Five chances for error. Five lives, if I had perfect aim.

  I searched the back of the drawer, moving papers with urgency. In the back corner, a small yellow and bck cardboard box. I shook it. It sounded full, but light. Opening it, I counted the gold-colored, lead-tipped bullets.

  Twelve.

  Seventeen bullets in total. Seventeen shots between me and death.

  "Better than nothing," I whispered, tucking the box into one of my cargo pants pockets and smming the magazine back into the weapon with a satisfying click. The weight of the gun in my right hand felt right, banced. My combat system integrated the weapon instantly, calcuting hypothetical firing trajectories from my current position toward the door. It was no longer just a tool; it was an extension of my arm.

  I left the office and continued toward what appeared to be a locker room for the officers. The lockers were open, looted, or simply empty. I was looking for something better than my tight blue shirt and loose pants. Perhaps a Kevr vest, or tactical boots that fit better.

  What I found was disappointing.

  There were clothes, yes. Spare uniforms strewn on the floor, mixed with debris from the ceiling that had partially colpsed in this section. I picked up a bck tactical jacket, hoping it would fit.

  <[OBJECT: TEXTILE GARMENT. STATUS: SEVERE STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. TORN FABRIC. PRESENCE OF TOXIC MOLD.]>

  The jacket fell apart in my hands, rotted by moisture and time. The same happened with the pants. Everything that had been exposed to the elements through the broken roof was useless. I looked at myself in a broken mirror on one of the lockers. The blue work shirt was still my only armor—ridiculously inadequate, but at least intact.

  "Fine. Seventeen bullets and civilian clothes," I muttered. "Could be worse."

  I decided I had tempted fate enough in this pce. It was time to move. I headed toward the main exit, walking with the stealth my body now executed by default.

  I reached the shattered gss doors of the lobby. Before stepping out into the open street, I pressed against the side wall, using the concrete frame as cover, and peeked out just enough to scan the perimeter.

  What I saw made me freeze, my internal circuits sending a red-level alert signal.

  I wasn't alone.

  About fifty meters away, at the street intersection, there was movement. It wasn't a solitary, erratic Ganut like the one that had attacked me before.

  There were five.

  A pack.

  They moved with a coordination that chilled my blood. They were identical to the beast I had killed: mangy bodies, that atrophied fifth leg hanging uselessly, deformed jaws. But their behavior was radically different.

  They weren't wandering around sniffing the air at random. They were sweeping the area.

  I watched as two of them entered a looted electronics store across the street. The other three waited outside, guarding opposite directions, their heads turning with a methodical rhythm. Seconds ter, the two scouts emerged, let out a low growl, and the group advanced toward the next building.

  <[TACTICAL ANALYSIS: GROUP HUNTING BEHAVIOR. SYSTEMATIC SEARCH PATTERN. ESTIMATED INTELLIGENCE LEVEL: HIGHER THAN PREVIOUS ENCOUNTER.]>

  They were looking for something. Or someone.

  I looked at the pistol in my hand. Seventeen bullets. Five visible targets.

  If my aim was perfect and every bullet killed with one shot—highly unlikely given the resilience the first Ganut had shown—I would spend a third of my total ammunition in a single skirmish. And that was assuming the noise of the shots didn't attract more of them, or something worse.

  "Not worth it," I thought. The risk was astronomical. The noise would be a dinner bell for the entire city.

  I tucked the pistol into the back waistband of my pants, making sure it was accessible but hidden. My best weapon right now wasn't lead; it was silence. My body didn't emit detectable body heat at a distance, I didn't breathe loudly, and I could stay stiller than a statue.

  I decided to hide. To let them pass.

  I backed away slowly into the station lobby. I needed a pce with limited sightlines but an escape route. The reception desk was a massive L-shaped wooden structure. Perfect.

  I slid behind the counter and crouched in the darkest corner, surrounded by dust and old papers. I hugged my knees, making myself as small as possible, and deactivated any non-essential systems to minimize any possible electronic hum I might emit. I became a shadow in the darkness.

  I waited.

  Minutes ter, I heard the sound.

  Skritch. Crunch.

  Cws on the broken gss of the entrance.

  They had arrived.

  My auditory system amplified the sound. Heavy, wet footsteps. Raspy breathing. Deep, damp sniffs.

  One of them had entered the lobby.

  I could imagine it: the beast standing in the center of the room, its deformed head turning, its red eyes searching for movement.

  I heard a low, communicative growl. Not an attack roar, but a question. Is something here?

  I held the breath I didn't need. My human mind was screaming in terror, imagining the teeth, the pain. But Era maintained control. Still. You are invisible. You are part of the furniture.

  The footsteps drew closer. They were heading toward the office hallway, bypassing the counter.

  Good. Keep walking. Go away.

  But then, the footsteps stopped.

  There was a sound of a deep inhation. A snort. And then, the sound of cws scraping the wood on the other side of the counter where I was hiding.

  It had smelled me. Maybe I didn't smell human, but I smelled like something. Like ozone, like the gun oil, like the computer I had turned on.

  Slowly, with agonizing suspense, a gray, deformed head peeked over the edge of the counter, less than a meter from my face.

  Our gazes met. Its red eyes, filled with animal malice, widened upon seeing me.

  The Ganut didn't attack immediately. It took a step back, raised its head, and let out a roar.

  It wasn't the growl from before. It was a shrill, high-pitched howl—a biological siren designed to alert the pack.

  "Shit," I said. Stealth was broken.

  The creature lunged over the counter, its cws shredding the rotted wood, reaching for my throat.

  I didn't reach for the gun. At this range, point-bnk, the shot could miss if it hit my arm, or the recoil could throw me off bance. Besides, the other four were outside. If I fired, they’d come running. If I killed it silently, maybe I’d gain a few seconds to flee through the back door.

  My right hand shot out, not toward the weapon, but toward the floor.

  I had seen a piece of wood, part of a shattered chair, lying next to me while I was hiding. It was thick, solid oak, with a jagged, irregur edge.

  I grabbed it with a force that splintered the surface.

  As the Ganut leaped, falling toward me in the cramped space behind the counter, I let myself fall backward, using its own momentum to guide it over me. But as it passed, I swung.

  It wasn't an elegant thrust like the first time. It was a brutal, short, violent bat-swing, driven by hydraulic pistons at maximum power.

  My combat interface lit up, overying the beast's anatomy in real-time.

  <[TARGET: GANUT - SCOUT VARIANT.]>

  <[WEAK POINT DETECTED: LUMBOSACRAL NERVE PLEXUS. AREA OF HIGH NERVE CONCENTRATION WITHOUT BONY PROTECTION.]>

  A red circle fshed bright just above the creature's hips, where the spine joined the hind legs.

  "Break!" I shouted, delivering the blow.

  The wood impacted with a dull, sickening sound, like hitting a sack of meat with a sledgehammer. I felt the vibration of the impact travel up my arm to my shoulder, but my structure absorbed the shock.

  The Ganut howled in pain and crashed into the filing cabinets behind me.

  I scrambled to my feet, ready to finish it or run.

  The creature tried to get up. Its front legs scraped the floor frantically, its cws kicking sparks off the linoleum. It roared, it drooled, its eyes fixed on me with murderous fury.

  But its back legs didn't move.

  They were dead. Dragging uselessly behind it like dead weight. The blow had shattered the nerve connection, cutting off the signal from its brain to its lower body.

  <[TARGET PARTIALLY INCAPACITATED. MOBILITY REDUCED BY 60%.]>

  However, the beast did not stop. Ignoring its broken legs, it crawled toward me using only the brute force of its front limbs. It was a nightmare vision: a monstrous torso dragging its own dead half, driven solely by the desire to kill.

  "You don't give up, do you?" I said, taking a step back, with the piece of wood raised in guard.

  The Ganut opened its maw and lunged toward my ankles, trying to bite.

  I heard answering howls from the street. The other four were coming. They had heard the first roar. I had seconds before the lobby was filled with teeth and cws.

  I looked at the crippled creature at my feet, then at the back door of the office area that led to the alley.

  I could shoot it in the head and end its suffering and its threat. But that would waste a bullet and make noise.

  Or I could leave it like this. Broken, blocking the path behind the counter, a mass of furious flesh that would hinder its companions when they tried to follow me.

  Era's cold decision overrode Orion's mercy.

  I threw the piece of wood to the floor.

  "Stay there," I told the creature snapping at the air inches from my boots.

  I turned and ran toward the darkness of the back hallways, leaving the Ganut roaring its helplessness behind me, while the sound of shattering gss at the entrance announced the arrival of the rest of the pack. The hunt had begun, and I was the prey.