She stood up.
“Got this for you.” Will handed her the pistol she’d lost on the sixth floor when the Scorpion had knocked it from her grasp.
She nodded and grabbed it with her left hand. It felt unwieldy in her fingers. “Thanks. I’m not sure I’ll be of much use with it. I’ve been practicing right-handed. Or with both hands. Left hand only? Probably going to miss.”
“Doesn’t your mind-machine interface offer muscle memory mirroring?” Will asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.”
“Some cyborgs can flip a switch and mirror the muscle memory they learned for one side of the body, to the other,” he told her. “Saves a ton on learning.”
She pressed her lips together. “Interesting. I’ll have to search my menus for it.”
She retreated with Will, Renaldo and Chuck to the stairwell, and began the climb down.
While she descended, she absentmindedly browsed through the menus on her HUD, searching for a muscle memory mirroring option, but didn’t find one. Her aim was just going to have to suck for the next little while.
“Who the heck was that Monkey dude?” Renaldo said.
“Will didn’t tell you?” she asked.
“No,” the Wardenite replied. “He said to ask you.”
She sighed. “Someone who hunts me. The Scorpion, he calls himself. I suspect he’s in the employ of Veil.”
“Veil again,” Chuck said. “He’s never going to leave you alone, is he?”
“Seems not,” Rhea agreed. “At least until I can confront Veil myself and have a little talk with him. Convince him that it’s not in his best interests to send assassins after me.”
“Yeah, we all want to have that talk I think,” Chuck said, caressing his pistol. He and Anderson had been close.
When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Rhea carefully peered past the stairwell door, searching for bioweapons or Aradne forces, but the second floor of the concourse proved empty.
Keeping the pistol held in hand, she emerged. Chuck took point and led them to the escalator at a crouch. He peered over the railing, searching the lower level for signs of enemy activity. He gave Will the “all clear” sign with his thumb and forefinger, then the two of them strode down the escalator.
Rhea remained on the upper floor with Renaldo; she was prepared to lay down covering fire, if necessary.
Will and Chuck fanned out.
Rhea glanced at her overhead map to get an update on Horatio’s position. The robot was crossing the street outside and approaching the red zone at that very moment.
She gazed past the floor-to-ceiling windows of the first floor and searched for Horatio out there. According to the map, he should have been right in front of her, but all she saw was the carcass of a beheaded Tasin. The asphalt around the creature was littered with feathers; the chlorophyll pigmentation had faded so that the plumes were all black. Its stalk-like legs were flopped to one side, the claws curling skyward.
“How are you doing out there, Horatio?” Rhea sent.
Movement drew her eyes to the base of the corpse, where a robot, diminutive-looking in comparison to the bioweapon, emerged from underneath the feathers. It was Horatio, moving at a low crawl. As Horatio entered the “no-go” zone that was exposed to the spy satellites, the robot slid underneath the upheaved asphalt next to a blast crater. There were enough carcasses and debris littering the route to give Horatio ample cover, all the way to the building.
“Doing fine,” Horatio transmitted. “I’ll meet you on the south side. Go.”
The concourse had two exits, one that opened on the north side of the building, toward Horatio, and another on the south.
“It’s clear down here,” Chuck transmitted a moment later.
She glanced at Renaldo, and the pair double-timed down the escalator and headed toward Will and Chuck, who were waiting near the south entrance. Will kept his pistol trained on the northern exit and its windows, while Chuck covered the southern exit.
Will went out first and vanished from view as he crept along the southern wall. “Clear out here.”
Rhea and the others followed. They made their way to the western edge of the building, which bordered the street. Bioweapon carcasses were scattered across it. Part of that street fell into the “no-go” zone; she had intended to use the debris, like Horatio, to cross it, but she noticed the bioweapons had carved a runnel across the road here at some point, one that had partially collapsed: the asphalt formed an overhang all along its length.
“That’s perfect,” Rhea said.
Will nodded. “But slightly dangerous.”
Rhea glanced at the overhead map and watched as the green zone slowly contracted as the satellites continued their orbit. Their current position would soon be exposed.
“Horatio, we’re waiting,” she said.
“Coming,” Horatio sent.
Movement drew her eye upward, and she raised her pistol: but it was only Gizmo, skirting the gap between buildings. The drone promptly landed on the adjacent rooftop, obviously not wanting to remain exposed overlong. The craft was too small to be detected by the satellites, but enemy drones could still spot it.
“I’m here,” Horatio sent.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the robot emerging from the south exit at a sprint.
Will promptly crawled into the runnel, sliding underneath the overhang. Rhea and the others followed. Horatio brought up the rear.
The surface below her formed a half cylinder, and was smooth on one side, like a culvert without the corrugations, but completely jagged in the area immediately beneath the overhang. The whole runnel was also very shallow. She only had to lift her head a short distance to touch the overhang. Will and Chuck had it worse; their heads and elbows constantly scraped against the protruding asphalt as they advanced. Because of that, Rhea was a bit worried they’d end up collapsing a section, but so far, the structure held up.
The jagged asphalt underneath her dug into her clothing, and occasionally a section snagged, forcing her to pause and undo it. After a few times of that she stopped bothering with
