CHAPTER 16: PROFESSOR DARNELL - PROTECT YA NECK
"The dumb are mostly intrigued by the drum,
Death only one can save self from."
– RZA, "Wu-Tang Manual"
Deandre Darnell was born into affluence, untouched by hardship or struggle. However, his childhood, devoid of warmth or affection, fostered an icy, antisocial demeanor that grew within him. The question of whether he played an active role in, or merely witnessed, the tragic deaths of his wealthy parents and a fellow rising hip-hop artist remains shrouded in mystery. What is indisputable is that on the night of November 18th, 361 AC (Annus Controversia, “Year of Dispute”), three lives were lost at 1198 Troost Road in Kansas City, North Texas.
The story, as it is known, begins with seventeen-year-old Deandre in the basement of his family’s suburban two-story home. Hearing a sudden commotion upstairs, he cautiously made his way to the kitchen. What he found was horrific—his mother, lifeless, lying in a pool of blood. Before he had a chance to react, a masked figure, clutching a bloodied knife, emerged from the shadows.
In a moment of survival, Deandre, always armed for protection, drew his weapon and shot the intruder dead. Shaken, he immediately called the LAPD. Upon their arrival, police uncovered the full extent of the night's carnage—Deandre’s father had also been murdered. But the most startling revelation came when they identified the masked assailant: it was Withnail H. Williams, Deandre’s best friend and partner in music, known in the industry as Withnail-and-I.
Forensic evidence strongly suggested that Williams was responsible for the brutal killings. Blood spatter analysis indicated he had attacked Deandre’s parents, presumably in a robbery attempt. Yet, a darker theory emerged: some speculated that Deandre orchestrated the murders, manipulating his close friend into committing the crime, only to kill him in cold blood and cover his tracks. This alternate version of events fueled a media firestorm, dividing public opinion across Terra and even throughout the System.
Despite calls for legal action from certain factions, Deandre was never formally charged. The official story held that Williams, trusted as a familiar face, entered the home freely, disguised himself in a bathroom, and then launched his savage assault on Deandre’s parents. The motive, it seemed, was robbery.
At seventeen, Deandre inherited his family's vast estate and wealth, sparking outrage among his detractors. Some saw him as a victim, while others viewed him as a cold opportunist who had benefited from a calculated tragedy. This scandal catapulted him into celebrity status, a spotlight he quickly embraced. Shedding his birth name, he rebranded himself as "Professor Darnell," crafting a persona that reflected his ambition and desire to control his image and destiny.
His transformation was more than cosmetic; it was a bold declaration of his intent to stand apart from the crowd and bend the world to his will. The rumors surrounding that fateful night only added to his mystique, further fueling his rise to prominence.
He had been with thousands of women, or so he liked to boast. Any woman he desired eventually succumbed to his so-called “charms.” At least, the most expensive ones he could afford off the Russian dark web.
“Disastronauts, yo. It’s ya boy, Professor Darnell, and I’m under a table right now.” He paused, holding his breath, listening for any movement. Satisfied that he was still undetected, he resumed in a low whisper. “Sorry to not be hosting this with ya'll while I’m hiding like this. I know it’s cool though, my Bawdz, Jezteez, Doxeez, and Proz will catch me up when I come back online.”
Professor Darnell was holed up, several random turns deep in a shadowy office complex, whispering into his recording device. He was hidden, crouching in the dark. “Man, that shizz on the treadmill earlier was BS. Ima have nightmares about that. Straight-up nightmares. And did you catch that spot with She? Can you guys keep a secret? Let’s just say I’m glad I wore the right suit today for what happened when she took her exit. Shephatiah Jones, though… wow. Official new strategy: GTFO.”
A voice, with a distinct British accent, called his name from somewhere in the dark.
Darnell’s nerves snapped. He blurted angrily, “It’s Professor!”
From somewhere a few rooms away, the voice responded, “What?”
He froze, going silent.
Then he heard her mutter, “Oh.”
Emily Smith shouted again, “Professor Darnell!”
Annoyed, he hissed into the wall, “You said I didn’t have to follow you.”
Her voice softened, but still carried, “We need to stick to the plan. Everybody matters.”
Darnell realized she was getting closer. Panicked, he began crawling away on his hands and knees, whispering to himself, “No way she’s using me as collateral damage.”
“There you are. I can see in the dark, Professor Darnell. Goggles,” Emily’s voice suddenly pierced the shadows.
He stood up, defeated, caught. Turning to face her, he muttered, “Leave me alone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. We need everyone for the plan to work.”
He scoffed. “Listen to this lady. ‘We need to—'” he started mocking her, but Emily cut him off with a strange sound—a high-pitched whine that seemed to rise unnaturally in pitch.
Before he could even process what was happening, the sound hit him like a physical force. A deafening noise filled his head, and then, nothing—just complete silence. Vertigo overwhelmed him. His knees buckled as his skull throbbed with pain. He gagged, his stomach lurching as nausea swept over him. Crumpling to the floor, he pressed his hands to his bleeding ears, trying desperately to dull the agony.
Emily grabbed him by the arm, dragging him out of the dark office into the light. He could do nothing to stop her, his mind clouded with pain, his body useless in its disoriented state. The migraine was unbearable, his vision blurry, and every attempt to open his eyes only made the agony worse.
Through the haze of pain, he vaguely registered being pulled into a corridor that ran parallel to the office. He was dimly aware of the sensation of flight—ascending over some sort of barrier, though he couldn’t make sense of it. His pounding head left him disoriented and helpless as Emily continued to drag him along, her grip unrelenting.
She had dragged him to a dead-end tunnel where two others sat waiting, and immediately began treating Professor Darnell’s head with her healing spray. The first thing he heard after his hearing returned was her calm, almost clinical explanation: "If you'd just listened to reason, I wouldn’t have had to shatter your eardrums."
She then turned to the group, her voice taking on a sing-songy tone that made Darnell's skin crawl. “Please, all of you, be dears and don’t go running off on your own. If you try it, I’ll know.”
He hated her. She terrified him. It was as if, in her mind, the power to undo the harm she inflicted meant it didn’t count in the first place. She hurt him, fixed him, and then went about her business like nothing happened. Well, screw that.
Nearby, Hajime sat quietly with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching Professor Darnell. Was she another prisoner, or just another one of Emily’s pawns?
He looked over, nodding. “Yo, you good?”
Hajime blinked twice but didn’t respond.
Mike appeared, extending a hand to help Darnell stand.
“Nah, I got it. Thanks, tho, bro. Yer alright, man,” Darnell shifted, leaning back against the wall next to Hajime. He gave Mike a grin. “Yo, sit down with us, man.”
Mike chuckled and plopped down beside him, his back to the passage Emily had disappeared down.
“This is how me and my buddies used to tell secrets in school,” Mike said, glancing at Hajime. “My daddy used to send his factotum to school with me, and we had to find ways to talk without him overhearing. My daddy’s factotum worked with my daddy.”
He looked dead serious when he turned back to Mike. “Aight, let’s get real. Here’s the secret—Emily finna get us all murked. You know who she is, right? Seen her in anything before? Shorty got a body count, like, real talk—eleven or twelve folks, easy. Co-stars, cast, whatever. If we keep rollin' with her, we dead, bruh. She crazy AF.”
Hajime spoke up, her voice measured. “In my opinion, her plan to use my AI,” she touched a fingertip to her temple, “could resolve this situation the fastest. But I also have reservations about whether she can actually get any of us to safety. Perhaps if she allowed me to use her spacesuit’s shielding, I could force my way to the AI myself.”
Darnell straight up laughed. “Bruh, she ain't lettin' you get close to that. If it was that easy, we'd be outta here already. This ain’t about the mission. This a game to her.”
Hajime flushed, turning away in frustration as she fidgeted with a cable wrapped around her waist.
“So, what’s up with all that noise she was talkin' about robots tryin’ to be humans and all that? Like, is she really the one we supposed to be takin’ orders from?”
“She’s basically just some jaded Generation Ocho phony. She finna get us all greased.”
Mike started to sit up, noticing something off. Darnell caught a shadow creeping into the corridor, hard and unnatural with sharp angles, moving too smooth. They could hear the faint mechanical hum. Then, around the corner came Emily, pushing a scooter-sized magnetic hand-cart with three canisters of foodstuffs and Federico’s NPU.
Darnell threw out, “Oh, what now? You comin' to feed us like we your prisoners or somethin’?”
Emily, amused, busted out laughing, “Cor blimey!” She set down the canisters of butter, liquor, and corn. Mike had Hajime crack open the corn for him, while Darnell got her to pop open the Beirao. He’d lost his last drink when Shephatiah got snatched. Inside the big canister were smaller bags of booze with little sippy-straws attached. Darnell’s eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas, and he started stuffin’ his suit’s pockets full of ‘em.
With a grin plastered on his face, he slurped on a bag of booze. Mike, seeing this, grabbed one for himself. Darnell eyed him with a smirk, “Ayo, Mike, wanna see a trick?”
Mike, sippin’ away, nodded. Quick as a flash, Darnell squeezed Mike’s bag, sending the drink shootin’ up his nose. Mike sputtered, coughin’ and laughin’ at the same time, while Darnell busted up so hard he coughed too.
“Man, that’s a good one. Burns like hell though.”
Emily chimed in, all business again, “Once you’ve all eaten, we’re headin' down to Nervous, so we can get to the bottom of this mess.”
Darnell wasn’t about to let that slide. “Nah, the only mystery I’m tryna solve is how we get up outta here. Can we vote or somethin’?”
Emily shook her head, sing-songy as ever, “Nope. You’re all my companions now. Tickety-boo?”
Darnell’s mind drifted back to that spaceship he saw earlier on the spaceport. Retro as hell, but it somehow looked more futuristic than everything else around. The thought hit him: someone probably already found this comet and the mine but got done in by these damn robots. That was their ship. And if they could fly it in, bet he could fly it out. Emily herself had shown him how to hijack machines using an Engineer’s Mate—and even handed him one, callin’ it “good as a key to anything.”
His plan? Play along with Emily’s nonsense until the right moment hit to bounce. He’d only have to deal with that damn black crane thing.
Emily kept narratin’ like she was leadin’ some tourist group, takin' them deeper into the dark offices, down stairs, and into these long green passageways buried underground—strictly human territory. The path stretched out straight, and Darnell was already schemin’ his way out.
"This takes us straight to the fab lab, and then Nervous. Both facilities are run by machines, but I've already secured the entrance to the former, where we can execute our plan," Emily corrected herself, "our plan."
Professor Darnell decided it was time to host his own show, “Yo, hey! Mofos, I love y’all! You know who it is, Professor Darnell in the house!”
Emily, assuming he was speaking to her, asked, “What did you just say?” But Darnell ignored her, fully in his element. Emily merely shrugged and watched as Mike did his own thing, lost in his can of corn.
“Here I am, layin' down the cosmic beat with none other than Hajime Mashite. How you doin’ today, Hajime?”
“I’ve been better,” she replied, her voice flat.
“She’s been better, I’ve been better. That’s how we all feel deep down.”
Hajime, amused, tossed in a quick four-second burst of professional kawaii energy that made Darnell momentarily lose focus. Drunk as he was, he entertained the thought of sliding into a Hajime special, but he reminded himself of his priorities. She could play the thankful damsel after the fact.
Meanwhile, Mike was still trailing behind, oblivious or maybe in on the act, his face buried in the can of corn.
“Yo Miggy! Migezeezy! Migesus!” Darnell called out.
Mike looked up, his hand wrist-deep in corn and butter, “I thought it’d taste better if I mixed them together.”
“Genius, Mikey. Genius.”
Mike wiped his butter-covered hand on his suit, already stained with black secretions of who-knows-what.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Emily cut in with a smirk, “You two can play bricky chuckaboo if you wag your little drumsticks. No mafficking.”
Darnell, caught off guard, barked back, “Whose drumstick you callin' little, Miss Marple?” He grabbed at his groin and made a honking noise.
Emily, unfazed, replied, “I hate to be a church bell, you half-rat gal-sneaker, but we’re not here for nanty narking.”
“You gonna threaten me now?” Darnell shot back, locking eyes with her. Mocking her accent, he added, “I must warn you dastardly fellows, I’m a renowned Revolveress in the old country, wot-wot.”
Crossing her arms, she smirked, “Be careful I don’t shut that sauce box of yours, you wooden spoon.”
Darnell grinned, “Sauce box, huh? Fancy.”
There was a brief, tense silence before Emily turned and resumed leading them. The fab lab turned out to be a large underground garage filled with work tables and space tools, ventilation ducts hovering overhead.
Darnell, feeling warm in the face, finished off another pouch of Portuguese Licor and belched loudly. His body was beginning to feel numb from the alcohol and food. His belly ached from overindulgence, and he’d already pissed in his suit once. That hadn’t been dignified, but after seeing that black metal spider arm pluck Shephatiah like a reverse stork, he'd had no trouble relieving himself.
Man, he was getting drunk.
He started to feel brave, eyeing some of the hand tools as potential weapons. Then he remembered to rein it in—if he drew down on Emily, she’d fry him in a second. But so far, he had every reason to believe his plan would work in a pinch. He just needed her to drink some of his alcohol before he accidentally ran out. Now, he needed her to be complicit in his escape, at least to some degree, because his only way out was past her magnetic deadlock, and she had the only key.
Emily had everyone gathering up whatever scrap metal they could find, and there was plenty of it lying around. She had set herself up at a central workstation that looked odd, even by futuristic standards. Hajime and Mike came to her, each carrying armloads of random bits and pieces that fit the bill for what she had asked for. Professor Darnell wasn’t carrying anything—except for six more bags of Beirão Licor. Well, five and a half bags, now.
That’s when Emily started talking about something that actually got his attention: the coolest weapon in the world.
“What we have here today,” she began, “is the most up-to-date, cutting-edge tech I’ve ever laid eyes on. This is the mother of all smartblades. The bloody Queen.”
The handheld device she held had a sleek, ergonomic design, looking like it would fit snugly in anyone’s palm. A soft luminescence glowed from its core.
“The GenOne Industrial,” she announced.
She touched the device, and a green holographic grid sphere projected from its core, a perfect sphere about three meters in diameter. “It features a touch-sensitive surface, responsive to the slightest gestures. Embedded sensors allow for precise navigation within virtual landscapes.” A tiny pixel of light appeared in front of her—practically two-dimensional—and she demonstrated how it could slice through anything. “This compact tool seamlessly bridges the physical and virtual realms, facilitating intricate control with an intuitive interface.”
Professor Darnell squinted at it. “Why’s it stuck to the table?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Emily replied. “I’ll answer your question with a little explanation, if you don’t mind. Your standard civilian CivBlade today has just one vector and one pixel.” She tossed a piece of metal into a small sectioned-off area designed for smartblade use. The metal was caught by a magnetic field, suspended in mid-air. “As you can see, the pixel slices the metal effortlessly.”
Darnell's butthole clenched as he watched the tiny white shape glide through the metal, shaving off a layer in a way that was weirdly satisfying.
Emily pressed a side button on the device with her thumb, and the pixel split into four. “This is what you’d expect to see from a yakuza assassin smartblade, like the Black Lotus Shinigami. Very hard to use. Very easy to kill yourself with if you don’t know what you're doing. Requires years of mastery. Or,” she rapped her knuckles on the table, “we can use this lovely little mechanical arm. Machine-intelligence module. It only knows how to use a smartblade. Lovely little chap.”
Professor Darnell could tell that as Emily manipulated the quartet of pixels, the mechanical arm did indeed handle most of the work with subtle, precise movements.
"Yo, one more question. How much can it do?"
Emily paused, asking him what he meant, then realized a moment later that he was talking about the number of pixels.
"Let's find out, shall we?" she replied.
Hajime had been quietly watching nearby, and Darnell noticed how fixated she was as Emily unleashed the full array of pixels. He didn’t count them, but it was like a dazzling light show—pixels darting and moving like some kind of lethal hologram, an invisible laser carving space itself. Hajime was smiling, clearly captivated by the sight.
Emily quickly figured out how to set the machine to automatically craft each part she needed. She tossed scrap metal into the pixel swarm, and within seconds, the metal was carved into perfectly shaped pieces, which then dropped into a collection bin. It was the coolest thing Darnell had ever seen. Emily set to work wrapping metal wire around the pieces, drawing from a massive spool on the table.
After some time, Emily finished transforming a magnetic ring device from her suit into four small objects made from the scrap metal and wiring they’d found.
"These are for keeping doors from opening," she explained, holding one up. "If you place one on an attacking robot in the right spot, it’ll immobilize it. No matter where you attach it, the magnetism will be strong enough to disorient any mechanoid. Everybody gets one. Just place it and click the toggle. Deadlocked."
"How do we take 'em off?" Professor Darnell asked, still eyeing the device.
Emily held up a small wand. "This is the control key. Technically, all four are connected by quantum entanglement, so they act as one device. And I’ve got the only key, which stays with me."
Hajime let out a small laugh, though Darnell couldn’t figure out why.
Emily continued, explaining that she had sacrificed her personal defense shield to create these devices. They were meant to give everyone an edge if things went sideways.
Darnell weighed the heavy metal chock in his hand. "So this is, like, an extra life?"
Mike, who had been fiddling with his, immediately dropped it on the floor with a loud clunk. It didn’t break, but it did bounce.
Emily went on to explain the plan: they would seal the entrance to the corridor connecting the fab lab and Nervous with one of her magnets. That would leave the only possible entry point, the elevator from above.
The hallway—or was it a hallway?—felt less like something built for humans and more like an exposed nerve stretched across the belly of a beast. Darnell swayed on the metal catwalk, his footsteps heavy and unsteady, the clang of his boots louder than it should’ve been in the eerie silence. The entire thing was suspended high above a rocky chasm that seemed to stretch forever downwards into the dark, icy heart of the comet. He squinted into the shadows below, as if the void might reveal some secret. The grating under his feet clinked with each step, but it didn't feel solid. It was as if the entire structure could just give up on its purpose and drop him into the cold abyss, and for a moment, the idea didn’t seem so bad.
The air bit at his exposed skin, the cold creeping under his layers, but it wasn’t just the cold making him shiver—it was the whole damn place. It was otherworldly. The catwalk extended ahead, leading from the Fab Lab—yeah, he’d just come from there, right?—to the entrance of Nervous. His blurred vision settled on the distant glass doors, reflecting only faint light. What was in there? He didn’t know, and something in his gut told him he didn’t want to know. They looked like the kind of doors that led to bad ideas and worse outcomes, shimmering faintly like the opening to a trap.
His feet stumbled over a loose bolt or something, and he muttered to himself, catching his balance. "The hell is this place?" He looked up, staring at the crossroads ahead. Halfway down the hallway, the catwalk split. The path to the right led to some sort of platform—a docking area for machines, it seemed. His alcohol-soaked brain processed the setup slower than normal. A docking platform? Yeah, for the big elevator, the one he’d seen on his way in. The whole place felt like something out of a dream, or a nightmare, like it wasn’t quite built for him—or anyone, really. Just... things. Machines, metal, and ice. Maybe it wasn’t for people at all. Maybe it was for something else.
He stopped in the middle of the catwalk and leaned heavily on the railing, staring at the path that led to the elevator. It sat up there, above him, tucked away like some dormant beast, its massive frame aligning with the ceiling as if waiting for the right moment to descend. The track it rode ran up along the icy stone wall, almost vertical—maybe 60, 70 degrees? Not quite straight up, but close enough to make him dizzy just looking at it. It was strange how the elevator just seemed to hang there, not moving, its bottom edge almost invisible in the dim light, blending with the surroundings as though it wasn’t really there at all.
He blinked a few times, trying to clear his head, but the alcohol kept his thoughts in a haze. The whole scene had this weird, surreal edge to it, like everything was waiting. The ice walls that surrounded him shimmered with strange, unnatural patterns, the veins of frozen water and rock crisscrossing like some kind of alien artwork carved into the belly of the comet itself. It was... kind of beautiful, actually, if he ignored the fact that the whole place felt like it was one wrong move from swallowing him whole.
He let out a breath, watching it curl into a tiny cloud of mist in the freezing air. The cold gnawed at him, but the drink kept him numb, and he found himself laughing under his breath for no reason at all.
"Suspended over nothing... just like my damn life." He shook his head and kept moving, shuffling forward, still not sure if he was supposed to be following the path toward Nervous or the one toward the elevator. But then again, what did it matter? Wherever he went, it was going to be somewhere awful. This place didn’t offer any other options.
As he walked, the ice walls seemed to close in, their jagged ridges and sharp edges gleaming under the faint lights like teeth in the dark. He could feel it now—the weight of the comet’s frozen heart pressing in on him from all sides. And he was just a tiny, insignificant speck on a metal thread, hanging over an abyss that cared nothing for his existence.
It was Professor Darnell’s job to manage the elevator controls. All he had to do was hit the stop button every time it tried to descend. Easy enough. Meanwhile, Emily, Hajime, and Mike were heading into Nervous to log into that virtual reality Emily kept going on about. To fix the crazy AI, or whatever it was. In Darnell's mind, the whole plan sounded like a bad sci-fi plot destined to get them all killed. He was just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to bail. Every extra step Emily took seemed pointless, like she was deliberately stalling just to keep them in danger longer. And now he was down two more booze packets.
The trio approached the doors to Nervous. The lights flicked on as they stepped inside.
“And there they go. Later, losers,” he muttered.
Darnell watched as two large white robots approached them inside Nervous. The robots reminded him of massive insects, their backs swollen with strange clusters of holes—a nightmare for anyone with tryptophobia. The interior of Nervous looked like a futuristic hospital, all sterile white, with cabinets and big machines that looked like people could fit inside.
"Oh snap, that didn’t take long. So much for the suspense," he grumbled.
Suddenly, the sound of machinery moving caught his attention. Darnell snapped his head up. Had the elevator moved? He saw motes of dust falling from high above, gears turning slowly at the top. There was a metallic tang that made his stomach drop. A yellow klaxon began spinning beneath the elevator platform. Without hesitation, Darnell slammed the stop button. The klaxon turned red.
He heard a scream—Hajime, telling Mike to run. Emily countered, shouting for Mike to stop. Apparently, Mike was using the Federico canister like a shield, holding it between himself and one of the big doctor robots.
A buzzing noise caught Darnell’s attention again. He glanced up—the klaxon had switched back to yellow.
"Button!" he shouted to himself, slapping it again.
It was impossible to tell if the elevator had moved, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Yellow again. "F-that," he cursed. "This shit sucks balls."
From inside Nervous, he heard Hajime start singing. Darnell blinked, his mind reeling. “Wtf?” he muttered to himself. He slapped the button a few more times, riding it like it was some kind of reflex. The signal would switch back almost as soon as he hit it.
Another scream rang out, and something hit the glass inside Nervous, cracking it. Darnell jumped. The front door had shattered. One of the big white doctor robots was hanging halfway out, its skinny arms flailing in a creepy, uncoordinated manner. It was bigger than a man, but its impossibly thin arms were nightmarish. Most bizarre of all was its face—round, with a soothing blue-lit panel that was somehow both serene and terrifying. It was the least-threatening, most-threatening thing Darnell had ever seen.
He figured Emily must've blasted the thing with one of her secret weapons—probably something she kept hidden up her sleeve. The robot staggered, as if it were going to crawl back into Nervous, but then it saw him. With a sudden, animalistic frenzy, it reached for him, crawling closer.
Darnell was still pretty far away, but the robot’s spindly arms stretched out, grasping. It seemed tethered to something, maybe one of Emily’s magnet boxes jamming its circuits.
"Emily’s BS box, stuck up its butt," he muttered, backing away.
The robot kept writhing, scratching the ground to get to him. Darnell couldn’t stand it. What if it broke loose? What if Emily’s "genius" gadgets didn’t stop it? He was dead meat. Or worse. He didn’t want to know where those damn machines would drag him next.
Driven by sheer panic, Professor Darnell ran up to the violently twitching thing. His heart pounded, but he pressed the button on his magnet box and smacked it right in the face. The blue light behind the robot’s faceplate flickered a few times before blinking out. He let go of the device, and it clung to the robot’s head like a magnetized death sentence. The machine stopped moving. It didn’t crumple; it just froze mid-reach, locked in position, as if frozen in time.
Then the damn klaxon started flashing red again. Darnell glanced at the elevator. It was moving. Cursing under his breath, he rushed back to the console and slammed the stop button. Crisis averted, for now. He took a swig from his second-to-last bag of booze.
Emily poked her head out of the cracked window, her gaze falling on the deactivated doctor robot, now pinned down by two of her magnet boxes. "Good work, lad," she called, nodding approvingly. "I’ll be right back."
Darnell saw Hajime plugging the Federico cylinder into some kind of wall socket. Emily sprinted over to assist.
It’s now or never, man.
"Emily!" he called after her. She turned, eyes narrowing slightly as she jogged back over.
"Help me out. Look," he said, pointing toward the flashing red klaxon beneath the elevator.
Without hesitation, she ran past the motionless robot, hopping over it with ease. "What’s going on?" she asked, concern creasing her brow.
"Just come here," he beckoned, keeping his tone urgent.
Once she was close enough, within range of his AVP, he smiled. "How about that drink?" he said smoothly, and before she could react, he squirted her in the face with the last squeeze bottle of Beirao alcohol.
Professor Darnell always came strapped. And with an AVP, he was always strapped. Romance wasn’t his style—too much patience required for that. No, his "black market" AVP augmentations were all the romance he needed. Cutting-edge tech, still so new almost nobody knew what to do about it.
Emily collapsed to the ground, vomiting as she hit the floor. Darnell knew she wasn’t suffering, though. She was euphoric. High as a kite.
She mumbled something, her voice slurred and weak. He thought she might be asking for a doctor.
"I’m a doctor. Well, a professor, anyhow," he said with a grin. "What can I do for you?"
Emily sat up slowly, stretching and rubbing her torso in a dazed, drug-induced haze. He knew the signs—she was blissed out, completely stoned.
"Give me the key," he said, leaning down. Her eyes widened with a stupidly huge grin, and she purred, "You can have anything you want."
Darnell didn’t need to be told twice. He frisked her for the key, feeling her lean into his touch, but he wasn’t interested in that right now. He had bigger plans.
He slammed the elevator stop button one last time before hoisting Emily into his arms, her limp body dangling awkwardly as he swept her away, retracing their steps through the fab lab, down the long green hallway, through the darkened offices, and finally out onto the spaceport.
Setting her down, he pointed at the retro spaceship, "Run," he commanded, though he knew she could barely manage to stand. The neurochemical toxicity coursing through her system, courtesy of his AVP, had ravaged her motor functions. She staggered forward, disoriented, her mind clouded beyond recall—just the way Darnell preferred it.
He stayed close behind her, glancing over his shoulder only as the looming shadow of the crane robot swept closer. The massive black arm, with its spidery joints, descended upon them. Darnell quickened his pace, moving just out of reach as the mechanical monstrosity snatched Emily from behind. He barely spared a look, hearing her muffled, startled cry followed by a gagging sound. He kept moving, not interested in witnessing the carnage.
He spied the magenta trefoil emblem that was split down the middle on the door. He said, “Radioactive? I love them treads! This is a omen. Amiright?”
Jogging the rest of the way, he reached the spaceship, pressed the entry button, and watched the door hiss open. Once inside, he shut it behind him with a satisfying click.
The interior was small—no larger than a moon apartment, if you were lucky enough to afford one. Four crew chairs filled the cramped space, with little else to note. It was simple, utilitarian, but it would do.