I slowly grabbed a piece of loose rebar leaning against the wall, without taking my eyes off the blurry, indistinct shape. For some reason the person didn’t immediately try to rush me, or run, they just kinda slunk back further into the room. It was a dead end, so I wasn’t quite sure what the point was. Maybe they didn’t think I could follow their movements, or they thought there was another exit? I didn’t care that I was going to take advantage of the pause.

I didn’t want to reveal I was a samurai, so I did something I hadn't done in quite awhile. [Nyx, can you read this? I hope you can read this…] I entered frantically into my augs.

Of course.

[Can you hack this person’s augs and figure out who the fuck they are, or why they’re really here?]

Unfortunately they seem to be completely off the grid. Their augs seem to be intentionally offline, and the cybernetics are isolated from external signals. You don’t have the catalogs, or tech, to force your way in.

[Fuck… contact Helen, tell her what’s going on, and get the bears down here. I either need to catch this asshole, or force them to call for help.]

The blurry shape finally paused at the back of the room, then shifted. Apparently satisfied there wasn't another way out of the small room, it started moving towards me again. I hefted the rebar, and shifted slightly to block the door.

“Out of the way. I don’t know how you managed to survive that blow, but you were far too light to have the extensive cybernetics to survive another round. This isn’t worth you risking your life for,” the heavily digitized voice hissed.

“Try me,” I spat back. “I have no idea who you are, but I’m not going to just leave. Tell me, what exactly did that foreman do to earn a knife in the chest? Catch you bribing someone, just hear rumors about your existence?”

The blur froze for a moment, “So you’re an investigator? I don’t know what’s more impressive, that someone sank so low to hire an underworlder, or that same rat would be the one to find me.” There was a quiet ‘snick’ sound, and the silhouette changed slightly, one of the arms extended. “Guess this saves me the effort of tracking you down later.”

If I hadn’t been caught earlier, I probably would have been surprised by how fast, and quiet, the blur surged forward. One blurry arm shot forward, aiming right for my neck. I brought the rebar up even faster, the bar bent under the impact but managed to deflect the mostly invisible limb aside. Before my assailant could recover, I kicked the middle of the blur, sending it skidding back a couple feet, while the recoil sent me flying into the wall behind me. The blur recovered quickly, and rushed forward again, stabbing repeatedly at my face and midsection. I did what I could to block the attack, but since I couldn’t see the figure clearly one of the stabs got through, and sunk into my shoulder. It probably would have removed the limb entirely, if it wasn’t for my armored clothes, and reinforced bones.

The cyborg let out a confused, “eh?” at the unexpected resistance, and I took full advantage of the pause. I smashed one arm into the approximate location of the figure’s elbow, causing the blade to retract from my shoulder. I followed through, smashing the rebar repeatedly into the approximate location of the figure's head, the blows ringing out metal on metal and causing the rebar to bend, and finally break.

The figure staggered back. Even though the helmet, or head, was strong enough to resist the rebar, whatever stealth coating it had was heavily damaged leaving me staring at a floating, matte-black faceplate. Outside the riot was getting louder, but, while it sounded angry earlier, it now sounded like people were panicking.

“Ready to surrender?” I growled, reaching down and picking up a cinder block to replace my broken rebar.

“I will NOT be taken alive,” the figure snarled.

I could make out footsteps, and stepped to the side a moment before the door exploded open. “Teddy… You!” Helen yelled as she stepped into the room, one of the fancy magnums she’d armed her militia with earlier firmly in her hands. Luckily she had aim just as bad as mine, and the first round missed the target, blowing a fist-sized hole in the wall behind the figure.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I grabbed at the barrel of the pistol and forced it downward. “The FUCK Helen?! I thought we were investigating? We can’t get information if you blow a hole in our only lead,” I whispered loudly.

“He killed Andrew,” she hissed back.

“So kill him afterwards,” I said, keeping a firm grip on the pistol. “We catch them first.”

I turned back towards the blur, which had retreated into the back of the room. The shape was smaller, bent over. “Hey! What are you doing?” I shouted, rushing the form.

“My job,” it replied quietly. Before I reached the back of the small building, it stood, and slipped away, leaving a large brick on the ground. A brick covered in wires, and electronics.

“Bomb! Helen please tell me you have some idea how to disarm explosives?!” I yelled as I ran up and crouched over the device. It didn’t have a clear timer, but there were a couple lights on, I had to assume it was armed.

“I have a little…” Helen started to reply, “Hey! You’re not going anywhere!” I turned just in time to see the blur slam into Helen, knocking her to the ground. The shape barely missed taking a round from her revolver before it slipped out of the door. “That asshole is getting away!” Helen screamed as she struggled to her feet.

“Forget the fucking asshole for now, we’ve got explosives to deal with!” I shouted back. “Who knows how many will die if this fucking thing goes off!”

Helen glanced at the door for a moment, obviously considering whether she should pursue or not, before running over to where I was crouched. “Complex… far more complex than what I’ve dealt with before. It has an outer casing to hide most of the inner working, and wiring. I have no idea if it’s safe to even open.”

“Do we have a choice?” I asked. As soon as I did, the device beeped, a couple of the lights flashed. “That’s not good, right?”

“The dangerous explosive beeping? No. No, it’s not,” Helen whispered. “It either was just remotely armed, or changed to a second stage.”

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“Run,” Helen replied, already pushing herself to her feet.

As I turned to follow her Bob burst into the room, followed by a dozen other bears. “Hey Boss, what’s happening?” he asked innocently.

“Explosive! We can’t shut it down, everyone out!” I ordered, running for the door.

Most of them followed my orders. Bob did not. Instead of running for the door the big bear wandered into the back of the room and picked up the bomb. “This?”

“Yes! We can’t disarm it! Out!” I yelled, pausing at the door.

“I’ve got this,” Bob replied. I watched in horror as he opened his mouth as wide as he could, popped the bomb into his mouth, and started chewing.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I screamed. “If you blow up I’m not putting you back together again,” I growled at the massive bear.

He just continued chewing, and after a few seconds there was a flash. I stumbled, tripped over the door jamb, then shot back to my feet the instant my vision cleared.

Bob was still there, head intact, but large sections of his head facade on fire. He burped, “Spicy.”

“That was the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever seen!” I yelled. “What in the world would possess you to do something like that?!”

“Bandit informed me that the device seemed to be mainly designed to spread fire, instead of exploding, and according to my personal specifications it was well below the threshold of anything that could damage me,” he explained calmly.

“Well, you could have informed me!” I screamed.

“It’s impolite to talk while chewing,” he replied.

“FUCK!”

Helen poked her head back into the room. “By the fact that you’re screaming, and not leaving, I take it you somehow disarmed the device,” she said quietly.

“In a manner of speaking,” I grumbled. “Bob ate it.”

She just glanced at the big bear, then back at me. “Right, well that’s great. May I remind you that during that shitshow we lost the suspect.”

“Fuck. FUCK! Now that they escaped here they’ll probably report in, and change up their tactics. Who knows how long it’ll take for us to find them again!” I shouted.

“Well… unless you have a way to chase an invisible foe halfway across the city, I don’t see any other choice,” Helen replied.

My eyes narrowed. “Fuck that. Nyx, how many points do I have left?”

Dusty stuck his head in the door, “Around twelve thousand and change after buying the hydroponics blueprints, why?”

“Because I think it’s time to release my hunting dog,” I replied with a small smile.

Everyone just looked at me suspiciously.