Britt squinted at the object. It was rectangular in shape, about the size of a deck of cards, and the way it turned in Miller’s grasp made it seem heavy for its size. It had a gunmetal shell that glinted in the fluoros, which coated its entire frame save for a matted interface that made up one of the broader sides, and one tiny data port on what could only have been the base. Miller’s hand trembled as he held it out for all to see. “What the heck is that?”

“A fail-safe,” Miller explained. “A copy of the interface’s initialization protocol, with a bare-bones operating system just strong enough to launch it. Completely separate from the tower, completely off the network. No matter how strong someone’s connection is this bad boy can cut them off.” He spared a smirk towards Rauch, acknowledging him for the first time since he’d had started raving about the holo. “Bet you didn’t know I had this tucked away, did you?”

You think that’s going to make a difference? Rauch squawked. I also didn’t know you had a cockroach up your ass either, but it’ll do about as much! I’ve got the whole of the Tower at my disposal! You think you’re going to take me down with that piece of scrap-heap silicon? His holo showed a comical image of the referenced insect making a home in Miller’s colon, sipping a coffee and reading a newsfeed from an easy chair, but beneath that there was nervousness. The Rauches bent on killing slowed, their resolve for vengeance somewhat slaked. Their attacks struck only glancing blows. You guys are pathetic!

“Uh-huh,” Miller mumbled. He unraveled a dimeteroid cable, which he had also extracted from the locker, and plugged one end into the dataport at the base of his device. “Little help with the panels? The port for this kind of thing is hidden behind one of them. I forget which one.”

“Sure.” Britt and the girl both made for the Tower. Britt beat her by a step. He and Miller knelt beside the access panels and began popping the catches on the first two as the girl looked over their shoulders.

That’s when Rauch saw his chance.

He lurched to one side, picking two of his chair’s legs off the floor. He teetered there for a fraction of a second, balanced on the other two, then gave it a final twist and fell, crashing to the floor. There was an audible pop as his shoulder separated. His holo exploded with novae of yellows and whites. The girl rushed over to tend to him, but he kicked her legs out from under her. She fell to the floor with a scream and a thud. Rauch squirmed forward, up the back of the chair, and used the extra inches afforded by his dislocated shoulder to lift his wrists clear of its frame. He levered them up and over his head, grimacing in pain. The open joint of his shoulder ground awkwardly against the floor as he brought them down into his lap. He kicked again as Britt approached, followed closely by Miller. He missed, but was able to use the momentum of his kick to effect a sort of side-situp, then leveraged the frame of the overturned chair to hoist himself into a crouch. He exploded upwards into Britt, who was just regaining his balance after dodging Rauch’s kick. Britt caught it full in the chin from the crown of Rauch’s head. He crumpled, pinning the girl’s legs underneath him as he fell. Rauch stumbled back a step, a little dazed himself, then rounded on Miller, holding his bound wrists and dislocated shoulder off to one side, as if to swing them like a club. His holo fizzled for a moment, then resolved into a single image of himself beating Miller to a bloody, mercy-begging pulp with this new appendage, which in the holo had taken on the distinct appearance of a wooden mallet. His face was flecked with spittle in the image, his mouth open in a bloodlust-ridden howl of abandon. Violets and deep, fiery reds owned the scene.

Miller took a defensive stance. His holo showed a feral cat, its back and tail thick with horripilation, flicking its head this way and that, as if searching for a predator it knew was there but wasn’t sure what it was. Beneath that concern for the girl, and, to a lesser extent, for Britt. He spared a glance at the two of them. The girl was struggling underneath Britt, who was out cold. She had managed to free one leg and was using it to kick his body off the other. She didn’t seem to have suffered any serious injury.

Stay down, Miller mouthed.

Rauch breathed. A clump of sweaty hair dangled in front of his eyes as he stared at Miller from the semi-crouch his shoulder demanded. “We…can…fix…it,” he hissed.

“We can’t,” Miller said, almost pleadingly. A pained look sagged his face. “It’s just too big a risk.”

Rauch charged.

He came in low, leading with his good shoulder aimed at Miller’s gut. Miller tried to side-step the rush and strike a blow on the back of his opponent’s neck, but Rauch threw an elbow out and caught him in the ribs, shifting laterally to drive it home. The force of the blow spun Miller partway around and robbed his counter of all its force; it landed on Rauch’s shoulder instead, not hard enough to force him to the ground as intended, but still enough to make him yelp as fresh jolts of pain arced through his torso. His face was an animal mixture of panic and rage as he stepped back, away from Miller’s body, and swung his hands in a compact arc, trying to land a blow to the side of Miller’s head. Miller ducked and backed away, not wanting to get into a grappling match with the younger, stronger Rauch, then jumped back again as Rauch sought him with the backstroke of the same attack. Miller held his arms in front of him to ward off any further swings as he re-established his position. He clearly wasn’t practiced in the art of combat, but he seemed to sense that distance was his ally in this fight, with Rauch down to a single limb.

They circled each other, once, then twice. Rauch feinted to the left, then to the right, testing to see how Miller would defend. He never stopped working the bandages. They had loosened as he struggled, but not enough to free himself. He’d gained an extra inch or so of separation as he slid his wrists against each other, and that was all. For now.

The girl freed herself of the burden that was Britt. Both Rauch and Miller noticed as she shoved her boss’s lifeless bulk off her leg and tottered to her own two feet. Rauch, savaged though he was, realized his time was short if he wished to fight them singly, and advanced on Miller once again.

“NO!” he screamed. “That tower is MINE!!!”