Walking the area, I keep my eyes moving along the perimeter. Sythius hikes up and into the ship first.
“Don’t move.” The words are so quiet I almost don’t hear them.
Sefina freezes on the ramp.
Alarm rips through me. I duck into the shadows of the ship’s ailerons and slink around the ramp. The two CSP soldiers stand back to back, one with a gun on her, the other guarding him.
Joey, Leah’s half-brother, takes an item from her hands. “I’ll take that, thank you. Sorry, I couldn’t spare you. Tell my sister hello when you get to Hell.”
He’s going to shoot her. I feel it in every synthetic fiber of my body. I charge at them and throw everything I have into pushing them away. Sefina hunkers down as I crash into the men. I transfer so much momentum to them that I feel Joey’s ribs crack. He drops the item as he and Lenarro fly across the yard and smash into a spread of tables littered with parts.
I land hard, get up, and fire at them as Lenarro peels Joey up and bounds out of the outpost with the strength of a Titan.
Fracture bends over to pick up the part Joey dropped when his shoulder begins to fragment. “Menace?”
He looks down at himself in terror. “He’s here. He’s still here!”
“Who?”
“Quris!”
I look around him and see a naked synth man that looks exactly like Quris standing in the yard, holding a pair of radiant bars that thread green strands of light around Fracture, slowly disintegrating him and drawing his pieces into the field.
I drop my knife and grab Fracture’s arm. “Sefina, go!”
She tosses the parts down and lifts her rifle. “Fuck that!”
“Don’t bother!”
But she shoots at him anyway. Every flaming bullet absorbs into his shield.
Fracture writhes like he’s in pain. Quris is siphoning Fracture’s fragments. I’m holding him together.
“You’re going to tear me apart!” he cries.
I holster my gun and draw the only weapon I know can pierce Solcrue shields.
Fracture’s feet slide in the dirt, half of his body now hovering in shattered pieces. “Let me go.”
“I’m not losing another Brother. Get down.”
Fracture slumps to his knees. I let go and watch his arm instantly fragment. I turn and run toward Quris. Sefina shouts at me, but I can’t afford to stop.
I flick the zembi open and ignite the blade as I bound through a cloud of Fracture’s pieces toward Quris. Drawing the blade up, I steady it in two hands and launch myself for his shield.
He grins like he expected as much. I hope I haven’t made another mistake. But I’m committed. I can’t change course mid-air, not like Thruster.
The world pulses and warps around me as I enter the phase-shifting controllers Creators used on all of us to help us discover what made us unique. My teeth elongate. My skin thickens into armorderm, and a deep lust for blood fills me.
My momentum slams into the shield, but the zembi slips through with ease, piercing Quris’ chest. His shield drops. He looks down at the glowing blade and laughs. “You can’t kill me. I’m immortal.”
“I killed you with a coilgun!” Sefina shouts, firing off a shot that tears through his shoulder. “And a bomb!”
Quris’ grin sickens me. “Do you really think Creators ever truly die? How do you think we got this good at building you?”
I draw the blade up and zigzag it through his insides. Quris chokes and collapses. As he falls, another Quris charges out of the room where I saw the blue light.
“Why don’t you stop?” Quris roars, firing wildly at me. His body isn’t quite as stable as the last, and he staggers in my direction like he’s a drunk hotskin fresh off the line.
