Uri was grateful to return to solid ground, though gagging was not the best way to show it. With the android there, his fate of dying from being knocked down in midair had changed to dying with his feet on the ground. Death, after all.

He peered through the trees and saw, about six hundred feet away from him, the terrible car accident caused by the truck brought down by the energy ball. The fire painted the edges of the park with its flickering light. A column of smoke rose in the night. There were cries for help and, in the distance, the siren of ambulances and firefighters coming to the rescue.

I’m sorry. I saved my head, and without wanting to I sacrificed yours, Uri thought, though at that moment he cared more about what would happen to him than the accident victims, and he was not ashamed to admit how selfish his sense of self-preservation was. He saw a crowd coming from different parts to check on the accident and wanted to ask them for help. But if he screamed, no one would hear him with such noise; and if someone did, it wouldn’t help him against a machine that threw lightning from his hands and could fly. The protection Juzo could offer had to do for him.

Juzo stepped in front of Uri and repeated his offer to Broga, “Let’s put this confrontation aside.”

“He won’t!” Uri said. “You already said it! He’s an automaton, he’ll continue until he completes the task he’s programmed for!”

There they heard a hum that grew louder and louder until it became a hiss like that of an airplane’s turbines. More thrusters, Uri knew. And just as he expected, two new figures descended from the sky, with those metal rectangles stretched out behind their backs, and then stopped above the treetops, behind Broga.

Hold it! Those two were wearing military uniforms similar to Juzo’s. They were allies?

No. Juzo kept a face too long for them to be the cavalry. These must be the mercenaries that had come with Broga.

The gloom made it difficult to see them well, but Uri could tell that one had a mustache, and the other—Well, the other was difficult to go unnoticed. He was such a huge guy with such long, muscular arms that Uri was terrified just thinking about the damage he could do if he fell on him. That muscles container must have weighed almost four hundred pounds; the resistance of those thrusters had to be outstanding to withstand such a giant man and not be fuming.

Each thruster wing revealed a cannon on its end.

Please make this a bad dream! Please! Uri begged the gods to be on duty; no god answered him. That night there was no god in his favor. Then he reached to Juzo’s waist, ready to hold on to his belt in case he tried to repeat the strategy from before and project himself into the sky like the devilish human bullet from a circus. They only had a single active thruster left, they wouldn’t get very far like that, but they could at least evade a few shots.

However, Juzo focused on something else. His eyes went from Broga to mercenaries and from mercenaries to Broga. He didn’t let frustration touch his face. Spread his legs, outstretched his arms, stiffened his fingers. He looked like a cowboy soldier about to draw a pair of pistols.

There was a flash from the thrusters, and the cannons fired bright halos that hit the ground with a thud, kicking up columns of dirt and grass. Juzo didn’t move. Uri remained stunned and splattered with grime. Not even a nearsighted person would have missed a shot at such a close range; if those rings of light had not impacted them, it was because the mercenaries only wanted to intimidate them. A fine job, as far as Uri was concerned.

Juzo contracted his fingers again, activating the implant in his wrists, and revealed a glowing Fotia in each hand. He fired them. The mercenaries moved aside and let them pass. Assuming those two were just a distraction and Broga was the real danger, he readied other grenades. The mercenaries spat out a stream of laser rings and Juzo fired his Fotias at them, never taking his eyes off Broga. He contracted his fingers, once, twice, formed the sphere of power and threw it. Contracted his fingers, once, twice, formed the sphere of power and threw it. He kept the mercenaries away but attentive to Broga, who stood still with his only eye shining like a little red star, glued to them, waiting for the first slip-up to move forward.

Unfortunately, Juzo made a serious mistake. He underestimated the power of fear and thought Uri would act with common sense and stay behind him.

Having seen the gunshots hit them faster and faster and exploded closer and closer, Uri wanted to step aside, but his legs moved on their own accord and they broke into a run. He crossed the hills of the park, turning his back on his pursuers, and fled, heading down the street. Once he got to that street—which he saw getting closer and closer to—he would climb aboard the first car to stop, or perhaps he could hide in the first building he could get into. It didn’t matter. The important thing now was to run and not stop. Don’t stop until he leaves the park and hides. Or until he gets shot in the back and his life ends.

“Come back, you idiot!” Juzo yelled at him.

Broga turned in Uri’s direction. He had him in his sights, and it was a matter of seconds before he had him under his feet. The red sparkle in his eye pulsed as if to say, ‘I’ve got you.’

Juzo cursed his luck and unfolded the propelling wing he had left—the whistle of its turbine sounded. His intention was not to fly, just to jump in and get between Broga and Uri.

And there he made a mistake much worse than the previous one: he neglected his rear.

The mustached mercenary proved that he didn’t need the thruster weapons to attack. He raised his hand, contracted his fingers, once, twice, created a ball of energy, and fired it.

Already in the air, Juzo’s thruster, along with the small device from which it emerged, evaporated into a hundred silver bright sparks that splattered across the park along with scraps of the uniform and a stream of blood.

Uri recognized Juzo’s moan and regained some control over himself. He halted; the soles of his sneakers scraped the lawn. He turned and saw how Juzo was getting knocked down like a bird hit by a stone. What had he done! The only person who could have defended him had fallen, and he was partially responsible.

Juzo tried to get up again, but using a lot of effort, he barely got to his knees.

Uri felt like he was choking. Despair was about to rip his heart out. The whirring of the thrusters caught his ears. He didn’t need to look up to know those bastards were above him. He heard them laugh, mocking him. So, he let himself be driven by the courage he had not shown before—or by a total lack of common sense caused by adrenaline—and ran to help Juzo. What would he do against two assassins and an android? Nothing but screaming. But he couldn’t leave his brother either.

Two laser shots exploded beside him, throwing at him dirt and destroyed pieces of cement off the pedestrian path; until the third explosion came and knocked him back. Uri fell face-up on the floor and hit the base of the neck against the ground; small debris dug into his bared back, as clouds of dirt and dust rained upon him. His burst of courage ended there.

His senses faded for a second.

He wiped the grime from his eyes; a blurry veil covered his sight. His ears buzzed; the blast had damaged his eardrums. And when he pierced through the mirrors of the dizziness, he encountered a scene that made him lose all hope: The mercenaries were flying in circles like hungry vultures around Juzo, while the android was coming for him. Yes, for him; not for his brother.

Broga was approaching him. The end was near. The park’s lights gleamed on that metallic baldness, on those arms full of circuits and silicone muscles, and on those steel legs that peeked out between the tatters of the pants every time he took a step. The Cyclops’ bright red eye pulsed again.

Desperation faded from Uri, leaving him with a sense of surrender to whatever his fate held. The purple trench-coated android stood in front of him with open hands, like a silent priest ready to give him the last rites. Having him so close, he noticed his executioner had his clothes not only ripped, but also with burn marks and even scorched parts—as if the fire of an explosion had embraced him.

Uri then took one last look at Juzo and regretted not being able to spend more time with him. He’d have liked to get to know him better, see him in the face more often until he got used to the fact that he had a twin; share with him a pleasant chat with a few beers in between; a dialogue of brothers, no talks about scientific projects.

Those were his wishes. But the reality was different.

From the left hand, the android revealed a long needle, a scalpel, and three surgical tweezers of different thicknesses and sizes; and from the right one, that long barrel which he pointed Uri in the face with—warning him that a single move could cost him dearly—while those fingers stretched out and charged with energy.

The Cyclops was ready to remove the mutant protein and maybe blow his head off in the process.

He would die on a Friday, a day that until that night had been synonymous with joy. How ironic! He wanted to laugh at his misfortune, but it was late; the tingling of the electrical discharge bit into his skin. He felt as if Broga was wrapping him up with a carpet of nails.

Then everything went black.