But he wasn't finished. The middle-aged man swung the barrel, sighted on another tug half-crushed under a fuselage, and in the span of a single breath squeezed the trigger again. Sosuke Kitahara watched the vehicle belch a tongue of flame and then come apart under the shockwave, shredded into confetti.

Sosuke's estimation of him ticked up another notch. The man had known from the start the tugs ran on natural gas gasoline wouldn't blow like that. Two blasts in quick succession erased more than half the horde ahead. Even the belly-up airliner had pancaked scores of biters beneath it. By the time he'd stowed the rifle, the path to the jetway was clear enough to walk.

"Sosuke, hurry!"

Mrs. Yuigahama stood on the welded steel stair, waving him up. The white hatch behind her had been forced open. Sosuke quickened his pace and climbed into the bridge alongside the stranger. Inside stretched a long corridor lined with red carpet.

This jetway wasn't the showy kind with glass walls and sweeping views. It felt more like a sealed freight container narrow, windowed only every three or four paces, and even those panes didn't open. Nor was it untouched. There were no bodies, but smeared handprints bloomed along the white panels, the red already gone rusty brown.

"Kid, you've killed before, haven't you?"

The abrupt challenge made Sosuke glance over. The man was watching him like a hawk, one hand already resting on the holster at his hip. Up close, Sosuke caught the police insignia on the silver buttons of his black jacket, and the badge numbers clipped at his chest.

Sosuke couldn't help a crooked smile. "On what basis? You see me do it? And even if I said yes what exactly do you plan to do about it?"

"Hmph. That rifle on your shoulder where'd you get it? That's a service weapon. Don't think the world ending means you can do as you please. As long as I'm breathing, the law still applies."

His eyes were hard, his thumb already flicking the holster snap. Sosuke only frowned and looked him over. An ordinary man in every way ordinary build, ordinary face. Lose him in a crowd and you'd never fish him out again except for the cutting edge in his gaze.

"Do you have a screw loose?" Mrs. Yuigahama stepped between them, stare frosty. "Police or not, you can't fling accusations without evidence. We picked the gun up here at the airport."

Sosuke shrugged. "Officer, maybe it's occupational reflex. Anyone with a gun reads 'suspect.' But look outside this is what's left. Getting hold of a weapon isn't exactly rocket science."

"Keiichiro…"

The bookish woman hurried over, taking the man's arm. To Sosuke, she offered an apologetic half-bow. "Sorry. A lifetime in uniform makes you twitchy around unknowns. Please don't take it personally."

She tugged him along. Even so, a few paces later he still barked over his shoulder, voice full of warning, "Don't get any ideas. Saving you doesn't mean you're with us. Try anything and my bullets don't have names on them."

"You ! He's a lunatic." Mrs. Yuigahama glowered at his back.

Sosuke shook his head. "Big forest, all kinds of birds. Come on let's see what's ahead."

The bridge should have met an aircraft, but whatever had docked here was long gone. A step past the threshold gave a direct view of the tarmac. Sosuke scanned, then turned back the way they'd come. Without his katana, he felt oddly incomplete.

The jetway jogged around a turntable joint; only after they took the bend did the upper door come into sight. Keiichiro so that was the cop's name had already posted up there, pistol gripped, ear tilted to the steel, listening. His wife and kids kept a prudent distance. When he saw Sosuke approach he gestured sharply. "Kid kick the door. The woman with you and I will cover."

"Dream on. Didn't you just call me a criminal? Do it yourself."

He rolled his eyes. The man's temper was a moving target. "Quit yapping. We made it here together same side for now. Kick it."

"Yeah no." Sosuke's smile thinned. He walked up anyway, ignoring the glare, and pressed his ear to the seam.

He didn't get to speak. The fire door yanked inward. Keiichiro flinched hard nearly fired on instinct only to find two slender barrels already leveled between his eyes from inside.

And the boy who'd been at the jamb? Gone.

"Don't move!"

Shouted from both sides in the same heartbeat. Keiichiro's gun came up smooth and flat. Inside, at least two subguns wavered at the threshold. Fingers were tight on triggers. The smallest twitch might make the hallway explode.

Someone swallowed loud enough to echo.

Sosuke had already melted back to Mrs. Yuigahama's side, subgun at the low ready, eyes fixed past the muzzle forest. There were only two automatic weapons pointed outward, but there were people twenty, maybe more clogging the space beyond. Four blocked the door itself two with guns, two with blades and if anything they were more terrified than they were threatening.

"Guns down! Firing on an officer is a felony!"

Keiichiro's command voice hit like a baton on a shield. One of the subgun kids twitched, glancing to his elders. "Wh-who are you? P-police sent to rescue us?"

"Use your eyes. Joint op Self-Defense Force and National Police Agency. Drop the weapons."

Since the kid hadn't sorted them out yet, Sosuke didn't push. He let his face settle into something harsher. The kid, though, had a stubborn streak. "No. You need to show ID. The military pulled out. Food's short. We can't take in more mouths."

"Fair," Keiichiro said crisply. "Checking ID is your right as citizens. Here."

He produced a black-covered booklet with exaggerated care and held it forward.

Sosuke blinked. So he was legit after a fashion. The card flipped open and the truth peered out: not a patrolman, a corrections officer.

"Chiba Prefectural Seigen Prison… Counselor Kadokawa Keiichiro? You're a prison guard."

The youngster stared, surprised until a pudgy middle-manager type plucked the ID from his fingers. The man's face brightened. "Officer Kadokawa! Finally. I'm Maeda Shinji, Taisho Co., Ltd. we're very close with your HQ's general affairs "

"General affairs?" Keiichiro took his card back without a glance for Maeda's forced smile. "He was bitten weeks ago."

His posture straightened, tone hardening. "We're not an official rescue unit. Beyond my wife and children, I don't know these two. I came to see if there's an airframe we can use. I'm certified on light aircraft. If I can find something flyable, I don't mind taking people out."

"Officer Kadokawa, perhaps you don't have the picture yet," Sosuke said mildly, dropping his rifle to a low carry and nodding at the two subgun holders. Their scuffed slacks and dress shoes peeked from under filthy autumn flight jackets. "There are two pilots right here. And you did see the jet that fell out of the sky last week. The air isn't safe."

"A roomful of pilots doesn't mean a flight," Keiichiro shot back. "And even if they had a plane, it doesn't mean they'd dare take it up."

So arrogant and doctrinaire. Fine. Sosuke turned to the pilots. "Mind if we step through? The food may be yours. The space isn't."

He motioned for Mrs. Yuigahama and eased inside. A fire shutter divided the waiting lounge. Most of the fixtures remained rows of benches cannibalized into makeshift bunks, and a smell thick as a flop house.

"Plenty of folks stayed behind," Mrs. Yuigahama murmured, scanning the crowd.

Sosuke's brows rose. He'd wondered if any flight attendants had survived; he hadn't expected this many. Two or three dozen women in mixed uniforms huddled together, wary eyes peering over masks of exhaustion. Each one could have passed a casting call. The rest the shorter ones in various workwear had to be ground staff.

"An in-flight crew showcase," Sosuke said under his breath, a crooked grin tugging. Whatever airlines they belonged to, the common denominator was obvious: hand-picked faces, every one.

"P-President Maeda… who are they?" a young woman asked from within the group. She was the lone one in street clothes, a pink winter coat a splash of color among navy and charcoal.

Maeda edged forward, doubt written all over him. He measured Sosuke the clean lines, the gun in hand, the travel-ready packs and then Mrs. Yuigahama, older, poised, equally armed, equally clean.

They didn't look like refugees. They looked like people who knew what they were doing.

"Heh. Maritime Self-Defense Force," Sosuke said lightly. "Does the president have friends there? Left our papers in our other pants. We'll show them when we link up with the main column."

Maeda wasn't a soldier, but he knew an easy lie when he heard one and the rumors out of the bay had long since said the MSDF had sailed off to fend for itself. Still, he nodded, half buying, half hedging. "If it's police and JSDF, we're reassured. But we don't need assistance. Let's mind our own corners."

"Perfect," Sosuke said without missing a beat. "We're not here to meddle. Two nights' rest, then we're gone."

He tipped a brief smile at the clustered attendants and guided Mrs. Yuigahama deeper in.

The lounge was classic Japanese compartmentalization. When alarms trip, fire shutters drop. Two had fallen here, front and back, sealing off a space barely one or two hundred square meters. Only a run of floor-to-ceiling windows near the doors let in gray daylight, leaving the rest in a dusk of its own.