With a sneer on his mouth held firm, Andu pressed a gauge on the Saturnine that juiced the slug in the chamber to full conductive capacity.

  A well-placed hit could short-circuit a drone or a droid.

  "Tasìa," he called out. "Count down to five and reverse flow."

  "Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."

  She flipped the control knob on the GUI, and the central door panel began to bend towards them as the lye cycled back into its storage container, pulling the weakened metal material along with it.

  Something on the corridor side smacked against the panel hard. Tasìa doubted her .357 Clastic would do much damage to the thing on the other side from the sound of its pounding, but she gripped the gun in both hands tightly.

  On the third thump, it smashed through the central door panel, collapsing the rest of them. Tasìa could only describe what she witnessed as a bone machine.

  Smacking the lye hose to the side, it dropped to the floor and balled up inside long, ribbed bones that possessed jagged growths arching along their ribbed surfaces.

  Andu hit it with a .72 bullet that cleared through the rib work and exploded against a center mass on its lower torso. Annebél laid down several explosive slugs that popped off against the chitinous arch of its back.

  Tasìa eyed a pair of sensors jutting off of its reptilian skull and emptied the six rounds in the revolver's cylinder. The bullets chipped deep into the surrounding bone spurs.

  The beast held still, perhaps stunned by the brutal assault of the varied munitions centered upon it. The trio reloaded their weapons to begin another barrage against the bone machine when a set of bones consisting of a dozen long whipping blade attachments thrashed out from the back of its torso.

  Andu, closing in to find a kill shot, had to leap out of the range of the rotary blades.

  The spiny blades whirled in unison. The beast leaped onto Annebél's chest, ripped the sheet of Kevlar and the shirt beneath off before she could respond, and shot a few dozen needles in her chest before leaping off and hovering in the air.

  As Tasìa yelled out Annebél's name, she realized what the bone machine was in actuality-- a Gremlin, also called a flying monkey, repurposed with an armored chitinous necro-mechanical surface and remade very sleekly elongated.

  One of the hominid droids, made of more common steel and polymer, got the best of her in the ductwork of the Spore Isolation Unit months earlier.

  She rushed towards Annebél as Andu provided cover fire.

  Annebél lay gasping for air, and leaning forward with her tits exposed. Dozens of welts where the tiny needles penetrated through her epidermis spread out across her breast.

  Tasìa worked her hands into the straps of the medkit attached to Annebél's wide-leather belt. The kit bolstered a thick duffle bag which made her task more difficult due to the fastened stump racks for Annebél's pair of long guns.

  Working the straps took patience, and Annebél's violent groans didn't make it any easier on Tasìa's nerves. The assembly proved daunting in its secured fastening.

  "Duck flat!" Andu yelled.

  Nasty scraping noises dragged across the floor behind her as Tasìa fell flat to the cement. In her scramble she refused to let go of the duffle bag.

  Andu popped off another shot, and the whirlwind of bone-edged blades ascended away from her.

  Finally, Tasìa jerked the fasteners loose. Inside the kit, she found an inhaler more commonly used to treat gas poisoning.

  Set against Annebél's mouth, it clamped down, creating a barrier between nose and chin before unleashing a countermeasure to reset Annebél's collapsed lung.

  Within seconds it did its job; Annebél ripped it off and gasped to regain her breath.

  Tasìa held her by the arm and pleaded, "Speak to me!"

  Annebél leaned over with a halting hand motion. "One moment. Stay clear of my tits."

  The brawler's eyes locked forward. She evoked her own internal Modality.

  The needles shot back out of Annebel's chest, spraying the Gremlin, which still hovered several meters above them, as it dodged the gunfire.

  The Gremlin popped in a staccato of gear-hissing sounds before shaking fiercely. The needles rained down on the floor harmlessly.

  Meanwhile, Andu fired another well-aimed electrically charged round into its center mass. Smoke trailed it as it dodged Andu's next attack.

  Tasìa rolled away from Annebél, her .357 Colt Clastic already reloaded. She once more emptied the revolver onto the sensor.

  This time dislodging it.

  When she popped another moon clip into the revolver, a grasper appendage on a telescoping cylinder grabbed her by the wrist, slammed it down, and forced her to drop the gun.

  Within a split instant, the Gremlin lay on top of her. Its remaining green orb stared into her own eyes. It resembled little the Gremlin she fought in the SIU, but she heard the same sound of the spinning rotors accelerating that unnerved her in the ducts.

  This was the sound of needles being loaded into a canister, originally designed to be dispersed into a crowd for riot control.

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

  A slug from Andu's Saturnine pierced into the center mass that encased its battery in a protective mesh. The successful shot created a crack that revealed a lovely Jacob's ladder of blue sparks coursing from a core lithium slug.

  With her free hand, Tasìa grabbed the stiletto from inside her boot and shoved the blade into the battery case crack.

  She made a gamble with her life that her powers were merely inert now and not stripped from her entirely.

  When the shock came, the smooth, flowing, and even oscillation throughout her body felt familiar and comfortable. As a shockwave rider, Tasìa felt elated to know for certain now that roll to be partial to her essential being.

  With the same ease of releasing a deep breath of air, she pushed the shock waves, now tightly refocused, back into the Gremlin.

  It suddenly ceased motion.

  Tasìa untangled herself to avoid injury as it collapsed upon itself in a dance of sparks. A dense smoke bellowed up from the wreckage that carried a heavy, smelted scent of calcium carbonate and chrome.

  She rolled towards Annebél before the Gremlin plummeted to the side, and there she caught her breath.

  Annebél spoke weakly.

  "Is electrical immunity part of your inert abilities profile?" She asked.

  Tasìa nodded. "Yup. Do you have any, yourself?"

  Annebél giggled as she nodded.

  "Hydrochloric acid, lye, similar acids. My body is an anti-catalyst."

  "Nice," Tasìa confirmed. She glanced around and found Andu. He grabbed onto the door breach, leaning into an interior corridor, scanning for surface readouts.

  "No, what you did there was quite impressive." Annebél held Tasìa's hand, checking it for injury before pressing it palm side against her left boob, endearingly. "I'm going to need your help to get back to lucidity, T.; those poisoned darts hold a nerve agent."

  Annebél stopped speaking for a moment, but Tasìa could feel the fiery warmth of the brawler's flesh and the healthy thud of her beating heart.

  "I'm listening," Tasìa confirmed. "Go on."

  "You'll find both in my kit. Hit me up with that caffeine shot right now, and in exactly twelve minutes after, hit me up with that adrenaline shot."

  "You sure?" Tasìa asked.

  "Yup. I'm fading; do it exactly like that. The first will prep my heart to avoid a rupture. Don't try this on yourself—unique to my system."

  Annebél conked out unconscious. Tasìa could feel the brawler's heartbeat slow down before it steadied once more at a lower rate.

  As she administered the first needle into Annebél's arms, Andu shuffled over to join her.

  "How is she doing?" he asked.

  "She has me administering these shots to get her back in the action. I am not sure it is the wisest course of action."

  Andu squatted beside her. "I agree, she's out of the action; let's not risk it. On that note, do you handle plasma as well as you do high voltage?"

  Tasìa shook her head, "No, I'd get my ass fried dead if that droid possessed a plasma weapon. Why do you ask, mi amigo?"

  Andu pointed to the door. "The daemon controls plasma-based elementals. My suit is designed with a defense against them embedded. If you don't mind if I borrow your friend's shotgun, I'll take care of them while you help her out."

  Tasìa threw him a gobliny smile.

  "Works for me. I am no hero, Andu, and the loot drops have been paltry. Fucking AK-47s. Can you believe that?"

  Andu shook his head as he walked away laughing. The boys love her for her bent sense of humor, Tasìa thought smugly.

  How many times has Annebél evoked her own Modality tonight? Tasìa wondered as she watched her friend disappear in the mist of urine dissipate with only the glow of the brawler's clitoral scarab showing through.

  After reviving Annebél, Tasìa accompanied her behind the toolshed. Annebél had to piss something fierce, but her legs were still wobbly.

  In between moans of pain, Annebél complained, "Oh, the price we pay to be super jacked like we are."

  She clasped Tasìa's hand as she let out another stream.

  "Could you lessen that grip a bit?" Tasìa pleaded.

  "Yeah. Sorry."

  Annebél leaned up and belted her pants.

  "Hey, T. I could not help but notice you were not evoking that quicksilver speed of yours, nor those scarily precise calculations. The twins' taunts were real, you think?"

  "Could be."

  Annebél shook her head. "Nah. I don't believe it. They are playing their fucking mind games. When was the last time you slept?"

  Tasìa looked hard into Annebél's eyes. The brawler knew several Harvested. Tasìa only knew of two others, the one standing in front of her, and Annebél's brother.

  "I haven't been able to sleep since Demona had her seizure. Could that be it?"

  Annebél nodded affirmatively.

  "Absolutely it can affect your ability to control it."

  Tasìa got excited as she thought of the elation she felt when the flow of electricity surged through her. What if that reset her condition back to normal?

  "I want to try something," Tasìa began. "Throw me a random set of nine numbers, then another set of nine numbers, and I'll attempt to do simple three-by-three set matrix transformations in addition, subtraction, and multiplication."

  Annebél cleared her throat.

  "Seventeen. Twenty-five. Three. Fourteen. Nine. Eighteen. Twelve. Forty-seven. Thirteen. Five . . ."

  Tasìa shook her head and waved her hand in a halting motion. "Stop with the second set. I've forgotten the first two numbers already. Never mind, I'm still dumb as fuck."

  Annebél wagged her finger.

  "Tasìa! You have not slept in three days. You're sure as shit not doing matrix transformations in your head."

  Andu laughed as he approached. When Tasìa glanced back, she smiled to herself. Even with the stunning and statuesque Annebél bare-breasted and quite unselfconscious about it, he only had eyes for her.

  "It's clear. I found your friend, Matzi. Unconscious, but he looks fine. Birddog has locked herself in a back chamber. I need your help with it. Looks tricked up. And I discovered this."

  Tasìa gasped, "Se?ora de la Santa Muerta! It can't be. It is whole. Intact. Undamaged!"

  In his right hand, Andu held Demona Helo?ste's NeoPalm.

  "I found it in there inside a laboratory where it was encased in a resynth machine. When flipping through it, I found something you would want to know about."

  He turned the screen around so Tasìa could see it. There was a profile of Simone Barre Estèvez listed under Candidate.

  Andu nodded grimly.

  "I think Ms. Estèvez is aware of the reason why you have returned to Vida Escondida. The file linked to the profile makes it quite clear why she is Demona Helo?ste's choice. Walk with me as you browse through that."

  They entered the corridor beyond the door. As they got deeper into the interior, signs of a firefight became evident from walls damaged by plasma bursts and debris strewn about the floors.

  Tasìa buried her attention into the NeoPalm display as Annebél guided her by the shoulder onward. She found a recently reviewed video clip of Estèvez nearby the strip mall instructing the Czech extraction team that later followed Matzi.

  So, he was running from her? Why?

  Tasìa put the NeoPalm in her belt-hitch pocket as they reached the lab. Just inside, Matzi lay unconscious on a gurney stuck in a corner. Tasìa checked his pulse. It beat steady. She delicately opened his left eye and shook the flashlight on her PalmEx on the orb from contrasting angles. No cloudiness.

  A small puncture on his neck gave evidence of how he was subdued.

  Satisfied with his conditon, Tasìa stood back up, and gave Andu a nod.

  Andu pointed to a corridor with a metal door at the end and led her to it.

  Fiona's voice came over a PA system.

  "You brought Alma-Gris, that little shit, to open it up. I'll save you the trouble and time since I have none to spare myself."

  The steel door clicked twice.

  "Go ahead," Fiona continued through a strained voice. "It's unarmed."

  Tasìa gave the portal frame a close inspection for connector traps Andu scanned the door with his device.

  Over the public address speaker, Fiona's voice choked on laughter.

  "Funny that you murderers don't trust me."

  She wheezed in a spasm of dry heaves until silent. Andu threw open the door.

  Sprawled, lying face up, Fiona's head lay thrown back, staring up with dead eyes locked on the ceiling. Her body stripped nude except for a medical body wrap over her exceptional wounds. The device that covered her pulsed red, indicative of failure.

  Andu wiped his eyes. In a choked-up voice, he gasped out.

  "I had so many questions."