​    Delphi's guards, one by one, dropped into The Cellars after Tika.

     A dozen of them.

     Delphi followed their every move through his and their various sensors.

     The Cellars. Nothing but tunnels fashioned over hundreds of generations, some tunnels so large an army could march through four abreast, others so narrow only a child could crawl through. Some tunnels were well lit. Others not. All the tunnels connected, but not necessarily with each other. They followed no pattern. No one actually designed them. They evolved on their own over the centuries. 

     Two guards. Lights from their uniforms illuminated their immediate surroundings. 

     Above them, what looked, at first, to be a part of the tunnel...

     a part of the tunnel that, suddenly, became Tika. 

     Tika dropped on the head and shoulders of one of the guards. She snapped his neck with a single, powerful twist. She grabbed the weapon out of his hand, then used it to blow the second guard's skull away even as Tika dropped, in perfect balance, back to her feet. 

     Two other guards appeared on either side of where Tika stood.

     Four guards altogether.

​     Tika fired four shots with the weapon she'd taken from the first guard, darting this way and that and even running up the side of the tunnel as she did. 

​     Each shot entered a skull.

     Four guards dropped dead to the ground.

     Delphi watched as Tika robbed each of the guards of their weapons and ammunition belts.

     Where were his other guards? He saw what they saw, and he knew where they were in physical space, but what good was any of that data when it came to The Cellars?

     Now where did bitch go?

​     Delphi watched a shadow become Tika as two guards passed.

​     She put a single shot through both their skulls.

     Delphi hated to admit it, but had to.

     In The Cellars, Tika had the obvious advantage. 

     Delphi hated even more the response Tika forced him to make.

     It was time, once again, and this was something he had to do every couple of decades anyway, to disinfect The Cellars, at least that sector directly below Hrrm's Hive.

CONTINUE