CHAPTER SIXTEEN—Items on Display

May cringed forward as the explosion in the next lab over sent the window shattering atop her. Widening her eyes and glancing back quickly, she screamed, “Kyle!”

Lasers scored the wall in front of her, making her flinch from the sudden hot reaction. She turned, lifted her assault rifle back over the work bench and squeezed off half a dozen shots.

Shit!

“John! I think Kyle’s in trouble.”

“Kyle, are you all right?” he asked over the coms. He fired off a hot fusillade of lasers. “Kyle!” John called again. “Are you all right, little guy?”

“That’s sure to get his attention…” May added sardonically as she put her back to the work bench.

More lasers came out of the hallway in her direction, but she was rather safe behind this, unless they lobbed some grenades of fired a rocket at her.

*

Kyle gritted his teeth at the pain in his shin. Through his pants, blood dripped onto the tiles. He tried to apply pressure on the wound, but he had no bandages or tourniquets.

Now for good measure the fingerless black-leather tactical gloves he kept in his pocket—the ones he was wearing now—were slick with his own blood as he gripped the repeater.

“Kyle?!”

“Yeah!” he bellowed frustratedly. “I’m fine. Just took a bit of shrapnel from”—he grunted—“from that grenade.”

“Is it bad?” May asked. “I’m coming over.”

He laid back and lifted his repeater, firing in the general direction of the door. “I’m--“ He grunted again at the deep pain in his leg. It felt like fire coursing up his leg. The pain came and went, throbbing like migraine in his bones. “It might be a little bad.”

“Shit!” May said, the tension in her voice clear.

“Hold tight,” John said. “We’re on my way.”

“No!” Kyle snapped through his teeth, then he fired off another burst of lasers through the wall. “I can handle myself. Besides—you’ll get shot in the back if you come over here.”

I can’t let them die for me.

If Kyle had to, he would hold this room and keep May and John from being flanked if he had to fight through a dozen shrapnel wounds and a cauterized laser hole in his chest.

He didn’t yet have that cauterized laser hole in his chest, which was good.

Without any more grenades, he couldn’t hold them off much longer. They were going to do something about him in this lab room.

This was not good.

Dammit, Lexa!

Though Kyle doubted that an android, even with guns, could do much to help them out in this situation right now.

*

Lexa’s new body was strong—far stronger than that of a normal human being. Before leaving the Alpha Eve labs, she had Administrator Cho end the lockdown. Then she put him I secure test room, locking him in from the outside.

Even with his magic, he wouldn’t be able to get out of that since his abilities weren’t kinetic in nature, that much she knew from his file—unless he managed to hide that aspect of his abilities. But then, why would he?

This chamber had all manner of experimental weapons. As a sentient AI, Lexa was now housed in an organic body, albeit, with machine functions. She connected to the weapons test console to preview the results of the various firearms.

One stood out to her.

A silver sword constructed like a latticework. There were tubes and wires and a power source. The weapon was designed to give the wielder protection against oncoming projectiles.

It seemed like nothing new to her.

But what was different was that this weapon could manipulate the energy frequencies of energy shields and avoid them all together. That, and the blade also functioned as a mobile BD-S unit, protecting the wielder.

She pulled the sword off of the test rack and hefted it.

To a normal man, it might have been a little heavy. But to her with her newly acquired body and its cybernetic enhancements, the weapon was as light as a feather.

Still completely naked, she left the restricted weapons testing center and started making her way toward the other engineering labs where John and the others were fighting the Invera-Tech agents.

It wasn’t long before she managed to escape the restricted section completely.

Lexa was still unaccustomed to moving her physical weight across the tiles. It was less about physical ergonomics and more the physical sensation of actually striding about the complex. The weight of her breasts in particular baffled and surprised her. She cupped one and looked down at it.

Just then a squeak of shoes distracted her and she glanced up as two Invera-Tech employees crossed paths with her. They looked at her with wide eyes and ran, doing a double take as they went.

She needed some clothes.

Glancing about, she found dozens of androids on display—all of them wearing various styles of extremely provocative clothing.

They would suit her current needs—not that she actually required the clothes, but she felt…. frigid?

Cold?

She stalked to the android with the least revealing costume—a short leather top with a jacket to match. She was also wearing short shorts and stockings with a garter belt and flashy silver-topped shoes with thick black treads.

Kyle is going to have something to say about this…

Once she had finishing putting the items on, she glanced toward her left as the sound of something rocked the building, echoing through the halls. An explosion?

*

This is concerning…

Actually, he had been concerned before. Now John was alarmed if anything else. Lexa hadn’t returned and it seemed to him the Anarchos were on their last leg—quite literally in Kyle’s case.

He wasn’t certain Lexa could help right now anyway.

She wouldn’t even have a weapon.

And then there was Kyle. Despite his thin stature, the shorter Anarcho had more bluster—more of an ego. Often he was so lackadaisically nonchalant, nothing alarmed him. If he said it was bad—then things were really bad.

A tube-like grenade slid across the tiles.

Ducking, he bellowed, “Flash!”

Just before it popped John squeezed his eyes shut and opened up his mouth. The concussive force of the flash grenaded was meant to disorient. With ringing hears and hurting teeth, John lifted his sub-machine gun over the work bench and waited for movement.

A handheld body shield was projected forward as multiple men in black BDUs forced their way into the room.

John opened up on them, his lasers deflecting off of their energy shields as five men charged him. They fired electrified bolts at him—one striking John in the left arm, sending fiery tendrils of pain through his entire shoulder. It knocked his entire arm out of commission. He fired his sub-machine gun one-handed, but then another bolt struck him in the chest and he went down.

*

Firing fully automatic, Kyle’s repeater was starting to get so hot his hands were burning. If he kept bleeding out, he was going to lose consciousness.

Maybe he could cauterize his wound?

Another grenade knocked into the room and he cringed.

Suddenly his body took on a sudden impact from all sides and wet, foaming liquid enveloped his entire body.

“What the fuck?!”

He pulled the trigger and his weapon screamed out hot death, but he hit nothing, because he couldn’t seem to pull his arms down.

Kyle couldn’t move his neck.

He was stuck!

The liquid surrounding him had hardened?

“May—I’m down!”

*

Shitfuckshitshit!

She saw John go down from the edge of her peripheral vision as the shield bearers charged her. She fired at them as they advanced inexorably upon her.

“May—you’re on your own!”

Her weapon ran out of charge and she snapped the trigger back three more times, then tossed her rifle at the shield bearer closest to her with a heavy grunt of effort.

As she pulled out her sidearm, she was hit in the chest with something and she shook convulsively as little tendrils of electricity enveloped her.

She fell, the pinching knives all about her stabbing in every part of her body. She screamed and then it suddenly stopped.

Breathing heavily, she pushed her forehead into the tiles for relief as a piece of glass cut her.

She heard herself moan painfully, but it almost seemed like it was coming from another woman beside her.

“Sh—shi....”