The final push to the top of One World Trade Center was a testament to sheer, desperate will. Alex, leaning heavily on David, his splinted leg screaming with every step, dragged himself up the last few flights. Iris, her muscles burning but her extraordinary energy still thrumming beneath her skin, moved with practiced efficiency, clearing the final debris-strewn landing. The stairwell opened onto a heavy, steel security door.
David shoved Iris back, then braced himself. "Stand clear." He put his shoulder to the door, straining. It held. "Damn it, locked from the outside."
Iris didn't wait. Her enhanced senses hummed with the faint, terrifying sounds of the city below, and the urgent need to be out. She stepped forward, ignoring David's grunt of protest. Her fingers found a small gap in the frame near the lock. A cold, focused surge of power, more controlled now, flowed through her. She twisted, pulled, and with a metallic shriek that grated on their ears, the reinforced lock mechanism tore clean from the frame. The heavy door swung inward with a groan.
They stumbled out onto the helipad, gasping for breath. The wind, surprisingly strong at this height, whipped around them, carrying the distant screams of the city below. It was a vast, desolate concrete expanse, exposed and vulnerable, but mercifully clear of zombies. Below, the city sprawled like a dying beast, plumes of smoke rising from distant fires, the setting sun painting the haze in morbid oranges and purples.
"We made it," Alex whispered, collapsing onto the cold concrete, his voice hoarse, a mix of disbelief and overwhelming relief.
David stood, scanning the sky, his eyes narrowed against the wind. He pulled out the satellite phone, its single indicator light glowing faintly. "They said to wait for the signal. It shouldn't be long." Every distant hum, every shadow, was scrutinized. The silence of the helipad, broken only by the wind, felt impossibly vast after the claustrophobic climb.
Iris joined him, her gaze sweeping the horizon. She could hear the faint, guttural moans from far below, the crackle of distant fires, the desperate, dying breaths of a city consumed. Her senses, honed by days of desperate survival, were a constant, overwhelming input. She saw tiny details of devastation miles away, smelled the acrid tang of burnt rubber drifting on the wind, felt the faint tremors of crumbling buildings deep beneath the earth.
Just as despair threatened to settle into a cold, heavy lump in her stomach, a faint thrum, then a growing roar, filled the air. A distant speck appeared in the smoky haze, growing rapidly.
"There!" David barked, his voice laced with a raw hope.
A military helicopter, its fuselage battered, its paint scorched, materialized through the twilight. It was a rough beast, but it was salvation. Its powerful searchlight cut through the gathering gloom, sweeping the helipad, illuminating their desperate faces like moths in a spotlight. It didn't look like a standard transport; it looked like a survivor itself.
The chopper hovered, its downwash buffeting them with a gale-force wind, whipping Iris's hair across her face. David grabbed her arm, his grip hard, his eyes boring into hers. "Remember," he murmured, his voice low against the roar of the blades, "Not a word about the bite. Not a single word. Not a word about... anything unusual." His gaze flickered to Alex, who was already struggling to his feet, eyes fixed on the descending ramp.
Iris nodded, the lie already feeling like a heavy weight in her chest. Alex, his face pale with exhaustion and the shock of seeing the world end, just stared at the chopper, too relieved to process anything else. He clutched his scavenged comm, the President's chilling words about "unique biological properties" still a fresh echo in the back of his mind.
A soldier, heavily armed and grim-faced, appeared at the ramp, waving them forward. They stumbled towards the open bay, the helicopter's interior a claustrophobic cavern filled with exhausted, silent refugees. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, fear, and the lingering scent of disinfectant. No one spoke. No one made eye contact. They were simply bodies, moving from one hell to the next, clinging to the thinnest thread of hope. David pushed them forward, a fierce, protective urgency in his movements.
The ramp hissed shut. The chopper bucked as it ascended, pulling away from the dying city. Iris looked back through the reinforced window. New York, the place where her life began and ended, shrank below, a monument to ruin. But for the first time in days, there was a glimmer. A fragile, terrifying promise of survival. For now.