Crisis mode on!

Assess the fucking situation.

I was in front because I took charge of the group while making the most of my invulnerability to protect the others. And for the safety of my own human body too, obviously. I didn’t dare look behind me to check where my body was positioned. Finlay, the creepy smiling guy, had his eyes on me. All I knew was Vince was pushing the cart. Which means, the kids were near the cart, and hopefully Doms too.

(Doms, are you—)

(I’m beside it. Can you increase my armor?)

(No. We don’t have a corpse for you to use. You’ll just get weaker—)

(Just do it!)

(There’s no use if you can’t move. Calm down. I’m thinking…)

I looked left and right, moving my head as little as possible. Good thing my eyeball had a wide range of vision. My body wasn’t to my sides, so it must be somewhere behind me. If shit went down and these fuckers started shooting, it should be easy for me to shield it.

“Ratty bitch!” Greg said, his voice shaking with fury. He raised his middle finger at Cassandra. “You couldn’t just fuck off and die?”

“Now, now. That’s not a very nice way to talk to your friend,” Finlay said.

“We’re not friends with that sellout!”

“Awww,” he said dramatically, his hand going to his chest with a flourish. “Your friends don’t want you. Isn’t that heartbreaking?”

Cassandra looked down at her feet, grumbling about something.

Finlay grabbed her chin and made her face us. “They are your friends, right?”

“No…?” she answered nervously. “It hurts…please…”

He glowered at her. “I told you to me bring to your friends or else I’ll kill you! Did you bring me to the wrong people?”

“Yes! Yes! They’re my friends.”

What’s all this shit? Why wasn’t he attacking? This guy reminded me of Rofirio, playing around with people for fun. Fucking sick in the head. What was so fun about this? I couldn’t understand this guy. It’s more fun if people don’t know you’re playing with them.

Speaking of Rofirio, this guy must also be one of the mini bosses of the 2Ms, commanding a bunch of grunts Was he an Adumbrae too? Should be. It would be stupid to attack us with just guns even if you got lots of them. At the least an augmented human, although I couldn’t see any heavy augs work done on his body.

“You did good,” Finlay said, patting Cassandra’s head. “It’s nice to be friends with lots of people. I’d also like to be friends with them. Is that okay? How about you introduce me to them?”

“I…uh…I don’t know.”

“Let’s start with that metal man…woman?”

“I’m a lady,” I said, deciding to engage him to buy time to find an opening. “My name’s Pino. Nice to meet you, Finlay.”

“Polite and amiable.” He clapped his hands. “You want to be my friend, Pino?”

How should I respond to this?

Wait a fucking minute…

Was this asshole also buying time? He wasn’t the pillar guy for sure or he would’ve just squished us and taken my human body. Given how pillar guy operated—busting through several floors with no care in the world—he didn’t seem to be the type to show his face and play around. I was sure Finlay was a different person. He must have weak powers, most likely dragging this out while waiting for reinforcements.

Maybe we should attack now and say sorry to those who’d die afterwards?

“I remember you,” Ramon said.

“Pardon?”

“You…you’re the Adumbrae we met!”

“Is that him?” asked Vince. “The one who killed the McKennons? You monster!”

“Monster? That’s such a strong word. I’m hurt.”

“What the hell did you do to them?”

Finlay shrugged. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.” He turned to Cassandra. “You know what they’re talking about?” She awkwardly moved her head, something between a nod and a shake.

“I knocked your helmet off!” Ramon said. “You were wearing full armor like these guys, but I knocked it off. I remember your face.”

Was this enough justification to attack? Rule #7: Don’t do anything that would break the character of the face I had on. Not just face, but I had a literal fucking body I built up to be a hero for all of these people—an Adumbrae on the side of good or whatever. I just couldn’t commit a reckless charge and put all of us in danger even though I was sure we’d win…with casualties. That was blatantly contradictory to my face. Rules, rules, rules.

“Ah! I get it now.” Finlay placed his fist on his palm while snickering. “You must be talking about my twin brother, Calder. He’s the one assigned to guard the way to the rooftop.”

“Twin brother?”

“Yes, my twin.”

“But you look—"

Finlay rolled his eyes. “Identical twins. That’s how it works. And we’re wearing different clothes. You won’t find me in crass combat gear. I don’t have the barbaric fashion sense of my brother, thank goodness.”

“You didn’t kill—?”

“We haven’t met before. I’ve seen you guys only through the screens of the security room. Although, I saw my brother did a number to your group.”

“You’re right,” Benitez answered gruffly, his grip tightened on his shotgun, his finger hovered by its trigger. He stared down the barrel. “He killed many of us.”

“I was polite enough not to shoot. Now, you’re going to shoot me?”

Doms said, “Let’s all calm down.”

Scratch that then. I needed some other reasonable justification. The longer this Finlay asshole dicked around, the more I became certain he was buying time, and the more my instincts told me to attack. Doms only had a thin layer of armor, and Paolo wasn’t transformed. But I had Ramon on my side. Finlay shouldn’t be as powerful as the pillar dude. He was probably, at the most, a couple of levels stronger than Rofirio. Come on, just order your men to shoot us, I prayed in my head. Make this easy for me.

“What did you say?” Finlay snapped at Cassandra. “Speak up so your friends can hear you!”

Cassandra flinched when he shouted at her. “Will you let me go now? You promised…”

“Yes, I did. I nearly forgot!” He snapped his fingers and two of his men grabbed her.

“Ha? Ow, let me go!”

“I got too distracted making friends, but you’re right. I’m sorry for that. We should finish our business first.”

“What are you doing to her?” Benitez said. He pushed away Ramon’s arm holding him back and pointed his gun at Finlay.

“Don’t be stupid and do anything rash!” Samantha hissed at him.

“We could all die here,” added Doms from somewhere behind me.

“I know, okay? I know. But we can’t just wait for them to kill us.”

Go on and shoot, I pleaded in my head. It would’ve been the perfect opportunity for me if he did.

Finlay took something out the breast pocket of his pin-striped dress shirt. “A parting gift for a friend.” It was a small vial with a wiggling thing inside.

“Is that—?” Ramon exclaimed. “You’re going to turn her into a monster!”

Nice! My much-needed heroic justification. Plans, plans. How should this fight go? I recalled my encounter with the other goons in the elevator. Who should I try to control? This Finlay guy? Then he’d immediately know about my power. I'd be fucked if he shook me off right at the start. Or maybe I should first take over like two of his men—What the fuck?

“Is that what you’re going to do?” Cassandra said, trying to pull away. “No! Please!”

“Stop that!”

“Why? I’m only doing what I promised to you.”

“That’s bullshit!” Benitez said.

I agree, this is bullshit. How the fuck did I not notice all the other guys had no green color covering their bodies? Or any color at all, not even the grey color of dead bodies. Did I get too used to the green colors that I just zoned them out?

“This isn’t what you promised!”

“I promised to let you go. But if I let you leave as you are, you’ll just get eaten by monsters somewhere out there. I have to do this so they won’t eat you—”

“Just let me be! Please!”

“Ramon,” Benitez said, “we’ll just let this shit happen?”

Some kind of robots? I tried shooting the two at the left end of their formation and my blue thread wouldn’t even come out of my finger. The 2Ms legit had the money to buy and deploy these? I mean I knew they were rich, but these seemed to be a waste; better just get some humans and tweak them.

“Wha-what are we going to do?” Ramon said.

“Nothing,” said Finlay. “You’ll be doing nothing.”

“Why you—!”

“Ben, don’t do it.” Vince grabbed his arms and pushed the gun down.

“Just calm down!” Samantha said. “Do you want us all to die?”

“Yes, Ben, my buddy,” Finlay said, stressing the name with a mischievous grin. “Ben, don’t do it. I know your name now, Ben. We’re friends now.”

“Friends my ass!”

Hmmm…I couldn’t shoot any of them. Were they all really robots? I couldn’t recall any robot guarding the underground arena. If the 2Ms had military-grade combat robots, they would’ve posted them there. Sure, they had ComExos, but those had human pilots. If not robots, then this must be Finlay’s power. How strong were these things?

“Don’t shoot me, Ben. I’m your friend.” Finlay waved his arm and gestured to his men. “Our other friends will shoot you back.”

(Pino! Can you hear me?) Paolo said.

“We’re all friends here, Ben.”

(I need power to fight.)

(Ah, there’s no body—)

(I’ll run back the hallway and find one.)

(Pino, we should do something!) This time it was Doms.

(Wait…I’m—) The two of them kept on talking inside my head. I ignored them, concentrating my eye on the fake humans. Nothing else? Something more than knowing they were puppets creations of Finlay.

Cassandra began screaming her head off, trying to escape with all her might. The two men beside her held her up. She kicked wildly, even hitting Finlay who was just laughing. Her shadow beneath her reflecting her desperate struggle to escape. Shadow… shadows!

“He’s dragging this out,” Greg said. “Just turn her into a monster! We don’t care about that bitch.”

"Greg, shut up."

“Please don’t do it—Aaaah!

(Pino! Are you listening?)

Finlay tipped the vial into Cassandra's screaming mouth and held it shut.

(Doms, wait a bit. I’m thinking of a plan.)

“There we go,” he said. “Release her.” The guards let go and she fell to the floor. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

Cassandra harshly coughed like she was going to spit out her lungs. She tried to claw inside her mouth and ended up vomiting. Everyone was silent, watching what was going to happen next.

"You're now safe...I think," Finlay said. "You're good to go. Back to your friends, or you can—”

Before he finished what he was saying, Cassandra fled down the stairs.

“Oh, so she didn’t want to go with you guys.” Finlay sighed with a contented smile even wider than before. “I'll try to collect her later if she turns into an interesting specimen."

(Don’t react), I said to Ramon, Doms, and Paolo. (Don’t let him notice I’m talking to you inside your head. Most of his men are illusions.)

(Illusions?) Ramon said.

(How did you know?) asked Doms.

(He’s just bluffing us? Let’s fight!)

All three of them were talking in my head. (Shut up all of you! Listen to me. They have no shadows!) Which was also why they didn’t have any color coating them. They weren't all real. But some were.

“Now, let’s continue on,” Finlay said.

“What do you want with us?” Greg said. “We don’t have anything. Are you going to kill us?”

“Turn us to monsters, more like,” Benitez murmured.

(The two that grabbed Cassandra are real. The three kneeling in front of Finlay, the ones forming a triangle, those are real too.) They bombarded me with questions, like could the illusions shoot, and how do we make them disappear. The hell should I know? (Those five are not human. I don't know what they are.)

“Right, Pino?” Finlay said, raising his voice.

“Yes? Or no…What was the question?” I continued planning. (We just focus on those five and Finlay—)

“I was asking about Erind. Is that her wrapped with the blanket?”

“We know what you want with her!” Benitez said.

“You do?” Finlay said with genuine surprise in his voice.

“It is Erind!” I said, drowning out Benitez. Let’s not reveal my lie. “Yes, Erind is here. She’s here. Yes.” I was continuing to make discuss with the other three inside my head. It was hard because they had differing definitions of ‘acceptable casualties’ and I was talking to them separately.

“A bit distracted there, aren’t you, friend?”

“No. So you want Eri—”

“I saw you doing something with your fingers earlier,” he said with a smirk. “And you seemed awfully quiet too.”

“It’s rude to interrupt,” I said. (Guys! Shut up. We can’t save everyone. But we should act now.)

"Don't you dare point your finger at me, Pino. I don't like that."

"What are you talking about?"

“And you’re right.”

“Huh? About what?”

“I'm not sure, but there’s something weird with your eye. You probably have already seen through me and figured out my secret.”

Shit. We should attack—

“I pee in the shower.”

“What?”

“And most of these are illusions.”

“Run!”

“Fire.”

"The children!" Benitez screamed before he got riddled with bullets.

Screams and gunfire. Aiyani’s head exploded, splattering me with blood. Greg tried to protect her, not noticing his girlfriend died instantly. Ramon charged at Finlay. I turned around, hugged everyone I could and pushed them to the hallway. Shield my human body, all of you!

"I'll kill you!" Ramon cried out.

Finlay was laughing behind us.

Everyone tumbling over everyone else as all tried to get out. I saw Doms was the first to run out the hallway while carrying Lizzie. Even though I shielded some of them with my metal body, most were still hit. No one was pushing the cart. The white blanket turned red. I didn’t know who was still alive. I picked up the cart and followed Doms, pushing it over somebody on the ground.

“Run! Just run!” I said.

“Lizzie!” Doms cried from further ahead. Her body slammed against the wall.

A man blocked our path. He was holding Lizzie.

He had the same face as Finlay.

The same annoying smile.

“Hi, I'm Calder. What’s the rush, guys?”