Daylight Runner by Oisin McGann

somebody up there!” she heard the woman bark.
    â€œDamn it!” another voice spat. “How long do you think they were there?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. They saw us here; they’ll be able to identify us when news breaks about the job. Split up—find them!”
    Nothing more was said. Soft footsteps took off in either direction along the catwalk leading off the platform. Cleo crawled back into the corridor and stood up, her pulse throbbing through her body, her limbs trembling. She continued to stand there, frozen against the wall, while her mind tried to make sense of what was happening.
    â€œRun,” she whispered to herself, willing herself to move. “They’re coming. Run!”
    Almost as if she needed a push, she shoved off from the wall and set off at a sprint. She had to assume that, whoever they were, they knew their way around. They would find a route up to her, and then…She didn’t want to think about it. It didn’t matter who they were. All that mattered was that they were after her and they dumped bodies in sewage grinders.
    Her footsteps were painfully loud, echoing down the narrow corridor, signaling to her hunters. She slowed down, softening her footfalls. The route along which she had come was too long and straight; if they had guns, they could shoot her from a hundred meters away. What she needed were some corners. Off one branch of the corridor, she spotted a ladder beside a gas lamp. Hurrying up to it, she grabbed the rungs and started to climb. Stopping for a moment, she reached over and turned the valve on the lamp, switching it off. Maybe now they wouldn’t see the ladder, and at least she could climb in darkness.
    Running footsteps approached below, and she wincedas the ladder squeaked with every rung she climbed. The footsteps slowed and advanced more carefully. All around her was pitch darkness. To her right, she could feel the breeze from a ventilation duct. Cleo went completely still as somebody reached the bottom of the ladder. A flashlight was switched on, and the beam played across the floor of the corridor below her, then found the foot of the ladder. It swept upward, but stopped just short of her shoes. Then it shone away and down the corridor. In its glow she could see a white face, white hair, and the dull shine of a gray gun barrel. The man began to move away, but then he sniffed at the air and turned back. He felt the body of the gas lamp, and pulled his hand away quickly. It was still hot. His flashlight beam came back up the ladder, and this time it found Cleo.
    His gun came up, and as it did so, she jumped out into the darkness. The shot came as a dull thumping sound, not loud at all. The bullet hitting the ladder was louder, spitting sparks at her. Her knees scraped off the top of the ventilation duct, and she nearly fell over the other side, but caught herself in time. Clambering along the top of the duct, every movement amplified by the hollow plastex, she tried to find another way out. The man was coming up the ladder behind her. She couldn’t see a thing, and nearly fell again when the duct turned tightly to the right, and then left again. There was a ceiling a little more than a meter above her, holding the struts for the duct, but it wastoo low for her to stand up. She kept casting out with her hands on either side for some way off the vent, but there was nothing but empty space on either side. Then she hit a wall.
    It was solid concrete. The duct went straight into it, without so much as a finger’s width of a gap around it. There was no way into the vent; plastex was tough, made to last for centuries. She stifled a cry of despair. The man was coming along the duct after her. Reaching out into the darkness, she sought some kind of escape. But there was nothing.
    The sound of the man approaching grew louder, and she could see the flashlight strapped to his head, bobbing as he crawled. It was pointing down so that he