Chapter 81: Gap (II)
Sera heard Micheal go and didn’t look because looking meant taking her eyes off the gap and taking her eyes off the gap was not something she was going to do.
The third Aberrant came through while Michael was in the courtyard.
It approached low, beneath the usual approach height, which was unusual since the first two came in upright.
This one gauged the gap during its approach and entered in a crouch, staying below her axe line.
She noticed it too late, later than she should have, because the low entry angle caught her off guard, making her defensive stance at the wrong height.
It hit her shoulder.
It wasn’t the blade but the body weight of the moving object that struck her on the left shoulder as it sped through the gap, causing her to spin sideways.
She went with the spin because it was faster than resisting, and she emerged from the rotation with the axe already repositioned.
Meanwhile, the Aberrant had lost contact and was past her, forcing it to turn back.
The turn was the window.
She took it.
The axe struck at the neck junction on the turn, causing the object to fall.
She stepped back, feeling her left shoulder protest as if it had been affected.
Sera decided to deal with it later and examined the gap.
The fourth one was already at the threshold.
She planted her feet, raised her axe, and studied the approach angle, waiting for a Skill Echo equivalent, something she lacked but had gained through six years of kickboxing.
That was the body-based pattern recognition, distinct from the mind. She read the shoulder orientation at the gap threshold, adjusted her move to the available angle, and faced the fourth Aberrant in the gap instead of letting it pass.
Meeting it in the gap differed from meeting it on the interior side.
The narrow gap limited the contact geometry and restricted her movement, while also reducing the Aberrant’s extended arm advantage.
Since the gap walls were closer than the arm’s reach, it couldn’t fully extend, turning its previously threatening extended arm into a liability in the confined space.
She put it down in the gap.
It took three strikes because the confined space restricted her swing radius, just as it limited her arm extension.
Achieving three strikes in a gap with the next one coming from behind the one you were finishing was not an easy calculation.
The fourth went down.
She stepped back, and her left shoulder now voiced its opinion more loudly.
She looked at the gap, took a breath, and heard footsteps behind her.
Michael re-entered through the lobby, holding the anchor bolt driver in one hand and blood on his right forearm from an incident in the courtyard he wasn’t talking about.
He looked at her shoulder.
She looked at his arm.
Neither of them said anything about either.
He approached the gap edge, observing the half-seated panel on the outside and the angle of the unengaged interior anchor points.
Then, he crouched at the gap threshold with the driver in hand and began working.
The fifth Aberrant came through the gap while he was working.
Sera took it.
She handled it alone with her left shoulder at reduced capacity and three strikes in a confined space.
Despite this, she proceeded because the position demanded it.
Afterwards, she was breathing more heavily than before, and her left arm responded cautiously, prompting her to switch the axe to a two-handed low guard to compensate for her diminished left side strength.
"How long," she said without turning around.
"Four bolts," he said. "Ninety seconds."
She looked at the gap.
"Ninety seconds," she said.
She heard the driver working behind her, looked at the gap, set her feet, and reflected on the four days of the space-modified approach drill, the six years prior, the thirty seconds in the warehouse with the Stalker, and the two years before all this when she was a personal trainer in a city that still existed.
She had thought the hardest thing she would ever do was watch someone else choose not to get better.
The sixth Aberrant came through the gap.
She checked the shoulder orientation and moved to the angle, meeting it within her arm extension.
The axe was effective, coming down as she already prepared for the seventh strike before the sixth hit the floor, due to a seventh strike being on the pulse threshold and the ninety seconds not being up yet.
The seventh came through.
Her left arm gave on the second strike.
The shoulder gave way, causing a failure of force output that turned a decisive blow into a deflection.
The seventh Aberrant absorbed this deflection, kept coming, and she was pushed backward under its weight.
She hit the interior blast wall panel behind her, which held firm. The creature was now on top of her, with the axe handle across its throat, similar to how Michael had handled the second one.
She was holding it there with her right arm, bearing the full weight, while her left arm contributed less than needed.
The bolt driver stopped.
She heard footsteps.
Michael came through the gap from the exterior side.
He moved through the gap to the outside to get a better angle on the seventh from the opposite side.
Coming through into the channeled space, he read the contact geometry in the precise way that the Skill Echo provided.
He then drove the axe into the seventh Aberrant’s back at the junction between the shoulder plates, where Dr. Kang’s briefing notes indicated that the bone plating was thinner.
The creature’s weight suddenly shifted off Sera, who pushed it aside. He finished it off on the ground, and the gap behind him was sealed.
She heard the panel engage.
All twelve bolts were installed. The sound of them being driven in sequence signalled full engagement: four new bolts into the interior substrate, joining the seven that had held through the panel’s unseating and gap breach.
The reseating of the panel was not perfect- it never would be- but it was now seated, bolted, and the gap was closed.
The gap was closed.
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