I set the crosshairs over the varangian’s impassive face and tried to hold them steady. This close I didn’t need the accounting spreadsheet’s worth of range and lead markings, and some function of my SKH eye made keeping the reticle centered easier. After a brief debate, Arc and I had decided to get rid of the mysteriously bioengineered guard first. We had no idea what they were really capable of, and a bullet was more likely to kill them than one of the Masks. Going straight for the Cromwell heiress had a bit of appeal, but we had to be practical. It was an effort to keep my breathing controlled. I didn’t know much about precision shooting but slow and steady had to be best.

“Is it time yet?” Alvar whispered beside me. We’d decided to move the moment they test-fired their latest experiment. There was a small risk of that throwing things off, but it was also when they’d be most distracted.

“It’ll be time when I give us tinnitus,” I hissed back without looking away. We’d been unsure what to do with our captive. It wasn’t like we could just toss him back. Maybe we could have used him as a distraction again, but that got even more convoluted. In the end I’d just let him load his looted pistol and told him to keep his head down. He wouldn’t shoot me in the back. Probably. I still felt kind of guilty about basically ruining his life, which was pretty stupid considering he was better off than his friends.

He’d still looked utterly despondent while we waited for Arc to get into position, crouching and staring at the floor. The pistol dangled awkwardly from one hand, as if he wanted as little skin touching it as possible.

“What?” I asked in a low voice. He gave me a level look. “Besides the obvious,” I added.

“What else is there? What am I gonna do after this?” he said quietly, looking back down at the floor. He hadn’t even bothered to sound distraught. “Even if I don’t get shot, I can’t go home, not after fucking up on a mission like this. Getting chucked in iso would be lucky. I have a sister, y’know? What if she loses her job? Or the Vitroix speedies fuck with her ‘cause of me?”

I grit my teeth, hemmed and hawed. Just killing people’s easier, I thought, and immediately felt like an asshole for it. “Look,” I finally said. “You stick with me and Arc, come back with us. I- I know some people. We’ll give you a hand. We can probably get you in touch with your sister too.”

He sighed. “…It’s something, I guess. Fuck.”

I’d just turned back to the scope, unsure how to continue that conversation. After Hesypha finished installing the cage and its ‘sample’ in the test rig, she went back the the computers and began punching stuff in. Back in the scope, the varangian was still as a statue but for a faint flick of their red-furred ears. Ilyes Cromwell lolled back in her chair behind them, watching proceedings with a bored disdain.

“Geiger readings?” asked Hesypha without looking up.

“Normal,” answered one of the green-smocked nerds. “A slight reduction, inline with previous tests.”

“Good. Alright, people, eyes up. Test of contactor 136BZ with excitation profile delta-3 is about to commence.” Hesypha positioned her finger over a keyboard and I turned back to my target. Even Ilyes and the varangian were paying attention. Holding the reticle right on the varangian’s head, I pressed the accelerator control on the rifle’s grip and felt its faint thrum as the icon in the scope lit up. The textured metal of the trigger caressed my fingertip.

“Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Contact.” Hesypha hit the button and I pulled the trigger. It broke like a thin glass rod and the rifle punched my shoulder, letting out a deafening, throaty crack even through the suppressor. At the same instant another wave of cold pulsed through me, tingling and weird but eerily familiar. Shouts and screams sounded below as I lowered the rifle. The varangian was down with a massive hole in the side of their neck- either they’d moved or I’d pulled the shot. Ilyes looked down at them impassively and got up, the pair of Masks beside her already turning towards my window. In the fraction of a second I had before my head got blown up, I looked to the other side of the room. Hesypha looked up at me, the other scientists ran around screaming and dove under tables, and past them- there. The third Mask by the reactor was looking up at me too- but a white-garbed figure jumped up through the floor, slitting them ankle to chin with a flickering knife. I had just enough time before my head dropped below the windowsill to see blood burst out of them like water from a split pipe.

“Cover!” I barked at Alvar as I fell, but he was already on the ground and under the control panel. An instant later a fusillade of bullets crackled into the wall outside and the ceiling above. Chips and powdered concrete fell on me and stung my face as I held the rifle across my chest and awkwardly worked the bolt. The huge empty clanged on the floor, an incongruously cheery sound I heard even through ringing ears. Before I could get it closed I heard a deeper bang! bang! bang! from outside and the PIN tugged at my arm from within.

Split-second deciding to listen to it, I stuck the hand up and saw it flicker out from under my fingernail just in time to hit something coming through the window. A rapid-fire chain of explosions just outside deafened me all over again. The blast wave squeezed my ribs and pressed on my eyeballs, the cybernetic one making a nauseating creak I heard through my skull. “Fuck!” screamed Alvar, and I was with him.

The fucking thing had just caught some grenades for me. I was gonna have to stop treating it like a creepy relative and start buying it drinks at this point. It slid back into my arm with a twinge, and I caught Alvar looking at it with wide eyes from his balled-up spot under the controls. My mouth opened, then closed. This wasn’t the time and he was probably deaf anyway. I slammed a new round into the sniper rifle’s chamber and dared to peek out again, squinting through a cloud of chemical smoke. The scientists were all hiding now and the varangian lay in a bloody heap on the floor. Arc was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the sarevna- but her two power-armored Masks remained in place, aiming up at us. The nearer one held a short shotgun, the farther what must have been a grenade launcher. I swung the rifle over, thumbing the booster control. My Thayer eye made it the most natural thing in the world to set the crosshairs on the farther’s neck joint and pull the trigger.

This time I saw the bullet hit with an actinic flash just before the scope jerked with recoil. The enny staggered and took a knee but who knew how much damage I’d done. I dropped to the floor and ran the bolt again as a burst of shotgun slugs cratered the windowsill and ceiling. The PIN buzzed again and I let it go just long enough to whack a grenade- thrown, this time- coming through the window. It flew back downward and the resulting explosion was muted, like it had only partway gone off. Based on what the Winnower had done with it, the PIN was more than strong enough to smash a hand grenade in half.

“Time for me to go!” I shouted at Alvar.

“What! Why?”

“I’m a roach waiting to get stomped in here! And they’re shooting at me, not you!”

He blinked. “Oh! Go ahead then!”

“Fucker,” I mumbled, popping up in a different spot. That shotgun still snapped right onto me like it was on an automatic mount- but suddenly more gunfire popped off below. In the corner of my eye Arc’s tattered, white-clad figure leaned out from behind the reactor and emptied a pistol at the two Masks. It didn’t sound any different from a regular old heater but the bullets struck incredibly hard, chipping the Masks’ power armor. One was still out of action from my shot, down but not out. The one with the shotgun extended it one-handed towards Arc and reached for their pistol for the other. It flew out of its holster on an EM tether, but my gun was already in hand. Between the scope and my eye was easy to aim for the armored hand on the shotgun’s grip. Another crack! of air sheared by one of my huge bullets, and both the shotgun and the enny’s hand were blasted away.

I dropped the gun without bothering to work the bolt. It was a nice piece and worth a heap of deng, but this was no longer a sniper rifle sort of fight. Taking a deep breath and leaving my PIN hand clear, I sprinted out of the control room’s door, bouncing off the railing and running for the stairs. My boots clanged on the catwalk while more gunshots echoed below. My ears were ringing, but I thought I heard Arc cry out in pain. With a wordless snarl I sped up and tore through the door to the stairwell. Best thing I could do to help her was get the fuck in there with her, and while I could maybe survive a thirty foot drop onto concrete this wasn’t a good time to find out I couldn’t.

The saw was in my hand almost without me realizing it as I jumped down the stairs three at a time. They rattled and threatened to rip out of the wall but I didn’t slow. What did get through my adrenaline fugue and stop me was the door below crashing open.

“J, Aster, upstairs! The rest of you on me!” barked a martial voice below.

“Yessir!”

“Sir!”

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“Sir, what the fuck is-“

“Go, Trooper! Come on! Move! Move!”

So here were the reinforcements. I’d picked a good time to move. Boots clanked below me and puffing breaths echoed up the dim, wet stairwell. I hunched against the corner, watching, waiting, trying to look like a lumpen shadow- and a few seconds later got my change. Half a flight below me a pair of Macomb mercs came into view, carbines held at a tight low ready. Without hesitation I vaulted the railing and landed on the one in the rear, size-seventeen work boots smashing into her shoulders and spiking her against the stairs like an industrial accident.

I somehow kept my feet as a choked shriek punched out of the body below me. The merc above barely got turned around before I whipped the saw across their front. It blurred through her wrists and across her throat, curls of bitter scorched-bone smoke churning into my face. Her gun clattered down on its sling as she fell back, head barely attached by a bit of gristle. I spat her blood out of my mouth and kicked the one I stood on in the back of the skull. It bounced off the stairs hard enough to dent them but I flicked the saw through her neck just to be sure. It went through flesh and bone and the metal below with equal ease. I’d already begun to turn and rush down the rest of the stairs. I needed to save Arc- ’Stride, save myself- but below that was the fact that all the adrenaline, the violence, feeling things break under my fists, the sheer fucking exertion of force? It felt good.

The hallway outside was empty, but the door leading to the ground floor of the lab area hung open. I charged in, quickly catching up to the other mercs- four in a stack, moving towards the safety offered by the Masks. They wouldn’t get there. The closest: One swing across the back, the Wiken not hanging up in the ribs like my old buzzer would. I barged through his bisected corpse, a curtain of blood wetting my jacket. The next, a backhand stroke, hissing across under the rim of her helmet, everything above the brainstem gone. I shoved the stumbling body aside like a drunk in a crowd. There was hot mist wet on my face, salty in my nose, but inside I felt cold and hard and perfect. The third, turning now, raising his gun to catch my overhand. I kept going, recklessly, letting the blade skate across the gun, feeling it almost bind and snap- and then I grinned as it shredded his fingers into vapor, shoved his block aside, sank down through collarbone and lungs and ribs to shred his heart. A furious kick-shove to his chest to clear it- give it back, it’s mine, I need more- and now the last, eyes wide in horror, his gun falling as he raised his hands in surrender. They came off just like his head as I gave the saw a horizontal flick, contemptuous, almost lazy. Pieces bounced off me as I lunged for the Masks.

The one I’d shot in the neck was staggering to their feet, trying to stomp away from me in Arc’s direction. The other, Righty now, raised his coil pistol- the exact same as mine. I thought about drawing my own but it was too late. I left my PIN hand free and kept charging. The pistol cracked, the PIN lashed weirdly free, my arm jolted with phantom weight. a metallic tinggg sounded as something whipped by the side of my head and left my temple burning bright with pain- but now I was close. I whipped out the saw, not for the Mask themself but for the gun. They realized my true target too late and my blade whispered the muzzle right off. There was a brief flash and the stink of chemicals as the power cell ruptured. And then I hit.

It was like sprinting face-first into a refrigerator, but a fridge that was already off-balance. The enforcer tipped back and I made sure to hook my boot behind their leg to keep them tripping. My eyes bored into dim red eyeports above a faceless respirator grille, even the Thayer unable to make out anything past them. As we fell I brought the saw between us, trying to lay it right across the their neck seal. A squeeze of the trigger brought it hissing to life, ready to shred aramid and nanofiber like plastic wrap. But as the Mask’s armored form crashed into the floor they got their stump up and caught the blade across it, tangling the teeth across the split edge of armor. I let go of the trigger an instant before the blade snapped, spitting a curse as a wrench of the Mask’s arm twisted the grip out of my hand.

An armored knee snapped into my leg like a hammerblow. I hissed out breath but managed to ignore it. I went for my pistol even as they dropped theirs, meaning to put a penetrator right through their eyeport- but the slug skipped off the crown of their helmet and screeched off across the floor. A grip like a shop press crushed around my wrist and began to shove my gun away. Between armor and augs the ennie was stronger than me. That grenade launcher barked somewhere nearby explosions close on its tail. I had to think fast.

So I extended my trigger finger, the same that the PIN came out of, and willed it to get heavier. It did, more and more until the Mask wasn’t moving me, but their grip wouldn’t loosen. “Just die, fucker,” I hissed into that impassive helmet.    With a great effort I began to slide the PIN out from under my nail. It was difficult, like trying to pull a deadlift with just my little fingers- the thing wasn’t mean to sustain its uncanny weight for this long. Ever so slowly it began to extend vertically down toward’s the Mask’s face. The weight was crushing the skin on my wrist against the ennie’s gauntlet. It felt like sticking my hand in that same shop press. I choked out another breath and pushed more, spit and breath-fog misting against the Mask’s faceplate. “Die. Die. Die.” I hardly realized I was saying it anymore.

I heard a harsh clicking of valves from below- they were breathing hard as I was. It was the first human reaction I’d seen from one of them. The invisible thread of the PIN touched the eyeport and it shattered instantly under the concentrated mass, proceeding with inexorable slowness downward. Inward. More flailing knees hit my legs and sides but the technique was poor, desperate. More PIN out of my finger, more weight. Somehow I felt it push through cornea and retina and the orbit of the skull like a medical nano-needle. An inch, then two, then three slid into the Mask’s braincase- the weird half-sense of what the PIN touched told me it was organic. Their grip around my wrists shook but held. Six inches, seven, brushing the back of the skull. I stopped pushing more in.

And willed it to spin as hard as it could.

I felt it accelerate instantly inside the Mask’s skull, the impossibly sharp cord lashing into a tangle that whisked their brain into slurry. The gauntlet around my wrist went limp so I pulled the PIN in, yanked my arm free and put a burst of flechettes into the broken eyeport just to be sure. I felt the little darts pinging around inside their armor for a second or two afterward. I staggered upright with my chest heaving, feeling deep bruises already forming on my legs.

“Good job,” I muttered, patting myself on the arm before picking up the saw The PIN gave another one of those satisfied buzzes. Yeah, still weird. I quickly looked around, dried blood cracking on my face. The other Mask was still advancing away from me at a slow limp. I must have done some damage with that neck shot. I couldn’t see Arc and just had to hope she was alright. I flicked the coilgun back to penetrators, took aim, and shot at the second Mask’s head, hoping they’d get through the damaged helmet. One, two, three- the heavy uranium slugs struck composite armor with an awful crack noise like a conplas wall breaking, even louder than the gunshots themselves. The Mask stumbled again, the broad barrel of the grenade launcher lurching towards me- only for a harsh clank to sound out as a throwing knife embedded itself all the way through the gun’s steel reciever. Only one person could have done that.

I shot at the Mask more, but not at their head. I had their SOP down by now. I let my cybernetic eye do its best to keep me aimed at their arm, did my best to ride the huge recoil of the penetrators. Their own coilgun leapt from the holster on its magnetic tether- and flew wildly into the air as I nailed the back of the Mask’s hand, sending up sparks. They swung toward me, shambolic, half-dead, still eerily fucking silent. I stalked closer, still shooting, feeling my gun grow light. I got ready to charge with saw raised.

But there was no need. Arc suddenly sprang up from behind one of the computer cases and fired a single shot. Her big silver pistol barked and blood erupted from the bullet hole in the Mask’s neck armor. They went stock still, then toppled like a rusty lightpole- rocking, slowly tipping, then an accelerating fall into a messy clattering impact. I went over, gun still ready, and fished the end of the saw into the damaged part of the armor. Red mist washed out of the rent as I hit the trigger and worked the blade around. I looked around, searching for the next thing to kill, but for now we were clear except for whimpering scientists.

“I think I took care of that already.” Arc’s voice was arch as she walked up. She’d holstered her gun and was now holding one upper arm in the other hand. A slow trickle of blood leaked from between her fingers, stark red on her white coat.

“Can’t be too sure,” I panted down at her. “You okay? What happened?”

“I let some buckshot get a little too close.” She sounded almost normal and wore a typically neutral expression, but I could tell she was in pain. “I don’t believe it’s broken, but it’s not much use at the moment.”

“Let me tie it up, at least.” I holstered my weapons and got the last of my bandages out of my coat, along with my knife.

“I hope you’re not going to do surgery with that,” she said, eying me.

“It’s to cut off your sleeve, Arc. Come on.” She kept looking at me. “Kings, it’s ruined already!” She made a dissatisfied noise but moved her hand. The ceramic edge on my fixed-blade slid through the cloth without trouble and I got a better look at the wound. It made me suck my teeth in sympathy.

“Oh, that sounds wonderful,” Arc muttered. It really wasn’t. There was a bloody hole in her toned tricep, with a matching one opposite. The edges were rough and ragged, even more so than I’d expect. Cubic shot? A tumbling flechette? Who knew, but it was nasty.

I got the sticky bandage unreeled and swapped the knife for some quick-clot, tearing the package open with my teeth. “Well, whatever hit you went right through, at least. That’s good. In a way.”

“Yes, all I need is a smoke and a drink and it’ll be a fine night out on the town.”

“Kings, I never whine this much when I get shot.” I held the quick-clot up against each wound in turn. The tan spongy substance did its thing, sort of disintegrating and pulling into the bloody cuts like iron filings to a magnet to rapidly absorb the blood. It would sterilize as it worked, but unfortunately the tan stuff didn’t come with built-in analgesic.

“Suppose you wouldn’t, considering how often you let it happen,” she sniffed, though there was an amused glint in her eye. Then they clenched shut as I got the bandage wound around her arm.

“Sorry,” I said, sticking the end down.

She inspected it and seemed to approve. “No. Thank you. You’re bleeding too, you know,” she added, pointing to the side of my head.

I touched it, finding it wet but not ridiculously so, espeically for a head wound. The PIN had barely deflected that coilgun slug- it was working, but certainly not to the degree it had for the Winnower.

“Anytime. And it’ll be fine. Ready to go meet our new friend?” I looked over at the computer tables as I reloaded the coilgun. Only one mag of each left. A few of the chalkheads were peeping out of their hiding places, including Dr. Hesypha. Arc nodded and we strode over.

“Hey! You’d better not-I’ll shoot!” One of the guys in a green academic’s smock scrabbled half-out from his spot under a table, a small pistol shaking in his hand. A plastic fantastic, looking like it had never been fired. He probably bought for ‘peace of mind’ when he heard he was coming to D-block. Arc’s good hand blurred and the scientist let out a yelp, dropping the gun. He stared with big, watery eyes at the throwing knife stuck through his hand.

“Don’t pull it out. You’ll bleed more,” my companion said calmly, not even looking at him as he started to whine. Kings. She can be scarier than me when she feels like it.

Hesypha slid out from her spot near the computer banks, which were smoking- maybe they’d been hit in the crossfire? She already had her hands up, but what shocked me most was how damn bored she looked.

“Alright, Doc-“ I began.

She sighed loudly, eyes heavy beneath her short haircut. “Do you think I haven’t been poached before? Let’s go.”