Kat’s throwing dagger shattered the guard’s smartpanel, deflecting off of the metal armor implanted under the woman’s skin. A second later, she was inside the monitoring station ducking under a frantic swing of the other security officer’s rifle as Emma ran past her.

She thrust upward with her main knife, activating Penetrate and Overpressure at the same time as the point of her weapon found the gap between the clamshell of the man’s polymer chest armor and the ceramic greaves covering his arms. The glowing blade slipped through the armor weave implanted in the man’s skin, only stopping when the tip lodged itself into the man’s shoulder bone.

He jerked back, screaming, giving Kat enough time to drop to one knee, repeating the process with the gap between his leg and chest armor. Bright red blood painted the room as her knife slid through his femoral artery.

The remaining guard grunted as a crossbow bolt lodged itself in the armor of her forearm, Whip’s shot not quite having the accuracy or power needed to do real damage. A second later, Emma followed it into the room, her steel clad baton swinging downward and shattering her target’s wrist with a wet crack as the woman tried to bring her submachine gun into play.

Kat danced backward a half step, kicking upward and jerking the rifle from her opponent’s hands. He fell to his knees, hands opening and closing weakly as the strength fled his body along with the spurts of arterial blood.

Across the room, Emma’s weapons blurred, both of the metal rods rising and falling with bone crunching force as she battered the remaining guard. Unfortunately her opponent was hardly a soft target.

The Neon Dome security officer regained her feet, arms held vertically on either side of her head in a boxing stance as she weathered Emma’s repeated blows. Then, the guard lowered a shoulder deflecting one of the staves off of a hardened plastic pauldron with a metallic clank that broke Emma’s form.

For a fraction of a second, time seemed to stand still, the baton in Emma’s right hand still on a downward trajectory while ler left arm went wide, exposing her chest and leaving her completely open to a counter attack. Then the guard punched Emma.

Kat wasn’t sure what kind of chrome the woman was packing, but the wet crunch of breaking ribs confirmed that it involved some sort of strength multiplier. The guard barely even noticed as another crossbow bolt tagged her in the back of the neck, drawing a line of blood but not biting deep enough to cause any real problems.

Emma flew backward, landing off balance and collapsing. Kat wasn’t sure whether the girl was struggling to adapt to the flow of the combat, or if her injury was hampering her, but either way she didn’t plan to let the guard take advantage of Emma’s condition.

The Neon Dome officer took a step toward Emma, drawing a combat knife from her waist as she prepared to finish the injured girl. Then Kat’s snap kick took her in the back of the knee, collapsing the guard’s right leg and causing her to fall forward.

The woman caught herself, left arm planted against the carpeted floor while her right hand still held her knife in a downward facing overhand grip. Then, Gravity Spike activated.

When Kat had begun her attack, she had meant the spell to target her opponent’s torso when she fell after the kick took out a leg.

Still, she wasn’t unsatisfied with the result as Gravity Spike crushed her victim’s elbow and bicep. With a quiet gasp of pain, the guard’s arm gave out and her face rebounded off of the carpeted floor.

Tower enhanced reflexes pushed to the limit, Kat planted a knee in the other woman’s back, pinning her to the floor as her left hand grabbed the woman’s closely cropped hair and pulled her head up slightly. Then, with a smooth, practiced motion, she rammed her knife, clad in the red glow of Penetrate, through the back of the woman’s skull.

The body beneath her twitched once and then went still. Kat held still for another moment before pulling her knife from the corpse and wiping it on the body’s armor. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Whip hurry into the room, crossbow at ready as she squirmed her way past the monitoring equipment and over to where Emma lay on the ground taking short, pained breaths.

“Erinyes,” Whip called out softly, kneeling down next to Emma. “That was a pretty nasty punch, she needs healing.”

“Watch the door Chiffon,” Kat nodded to her friend, sheathing her knife. “Cure Wounds I is a mana hog. We’ll need to be careful for the next ten minutes or so after this to let me recharge, but unless there’s organ damage, I’ll have her up and about in no time.”

“But Erinyes,” Whippoorwill stood up, walking slowly toward the reinforced metal door that protected the guard post. “I have access to the cameras, there are only a couple of janitors on this floor and none of them are anywhere near us.”

“That you can see,” Kat chided, taking Whip’s place kneeling next to Emma. “There are Tower abilities that can make you invisible and chrome that can disrupt electronic surveillance. This isn’t some entertainment channel drama where we’re the protagonists. We might be better trained and equipped than most of our opponents, but that isn’t a sure thing. Not taking an enemy seriously is a great way to end up under a street docs knife or dead.”

“Sorry K- Erinyes,” Emma hissed as Kat began mumbling the words to Cure Wounds I. “I had the drop on her, but the fight got away from me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kat smiled underneath her mask as she ran glowing gold hands over Emma’s abdomen. “We didn’t have any way of knowing in advance, but your target was a tough customer. Given the amount of chrome she was sporting, I’d bet a decent chunk of credits that she was a named samurai. Frankly? I’d be surprised if you managed to take her down solo. That isn’t the sort of target you’re supposed to be tangling with.”

“Ugggh,” Emma groaned, letting her head slump against the carpeted floor. “You make all of this look so easy. Heck, even the bad guys in The Tower of Somnus are a piece of cake compared to that. At least they react properly to Stunning Blow.”

“You’ll just have to be more careful,” Kat replied, trying to guess how much her spell had healed the woman. “In the real world, you’re not dealing with hobbyists. Samurai play for keeps, and most of us have had to kill before. If they see an opportunity, they aren’t going to hesitate.”

“God your hands feel nice,” Emma mumbled, barely even addressing Kat. “The magic is all warm and tingly. It’s like I’m taking a bubble bath or something.”

Kat cocked her head to the side, struggling to find a response when Whip saved her from the awkward moment.

“Is she healed yet Erinyes?” Whippoorwill asked bluntly. Kat wasn’t sure how she knew through the blank face mask, but somehow she could feel the pink haired woman’s glare on her skin. “Merrimac is in position below the lab, so we don’t have any time to dawdle and gossip about bath time or whatever. It’s time to get moving.”

“I’m better enough,” Emma answered, rolling out from under Kat’s hands with a slight hiss as her still tender ribs brushed the ground. “I’ll have a hell of a bruise tomorrow, but I can move and fight. More importantly, I know better than to annoy Chiffon.”

Kat hopped up to her feet, walking past the guard’s corpse to pick up her throwing knife before turning back around and surveying the guard post. A number of smartglass displays showed the hallways approaching the room. One of them flickered under Kat’s discerning gaze, an artifact of the video loops Whippoorwill used to hide their approach.

“Do any of the janitors look armed?” Kat asked, sliding the throwing knife into its bandoleer as she peered at the monitors. “The last thing we need is to lock everything down only for one of them to turn out to be a samurai or secret martial arts master.”

“Nope,” Whippoorwill shook her head, the face of her infiltration suit as blank and expressionless as ever. “As far as I can tell they’re all just run of the mill broom pushers.”

She took a deep breath, biting her lower lip as she ruminated over their options. There were guards down both on her floor and in the basement with Merrimac. It was only a matter of time before their presence was discovered, but at the same time, their team had only really scouted the building through Whippoorwill’s tap into the electronic monitoring system. If there was anything in a blind spot or running off circuit, there was no way for them to know.

“Fuck it,” Kat mumbled to herself before turning to Whippoorwill with more energy. “Drop the doors. Let’s grab the explosives and get down to business. The labs aren’t going to ransack themselves.”

Davis was already in position and awaiting their signal. More pressing, they had a limited window where Jasper and Iris’ two man show would actually keep people convinced and distracted. Kat knew that the two of them were confident in their acting ability, but she wasn’t quite as sure.

There was no way she could bring up her doubts and damper their enthusiasm, especially with Davis shaking his head just over Jasper’s shoulder. Perhaps correctly, the old man was afraid that his ward would insist on being part of the infiltration team if Kat downplayed the impact he would be playing on the total operation.

Who knows? Maybe she was being too critical of Jasper? He was still learning to fight and handle himself, but he wanted to help, and that’s more than she could say for most executives. Plus, the tourists outside seemed to buy the car crash routine. For all she knew it actually was working.

“Stairwells and elevators are sealed,” Whippoorwill interrupted her thoughts. “They’ll know we’re here and start calling in our location before too long, but they have some heavy duty protections built in. It looks like the system was designed to hold off a rampaging dire wolf or one of their big cats. Unless they have shaped charges, it’ll take them like an hour to get in here.”

“Speaking of which,” Kat replied, nodding toward Emma’s satchel. “We should probably look into making our own way down to the lab and holding cells. I don’t necessarily think that Merrimac needs our help, but he will give us an earful if we make him do all of the heavy lifting.”

“Honestly?” Whip asked rhetorically as she beckoned for the two of them to follow her. “That’s almost worse. I could do without another one of his lectures on ‘how samurai operated when he was young.”

“People just cared more about the code Chiffon,” Emma deepened her foice, placing one hand on her hip. “If a samurai lost his honor? Well, that was all he had. If a man said he’d be at your extraction point in an armored vehicle, by God he’d be there.”

“ANYWAY,” Kat replied, choking down a snort. “Chiffon, if you could lead us to the designated breach point, that would be absolutely lovely.”

She kept her eyes up for the janitors as the three of them followed Whippoorwill, but none of the workers showed themselves. It was for the best really. She’d disable or kill someone in a heartbeat to complete the mission, but at the same time, even if they were employed by Neon Dome, cleaning staff were hardly combatants.

Kat just hoped that the scientists and maintenance staff would stay out of their way once the shooting started. Apparently, it was her responsibility to save the world. The universe had dumped plenty of responsibility on her shoulders already. She’d prefer to avoid adding a couple more civilian deaths to that total.

Once they reached the site, Emma began tracing a circle in the floor with thumbnail sized shaped explosives. Her movements were quick and business-like, without the usual chatter or commentary as she efficiently finished her task and hurried over to where Whippoorwill and Kat were hiding halfway around a corner.

Kat nodded at Whip, and her friend nodded back before squeezing the detonator in her hand.

A moment later, the explosion rocked Kat back onto her heels and a wall of dust rolled down the corridor. She drew her knife and dove into the wave of plaster dust, dropping through the hole in the floor into the hallway below.

In the distance, Kat heard gunfire as Merrimac murdered his way through the lab’s defenses. A quick glance around revealed that she was alone in an empty hallway, stainless steel walls collecting dust from the sudden blast.

Nearby, indistinct voices began shouting, likely alerted by the explosion. Over the ringing in her ears, Kat was fairly sure she heard the slap of shoes on concrete. Silently, she exhaled, relaxing her stance as she tried to pinpoint the direction her attackers would take.

Emma dropped down the hole behind her just as a woman leading two men rounded the corner in front of Kat, handguns drawn. Time seemed to slow, Kat gathering her mana as the other woman’s eyes widened and she raised her gun.

Kat grabbed Emma’s wrist, throwing her to the side just as Dazzle erupted in front of the three guards. An errant gunshot creased the far wall as the blaze of light threw off her attacker’s aim.

Her return fire took the woman in the chest, unfortunately not doing much damage against the ceramic breastplate the guard wore over a kevlar uniform.

Even if it didn’t down Kat’s foe, the bullets were enough to halt the woman as they drove the breath from her lungs, causing the other two guards to slam into her. A moment later Gravity’s Grasp kicked in, pinning all three of them to the concrete floor.

Whippoorwill landed in the dust and rubble just as Kat hit the tangle of bodies. She grunted as the extra weight from the spell settled on her, but unlike the guards she was both strong enough to handle its force, and prepared for the disorientation of gravity tripling with no notice.

Her foot flashed out, kicking one pistol away as her dagger blurred downward, cutting open a man’s neck. The female guard lifted her gun, struggling against the extra gravity, only for Kat’s heel to slam into the woman’s nose, shattering it.

The guard’s eyes rolled back up into her head and she collapsed as Kat grabbed a handful of the remaining opponent’s hair and slammed his head face first into her knee. The blow landed awkwardly as he tried to twist away from her grasp, only stunning the man and leaving a dull ache that foretold a fairly major bruise in Kat’s leg.

He pulled his arm out from under the unconscious female guard, pistol in his hand trembling, only for Kat’s left forearm to slam into his wrist, pushing the weapon wide. He opened his mouth to say something- maybe he meant to beg for mercy or call for help, but Kat would never know.

She planted her knife into his eye with bone jarring force, silencing him and ending the fight.

For a second, nothing happened. Kat remained in a crouch, blood-covered knife at ready just in case another foe revealed themselves.

“Holy shit,” Emma said with a whistle. “I saw a bit of you fighting upstairs but that was ridiculous K-. Sorry, Erinyes. I knew that Dav- Merrimac took you seriously, but that was absolutely insane. You just killed three armed guards that had the drop on us like they were a bunch of fumbling schoolchildren.”

“I, uh-” Kat frowned under her mask. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I wish you could find another analogy for my actions outside of murdering kids. It just seems a bit… off. Like I’m some sort of callous monster.”

“Plus,” Kat continued, slitting the throat of the unconscious guard before wiping her knife off on the woman’s uniform. “Being the better fighter isn’t a guarantee of success. Magic and dodging can reduce your chances of getting shot, but every once in a while, you just end up rolling snake eyes. Anyone who works this job long enough takes a bullet at some point. That’s why the better approach is getting in and out without being seen. Being a badass might look good in vids, but in reality everyone’s hardcore until they take a bullet to the side.”

“Yeah.” Kat swore she could see Emma’s eyes twinkling as the other girl spoke. “Except you. For all your humility, I just don’t see how someone who fights like you would get hurt in a fight against scrubs like this.”

“I wish,” Kat chuckled back. “I’ve broken bones and taken a bullet or two myself, and I have the scars to prove it. Even when you win fights, it usually isn’t without cost.”

“Quit flirting,” Whippoorwill said with a snort, slamming the pistol Kat had dropped after her first shot into her hands. “Erinyes, you aren’t going to show Emma your scars. Merrimac is almost to the kennels and the main computer. We’d better meet him there or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

With an embarrassed shrug, Kat shoved the pistol into its holster before taking off at a run. Really, the rest of the journey wasn’t that hard. Kat didn’t even need Whippoorwill’s help, instead simply zeroing in on the sounds of Merrimac’s gunfire as the older samurai implacably made his way toward the target.

They only encountered two more guards, both armed with assault rifles and peering into the laboratory where Merrimac had made his presence known with a deafening peel of gunfire. Kat shot one before they even noticed her team, the bullet taking her target in the base of his head, between his helmet and body armor, and dropping him instantly.

The other guard took a crossbow bolt from Whip in the knee. The man dropped his gun, reaching down with both hands toward his wound only for Emma’s truncheon to smash into his face with enough force to shatter his helmet’s smartglass faceplate and concuss him with the same blow.

Her second stave crushed the man’s forehead, crumpling his skull inward and killing the target instantly. Emma wobbled slightly, taken aback by her first kill as Kat ran past the reeling woman and into the lab.

The room was in absolute chaos. One wall was nothing but massive steel cages filled with various genetically modified animals while another was nothing but a massive smartglass display that listed the results of various experiments in bright red and green neon. The center of the room was occupied by Davis, clad in metal body armor and holding an oversized autocannon with a smaller machine gun strapped to the side amids a clutter of overturned lab equipment and server racks.

She ducked as Merrimac’s heavy cannon swung toward her, skidding toward a metal computer bank in an effort to avoid friendly fire.

“That you Erinyes?” Davis asked, his usually cultured voice containing the faintest hint of the street slang he had grown up with. “I thought there were some corp guards at that entrance.”

“Yup,” she replied, trying to sound cheerful. “There were. They’re dead now.”

“Good,” Davis grunted. “They couldn’t do much through my armor, but that didn’t stop them from trying. It was more annoying than anything, but they were using big enough guns that I had to worry about a bullet hitting a thin spot.”

Kat’s head swiveled to her left, picking up a hint of movement out of the corner of her vision only to lock eyes with an important looking middle aged man in a suit. He gasped, standing up and running for the exit she had just used to enter the room.

With a curse, Kat cast Pseudopod. Springing to her feet and swiping at the man’s knees with the water tentacle only to find him just out of reach.

Then Emma stepped into view, both of her metal staves at the ready. The man squealed as, unable to slow his momentum enough to stop himself, he leaned to the side and tried to break past her.

“Non-lethal!” Kat screamed as Emma swung her clubs. “Keep that fucker alive!”

Their trajectory changed slightly in the air. The blows that would have taken him in the head instead rained down on his forearm and side a fraction of a second before Kat caught up enough to hook her Pseudopod around his right knee and jerk.

The man’s scream cut short as he tumbled to the cement, writhing in pain. Kat walked closer, wrapping the tendril of water completely around him and pinning his arms to his side.

Whippoorwill poked her head out behind Emma before letting out a low whistle.

“It looks like we managed to catch Director Anvers in the building,” Whip remarked appreciatively. “Even if we can’t find the specific files we want in the database, Neon Dome’s flash cloned director of Research and Development is more than enough of a catch for us to make some serious progress.

Emma hurried past the two of them toward the wall of animal cages as Merrimac tromped closer. Whippoorwill went down to one knee, rifling through the groaning man’s pockets.

“What do we have here?” Whip asked gleefully, pulling back the salt and pepper hair around the base of the man’s skull to reveal a metal circle with a number of gleaming indicator lights. “Our friend here seems to have an onboard computer database. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the really fun secrets are locked away in there.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” The man slurred, still clearly woozy from his recent battering. “Rapid response forces are on their way and your little team doesn’t seem to have a surgeon with you. There’s no way you’ll be able to extract it in time. I don’t even care who sent you. Just fucking go on with it and kill me.”

“We might not have a surgeon,” Merrimac grunted, his approach heralded by the jangle of metal on metal, “but Erinyes here is fairly skilled with a knife. Really, at this point the only difference is the lack of anesthetic, so apologies for that.”

A metal clad foot struck the bound man between the eyes, knocking him cleanly out. Merrimac nodded meaningfully toward Kat, and she drew her knife with grim purpose. Removing the database wouldn’t be clean or fun, but the director was a clone, under the control of alien powers bent on enslaving humanity. Her moral qualms would have to take second-

She whirled around as a mountain of fur blurred past her, tackling Whippoorwill. Before she could defend her friend, the dire wolf licked Whip’s encounter suit’s face, its massive tongue covering most of the featureless uniform’s head.

Then with a whine, he rolled off of her, lifting his legs so that Whip could rub his stomach. Davis, Kat and Whippoorwill just stared blankly at the scene.

The massive wolf whined again, squirming its back against the floor next to Whippoorwill as it looked up at her with pleading eyes. Tentatively, she reached out, scratching the creature under the chin. It sighed appreciatively and let its tongue loll out.

“Goddamnit!” Emma shouted, stomping over to the three of them, a number of cages open behind her. “I freed Hanz and he’s supposed to be my friend. It isn’t fair!”