VIPER One: Countervalue

Sarbin cowered in the recess at the base one of the building’s heat extractor units. He’d been waiting on the roof for hours now. Several times, he’d come close to giving up, to going inside where it was at least warm and dry, and there was the option of blotting out what was happening outside; but he’d stayed. Part of him was terrified of missing his promised extraction—which, as the night wore on, seemed increasingly unlikely—but, most of all, there was no point. It was the first time he’d been outside of his apartments in weeks. The sensory overload had almost been too much, but, up on the roof, he’d felt removed enough that it was mesmerising.

  So he’d stayed up there, watching, through the baying crowd trying to break into the Governorate compound, through the sheeting rain, through the flashes of firearms and explosives punctuating the night.

  When the people in the streets started dying, he’d pressed himself in here and shut his eyes. He hadn’t been able to shut out the cries, the weak panic, ever diminishing, of those who were yet to succumb. He noticed the ear-splitting screech, the wave of heat, but their significance was lost on him. It was just more noise and sense and pain.

  He only opened his eyes when strong hands hauled him out of his hiding place. Someone was carrying him away on their shoulder.

  He saw the city beneath him, the streets scattered with bodies.