| Health: 100% |

| Body Equilibrium: 9% |

| DPS: 15 |

| Defense: 25 |

| Agility: 10 |

| Perception: 20 |

| Intellect: 10 |

| - - - - - - - |

| Arm Holster |

The destitute inhabitants of SOLA pulled away, hiding in the shadows as the hulking frame of Geracht rounded the corner of the street. Elite P-Sec officers followed behind, armed to the teeth, and lining people up against walls edging the sidewalk.

A P-Sec connected a sensor to the trembling index finger of one of the people lined against the wall and showed her a photo of Darius. She shook her head, no. The P-Sec nodded and disconnected the sensor before moving on to the next person.

Geracht lumbered a few steps down the street with an odd expression on his face.

A child’s laughter echoed in his mind.

Darius waited at the end of the street for a moment, his breath caught in his lungs as his heart tore a new rhythm in his chest. “Geracht is here...” He spoke into his earbud radio. “...And the P-Sec guys look pretty tough.”

“What’s a Geracht?” Leary asked. “I mean, I know what a garrote is, like the wire, but… what?”

“He works for Del. He’s a walking tank. Cybered head to toe,” Darius whispered.

“Well… shit,” Leary spit off of his post, high in the framing of the unfinished building. He looked through his scope again, trying to get a view of what Darius was seeing, but the targets weren't yet in sight.

“Language, Leary,” Preature responded.

“I feel like this one deserved it,” Leary muttered to himself.

“Plan doesn’t change. They’re heading our way whether we like it or not,” Preature insisted. “It’s time, kid.”

Darius swallowed hard and stepped out into the street, hood down and face uncovered. He stood openly watching, waiting until Geracht and the P-Sec officers noticed him. It was Geracht who had seen him first. They immediately gave chase; tossing people out of the way. Darius ran down an alley and into the abandoned construction site. Geracht and P-Sec in tow.

“Got a visual!” Leary called, headshotting a P-Sec as they turned the corner. Then he saw the rest of them. “There are more than we were expecting, and they’re way more armed than we’d talked about. Cripes, that big guy is more metal than meat.”

Darius took cover at the back of the construction site, and Preature waited next to the entrance in ambush. Tinker hid behind cover, pistol at the ready. CURL was kneeled behind a wall, scanning the area for potential remote targets of her hacking.

Stolen novel; please report.

A P-Sec burst through the entrance and immediately caught a combat shotgun blast to the face, dropping hard to the ground. Another ran through and a new blast ripped through his armored chestplate, revealing metallic scales beneath the flesh. Tinker popped up from his cover and sent a bullet into the man’s head to finish him off.

CURL’s eyes widened as she sensed another seventeen individuals entering the area. “There are more than double what we were expecting!” she yelled as she hacked a P-Sec that had hunkered down by an open window frame, sending him into convulsions as she triggered a seizure in his brain via his cybernetics. However, not all of the attackers had been cybered up. She would have limited impact.

Geracht entered the alley boldly, taking no cover. He walked up to the concrete wall of the construction site and tore through it as though it were paper. Then he used the new entrance he had just created.

The laughter in his head became louder, edging on a scream.

“Shit!” Preature shouted.

“Language!” Leary called sarcastically into his earpiece, taking a headshot at Geracht, the bullet glancing off of the metal beneath the man’s scalp with ease.

CURL peaked around the corner to see Geracht and started to hack him. It didn’t take long before she was shut out of his system. “Can’t get into the big one. His system has redundant protections that are locking me out.”

Darius popped out of his cover to take shots into the growing stream of P-Sec officers entering through the hole that Geracht had made. The bullets seemed to do nothing, burying themselves into concrete or plicking off of body armor to no effect.

“I can’t hurt them!” Darius yelled.

A P-Sec rounded behind Preature, firing two shots into his armored jacket. He dropped as she fired another round where his head had just been. He spun to press the combat shotgun beneath her chin and blasted her head from her neck. Covered in blood and viscera, he turned to lose another shot at a P-Sec unloading a full clip in his direction. Slugs pecked at Preature’s jacket as Pellets embedded themselves into the attacker’s face. Another one down, but many still remain.

Leary fired another shot at Geracht’s head, and again, they both just grazed off of the metal beneath the man’s skin. Finally, Geracht turned his attention to Leary. Leary turned to slide down the zipline to meet this monster face to face, but Geracht grabbed the bottom of the zipline first and cut it, causing Leary to fall nearly two stories, landing on his side.

Ribs shattered. Bone shards flew into Leary’s left lung. His breath came in ragged whistling gasps; but he retained his focus on Geracht, flicking his rifle to burst mode and unleashing a staccato mass of blazing metal in the monster’s direction.

Geracht soon stood over Leary, unaffected and began to press his foot into the man’s side. Leary’s face went white as he strained in agony against the titanic weight pressing into his already crushed ribcage. Through screaming agony, he raised his rifle again to unleash a tattering volley of shots directly into Geracht’s face. The bullets ricocheted off in multiple directions, but one bullet found its way through the corner of Geracht’s eye and buried itself between some circuitry.

Suddenly, the ghosts were everywhere in Geracht’s vision. He stepped back, releasing Leary from the crushing weight.

“No! No! NO!” Geracht shouted.

The laughter was replaced by screaming in his head. Every ghost, blasting him with a volume unheard by his physical ears.

Geracht roared into the air, swinging a chain gun off of his shoulder and firing in all directions. Preature dove behind a group of P-Sec officers, allowing them to take the hits in his stead. CURL rolled low as the concrete above her head exploded into a rain of debris. Tinker remained behind cover, firing blindly over his own head. Darius rolled forward to take cover next to CURL.

Blood sprayed over Preature in the hail of gunfire. Geracht’s shots penetrated armor, steel, flesh, and concrete as he took aim at the ghosts in his vision.

“Giant bastard,” Leary choked through a spattering of blood from his lung, but Geracht didn't hear. He couldn’t hear anything but the voices of the ghosts filling his head.

The chain gun ran out of ammunition spinning and clicking behind the red glow of the hot metal barrel. Geracht released the strap and tossed the gun to the side, still roaring. The ghosts closed in on him, his eyes widening in terror. He turned and ran, breaking his way through the bodies of his fallen comrades to escape the voices, the visions, the screaming of his little girl at the forefront of the spirits’ rage.

The team watched Geracht disappear around a corner in horror and confusion.

The remaining P-Sec officers also abandoned the scene, some grabbing fallen brothers and sisters in arms, others, simply trying to save themselves.