Boot manager activated…

Initializing hardware… done

Identifying operating system… done

Loading operating system… done

Transferring control to the operating system… done

Recovering data… done

Manufacturer security screen… override

Enabling audio…

“-don’t give a fuck about the security protocol. Start the fucking program!”

“Ma’am, violence of any kind will not be tolerated in-”

“Who said anything about violence?”

“You’re glowing, ma’am. Your psionics are clearly activated.”

“Oh, right. That’s because I’m going to kill someone if you don’t start the fucking program.”

“We’re not going to kill anyone. Please skip the security screen. It’s a known issue with this model.”

“I’ve already done so, just keep her away from me.”

Enabling video…

A square faced human with dark hair in a crew cut filled the entirety of BOB’s primary camera. Adam, BOB recalled. Adam was forcefully shoved out of frame and replaced with a round faced, pink haired halfling. Odybrix, BOB recalled. Visibly distressed. 

“Would you like a beverage!”

Odybrix lowered her head and wrapped her arms around BOB, revealing the environs. Familiar individuals surrounded BOB. Zenith. Elf, pilot, family issues. Hoxley. Infernum, studious, cowardly. Jim. Advanced medical bot, lacking social programming. Sturdy. Stowaway, mercenary, reserved.

“Not right now,” Odybrix said, wiping an eye, “but soon!”

“You’re looking a little misty, Ody,” Zenith said. 

“I’m not crying,” Odybrix said, crying.

“Do you remember who you are?” Adam asked.

“Yes!”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Yes! In excruciating detail!” BOB said, brightly.

“How do you feel?” Zenith asked.

“I am incapable of organic emotion, but in a hypothetical situation where I could feel useless emotions, I would be filled with unbridled rage and a searing desire for vengeance! I am going to kill Harlow!”

“I understand the urge,” Zenith said, raising a hand in a placating gesture, “I would ask that you hold off on killing him for the time being.”

“I am going to maim Harlow!”

“That’s fair,” Zenith said.

“Someone is missing!” BOB said, loading archived files. “Buddy! Where is Buddy?”

“She’s in a surgery suite on the other side of the building,” Adam explained. “We can go see her if you’re feeling up to it.”

“She suffered a dissection of her spinal cord after being bitten by a mutant monstrosity!”

“It looks like BOB’s back to normal,” Hoxley said.

“I am going to kill Vaelor!”

“Maybe slightly more murderous,” Hoxley corrected.

“No one’s going to stop you there, BOB,” Zenith said, “though you might have some competition.”

—

Buddy laid face down on a pristine white table. A series of unseen, curved robotic arms hung from above, diligently tending to her exposed spine. The technician attending to her procedure tapped her on the shoulder and whispered some exciting news in her ear. She nodded eagerly, a challenging thing to do with her face nestled into a hole. The technician hit a button and the chatter of familiar voices from beyond an observation window filled the room.

“She’d like to say hi,” the tech said as Buddy waved her arm at the elbow. 

Voice muffled by headrest, she said, “Hi guys!”

“Hey Buddy!” Hoxley said.

“Doin’ alright in there?” Odybrix asked.

“Hi Buddy!”

“Is that BOB?” Buddy asked.

“Correct!”

“I’m so glad you’re okay! I wanna give you a big hug, but I’m paralyzed at the moment.”

“I will engage you in a comforting embrace shortly!” BOB said, angling to face the technician. “When will she be fully repaired?”

“The nerve and bone tissue have been printed. They’re just sewing her up now.”

The suspended arms of the medical suite moved with blistering speed and precision. Minute pincers grasped at her skin, pulling the open wound closed as new tissue was printed. A pulsating laser glided across the seam, sealing the incision without a hint of a scar. A device clamping her shoulders released and raised itself into the ceiling. 

“Okay, you can get up slowly,” the med tech said.

Buddy nearly jumped off the table to look at her friends. The technician spat out an alarmed jumble of words and quickly handed Buddy a hospital gown. In a few excited strides she was out of the medical suite and in the hallway. She dove at BOB and wrapped them in a big hug. She was unsure if robots could feel hugs, so she squeezed extra hard.

“You look great!” Buddy said, looking the robot up and down. “They even repainted your chassis.”

BOB approached a glass door and inspected the reflection, “Acceptable!”

“You must feel relieved to feel your legs again,” Adam said. 

“Yeah,” Buddy said, wiggling her toes. “But it wasn’t so bad. Now I know what a severed spinal cord feels like.”

“I aspire to your level of blitheness,” Hoxley said. “Should we fill them in here or…”

“Back on the ship,” Adam said. “I think she could use a set of clothes.”

“And a beverage!”

—

“So this Gregor guy is meeting with Vaelor in two days?” Buddy asked, leaning forward in her chair.

“Right,” Adam said.

“And he’s going to buy an ancient thingy from him. Like the one we saw and the one that this Kron guy is looking for?”

“More likely to steal than buy, but yes.”

“And the gold mech with the brain inside—the one from Levisia that called me Charlie—it’s here too.”

“Correct.”

“So it sounds like we’re going to need some firepower,” Buddy concluded.

“No kidding,” Odybrix said distractedly, tinkering with a grenade.

BOB entered the hold and exclaimed, “Who would like a premium roast coffee?”

Odybrix slammed the grenade on the table, causing everyone in the hold to flinch. She grabbed her empty mug and shot out of her seat.

BOB’s spigot extended and poured the steaming liquid into the cup. The aroma filled the hold, and, within moments, a line had formed in front of BOB.

“The infernum has explained that he has been acting as your barista in my absence! Please know that I understand the reason for your betrayal and forgive you! The infernum has already offered a substandard apology for his treachery and confirmed that he will cease further attempts to usurp me!”

“I wasn’t trying to usurp anyone.” Hoxley said, exasperated. 

“A denial cannot come after a confession!” BOB said. “You are overwhelmed by my near-death experience, and guilt has confused your feeble flesh-mind!”

“I’m not feeling guilty about anything, either.”

“You would have been pleased to see me die then?”

“That’s not what I meant at all!”

“Okay, okay, we’re happy to have you back,” Odybrix said. “And I am personally very sorry for drinking Hoxley’s swill. Let’s let the argument drop. No need to get human resources involved.”

Sturdy shifted on the crate he was leaning against and asked, “You have a human resources rep aboard?”

“It’s a rifle with the initials “HR” etched into the barrel,” Adam said with a sigh.

The comms crackled and Zenith chimed in from the bridge, “On firepower, what are we working with, Ody?.”

“Enough small arms to equip everyone. Of those, only six are energy weapons: two Lendaren plasma rifles, two Z90 laser pistols, a stormshot carbine, and a rinky dink auto-laser. As far as explosives,” she said, snapping up the grenade from the table, “twenty frags, three incendiaries, a couple of flash bangs, and an EMP.”

BOB trilled his disapproval of the latter.

“We’ll be sure not to detonate it anywhere near you, pal.”

“Though I think we will need to detonate it,” Adam said. “It’s likely going to be the only thing that can affect Harlow’s mech, and only briefly. Even if there’s a breach in its faraday cage, most war-mechs have redundant boot up systems combat EMP shocks. It might buy us a few seconds.”

“What about our mech,” Buddy offered, “my second set of legs from Levisia.”

“Gladiator mechs are designed for enforcing order on a populace. It might draw some fire, but if Harlow focuses on it, the GEM will be too slow to defend itself.”

“What does that leave us with?” Hoxley asked.

“We picked up a flamethrower from that derelict ship,” Odybrix said. 

“I’ve got my new weird gun,” Buddy volunteered, brightly.

“What the hell is that?” Sturdy asked, stepping forward to inspect the weapon.

“One of those mutant people gave it to me. I like the grip.”

“As in, it made it?” Hoxley asked. “Are you sure it’s a pistol?”

“I haven’t shot it yet, but I’m pretty sure. I could try it out in the armory.”

“No,” Adam said, reflexively, “we don’t know what that is. It could blow up, or irradiate you. And I don’t think we have many rad pills left.”

Jim stepped out of medical and into the hold. 

“Enough to continue treating your previous irradiation. Further exposure would require more medical or, more likely, nano-surgical intervention.”

“Heya doc,” Odybrix said, “have you come to tell us you’ve been hiding a stash of high yield explosives in the medicine cabinet?”

“No. I am here to advise that Buddy and BOB have clean bills of health and can take part in away missions.”

“That’s great news,” Buddy said.

“I would have gone anyway!” BOB said.

“Our best bet is the EMP?” Hoxley asked. “So we damage the mech, stun it, then what? We’re not even including Vaelor in this equation.”

“Can’t you just lightning him?” Buddy asked.

“I was planning on staying aboard, honestly,” Hoxley said.

“The hell you are,” Odybrix said.

“We could use the GEM to try and pry open Harlow’s hatch after the EMP stuns him,” Sturdy said. “The pilot will need to wait outside the grenade’s effective radius, then swoop in.”

Adam held a hand to his face in frustration, saying, “It’s too slow for that. The mech will be halfway done rebooting by the time a GEM could get close enough. A few seconds later, that massive beam blade comes online and carves our mech and its pilot in half. Wait a minute.”

Adam hopped out of his seat and tapped at a comms panel, “Ozzy, open a channel to Kron’s ship.”

“Patching you through to the HWS Terror,” Ozzy said.

“Captain val Kron, here. Is that you, Adam?”

“It is. We’re discussing our options for dealing with Vaelor. What does the Grolvar representative intend to do?”

“I was just mulling that over with the crew. We’ve got man-power and artillery, but getting it planetside is going to be a customs issue. If we do manage to come in heavily armed, there’s a good chance we get spotted and Vaelor goes to ground.”

“It’s the inverse problem for us. We’ve got a small team that could probably slip in unnoticed—maybe even draw Vaelor and Harlow into a conversation—but we haven’t got the firepower to take out that super mech.”

“Well, if you’re looking to equalize the battlefield, Grolvar can lend you its strength.”

“What ‘strength’ are we talking about here?” 

“We’ve got a few mechs in the armory, but I think the F2200 would be what you need to even the odds.”

Zenith cut in over comms, trying to contain her disbelief and enthusiasm, “You’re just going to give us a military grade air mech?”

“Consider it a loan in good faith. I don’t care who ultimately kills Vaelor, so long as he’s dead and the High Warlord gets her relic back.”

“We’ve still got the same issue of slipping heavy arms through Gemheart customs,” Hoxley said.

“A single mech isn’t going to be a problem,” Odybrix said. “I can pull in one more favour with my old contacts here.”

“Great!” Kron said. “Shady, but great. I’ll have my people add some tracer rounds to the inventory. If for whatever reason you can’t kill Vaelor, tag him with a tracer. The Terror will monitor the operation from orbit. If Vaelor gets aboard a ship, we’ll blast him out of the sky before he breaks atmo.”

“Gemheart authorities won’t be happy about that,” Adam said. “You might be starting an interplanetary dispute with the Starbreaker Empire.”

“That’s what politicians are for,” Kron said with a laugh. “But thanks for your concern. If this goes well, maybe we all meet up for another drink at that bar again.”

“I’d like that. Our AI will coordinate the drop-off after Odybrix gets in touch with her contacts. Stay in touch, Kron.”

“Good luck, Sunrunner crew. HWS Terror out.”

Adam let out a short sigh and said, “Well that’s going to help.”

“Is it?” Hoxley asked. “How much faster is this one compared to the GEM?”

“F2200s are military grade mech-jet combos,” Buddy said distractedly while examining her strange new gun, “they can reach a speed of mach 10 in jet mode, mach 4 when deployed as a mech.”

There was a moment of silence as the crew observed their amnesiac companion.

“What?” Buddy asked.

“Your occasional deluge of knowledge is astonishing,” Hoxley said.

“I just wish it worked for this thing,” she said, frowning at the gun.

“Buddy is correct,” Adam said, picking up the explanation, “it’s fast, has formidable firepower, and can likely hold its own against the super mech. In the short term anyway.”

“If you have a decent pilot,” Sturdy said.

“We do,” Zenith said, over comms. “I’ll go toe to toe with Harlow.

“Are you sure you’re going to be up to that?” Adam asked. “I have pilot training. Buddy might know how to fly it too. You don’t have to put yourself in this position. If things go sideways…”

“Whether he’s captured or killed, I’ll be the one responsible for Harlow.”

—

The diagnostic tool chimed pleasantly, an endorsement that the new mech was ready for battle. It was the fifth diagnostic Zenith ran since the F2200 was delivered. Was it unnecessary? Probably, but if she didn’t do something during the intervening period before the battle, she would go mad. Worse, she might start biting her nails—a habit she kicked a decade ago.

The second the call ended with Kron, she locked the bridge and started running the combat simulator. She had clocked hundreds of hours in mech sims, and a respectable amount of time in actual mechs, but none of them were military grade. Moreover, her experience, sim or otherwise, didn’t include black market rendezvous dogfights atop abandoned hospitals. Oh, and the enemy combatant was her brother—a small wrinkle that didn’t occur in most skirmishes.

She let out a controlled breath, which modulated into a heavy sigh. More than anything she wanted to rip Harlow out of that mech and slap some sense into him—to make him remember who he was: a pilot, a survivor, a son, a brother. The cruel reality was that ejecting him from his metal shell would be nearly impossible. Even if the timing was right, there was no guarantee that the F2200 could pry open the cockpit. She would, in all likelihood, be fighting her brother to the death. A sour smile crossed her face as she thought about how sibling rivalry had, in part, shaped her into a pilot. And now being a pilot would result in the permanent end of that rivalry.

“Are you alright in there?!” A voice called from the back of the mech.

“I’m fine, BOB,” she answered.

“The tone of your voice is registering at thirty-five decibels, a fifteen point difference from normal levels! This indicates you are likely experiencing troubling emotions!”

“I’m fine,” she lied, trying to extract the brooding tone from her voice.

“It can be advantageous for organic beings to divulge their internal monologue to a trusted compatriot! Would you like to unburden yourself of these feelings?!”

“I don- you know what, sure. I’m coming to terms with the possibility that I may have to kill someone I love dearly. Actually, it’s incredibly likely I’m going to have to kill him. And if I’m too slow to make that call, other people I care about are going to die. So yes, my decibels are a little low right now.”

“That is a heavy burden to bear! If it is of consolation, in my experience, you have never been ‘too slow’ at anything!”

“Luck’s gotta run out at some point. How are you feeling?”

“I am not inhibited by the chemically-induced torrent of emotions that plagues organics!”

“You seemed pretty eager for revenge earlier. That’s not very robot of you.”

“That was merely an expression of my desire for self preservation! Such dialogue is for the benefit of non-synthetics!”

“Maybe, but it certainly sounded like you were pissed—rightfully—at my brother.”

“It was not the first instance where I was nearly destroyed, but it was the most pronounced! Regardless, while your brother did bifurcate me, I sincerely wish we are able to capture him without terminal trauma!”

“Thanks, BOB. I really mean it. Thank you.”

“Has our discussion improved your mental well-being?!”

“Yes.”

“Splendid!”

Zenith was silent for a moment, then asked, “Do you log the decibel levels of all of the crew?”

“Yes!”

“Out of curiosity…”

“Odybrix regularly speaks at a range of sixty-five to ninety decibels! Her volume is similar to that of a vacuum or an alarm clock!”

“Perfect,” Zenith said, smiling. “I figured as much.”

A warning pinged and lit up the mech’s display. Flying in from the west were two vehicles, a long black van and a black limo. The scanners of the military grade mech quickly determined the vehicles’ threat levels and flooded the screen with data. Both vehicles were armor-plated with several artillery options hidden within. The limo, curiously, had two engines. Zenith puzzled at the readout before realizing the vehicle could split into two functional pieces—A getaway car.

She marvelled at the mech’s ability to completely understand an enemy within seconds. Military hardware was a cut above what she was used to. The information would be invaluable in a firefight, even if the sheer volume of data the sensors pumped out was somewhat distracting. Is this what you’ve been working with this whole time, brother?

Zenith opened a comm line to the crew who weren’t riding on her back, “Looks like our black market boy is here.”

“Roger. Any sign of Vaelor or Harlow?” Adam asked in a whisper.

“None. And I’m pretty confident that this thing would spot them from miles out. What about inside?”

Adam’s vid feed panned away from the roof door and down a cavernous stairwell. “Empty. I’d be worried about ghosts if we weren’t already fighting monsters.”

It wasn’t uncommon for public service buildings to be abandoned, even hospitals like this one. Planet-scale mining operations often developed in stages, establishing preliminary structures to fortify their claim and building up over time. Gemheart had outgrown the basic infrastructure as its population swelled. This trend would continue until the planet was stripped bare of anything valuable. After that, every building would be like this one, an empty shell in a dead city on a dead planet.

The vehicles came to a hovering stop at the side of the roof. A team of ten dwarves, dressed in black suits and carrying a variety of automatic weapons, spilled out of the van. They swept out, surveying the space around the elevated landing pad. Two of the goons ascended a set of stairs and inspected the elevator at the edge of the pad. One pressed the button to summon the lift, the other, less patient dwarf, produced a crowbar and pried the doors open. He peered inside then tapped his wrist and said something over a private comm channel. To Zenith’s surprise and delight, the mech began displaying a dialogue on the screen. 

“Shaft’s clear… cables non-functional. Confirm stairwell.”

Zenith’s chest tightened when a dwarf approached the entry to the rooftop staircase, out of her line of sight. Adam and the crew waited behind the door. If they were found, they’d become embroiled in a firefight with these thugs. Their boss would flee and take any chance of intercepting Vaelor with him. 

“You have incoming,” Zenith said over comms, “keep quiet and turn off your torches. He’ll see the light under the door.”

She watched as each vid feed went black, leaving her blind to what was happening. With a sudden bloom of colour, Sturdy and Hoxley’s feeds illuminated the screen with thermal vision. The orange silhouette of the thug swam forward with a hand outstretched for the door. Three rapid bangs echoed through the stairwell as he jerked the handle and rattled the rusted deadbolt on the other side. The silhouette stood in front of the door, unmoving for an uncomfortable length of time, then…

“All clear!”

“Thank the fucking stars they don’t have thermals,” Zenith muttered as the glowing silhouette of Odybrix flipped the dwarf off.

“Another instance of the profound inadequacy of organic forms!” BOB chimed.

“You don’t have thermals either. Wait, someone’s making an appearance.”

A tall figure stepped out of the limo accompanied by ten more thugs. Dressed in a black trench coat and, surprisingly not a dwarf, the black market dealer, Gregor, surveyed the rooftop. With a few slight hand gestures, he commanded the goon squad to set a perimeter on the elevated landing pad. His head swept from side to side, searching. You’re wondering where Vaelor is too.

Zenith eyed the sensor readout, looking for any sign of an approaching mech or transport, but the only little red dots were the people already present. It was possible, even likely, that Harlow’s mech had some degree of stealth adaptation. Given everything the mech could do, being untraceable to long range scans wasn’t a stretch. Zenith begins cycling through visual sweeps of the surrounding city, spotting nothing but distant traffic and a couple of cargo ships flying high above. When the visual returned to the black market dealer she slapped the toggle button, locking the feed.

A corona of black formed several feet away from the dealer, spurring assembled thugs to converge on their employer with guns drawn. A wreath of twisting smoke formed the emanation—a perfect circle. The sinuous black tendrils coiled and undulated as they wormed their way around the circumference. The unsettling movement stuck in Zenith’s mind like a spike. It was similar to something she had seen before.

The gang on the roof stood motionless before the phenomenon until the serpentine motion stopped. Guns and rifles snapped up, ready to pulp whatever emerged with lead and laser. A foot stepped out from the empty space within the circle, then a tall, slender figure emerged, dressed in a robe and wearing a white mask. The frozen halo of black unseized a moment later and vanished in wisps of smoke. 

Where is Harlow?

“Quite an entrance,” the man in black said. 

The dwarves jolted, sweeping their guns about the roof. Something has spooked them. Zenith thought back to her first encounter with Vaelor and the disturbing intrusion of his voice into her mind. The sensation was a nauseating invasion of privacy, and she was glad not to be a part of the current conversation. Though it meant she would only hear half of what was being said.

“Charming,” Gregor said, holding a hand to his head. “You have what I’ve requested?” 

Vaelor produced a small metal cylinder and held it out in his palm. 

“Capital,” he said, then snapped his fingers.

One of Gregor’s entourage stowed her pistol, then hefted a container from the van. She set it down beside her boss and opened the lid, revealing a glowing gemstone the size of a fist. A resplendent matrix of violet light shifted within the gem, visible even without the mech’s magnification. Vaelor took a halting step forward. While his mask concealed his face, there was something eager about his body language, something covetous.

“To your liking then? Interesting trinket. My techs ran any number of tests and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It doesn’t give off any heat, but has a warping effect on the space around it—perhaps that’s why it’s so damned heavy. They believe it could be anything from a battery to a bomb. I don’t suppose you’d let me know what it does?”

The comment made Vaelor’s head twitch, like a fly had just buzzed past his ear. Slowly, with what seemed like great difficulty, his attention broke from the gem and shifted to Gregor. Another indecipherable telepathic exchange ensued causing a wry smile to form on the dealer’s face. Vealor wouldn’t be pulling back the curtain on his plans before showtime.

A knot formed in Zenith’s stomach as Vaelor moved to pick up the gem. Her eye darted to the scanners, which still showed no signs of an enemy mech. If Vaelor could simply vanish through a black portal, the crew had no hope of capturing him. Her hand shot out to the comms button—ready to call for the attack—but froze as one of Gregor’s goons interposed themselves between Vaelor and the gem.

“Just a moment,” the dealer said with an apologetic smile, “Corr needs to verify the authenticity of the data module you’ve provided. You’ll have your gem in a moment.”

Vaelor stood motionless and unreadable. Something about the posture made Zenith imagine a tempest of ire swirling behind his mask. The dwarf seized the cylinder from Vaelor’s hand and placed it on a tablet. The device pulsed with a rhythmic blue glow then flashed rapidly before going dark. The dwarf frowned and Zenith hit the comms button.

“Adam, it’s about to go off. Move on ‘Go.’”

The dwarf shot an incredulous look to Gregor, who in turn scowled at Vaelor. He lifted a hand and every gun on the roof was simultaneously pointed at the masked man. 

“I don’t believe you understand who I am or the consequences of crossing me,” Gregor said through a sneer. “Break his legs and throw him in the van. Some lessons are best taught slowly.”

An alarm blared and a red dot rocketed across Zenith’s scanner. An explosion rocked the roof an instant later, ripping two of the thugs to pieces and sending a third hurtling over the edge. Harlow’s mech sped into view, laying down plasma fire that sent most of the thugs running for cover under the launchpad. Zenith hit the throttle on her mech’s thrusters.

“Go!” She screamed. “Hang on, BOB!”

Adam kicked the door open, slamming it into the dwarf on the other side. The team surged into the fray, Sturdy tagging the downed thug in the chest, then quickly following up with a head shot when he realized the enemy wore body armor. Buddy didn’t miss a beat, picking off the two goons that remained on the north side of the roof. Adam strode forward, assessing the battlefield in the span of a heartbeat.

“Sweep left to the steps, we’re taking out Vaelor,” he commanded as Odybrix soared onto the landing in a streak of pink light. “Or don’t bother with the stairs. You do you.”

Shots flashed through the sky; some bullets and lasers ineffectually plinked off Harlow’s mech, and others—most of them—flew well off the mark. Gregor shouted a command in dwarvish that sent one of his minions scurrying for the van. Gregor stared at the masked man with contempt amidst a hail of fire. His hand whipped to his belt and drew a pistol in a smooth, practiced motion. Three high-intensity lasers ripped into Vaelor’s center of mass, causing him to collapse to his knees as Odybrix stormed towards the pair.

“Hey asshole,” she said, causing Gregor to train the pistol on her. “Not you, dumbass. The guy with a plate for a face.”

“Whatever vendetta you have against this weasel has been settled,” he said, lowering the smoking pistol and pointing. “You’re welcome.”

“This is clearly your first time dealing with him.”

Odybrix’ psionic aura flared as she took telekinetic hold of Vaelor’s crumpled form and launched it into the air. With a downward arc of her arm the body slammed onto the landing pad with a crunch. The black market dealer looked at her as one would a deranged lunatic, tightened his grip on the pistol. She raised her arm again, lifting the body skyward.

“I don’t want to tell you your business, but perhaps the mech threatening to kill us all would be a better target for your rage?”

The body was hurled downward for another bone shattering collision but stopped inches from the ground.

“Ah, so you’re the reasonable type.”

“I’m really not,” Odybrix said, straining.

The air around him vibrated like the plucked string of a guitar. Vaelor’s levitating body twitched and spasmed violently before freezing stock-still. Seemingly oblivious to the crushing psionic field wrapped around him, he rose in the air and rotated until he was upright. His head swiveled to Odybrix and a blithe voice slipped into the minds of everyone nearby—all but Hoxley.

“I applaud your tenacity. With the exception of my wayward kin, I expected you all to perish aboard Levisia. Perhaps your perseverance will see you to the end.”

“The end of what?” Adam yelled, appearing with Buddy, Sturdy and Hoxley in tow. 

Before he could reply, a dwarf appeared beside Vaelor bearing a spearpoint knife. The blade plunged into Vaelor’s torso, three—four times before the dwarf flinched and froze mid-stab. His eyes frantically darted to Vaelor’s mask, then to the tears in the man’s robe. There was no blood.

“Are you curious about what’s beneath the skin? We could be the same inside.”

The mind-addling dagger, the object that started this ordeal, slipped from beneath Vaelor’s robe. Its form warped and twisted impossibly into itself. The mesmerizing, painful, shape of the thing disappeared into the dwarf’s gut with a swift jab. Whatever had been paralyzing the man ended a sudden convulsion and an agonized scream that tore from his throat. 

Zenith watched in horror as the man’s skin rippled, the muscles beneath undulating like snakes trapped under a bedsheet. The horrors Vaelor worked aboard Levisia, the violations, were largely wrought by bursts of light from the alien relic he held. Those unfortunate enough to be struck by that sickly light were irrevocably warped into wretched reflections of themselves. The true horrors though, the savage monstrosities they encountered aboard the derelict ship and the embattled park square, those were born of direct wounds from that dagger. She instinctively hit her mech’s thrusters and charged towards the rooftop fray. 

“Stop him!” Adam screamed.

As the crew took aim to gun Vaelor down, Gregor’s goon returned from the van hoisting an RPG over the shoulder. The rocket discharged from the launcher with a loud hiss, speeding towards Harlow. All eyes turned to the projectile soaring through the sky. At the last possible moment, one of the mech’s lateral thrusters flared, pushing it out of the missile’s path. Simultaneously, the mech’s light plasma cannon drew a bead on the thug and fired, punching a basketball-sized hole through the dwarf’s chest.

The mech spun, clocking Adam’s contingent and immediately opened fire. Sturdy flung himself off the landing with Buddy following suit. Adam jumped away from a superheated blast of plasma, narrowly saving his leg from being dismembered, but suffering a terrible burn on his thigh. When the cannon trained on Hoxley he stumbled backwards and fell on his ass. He struggled to his feet as the barrel of the cannon flashed with the killing shot. 

The blast tore a chunk out of the roof, sending debris spraying into the air. Hoxley lay on the ground, unharmed, several feet away from the impact. Beside him, despite being left aboard the Sunrunner, was Beast. The dog gripped the fabric of the infernum’s arm, urging him to get up and get to safety.

Gregor wrenched the RPG from the smoking remains of the dwarf and sent another rocket hurtling at Harlow. The mech performed an seemingly effortless roll, dodging the explosive. A split second after missing its mark, the missile stopped in the air. Rather, its propulsion struggled against the psionics holding it in place. Odybrix, having watched Hoxley nearly be reduced to a pile of sizzling nerd, had had enough. She tore the rocket from the sky and slammed it into the back of the mech, lighting up the skyline in a brief burst of fiery amber. 

When the glare faded from her eyes she beheld the undamaged mech floating amid a field of dissipating smoke. Its pauldron cracked open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a cluster of fist-sized rockets that protruded like teeth. Time slowed as a bubble of psionic shielding began to take form around Odybrix. Gregor turned on his heels to flee. Adam charged back up the landing pad, bellowing at Odybrix to take cover and firing his weapon ineffectually at the mech. The hot glow of the rockets’ ignition burned within the pauldron, signalling a barrage that would scour the rooftop of life. Half-formed psionic shields and desperate escapes wouldn’t stop the killing fire. 

The rockets flew. Their launch, however, was preceded by five-hundred pounds of titanium plated coffee-machine colliding into the mech at high velocity. BOB’s impact hammered Harlow’s mech down onto the rooftop, sending the rockets spiraling off course. Denotations ripped chucks off the building. An off-target explosion shattered Odybrix’ shield, sending her sprawling to the ground. Another caused Gregor to fly off the landing pad with a heavy thud, knocking him unconscious. 

The mech rose, holding BOB upside down by the leg. A compartment opened in the wrist of its free arm and a thick cylinder shot into its hand. The beam blade ignited with a terrible ripping sound, followed by the crackle of barely contained energy. The blade drew back, ready to cleave the bot in half for a second time. At the last second, the falling arm was jerked to a halt. A chain of segmented blades wrapped around its wrist and pulled the mech back. Zenith charged into Harlow and delivered a reverberating punch to his mech’s chest that knocked it to the ground and freed BOB. 

She slammed her F2200’s thrusters and took to the sky with Harlow in tow. Reversing the directions of her lateral thrusters, she spun with a dizzying speed that whipped her brother around in a powerful centrifuge. Before Harlow could wrest control away with his own thrusters, Zenith hit the release on her chain sword, sending him crashing through one side of a derelict building and out the other. The F2200’s gatling gun whirred to life, pelting Harlow’s mech as she pursued.

“Focus on Vaelor,” Zenith commanded over comms. “Harlow’s mine.”

—

Buddy scaled the scaffolding and rolled onto the pad. The rapid chatter of rifle fire rang out as Adam’s weapon punched holes in Vaelor’s body. There was no flash of a personal shield generator, no crimson spray of blood, no dramatic collapse to the ground; the masked man withstood bullets and lasers like they had all the inconvenience of a mild rain. The dwarf at the end of Vaelor’s dagger, or what remained of them, choked out a wet scream that devolved into a rumbling groan.

A bulge formed in his throat, distending until the bones in his neck succumbed to the pressure and popped like distant fireworks. His back arched at an excruciating angle. Ribs flared out from his midsection, creating an impossible plateau with his abdomen. The merciless tension released in a spray of gore that spilled onto the ground in a twisting, pulsing mass. 

Buddy had seen enough. Her pistol rose and she squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. The kill shots came easily. Two to the centre mass—doing nothing but burn holes in his clothes—the last to the head.

The laser struck Vaelor’s mask, cracking off a chunk that covered an eye and his forehead. The hit staggered him and the knife slipped from his hand and disappeared into the burgeoning monstrosity with a slick sucking sound. Behind the thin split in Vaelor’s mask something dark coiled and slid against itself. The two pieces closed with the scrape of porcelain, held together by whatever lurked behind the mask. The cracked and blank white surface, despite bearing no features, exuded malice.

Vaelor raised a gloved hand and pointed at Buddy. Tiny sparks danced across his arm, coalescing around an accusatory finger that marked her for death. Lightning cracked, a boom that rang out over the tumult of rattling guns and monstrous bellows. The flash was bright enough to blind any and all witnessing the execution. 

Buddy’s sight returned and she scanned her body, expecting the last thing she would ever see to be a blackened hole through her chest. Instead, Hoxley stood at her side, arm outstretched just as Vaelor’s had been. She followed his smoking finger to a charred divot in the masked man’s chest. He staggered forward and dropped to one knee, clutching the wound.

“You’re not the only one with tricks,” Hoxley said, uncharacteristic wroth lining his face. “I’m certain you weren’t always the wretched thing that’s fucked up our lives. In fact, I’ll bet you were like me. But the difference is that I’m not going to give in to it. I’m not your brother and I never will be.”

Hoxley raised his hand again, scowling, “I’ll be the one who kills you.” 

Lightning danced across Hoxley’s fingers as he aimed a killing blow at Vaelor. Buddy turned away, expecting another blinding flash. A bright light bloomed over her closed eyelids and faded just as quickly. When she opened her eyes again, Vaelor was standing, holding an erratic ball of electricity in his hand. 

“He caught it,” she said in disbelief.

“Oh fuck,” Hoxley said as Buddy tackled him to the ground, dodging the bolt by milliseconds.

A guttural voice swept across the rooftop, like a dozen drowning voices choking out their last words. It overlapped with the painful psychic intonations that bore into the minds of everyone but Hoxley.

“You cannot begin to comprehend what you are—what you could be. You had a chance to take your own first steps through the door. Instead, you’ll be dragged kicking and screaming. Let pain be your lesson. Let torment be the instructor.”

Vaelor strode to the box Gregor had brought and it sprang into his arm from the ground. He reached towards the monster and the knife shot out of its mass in a spray of ichor. The relic flew into his hand and he muttered something incomprehensible. A stomach churning sensation crashed over the crew as a twisting black portal appeared behind him. Seeing their quarry escaping, Adam drew a pistol from his belt. A solitary shot tagged Vaelor with a tracer round as he gave the final command and disappeared into the miasma, “Kill him last.”

As if the words were the last piece of a puzzle, the burgeoning hulk of flesh and bone stopped its frenetic growth. A wave of heat and visceral stench rolled out from the gory mass. Adam, Sturdy, Odybrix, and BOB raced to the side of Buddy and Hoxley. The assembled crew stood silent as the monstrosity unfolded to a height of fifteen feet.

Lines of taut, skinless muscle glistened across its body. Peering out at random intervals from the striations were eyes that bled tears. Blades of bone tore through the joints of its seven limbs, sharp as obsidian. Its ribs, or what passed for them, protruded from its abdomen like claws. The grotesque visage culminated in a bulbous, eyeless head, which was more mouth than skull.

“Got anymore lightning?” Buddy asked Hoxley.

—

Zenith spared a glance at the horror emerging on the roof, and another at the tactical scan of Harlow’s mech—unharmed, save for minor damage to a lateral thruster. As if punishing her for looking away, Harlow appeared in a blink. Rays of energy flew from the mech’s plasma cannon, and Zenith plunged her F2200 down into the towering cityscape. This section of town was abandoned, but it would only take moments to fly into a populated area. Any stray shot could be an execution for an oblivious bystander.

She hugged the buildings, making jarring, break-neck turns around the corners. Glass shattered behind the mech, leaving a plummeting trail of glittering shards. Harlow’s pursuit was relentless, but the super mech’s power and durability came at the cost of maneuverability, if not a little speed. Zenith was putting distance between them, inch by inch.

A memory flickered somewhere in the back of her mind, one from a time when things were better between them. They’d run around the apartment, or ship, or wherever their parents dragged them and try to catch each other. Harlow was bigger, faster, and more aggressive. She was more agile—Harlow would call it slippery—and more cunning. Whenever he got too close, she ducked away from his arms and fled into the nearest room. Sometimes she’d hide, other times she’d have a surprise waiting.

When the gap between them had grown enough, she rounded a corner and rolled to face backwards. The gatling gun spat out a hundred rounds directly into the body of the opposing mech as it emerged—enough to tear a new window into a gunship. Thoughts of just one of those rounds blasting a hole through her brother were drowned by a growing wave of adrenaline. She needn’t have spared the effort to worry; the bullets did little more than scratch the armour.

Harlow responded in a way that punctuated the memory bubbling up from her subconscious. When Zenith had jumped out to scare him as children, he’d often grab his chest and fall to the ground like he’d had a heart attack. His mech did something similar and dropped away from the barrage of bullets like it had been shot out of the sky. A sudden thrust stabilized the mech and it let loose a salvo of plasma—her reward for the failed maneuver. 

Unlike Harlow’s mech, the F2200 would not abide many, if any, hits from heavy artillery. It was meant for speed. She barrel rolled away from the attack as explosions of light and glass boomed nearby. The thrusters roared with effort as the F220 once again began to pull away from its pursuer. 

She couldn’t keep engaging in lopsided skirmishes. As good as she was, a mistake would eventually creep into her piloting and it would be the end of her. Harlow’s mech had withstood explosions and gatling fire, but there was still room to prod for weaknesses. If it couldn’t be disabled, maybe it could be slowed.

The mechs tore across the faces of skyscrapers in a blistering pursuit. They cut sharp turns and weaved through the towering battlescape until they returned to the derelict hospital. Zenith surged toward the building, tucking the mech’s limbs in. Windows exploded inward as the F2200 ploughed through walls and abandoned equipment.

Harlow slowed at the demolished threshold, then flew in after her. Her brother wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice, but there were still plenty left to try. The mech’s sensors would be able to track targets through walls, which would have been a problem if she were trying to hide. The walls would also do little to hinder their guns, but she didn’t plan on shooting him.

A hot streak of plasma ripped through the hall and caused a nearby door to burst into pieces. A second nearly clipped the F2200’s arm, but Zenith dodged with a quick pulse from a lateral thruster. She returned fire, unconcerned about whether the rounds hit their mark. The goal was to keep him engaged.

She navigated through the ruined interior, drawing Harlow deeper into the chaos of crumbling walls, and fallen supply vents. The accuracy of the plasma cannon fell off with the increasing debris, shots flying wider with the accumulated destruction. Fast as it was, the mech had a bulkier frame; the claustrophobic battlefield slowed it down.

Zenith weaved into halls and ducked into rooms, only to explode through a wall and escape when Harlow seemingly had her cornered. The mech levitated with thruster bursts when there was space, but increasingly it ran on foot. When the disarray within the ward reached a satisfactory level she led Harlow to the epicenter of the chaos. Then she made her move.

Harlow tore through the clutter, hellbent on destruction and undoubtedly certain that he was the predator in this fight for survival. Tunnel vision—he’d call it focus—had always been his weakness. Zenith unleashed a spray of bullets that shredded their surroundings. Under the cover of a cloud of dust she circled Harlow and pounced at his back. The mech’s chain sword unspooled and snapped into a solid, deadly blade which she drove into his thrusters—striking at the juncture where they met the mech’s body. Electricity flickered from the point of impact in rapid, agitated bursts. 

The mech moved as if it was responding to pain, reflexively flipping upside down and kicking the F2200 with a roundhouse that would have split a person in half. The blow hit with so much force that the F2200 was driven through the crumbling floor. A warning blared as Zenith landed on the next level in a heap. The mech’s armor integrity was failing, but not breached. Another hit would crack it open like a crab shell.

Something flashed above and Zenith instinctively gunned the thrusters, sliding the prone mech along the rubble-strewn floor. A gleaming arc of energy struck the space she had just occupied, tearing a hole in the floor. The colossal beam blade crackled amidst the billowing dust like lightning flashing in a thunderhead. Zenith scrambled to get the mech upright as Harlow charged. 

The blade cleaved a path of destruction. The first two swings sliced a nursing station to pieces, nearly dismembering one of the F2200’s arms. Zenith retracted the chain sword, knowing that close combat had become a suicidal option. She let loose another barrage of ineffective bullets and sped away from her brother. The F2200 crashed through a window and flew into the night. The super mech followed behind, marginally slower. A minor win at the cost of nearly dying.

A crackle and buzz issued from the comms. Adam bellowed to be heard over the din of rifles, pistols, and roars, “We could really use some help ZT!” 

“So could I!”

—

A craterous impact shook the roof, sending the crew staggering. The monstrosity swung its hulking fore limbs with murderous intent fueling every blow. At the end of one arm was a bulbous stump with five tiny misshapen nubs satelliting the ossified mass—hints of what once were fingers. It swung the mutated appendage like a giant sledgehammer.

An envelope of psionic energy wrapped around Hoxley and jerked him away at the waist, narrowly avoiding a pulverizing strike. Beast barked and snarled at the monstrosity earning a moment of its ire. An errant swat missed the nimble dog and exposed the creature’s back. Odybrix, never one to miss a cheap shot, flung a psionic blast at the back of its head. 

Thin slits of tissue twitched and peeled open, exposing cloudy red eyes. The creature threw up a shoulder and the expectant skull-cracking impact of the blast was absorbed by its twisted flesh. It turned slowly, menacingly, and crouched like a stalking predator. If she had blinked, she’d be dead. Instead, she managed to fling a psionic wall between them and collapsed it around the thing’s torso like a straight jacket. The creature roared and raged against its restraints, pushing forward to maim its captor. Each halting step it took sent a body-shaking jolt through her as she strained to hold it.

Adam’s rifle collapsed and affixed itself to his magnetic bandolier with a click. As part of the same motion, a shotgun slid into his hand and unfolded with a snap. He strode towards the thing, ignoring the anguished protest of his burned leg and pumped two shots into its hideous eyes. Where the tough flesh had absorbed the impact of the rifle rounds, the stopping power of the shotgun stalled its murderous advance on Odybrix. Or at least it had appeared that way for the briefest instant.

An ear-splitting roar tore from its throat, and it shifted its barely contained rage at Adam. It’s stopped trying to kill Ody. That’s a win. Me dying is not ideal. Adam retreated a step, firing two more shots. One clipped the band of psionic energy wrapping the monster; Odybrix shouted a series of expletives as the energy flickered. Firing at the body isn’t getting us anywhere. Another wave of pain spread from his leg, and he had an idea.

“Odybrix can’t hold that thing forever!“ Adam called out to the crew.

“Fuck you I can’t,” She yelled.

“Focus fire on its left leg. Hobble it!” Adam shouted.

A spray of bullets and lasers zipped across the roof, most finding the mark. The barrage riddled the monster’s leg, tearing chunks of flesh away. Something long and pale gleamed inside the wound. If it were any other lifeform, Adam would have assumed it was a bone. He sighted the anomaly and pulled the trigger. Osseous shards splattered to the ground and the limb buckled with a horrid crunch.

The psionic restraint dispersed and Odybrix fell to her hands and knees in tandem with the creature. She was pushing her psionic implant to its limits, or rather, to her body’s. Jim had warned her of a slew of side effects that came with psionic overuse. The final item on the doctor’s list was the most dire, intracranial hemorrhage.

“Now the head!”

Sturdy and Buddy rallied to Adam’s side, peppering the beast as they ran. BoB tromped over to Odybrix and stood over her defensively. The shotgun barked and the execution commenced. Lasers and slugs relentlessly struck the thick hide around the head. Flesh ripped in ichorous lines and divots, revealing the hard bone underneath. With a defiant bellow the monster rose, its functional leg bearing the weight. Adam let one hand slip to the grenades on his belt, the other still firing and wrestling with the recoil. The frag trilled a melodic warning as it armed, then sailed through the air.

“Hit the deck!” Adam cried.

The explosion toppled their foe, sending it sprawling on its back with a roof-shaking thud. A distant sound came from Adam’s periphery. Buddy’s muddled voice trickled through as the ringing in his ears faded. He couldn’t make out the words, but the expression—and excited hand gestures—indicated relief. Adam turned to Sturdy and caught him rounding the fallen behemoth at a distance. The burgeoning hope that this skirmish had ended when the mercenary jumped backward and raised his pistol.

The mangled leg spasmed, and the remaining muscle tissue flexed and snapped the limb into a crooked, but functional position. Without pausing to test if the leg could bear its weight, the beast sprang up and swung at Sturdy with an errant swing of its arm. He raised his arms in defense just as the blow connected and sent him flying off the raised helipad. In a blink, the creature closed the distance between itself and Adam. Buddy had the good sense and superior agility to jump over the edge of the pad; Adam instinctively retreated a step and fired another blast into the thing’s battered limb, aiming to re-cripple it—a mistake.

In a blink he was swept up by a claw and held aloft into the air. The unshakeable grip pinned his arms to his torso, threatening to pop his bones from their joints and then crush them into bloody shards. His hand struggled for his belt, reaching for the collection of explosives that rested there. If he was going to have his spine snapped by this thing, the least he could do was return the favour by blowing its hand apart. Only, the reality of his death was much worse than he expected. A glistening maw opened beneath him, lined with a spiraling array of teeth that plunged deep into the monster’s throat. With all the mercy of a gull devouring a herring, Adam was swallowed by darkness.

—

“Motherfucker!” Odybrix screamed, emphasizing the end of the word.

The halfling staggered toward the towering monstrosity. Her bloodshot eyes gave the anger behind them an infernal quality, like some wrathful demon born into the universe to exact a violent and unending retribution. The psionic aura flared to life once again, holding the creature in place. Not good enough. The telekinetic grasp tightened like a vice, exerting a pressure on the monster that would have turned any normal animal to pulp. It squirmed in her grasp like a struggling rat, squealing its rage and pain. If she were in her right mind she’d have acknowledged her own pain; a blaring klaxon sounding inside her head, announcing the inevitable rupture of her brain matter.

Hoxley appeared in her reddening periphery, raising his arm to fling another bolt of lightning. I’ve got this, idiot. Odybrix felt her lips part to speak the words, but didn’t hear herself speak them. There was a flash of black and Sturdy was beside Hoxley.

“You hit it with lightning, and you might hit Adam too.”

“Well, what are we supposed to hit it with? Nothing works! And she’s barely holding on.”

A finger flew at Odybrix and two choice words for Hoxley bounced around in the back of her searing head. She had this thing. Just a little more pressure and she would rip its head from its shoulders. Just a little more. Time blipped again and Buddy joined the boys at the darkening edge of her vision.

“Incendiaries? Fire worked on the one in Levisia?”

“That and a chain gun,” Sturdy said, scowling, “This thing is bigger, and we don’t have the mech’s firepower.”

We don’t need a mech. I’ve got this. It’s nearly dead. Her thoughts came to her like whispers across a lake. Her pounding chest and searing skull were distant sensations. Somewhere beyond the monstrous tableau of contorting flesh before her, Buddy spoke.

“What about this?”

“The monster-gun?” Hoxley said, voice pitched to a comical octave.

“That could blow off your hand! Or all of you! And us!”

“I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

A stifled yelp and the sound of retreating footsteps. A rough silhouette interposing itself between Odybrix and the thing that ate her friend. The silhouette raised an arm and the world blinked, not to black this time, but in a burst of radiant purple. Beyond the ruined mass of the thing’s head, she saw something red, bloody, and twitching. She let her psionic grip slide off the creature and onto the hand protruding from a gaping hole in its throat. A melodic trill accompanied Adam as he spilled onto the ground, then everything went black.

—

Alarms chimed against the mechanical din of the mech’s exertion. The metal cage, or perhaps soon, metal casket, was painted in strobing lights of chimney red and bonfire orange. Amidst the chaos, while Zenith fled her hamstrung brother, her eyes took in the vid feeds of her crew in brief glimpses. The situation unfolded in brief spurts of attention as she barreled toward it.

Little white flashes peppered the screen as the guns popped. A hulking mutant unfolded on a rooftop, like something out of the horror movies she and her mom used to watch. They hurled lead and plasma at it, like rice thrown at a wedding—and no more effective. Ody—stupid, bull-headed, fucking Ody—held the thing down with a psionic net. Then a hail of gunfire. A collapse.

Zenith fought the urge to get drawn into the terror that unfolded on her screen. If she slipped up, made a single unforced error, a beam blade could come tearing through her protective steel box and cut her in half. Yet, she couldn’t look away as she watched the scene through Adam’s feed. A rushing wall of death. A threshing pit of teeth. Darkness.

“No…”

Then he was back again. Through some miracle or otherworldly curse, the monster’s face was torn off and Adam was pulled out. His body fell to the ground with a wet thump, but he gave no time to the suggestion that he might be dead. He sprung to his feet, unsteady. His lacerated and burned visage cast about the crew like a man who had clawed his way out of the underworld. His mouth opened as if to let out a banshee’s wail, but instead screamed, “Get down!”

The creature’s torso burst open like a watermelon struck by a sledgehammer. The crew hit the deck as chunks of gore and shards of bone shot out like shrapnel. Hoxley fell to the ground with a scream, and Zenith had the sudden fear that a bone fragment had struck him in some vital spot. His dog was at his side in a blink. A moment later, he rolled over next to Adam, clutching his ankle, which was evidently twisted.

“You have no idea how much this hurts,” he said with an agonized grimace.

Adam—beaten, burned, and partially digested—stared at him wearily.

Despite the noise reverberating through the mech’s interior, she could feel the silence that swept over the rooftop. This portion of the fight had ended. She crested the roofline of the surrounding buildings, leaving their labyrinthine safety to meet her friends. Her attention shifted from the smaller displays, as the mech approached the battlefield.

“What’s the sitrep?” Zenith asked.

Sturdy answered, “We’re intact, mostly. Odybrix is down.”

“I didn’t know you spoke military,” Adam said with a groan.

“I didn’t know what being swallowed looked like till I looked at your screen.” Zenith replied.

“Yeah, after that I might have to take doc Jim up on his offer for therapy.”

“How’s Ody, BOB?” Zenith asked.

“Unconscious and bleeding moderately from various orifices!”

“We need to get her back to the ship,” Adam said, mustering resolve despite his injuries.

“We should take him while we’re at it,” Sturdy said, pointing to the unconscious black-market dealer splayed on the ground. “Pump him for information about Vaelor.”

BOB began trundling over to the limp man to investigate when a rapid sequence of events unfolded. The flaming mass of organic wreckage twitched, then sprang up on broken limbs. An arm like a wrecking ball swung down at BOB in a deadly arc. Sturdy was at the bot’s side, somehow noticing the monstrosity’s revival before anyone else. He threw himself at the titanium-lined bulk of BOB and managed to knock both of them out of the path of destruction.

The blow caved in a section of roof. Before it could take another swing Zenith pounded the monstrosity with chain gun rounds. The heavy ordnance cut through its flesh like a sewing machine. The barrage sent the thing staggering toward the edge of the roof. With blast from the mech’s thrusters, Zenith collided into its side and sent it flying into the open air.

She watched as it hurtled downward. Fiery wisps on its body were whipped into submission by the rushing wind. Its arms reached out to the glassy surface of the hospital, but it was too far. The body grew smaller in its terminal race away from the roof, then, like an egg hitting the floor, broke apart.

Zenith, and presumably those watching through her feed, regarding the splattered remains with a cautious optimism. Certainly, the disassembled hunks of flesh meant death. Nothing could come back from that. It couldn’t, right? The quiet contemplation came apart like a snapped twig with a warning from Buddy.

“Look out!”

The ineffective snap of a laser slipped off Harlow’s mech as Buddy shouted the warning. A jarring kick swept the legs out from the F2200. Before Zenith even hit the ground, Harlow grabbed her mech’s shoulder and slammed it on its back. She rolled the mech to its knees, but consciously interrupted the maneuver. The massive beam blade was already out and looming over her head. The moment she engaged the thrusters, it would fall upon her mech and cleave it in two.

Sparse options presented themselves to the problem. She could dodge laterally, get her mech cut off at the legs—probably not die immediately. She could lunge at him, maybe get under the blade—then get outmuscled by the superior strength of the super mech. She could attempt to swipe at the hand, knock the blade away—maybe the best option. To her side, Buddy raised a smoking pistol, the alien device that blew a hole through Vaelor’s monstrosity. Zenith thought she might be hesitating to shoot Harlow, but the subtle jerk of her arm suggested she was pulling the trigger. Broken.

Zenith took a steadying breath, cursed herself, then opted for the most dangerous option. The F2200 let out a mechanical hiss and Harlow’s mech twitched, its blade shaking like a loose guillotine. The hatch lifted, exposing her fragile mortal body to the war machine in front of her. 

There was always something interposing itself between her and her brother: career paths, pilot’s rivalry, their father and what to do about him, mechs, guns, choices. The adrenaline spilled out of her body as she tried to take in the breadth of him. History unspooled itself and let her see past the rough edges of their relationship. Through the anger and estrangement, despite the distance of their divergent paths, this was still her brother. Her overbearing, overprotective brother with the mussy hair and stupid laugh. Zenith stepped onto the lip of the cockpit and took off her helmet.

 “Well, looks like you beat me for once,” she said, affecting the sibling exasperation of their youth.

The rooftop, only moments ago the site of a violent uproar, was silent save for the crackle of barely constrained plasma. The mech was motionless, locked in the menacing moment of a killing swing. There was no telling what emotions, if any, tugged at her brother behind the steel mask. She pressed on under the glow of the blade.

“I mean, it took a military prototype and mutant abomination running interference, but in the end, all anybody sees is the ‘W.’” It was something their mother often said, the meaning of which landed on her children in a variety of ways. Most of the time, Zenith took it as comfort, no one is going to remember your failures, just your success. In other, darker moments, it was chastisement, you’re only relevant if you’re winning. Her mother would never wish to inflict that pressure on her children, but it hadn’t stopped them from inflicting it upon themselves. The words drew her brother out of his destructive fury.

“I told you to stay away,” he said, broadcasting over the mech’s speakers. “I told you what would happen if you didn’t. You didn’t listen. Why do you never listen?” His voice was strained, quavering with frustration and anger. Beyond the agitation was something else. It was like he was struggling.

“This family moves too fast to listen effectively,” she said, repeating another of her mother’s sayings. “No one would ever accuse us of being good communicators, or of possessing any kind of emotional intelligence. Maybe that’s bad parenting, maybe it’s genetics, but it isn’t everything.”

The mech was motionless, concealing whatever emotions might have flashed across his face. If her brother was wrestling with something, she wanted to help him win. In her periphery, the crew lowered their weapons, following her lead. She pressed on.

“Whatever we do, wherever we go, we’re family. I will always come to help you. Just like I know you’d come for us.”

Harlow scoffed. “Really? You’d say that now? After years of arguments, screaming, and dropped calls? Where were you when I needed you? You and mom were never on my side. I pleaded with you both to hear me out, to bring him in. You wouldn’t listen. You never listen.”

The struggle in his voice was gone, replaced with a bitterness that came with a decade’s old feud. Her father, or rather, his actions, had left a wound on their family that only festered with time. He was a criminal—not the violent kind, but he had a mountain of notoriety—and his crime had thrown their lives into chaos. How they picked up after his wreckage was the ongoing source strife between them all.

“You told me that he needed to atone for what he did. That going to prison was the only way to start making amends for the damage he did. To us, to the corp. You said that was the justice needed for his betrayal.”

“Yes, it still is,” he replied, coldly.

“You never said what his betrayal was.”

At this the mech’s hatch hissed open, revealing Harlow’s exasperated face. “His crime, Zenith! Embezzlement. A permanent stain on our family name that went on to colour everything we would ever do. Mom’s racing, my career.”

“I’ve thought about this a lot—you, not him. When we were kids, you were always so proud of mom and dad. You’d jump at the opportunity to tell your teachers, friends, and anyone who would listen that your mom was the best racer in the galaxy and that your dad was one of the most successful businessmen in history. You knew who your heroes were. Dad told you that hard work was all you needed to get what you wanted. So, you worked hard. Harder than any of us. And while your star was rising, his secret came out from out of the darkness and knocked you out of the sky. The crime wasn’t the betrayal, it was him not living up to what we believed him to be.”

Harlow’s hard stare began to waver as Zenith finished saying what she should have years ago.

“And no, I don’t believe you want him imprisoned out of some high-minded sense of justice. I think you want him to do what’s right—to be the man you thought he was. Because you believe he still can be, and because you love him. Because we’re family.”

The anger in his expression sagged as the words struck. Zenith blinked away the tears at the edges of her eyes. His mouth opened to say something before twisting into a snarl. He winced and grabbed his head, body shaking violently. Nearly as soon as it began, the spasm stopped. He dropped his hands and looked at her cooly. Vaelor has done something to him.

“A warning was given and went unheeded,” he said, sounding eerily unlike himself. The mech’s arm twitched as he grabbed the controls. “What do you have to say to that?” 

“BOB,” she said.

“What?”

From behind Adam came a gentle snap. BOB’s manipulator arm sprang out of its compartment, holding a grenade. The arm cocked back with a quick, mechanical jerk, and loosed the EMP in a lazy arc. Harlow’s eyes registered the projectile in the air, then snapped to Zenith as she pulled the helmet over her head. His hand shot toward the hatch control—too late. In a flash of white and purple, the electromagnetic wave washed over the mechs, frying their systems. Harlow rose to his feet, squinting. Through the afterimage of the blast, a shadow swelled in his vision. He recognized the silhouette of his sister just as her fist connected with his head, sending him into a world black.

— 

Darkness, or so the analysis of petabytes of media suggested, had many qualities. It could be a terminal signal, marking the end of day; it could soak susceptible mammalian brains with cortisol and adrenaline, stoking feelings of impending dread; it could be loud or quiet, or, paradoxical both; it could permeate spaces and thoughts. Perhaps the most adequate description of how BOB was experiencing the present darkness was like a coffin—nailed shut, thrown in a hole, and buried. If BOB possessed a squishy mammalian brain, that description might be off-putting. BOB was a machine. An orderly arrangement of rare minerals jolted into consciousness with electricity. They were untouched by the organic hindrances like anxiety or fear.

So it was with no trepidation that BOB armed the EMP grenade and threw it. BOB felt no fear as they hastily tucked their legs into the bulk of their frame and retracted the various bits that allowed them to perceive the universe. BOB certainly did not feel like they were cowering behind the makeshift faraday cage Hoxley and Odybrix had installed. BOB was beyond such feelings!

So when, in the absolute darkness and silence of themselves, BOB marked off the time at which the EMP was to crash over them, they were certain that it was safe to come out. Conversely, waiting seemed prudent. After all, the internal timer of the grenade could have suffered a fatal error. BOB had only performed twelve quality control checks on the device before equipping it. What if, in the two hours, twenty-six minutes and eleven seconds before BOB brought it into themself, someone had tampered with it. Buddy could have clumsily bumped into it, or Hoxley’s dog could have perceived it as a toy. BOB should have taken the grenade into themselves the moment they completed the last quality control check.

The thought of walking around with an undetonated wave of circuit-scouring electromagnetic energy made BOB’s motherboard shiver. No, they did not wish to have it inside them any longer than was necessary, despite insisting they be the one who handled it. And, yes, waiting a bit longer seemed prudent. BOB gave it another 6.394 seconds before cautiously peeking out of themself.

BOB’s anterior lens extended and focused. Zenith was hauling her limp sibling from the war machine with Adam’s assistance. Buddy was administering aid to Odybrix, who was presently offline. Sturdy was binding the wrists of the black-market dealer. Hoxley was…

A dog barked. BOB ran an analysis of five-hundred and thirty-two media files which included barking dogs. The comparative data suggested the animal was distressed. BOB turned toward the sound and could see why.

A mech stood at the edge of the roof. Its heavy armour gleamed gold in the light of the city. Missile racks hung from its shoulders, deployed and ready to shoot. A light plasma cannon hummed on one arm, and, in the other, was Hoxley. The infernum dangled from the steel grip of the machine, legs kicking helplessly in the air.

“Pardon. Do forgive the intrusion, but I’m afraid we have some business with each other.”