“No. Explode from the ground like a bomb.”

  Boris spoke as he sidestepped Althea’s attack and swatted her arm with his middle finger.

  Momentum sent Althea by Boris windmilling her arms to keep from landing on her face. In a flash, Boris stood next to her and grabbed her arm and waist. Althea jolted from the speed and close contact of the older man. He smelled like the red dust common in the area, but also of something floral and rare. Althea needed Pontikos’s help to identify the scent the first time: hyacinth. His touch around her side, across the electric field of her skin, sent shivers through her body.

  With an awkward step and and yelp, Althea tried to spin out of Boris’s grip. He let her go and she stumbled into the far wall.

  “Sorry about that.”

  Boris kept his distance as Althea recovered her balance.

  She said,

  “You do that every time.”

  “Do what?”

  “Catch me.”

  Boris blushed a moment, looking about the room as if scanning for intruders.

  “That’s because your trunk is top heavy. If you take a fall wrong, the mass could snap your spine.”

  Althea felt a different tingle, like danger and fear rolled into a needle and shoved between her shoulder blades. The needle melted the silvered metal of her back.

  “Erie is awfully proud of her work.”

  Boris rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Yeah, but if you ask her, I bet you anything she wants to switch out your upgrades for something else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tactile loss is a problem, but the bigger problem is that your legs have to work harder to support your top than they should. Your whole setup is designed for both lower and upper limb replacement.”

  Althea shook her head and said,

  “I’ve already dealt with one problem from this whole mess. I would rather not deal with a new one. Let’s just worry about training for now.”

  Boris grinned and said,

  “Good. But this is about your training. You need to learn to be extra careful of your legs and your neck. Even with lacing, your bones won’t hold up against the flex metal in your arms. And the weight of your upper body doesn’t feel like anything when you have you implants active because the limbic shunt manages things like balance and knows to treat your vulnerable bits with care.”

  Althea nodded at the end. In previous fights, especially in the arena, she had noticed how she automatically protected her head, even when her natural instincts would have been wrong.

  “I feel like I am relearning everything.”

  Boris shrugged and said,

  “In a way, you are. In another way, you only have to relearn a small bit of your natural habits to begin to control your body without your AI.”

  “Like trying to lunge at you without revealing my intent?”

  Boris laughed.

  “It’s good to compress some things into a single move. Do you think you can try again?”

  Althea took a deep breath and nodded, walking toward Boris as she said,

  “I guess so. Let’s do this again.”

  “Remember, your goal is to take me out without getting hurt. And I promise I won’t jump the gun.”

  He turned to her and she had already claimed the initiative, stepping within his reach and throwing a punch before he finished speaking. As if he saw the whole thing coming, Boris turned her fist away from his side with a sweep of his hand. He then lifted her arm and pulled her off balance and into his chest. She bumped into him and let out a small laugh.

  Boris’s eyes glittered and he said,

  “I don’t mean to be out of line, but I also think neither of us has their whole heart in this particular exercise.”

  Althea took a short quick hiccup of a breath. Now her whole body tingled and she nodded to the older man.

  “You mean something back aboard the ship?”

  “Yes, how does that sound?”

  Pontikos came back into Althea’s AR space in blink. Althea could control her body once again and she sped after Boris, who ran full tilt to the ship, leading Althea by a meter. She panted and grabbed him as the airlock door closed.

  For a moment, she froze as she wrapped the man in her embrace. She could feel the pressure of his back, the contours of his frame, but nothing more. She knew he would be warm, but had no idea what the rough jacket covering his back should feel like across the pads of her fingers.

  Desperate for contact, she pulled the hem of her shirt up and pressed herself against Boris’s body. Althea moaned at the intensity of the sand paper bit of his clothing. When he kissed her, the rough tips of his growing beard barely poked from his skin. It echoed the texture of his shirt, as if by nightfall his while body would be enveloped in a military canvas.

  His tongue and lips played against the roughness of the rest of him. Soft and warm his mouth was the sweet to compliment the sour of his exterior. Althea wanted him more when the taste of him washed over her mouth.

  As the interior door of the airlock opened Althea tried to peel herself away from Boris and heard a series of small squeaks. They separated like busted teenagers with preternatural speed. Betty and Joseph stared at the two with hands over their mouths.

  Boris nudged Althea, who said,

  “Pardon us you two.”

  She grabbed Boris’s hand and pulled him with her away from the howls of the two kids.

  “The whole city will know… something within the hour.”

  Boris put his hand on Althea’s back as if asking a question rather than making a suggestion.

  Althea said,

  “Let them talk. I don’t care.”

  She opened the door and pulled Boris after her. They checked to confirm the room was empty before tearing off their clothing.

  Althea traced the lines of her metallic chest. Breasts had been there not too long ago. She could almost imagine them sitting looking like aunts who refused to talk to each other, staring away from the other on a couch for eternity. A friend in high school made that bad joke. But now it returned to Althea’s mind as she traced the former edges of the excess tissue.

  Rolling over to look at her, Boris brushed a strand of hair from her face and said,

  “What are you doing? You seem quiet.”

  “Just considering lost things.”

  Boris glanced at her chest and fingers in their mourning dance.

  “You mean your breasts? You know many societies consider the fetishization of mammary tissue representative of our culture’s infantile attitudes about sex.”

  “So you’re saying I should be happy I don’t have that tissue any longer? My body no longer contributes to the infantilization of society?”

  Althea clenched her jaw, knowing how unfair that was.

  Boris said,

  “I said the fetishization of breasts, not the breasts themselves. Besides, I was just offering a different way of thinking.”

  “I would think you’d tell me what you would tell any soldier.”

  Boris laughed and said,

  “There’s no pithy solution to the problem of mutilative dysphoria. If it really starts to bother you, hassle Erie to get you a more representative implant rig. That’s how we fix it in the military. Anything else is stupid.”

  “Really?”

  “Unless you commit a crime or deliberately damage yourself or your implants, yes. Non-Surge units follow that plan. The few times people tried ignoring that policy, their victims have gone insane.”

  “Great. Another reason I might go crazy.”

  Boris shook his head and said,

  “Don’t worry too much about it. The effects can take years, even decades of living with dysphoric modifications before they grow severe or require treatment. It’s also why the ship had such a broad assortment of implants when she crashed.”

  “Right, do you guys have something I can use?”

  Boris ran his fingers over Althea’s belly, earning a moan in exchange.

  “Don’t be quite so hasty to give up your flesh. There are a few advantages to natural neural tissue and skin. Even my implants have some sensory limitations.”

  “Really?” Althea reached her hand under the sheet, “you’re saying this did not feel good? I thought it felt really good.”

  Boris’s gasp and squirm answered her before he did. When he tried to speak, Althea released him and climbed atop his body.

  “If you’re saying I should enjoy my flesh, then there’s no time like the present.”

  Boris woke Althea with a light touch.

  “Wake up Althea.”

  Her eyes opened wide as soon as she resumed consciousness. Full combat gear sparked Althea’s interest and internal alarms.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just got a flash comm. I am gonna take a small squad of people with me beyond the gate to check on a missing crew of scouts.” He looked over the disheveled covers and over Althea’s exposed body. “Wanna come with?”

  Althea laughed and grabbed her own clothing.

  “I thought you would never ask!”

  Boris shook his head and said,

  “Don’t bring that. We’ll put you in real tac gear. Scouts going missing could be nothing, the ECM that keeps people from finding this place with electronics plays amazing havoc with transmissions into and out of the shelf.”

  “What should I wear then?”

  Boris leaned down next to the bed and retrieve a small pile of clothes from the space. On top of the collection lay her rifle. For a moment, she hesitated to think about its provenance, and then shook herself as Boris said,

  “Then again, we could run into cannibals or worse out there. Suit up.”

  Winking as he turned, Boris gave her privacy she did not need to change. When she stepped out of the room, she had the SKS slung over her shoulder and loaded.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Erie sat with her back to a long wall with a jagged crest. She kept her voice low as she said,

  “I make three of them, Boris. They’re sitting down to eat. We have some crap luck.”

  Althea mouthed,

  “What?”

  Boris said,

  “This is cannibal territory. If they’re sitting down to eat…”

  Althea nodded, feeling nauseous and bloated as she did. Skipping breakfast seemed like a great idea in retrospect.

  As he scanned the perimeter, Boris crouched about two meters from the broken wall. One of Erie’s misshapen clanking drones poked Boris out of silence. He cocked his head at Erie and said,

  “What?”

  “Stop that meditating and tell us what we’re doing.”

  Four more shelf dwellers flanked Erie, two per side. Half of them belonged to Boris’s omnipresent guards. The large, surly woman carried a massive plasma canon with a belt magazine fed from a backpack. The shorter man did not seem to carry any weapons that Althea could see, thought Pontikos outlined several points on his body where concealed weapons likely lay.

  Boris nodded and said,

  “I want live recon from you, keep your birds and other kids checking wide. Henley and Barnes, I want you to stick to Erie no matter what happens. Jericho and Telly, you’re with me…” the woman guard grunted in response, as if to say she would go where she wanted. Boris finished saying, “Thompson, you stick to me like I told you. Don’t turn your implants off and do not leave my side.”

  Everyone else nodded and then looked at Althea who responded without moving. When she realized she had not acknowledged his orders, she nodded at Boris.

  He said,

  “Alright, Telly, move out, Jericho stick with me and if you haven’t already, it’s time to activate your combat protocols.”

  Althea confirmed her’s were active, though she had left her Persona unchanged. Facing real battle as herself felt important, maybe even critical, even though that also entailed using her full suite of algorithmic enhancements.

  Telly was the short man dressed in black. He spun around the low wall and vanished from Althea’s sight. Jericho twitched and shook her head when Boris ran out from the wall next. He kept his body low and curled around his center like he held a teddy bear between his knees and elbows. It looked almost ridiculous, except it kept his head and upper body out of view of potential snipers. Althea emulated him when Jericho pushed her out from behind the wall. Boris stayed in sight of her, somehow knowing where Telly lead them despite the fact no one could see the man.

  During a pause in their movement, Althea spotted Erie creeping along behind them. She sat on a drone that seemed to cut through the surface of the dirt like some kind of underground shark. Shivers ran down Althea’s spine and she felt as though someone had a bead on her. Instinct merged with her machine control.

  Even as her mind panicked, certain of mortal danger, she grabbed Boris and Jericho and pulled them away. The large woman made not one sound as she batted at Althea, trying to stop her. The push and resistance lasted less than a second as a narrow beam of light ignited the dust in the air as it passed through the space where Boris had sat just seconds before.

  “Attack!”

  Boris whispered the words loud enough for Erie to hear as rolled he away from the laser blast. A single hole, maybe three centimeters wide left a hole deep enough in the nearby rock that Althea could not see the end. Jericho’s hand shifted from battling Althea to trying to help. She grabbed Althea’s arm and pulled her to the ground as a second laser beam appeared overhead.

  Both beams lasted less than a second, but the flare from the debris in the air burning lasted like an afterimage.

  Boris hissed,

  “What do they think they’re doing? Idiots should have saved the laser cannons for later.”

  Jericho rolled her eyes to give a retort as a large explosion deafened Althea and sent the two woman reeling. Her balance felt shot, as if her body rolled about on a dirt raft. Althea rose to a crouching position and then forced herself back down to a belly crawl. Jericho lay on her side in the distance. Somewhere in the course of the blast, confusion fell on Althea. Boris’s guard lay crumpled on the ground on the other side of Althea from where the explosion occurred. Althea crab walked toward the guard and saw that she was still breathing.

  She spun to search for Boris in the clouds of debris. Calling out felt like a mistake, but her implants refused to tell Althea where Boris or Erie had taken cover. As she searched and considered rising, the thought of one of them accidentally killing her in the dust cloud made Althea feel sick.

  When she nearly ran into Erie, Althea stifled a scream. The woman crouched in a depression next to part of a mangled manikin. Then Pontikos circled the “manikin” and annotate it as the lower half of Henley. Barnes was nowhere to be seen.

  Erie put her finger over her lips and attached a lead to Althea’s arm. She could suddenly hear Erie’s voice in her head.

  “I can barely punch through the ECM jamming to orient my drones. This stuff is thick and nasty. I don’t think this is your typical waste storm.”

  “Have you seen Boris?”

  Erie raised her eyebrow and said,

  “No, you were supposed to stay with him.”

  Small and large arms fire broke out around them as Erie shouted an imprecation. Althea climbed into the small foxhole next to Erie, pushing Henley’s body out of the way, forgetting about her aversion as bullets and explosives sailed overhead.

  The two women crawled through the battle as plumes of smoke and debris coated the wastes.

  “That was one hell of a trap. Shit!”

  A nearby wall crumbled before them as one of Erie’s larger drones rose from the ground and gave them cover from the concrete. The same laser blast shone overhead as someone screamed in the distance. Erie and Althea exchanged a silent glance and set out through the ringing field of death in the hopes of finding a comrade merely injured.

  Althea recognized Barnes’s body from the back. He lay face down in the dirt with a hole through his head. For a second, she stared at the body while Erie crawled ahead, in the direction of the laser. The dust clouds seemed to change density and color, from red dust plumes to great gouts of white smoke.

  Winds blew the clouds over the two women as they paused between Barnes’s body and the sniper cutting down their people. The fact their sniper could see through the clouds meant the opposing forces were using sat control and thermal imaging.

  Althea said,

  “If they can see us, why put out the smoke?”

  Erie crept forward and Althea noticed the earth seemed to writhe beneath her for the first time.

  “It’s not smoke. That’s a fun cloud. You and I won’t be affected. Neither will our friends. I can’t say the same for the people attacking us.”

  As if her words predicted the future, the intermittent shots slowed and then fell silent. Erie put her hand on Althea’s shoulder when she tried to rise.

  “That sniper is probably real far away. No sense in giving them a better shot.”

  Althea nodded, sweat matting her head to her face as she continued crawling after Erie.

  “I think he’s moving around in a big circle.” Erie pointed to the horizon, sweeping her arm to the right. “It’s far enough away that my drones will have trouble finding them if their concealment is any good. And the range on that gun is real long.”

  “What do we do?”

  Erie nodded and said,

  “We assume that Boris and the others went one direction. If I were guessing Telly started out after the sniper upon the first shot. I like clockwise, you like clockwise, right?”

  Erie grinned at Althea who nodded and said,

  “Sure, that sounds great.”

  Erie pointed and said,

  “Then we should turn like this and head out. Our sniper may even be able to see us if they’re using sat coverage. If it’s just optical imaging, then I have a foil for that. But I’ve been holding off.”

  After that, Althea followed Erie’s new path toward the ring where she thought the sniper was. A brief moment of contact resulted in a map showing Althea their route. The large red area that looked like an amoeba crawling through the hills represented where Erie though the sniper could be based on the last shot.

  Once they left the epicenter of the destruction, Erie allowed them to rise to a crouch, only after she pulled two of her concealed drones from the ground and used them as cover from the sniper. Standing to a crouch and following alongside the mercurial robots was one of the hardest things Althea pulled off so far that firefight. Most of the battle had been her clinging to rock and keeping her head down. Putting her life in the hands of a half meter of drone felt like asking for a hole in her brain.

  But no beam burst forth out of the clouds to cut them down. The drone’s masked their heat signature or the sniper might have tried to fire through them, or so Althea thought.

  Erie leaned in and pointed to two other drones moving along at a similar pace and crossing their path. She said,

  “Don’t assume the shooter gave up. Assume they’re waiting for a better shot. Good news is that they probably don’t have sat coverage. Or we’d probably be dead.”

  The drone/woman pair moved away from Althea as lines of her skin that touched the chrome of her cybernetics turned icy and cold. Althea mumbled,

  “Or the sniper is just waiting for a really good shot.”

  Running between fallen ruins made Althea’s stomach clench. Erie dashed forward first, obviously trying to draw fire from their enemies. During their ten minute hike, they had not seen Boris or any of their other companions and none of their enemies. Steady spikes in tension made Althea’s leg feel like jelly as she sprinted through an exposed section of the wastes. Her drone never stopped providing cover, at the same time she never felt quite safe behind it.

  Based on the map Erie shared, they neared the first region where the sniper could be. Or could have been. That thought stopped Althea in her tracks. The drones could only protect one side. Not knowing where the shooter stood rendered the drones essentially worthless. When she stopped, the drone followed suit.

  Erie trekked back to her and hissed,

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your map is how far he could have moved half an hour ago, right?”

  Erie rolled her eyes and shook her head,

  “Don’t stop moving. And no. That red zone represents where he could move in the time it would take us to get to the center. So in a way, he should not have moved as far. Probably.”

  Erie turned away to keep running, but when Althea did not follow, she turned back and softened her face.

  “Seriously. We need to keep moving. That’s the most important thing. Don’t let fear make you freeze up.”

  The petite octogenarian spun in place and resumed her crouched run. Carefully wrought software packages kept Althea’s feet moving nimbly across uneven terrain. As much progress as she had made with Boris, she would not have been able to pursue Erie without her implant.

  Erie raced between a pair of crumpled walls. Althea waited and shot across the gap behind Erie. The only warning that anything had gone wrong was the way the drone shuddered. In front of her, Erie shouted as something hit her right between the shoulder blades, sending her stumbling forward. Behind Althea, the air boiled as the drone exploded, throwing her next to Erie.

  Pointing to the other side of the wall, Erie touched Althea’s arm and said,

  “The sniper is to the east now. We’re gonna do that some more. Stay!”

  Erie grinned and jumped over Althea’s shoulders. She rolled through the gap as one of her drones provided cover. Darting between surfacing drones, Erie stalked toward the sniper’s location, pausing too long behind her drones as she did.

  During one brief respite, Althea watched a second beam strike down at Erie. She poked her head over the wall as Pontikos appeared,

  “Two makes, one potential target.”

  A green figure appeared in her vision that Pontikos circled in green.

  “This appears to be Boris, Mistress.”

  And the second target in orange,

  “And this one is the sniper, I believe.”

  A figure wearing an orange leather cloak dashed from behind a low mound away from Boris, who ran toward Erie and Althea’s position from the south. Neither Erie nor Boris could see the sniper nor could they know he was about to enter an overlooking position.

  Althea vaulted the wall, her mind suddenly driving her body forward with certain focus. Along the shelf and at a full run, she could catch the sniper and stop him.

  Pontikos said,

  “The drones seem to be out of range, Mistress. And I believe that the shooter is using a Parker Arms 119 Laser Rifle. The 100 series are known for both dependability and laser energy. Their only down side is a hefty energy source and a very slow recharge per pulse. Up to seven seconds.”

  Althea nodded and set Pontikos to roll a six second timer every time they noticed a shot and give an indicator when the sniper could fire.

  The six seconds had long since passed before Althea reached the rise. Boris and Erie were still too exposed, so Althea pulled her rifle, sighted in, and fired several meters left and behind Erie. To her satisfaction, both of them took cover.

  As soon as she took her shot, she knew she ruined her surprise. But Althea still rolled around the pile of debris, gun extended to take out her target. She never saw the mine. When it exploded her ears ruptured and her legs shredded. Pontikos and a complex series of implants kept her from going into shock.

  Her mouth still worked,

  “Now I’ll get those legs you suggested, Boris.”

  Althea felt to her side as she watched the sniper move from his position, barely giving her a second glance as he moved.

  Two seconds.

  Althea watched them pass as if somehow as long as an hour each. The sniper disappeared by centimeters. Pontikos’s fairy mouth moved as Althea’s ears rang.

  Suddenly everything went still and Pontikos seemed to straighten. The room turned dark and a liquid-sleek figure undulated into view. It resembled one of Erie’s drones. And it wore Althea’s face.

  It looked down at her and said,

  “Don’t worry love, I accounted for this too. Just let me drive for now.”

  Althea felt the Persona changes occur as she accepted a safety prompt. She knew she was supposed to do something about a timer, but her head and, well her everything, hurt too much.

  Her body shuddered as something dropped from Althea’s left arm. It looked like a sea of ants crawling out of the chrome tube. Her body shifted on the ground as something clenched her torso, ending the searing pain and letting her muscles stop twitching in panic. The ants moved over her performing repairs as her clock ticked over to five seconds. Both arms shifted and pulled her forward as if experimenting with the movement. Six seconds and she had grabbed her rifle’s strap and started pulling herself along the ground by her metallic arms.

  A part of her mind, the part in her segregated space wondered at how quickly the implants Erie installed recovered from such incredible destruction. But the rest of her moved with speed and determination now. Tunnel vision tried to claim her sight, but Pontikos adjusted a hormonal balance to allow Althea to retain her peripheral vision.

  Ten seconds and she spotted the sniper again, already laying prone and trying to fire. Althea ignored the shot, already aware she could not stop it. Instead the sniper’s own focus seemed to give him tunnel vision. He rose from his spot, looked around and missed Althea bearing down on him.

  Her timer rang over to five seconds as she crested the rise. From her SEP, she could sweep her eyes through the horizon of her vision. In the distance and to the side, she spotted a new smoking drone and Boris lying on his side panting. He did not look hurt, but the fact her eyes did not focus on him made detail impossible.

  Althea would have roared, or screamed to stop the shot. Anything to keep the monster with the rifle from firing his laser. But the six second timer ticked over midair. She watched him squeeze his finger on the trigger of his laser rifle as she descended.

  A scream from outside made Althea shudder as her hand grabbed the barrel of the laser rifle. She crushed the tip in her fist, just subtly enough to make a trap. Knowledge of how to sabotage a Parker 119 came to her as if she grew up servicing the rifles. Her second strike took the sniper across the throat, making a loud ring as she struck.

  She kept her left hand at the sniper’s throat and squeezed. The cowl of his cloak fell back revealing a figure with sparse hair and ragged skin over rusted and painted metal parts that resembled Althea’s arms.

  It’s mouth twitched as if in rictus as it’s grip on the rifle shifted. Althea’s CC-0 system identified the threat and shifted her weight off of the creature, twisting her body as she did.

  With legs, the move would have worked perfectly. Without them, she ended up dangling from the cyborg’s arm. Less skin hung from the creature’s arms, parts falling off as it shook Althea in vain.

  When it moved its arm to drop her, she shifted to its leg, trying to reach it and wrap her hands around the thin sections of fluid metal.

  Instead, it kicked her in the sternum, sending her toppling away.

  Her timer hit five seconds and the cyborg aimed and fired at her.

  The ensuing explosion as her barrel adjustment destroyed the gun, everything within a meter of the explosion, and mostly likely herself.

  Systems failed across her body as Althea blinked and lost control of her arms. Pontikos engaged emergency procedures, trying to keep her body alive as she did. Althea felt her left arm and felt it respond to her movements as she started to lose consciousness. She made an unknown adjustment to her implant, oddly aware of the fact that she manipulated something, but not aware of what she did.