The freight elevator was taking its time.
Sako checked the floor indicator again, then shifted her weight with an irritated sigh. The Myrsky's armored tail scraped across the concrete as she adjusted her stance, producing a metallic grating noise that echoed through the otherwise deserted parking garage.
She'd been meaning to complain about the elevator for weeks. It was slow, poorly maintained, and occasionally refused to operate when its load sensors encountered something heavier than the average resident. The building charged enough in monthly fees that she expected better.
The indicator changed.
Finally.
She reached for the call button again, intending to give the mechanism some encouragement, when a heavy impact struck her from the side.
Sako barely registered the movement before she collided with the elevator doors.
Metal buckled beneath her shoulder. The impact sent a sharp jolt through her torso, followed by a cascade of warnings across her visor.
She stumbled, caught herself against the wall, and turned. An enormous red-furred woman stood several meters away. Sako recognized the curled horns first, followed by the black hair and the distinctive mechanical arms.
Zoey Lavender.
For a fraction of a second, surprise displaced her anger. She knew of Lavender, of course. Anyone remotely familiar with Sigma City's mercenary industry knew of her. But there were precious few transhumans in existence, and encountering another one unexpectedly was hardly an everyday occurrence.
The surprise lasted until Zoey lunged at her again. Sako raised her forearms to intercept the incoming blow.
The impact drove her backward, her armored heels skidding across the concrete. She managed to remain upright, but only barely.
"Have you lost your mind?!"
Zoey didn't answer. Instead, she seized Sako's right forearm.
Sako reacted instinctively, wrenching her arm sideways while bringing her tail around in a powerful sweeping strike. The appendage struck Zoey across the legs with enough force to have knocked an ordinary human off their feet.
The fox shifted her stance. That was all.
Sako's eyes widened behind her visor. Before she could recover, Zoey twisted the captured arm and pulled. Sako was lifted partially off the ground.
Her armored boots scraped uselessly against the concrete as the fox hauled her forward and drove her into a nearby support pillar. The impact cracked the concrete. For several seconds, Sako could hear little beyond the ringing in her ears. She lashed out with her free hand, striking Zoey across the jaw with an armored fist.
The blow connected solidly. Zoey's head turned. Then she looked back at Sako.
"That fucking hurt."
Sako attempted to withdraw. Zoey didn't let her. Instead, the fox drove her mechanical fist directly into Sako's breastplate.
The armor held. Sako felt the impact nonetheless, a tremendous compression through her chest that forced the air from her lungs.
She staggered backward, finally wrenching her arm free.
"Stop!"
Zoey advanced.
"I said STOP!"
Sako retreated, putting several meters between them. Her helmet displayed a growing list of structural warnings, including damage to the right wrist assembly and deformation of the torso's outer plating.
She'd been attacked before. Frequently, in fact. Her former employer seemed determined to exhaust the city's supply of expendable contractors before admitting defeat.
Most of the people sent after her relied on firearms, explosives, or coordinated assaults. Even the more heavily equipped teams had generally avoided prolonged physical confrontation.
Lavender was attacking her with her bare hands. And winning.
Sako glanced toward the garage exit. The fox noticed.
"Oh, don't you fucking dare."
Sako looked back at her.
"What is your problem? I haven't done anything to you!"
"Then quit fucking fighting!"
"You're attacking me!"
Zoey lunged again.
Sako moved sideways, narrowly avoiding the incoming fist. It struck the concrete support behind her, sending fragments of broken masonry scattering across the floor.
She retaliated with another blow, aiming for the fox's exposed ribs. Zoey caught her wrist.
Sako immediately tried to pull away, but the mechanical fingers closed around her gauntlet with crushing force. A warning flashed across her visor.
RIGHT FOREARM STRUCTURAL OVERLOAD
She tried to twist free. Nothing. The pressure increased.
ACTUATOR ALIGNMENT FAULT
"Let go!"
Zoey pulled her forward, seized her other arm, and drove a knee into her abdomen. Sako doubled over.
A moment later, the floor struck her back. She tried to roll, but Zoey was already on top of her, one heavy leg planted on either side of her torso. Sako bucked upward, attempting to throw her off.
Zoey barely moved.
She tried again, this time bracing her feet against the floor and twisting her hips. The fox shifted her weight and forced her back down.
"Will you fucking quit?"
"Get OFF me!"
Zoey seized both of her wrists and pinned them against the concrete.
Sako strained against the grip. Her muscles burned with the effort, but the enormous woman's mechanical arms didn't yield.
She couldn't move. For the first time since the attack began, Sako felt something beyond anger.
She looked up at the fox straddling her, at the immense shoulders and the black mechanical hands restraining her arms. She knew what those hands were capable of. Zoey leaned forward.
"Now, where the fuck is Evan Collins?"
Sako stopped struggling.
"Huh?"
Zoey tightened her grip around Sako's wrists.
"Evan Collins. The rogue scientist. Where the fuck is he?"
Sako stared at her through the cracked visor of her helmet. For several seconds, she struggled to reconcile the question with the fact that Zoey Lavender was currently sitting on her chest.
Then she understood.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
"Answer the fucking question."
"I am Evan, you stupid brute!"
Zoey stared at her.
"...What?"
"Evan Collins. That's me."
"Bullshit."
Sako gave an incredulous laugh, although there was little humor in it. "Of course. Why would anything about this evening be straightforward?"
Zoey leaned closer.
"Look, lady, I know what Collins looks like. You're not him."
"Yes, well, I should certainly hope not. That photograph is several years out of date."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Sako closed her eyes for a moment. The pressure on her wrists was beginning to hurt, and her armor's diagnostics had been reporting a potentially catastrophic failure of the right forearm assembly for nearly a minute.
"Genetic engineering!" she snapped. "You, of all people, should know that!"
Zoey went still.
For a fraction of a second, the enormous fox simply stared at her. Her ears drew backward, and something in her expression changed. Then she struck Sako across the helmet.
The impact was tremendous. Something cracked against the side of Sako's head, and the entire helmet tore free, its damaged retaining mechanisms failing under the force of the blow.
It struck the concrete several meters away and rolled beneath a parked vehicle. Sako barely registered its departure. Her vision blurred, a high-pitched ringing filled her ears, and she tasted blood. Before she could recover, Zoey seized the front of her armored collar and pulled her partially upright.
"Don't fucking lie to me," she growled. "You don't know me. I'm gonna ask one last time. Where. Is. Evan?"
Without the helmet, the fox's face was considerably closer than she would have preferred. She could see the individual strands of fur around her muzzle, the scars across her left eye, and the faint reflections of the overhead lighting in her amber irises.
More concerning were the mechanical fingers gripping her collar. She could hear the actuators operating somewhere beneath their black composite housings. A slight movement of those fingers would be enough to crush the armor against her throat.
"I didn't say I knew you," Sako answered, considerably more quietly. "I know who you are. There's a difference."
Zoey's grip didn't loosen.
"Then how the fuck do you know about me?"
"Because you're Zoey. You're rather infamous, whether you appreciate that or not."
"That doesn't explain what you said."
"It explains precisely what I said. You're a transhuman. So am I. Is that really such an extraordinary concept?"
"You're supposed to be some middle-aged human asshole."
"I was a middle-aged human asshole."
Sako swallowed. She was beginning to find the fox's silences considerably more frightening than her shouting.
"Look," she continued, carefully moderating her voice. "I worked in biomedical research here in the Medical District for approximately ten years. In 2097, I developed a procedure capable of inducing extensive developmental reconstruction in a mature organism."
Zoey's expression remained hard, but she was listening.
"I administered it to myself. The process took approximately six months, and the result is sitting underneath you."
"You're telling me you turned yourself into a fucking eel?"
"Among other things, yes."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to."
Zoey's brow furrowed.
"You wanted to?"
"Yes."
"Nobody made you do it?"
"No."
"Nobody paid you?"
"Quite the opposite. It was extraordinarily expensive."
Zoey looked down at Sako's exposed face, then along the length of her armored body. Her gaze lingered on the enormous tail extending across the garage floor.
"Fuck me."
"I'd rather not right now."
Zoey looked back at her.
Sako immediately regretted the remark. It had emerged almost automatically, and she wasn't particularly interested in discovering how much patience Lavender had for sarcasm. Fortunately, the fox didn't hit her again. Instead, she shifted her weight slightly.
"Wait. You said you did it yourself?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I've already explained."
"No, you haven't. You said you used genetic engineering. That's not the same as explaining how the fuck you reconstructed an adult body without killing it."
Sako hesitated. That was a considerably better question.
"The procedure induced a second developmental period," she answered. "It involved the reactivation and redirection of pathways normally associated with embryonic development, although the actual mechanism was rather more complicated."
"No shit. What about your nervous system?"
"What about it?"
"You can't just grow an entirely new body around an existing brain and expect all the connections to keep working."
Sako regarded her more carefully.
"No," she conceded. "You can't."
"So how'd you manage that?"
"Imperfectly."
Zoey waited. Sako glanced toward the fox's mechanical hands, still holding her against the concrete.
"My nervous system sustained extensive damage during the reconstruction. Some of it is permanent. I would be happy to explain the details under circumstances that don't involve being physically restrained by a homicidal stranger."
Zoey looked down at her hands. For a moment, Sako thought she might actually release her.
Instead, the fox loosened her grip just enough to relieve the pressure on the damaged wrist assembly.
"So you really were Collins?"
"Yes."
"And the company doesn't know?"
"Apparently not. They seem convinced that I'm protecting their missing employee, which is an exceptionally stupid conclusion."
"Why didn't you just fucking tell them?"
Sako stared at her.
"Because their first attempt at contacting me involved four armed men breaking into my apartment."
Zoey's ears shifted.
"They said you killed three people."
"They tried to kill me."
"That's not what they said."
"Then perhaps you should reconsider the reliability of your employer."
Zoey's expression hardened again.
Sako felt the change before she understood it. The mechanical hand gripping her collar tightened, pulling the armor against the base of her neck.
"Don't tell me how to do my fucking job."
"I'm merely pointing out that you've been given incorrect information."
"Yeah? Well, I've got a pretty good idea what I'm doing."
Sako opened her mouth to respond.
Zoey abruptly lifted her free hand toward Sako's face.
Sako flinched. The discharge was instantaneous.
A sharp electrical crack split the air as blue-white arcs erupted from the exposed skin of Sako's neck and jaw. The nearest discharge jumped into Zoey's mechanical fingers, briefly illuminating the gaps between their articulated segments.
Something inside the prosthetic emitted a rising electrical whine. Zoey jerked her hand backward.
"What the fuck?!"
"I'm sorry!" Sako's apology came before Zoey had finished speaking.
The fox looked down at her mechanical hand, flexing the fingers experimentally. A faint electrical crackle persisted around the joints before disappearing. Sako's heart was pounding.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "That wasn't intentional."
Zoey looked back at her.
"You fucking shocked me!"
"I know. It was involuntary. My nervous system"
"Don't fucking do that again."
"I can't guarantee that!"
The admission escaped more sharply than Sako had intended. She immediately fell silent. Zoey was staring at her.
Sako could feel the faint tingling sensation of residual electrical activity beneath her skin. Her dorsal ridge was still glowing, and she was having difficulty controlling her breathing. She wanted very badly to be somewhere else.
"Listen," she said, forcing herself to speak more slowly. "I have neurological damage affecting my threat responses. Sudden movements, pain, fear... certain stimuli can trigger an electrical discharge without conscious intervention."
Zoey glanced at her hand again.
"You're telling me that was automatic?"
"Yes."
"You didn't mean to shock me?"
"No."
Zoey's gaze returned to her face. For several seconds, she said nothing.
Sako couldn't tell whether she believed her. The fox's expression was difficult to interpret, particularly with the adrenaline still coursing through her system.
Then Zoey moved her hand again. Sako recoiled before she could stop herself. Zoey froze.
The movement had been small, barely more than a shift in position, but Sako had reacted as though another blow were already coming.
She hated that.
She hated the involuntary movement, the way her muscles had contracted, and the humiliating realization that she was anticipating violence she couldn't prevent.
Zoey slowly lowered her hand.
"Hey."
Sako looked at her.
"I'm not gonna hit you."
She wanted to believe that. Unfortunately, the last several minutes provided substantial evidence to the contrary.
"That would be a welcome change," Sako answered.
Zoey didn't respond immediately. Her gaze moved across Sako's face, lingering briefly on the blood at the corner of her mouth.
"Shit," she muttered.
Sako watched her carefully. The fox's grip on her collar relaxed. For the first time since the attack began, Sako could move her arms without fighting against the full strength of Zoey's prosthetics.
She didn't attempt to escape. It was difficult to imagine where she could go that Lavender wouldn't simply follow.
Instead, she took several slow breaths, trying to bring her nervous system under control. Zoey was still looking at her.
"So you really did all that to yourself?"
Sako sighed.
"Yes."
"And you actually like it?"
"Very much."
"Huh."
Another silence followed. Sako waited, expecting another question. When none came, she glanced down at the considerable weight resting across her abdomen. There were limits to her patience.
"Can you please get off me now? You can question me without sitting on me like we're about to fuck."
Zoey looked down. Then she looked at Sako.
"You're the one who brought up fucking."
"Yes, because you're sitting on my pelvis."
Zoey considered this for a moment.
"Fair enough."
She stood. Just like that.
One moment, Sako was pinned beneath nearly five hundred pounds of immensely strong fox. The next, the pressure was gone, and Zoey Lavender was standing beside her as though the preceding confrontation had been a perfectly ordinary interaction.
Sako remained on the concrete. She wasn't entirely certain she could stand without assistance, and she wasn't eager to discover the extent of her injuries in front of the woman responsible for them.
Zoey looked down at her.
"You getting up?"
"Eventually."
"You hurt?"
Sako slowly turned her head.
"Yes, Zoey. I'm hurt."
"How bad?"
"I haven't had an opportunity to assess the damage."
Zoey crouched beside her. Sako instinctively drew back. The fox stopped.
"Your right arm's fucked," she observed, pointing toward the visibly deformed gauntlet. "That joint isn't lined up anymore."
"I'm aware."
"Looks like the bearing carrier's shifted. Might've bent the shaft, too."
Sako glanced down at the damaged assembly.
The external plating had been crushed inward around the wrist, and the articulated joint refused to move through its full range. She could feel considerable resistance whenever she attempted to rotate her hand.
"I'll need to have it serviced," she said.
"Probably."
Zoey examined the armor more closely.
"That's not a powered assist system, is it?"
"No. The primary function is protection. Its powered components handle environmental support, underwater propulsion, and various auxiliary systems."
"So you're moving all that weight yourself?"
"Yes."
Zoey looked along the armored torso and down toward the tail.
"That's a shitload of armor."
"It has proven necessary."
"No kidding."
Sako watched her. The fox's interest seemed genuine, and her observations about the damaged wrist assembly were technically sound. Under ordinary circumstances, Sako might have appreciated the attention. These were not ordinary circumstances.
"Zoey."
"Hm?"
"Are you still planning to kill me?"
The question seemed to interrupt whatever examination the fox had been conducting. She looked up.
For a few seconds, neither woman spoke. Then Zoey sat back on her heels.
"That's a good fucking question."
Sako stared at her.
"I would prefer a good answer."
"Well, they paid me to kill Evan Collins."
"And you've found me."
"Yeah."
"Then I would appreciate knowing whether you intend to fulfill that obligation."
Zoey rubbed her jaw.
"They gave me a picture of some middle-aged dude and told me he stole a bunch of research. Said he was dangerous, had people protecting him, and needed to be dealt with."
Sako listened without interrupting.
"They didn't say shit about him turning into a seven-foot electric eel woman."
"Because they don't know."
"Yeah, I fucking got that part."
Zoey glanced toward the damaged elevator doors, then back at Sako.
"How many times have they tried to kill you?"
"Several."
"How many's several?"
"Enough that I've stopped keeping an exact count."
Zoey frowned.
"And they still don't know you're Collins?"
"Apparently their intelligence department is staffed entirely by incompetents."
That earned a short, unexpected snort from the fox. Sako raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"How reassuring."
Zoey stood and walked toward the parked vehicle beneath which Sako's helmet had disappeared. Sako immediately tensed.
"Where are you going?"
"Getting your helmet."
"Oh."
She watched as Zoey crouched beside the vehicle and reached underneath it. A moment later, she emerged with the battered blue helmet hanging from one mechanical hand.
The gold-tinted visor was fractured, the right side had been badly deformed, and one of the retaining mechanisms appeared to have been torn completely free.
Zoey turned it over, inspecting the damage.
"Fuck. I really did a number on this thing."
"An astute assessment."
"The shell held up pretty well, though."
"That was the intention."
"Retention system didn't."
"No. It didn't."
Zoey examined the fractured attachment points.
"Should've reinforced these."
Sako stared at her.
"You struck it with enough force to tear it off my head."
"Yeah."
"While I was wearing it."
"Yeah."
"And your principal criticism is that the retaining mechanisms were insufficiently reinforced?"
Zoey looked at her.
"Well, they fucking weren't."
Sako opened her mouth. Then she closed it again.
There was absolutely no point arguing with that observation.
Zoey carried the helmet back and set it on the ground beside her.
"Here."
"Thank you."
Sako reached for it with her undamaged hand.
The fox hesitated, then extended her own.
"Need help getting up?"
Sako looked at the offered hand. It was the same hand that had struck her, crushed her armor, and held her helplessly against the concrete.
The same hand that could have killed her at any point during their confrontation.
She looked up at Zoey. The fox waited. Sako swallowed.
"No, thank you."
Zoey lowered her hand.
"Alright."
She stepped back, giving Sako room.
Sako rolled onto her side and carefully brought herself to one knee. Her right arm protested every movement, and a sharp pain beneath her ribs forced her to pause before attempting to stand.
Zoey watched without interfering. Eventually, Sako managed to get her feet beneath her. She rose slowly, using her tail for balance, and straightened to her full seven-foot height.
Ordinarily, that was enough to make her tower over most people. Zoey Lavender was still looking down at her. Sako found that particularly irritating.
"Now," she said, adjusting the damaged armor around her wrist, "I believe we have several matters to discuss."
Zoey folded her arms.
"Yeah. Starting with how the fuck you managed to rebuild your entire body."
Sako looked at her for a long moment.
"Starting," she corrected, "with whether I can reasonably expect to survive the remainder of this conversation."
Zoey's expression changed slightly. She glanced at the damaged helmet in Sako's hand, then at the blood still visible around her mouth.
For several seconds, the fox said nothing. Finally, she sighed.
"I'm not gonna kill you, alright?"
Sako studied her.
"Are you certain?"
"Yeah."
"And your employer?"
"Fuck 'em."
Sako blinked.
"That's your professional assessment?"
"Pretty much."
"Remarkable."
Zoey shrugged.
"They hired me to kill some guy who stole company property. They didn't tell me the guy was the property."
Sako went quiet. She hadn't expected that particular observation.
Zoey glanced toward the elevator doors.
"Besides, if those assholes are still coming after you, somebody's gonna have to deal with 'em."
Sako narrowed her eyes.
"Are you offering your services?"
"Didn't say that."
"Then what are you saying?"
Zoey looked back at her.
"I'm saying I wanna know what the fuck is going on."
Sako considered this.
She was injured, exhausted, and standing beside a ruined elevator in a parking garage that now contained several thousand dollars' worth of structural damage.
Her helmet was destroyed. Her armor required extensive repairs. Her former employer had apparently decided that hiring one of the most dangerous mercenaries in Sigma City was an appropriate escalation of its ongoing campaign against her.
And the woman responsible for the latest attempt was now expressing an interest in discussing the situation.
Under different circumstances, Sako might have found the whole affair fascinating. At present, she wanted a shower, something to eat, and several hours in which nobody attempted to murder her.
"Very well," she said at last. "But I have one condition."
Zoey raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
Sako gestured toward the wreckage of the elevator doors.
"You are going to pay for that."
Zoey looked at the doors. Then at the damaged support pillar. Then at the long gouges Sako's armor had left across the concrete.
"Fuck off. You broke some of that shit yourself."
Sako stared at her.
"I was attempting to avoid being killed!"
"Still broke it."
For a moment, Sako could only look at her. Then she laughed.
It was short and it hurt her ribs considerably more than she'd anticipated.
Zoey grinned.
"See? You're fine."
"No," Sako replied, wincing as she pressed a hand against her side. "I am most certainly not fine."
"Well, you ain't dead."
"An exceptionally low standard of success."
"Works for me."
Sako shook her head.
She was beginning to suspect that getting Zoey Lavender to leave her alone might prove considerably more difficult than surviving her.
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