[IC] Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

[EliteCommander]

“If I was working with them, I can think of at least two occasions where I could have just let them have you instead of doing everything I could to save you.” Senjen answered, staring back at the boss. “In the stairwell, or when you got grabbed out in the atrium, my guns were on the droids on both accounts. Not to mention all the chances I would have had by now to split off in the chaos and join them, if I was with them. Whatever they did to prepare this attack, it should be apparent we’re not with them.”

Senjen stayed rather still. The less his system was doing, the less heat it produced. Though, he had no choice but to stay very alert to every little twitch the others made. “Now there really isn’t time for this. They can’t be far behind, and if we waste any time doing this, then none of us are going to end up getting out.”

[Cath]

“The droids are expendable. We are not.” The boss growled, motioning vaguely to the assembled Humans.

"Perhaps your mission is to gain our trust to wreak more havoc later. Yes?"

Afterwards he looked at Light, floated softly closer. His bodyguard followed close by now, holding the plasma repeater.

“Who is really the boss here, huh? You’ve been very quiet. What do they have on you?”

Light quivered, avoided looking directly at the man. The dappled red of his suit flashed with violet tones of guilt, shame.

“I am very sorry, but your mother has just passed away. My suit is not picking up any vital signs. Would you like me to try to resuscitate her?”

The man’s face crumpled slightly. He cast an eye over the limp corpse on Light’s back and a single tear detached from the corner of his eye and floated into space.

“No. She had a long, full life.” He said finally.

“She loved her family, and would do anything to protect us. Some more than others perhaps.” He chuckled sadly, repositioning his daughter across his chest and looking down into her curious face. He then looked back up at Light.

“Will you help me protect my family now she is gone? Tell me who you’re really working for.”

Light exhaled deeply, looked at Senjen then back at the boss. He was about to tell them about their encounter at the suit shop when there was a loud clunk from the locked blast doors. As if someone had tried to open them manually. Then there was a series of three knocks and someone calling from the other side in Cantonese, the language Light now knew the other Humans were using.

“Let us in! They’re coming!!”

"Show me the camera feed." The soldier who'd brought Light and Senjen downstairs called. She'd taken up a defensive position behind one of the closest pillars.

"Feed is down, like all the others." Someone replied from the kiosk.

[EliteCommander]

Between the alarms for his internal temperature and the pressure of a rapidly approaching enemy, Senjen had his mind only on survival. Even if he wanted to share what had happened between them at the store, there literally was not time at this point. Regardless of what had happened before or in the future, escape needed to be the only thing on their mind at the moment. “Look, if you have a hideout or something, you don’t need to take us there, and I don’t even want to know where it is. If you’re that worried about us, then we don’t even have to work together again after today. We can just go our separate ways after we get out of here.”

The sounds at the other side of the door prompted Senjen to draw his pistol. It couldn’t be long before the enemy was on top of them. “We are right at the edge of escaping here, but every second we waste is another they have to breach this room, or maybe set up an ambush outside. You know we would have had the chance to kill you by now if we were traitors. Let’s just get out of here alive.”

[Cath]

The boss weighed them up silently, eyes roving between Senjen, Light and his mother. Then he finally looked down at his daughter and smiled sadly.

“Alright. Let's get out of here.” He pressed a button on one of the secure fobs in his hand. Two sets of blips and flashing its lights caught Light’s attention from around the corner of the L-shaped garage.

Still holding the dead woman’s corpse, Light floated towards the sound and flashing lights. The Humans squabbled on either side of the blast doors behind him. Something about not opening the doors. He wasn’t listening - he was only focused on getting out of here now.

As they turned the corner he saw two large, boxy cash trucks parked up next to a small freight elevator that presumably transported cash straight down from the casino area. They had four omni-directional thrusters on the corners but in his experience they looked under-powered for the size of the vehicle. They were well protected, but wouldn’t be able to move fast.

There were doors to the driving cabin and one door on the side plus a hatch on the back for the cash compartment. Light rushed to the driving cabin, threw open the door and looked around for a fire extinguisher. Humans coloured them a helpful bright red, so he spotted it quickly in between the three seats, grabbed it and chucked it at Senjen.

Light then hopped inside and shuffled over until he was in the driver’s seat. The boss and his bodyguard hopped in to take over the other seats. One of the other Humans took the driver’s seat of the second truck.

“Swap places with me, let me drive.” The boss insisted.

“No, I pilot freighters - I can do this.”

“You don’t know where you’re going!”

“I will learn as I go!”

The boss swore heartily.

“Fine! Go back to the blast doors and pick my people up.”

[EliteCommander]

Progress, at least. Since they had avoided being at one another’s throats for now, they still had a chance to get out alive. Senjen caught the extinguisher from Light and took just a moment to check the label and make sure it was safe for him. The hole in his back provided enough access for him to reach back and angle the nozzle up towards his frame’s chest cavity. The small fires themselves had already been taken care of, but the first burst of the extinguisher into him did wonders to cool his core temperature. Some parts of his body were more or less susceptible to heat than others, but it was most important to keep his data storage and processor cooled. Fortunately, storage did not generate much heat on its own, but his processor certainly did. His power cells could handle higher temperatures, though the consequences of them staying overheated for too long could be...dangerous. The extinguisher would cool him down for a while, and since he had not needed to use all of its contents, he kept a hold of it for now.

The front seats of the cash truck were already taken by the time Senjen was done, so he sprinted for the hatch into the back instead. He could at least still keep on on a call with Light, so they could keep in contact, but Senjen wanted to keep his body and mind as still as he could for now. The less he was doing, the less heat he produced, and the easier his bottlenecked cooling system could keep up. Senjen was the first in, so he picked a corner where he could find something to grab onto and help keep himself still.

Senjen messaged both Light and the boss. “You think going on public transitways would help? I know the Korit government tends to stay out of private ‘business’, but they get involved if that starts spilling out into the public, right? We’re in cash trucks, so if they follow, station security might take it for an attempted robbery and intervene in our favor.”

[Cath]

“No, the last thing we need is a public spectacle on the news! Take the side roads to this rendezvous. People will be waiting.” The boss sent a pin to Light’s map of the station.

“Well, what we do kind of depends on who is waiting for us outside that door. Do you have any signal?” Light was talking about the large armoured roller door up a ramp from the basement to the surface level.

“No, it's still jammed.” The bodyguard spoke up in an unexpectedly delicate voice given his large stature.

“Super.” Light grunted, turning the engines on. The truck roared to life on reliable thrusters and he reversed sluggishly out into the passage that wound through the garage. The inside of the cash compartment would be alive with vibrations. Popping it back into drive, he maneuvered it around the corner to where most of the staff were guarding the doors. The door was in the right-hand corner and the passage out of the garage snaked away to the left. Light made the turn then stopped so the hatch roughly faced the blast doors. The other truck followed closely behind.

“Senjen, can you get these people into the back?” Light called.

“Boss, there are more people waiting behind these doors, should we open it?” One of the waiters shouted over.

“Please! We’ve got wounded! Let us in and we can help you fight!” Muffled voices wailed from the other side.

[EliteCommander]

Senjen was having an easier time thinking straight without all the heat warnings to distract him. Light brought them to a stop, so Senjen quickly pulled open the hatch. He stood just off to the side of the opening inside, so as to keep himself out of the way of anyone climbing inside. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry!” He shouted to the others just outside the truck. He offered a hand to help pull anyone inside as quickly as possible. In times like this, there was really no luxury of being gentle.

Thinking about it, the chance that these attackers were not waiting outside for them felt slim to none. Maybe it really would be too risky for them to give chase; side roads or no, a high speed chase with gunships would have to be a risk for an organization on Korit. It was just a matter of whether or not they viewed the reward of catching them to be worth said risk.

Aside from whatever might be ahead of them, Senjen heard the voices from the other side of the door. He did not want to leave anyone to die if he could help it, but there was good reason to be wary. “You recognize those voices? Are they your people, or could it be some sort of trick?” He asked, though there was not time to linger and debate. With everything they did, they needed to be quick and decisive. “What’s the name of your commander?” Senjen shouted through the door. If they responded back with a name the boss or his guards recognized, they could let them in.

[Cath]

As the cash trucks pulled up by the blast doors, some of the injured and less-armed staff began pulling back. They piled untidily into the back of the vehicles, accepting a hand up and in from the Utaysi.

The others continued to provide cover, listening intently as Senjen issued his challenge to those on the other side of the barriers. The commander who had escorted the pair of them down to the garage floated over to the large flashing object by the kiosk. She checked the display screen before giving a thumbs up to the boss who was still in the cabin with Light.

The clamour of desperate voices stopped for a moment. After a pregnant pause, it sounded like someone tried to answer but was cut off. The voice sounded different, strained. Then after five more long seconds, a burst of crackling energy appeared in the top right corner of the door from a laser cutter. Another sparked into life on the other side. Together they quickly ate away at the door, weakening the strong clamps holding it shut.

[EliteCommander]

“Okay, I guess it was a trick.” Senjen remarked, looking warily up at the cutter trying to make its way through the door. “In that case, I think we’re done here. Get in and let’s go while we still have a shot at getting out of this!”

Senjen offered a hand to the commander to pull her in quickly, but beyond that, it would mostly be up to Light to get them all out in one piece. The truck had enough space to hold them and was tough enough to protect them, but it would be a bit like flying a brick through the city. Of course, Light’s freighter was like an even bigger brick, so hopefully his experience would give him an edge. If not, Senjen was not sure he would have any more clever ideas to salvage the situation.

While he was waiting, Senjen made sure he still had a connection to Light’s implants. There was not much Senjen could do himself from the back, but if he could stay informed, then maybe he could be of some use.

[Cath]

“Ok, fall back! We are leaving!” The commander yelled, twirling a finger in the universal ‘Let us skedaddle’ motion. The remaining half dozen soldiers promptly began floating back to the two waiting cash trucks. Their leader waited until last, covering the door until no one else was left in her view before turning her back. She got almost to the door of the lead truck before a clear female voice sounded from the spiked pill object she’d been tinkering with by the kiosk.

“Directional dark star disarmed.”

The woman stopped at the door and looked back. The ominous flashing had ceased - she spat something utterly untranslatable.

“They’re jamming it!”

She looked back at Senjen.

“Get out of here, I’ll be right behind you!

“Erm, what did that thing say?!” Light spluttered, listening in on the Utaysi’s comms.

“Go, go, go!” The commander yelled, then kicked off from the back of the cash truck to sail back towards the object. The cutters were almost through the doors.

“You heard Liu-Jien- DRIVE!” The boss smacked the dashboard with his free hand, startling Light into action. He gunned the thrusters and the truck jerked slowly back into motion. They rounded a corner and the garage doors appeared a couple of hundred metres away. They started putting a few pillars, vehicles and storage crates between them and the doors just as they exploded out into the garage. Barely a second later, half a dozen droids spilled in on foot. Some of them shot at the commander as the most obvious target, some of them shot at the second truck as it pulled off. Two of them sprinted at an alarming rate towards the lead truck, weaving past obstacles.

[EliteCommander]

Right now, there were a few questions Senjen wished he had the answer to. What was a “directional dark star’”, why had it been disarmed, what what did it mean for it to be jammed?. There was no time to ask, and he doubted he would get an answer regardless. Light got them moving, and they were heading to the garage’s exit.

The commander had said she would be right behind them. Honestly, Senjen did not know whether to believe her, but he couldn’t just leave her behind, could he? He had to at least give her a chance. He did not lock the hatch immediately, but instead drew his pistol and leaned out to try and give her cover. She had that exoskeleton, and they could not move too quickly underground, so there was some possibility she might be able to catch up...as long as that was her intention. He put some shots towards the droids shooting at the commander. His weapon was made for killing machines, at least.

[Cath]

Senjen’s heroic rearguard action spurred the other troops to fight. Another soldier leaned out of the hatch with him and laid down cover fire. Others did the same off their own back in the second truck behind them, though they were at much higher risk of being overrun. The two droids chasing the trucks weaved between other parked cars, drawing their pistols to shoot back at the same time. They were only about twenty meters away now and gaining.

“My battery is dead!” One of the soldiers in Senjen’s truck announced.

“Don’t they keep armaments in here in case of hijacking?” Another replied, spurring a burst of searching for secret storage.

As she floated back to the dark star, Liu-Jien fired a stream of wafer-thin metal slivers at the advancing droids, shaved off one large block. Their shield coverage wasn’t total, and she scored multiple hits on limbs and bodies which created small rectangular holes in their armour. The droids shot back though, hitting her exosuit several times and singeing the flesh underneath. She yelped in pain but thankfully crashed into the side of the dark star opposite the enemy so she was covered for a moment. The droids didn’t shoot at the object but wordlessly began to flank around it.

Light took a corner hard and scraped a row of vehicles.

“There’s the exit!” The boss pointed; straight ahead a couple of hundred metres was a ramp with a large corrugated sliding door at the top. Two sparkling points of light were slowly working down either side.

“They’re outside!” The bodyguard growled.

Light cursed - this just got even more difficult.

“How do we open the door to get out?” He asked.

“By pressing this button.” The boss leaned forward and prodded a point on the dashboard. The door didn’t budge. He tapped it again a few more times, then swore.

“Those laser cutters must have severed the connection!”

“Oh, perfect!” Light warbled.

[EliteCommander]

It had not even been a minute and their great escape had already been ground to a halt. Just one complication after another, it seemed. Senjen leaned out of the truck just enough that he could get an angle to keep firing on the droids, and keep up the pressure to help the commander. He did not know how much he could help, but he could at least empty his magazine on them. His pistol did not have as much ammunition capacity as “standard” projectile weapons. Flesh would cavitate when struck at high speed, so weapons used against it could get away with tiny, plentiful projectiles. It was not ideal for anti-droid projectiles to be so small, though. His pistol used ammo with an armor-piercing shell surrounding a small explosive core meant to burst after penetrating a hard target. They had a better chance of damaging internal components, but a magazine could not hold near as many.

As soon as his weapon ran dry, Senjen ducked back inside to reload. He brought up Light’s perspective from the corner of his field-of-view to try to make sense of what was holding them up. Apparently the door was not responding to the controls, and there was probably no way to quickly fix that particular problem. “Does it have a manual release, or…” Senjen began to ask, though he hesitated as more ideas started to come to mind. “Is that door more sturdy than this truck? If not, maybe we can use that...and maybe we should all brace?”

[Cath]

The mess of covering fire slowed the droids approaching the dark star enough for Liu-Jien to reach up from behind cover and place her hand on its control panel while blind firing wildly with the other.

“Directional dark star rearmed. Please proceed to a safe distance.” The device began flashing again, faster and faster. The commander took her hand off to push off after the escaping trucks.

“Directional dark star disarmed.” It was as though she’d been punched in the stomach; a tear lifted out of her eye as the realisation hit her. Gulping as her main gun ran out of ammunition, Liu Jien let it drift out of her hand. She overrode the weapon’s counter to the final five seconds, drew her side arm and stood up while still holding the panel. She locked everything except her right arm solid and managed to get a few shots off before plasma fire battered her exosuit and burned her alive.

The droids rushed to pry her loose of the dark star but couldn’t budge her melted metal armour from the panel. The countdown reached zero and the floor began shifting, pulled into the underside of the pill-shaped object. The robots sprinted away from it towards the trucks except for one whose foot got stuck underneath. They struggled mightily but couldn’t free themselves, and they slowly slid underneath the object. A dusting of plaster fell from the pillars scattered around the garage.

-

“I guess we’ll find out!” Senjen replied before putting as much power into the thrusters as possible. The truck lurched forward, heading straight for the doors.

“Hang on!”

A plasma bolt struck the soldier on the other side of the hatch from Senjen, lighting them on fire. They yelled in terror and dropped their weapon and writhed around patting themselves as their flesh melted away. The other occupants either rushed to help or pushed themselves back against the walls to stop the fire from catching.

The other truck followed suit, though they may have been doing it to try and stop the pursuing droids from latching onto the sides. They were not successful, and the droids hopped aboard, making themselves an attractive target for shooters from the first truck.

[EliteCommander]

Seeing as the ride was about to get a whole lot rougher in short order, Senjen pulled the hatch shut for the moment, only to have to move on immediately to the next part of this crisis. He still had the extinguisher close at hand, and now he wasn’t the only one who needed it. As he recalled, not all types of extinguishers were entirely harmless to use on an organic, but there was no handheld extinguisher in use that would be more harmful than actually being on fire. As such, he did not hesitate to spray down the burning soldier.

Senjen locked one hand in a vice grip around the best handhold he could find, holstered his pistol, then took his other hand and pressed against the ceiling while his feet were pushing into the floor. Even moreso than the rest of the compartment’s inhabitants, he needed to make sure he did not go flying around uncontrollably. He would make for too heavy of a projectile for the rest of these soldiers.

In that moment of waiting for the truck to break through, Senjen did have just a brief time to think. What had gone wrong? They had covered the commander well enough from what he had been able to see. They must have if she had started to move to them, so why had she turned back? Why couldn’t it have just gone right for once? Why did more people have to die from all this?

[Cath]

Senjen might have noticed droids clambering along the second truck towards the cabin as he closed the hatch.

The fire extinguisher did the trick, putting out the worst of the fires on the screaming man. One of his comrades rushed in afterwards and sprayed him with biofoam. This served as a painkiller and protective covering. Another woman grabbed him and pulled him against the wall, lashing him hastily to a handhold.

The cash truck hit the garage door just as the laser cutters were nearly finished. Light closed his dim eyes and braced his suit for impact. There was a horrendous sound of metal on metal mingled with plasma fire, and everything jolted forward sharply then backwards.

The boss swore next to him, then Light opened his senses back up and saw through a cracked windscreen there was a droid clinging to the bonnet of the truck. Behind it, he saw they were scraping furiously against the deckplate, back down the pedestrian way they’d used to enter the club in the first place. He swerved to the left to avoid a row of sturdy-looking bollards, then right to avoid the row of buildings lining the street.

“Jesus fuck, they’re everywhere!” The bodyguard exclaimed.

“Punch it, go!” The boss shouted.

Light gunned the thrusters again and they whirred forward. The droid on their bumper whooshed passed the bodyguard-side door and loud scraping could be heard as it kept in touch with the side of the truck. There was a clank on the back as it grabbed a handhold, then a more delicate touch as it placed an explosive charge on the rear hatch.

“Lift off! What are you doing!?”

“I can’t! Its stuck in some kind of deck-hugging mode!” Light complained, before shrieking as another droid tried to punch through the armoured glass on his door side. It looked through at him, then retrieved an explosive charge of its own.

“Let me see!” The boss leaned over, feeling below the manual pilot’s column for a button or switch. His daughter was screaming in his other arm.

The rear end of the truck exploded as the first charge went off, jolting them all violently forward. The droid began promptly tearing the door off its hinges.

“Senjen, whats going on back there?!” Light warbled.

[EliteCommander]

Senjen did not have too much difficulty bracing. Even with the force of the truck crashing its way out of the garage, he could wedge himself in place quite nicely. However, that meant he could not be doing anything else but waiting for the truck to straighten out. Some of the other soldiers had to struggle to keep their wounded comrade stable through all the jostling, but none of the rest of them were hurt, at least. Still, the enemy was not going to give up for a moment. He could not stop, could not rest. At least not yet.

Once the truck was stable again, Senjen was already heading right back to the hatch. Initially, it was to help out the truck behind them, as he had saw some of the droids climb onto it. However, he had more immediate concerns when an explosion shook the whole truck and the hatch was ripped off of its hinges. Senjen was stood front-and-center, pistol raised, when he saw the quick flash of a metal hand at the edge of the hatch as something was thrown inside. With where he was positioned, there was immediately a loud clunk when the small object struck Senjen right in the face.

Senjen was capable of feeling pain, but mostly he was just startled. The impact canceled the object’s forward momentum, so it floated for just a moment in front of his gaze before he swatted it directly away from himself in a mild panic.

[Cath]

With the truck still swerving wildly from side to side, the grenade clanked against the edge of the door and spun around in a circle. With the door now open, in the background Senjen might have noticed the second truck crashing through the remains of the garage door and scraping against the deck just as they were. The whole building they’d just escaped from creaked and groaned as if under enormous pressure.

Without hesitation, the woman in the corner of the truck closest to it grabbed the grenade and threw it out the door. “Grenade out!” She called; a call that was echoed by the other able-bodied people in the compartment. It was scarcely out the door before it exploded, sending a plume of shrapnel in every direction including all over the droid clinging to the handrail just outside. Sparks flew from metal-on-metal contact, and arcs of electricity danced across a few deep rents in the droid’s armour.

It recovered quickly though, grabbing the menacing long sidearm from its thigh and releasing its disc-drone. The drone matched the truck’s speed and peeked into the compartment, sending crystal clear imagery to the droid as well as the droid’s handler. The droid wasted no time in sticking the pistol around the corner to open fire on the closest target.

-

“Get your fish food suit out of my way! I can’t see what I'm doing!” The boss yelled, kneading Light’s suit with his hand to make way to fiddle with buttons under the steering column.

“That's not how it works! Watch out!” Light enveloped the boss and his screaming child with the top part of his suit as the second explosive charge went off just on the other side of the driver’s door. To the truck manufacturer’s credit, the vehicle was tough. The door absorbed all of the impact. Unfortunately, it wasn’t built to withstand heavy ordnance. The hinges came loose, and the droid pulled it straight off.

Light slurped the stolen plasma rifle out of his suit on that side, pointed it through the open doorway and fired wildly on full auto. The droid ducked back out of the line of fire, so Light poked the gun out further, trying to shoot down the side of the truck. The droid caught the rifle in one hand and pulled, yanking Light half out of the cabin. He squealed and grabbed hold of anything his manipulars could find, including the steering wheel. The truck veered sharply off to the right, heading towards a row of buildings.

“Help!!”

[EliteCommander]

Fortunately and unfortunately, shrapnel bombs were not terribly effective against droids. Senjen could not duck around the corner from the hatch quickly enough to avoid catching some shrapnel, but at that distance, it did not do much more than scratch his frame. However, the droid outside, despite being closer to the blast, was also still perfectly-well intact.

Being that he was just around the corner from the hatch, Senjen was not directly visible to the drone. Perhaps the droid had not expected any of the occupants to be so close to the opening immediately after the detonation, but Senjen was close enough when he saw the sidearm reach around the corner to quickly grab a hold of it. Out of anyone in the truck, he was the one who could actually be capable of wrestling it away...hopefully. The strength of organics could be trained; it could grow or diminish, and exceptional circumstances could push them beyond their usual limits. A physical contest between them was not always decided by who was bigger and stronger. With machines, though, their contests were more straightforward. If one droid’s hardware was superior to the other’s, then it was more physically capable, and that was that. Senjen had no idea what the specifications on these droids were, and if they were stronger, he just had to hope that the leverage he had from this position would be the difference-maker.

[Cath]

All things being equal, the droid was able to do slightly more ‘work’ than the Utaysi base model. But things weren’t equal right now; Senjen had a solid floor to base his strength on. The droid was clinging to the outside of the cargo area by a handle. It tensed both legs against the wall to try to pull the gun back out of the gap, servos whining along its whole body.

All the while they struggled, it was firing the gun. Most of the wall on the opposite side of the hatch was painted with plasma, and two more people burst into flames. One of the last able bodied people grabbed Senjen’s fire extinguisher and used the last of it dousing the blue flames. The sound of panicked screaming and crackle of energy blended in with the whine of two machines battling for supremacy.

The droid considered going for a hail-mary and diving right into the cash compartment. But its primary objective wasn’t in there - it was in the driver’s cabin. After a few frantic seconds, it let go of the sidearm and savagely withdrew their arm. They clambered carefully up onto the roof of the cash compartment and headed for the front, holding onto whatever handholds it could find.

Senjen would be able to see behind their truck that the second vehicle was in grave danger. Two droids were setting charges on either cabin door. In the background, the armed flyer which had caused havoc firing through the restaurant had emerged from behind the building and was making its way over.

-

“Go out that way and shoot the fucker from up top!” The boss commanded his bodyguard, pointing to the other door to the driver’s cabin. The large bald man nodded seriously. Hefting the plasma repeater he’d taken from Senjen, he heaved the door open and stood on the seat to haul himself up on top. The boss placed his daughter down on the seat he’d just left and closed the door.

“Strap yourself in, sweetheart!” He turned away immediately to heave left on the steering wheel.

“Let go or we’re all going to die!”

The man’s voice, and seeing the great facades of buildings looming up ahead of them, Light finally let go of the steering column. With a hair-raising cry, he launched himself out of the cabin and enveloped the droid in his suit. The parts of it touching the outside of the vehicle adhered to the metal, trapping them together. Light felt the uncomfortable sensation of the droid’s body pressing up against him as they struggled wildly. He brought his tentacles and all of the gel to bear, managing to orient the plasma rifle against its thigh and pull the trigger. A sustained blast of energy tore straight through the metal as well as his gel, filling the air with a pungent odor of wet algae. Light howled in pain, for he was mentally attuned with the gel suit.

The boss hauled the wheel to the left but the truck didn’t have a great turning circle. The nose turned away from a shuttered metal shopfront to the reception area of an office building with huge plate glass windows at the front. Bright lights illuminated the sparse interior.

“Buckle up, everyone!” He shouted over comms.