Dim light invaded the cavernous offices in yellows, greens and blues, while far above, the warehouse’s massive roof reflected a sunrise-red glow. Andy ran into the opening after Clara, rifle at the ready. “Which way?”

“The exit. Stairs.” They ran up to the first floor balcony, but a bright yellow lava lamp blocked their path. It balanced up on electrical wire legs almost as tall as a man. A fat blob of yellow lava rose lazily through the cylinder’s liquid. Andy flicked the muzzle of his rifle up and fired before the lava could reach the top of the cylinder. The bullet punctured, shattering glass. A burst of clear liquid drenched the walkway behind it, draining its insides, singing the metal walkway with drops of yellow lava. The lava lamp crashed to the floor, wire legs twitching as though shocked with random electrical impulses. Its light went out.

“Don’t let the lava get to the top,” Andy said. “That’s when they wake up.”

The stairway stopped abruptly above them, steps having melted away a long time ago. The railing crumbled as Clara tried to climb up it. “There’s another stairway opposite,” she said, setting off at a run. Andy followed her, but stopped as more lava lamps revealed themselves in the darkness. Their numbers surprised him–hee felt slower than usual. Normally, he could sense an enemy target in combat a moment before he saw it–his Augmentation’s AI working ahead of his mind to process threats–but it wasn’t working now.

Taking aim, he summoned the cool-calm of his Marksman’s Augmentation powers, like swilling a vodka on the rocks, relaxing himself so that the sharp flavour could wash through him. But the sensation faltered, trickling down his throat like diluted booze. He was being ripped off! Andy squeezed the trigger, firing with less-than Enhanced Precision. The bullet pinged off the green lava lamp’s metal cap, denting it, but not killing it.

“Come on, activate. Do your thing.” Andy braced his rifle and fired again, puncturing the glass body of his target. Its liquid spilled onto the floor as he took three more shots at a large purple lamp behind it, lumbering towards the stairwell. Its wiry legs writhed like a bed of snakes, pulling its top-heavy lamp body wobbling along. Andy’s first shot had no effect. Had he misfired? Checking the chamber, he saw it wasn’t jammed. Firing again, he glanced at the lamp’s glass. It took a third shot to kill it.

“What’s happening?” he asked his AI. “You giving me the cold shoulder?”

The light above the cavern grew brighter, followed by an airy, gloopy sound, like boiling porridge on an industrial scale. Something seared down the cavern’s shaft like a flare. The ball of light splashed against the ground, spraying droplets of liquid lava through the air. Another drop followed it. Andy aimed his rifle up the cavern, trying to spot the source.

“What is that?” Clara asked over the radio. She had run ahead on the balcony to establish a second angle of information and fire. It was a tactic which they had developed years ago–second nature to them now.

“I can’t tell.” There was another crash as warehouse shelves collapsed high above them. The acrid smell of burning metal stung Andy’s eyes. Something bright appeared on the lip of the cavern and lowered itself into the pit. Andy opened fire, but more lamps joined it, each a different colour and size. They clung to the railings above them, using their wires to lower themselves down, like baby spiders scurrying away from a startled nest. Molten lava spilled out of the gaps in their metal caps, in droplets and globules and searing streams. A downpour of rainbow lava filled the air, like a million scolding hot christmas lights.

“Get out!” Clara leapt from the balcony and ran towards a double doorway marked ‘Construction.’ Andy took the stairs, not fancying the fall, trailing behind her. Something stabbed him in the back as he ran through the open–a white hot poker wedged into his shoulder blade. Andy screamed and tumbled through the doorway. Clara slammed it shut behind him, then picked him to his feet and patted him down. “You’ve been hit.”

“Is my jacket okay?”

She poured a bottle of water on his wound. “I think it protected you from the worst.”

Andy straightened his back, flexing his shoulder. “I’m good.”

Clara led them into the long room lined with construction machinery. Lava lamps of varying stages of construction were stacked in boxes, or lay discarded on conveyor belts. Many shone brighter as they came awake, gradually illuminating a vastness of machinery and controls. Andy shot a green lamp before its lava could bubble to the top. It exploded onto a stack of inert lamps behind it, setting their cardboard packaging on fire. Clara wove a path through the factory apparatus, climbing a walkway that led above the maze of equipment.

The door behind them crashed open and a stream of lights poured through. Andy spun and fired at the bright pinpoints in the dark, straining his eyes to focus on the contrast of brightness. He could hear his bullets shattering glass, ricocheting off metal, but couldn’t feel their trajectory like he normally could. The certainty of his killshot was gone. A yellow lava lamp exploded with spectacular colours, spraying lava like a firework, dotting his vision with bright spots. Andy blinked, focussing on the other lamps writhing through the doorway.

Suddenly, cables lurched at him. A warm shot of Augmentation hormones filled his body as his Evasive Fire protocol triggered, but the sensation spluttered and fizzled out as Andy swivelled around a second too late. Thick wires wrapped around his waist and pulled him into the railing, tying his arms to his chest. A light silhouetted a nearby machine panel like a blue eclipse, growing brighter until above him loomed a giant blue lava lamp, twice the size of a man. It crawled over the machinery with black cable legs like a tarantula descending on its prey. Its metal cap lifted and a globe of blue lava spouted out, melting the walkway at his feet.

Craning his wrist, Andy aimed Julie through his bounds and fired a Vortex Shot. The impact rattled in his ribcage and crashed over the lava lamp. The huge lamp wobbled backwards as its cables slackened, but the shot hadn’t pierced its glass. Much like with the pig demons on the ghost train, his vortex ability wasn’t suited for tougher enemies.

Firing again, Andy blasted the lava lamp back into the walkway’s railings. But the space around him was growing brighter as more lamps crept upon him. Andy’s sidearm and rifle were trapped beneath the tangled cables, and so was his good knife. Drawing a backup blade from his breast pocket, he sawed at his bindings, cutting the thickest cable wrapped around his waist. Hoisting himself up, he dove away as the lava lamp leaned over and poured searing hot liquid onto the walkway. The liquid splashed his ankles, searing his flesh. Scrambling to his feet, Andy drew Julie and fired. His heart steadied with her in his hands–her weight, her familiar kick, the crack of her hammer. The lamp staggered as Julie’s bullet pierced its cylinder, but it didn’t shatter, it still wasn’t dead.

“Take cover,” Clara radioed. Andy ducked as a fusillade of submachine gun fire pinged overhead, shredding the glass until the cracks between each puncture connected and the cylinder shattered. Andy dashed away from the spilling lava, his feet suddenly hot and swollen in his thick leather boots.

“Cheers sis,” Andy shouted to her ahead on the walkway. “I don’t know what’s up with-”

A deafening collision shattered the doorway from which they’d entered. The wall above the doorway crumbled and smoked as red lava seeped through the cracks. “Come on,” Clara shouted over the din. “We need to find another exit.”

The roof shook as whatever it was outside threw itself against the factory wall. Andy followed Clara down the long room, through the maze of walkways, but his mind was elsewhere. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked his AI. “Are you even there?”

There was no response. For once, Andy was sober and willing to engage in conversation with the pretend-person inside his head. Normally, the programme would jump at the opportunity to lecture him about combat training and recalibration and blah-blah, but this time, it was silent.

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“Are you mad at me?”

Internally, silence. His and Clara’s footsteps clanged off the walkway. Clara’s submachine gun thumped as it peppered bullets into an orange lamp that rose out of a pile of its inactive brethren.

“I thought we were doing well,” Andy said distractedly. “This is not the time to have a bitch-fit.”

Corruption detected. The robotic voice came to him distantly, as though it had retreated to the back of his skull. DNA compromised. Mutation contained. Limited functionality engaged.

“Well un-engage, unless you wanna die down here with me.”

Mutation containment prioritised. Processing options…

“Fuck your options.”Andy slapped his skull. “Stop blue-ballsing me with my abilities.”

A wave of heat swept over Andy as the wall behind them exploded. The ceiling began to cave in, chunks of rock smashed the factory machinery to pieces. From the dust and ruins of the entryway, emerged a goliath lava lamp. Its metal torso was pocked with bullet holes, its glass scratched and cracked. Chunks of hardened lava stuck to the glass’ interior, glueing the cylinder together. Inside bubbled bright red lava which spewed out the top cap like an active volcano. The air around it wavered and warped in the heat, as though reality itself shuddered at its presence. The pursuing lights of the smaller lava lamps quickly disappeared, dipping into the safety of the shadows, afraid, even themselves, of their patriarch.

Andy unpinned a grenade and lobbed it towards the breach, then chased to catch up with Clara. She had reached the factory’s back wall. A huge sliding door blocked their escape. Coming upon a control panel, Clara froze and turned to Andy. “The exit must be above us, but it needs a code”

“I don’t have one,” Andy said over the sound of the grenade’s explosion.

“Well, we’ve got to get this door open. Any guesses?”

“Try ‘Barry’ in text language.”

“What’s that?”

Andy thought back to the old keypads on retro phones. “Two, Two… Seven, Seven… Nine.”

The panel buzzed. “No. It’s not working.”

“Figure it out,” Andy said, returning to the walkway. “I’ll buy some time.”

Before him, crashing through the factory was a monster, the magnitude of which his strength had yet to be matched against: a Lava Lamp of Moltengarth. Andy’s heart pounded like a piston in his chest. He braced his legs and shouldered his rifle, drawing adrenaline with each breath. “Obey me,” he commanded his Augmentation. Squeezing the trigger, his rifle rattled in his hands, lighting the factory floor up like a strobe. He pulled the muzzle down, muscles pulsing to the rhythm of fire. His bullets slammed into the lamp, spraying liquid lava out of the exit wounds. Molten liquid rushed into each puncture, drying on contact with the air, sealing it before more than a splash of liquid was lost. The lamp moved inexorably forward.

Warning, DNA irreparable. Andy switched the assault rifle’s magazine around, chambering the one taped to the other side. Corruption of Augmented DNA will incur severe consequences for humanity.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Despite his AI’s grievances, a familiar metallic taste seized his tongue. Andy vibrated with an excess of power which, until now, had been withheld from him. He snarled and fired upon the goliath lava lamp, ripping its glass shell to pieces, knocking it back with each shot, slowing it down.

“Give me more. You’re in my DNA. My body. You will obey me.” Andy emptied the magazine and slung his rifle over his shoulder, drawing Julie in one fluid motion. “You haven’t abandoned me too, have you, my sweet?”

Andy aimed Julie at the goliath lava lamp, but she felt heavier in his hand, dropping her muzzle a fraction below where he aimed.

“Jules, it’s me. What are you afraid of?”

“Andy,” Clara shouted. “What’s up? Why aren’t you shooting?”

“One minute,” he yelled, not taking his eyes off his revolver. Julie’s polished wooden handle felt cold and hard in his grip, as though she was rejecting his embrace.

“What has that robot been saying to you?” Andy retracted Julie, cradling her with both hands before his chest. “Don’t listen to its lies. You can trust me babe. When have I ever been cruel to you? When have I ever lied?” He stroked her steel spine, fingers tracing over the curves of her cylinder. “There’s no other gun like you, babe. It’s me and you, ‘till the end.”

Her grip warmed to his touch. The goliath lava lamp was still halfway across the factory floor from them–the power of a vortex shot would not reach that far, unless it was condensed into a tight beam, like the gunpowder explosion of a round in a rifle’s chamber, concentrated and funnelled towards a target.

“Yeah babe, do you feel it?” Andy envisioned the shot, felt the power swelling in his fingers. “Oh yeah, this is the one.”

Julie’s polished wooden handle melded with his flesh like a lover’s embrace, he could feel every fibre of her beautiful being–her threaded chamber, immodestly oiled and glistening–the rough rubber of her grip, like the callus of a hardened worker–her iron sights, perfectly aligned, surely birthed by some benevolent mastermind.

Andy applied pressure to her trigger, carefully, but firmly. She exploded in his hand, rupturing down his arm with a bone-shattering force. Andy yelped in pain, and would have dropped her, if not for their Deadly Attraction keeping them tethered. The shot roared through the factory like a vortex missile, screaming death upon their foe. The glass cylinder ruptured in its centre, cracking through the cylinder like breaking ice. Red lava rushed to the surface, but the wound was too egregious to plug. Like an exploding bulb, the glass shattered in on itself as its liquid interior spilled out over the floor. The goliath staggered backwards, the light of its lava dimmed to a pool of liquid that sloshed in the basin of what remained of its glass body.

“Yes!” Andy spun Julie around his finger and blew on her muzzle. “Nice shot, girl.”

Alert: Experimental ability variation initialised. Delineation–Affinity. Ability–Vortex Shot. Variation: Vortex Missile.

“Hey, you’re talking again.” Andy holstered Julie and made his way back down the walkway. “Gotten over your tantrum?”

Warning: Corruptive mutation accelerating. Priority recalibration required.

“Oh yeah, has my DNA corruption percentage gone up?” Andy rolled his eyes.

Negative. DNA compromisation complete. Installing mutation synthesis protocols.

“What the hell is that?”

Ahead of him, Clara tinkered with the control panel of the massive door. Her hand glowed blue as she pressed her palms into the controls, then a flash of electricity skittered over the panel. A moment passed, then a green light came on, and gears clicked somewhere inside the wall. Clara clenched her fist and whooted as the door ground opened.

“You guessed the code?” Andy asked.

“No code,” she said, slipping through as the crack in the great doors widened. “There was still some residual energy left in the systems. I could feel it. Must have come from capacitors somewhere. I just drew it out, focussed it on the circuits, overloaded them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Current control,” she said, twiddling her fingers in front of his face. “Magic fingers, remember.”

The room beyond was a pitch black dome. In the centre of the room on a raised platform, was a pit, above which poised an industrial sized drill. A walkway bridged the pit, and on the opposite side, a stairwell led upwards towards the surface.

“Is Barry alright?” Andy said.

“Who?”

He nodded at her backpack. “The lava lamp.”

“Yeah.”

Andy paused, glancing back towards the factory floor. The doors continued to open on their mechanical hinges behind them. “We could go back for more.”

“It’s not worth the risk,” Clara said. “Let’s bounce.”

Clara jogged up the walkway steps while Andy lingered at the edge of the pit, shining his headlamp into its depths, but there was no end to it. Tubes dove down the pit’s mouth, plugged into vats stacked against one wall. Against the opposite wall, an elevated platform possessed rows of control panels.

“Across the bridge,” Clara said. “Come on.” The bridge shook on its brackets as they ran over it, their footsteps echoing in the pit below, each clang stacking on top of the others, rising to a cacophony of metal crashes. Together, they passed the drill which hung over the centre of the put, attached to an arm mechanism fixed into the domed roof.

Andy tripped and looked down. A black cable snaked towards his ankle, but before he could react, another shot up his leg and tripped him. “Seriously, again?” Colliding with the walkway, he almost dropped his rifle into the pit. Crawling to his knees, the cables latched on and slammed into the bridge’s railings. Ahead of him, Clara screamed and opened fire. Her flashlight shone on the widening gap in the doorway, but Andy didn’t have time to inspect what she was aiming at.

Drawing Julie, he fired at the cable wrapped around his leg, freeing himself, but another cable crashed beside him, frayed wires probing for his flesh. Andy jumped to his feet, then the walkway beneath him shuddered. Above him, the goliath lava lamp crashed through the huge open doorway and spilled onto the walkway like a cracked egg. Andy turned and sprinted, with fire at his back, then the walkway collapsed and he was falling.