Free Dead Matter by Anton Strout

were burning, but we were gaining on him. Not that I could make out much about him save that he was dressed for stealth much the same way we were.
    After the first two city blocks, my body started giving out. My back still ached like hell, but I focused on our pursuit and pushed past the pain. I was closing the distance. The figure turned again and darted off across traffic, heading along the length of a sleek steel building on the other side of the street.
    “Watch the traffic!” I shouted back to Jane and, ignoring my own advice, dove between two cabs that both laid on the horn for a solid ten seconds. By the time they stopped, I was almost caught up to the figure when he turned the corner at the end of the block.
    I rounded it seconds later, recognizing in an instant where we were—the west side of Columbus Circle. As I tried to close the distance once again, I couldn’t help but notice the single building straight ahead that took up the entire city block. The front of it was an enormous glass pyramid like the one at the Louvre in France, and it dwarfed the buildings to either side of it. A dozen massive towers shot out of the top of the pyramid, rising high into the night, the entire structure looking like a city unto itself.
    The figure dashed for a set of ten-foot-high steel doors off to the far left from the main entrance of the building proper. He flung them open and ran through, stopping only long enough to pull them shut behind him.
    I beat Jane to them by a couple seconds and I pulled at the doors, but they were locked, as I suspected. When Jane arrived, she looked as winded as I felt.
    “Remind me to leave a pair of cross-trainers at your apartment,” she said, gasping for air. “The shoes I’m wearing are so not made for long-distance running.”
    She pointed toward a faceplate set into the wall that blended in with a subtlety that spoke of craftsmanship.
    “Can you open it?”
    I looked at it for a moment before shaking my head. “I can’t use my psychometry on it. It’s a pad for a keycard like we have on the door to the offices. It’s not like a numeric lock where I can use my power to see the code of the last person who entered. It also means I can’t pick it.”
    “Crap,” she said, then looked around. She pointed off to a set of doors set into the tinted glass of the main pyramid area. Two men in identical suits stood sentry there like they were bouncers at a nightclub.
    As we approached the doors, I looked the two of them over. They were both huge with black hair, though the larger one had his in a military cut and the other wore his a little longer, though still neat. Both of them looked straight out of a casting call for Men in Black 3 .
    I walked up to the doors with as much authority as my status in a secret paranormal investigative office held. In response, the two men stepped in front of the doors that led into what looked like a deserted shopping atrium. Neither of them looked very impressed.
    “Can we help you?” the longer-haired one said. I held my ID out to him.
    “We’re with the Department of Extraordinary Affairs,” I said, “in pursuit of a suspect.”
    He took it from me and examined it. Jane was fishing around in the messenger bag she wore strapped across her body and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
    “My bad,” she said. She handed the paper to the larger of the two guards. “Mine’s only provisional for now until I get my honest-to-goodness badge. But it’s legit, I swear.”
    The larger gentleman smiled at her, looked it over, and then took mine from the other guy. He folded them neatly closed and handed them back to us.
    “Sorry,” the bigger guy said. “I’m afraid those won’t work here.”
    “I’m sorry?” I said. That took me aback. I was suddenly pissed. “Weren’t you listening? We’re in the middle of an investigation.”
    “This building here?” he said, gesturing behind him, a bit of rental-cop authority in his voice. “This entire