Chapter Thirteen: Broken and Entering

Chapter Thirteen: Broken and Entering

            Saturn

            UHFPD Station, 02:00 Hours

            One Week Later

            The officers on duty at the station on Saturn were hardly your ordinary police officers. These were Blanch Corps troopers, part of an elite unit trained by members of the Kogiin species called Storm Raiders. These mutants traded the species’ increased brain capacity for increased muscle density and growth capacity, which they used to become the exclusive defenders of their people. Instead of a mere ceremonial honor guard, these aliens were expert commandos trained to strike at the enemy when and where they least expected it. With these people on patrol, and their blind spots augmented with security cameras, the police department felt fairly secure. After all, who would be stupid enough to break into a secure compound like this?

            Perimeter

            Stefan landed softly on the other side of the wall, smiling to himself as he did. The shock absorbers in his legs had held. Guess I do know what I’m doing with a wrench and a few drivers, he thought. Dani rappelled down the wall beside him, followed by Brooks. Kane and Shepard entered on the opposite end of the compound, outside the radius of the searchlights the police were using, Psyn already in front of them. Turned out Anders wanted a lot more than just evidence of police involvement in the assassination of both ICRF and Ultra-humanist leaders; now, she wanted a list of all the ICRF agents the police knew and how comprehensive their cases against them were. Dani looked across the yard and made eye contact with Psyn. The computer module is inside. Basement level, so it doesn’t let broadcasts through. That means you won’t be able to call for help. Take Shepard and Bakrylov with you. We’ll make some noise out here. The mental answer came before she had even finished.

            Got it. Any requests for data? Dani hesitated, and then nodded.

            See if you can’t get anything on Stefan from the database. You know, just to make sure he checks out. He’s been acting funny lately. The alien suddenly opened the telepathic channel she had established for the whole team and began giving orders.

            Shepard, Bakrylov, with me. The rest of you with Watkins. Any questions? None? Then haul it. Stefan slipped his carbine off his back and popped his neck, watching as Shepard knuckled her forehead.

            Oh boy, he heard her think, shutting out all the others in a direct link with him. Stuck with an alien and my psycho older brother in a confined space. What could go wrong?

            Nothing, provided you opt to not be stupid, he answered. She shook her head and followed Psyn and Stefan toward the compound’s inner wall. There, she affixed a small device to the gate. It extended a small antenna, beeped twice, and the gate suddenly swept open. No sooner had this happened than an alarm suddenly began to blare. Stefan heard Psyn curse quite audibly, and he soon saw why: the doors to the compound’s computer station were closing, and closing fast. He turned toward them and broke into a dead run, the other two close behind him. He crossed the threshold first, followed by Psyn. Turning around, he grabbed Alison by the shoulder and yanked her in seconds before the doors slammed shut.

            Well, we’re in, she thought angrily. Guess there’s nothing for it now.

            Relax, Alison told her. We’ll get out fine. I can hack the doors from the mainframe.

            You’d better, Stefan said. I hate police stations.                 

            Pluto

            The Crucible

            The man stood on the other side of the glass, watching as his scientists took the organs he had requested out of their fluid mediums and placed them in the electrolytic mixture. He watched as they affixed the electrodes to the brains, but he would not see the end of his test, unfortunately. The Premier had ordered him to use his predecessor’s brain, along with several others, to create the first human neural agglomeration artificial intelligence. This particular set of programming parameters would set the A.I. to track down Ministry traitors via calculated biographic variables, and its military strategy programming allowed it to use machines of war to lethal effect. The Professor, as the head of the scientific arm of the Ministry was called, fulfilled those parameters as best he could. However, running this perilous operation meant that he should be present, and he despised the thought of abandoning his work. At precisely that moment, his communicator gave a muted beep, and he saw a message on the holographic screen. Package received, test ready. Require your presence to proceed. Are you sure you want to do this? He killed the instructor last time. The man smiled at that.

            I know, he answered. That’s the point this time. Raising his head, he saw that the scientists had finished their task and begun the neural formatting process. That would mean his newest weapon would be ready by the time he was ready to use it. Excellent.

            Sleeping area

            Twenty lay in his bunk, his head throbbing. He wasn’t supposed to be here; they usually had another mission for men like him by now. Mission anxiety wasn’t generally something he suffered from, but he was feeling it now, and feeling it something awful. The Ministry not having a task for their personal attack dog disturbed him. That meant they were likely working up to something big, and big things in the Ministry did not generally equate to large parties. He swore and rolled over, reaching under his bed and pulling out his bowie knife to stare at the blade. More often now, he saw a blood-red blade instead of the blued-silver appearance of the weapon as it was. In truth, his hands took that color on more and more in his dreams, and he could not help but wonder why. His musings were interrupted by the sound of his personal intercom system beeping. He put his hand to his ear and keyed the miniaturized communicator.

            “Go ahead, boss,” he said.

            “Come to the Panic Room immediately,” came the disguised voice on the other end. “We have an assignment for you.” A chill went up Twenty’s spine. An assignment given out in the Panic Room? Even though he wasn’t the type for such things, he whispered a prayer as he slipped into his combat fatigues. Nothing that came out of that Room was good, himself included.

            Venus

            Police compound

            Dani fired her sixth stun grenade from the launcher, striking another officer and blasting him seven feet backward and into the compound wall. Kane had similarly loaded his shotgun with nonlethal rounds, and he was using them to great effect. However, nonlethal had no effect on the security drones that the police also used, and that frustrated them to no end. Thus, they used microwave pulse grenades to disrupt the variable radio frequencies that directed the drones’ targeting systems. This actually caused the robots to turn on their handlers as well as Dani’s team, which made her at least feel better. Brooks’ hunting rifle was still loaded with lethal rounds, and he used them to disable the security cameras with unbelievable precision. That, along with some creative editing of the security tapes, would prevent the police from pursuing them; after all, one could not arrest a ghost.

            Inside

            Shepard’s fingers flew over the hard-light keys, her eyes intent on the screen in front of her. Stefan, who was outside, was busy trying to keep the resident security guard, a large and rather forbidding mechanical giant, at bay with his carbine. He had limited success; after all, a ten foot iron giant was far from easy to cripple, much less deactivate permanently. Still, the metal monstrosity failed to advance, which meant their operation was safe for now. Per Dani’s orders, Psyn was doing a little hacking of her own, entering the police files on every single team member and downloading them. While Dani had merely asked for Stefan’s, Psyn still liked to remain informed on who she was working with. Stefan’s criminal record was quite extensive, but so was his military record. She could see that he had guts, if nothing else. Not much in the way of brains, perhaps, but a lot of guts.

            For her part, Shepard was busy downloading all the files she could find on the police ties to the government, which were few. There seemed to be a cover up going on here; but who was covering this up, an why? That was when she found it. One file with a stamp that she recognized, but it wasn’t a government stamp. It was a Ministry file, buried in the terabytes of data. It was short and to the point, with many redacted portions.

            Memo 234, Police Force

            T successful, Uhst problem solved. Psychological anomaly detected, algorithms suggest reevaluation necessary. Remanding to Cru for further tests, recommend no deployment for several weeks. Note: Reeducation may be required.

            The blacked out portions couldn’t be restored, even after several minutes of intense recoding. She set the file to download to a separate part of the drive. Done with her work, she withdrew it from the port on the side.

            “I have what we need,” she said. “We should go.” Psyn took her drive out of the computer and nodded.

            “I agree,” she said.

            “Hold that thought,” Stefan said, ducking underneath a shot from the security golem in the hallway. A second, a flash grenade, knocked him to the side, where he slumped momentarily, allowing the robot to approach him. The metal monstrosity raised its hand and brought it down with lethal force. How he did it Shepard never figured out; one second, he was there, the next, he was gone. He had darted forward and, leaping into the air, managed to land on the machine’s back. Raising his prosthetic arm, he pointed at the center of the robot’s chest and pushed a button. The metal fist clenched, and the hand fired as if launched from a rocket launcher, punching a basketball-sized hole in the drone’s chest. It sparked and whirred for several minutes, until it dropped backward and exploded in a flash of light. Stefan hit the ground and tolled, his metal legs seamlessly absorbing the shock.

            “There,” he said, brushing himself off. “That wasn’t so hard.” The sound of the doors sweeping open startled him, and he turned to see several police commandos storming through the door. Psyn threw him an angry look.

            “Just had to open your mouth, didn’t you?” She asked. Stefan shrugged.

            “It’s one of my issues.”

            Pluto

            Crucible, Panic Room

            As Twenty stepped through the door to the room, he knew immediately that something was wrong. The chair in the middle wasn’t empty; there was a blindfolded figure strapped to it. Well, that was some comfort, at least; that meant he wasn’t going down for another operation. The person was female, and her hair was long-ish and blond. There was a piece of fabric across her mouth, too, and she was squirming rather determinedly. There was a guard on each side of the door and two beside the chair. At the console to the left, he saw a figure in a white lab coat twisting knobs and pushing buttons. Now, he saw several needles underneath her skin, and he could hear her muffled cries of pain. When the doctor noticed that Twenty had arrived, he pulled a lever down, and the syringe apparatus retracted.

            “So glad you could join us,” the man said. “We were beginning to wonder if you were going to come.”

            “I did,” he snapped. “And you seem to be doing your utmost to make me wish I’d stayed in my room.” The girl slumped in the chair, and he saw her chest rising and falling as she hyperventilated. She wasn’t dying from whatever was in her system, but it hurt, he could tell.

            “Like it?” The doctor asked. “Meet one of Premier’s newest picks. Thought this girl had potential or something nonsensical like that. She decided be a colossal disappointment, though; left some traces of our work in a couple of systems in military and police forces. So, he’s decided to use her for something else. See, we are going to turn Little Miss Sunshine here into an example.”

            Twenty looked around him, suddenly realizing what was going on. “So you brought me here for an execution?” He asked. “Forgive me for thinking this one’s below my pay grade.”

            “You have no pay grade,” the doctor responded. Twenty shook his head.

            “What is it about you scientific types and being so literal? I’m saying you don’t bring in the pro for a dead ringer job. This is you, not me.”

            “The Premier disagrees,” the doctor said. “See, I’m head of Division Four, and even I couldn’t get away with what you tried to pull on Venus.”

            “What?” Twenty echoed. “What do you mean ‘what I tried to pull’?”

            “The Rutger girls,” the Professor said. “We have nanotech inside you. We can’t hear what you hear, exactly, but we can read general brain impulses, and they were definitely not positive. Plus, we can see everything you do thanks to the optic units, and we didn’t like what we saw. So, we’ve decided that you need a loyalty evaluation.”

            “How does you killing a girl help me stay loyal?” Twenty asked, even though he already knew the answer. Just like Venus, there was only one reason he was here.

            “I’m not killing her,” the Professor said, walking away from the monitor and going to a rack of deadly weapons in one corner. “You are. Now, pick your tool.”

            Laboratory Room

            The neural pattern was complete, and the technicians were elated. They had spent months trying to synchronize the brainwave patterns and system formatting, which had proven extremely time-consuming. Now, however, it seemed that their tests had been successful; the first neural agglomerative artificial intelligence was now in existence.

            “Let’s get started on the authority recognition,” the leader said. “We’ve got to get this fellow properly servile.” He began coding, his hands flying rapidly over the holographic keys. The screen beeped, and he swore quietly. Even with his successful tests, the artificial intelligence seemed incompatible with the current level of human coding; it was far too advanced. The technician tried again. This time, though, he got a rise out of the A.I. Suddenly, his screen blanked, and a shadowed face appeared. The voice that spoke was raspy, English, and extremely impatient.

            “Really, human? Trying to manipulate me? Please. You code might have cut it at the first grade science fair, but this is the big leagues here.” The technician stepped away from his screen, blinking rapidly. How had the A.I. already programmed a personality and emotional matrix that quickly?

            “How-who-what did you do?” He asked.

            “How? It’s called programming. You might want to actually try it some time. The who? You can call me Grey. As for what…” The A.I laughed. “I’ve just made your entire station work for me. Have a pleasant stay.” And, just like that, the A.I. was gone.

            “What happened?” One of the techs asked. “Where’d he go?”

            “He’s in the system,” the head tech said, his hands flying over the keys. “He’s left a sig on every file in here. There isn’t one he can’t tap on command.”

            “But why make those marks, set up those pathways, and then leave?” Another asked. “He had us at his mercy.”

            “Maybe he’s got a bigger game,’ the tech said.

            “Bigger than controlling the Crucible?”

            “Maybe.”

            Panic Room

            Twenty stared at the rack, trying to decide what to do and what to do it with. He had his pick of rifles, shotguns, carbines, and pistols of the yin-yang. Finally, he made his decision. He wanted to put a bullet in the new Professor’s spinal cord and taunt him while he bled out, but he was certain he would be afforded no such luxury. At the same time, he had no desire to kill this girl. She might not be the most attractive one he had ever laid eyes on, but she was didn’t deserve to die. Not like I do, he thought. Aside from the weapon, he also grabbed two bandoliers of shock generators, which he strapped across his chest. He also took a pistol, but only three clips. He had a special ammunition for that one, though. He had no choice about the whole killing thing, though. A bomb in his synthetic pacemaker would ensure that; even though the lead-lined walls of the Panic Room prevented the Circle from unanimously deciding to nuke him, the Professor had a large red button on the computer keyboard with a black heart stamp on it. Twenty assumed that wasn’t the Instant Valentine button. Not at all.

            “You’re stalling,” the Professor told him. “Get over here and blast the wench. Do it now.” Twenty sighed and pulled a sonic shotgun off the rack.

            “All right,” he said. “Let’s not waste any more time.” The girl saw the weapon he was holding and began to struggle even harder. Twenty sighed and pumped the shotgun. The Professor eyed the weapon with approval.

            “Ah,” he said. “Getting more bloody, are we?” Twenty shook his head.

            “Nah. I just like to be thorough.” He was about to raise the weapon when the auto-targeting guns in the corners of the room started firing, but not at him. Instead, the electrical stun projectors shot all the guards, sending them flying and slumped in unconscious heaps. The Professor’s eyes darted around the room, wide with terror. Apparently, the room was under someone else’s control. Nice to see a Circle member having a coronary for a change, Twenty thought. The screens in the room suddenly all blacked out, and then they changed once more. A black face appeared in them, and a strange, metallic laugh rang inside the insulated walls.

            “Hey, dad,” came the voice from the monitor. “I’m home.”

            The Professor blinked. Dad? What…The A.I., he realized. The agglomeration must have succeeded. But how’d he get down here? The monitors and drives aren’t in the broadcasting loop with the rest of the base…

            “It was the subroutine for life support,” the A.I. explained, seeing the question on the man’s face. “Really claustrophobic pathway, but it got me in here.”

            “So why are you in here?” The Professor asked. Suddenly, one of the guns swiveled and blasted him square in the face.

            “There,” the A.I. said. “He was really starting to irritate me, and that’s saying something. I pride myself on patiently dealing with idiots.” Twenty looked around at the turrets, which were standing idle. He had no desire to stay here, but he had even less desire to get shot by some crazy computer.

            “Okay,” he said, looking around, “you shot everyone else. Are you going to kill me and the girl, too?”

            “Please,” the metallic voice said, emitting a rasping noise that sounded almost like a sigh. “You idiotic boy. Why would I kill my greatest asset? And the girl isn’t worth the time it would take to kill her. I don’t think she really looks good with more holes in her, do you? Besides, God knows Dr. Frankenspine gave her enough of them.”

            “So you want me on your side?” Twenty murmured, waling over to the gurney. Drawing his knife, he slashed through the restraints on her arms and legs. Then, he removed the gag from her mouth and helped her off the table. The girl’s eyes were suspicious, but she seemed to have no marks of life-threatening harm on her.

            “Who are you?” She asked. “And why didn’t you listen to them?”

            Twenty ignored her and looked at the largest of the room’s monitors. “All right, then. I’m listening; let’s hear your pitch.” The A.I. nodded its blackened head.

            “Since you asked so nicely, here it is: I get you two out of here, you help me fulfill my mission.”

            “Mission?” Twenty asked. “What mission?”

            “Wiping out the Ministry’s wayward sons. See, they programmed me to get rid of traitors without thinking I might class them as such,” the A.I. answered. “As a bonus, you get to fulfill your grudge.” Twenty considered briefly. In truth, this seemed like a far more beneficial arrangement that he had thought at first. Even so, would he be able to keep the girl from dying? Not that he would lose a great deal of sleep over her corpse, but he thought it a shame to go to all this trouble only to be disappointed in the end.

            “The girl?” He asked.

            “That’s your call,” the computer system answered. “I don’t care one way or another.”

            “Hey,” she protested. “I do happen to have a name. And I would appreciate it if you’d actually use it to refer to me.”

            Again, Twenty ignored her. “What about my heart?” He asked.

            “Oh, you mean the charge,” the A.I. answered. “Well, let’s just see about that, shall we?” Suddenly, Twenty felt a massive pain at the base of his neck, followed by the burning sensation in his chest as he fell. Then, he dropped to his knees and collapsed. The girl went to his side, putting her fingers to his neck. A chill went up her spine when she realized that his blood wasn’t flowing at all.

            “What did you do?” She asked. “Why’d you kill him?”

            “Don’t be obtuse. I didn’t kill him.” Suddenly, she heard a high-pitched, extended beep, followed by an electric hum. “I’m merely resetting the pacemaker he wears. Apparently, to ensure his cooperation, they embedded an inert detonation charge inside. The reset process will allow me to enable features selectively. For example, not turning on the bomb. Oh, and I also took him off of a broadcast loop so no one else can reactivate it.” There was another beep, and suddenly Twenty sat bolt upright, inhaling and exhaling explosively.

            “What in…” He looked around, and suddenly memory flooded back to him. “You disabled the charge?”

            “And the GPS device that went with it. Oh, and now your cerebral implants are your own,” the A.I. replied. “You’ve essentially gone off the grid.”

            He nodded and picked himself up off the floor. “Thanks. Now, about this plan…” The A.I. seemed a little more intense as he discussed his strategic goals with them.

            “The security protocols I’ve overridden will automatically reset in five minutes. By that time, we should see to it that we’re not on the premises.”

            “So what’s the plan?”

            “The plan is that I download myself into an implant-compatible drive and you take me out of here. I’ll be providing you with blueprints and information on security as we go. I would recommend you not take the heaviest of weapons; speed will be of the essence.”

            Twenty nodded and went over to the weapons rack. Turning back to face the girl, he asked, “What’ll be your pleasure?”

            “I can pick my own gun,” she snapped. Joining him, she grabbed a strange-looking gun with a long, slitted barrel.

            “That’s an experimental prototype,” he remarked. “They call it a splitter rifle. It uses special anomalies to incise victims. In other words, it teleports them to bits. You’d best me careful with it, Miss…I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

            “Tanner,” she answered. “Ruby Tanner. And I know exactly what this gun is. I helped design it.” She took the weapon and slid it onto her back. “Any other useless advice you feel like sharing?”

            “Keep your mouth shut and your ears open,” Twenty remarked, grabbing a long rifle, which he put on his back, beside the sonic shotgun. “And if you get killed, I’m not cleaning your organs up off the floor. Otherwise, we’ll be fine.” Suddenly, one of the computers beeped, and a small thumb drive popped out. Twenty went over, took the drive, and inserted it into the small metal protrusion at the base of his neck. Suddenly, he felt a rush of adrenaline followed by a splitting headache. Then, he heard the A.I.’s voice in his head.

            “Well, you’ve got a real cesspool up here,” the computer remarked. “Did you really do all this?”

            “Most of it,” Twenty answered. “Some of it’s just wishful thinking.” Ruby stood beside him, her hands on her hips.

            “Nice of you to be in his head, Tin Top,” she growled. “But I could use to hear, too.” Twenty pointed to the weapons rack.

            “Grab two headsets,” he replied. “I’ll sync them to the frequency of my mods. That should keep you posted.” She went and did as instructed, waiting as he fought with the tech for about a minute and a half. Finally, he sat back, a satisfied look on his face.

            “That should do it,” he told her. She put the communicator on and shrugged.

            “We ready?” she asked.

            “As we’ll ever be,” Grey remarked. “You kids really want to do this, then?” Twenty nodded, and Ruby cocked her head.

            “I’m not sure how to define that phrase or say how I fit it, but sure,” she answered.

            “Right, then,” the A.I. murmured. “Let’s see about getting that door open.”

            Police Station

            Saturn

            The trio of hackers emerged from the center building, their fight with the police officers within concluded. It had been far from easy, but a quick improvisation with a flash-bang on Alison’s part had won the day. That, however, would not save them much in the way of trouble. Even with the officers taken care of, there was still the matter of their evacuation from the precinct HQ. The hunters who had transported them there had refused to return, as felonies reflected poorly on any legitimate bounty entrepreneur’s resume. Therefore, Dani felt herself compelled to make a new exit; as in, a new hole in the wall surrounding the yard. A few creatively placed explosive and one blazing corona later, they were running through the streets, narrowly missing squad cars that had returned after the base’s alarm issued an all-points bulletin to the police forces. They took refuge in a particularly dark back alley. Kane looked behind them, watching more police vehicles speed past.

            “Great,” he muttered. “Now we can add breaking and entering places that should never be broken or entered to our criminal resumes.” Brooks shrugged.

            “I’ve broken into more secure game preserves, mate,” he told the blue-haired fighter. “A police data farm is nothing special.”

            “They might not be special,” Dani said, gesturing for the others to follow, “but they can still arrest us. And I, for one, don’t like cells.”

            “You claustrophobic or something?” Shepard asked.

            “And antisocial,” Dani said.

            “You don’t show it,” the other remarked.

            “I’m good at keeping my desire to set people on fire under wraps,” Dani snapped. Shepard looked at Stefan as the other woman walked away.

            What’s eating her? She mouthed.

            No idea, he answered. But finding out isn’t on my to-do list.

            Pluto, Crucible

            The first group of guards that came after them had no prayer: Twenty came at them from behind wielding the shotgun and, in a few squeezes of the trigger, basically obliterated them. Ruby watched in horror as he blasted them to bloody pieces, and then calmly stepped over the bodies.

            “Coming?” He queried, kicking one of the dead men experimentally.

            “Did you have to do that?” She asked. Twenty gave an indifferent shrug.

            “Perhaps not,” he replied. “But it felt really, really good.” At precisely that moment, alarms within the base started to blare. Ruby muttered a curse, but Twenty seemed unfazed.

            “You’re not enjoying this,” she said, looking at his facial expression. “I thought you said it felt good. This doesn’t please you.”

            “True,” he acknowledged. “But then, it doesn’t disgust me either. I just…don’t. Doesn’t matter what you think of me or what you think I feel. I don’t.” Then, he started running. He turned the corner and fired the shotgun; then came that same sickening splattering noise, followed by the muted thud of a dropping body. “Makes doing junk like this easier.” Twenty pulled a grenade off his belt, primed it, and launched it through a quickly-closing blast door at several guards. Behind it, he heard screams, followed by an explosion.

            “Did you…” she began.

            “Just fry guards that were trying to escape?” Twenty asked. “No. I torched a potential threat down the road.” He broke the shotgun open and replaced the sonic generation cartridge. “What’s your beef?”

            “You’re…”

            “Killing people,” Twenty supplied, snapping the weapon shut. “Yeah, cry me a river.” The door to their right swung open, revealing a half dozen guardsmen. They barely had time to lay eyes on their enemy before Twenty levelled the shotgun and squeezed the trigger. To his surprise, they didn’t drop or even flinch. Instead, one stepped forward and grabbed him around the throat. Another seized Ruby and roughly forced her to her knees. Twenty’s hands went to his constricted windpipe, and he felt metal underneath synthetic skin. N-12s, he realized. The Nirvana series of  Real-Life Simulation Software developed by the Ministry found many practical uses, but the Premier’s personal favorites were combat drones disguised as humans. Twenty mentally berated himself for not using the pistol. The leader of the group looked around and nodded approval.

            “Good work,” he remarked. “The boys back at HQ will be most pleased to see how their newest dolls perform.”

            “Like marionettes,” Ruby said. “For all your tech, you still can’t make a person.”

            “Can’t we?” The man asked, smiling. “Your friend here was a prawn made to order. Why can’t we make people again?”

            “He’s a clone,” Ruby said, watching the robot choking him.

            “Surprised?” She saw the lenses on his eyes suddenly focus on a spot on the robot’s chest. He’s going to make a mess, she realized. Might as well join in. Then the attack came; Twenty raised his left arm and, to her shock, the hand seemed to catch fire. He took the burning appendage and rammed it right through the metal man’s chest. It’s false eyes flashed with azure light, and it staggered momentarily, squawking as it collapsed. Another stepped toward him, and Twenty nonchalantly grabbed it and ripped its head off. Suddenly, the robot holding Ruby wrapped its arms around her neck.

            “Don’t,” it droned. “Or I’ll snap it.”

            “No,” Twenty said. Faster than her eyes could follow, his hand flashed to his hip and came up holding his heavy pistol. “You won’t.” The barrel flashed, and the robot’s head exploded in a flash of light. Ruby jerked free and raised her splitter rifle, firing twice. Her targets stopped mid-stride, torn apart by amorphous globs of purple light. The man commanding the group looked around, his eyes wide with fear.

            “No…” he whispered. He turned to run, but Twenty whirled and shot him in the knee.

            “Not happening,” the clone snapped. “You’ve got something I need.”

            “No,” babbled the man. “I have nothing.”

            “The only thing you’re worse at than keeping prisoners is lying,” Twenty growled. Then, he drew his bowie knife and laconically pressed it into the man’s shoulder. “I’d talk, old man. Otherwise, I’ll fillet you. And you know I’ll do it. You’ve read my service record, even the redacted parts. You know about Ragneria, and the settlement.” The man looked up at him, his eyes going from afraid to almost paralyzed with terror.

            “You wouldn’t,” he whispered.

            “Try me.” The security chief shuddered.

            “All right. What do you want me to do?”

            “Shut down the turrets and the hangar code lock,” Twenty said. “And unlock all the ships. Oh, and disable their tracking beacons.” The man took out a small portable computer and performed a few keystrokes.

            “It’s done,” he said. “Anything else?” Suddenly, Twenty drove the knife deeper into his arm, causing him to scream in pain.

            “Liar,” he said, in that same frightening, rasping monotone. “You just increased the turret fire rate. Turn them off.” The man shuddered and obeyed this time.

            “There,” he said. “Now, you have what you want. Let me go.”

            “No, sadly,” Twenty said, sheathing his knife. “There’s one other thing I want you to do.”

            “What?” The man asked. Twenty seized him beneath the chin, his vermillion glowing eyes full of icy, cunning rage.

            “You tortured me for six years,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “You made me the monster I am. You welded these gloves into my hands. So, what do I want? I want you to send the devil my regards”

            “What…” The operator’s eyes widened in understanding. “No. Please, no. I have family.”

            He smiled, a cold, mirthless, and ultimately cruel expression. Then, he causally twisted his hand a little to the left. Then, he jerked with lightning speed, snapping the security officer’s neck like a chicken’s wishbone. Twenty got to his feet as he watched the body drop, cleaning his knife with an expression of disinterested contempt. “Lied again. You should really stop doing that. People will get hurt.”

            “You…” Ruby stared in horror. “He didn’t deserve that. Why did you do it?” Twenty shrugged.

            “It’s a defense mechanism. Death makes everyone compliant.” He sheathed the bowie. “Come on. The hangar’s waiting.”