Darius stood atop the broken escalator that led from the department store’s second floor to its first. With a running leap, he flew over the steps, landing on the tile below with full force. It was a move that would have hurt him badly before, but now that he had his new upgrade, he landed without any discomfort; his legs and spine absorbing the impact with ease.

CURL sat crosswise in a comfy chair, legs dangling carelessly over the armrest. A laptop on her knees, and a cookie in her hand. She didn’t even look up when Darius stuck the landing with a joyous shout.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great, Darius,” She said, unaffected.

Preature’s jukebox was playing; filling the open first floor of the department store with reverberating music.

Preature and Tinker worked in a room on the second floor where they practiced some SOLA-Med procedures in preparation for a future confrontation with Geracht.

Darius went up the escalator again, and jumped down once more.

“You’re like a little kid sometimes.” CURL says, still focused on her screen.

“We’re almost the same age!” Darius called down to her as he took another jump.

“I’m three years older than you. And look what you’re doing. There’s no guessing here who is more like a kid.” CURL retorted.

“I’m training myself not to be afraid of jumping from this height anymore. This is very serious work.”

“Well, you’d be more convincing if you weren’t having so much fun doing it.” She smiled.

In the other room, Preature taught Tinker a technique for disabling the power of a highly cybered individual such as Geracht.

“You need to find the primary neural link.” Preature said, pointing to a section of a holo-projected body. “You’d imagine that it might be this one here, but in fact, it would be buried much further down. Remember, the neural link from the first surgery will be unchanged, but other links may be built on top.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“If we can take him down with EMPs, then it’ll be up to you and I to do this. Disable the primary neural link, and the rest will cascade. His cybernetics will become dead weight.”

Tinker nodded with a smile. “Had you done this before when you were a SOLA-Med?”

“Nope.” Preature smiled. “But maybe it’ll happen this time.”

Beneath their feet, in the sublevel of the building, a wire was being cut.

A voice whispered into a communicator. “Network hijacked. Their security system is ours.”

“Confirmed.” A voice responded. “Teams Alpha and Disco, get into position.”

Along the edge of the building, a team of tactical P-Sec Infiltrators filed against the wall, awaiting their signal. Another team did the same by a door on the other side of the building. Combat drones hovered silently at the windows and exits.

More Infiltrators scaled the side of the building to the roof and waited at that exit.

“In position.” Each team radioed in.

“Cue Del.” The team lead ordered over the radio.

Within the building, CURL’s screen flickered black and then played a live combat drone video feed of the Infiltrators at all the exits.

“Uh, hey everyone! Get in here, now!” She shouted, sitting up straight in her chair.

Darius, Tinker, and Preature all rushed in and gathered around her screen. It flicks from one drone cam to the next. First, they saw the roof, then the west entrance, then the main entrance, a series of windows, and then the window of their current room, target beaded directly on CURL.

“What do we do?” Darius asked in a panic.

“We wait and see what happens.” Preature answered.

“We can’t handle that many.” Tinker looked out the window straight at the combat drone.

“Why didn’t the security catch this?” CURL pulled her phone out, furiously checking the security status. It all looked like it was working. “They broke in. They have control of our security, turrets and all.”

“Hello Preature.” Del’s voice came over the feed. “I trust you got my note. I believe we’ve had a misunderstanding. You see, when I said turn Darius over, I meant RIGHT NOW. You’ve forced my hand, and I don’t like having my hand forced. Turn Darius over RIGHT NOW, or we will come in and get him. Please, confirm yes or no to the combat drone outside your window.”

Preature turned and moved to the window, hands in the air. He signaled the team to move out of view of the window with the slight twitch of his fingers. Then he stood for a second, giving the others time to move. The drone shifted its target to Preature. Then his armature shoved a gun into his hand, and he shot the drone down.

“The answer is no!” He shouts.