“You too!” the second guard called to Salvi and Kara.
Salvi and Kara turned around too, placing their hands in the air.
“They don’t know we’ve had Fyte,” Salvi whispered.
They stood there in a line, Bronte and Kara either side of Salvi, waiting for the guards to reach them; chests heaving, hearts racing.
“On your knees!” one of the guards yelled. “Hands behind your head!”
She glanced around at the guards, wondering whether they’d had any Fyte too, but she saw no sweat upon their brow, no heaving chest, no wild look in their eyes.
“The guards haven’t,” she whispered, as she placed her hands behind her head. “We take one each.”
The two guards moved for Bronte and Salvi, while Travis stood back aiming a taser at all of them.
“Kara, Travis!” Salvi said, as the guard grabbed for her hands and she threw a wild elbow into his face.
Within seconds there was utter pandemonium in the corridor. Salvi spun around and grabbed her guard, while Bronte threw his into the wall and Kara ran at Travis with speed. Travis fired his taser and Salvi heard Kara groan, but she didn’t have time to see what had happened as her guard fought back, throwing a hard punch in her face. He was strong, but Salvi felt relentless with the Fyte in her system. She landed blow after blow into the man, as flashes of Tynan Williams in Kelto’s Diner went through her mind; pacing back and forth like the bullet wounds he’d received and the blood pouring from him meant nothing. And she understood what that felt like now. The pain was inconsequential to the anger, the Fyte, burning through her veins.
Inconsequential compared to her desperate need to escape.
Her guard stumbled back amid the blows, falling to the ground, and she threw herself on top of him. She heard Bronte still throwing his around and landing heavy Fyte blows, and Kara groaning up ahead as she lay on the corridor. Salvi’s guard threw another punch and she thrust her hand into her pocket, pulled out the shard of data pane again and slammed it into his neck. He tried to yell out in pain, but only a gargle formed. Salvi ripped out the shard again, then pulled back and stumbled to her feet. She looked up to see Travis disappearing through the doors ahead, and Kara getting to her feet, shaking off her tasing and jogging after him, a ball of anger. Just like Tynan Williams would’ve done.
“Bronte!” Salvi called, following Kara.
Bronte stood over his guard and laid one more brutal kick into his side, before jogging after them.
“No!” Kara yelled as the double door closed in front of her. Salvi moved to swipe Erica’s chip over the console, but nothing happened.
She tried again.
Nothing.
“Shit!” Salvi hissed. They’d cut off her access.
“What is it?” Bronte asked, joining them.
“Travis is gone. We’re locked in,” Salvi said, eyes darting around. “We’re trapped.”
“Anyone still got a tracking device?” Kara panted, feeling her nose for her missing piercing. Salvi looked at her and shook her head. Bronte suddenly straightened with a look of concentration on his face. They saw his jaw moving in an odd way, as though he were cleaning his back teeth with his tongue.
“Bronte?” she asked, holding her breath.
“Holy shit…” he said, his voice slurred with his tongue bent back into the corner of his mouth.
“What?” Kara asked.
“I still got it!” Bronte darted his Fyte-filled eyes between them. “The one they attached to my jaw. The fake wisdom tooth. I got it!”
“How did they not find it?” Salvi asked.
“It wasn’t activated,” he said.
“Can you activate it now? Is it working?”
Bronte stuck his pinky finger in the back of his mouth, fishing around.
“Bronte!” Kara said urgently.
“I got it,” he said. “I got it! It’s activated!”
“We need to get outside,” Salvi said. “We need to get your signal out, so Riverton can pick it up.”
“But how?” Kara said, looking around. We’re locked in!”
Salvi felt the deja vu wash over. Memories of being locked inside the silo with Subjugate-52. Only that seemed to pale in comparison to the situation she was in now. MasterSlave was worse. Much, much worse.
Suddenly the doors at the end of the corridor, past Salvi’s room, opened. They all spun around ready to face whoever it was; Kara raising her taser.
It was Dancer.
He was alone.
He held his hand out to stop them. “Relax! I can help you!”
“Why would you help us?” Bronte asked, clenching his fists.
“You need me to get out of here, and if you’re getting out, then you’re fucking taking me with you.”
“You expect us to trust you?” Kara asked, holding her weapon firm.
“I think we can!” Salvi said, holding her hand out to Kara’s taser again. “He created a diversion earlier. He bought me time.”
“Hurry!” Dancer hissed.
“Come on!” Salvi said to her colleagues.
They ran toward him, swooping to collect the guards’ tasers as they did.
The double doors closed behind them as they stepped into a narrower corridor that ran left and right, along what Salvi hoped was the end of the building.
“How do we get out of here?” Salvi asked.
“This way,” Dancer waved for them to follow him, as he jogged off down the left-hand side of the corridor.
“What about the security cameras?” Salvi asked.
“They’re down,” he said, moving toward a single doorway set into the end wall.
“How do you know?” Kara asked him.
“Because I took them down,” he said, pressing himself up against the wall by the sealed door and checking his wristwatch. “As soon as this door unlocks, we got fifteen seconds to get through before the cameras come back on, so move fast. We don’t want them to see us.”
“Then what?” Bronte asked, skin wet with sweat, as he glanced back down the corridor, the neural devices shining silver against his dark skin.
“We get the fuck out of here,” Dancer said as though
