by Sara King
Tatiana grinned. “I’ve got you. Even better than armor, from what I’ve been told.” Then she elbowed the button for the hatch and, using Magali’s grip on her arm, dragged her through the crowd on the dropship, towards the exit, the striped gray ganshi right on their heels. “Open the gate!” she roared. “Now, you pansy-ass collie bitches! Took three whole tubes of nanos, but now she’s back, and she’s pissed!”
Magali stumbled behind her tiny escort, once again feeling the stares pounding at her from all sides as rugged, full grown men hastily stepped out of the way to let the diminutive cyborg woman and her unwilling burden through.
Then the gate was opening, and snipers were peppering the crack with bullets.
Seeing Tatiana about to take a hit, Magali’s instincts slammed into gear. She yanked the smaller cyborg behind her and drew her weapon, aiming at the ever-widening stream of sunlight. The moment she could see beyond the hull, she located a Nephyr sniper at the top of the building nine hundred feet down the road. She put a beam through the scope lens, then ducked and yanked Tatiana out of the way as his own round went careening past her cheek. She found another sniper on the opposite building, seven hundred and fifty feet away. She shot that one, too, again spinning them both aside before his round hit home. Tatiana, clinging to her, shrieked in what sounded like glee.
“Stay here!” Magali shouted at Tatiana, who had the back of Magali’s shirt in a death-grip. She hesitated at the open ramp, waiting for Tatiana to release her.
“Hell no!” Tatiana laughed back. “I’m buzzed, and this is more fun than I’ve had in weeks!” Her ganshi cub had already lunged out the open hatch and was bounding toward the buildings and the gunmen they were hiding.
Magali cursed, but didn’t have time to worry about that because a squad of sixteen Nephyrs was charging out from behind one of the closest structures, aiming to get at the open hatch and, doubtless, grind up the meat inside.
It was like Magali’s world came to a sudden standstill as, upon seeing those death-dealers on the way to hurt her friends, a secondary set of instincts engaged. Suddenly totally calm, she raised her gun and walked out onto the ramp as she started firing. Nephyrs hit the dirt, sometimes plowing into the ground at her feet, and she stepped over them and kept walking. Atop one of the buildings directly above them, a man with a rifle fired at her, grazing her shoulder. Giving him a split second glance to locate him, Magali shot him in the head, then kept pushing into the bowels of Rath. The resulting thud less than a yard away as his limp body hit the ground made Tatiana squeal and jump.
“You’re like a machine!” Tatiana cried. “God, they told me, but to see it myself is so totally awesome!” She threw back her head and let out a shrieking cackle of glee.
Pausing, Magali spun, grabbed Tatiana by the scruff of her cute pilot’s T-shirt, dragged her close, and said, “The sound of your high-pitched, squeaky voice attracts enemy attention. If you’re going to follow me, you’re going to shut up.” As she spoke, she raised her arm and shot another Nephyr that was running at her, his arms open in a bear-hug. “You compromise this mission because you are high, I will shoot you myself.” The Nephyr went down in a spray of dirt, spattering dust and broken cobbles over Tatiana’s clean, pampered face. He was still alive—the bullet had ricocheted off the skull, but lodged inside his skin, so he started screaming and holding his head, thrashing on the dirt. Magali knelt, grabbed his head by its glassy surface, and twisted it back on itself with an audible pop. The Nephyr went still, only toes and forearms jerking. Then Magali stood, cocking her head at Tatiana. “Understand?”
Swallowing, wiping dirt from her eyes, Tatiana just stared at the dead Nephyr, then up at her, pale as snow.
Taking that for an affirmative, Magali said, “Let’s go.” She turned and started towards the launch pad, which the rebels had determined to be their first priority. Behind the garbage harvester in one of the alleys ahead of them, a man started screaming as the ganshi cub yowled. A moment later, a gunman that had obviously intended to ambush them lunged from the alley, the ganshi trailing him, clawing at his legs. Howling, the man spun and raised his rifle to the cub’s head. Magali put a beam through him before he could pull the trigger, and, as the corpse collapsed, the ganshi lifted its head proudly and padded back to them with its chest puffed out. Captain Eyre didn’t say a word when the kitten rubbed against her leg—shredding her jeans—before bounding back into the fray—she kept looking back at the Nephyr whose neck Magali had snapped.
They met plenty of resistance along the way, but Tatiana trailed behind Magali so silently that Magali had to check a couple times to make sure she was there. Eventually, once they found a quiet moment in the shelter of a Rathian whorehouse only a few blocks from the barracks launch pad, Tatiana said, “You’re not human.”
Magali, who was listening to the sound of six men approaching four hundred and seventeen feet down the street to the north—Nephyrs, by the sound the specialized high-heat combat rubber of their boots made gently padding against the cobbles—turned to frown at Tatiana. “What?”
“You’re not human,” Tatiana whispered. “I don’t know what you are, but it’s not human.”
Remembering Anna always calling her a ‘robot’ whenever she wanted to be hurtful, Magali stiffened, despite herself. “If you’ve been talking to my sister—”
“Mag,” Tatiana said, sounding sorrowful. “I work with machines. I can recognize a goddamn machine when I see one.”
Magali felt every hair on her body stand on end—that, in itself, was proof to her that the woman was full of shit. “Oh yeah? Would a machine have these?” she demanded, jabbing her arm under Tatiana’s face, showing her the goosebumps.
Tatiana glanced down at the goosebumps and looked surprised.
“Just keep your head down,” Magali growled. “Come on.” She stood, and Tatiana rose with her. As Captain Eyre turned to follow Magali from the room, however, Magali caught her by the shirt again and leaned down until their faces almost touched. “And if you ever call me a ‘machine’ again, you little twit, I’ll eviscerate you and leave you for the tadflies.”
Tatiana swallowed, but nodded.
Magali released her disgustedly. “Let’s go.”
“Come on, Babe,” Tatiana called softly, gesturing for the panting ganshi cub to get back to its feet from the impromptu rest-break it was taking in the corner of a table booth. Its face and feet were crimson with enemy blood, though all of its ‘kills’ so far had belonged to Magali. In truth, it had been more helpful in flushing the enemy from their shooting positions like an excited hunting dog than actually neutralizing opponents. One couldn’t have guessed that from the lavish praise Tatiana had given it, however. If the cyborg’s gushings were any indication, Babe had just won the day for the colonists completely on his own merits.
But had they won? Magali still wasn’t sure where they stood in their campaign. The sounds of fighting had slowed in the city around her, and the Nephyrs had stopped climbing out of the woodwork to challenge her over an hour ago, but Magali felt like they’d simply pulled back their forces, readying themselves for another assault. The comm guy was somewhere behind her with the main force, as Magali had taken point to draw the Nephyrs out of hiding.
But had she gotten them all? She listened, heart pounding.
Magali could still hear the six sets of Coalition boots approaching outside—and, while five of them wore standard heat-resistant Nephyr boots, the leader wore a size ten ultralight combat SileTech, made of a softer, more high-tech material than anything they could produce in the Bounds, and usually only available to high-ranking Nephyrs due to the prohibitive cost and onboard tech. Judging from the pattern of stride and crunch of glass as he walked, the Nephyr was a man of approximately six foot two and three hundred and forty-nine pounds, with a slight favoring of his left leg due to a heavy weapon, most likely some form of RPG or energy cannon. The most obvious targets would be his eyes and mouth, because she could hear the unmista
kable hum of electrons powering several energy barriers.
One of the five non-SileTech-wearers shouted, “Intel says the leader’s in there!” A moment later, energy blasts took out one side of the whorehouse, and the front façade collapsed, leaving Colonel Steele and five pissed-off Nephyrs standing there.
As soon as their eyes met, Colonel Steele’s smug face shifted to something akin to shock. Blue eyes locked on her, Steele lowered the energy cannon, contemplating her like a luminescent rat he had caught digging through trash in a back alley. “Well, hello,” he leered. “Where’ve you been, little hen?”
“Shoot him,” Tatiana whispered, leaning close. “That guy’s SuperSquad. Get him.”
But all of Magali’s instincts had fled her, leaving her standing there in horror, remembering being all alone on that cliff, cold Nephyr hands holding her down…
“I’ll be damned,” one of the Nephyrs with him said, tearing his attention away from the sky like the others. “Isn’t that the egger we killed from that revolt at Yolk Factory 14? That’s the leader of the rebellion?”
…the egger we killed… Magali felt cold dread welling up from within, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
Steele chuckled. “Looks like she remembers us.” He cocked his head at Magali. “Ran into your Nephyr boyo back in the Lockbox. That was fun. First challenge in at least a couple weeks.”
“Shoot him,” Tatiana hissed into Magali’s ear.
But Magali’s whole body was shaking, that terror overwhelming her all over again. He got Jersey…
Steele scoffed. “Well, boys, looks like we can end this ‘rebellion’ right now. Grab her. We’re taking her with us to the Orbital.”
Three of the five companions smoothly stepped forward, stalking towards Magali with grim purpose. Magali, for her own part, felt paralyzed, totally incapable of even running away. Her heart was hammering, and once again, she remembered just how much Nephyrs terrified her…
The ganshi’s shrill, high-pitched scream snapped her out of it. It leapt past Magali, silver claws out and splayed wide, and launched itself at the lead Nephyr, its snarl more intense than anything Magali had seen from it before. Before it could fully sink its claws into an opponent, however, the ganshi cub got slapped aside by a dark-faced Steele. It howled and flailed as it hit the ground and skidded uncontrollably across the floor with the sound of metal-on-tile, the momentum bringing it crashing into the wall and knocking it out cold.
“What the fuck?!” Steele snapped, blinking down at deep rakes in his skin. “Is that a… Shit!” As the Nephyr moved forward, clearly intending to stomp the stunned creature, Tatiana started spamming the trigger of Milar’s Laserat at the Nephyr.
“Don’t touch him!” Tatiana screamed, firing ineffectively and before the gun was ready, haphazardly bouncing laser strikes in all directions from Steele’s reflective skin. Faced with that abuse, the gun lost charge in seconds, leaving the cyborg ammo-less and stammering, the whorehouse around them seared and burning. Captain Eyre looked down at her weapon and started hitting it against her thigh, crying, “Shit, shit!”
It had, however, the desired effect. Steele’s attention was back on her, and he had narrowed his eyes. One of the Nephyrs moved forward and reached for Tatiana—
—and, realizing Captain Eyre was about to die, Magali felt something shift within her again. She grabbed the closest Nephyr by the wrist and threw him across the room, to land like a ton of tungsten in the far wall, punching another hole through the brick facade, allowing the sunlight of the street to shine through.
Just as the other Nephyrs were slowing, eyes starting to go wide, Magali grabbed the next one by the head and shoved her knee through his face and out the other side.
Maybe it was the brains decorating her leg, or maybe it was the way the energy barrier of their fallen comrade flickered out, but the third one took a quick step backwards, looking shellshocked. As Magali raised her gun, he shut his eyes.
Magali located the vulnerable, two-millimeter crease where the two matter-and-energy phobic eyelid energy-barriers touched, then put the tip of a bullet between them. The Nephyr went down in a wracking spasm of convulsions. Magali had already raised her gun to take out the next one when Steele hit her from the side and they went down in a tumble of broken couches and end-tables.
“I don’t know why you’re still alive,” Steele snarled, pounding her in the cheeks and temples with glass-hard fists, “but you are done, you little bitch. Done!”
Magali screamed, throwing her hands up ineffectively as the Nephyr began hitting her again and again. She heard Tatiana yelling in the background, but her vision had narrowed to a tiny strip of the Nephyr’s abdomen through the forearms she was using to protect her face. Somehow, she got a leg between them and kicked him off, only to have him roll through the rubble onto the street, get up, and, in a split second, come after her again.
Magali was crawling towards her gun when Steele kicked her hard enough in the chest that she flew across the room and took half of the whoreroom partitions down with her.
“Somebody help her!” Tatiana was screaming in the background. “Help her!”
As Magali was lying on her back, desperately trying to tug the EMP wand from the neck of her boot, Steele dropped to his knees beside her and hit her again, this time straight down with both fists, caving in her chest. Magali felt every bone snap, from her ribs to her sternum to her spine.
“No!” Tatiana shrieked.
Steele grabbed Magali by the throat and snapped her neck, then tossed her aside.
Magali dropped into a crumpled heap against the wall, unable to breathe.
“And you,” Steele said, panting as he got to his feet, facing Tatiana. “Command’s gonna pay a fortune to have you on ice.” He started towards her, a sick smile on his face. “But, since I already missed my evac, I’m gonna have some fun with your traitor ass first.”
I’m gonna have some fun…
Hearing that, one last strand within Magali finally snapped free, releasing a flood of electricity, but one that hit her like a maelstrom, whipping every cell into a frenzy.
Across the room, Tatiana was stumbling backwards, tripping over rubble, but not fast enough to avoid the Nephyr headed for her. Steele reached out, grabbed Tatiana by the throat, and yanked her off her feet.
Magali’s world brightened until every single object was pinprick-sharp, and heat took on a color. Steele’s body became a black, human-shaped void standing in front of Tatiana’s, his arm out, gripping her throat. Inside the two cyborgs, Magali could see every piece of electronics, every tiny nanobot as if it were the size of a moon. And, while Tatiana was utterly filled with electronics, Steele only had a couple augmentations. An advanced liquid-energy generator near his temple, and a communications hub inside one wrist. He carried no nanobots, no cybernetics of any sort, but his cells seemed to be…coated with something that lit up like supernovas in her field of vision. And inside those otherwise normal-seeming cells, there seemed to be a hexagonal structure, an almost crystalline lattice…
Inhuman, came that familiar thought again. Kill it. Kill it before it hurts the human. It was a surge within her, now, a driving force that carried her every thought, a need.
She felt her chest rising, swelling, the broken bones bending, felt the air return to her in a searing rush, knocking rubble aside with the expansion of her lungs.
On the other side of the room, the man-shaped void hesitated, then turned to look at her, the fury on his face quickly shifting to shock.
Magali pulled herself to her feet, sliding up the wall for support. She saw every altered cell in his body, noted every odd connecting node, every microscopic liquid crystalline tendril, every electron.
Inhuman, she thought again, and it came as a verdict of guilt. A sentence of death.
Deep down, she knew, for the first time in her life, that this was what she was meant to kill. Not the humans, not the soldiers with their rifles or the pilots in their Bouncers,
but this.
Steele released Tatiana like she’d caught fire, saying, “What the…” at the same time Tatiana gasped and choked out, “Holy shit.”
Magali yanked the wand from her boot and snapped it out, every nerve raw with the fire coursing through her. “You wanna play rough?” she gasped, her lungs still grating as the bones ground against her organs. “Let’s do it, floater.”
“A robot?” he demanded. “You’re a fucking robot?”
Magali narrowed her eyes. She had expected Steele to run, like any other Nephyr would have, seeing an EMP weapon. Instead, Steele just ducked his head and hit her full-on like a linebacker, driving her across the room and through the wall, into the street outside. As they plowed into the cobbles, people screamed and guns went off. Magali neither felt them nor saw them. The only thing she saw—the only thing she could see—was the man-shaped void pinning her to the ground. Inhuman, her mind kept repeating. Kill.
She hit him with the EMP wand, intending to shut him down.
His skin flickered to a normal, opaque coloration, making him look like a regular human, then flickered back to the glittering translucency of a Nephyr’s energy-barrier. He chuckled and punched her in the face hard enough to break teeth. Magali screamed and hit him with the EMP again and again, to get the same effect, just a holographic flicker of a man’s skin before it disappeared again.
“Keep at it,” Steele shouted, as he punched her in the head, over and over. “Maybe you’ll tickle me to death!”
Magali screamed and kicked outwards, throwing the Nephyr away from her. The electric maelstrom inside her picking up fury, she got to her feet and started towards him.
Still on his back on the cobbles, Steele yanked a gun from his leg holster and, aiming at her stomach, started pulling the trigger. “I know you’ve got a power supply in there somewhere, bitch!” he screamed.
Magali went down to one knee, expecting to feel the blasts carve their way through her innards and out the other side. Instead, it only seemed to energize her. She gasped, looking down at her hands, stunned that there was no blood, that she wasn’t holding her own intestines.
