Nigel landed hard, his backpack went flying and was knocked out of his reach. Beyond the rim of the crater, a figure that resembled a spider skittered toward him. The top part of the creature resembled a human female. Her face was covered in a white mask with almond-shaped eye-sockets. Tight white leather left little to the imagination. The lower portion of her body contorted into some misshaped form that looked like an unrecognizable creature. Nigel rolled as a laser beam cut into the rock where he was moments ago.

“Slow down, lover, I can’t hit you,” the creature said.

Nigel recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it. A flash of memory washed over him. A vision of a young female invaded his mind; she was as beautiful as she was deadly. She disarmed a trained bodyguard and cut his throat. He remembered how the blood flowed down her perfect naked body.

“Nozomi?” Nigel said in disbelief.

“You’re a naughty boy that deserves to be punished,” a man’s voice said.

Is that Rick?

“What happened to you—both?”

“Ah, it warms my heart to have you act so concerned. Don’t you think my new body is beautiful?”

Nigel took a step back, repulsed by the thing that was Nozomi. He was so consumed with the transformation of his father and his scary mistress he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. A fireball about the size of a watermelon shot toward him. He leaped out of the way and into the hallway. He abandoned his backpack and ran down the hall. Someone yanked his arm and pulled him into a side room that resembled a study. He cried out, but a robotic hand pressed against his mouth.

“Be still unless you want to turn into a crispy meat sack.”

Nigel turned and faced his savior. It was Eva! She had removed her jacket, which revealed a sleeveless top made of some nylon material. A cybernetic doctor replaced the lower portion of her left arm with an artificial metal limb. The sight reminded him of Treeka, the cyborg that Melissa Mason rescued. A wall behind them exploded. A burning sensation covered his exposed skin. He brushed off the burning pieces and took a defensive position behind a table. A man entered the room. His hands were burning and his face lit up in the flame’s light. It was his father. Eva leaped into the air and punched the man with her cybernetic arm. He slapped her out of the way with ease. She stumbled, but regained her balance as she reached for something on her belt. Nigel couldn’t tell what it was, but it glinted like a blade.

“No!” Nigel said.

Eva flung the blade toward his father so fast that Nigel didn’t have time to react. He tried to deflect it, but he wasn’t fast enough. It plunged into his abdomen. The man cried out as he pulled the blade free. His hand ignited. Eva pulled out a gun and aimed in Rick’s direction. A small fire blast heated the gun. She dropped it and cried out. Eva changed tactics. She leaped toward Rick, fists out. She pummeled him with a series of blows. A laser blast hit Eva in her good arm. Nigel watched in horror as her flesh fried and bled. Eva screamed. The spiderlike creature grabbed Nigel’s father and carried him out of the room. Eva cried in agony. Nigel picked her up and ran deeper into the chateau.

“I will see if I can find a first aid kit,” Nigel said.

Eva moaned, and he ran. At the end of the hall, a round chamber with a couple of chairs appeared. He deposited Eva in the chair, then ran into a darkened hallway that seemed to go on forever. It opened into some kind of lab. Nigel hoped Eva would be okay while he scavenged for first aid supplies. He opened every drawer that he came in contract with. He found a series of tubes, electronic circuits, tools, and other useless items.

Where is the first aid kit?

Nigel was about to give up when he spotted a white box with a red cross attached to the wall. He opened the case, and bandages and ointments of every kind imaginable spilled onto the floor. He scooped up as much as he could, then ran back to Eva. She appeared unconscious. Her arm was worse than he thought. Black, crusty blisters formed where the laser had scorched her skin. Nigel opened several rolls of gauze and bandages. He applied the bandages with antibiotic ointment, then wrapped the wounds. As he wrapped the area, blood soaked through the gauze.

This is bad. She will need to see a doctor.

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After he tended to her wounds, he looked for a wheelchair or some easier way to transporting her. A laser grazed his scalp as he planned. White-hot pain shot through his head, blocking any coherent thought. As he ducked behind the chair, Eva woke. She grimaced, but seemed happy to have been bandaged. She reached for her ankle and removed a knife. A fireball knocked into the back of the chair.

“Look, darling, our prey is waiting for us,” Nozomi said.

“Let’s finish them,” Rick said.

“Dad! Why are you trying to hurt us?” Nigel said.

“Ah, the little one wishes to have a family reunion. That moment has passed, hasn’t it, dear?”

Rick gave Nozomi a mournful stare. He seemed conflicted and unable or unwilling to disobey her. Eva threw a knife at the spider Nozomi. She deflected the blade, but the action left her open to another attack. Before Nigel realized what was going on, Eva threw another knife, and this one struck her in the side. She screamed in aggravation as she tried to remove it, but she couldn’t reach it.

“Pull it out,” Nozomi said.

Rick obeyed. Instead of blood, a pinkish-white ooze poured out of her.

“You will pay for that,” Nozomi said.

“Die, foul creature.”

Eva threw two more knives, and one struck Nozomi in the throat. A gurgling noise emitted from her. Rick hurled several more fireballs in Nigel’s direction. The chair that once provided cover was engulfed in flames.

“Rick, I know you don’t want to hurt me,” Nigel said.

His father always hated when Nigel called him by his given name. He paused for a moment.

“The doctor wishes it. When you’re eliminated, then my beloved and I will be free.”

“Why are you protecting this thing?”

“She’s a filthy monster that needs to be put down,” Eva said.

“Nozomi doesn’t look like this. It’s temporary—”

“Enough of the chit-chat. Once these interlopers are dead, then Doc Chop will keep his word and remove these cursed implants.”

“What is she talking about?” Nigel asked.

Rick explained that Doc Chop had planted bombs into his and Nozomi’s brains. The doctor had promised to remove the implants when Nigel as Black Iris was eliminated.

“I don’t think he’s going to honor that arrangement.”

“You know nothing, boy!” Nozomi said, spitting up a pink, milky goo.

Rick leaned in as if he were about to throw the winning ball at the World Series. Flames licked his hands as he summoned more heat.

“We need to make a run for it. Can you move?” Nigel asked.

Eva nodded. The two ran as fast as they could toward a light at the end of a hallway, dodging fireballs and some intermittent laser blasts along the way. Eva collapsed as they entered what appeared to be a lab.

“Nige,” a childish voice said.

He looked in the voice’s direction, and April was looking for something in the drawer.

“Where are the others?”

“Jet is here. Nozomi was attacking us right before you came. Her head, it’s back on,” April said in astonishment.

She resumed her search for whatever she was looking for. She pulled out some kind of oversized gun. It reminded Nigel of a flare gun that his father had brought the few times he took him and his brother fishing. That seemed long ago now.

The clanking sound of metal on metal echoed throughout the hallway. Nigel looked for the source of the noise, but couldn’t locate it. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“Watch out,” April said.

Out of the corner of his eye, something was coming. Eva readied another knife, but dropped it.

She must be exhausted.

Drops of sweat poured down his back. A radiating heat enveloped him. He felt like a giant had scooped him up and dropped him into a volcano. April fired the weapon. A tingling sensation enveloped him. It settled in his stomach like sour milk. He doubled over and his mouth filled with saliva.

“I’m going to be sick.”

Nigel tried to vomit, but only spit flowed from his mouth. Nozomi screamed. Nigel snatched a glance and Nozomi was down. Her claws: useless. A pink milky substance flowed from her mouth and nose. Behind her was Rick, and he was gasping for breath.

“It is done,” April said.

“What was that?”

“A device that Hans had been helping me with, a cyborg killer.”

“An EMP?”

“I don’t know, but it fries cyborg circuits. I have to be careful not to hurt myself.”

Rick wheezed. He was grasping at his neck. “Nigel, let me see you.”

“Dad!”

Nigel ran to Rick’s side. He didn’t always get along with his father. Cyborg or not, he didn’t want him dead. He took his father’s hand.

“Dad, it’s me, Nigel. Don’t you recognize me?”

Rick lifted his head. “Son, I’m so proud—”

A single shot resonated throughout the chamber.

“No!”

Nigel’s vision blurred, then stung. He rubbed his eyes, but couldn’t get the stinging to stop. He used his shirt to rub away the blood of his father.

“What have you done?”

“A threat has been eliminated,” a female voice said.

Nigel turned to find Dahlia.

“You didn’t have to kill him. He was down,” Nigel said.

“April’s toy didn’t harm him. Not completely. I finished the job,” Dahlia said coldly.

“My father—had turned into a monster.”

“Half man and machine; such abominations shouldn’t exist.”

Eva raised her cybernetic arm and shot Dahlia a hurtful look.

“Don’t worry, darling, you are not the same as this gutter trash.”

Nigel lunged at Dahlia. He struck her with a clenched fist. It was like hitting a brick wall. She was unwavering. He wanted to hit her again. For a moment, he fantasized what it would be like to beat her to a bloody pulp.

“I suppose I deserved that.”

Nigel collapsed at his father’s side, then wept.

How am I going to tell Ralphie?

After the outburst, an overwhelming sense of loss clouded his mind. He vowed revenge. Not for his father, but for his little brother.