6

The guard’s breaths were punctuated with small chuckles. His eyes flared with never-before-seen brightness, as if someone had opened him up like a pumpkin and lit the candle inside, and for a moment Luna thought she had been staring into the face of the Devil.

“Any last words, you hacking bitch?” he spat, his voice hoarse with anger.

Luna didn’t think she had any left in her; the situation had unfolded so quickly, went bump U-turn in a fraction of a second, and it was like, as the old saying went, a cat had caught her tongue.

“No?” the man said eerily. “Makes my life easier then.” He wrapped his finger around the trigger, squeezed the butt against his armpit, and in what felt like slow motion, began to cock it.

The gun would fire, the bullet would slice through her skull and, she supposed, cure her of this nasty soLong virus. She would reunite with her mother in heaven, if there even was a heaven. In the final seconds she had left, she considered – hoped – there had been.

Then she remembered… the phantom pistol. The X-45 Phantom Pistol she’d taken for the trip, the one she had stolen from the guard at The Witch’s Inn almost two weeks ago. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten about it, and when she ran a hand over her pocket, the suit’s rib compartment, sure enough, she could feel it.

How could she forget?

“Wait!” she shouted, though it came out as a squeak.

The man lowered the weapon slightly, giving her a glaring look. “What?”

“I can make you rich,” she said. “Very rich.”

He laughed loudly. “I don’t doubt that, I don’t!”

“No!” she shouted again. “I mean ten million dollars richer. You won’t have to work here ever again.”

His grin disappeared, slowly, and was replaced with a flat line. “Go on,” he said. “But make any sudden movements and you’re dead. I’ve got eyes like a hawk.”

She swallowed hard and shook her head, pointing at Vanderman. “See him?”

“I ain’t turnin’,” the man snapped. “Get to the point, how can you or him make me ten million zeds?”

Her brain cogitated, twisted and spiralled in a desperate attempt to lie. “He owns a set of Tier-1 Power Suits, each worth five million in cold cash.”

“Really?” he said with a disbelieving laugh. “What make?”

“MiliTech,” she said. “Designed by Glitch himself.”

Now he looked intrigued. “Glitch? Glitch made ’em?”

“Yes he did,” she lied. “He put them on the black market. I heard that Rick Steel likes everything Tier-1: weapons, machines, armour… suits….”

“Yeh, he does,” the man said. “They call him the Power Hoarder. But how does this make me rich exactly?”

“That man right there.” She pointed at Vanderman again. “He had them, plans to sell ’em to MiliCorp.”

The man sneered. “Those bastards? They can make ’em themselves.”

She shook her head again, heart thumping in her chest. Her skin was dry now, the sweat evaporated. “Not without Glitch,” she said. “He retired. In fact, Glitch is the one who offered the Power Gauntlets to Rick Steel.”

“I know that,” he said, lowering the weapon even further. “So you’re sayin’ Glitch has somethin’ he’s been hidin’ from us? A whole suit to go with these gauntlets?”

She almost spat out an insincere yes, but disciplined herself, remembering to be cautious. “Must be. He might be working on something big, but Vanderman, that man right behind you…. He has them, he stole them, and it’s the reason Glitch is after us.”

“Glitch is after you?”

She gulped and nodded. Did she make a mistake by telling him that? She wasn’t sure, but she went with it, not a quaver in her tone. “Yes. Has been for sometime.”

“So why haven’t you sold ’em yet?” The man stepped towards her.

Vaguely, Luna’s eye caught a twitch from Vanderman’s body. He slowly moved his arms to his face. His haptic suit had disabled, exposing his sweaty fauxhawk, bloody nose, and blotchy skin.

Luna flicked her eyes up to the man again. “It’s hard to explain but… it was very recent. We didn’t want to jump right into it in case – ”

“You were caught by Glitch,” the man finished.

A moment of silence, and then Vanderman became fully conscious. He looked first at her and then at the guard.

Numbly, Luna nodded. “Yes…” she squeaked.

The man hummed, then started clicking his tongue hollowly. “I dunno…. You either a convincin’ yarner or a woman who stumbled into the Legion’s underbase lookin’ to steal somethin’ valuable.”

Shit.

He cocked the rifle again and that devilish grin returned. “I ain’t no fool,” he said. “Although I admit, you had my interest there for a second, but bringing up Glitch was a big fuckin’ mistake, you whore – ”

“Hey – !” a voice shouted.

The man turned, startled.

Vanderman staggered forward and drove the butt of his machine gun into the man’s forehead. Back he went, and the rifle fired.

Luna whipped her phantom pistol from her pocket, aimed at the man’s head, and with a quick PHUT! blew his brains against the panel. A splash of reddish pink.

At first he fell to his knees, as though he still had some spark left in him, but then he dropped his weapon and fell forward, lifeless. Luna hurried over to Vanderman, who was leaning against the wall, kneading his head.

“You alright?” She placed a hand on his shoulder, catching her breath.

“I’m fine.” He craned his neck and wrenched his shoulders, gritting his blood-stained teeth. “Bastard threw me like a ragdoll.”

She almost made a joke – that Vanderman should have listened to her when she said the people with the most upgrades survived the longest – but she stopped herself, thankful that they were both okay.

At least, for the time being.

Static came from Luna’s ear-piece, now more muffled than ever, and through it she could barely make out Liz’s voice:

“ – guards – ” Static. “ – tunnel – ” More static. “ – camera – ”

“What?” Luna opened up the camera system on her MD, looked for the nearest corridor, and…

She saw guards, three of them to be precise, all heading their direction. In fact, she could now hear their footsteps approaching in the distance. Loud, clanking thumps, and weapons bobbing in their arms.

“Luna.” Vanderman pulled the cable from the haptic suit’s wrist compartment – the same cable needed to recharge it at the electrical stations – and plugged it into the man’s neural port on the floor. “Copy the other guy. I’ll talk us out of this. Now!”

She wasted no time. She ran over to Richie’s dead body, snapped an image of his shredded face, and uploaded it to the suit’s cloud storage. From there, she navigated to and selected . Slowly the fibres along her suit began to stir. They passed a strange electrical current across her body, and then copied Richie, all the way from his corpse-like head to his torn cargo jeans.

At the same time, Vanderman transformed into the guard, only now he had a large hole in his forehead.

They pulled the bodies up to the bottom step and made sure they were facedown.

Soon enough, the guards from the cameras stormed through the glass doorway, each with a rifle in hand.

“Richie! Dick!” the front guard said. “What the fuck happened? Was that gunfire?”

Vanderman balled his fists and scowled. “Bastards thought they could sneak past me!” Surprisingly, he managed to mimic the man’s voice pretty well. Must have come from years of practising different accents to hide his identity.

“Who?” The guard recoiled, suddenly realising. “Christ, Dick, you have a bullet in your brain!”

“I’m fine,” Vanderman said, coughing. “Takes more than a bullet to kill me.”

Luna didn’t notice this until now, but the back of his head had been blown to pieces, revealing an empty space inside. If the guards saw that, then they would no doubt grow suspicious.

The man in front looked over Vanderman’s shoulder at Luna, screw-eyed. “Jesus Christ, Richie! You look like a corpse! How the fuck are you two alive?”

“Benefits of gene-hacking,” said Vanderman. “Makes me damned near invincible, I tell ya.” He craned his neck again, and Luna couldn’t take her eyes off the hole at the back of his head.

The guard looked even further beyond Vanderman’s shoulder, right at the corpses. He took a step past him, and then Vanderman stopped him with an open palm.

“I got it,” Vanderman said.

“You sure?” the guard said.

“Just get back to work,” Vanderman said.

There he is being ballsy again.

“I’ll clean up this shit,” he continued. “After all, I’m the one that caused it.”

The guard shrank away. “You might need to head to medbay, Dick. You too Richie.”

“You’re right, but not now. We need a minute.” Vanderman kneeled to pick up Dick’s rifle. “Christ, smells like death in here.”

The guard neighed, flabbergasted. “Alright, well… guess we’ll head back boys. Dick and Richie are apparently some modern-day Jesus or somethin’.”

“Gene-hacking.” Vanderman tapped his forehead. “Getcha some gene-hacking.”

The group hurried away into the tunnels, leaving Luna and Vanderman alone.

Quietly, Vanderman walked over to Dick’s corpse and searched through his pockets. He pulled out a ring of keys, a butane lighter, and a box of cigarettes. He tossed the keys to Luna and she caught them shakily.

“Have faith in me,” he grinned.

“We can’t keep relying on luck like this – ” she began.

He shushed her. “Not so loud.”

“Sorry,” she said. Then, after a moment, she added: “I’m just glad we’re alive.”

“You’re very pleasant for someone who just stared death in the face and lived.” He thumbed a cigarette from the box. “Smoke?”

She shook her head.

“Might help you fit in more. You sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said, tightening her grip on the phantom pistol.

He popped the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He snapped the lighter shut and stuffed it in his pocket. “You okay to go?”

“Yeah.” She holstered her pistol. She went to pick up Richie’s rifle but stopped, feeling a burst of pain shoot through her shoulder. The bullet wound. She hadn’t even noticed the inky flow of blood rivering down her arm. The adrenaline must have held the pressure back a great deal. She groaned.

Vanderman looked back at her, puffing smoke. “You okay?”

“I got shot,” she said.

“Where?”

“My shoulder.” She leaned on the wall, feeling the rush of wind from the busted ventilation duct. She winced again.

“Hold on.” He walked over to her. “I’m gonna need you to hold still, alright?”

“What are you – ?”

He pulled out the package of cigarettes, unrolled one, and tamped her wound with the tobacco. He brought the lighter up to the wound and lit it.

FWOOM!

She threw her head back and shrieked. The tobacco went up in flames, burning her. Vanderman held her steady, telling her to relax, and she did – tried to, at least.

She stopped screaming and looked at the hole. Before she knew it the wound had been sealed by a patch of solidified ash.

Vanderman bent down, grabbed Dick’s jackknife, and cut a thin sheet of cloth from his pants. He came back over and wrapped it around Luna’s patch. “Better?”

“Still hurts like hell,” she said.

“That’ll happen.” He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “C’mon. We got a woman to snap. Silica, was it?”

She nodded, kneeled, picked up Richie’s rifle, and stood. “The woman with red hair.”

“That’s the one.” He began making his way up the stairs.

And she followed him, keys in hand, still shocked that she managed to live through that, and wholly grateful that there was some sort of luck on her side.