Tapper watched the exchange, unable to move or say a word. Every time the stunned debuff vanished, he tried to escape and the net hit Tapper with a fresh jolt of electricity to start the debuff all over again. After several painful shocks Tapper focused on listening to the botnappers instead, and realized after a delay that the net wasn't shocking him. So it couldn't read his system messages, and was instead just tracking whenever Tapper tried to move or speak. Progress! If only he could communicate without moving or speaking.

  Something stirred deep within his chest, and at first Tapper tried to ignore it. Whatever emotion was trying to bubble to the surface now could only hurt him if he acted on it, until he realized the stirring wasn't metaphorical. Kakisi was moving inside his spritzer tank! According to the system, as his familiar Tapper shared a 'spiritual bond' with the small octolusk, but Tapper still didn't feel comfortable about the spiritual implications. So he never tried to use the special connection, and only talked to the little creature in the open.

  Closing his eyes and ears to ignore his captors, Tapper focused on that connection and eventually sensed the thread. Something that started nowhere, probably in his 'soul', and looped around in the aether to end in his hollow torso. The unused pathway was too faint and weak to send anything more complex than vague sensations, and right now Tapper couldn't sense pain or fear from the familiar. But Tapper tried to push those sensations through the thread, in order to tell Kakisi what he was suffering through.

  Instantly Tapper felt panic in response. His emotions were too much for Kakisi to comprehend the intent, and the squiggling sensation grew urgent. Tapper tried to temper the message, but before he could determine the raw emotion to best approximate "Wait, please do not move or else this contraption will electrocute me," his access hatch popped open.

  The net responded with another jolt of electricity, and either because of a quirk in the net's programming or a quirk in the familiar's biology, Kakisi didn't seem affected and hopped out into the open. Kakisi took one look at Tapper's predicament and panicked, flailing his little tentacles while he clicked and whistled. Tapper couldn't talk through the stun, but it was too late to warn Kakisi anyways. His body jerked along the floor, as Jellico attempted to jump away from the sudden appearance without letting go of the net.

  "AHHH! It's a fuckin' monster! Eww eww —"

  BLAM

  The roar from her shotgun rocked Jena off her feet. In her panic the merc didn't take the time to properly brace her footing or really aim, and she missed Kakisi by a wide margin. But she wasn't exaggerating about the 'primo gray' ammo and the shotgun blew a hole into the Privateer's platform, large enough for Jena to stick her head through without snagging.

  Kakisi took the hint and scrammed as fast as he could squiggle, and then Tapper lost sight of everything. His metal skull clanged against the floor like a tin can, all stealth forgotten in Jellico's panic to escape. The captor hauled Tapper around several turns before he stopped to catch his breath behind a shed. They were in a different section of the Privateer, panting against the backdrop of distant machinery. "What in the f... Fairgood's name was that?" Jellico seethed.

  Jena just held up one finger, her other hand planted on her knees as she heaved air in and out. "Hold on, you... fast sumbitch... hoo, gonna start calling you Daddy Longlegs..."

  "Please don't."

  Jena stood straight up and patted down her hair with one last deep breath, undeterred. "That was me having your back, you freakin' scaredy cat. You said monster so I shot monster, but it was just a baby octolusk! Who does that?"

  "They live in trash! So filthy. And besides, I... had never seen one before," he admitted, trying and failing to appear indignant.

  Tapper's social programming kicked in and he tried to console his own captor. He tried to say, "You should count yourself lucky, octolusks are vile creatures. Except for Kakisi, he's a good familiar despite his boneless shortcomings." He tried to say that, but the net electrocuted him before he reached the second syllable.

  "Shush, you two." Jena held a finger to her lips and looked in all directions, including inside the nearby shed. With a moment's effort she broke the lock and beckoned her partner inside the darkened door, straining to keep the hinges from squealing. "We'll lay low here for a sec, then go get the dinghy."

  "Why? And stop calling it a dinghy, it's an expensive personal hovercar!"

  "Because there's a method to this stuff, Jelly. My baby makes a big noise at night, and everyone comes running to see what happened, so we lay low. Told ya she's primo."

  Jellico squinted at her in thought before he ventured, "Where do you even find real gunpowder for that thing, anyways?"

  Jena just shrugged in return. "I dunno, the gun makes its own ammo. Seriously! I don't know how, it's relic stuff."

  "It's mag—" BZZT

  "Ugh, are you sure we can't just kill this bastard right here and now?" Jena asked, waving a hand at Tapper without looking at him.

  "My boss wants it functioning, unfortunately."

  "Well, probably won't be sneaking out of here then. Let's see what we have to work with!" Jena made her way out the other end of the shack and into a connecting structure, a larger room full of storage units.

  "What are you doing?" Jellico hissed, still dragging Tapper's stunned form behind him.

  "I'm improvising! If someone thinks they're about to get shot — or miss watching someone get shot — then they might not bother to lock up on their way out. Ah-ha!" Jena walked down the narrow hallway and tried every handle as she passed by, stopping when one shutter door rolled open. Her triumphant smile gleamed when they saw the workshop it contained. Shelves lined the walls and tools lined the shelves, a mishmash of cooking implements and measuring devices and mechanical tools. A thick butcher's table dominated the floor, itself covered in lamps and magnifying glasses on flexible clamps.

  Jena whistled softly through her teeth. "Well lookie here! Tell me this ain't a sign straight from the Hand, Jelly." She pointed up and into the small workshop, where a knotted bundle of thread and limbs thrashed against a hook in the ceiling.

  "Gods, tell me that thing isn't still alive," Jellico groaned, and his anguish took a hint of panic when Jena scrambled onto the butcher's table. "What are you doing? Surely we're on camera somewhere!"

  Jena chittered out a laugh at her partner. "That bridge is burned to cinders by now. We aren't ever coming back here either way, and if you can't leave a good impression then you may as well leave a big one. You should grab something while we're here, I never miss a chance for a little self-enrichment and I bet this spot belonged to a relic hunter." She winked at Jellico and motioned to the workshop around her.

  Jellico hesitated, mostly because he had no idea what to look for. All he could really see was that every tool in the workshop broke its Terms of Service, and in a sane world everyone squatting here would be immediately arrested by corpo-sec. But a perverse curiosity how these people lived urged Jellico to rifle through their belongings, and only because he was still wearing gloves. Until he found something shiny hidden in a drawer.

  He held it up to the dim light, and the red glint caught Jena's eye. "Hot damn, Jelly! Your first bit of thievin' and you find a gem like that, I'm so proud."

  She scooted across the butcher's table to get a better look, and Jellico was too distracted to acknowledge her jibe. "I thought phase shift anomalies of this grade could only be refined in a proper lab. What's one doing in this hovel?"

  Jena scoffed and sat back on her haunches. "You kiddin'? Phase demons grow gems all the time! Like this lil' guy will, when he gets big and strong." She poked at the knotted gremlin and it tried to snap at her, much to her amusement. "Bitch and a half to dig them out, so I'm told. Gems were above my paygrade in my old gang, but supposedly there's a way to, like, merge them with your weapons and they can do some crazy sh—"

  "I think I just did that."

  Jena did a double-take, and very nearly lost her fingertip to the gremlin. She leaned over just in time to get uncomfortably close to Jellico and ogle at his outstretched hand. "What the hell, Jelly? You already figured it out!"

  "I-I-I don't know what I did. I just… it felt like I was sliding something into my pocket, and now it's stuck," Jellico stammered, holding out his left hand as if it were radioactive. And it was, for all he knew — the red gem was now flush with the backhand of his glove, as if it had been manufactured as one piece. Jellico gingerly removed the glove to ensure the gem wasn't attached to his flesh, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  "It spoke to ya, is what it did. It's meant to be, so wear it with pride corpo-boy." Jena gave a thumbs-up and Jellico rolled his eyes to keep a smile from forming. The encouragement felt nice, and Fairbanks would correct any mutations the gem could potentially cause, anyways. But Jena kept leaning until she was on his shoulder and asked, "So what's it actually do?"

  Jellico frowned in thought and admitted, "I haven't the faintest idea. I don't feel anything from it except it's… maybe a little warm?"

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Jena righted herself, clapped Jellico on the shoulder, and said, "Eh, don't sweat it. You'll figure it out, just warn me if you start shootin' fire from your hands. I wonder what else this guy was hiding?"

  Against his better judgement, Tapper had been listening enraptured to the brief insight on the mysterious gems. But now they were looting an innocent entrepreneur! "That's steal—" BZZT

  Jena's posture slumped and she groaned like a child. "Ugh fine, stupid bot's going to get us caught if we hang around here any longer." She hopped off the table with the snarling gremlin swinging from her outstretched hand, and led the way outside the storage unit.

  It took them a moment to reach the latticework tower in the center of the Privateer, and despite Tapper's best efforts to shout for help they managed to avoid detection. Jena loosened the knot holding the gremlin, just a little bit, and held the thrashing monster up to her face. "Alright my little meal ticket, go and sow some chaos for mommy," she cooed.

  With a careful underhand toss, Jena sent the entire bundle flying into the mecha walker's inner machinations. The string came loose in midair and the gremlin sputtered in triumph, instantly chomping down on the nearest bundle of wires it could reach. Sparks flew, lights flickered, Jellico gaped, and Jena planted her hands on her hips.

  "Damn, I'm awesome."

  This was it for Tapper. He couldn't escape the stunned debuff, because the system said that golem robots were weak to electricity. And with the Privateer's systems starting to go haywire, no one cared to question why two people were dragging a robot in a net. Jena and Jellico practically waltzed through the chaos into the mechanic's section, where the latter's open-topped hovercar awaited on lifted struts.

  "It should be finished with repairs already, yeah? I'm sure it's fine."

  Jellico grumbled and hauled Tapper into the hovercar's plush seating area. "I should have the creds to unlatch the lift, watch the robot for now." Jena clambered into the passenger seat and made herself comfortable, hands behind her head and feet kicked up on the dashboard.

  "Ahh, everything's coming up Jenakite. Told ya I'd pay you back for killing my boy Spike, robot."

  "I di—" BZZT

  "Haha, yeah. Stupid robot."

  Tapper seethed through his twitching. If only she'd listen to him! He hadn't killed her friend, it was an unfortunate accident with an anomaly in the mall dungeon. But then they both heard a faint voice in the distance that sent his emotional center surging with hope.

  "Tapper? Tapper! Where are you?"

  Jena's relaxed stance tensed up, as if her moving would somehow give them away. Tapper also tensed up, as he readied himself for pain and turned his volume to max. "RICKY!" BZZT "HELP!" BZZT "ME!" BZZT

  "Shush, no, shut up you!" Jena hissed. "Jelly c'mon let's go!"

  "There you are!" Tapper couldn't see him, but Ricky's voice grew louder as he drew near and Tapper could now hear the thudding of his reinforced steps. The floating sportscar rocked slightly when Jellico heaved himself into the driver's seat, and then it rocked a lot more when Ricky appeared.

  "I knew it was you! Give Tapper back!" Ricky tried to climb into the hovercar after them, but when he threw both arms over the lip his weight dragged the back end down instead. He couldn't find proper leverage, especially with the strange contraption of metal discs in one hand.

  "He's too heavy, I can't get clearance like this!" Jellico shouted.

  "I got it, just keep driving!" Jena shouted back.

  The hovercar started to rumble forward with Ricky's feet scraping on the ground, and Jena hopped from her seat to kick at Ricky's arms. Despite having the high ground, Jenna's short legs couldn't overpower Ricky's exoskeleton, and with a grunt of frustration she reached up for her rifle. "Damnit kid, don't make me shoot you! I'm not fucking playing around, LET GO!"

  All the pain from his frequent electrocutions faded into white noise for Tapper. A wave of stimulated adrenaline crashed into his system and swept away high-level directives, leaving a void for emotional thinking to command. She threatened his friend! Tapper lurched sideways to collide with Jena, and although he was still too tangled to fight, the net's punishing electricity shocked both of them.

  Jena screamed and writhed in pain, costing precious seconds before she could squirm out from underneath Tapper. She backed up to the passenger seat, panting, and snarled, "That's it, I'm blowing the bot to bits right here and now."

  "Don't you dare!" Jellico snapped back, slapping the weapon back down. "Mr. Fairbanks needs the robot functioning, or no deal."

  "Then take its head back and plug it in! It's a fuckin' robot!"

  "Functioning and in one piece, the manager was very specific and it's not for us to ask why."

  The kidnappers fell to bickering, too preoccupied to notice Ricky cranking something on his handheld device. If he could just reach Tapper he could yank the robot off, shock or no shock, but Jena had pushed Tapper just outside of his reach. Luckily they were too distracted to pay attention to him, unluckily they were also too distracted to pay attention to the road.

  Trying to balance keeping quiet and getting Tapper's attention, Ricky kept his voice at a hiss and said, "Tapper! Try to touch the glowing end of my gizmo and… huh? WATCH OUT!"

  Ricky's shout came a moment too late and the hovercar jerked to course correct, avoiding a resident of the Privateer and sideswiping an empty market stall instead. People were starting to shout and Ricky redoubled his efforts to hold on; if he could just slow down the hovercar until security showed up, then they could solve everything.

  Except, the shouting wasn't for them. The hovercar skidded around a corner and Ricky caught sight of a small crowd of people waving flashlights around, but they were chasing something else. Jena stood on her seat and shouted for everyone to get out of their way while Jelly swerved the car, and the crowd scattered before the runaway vehicle.

  Neither one noticed the tiny figures duck under the gravrails ahead of the mob. The crowd was chasing two little monsters, and Ricky was their lifeline. Kakisi jumped onto Ricky's leg and the gremlin followed right after, chasing each other like feral cats. Ricky kicked out at the creatures using his body like a playground, and in a moment of panic his grip on the hovercar slipped.

  The human anchor was suddenly gone, and the hovercar lurched forward in response. With a wild spin of his arms Ricky swung his contraption down, striking the very edge of the hovercar with his contraption before he lost the botnappers forever. The point of impact left a trail of light connecting to the contraption in Ricky's dumbfounded hands, and for a split second Ricky forgot everything else.

  His gizmo worked! His magic works!

  After a split second the ray of light went taut like a physical rope with the hovercar still gaining speed, and nearly tore Ricky's arms out of their sockets. Desperation held his grip but not his stance, and Ricky fell forward to drag along the Privateer's floor on his chest plate. He couldn't see anything, but he felt that two little creatures were still chasing each other all over his back.

  The hovercar wasn't faring much better. The physics whiplash of losing approximately 100 kilograms of human anchor, only to suddenly regain that anchor on a rope, sent everyone in the hovercar tumbling head over heels. A lifetime of screaming seconds later and the animals moved their chase over the tightrope and up to the hovercar, to the relief of Ricky and only Ricky.

  "Fairgood's sake, there's two monsters now! Kill them kill them!"

  "Damnit Jelly I'm trying! Hold still, you little bastards!"

  At one point Jena managed to grab the gremlin by the legs, and Kakisi moved to rescue Tapper. He still couldn't speak without getting shocked and feared that a direct shock would kill the tiny creature, Tapper had to stop his familiar immediately. Tapper tried to focus through the stun and just thought WAIT as clearly as he could manage. Suddenly, his familiar stopped within tentacle's reach of Tapper and cocked his conical shell to the side in question.

  It worked! Tapper had to figure out how Kakisi could help without shocking them both, until movement caught Tapper's eye and instincts took over. The gremlin slipped out of Jena's grasp and lunged for Kakisi, and despite not turning to see it the familiar read a sense of danger from Tapper. He squiggled out of the way just in time, ducking under a seat for safety.

  Unfortunately, Tapper's instincts to save Kakisi didn't plan ahead. The gremlin collided with Tapper instead and bit down on to the net right as Tapper tried to push away, giving the monster a mouthful of electric discharge. Sparks flew and Tapper watched in shock as he wasn't shocked, as if the gremlin was actively taking the full charge into its little body. The net still tangled around Tapper, but now he could move. And he could speak!

  "Kakisi, climb back onto Ricky! Right now!" His familiar obeyed without hesitation and Tapper scooted around until he was sitting in the rear of the hovercar, with his back to Ricky. Jena stepped to grab him but Tapper kept the gremlin in their way, now glowing with the electricity arcing off its body.

  Jena hesitated, not willing to touch the ball of electrified demon. "Damnit bot, you can't keep this up forever! You're mine!"

  "My apologies for the inconvenience, but I belong to no one," Tapper said with a happy eyebrow wiggle, keeping her distracted while he got the angle of his nozzle just right. "Have a good day, and SPRAY!"

  Jena's face quirked in confusion as the spell worked its way down Tapper's body and out his vacuum hose, blowing the gremlin away with a gout of the brothel's mess. It shot off Tapper with the charge still intact, pinballing around the hovercar with pops of electricity and splashes of biofluid wherever it bounced.

  The gremlin impacted the dashboard and stuck there, dumping the remaining charge in long blue arcs that threw Jellico off the controls. With a lurch the hovercar surged forward, running over any obstacles it could and bouncing off what it couldn't with reckless abandon.

  Ricky almost lost his grip and cursed under his breath. It didn't make sense for the hovercar to feel so unstoppable, the lightweight vehicle should've crumpled against the first wall they hit but they were going even faster now. "Tapper! I can't hold on much longer!"

  Hearing Ricky's shout brought Tapper back to his senses and away from the gremlin. Just like the monster they fought in the shift storm, this one transformed what it ate and Tapper could feel magic within the electricity arcing off its body now. Curiosity got the better of him until Tapper heard the panic in Ricky's voice.

  "Kakisi, go back to Ricky right now!" His familiar zipped away and Tapper rolled to the back of the hovercar, spinning his head around to lock eyes with Ricky. Tapper tumbled off the hovercar, bounced off the glowing rope, and for a brief second Tapper felt the weightlessness of freedom.

  The instant Tapper bounced Ricky deactivated his gizmo and the light snapped out of existence, right before the two collided in a heap. The mercenaries' shouts of protest turned into screams of panic as the hovercar, now free from its anchor, shot off at supercharged speed. It careened through market stalls, over cowering passersby, and off the edge of the Privateer, leaving a trail of destruction and blue sparks in its wake. Tapper watched his captors vanish in the skyline as Ricky fussed to untangle them, the glimmer of their departure matched by a glimmer in his robotic eye.

  [Pitborne Slave lvl 3 routed! +5 XP for participation

  Buckshot Mercenary lvl 4 routed! +7 XP for participation

  Electric Gremlin lvl 2 routed! +2 XP for participation]