Meanwhile, in Lower Manhattan...

The streets were empty. And cold. And desolate. Tall, crumbling buildings rose up from the concrete like derelict gods, still scraping the underbelly of the sky. Bruner walked through the dead city at midnight, barely noticing the biting chill. This had once been the center of the world. Fortunes were made and lost here. Dreams came true in these buildings, while other dreams slid away forever. A mass of people lived, died, and then died again in the veins of this place. Long ago. Few were left who remembered. Bruner wasn’t one of them. He was born too late.

Somewhere nearby a lonely wolf howled. Bruner stiffened his grip on the gun, just to feel safe. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, but he knew well how to use it if he did. No one survived here who couldn’t kill with speed and accuracy. And without remorse. Remorse was deadly here. Regret and repentance got you killed. Or eaten. Or worse.

The night sky was black like ash. Once, there had been a small planet up there, visible to the eye. His father called it the “Moon.” Men had landed on it, he said. But it was gone now. Bruner had never seen it.

His feet fell on the pavement with scarcely a sound. You had to learn how to walk silently in this new world if you wanted to live, for there were fouler and crueler things lurking in the dark than just hungry wolves. Survival of the fittest was the old way. Survival of the quiet was the lay of the land now.

At the far end of the dead street were the remains of a cathedral. People used to gather in there and sing. The idea was as foreign to Bruner as the thought of a soft pillow or a warm bath. Bruner headed there now, not to sing or worship or pray, but to retrieve something. It was in there, the elders had assured him. Most likely buried in the basement. “Get in there, get it, and get back,” they said to him. “If you’re lucky, it should take only two hours.”

So here he was, trudging through the deadly dark toward a church in pursuit of an object he didn’t understand. But he didn’t have to understand it. As long as they did, the elders, there was hope. And though going there in the dark might have felt insane to him, it was still a hell of a lot saner than going in the daylight.

He was the best choice to go. No one handled a gun like Max Bruner. And no one was as cool in the heat of the moment. He had no wife, no lover, no kids, no one to mourn him should he not return. So they selected him for the mission. And as they knew he would, he said yes instantly.

He looked into the distance, dimly seeing the neglected spire of the old church in the dark. It was about two miles away, he judged. He’d reach it in about thirty minutes at this pace. That was okay. Counterintuitive though it felt, it was better to move slow than fast. You had to take your time in this place. You had to watch everything.

Ever vigilant… ever focused… he walked on. In the silence, he thought about his dead father and wondered whether the tribunal would judge him worthy to take his father’s place. No, it was no good to think about that now. Best to stay focused on the—

“Shit!” he whispered.

Some kind of bad electricity hissed through the air, and Bruner, instinctively knowing that something wasn’t right, hit the ground and rolled silently to a pile of rubble in the street. Sheltered behind it, with his grip tight on the gun, he eyed what was left of the buildings around him. He saw nothing. Closing his eyes, he listened… and heard nothing. Yet something told him that he was being watched. He could feel it.

Fishing the small binoculars from his pack, he raised them to his eyes and scanned the buildings slowly, looking for anything out of place. Then he saw it. The building across the way. Fourth floor. Third window. A tiny green light where no light should be.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, knowing quite well what that light meant. Someone was in that building. Probably an Undergrounder. No, definitely. Undergrounders used night goggles that gave off a faint green hue, which was actually quite detectible in the otherwise dark jungle of this dead city.

Bruner lowered the binoculars and assumed a sniper position behind the rubble. He raised the scope on the gun and zeroed in on the green light in the third window of the fourth floor. “You’ve only got one shot at this,” reminded himself. Gunfire would attract far worse foes than Undergrounders. He’d have to kill the skulking enemy in one shot, then run like hell to the church. All thoughts of silence and stealth were out the window now.

Breathing heavily, immune to the cold, Bruner slid his finger around the trigger. Before he could fire, something whizzed through the frosty air and the pile of rubble burst into a cloud of rocky debris. Cursing, Bruner jumped to his feet and ran as several more bullets flew behind his back. He couldn’t stop to aim, but he trained the gun in the general direction of the green light while he ran, getting several rounds off. The sound of gunfire tore through the quiet night, waking God knows what.

With no other recourse, Bruner quickly sidled up to one of the fallen buildings and jumped through a giant hole in the brick. The gunfire ceased and silence resumed. Trembling with adrenaline, he scanned the empty street… looking right, then left. As far as he could tell, nothing was stirring. Not yet, anyway.

He pulled a small flashlight from his pack and swiftly investigated the building he was now in, hoping it was empty. It appeared to be. Other than a small trickle of water from the ceiling, this room seemed secure enough. But it smelled musty and dank and dead. And he didn’t like it. Being in here felt wrong, somehow. Still, he collected himself and found his inner strength. Other men might have broken psychologically, but not Bruner. He kept his head. He kept his cool.

“Remember the mission,” he told himself. “Get to the church, get it, and get out.”

He stopped to reload his gun, then slowly edged himself toward the hole in the brick wall, stealthily peering out into the night, training his eyes on the street. First, he scanned the direction whence he came. Then, he studied the way toward the church. The coast seemed clear, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew his foe was waiting for him to emerge. And emerge he’d have to, sooner or later.

Bruner scratched the stubble on his chin, trying to formulate a plan. The best he could come up with was to just make a run for it and fly like hell. If he stayed close to the buildings, especially on this southern side, his foe would have a hard time spotting him. But where there was one Undergrounder, there were sure to be more. That was the thing about the damn Undergrounders. At night, they rarely stayed underground.

It was now or never. “Fuck it!” he said and darted through the hole. Hugging the walls, not wavering from the sidewalk, he ran. There was no way he could move silently now. His feet fell on the pavement with heavy thuds, and Bruner knew with sickening certainty that now more than just the Undergrounders were aware of his presence.

“I’m going to die out here,” he suddenly knew. “I’m going to fail in my mission.” But did it really matter? He was expendable. The elders would just send someone else and try again. They’d keep at it until someone finally returned with their precious cargo.

As he ran, he kept waiting to hear gunfire behind him. But he didn’t. So far, so good. He saw the church up ahead. Less than a mile away now. Increasing his speed, he glanced back over his shoulder to see if he was being pursued. He wasn’t.

“Maybe it’s over,” he thought, coming to a halt. His feet grinded to a stop and he stood on the sidewalk of the empty, rubbly street, listening for anything out of place. He heard nothing. Hell, maybe he hit the Undergrounder during his sporadic firing. It was possible. Only one way to find out. Slowly… cautiously… Bruner crept away from the sidewalk and into the street, in full view of anyone hiding in the buildings. No gunfire. Nothing. He took the binoculars out again and did a sweep. No green lights. Nothing amiss. All seemed clear.

Sighing in relief, he turned back toward the church and walked on through the dark.

He reached the cathedral in ten minutes. Bruner knew it had once been an imposing structure, a marvel of architectural achievement. Now it was nothing but rickety walls, fallen stones, and scattered debris. A carcass of another age.

Again gripping his gun tightly, he entered the ruins and found himself in the remains of a great hall. Empty sockets stood at intervals on either side where stained-glass once told stories of the Bible. The pews were gone, as was the giant pipe organ, but Bruner knew enough about how things used to be that he could aptly imagine the glory this place must have once had. His father had told him all about the old days.

The church was dark and quiet and eerie somehow. Some damn crow was nesting in the rafters, and it took off with fluttering protest as Bruner approached. A lesser man might have been spooked, but Bruner just hardened his resolve to locate the object and get out of here. “It’s probably in the basement,” they had said. With his eyes alert and his gun raised, he slowly moved through the hall, searching for an entry into the basement.

“There,” he said to himself.

As his eyes fixed on an alcove to the side of the hall, a silenced report ripped through the darkness, and Bruner’s face exploded. He fell dead three feet from the only door to the basement.

Toward the back of the hall, where Bruner had first entered, two figures approached with guns aloft. “He’s dead,” one said to the other in their alien tongue. “The object is safe.”

“For now,” the other replied. “They’ll keep sending scouts to get it.”

The two figures closed in on Bruner’s dead body. They more or less looked human, but they weren’t. As they removed their night goggles, the truth of what they were was laid bare. Their one eye, lidless and reddish in hue, was centered on their large green brows. The old term was “cyclops.” Men called them “Undergrounders” now. And where men have a mouth, these creatures had tubes that jutted out from their strange heads, tubes through which they ate, drank, and spoke.

One of them poked his gun at Bruner’s body. “This one was brave,” he said.

“Men are always brave,” the other replied. “That’s why we beat them. These beasts are rife with courage but lacking in wisdom. They run when they should fight. And they fight when they should run. Such beings are easily conquered. The histories bear this out.”

“You're right,” the one said. “About the object. They’ll keep seeking it.”

“Of course they will,” the other agreed. “They are tenacious to the end.”

“Should we move it somewhere safe?”

The other contemplated this question. “No,” he answered at length. “Better that they keep pursuing it here where we can pick them off one at a time.” He looked down at Bruner’s body. “Come, let’s take him back to the hatchery before the meat sours.”