Everything Hurts

[Fabula Caromed]

I awoke in darkness and silence. Every inch of my body was immobilized, though whether through paralysis or restraint I couldn't yet determine. The air around me was extremely hot, and the smell of mountain trees on the wind had been replaced by something...unnatural. Like burning rubber and stale meat. My body was numb, as though I had been asleep for days, possibly longer. The parts of it that weren't deadened were throbbing painfully.

Where was I? What had happened to me?

I tried to speak. All I heard was humming. For some reason, my jaw refused to move. My mouth was obstructed by something, making it impossible to speak clearly. Properly waking up, I was able to answer that earlier question; I couldn't move because I was restrained. Something held me down at my wrists and ankles, soft but firm, like leather and steel at once. No matter how I struggled and pulled, it refused to give...and when I did move, I could feel more of it tightening against my throat.

To say I was afraid would have been a tragic understatement. I was shaking, whimpering like a kicked animal. My nose wasn't obstructed, but I found myself having difficulties breathing. It might have been the temperature, but it was probably shock constricting my lungs. I thrashed in my restraints, trying as best I could to tear my way out. I had no idea if freedom was beyond the blackness that I could see, but I couldn't simply let myself lay down and die.

Unfortunately I got the attention of whoever was nearby, and they didn't very much like the idea of me moving about. There was a banging noise from above me, like hammers on metal. Voices in a language I had never heard. I stopped dead still for a moment, then screamed as best I could without a mouth and resumed my thrashing. Maybe they could help me get out of here. Maybe they had put me here. It didn't matter which, I had to do something.

My continued resistance was met with light and fire. All through my body, as if I was held in a cloud during Odiir's thunderstorms. My flesh scorched, my mind railed between fire and pain. For a few seconds, my world was full of agony and the wrath of the gods.

Then it was gone, and I couldn't help but sleep.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

The second time I awoke was in as much light as the first had been darkness. It was exactly as helpful when it came to me seeing, as my vision seemed to be clouded with the sun itself. Opening my eyes was far too painful, so I immediately returned to the sheltering sanctuary of self-imposed darkness. Unfortunately, that didn't save the rest of my body.

The moment I started moving, I heard voices again. Was it the same strange language, or a new one? It was hard for me to tell; I didn't speak it, after all. I thought to speak back to them, to ask what was happening or why, but once again my mouth refused to open. All that came out of my throat was a series of grunts, and I immediately stopped trying to communicate. I couldn't move; trying, once again, found my arms and legs and neck all held fast by the same material as before. Ironleather was fantastically frustrating by this point. I would have given anything short of what little faculty I had over the situation at hand for a little information on what I could do to stop this blasted hindrance from...well, hindering.

My eyes were acclimating, slightly. I fought to keep them open, despite the painful glare. What was happening around me? The room was white. There were dark figures looking over me. It was still hot. I had never experienced heat like this. It was hard to breathe, though once again I couldn't tell if it was because of the fear or the heat. The speaking intensified, and the dark shapes moved closer. I struggled away, but it really didn't help me much.

My world exploded in pain, and I couldn't scream. A long, agonized sound tried to escape from my mouth, labored though it was. "MMRRHHRHGH!!" Where was this coming from? One of the dark people had stabbed me with something. I felt liquid fire pouring into my blood, like my insides were melting. In the moment, I forgot all about the ironleather ruining my day and started thrashing to fight against this pain that I had no idea how to fight against. Screaming and pulling and tearing at whatever I could reach, I wanted to make something else hurt like I was hurting. Then maybe the hurting would stop.

Apparently it worked, though I didn't understand how. There was a crashing sound around me, and one of the dark shapes disappeared. My eyes acclimated enough to look around and notice that I was in a strange white room. There were towers full of knives and steel plates covered in cloths around me, and several people in white dresses, wearing masks. One of them had fallen over, and backed off from something behind me in a scrambling terror not unlike what I was experiencing.

The white-clothed people talked for several seconds, still in that language that I didn't know, indicating to me multiple times. I didn't care. I was in pain. My own body was hurting me, and I wanted it to STOP, DAMMIT! "MMPRHGHPH!!"

I...felt something. I had no idea what. It was like the air around me pushed back when I shouted at it. There was another crashing sound, and one of the towers fell over. I snapped my head over to see what had happened, and there was a hushed whisper amongst the people speaking the strange language for a moment. When the resumed speaking, it sounded like they had reached an agreement. I had no idea, of course, what that meant. All I knew is that soon, I was stabbed again, and within seconds I couldn't fight the sleep that suddenly attacked me as if it was the most natural thing ever.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Once again, I awoke in the white room. This time, there was a green light shining at the door, and my eyes were able to take inventory of the world around me with impunity. How long had I been out? I couldn't tell any more. None of this felt like natural sleep. My body was sluggish and in pain, and I couldn't understand anything. I wanted to go home, but that was probably not going to be happening. There was no one in the room, so...I had time.

I had time to make my peace.

I was probably going to die here, far away from home. I would never see my family again, and the pain would continue until my body failed me. Would I meet them in the world beyond? I didn't know. Couldn't know. All I knew is that these were among my final breaths. The thought terrified me, of course. I didn't want to die. No one wants to die. But...after a pain that I didn't have words to describe, and terror for days or possibly weeks, death seemed like a welcome reprieve. The embrace of the afterlife would liberate me of this suffering, this agony beyond contemplation. The quiet of nothingness would be my escape.

How long did I lay there, awake with nothing but my thoughts? I have no clue. It could have been hours, maybe a few minutes. Eventually there was a hiss, and the white wall on my left near the green torch moved. Three of the people in white dresses came in, and I started glaring at them. I knew screaming wouldn't have any effect, and I knew they were going to hurt me. All I could do to show them how I hated them for destroying my life was to attempt to kill them with my eyes. At least one of them, the man in the back with the dark hair, seemed quite affected by that. Was he the one who fell the first time?

The woman in front - dark skin, darker hair, I had never seen her equal - said something as she approached me. The other two didn't even wait a moment before moving towers and boxes around in the room to face away from me. Then, naturally, she stabbed me. Again. I knew what was happening, but knowing didn't protect me against it. Within seconds, the fire returned, only a hundred times more potent. Odiir's lightning itself was coursing through my veins, and I could do nothing but endure it.

And scream.

"MRHRHMHRPHRHMHRRH!!"

The screaming simply didn't stop. At some point I must have run out of air, because when I came to, the fire in my blood was still going on, but I couldn't breathe, and I felt as if I had been out for...just a few seconds. Unless the dressed people could teleport, however, that was unlikely. The only one left in the room was the- Oh gods. What was that thing?! Shorter than a person, but green, with immense, soulless black eyes. Its face like an inverted raindrop. Surely this demon had come to devour me whole.

It didn't touch me. All it did was observe, until pain and terror brought me back to sleep again. My very bones hurt, and I had run out of tears to cry sometime around the first injection. First injection? Had they done more? What had happened today? How long had I been here? Things were getting...blurry. What...

Darkness took me.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

When I awoke, my bones hurt. I could tell exactly what it was this time, rather than just vague references to my body or the blood in my veins. It was definitely my bones. They ached as if my whole being had a toothache, the constant pain both dull and obscene. When I opened my eyes, they were filled with white lights in response to my suffering. The room hadn't changed. My mouth, throat, arms, and legs were all still covered in ironleather. I couldn't move even the slightest bit, and right now I didn't want to. Too much pain.

There were people in the room. I didn't care. This was just one more trek through hell on my way to whatever awaited me when they finally let me die. What kind of burning, electric sensations were they going to force into my body today? How would the fates piss on my soul once more? I tried to glare, but I was simply too tired. Too scared, too tired...too resigned. I had almost become impatient by this point. I wished they would hurry up and kill me, rather than wasting my time with this aimless torture.

One of them approached with a rolling table full of knives and two small, clear stones. Glass? No, too opaque. I had no idea what they were, but since when was that new? The white-robed woman said something- wait! This was the one from before! I remembered her! How long ago had it been since I saw her? It felt like weeks...how long? She was the one who was hurting me the most. I wasn't surprised to see her here with more blades to cut me with.

And as soon as she stopped speaking, cut me she did. My stomach began bleeding immediately, and I had to look away to prevent myself from throwing up at the sight of my own body being sliced up like a roast beast. "HHNNRHRHRHAHHRHGHH!!" My screams remained deadened. Even I was getting tired of that sound...but really, that didn't matter. This was it. This was where I was going to die.

At some point, I felt something cool pressed against my everything. My belly was open, of course, which meant it was vulnerable. She was sticking one of those smooth stones inside of me. It was blissfully cool...and, after the excruciating experience of having my insides rearranged with all of the care of a blind bear, I noticed something surprisingly merciful. The heat of the room had started to dissipate. The cool rock inside my body seemed to be keeping me comfortably cool.

That was a nice thing to faint to. Because I did. Stomach cut open, things shoved into my body, and bones attempting to tear me apart from the inside, I had no recourse left but to pass out, and take blissful solace in the death that I knew I had finally found.

I wish I had been right.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

I awoke again, and the first thing I did was question why. I really had hoped that last one had killed me.

I couldn't claim my everything hurt. My everything had been hurting for...I'd lost track of how long I'd been here. It could have been month by now for all I knew. My bones still ached, but at least they weren't attempting to rebel against my existence. Now they were only an unbearable agony, not one that I failed to find the words to describe. Unfortunately, I didn't have the same luck with the mulch that had become of my abdomen.

I risked a look down at my stomach. The white tarp they had placed over my naked body days (weeks? Months?) ago was absent today, leaving me bare...and, considering how much of me they had cut up, likely barren, too. Black thread had been stitched into my stomach, likely to keep it from splitting open. The cooling stones in my body hadn't stopped doing what they had been doing, and for once I had woken up in a comfortably cool room. I half expected fresh snow to fall and land on my skin.

Gods did I miss home. The trees, the snow, the smell of cut wood, the sound of shouting warriors...it all seemed so far away now. I missed my family, but...I couldn't remember names. Or faces. I missed the weight of my old weapon, but I couldn't remember what that was. A knife? An axe? Something larger? When was the last time I used it? My memories seemed to be bleeding away just as fast as my actual blood was. That monster I had seen with the black eyes might have been eating them, for all I knew. Would I even remember my family when I met them in the afterlife?

The wall hissed and opened again, and I didn't bother turning to look this time. She was going to be there, she was going to hurt me, and then I would go back to sleep. One day, I wouldn't wake up again, and then I could really rest. Once again she stabbed me, and once again it hurt. I didn't even bother to keep track of it this time...but this time, the pain seemed to stop. In fact, I didn't really feel anything at the moment....other than sleepy.

I really needed to sleep.

Sleep time was now.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

>>unit online
>>commence startup diagnostic

My eyes sparked to life. They had been flesh before, but now they were more than that. It hurt. I could see everything, in so many colors. So many things I couldn't see before. Heat. Light. Every color of the spectrum. Everything I looked at was surrounded with a halo of data as my mind translated what I knew about it and the lump I felt in the back of my head included things I didn't know. It hurt.

The room was in before. I knew a word for it now. "Laboratory." I was on an operation table, strapped down to prevent myself from hurting anyone involved in my surgery. My mouth had been covered in a muzzle, as I lacked the language proficiency to communicate with the surgeons before now. My body was being cooled by my internal temperature regulators. My augmented skeleton ached as the duraplast compound bonded with the calcium of my bones. I was stronger than I had been. More resilient.

There was a message in my brain. It hurt.

>>Good morning, Cherek-01-1812-1520-2005. How are you operating today?

I could respond without having to open my mouth. All I had to do was think, and the wet computer in my skull would translate those thoughts into text to send back to whoever had addressed me. It would hurt.

>>This unit is experiencing pain.

There was a pause. 1736 microseconds between my response and the return message. Every microsecond hurt, as did the reply when it popped up as holographic text "in front of" my eyes.

>>That's perfectly natural. Perform and report a diagnostic on your technical and biological components. Respond with your subcutaneous comlink.

The diagnostic took 2946 microseconds. I realized shortly after doing that that I really didn't need to time every single action unless directed to. It was inefficient, and also it might drive me insane. And it hurt. As I ran through every function of my body, switching through all visual modes for my eyes, attempting to access various local networks with my wet computer, and flexing my arms against the restraints to check my skeletal integrity, I noticed that I couldn't see any of the doctors who had been working on me anywhere around.

They were afraid. They should have been.

*BZZT*

"This unit's visual modes are all functioning at specifications. Bio-computer local functions are also at specifications. Cannot test wireless uplink ability, as this function is currently disabled. Temperature regulators are functioning at projected levels. Skeletal reinforcement is still settling. Estimated completion one-hundred-thirty-nine galactic standard hours. Biologically, this unit is experiencing pain." I rambled off the list exactly as instructed, to the comlink speaker installed in my throat.

It didn't take long for them to respond, audio crackling into the receiver installed in my inner ear. "Very good. Everything seems working. You'll be shutting down now. We'll wake you up when your bone mixture has set properly. Good night, Cherek-01."

I slept. I dreamed of vengeance.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

>>unit online
>>commence startup diagnostic

My eyes took a few moments to focus. Even a full software grade ahead of the military standard, my wet computer still needed a boot sequence. Eventually the fuzzy blur at the corner of my vision cleared as I began rendering in full resolution. Colors came into view, and my data halos began crawling across everything I looked at. Room, laboratory. Location, classified. Local time, 900 hours. I tried to move my hands, but once again they were strapped down.

These straps wouldn't hold me, if I didn't want them to.

*BZZT*

As my conditioner faded, I noticed my wet computer had a message waiting. It hurt.

>>Good morning, Cherek-01-1812-1520-2005. How are you operating today?

Sending a response, now that I had done it once before, was almost reflexive. I didn't have to exert real effort. Just thinking sent a silent text reply at the speed of thought and data streaming. It did hurt, though.

>>This unit is experiencing pain.

Maybe one day they'd care. It probably wasn't going to be today, though. It was no matter. Soon, I'd be free, and I'd kill every single one of them. These stupid white walls would be awash with their blood, and I could finally die. The...smell of trees waited for me? At least, I thought it did. It was all...blurry now.

>>The pain will fade. Perform and report a diagnostic on your technical and biological components. Respond with your subcutaneous comlink.

I moved my arms, then my legs. My head. My eyes scanned around me, switching between vision modes. My wet computer attempted to uplink with the local wireless holonet. Naturally, it still hadn't worked. Naturally, there were still no scientists in here. Still scared. They had every reason to be. I was going to kill them. All of them.

*BZZT*

"All visual modes functioning according to specifications. Skeletal integrity is within projected minimums. Bio-computer local functions still operational. Wireless uplink still disabled. Temperature regulators still functioning adequately. Biologically, this unit feels muscle atrophy. Can I go for a walk?" The first time I'd used a proper noun since...sometime. It was fuzzy. Time was fuzzy, and any time before I first looked upon the world with my new eyes even moreso.

There was an exceptionally long pause, but eventually I got my response. "Well, I don't see the harm in that." The door hissed open, and two armed guards stood outside. 190cm, 176 cm. Both held military-grade heavy blaster rifles. Other visible weapons: combat knife, fragmentation grenade, sidearm blaster pistol. Plastoid ballistic armor. Rank designations: absent. Paramilitary force. My eyes filled with data about each and every individual aspect of the men in front of me, but none of that was going to help me right now. All I could do was observe, catalog, wait...

My restraints lifted. Both of the guards leveled their weapons at me. "Just a precaution. For your safety as much as ours," said the voice on the comlink. I nodded in understanding. Of course they needed to remain safe. I could kill them all with a thought, with my bare hands, with any weapon in this building...

*BZZT*

My walk was uneventful. My hands were placed in binders as I exited the room, of course, and I didn't fight it. If the wanted to give me another weapon, that was their prerogative. I didn't speak to my handler, and my handler didn't speak to me. The guards shared a few hushed words, decrying me as "the weird chick," and warning each other that I could hear them. Eventually, though, I had walked through enough of the facility to note that there were at least two or three dozen other inmates not at all unlike myself. Two guards wouldn't be enough to contain all of them when the shit hit the fan.

Each step I took hurt. My skeleton was too heavy for my body, and constantly bruised my legs as I moved. Each barefoot step made a quiet clanking noise. At one point that noise was drowned out by a familiar scream. Muffled by what could be assumed to be a muzzle. The sound brought back memories of the smell of trees, the feel of snow on her skin...

*BZZT*

We came back to my room, and I moved into position to be re-restrained to my bed. Had to make sure they felt safe. "Well, that was a nice walk, wasn't it, Cherek-01?"

I didn't bother to nod. "Confirmed. This unit's muscle density has been supplemented with physical activity. I'd like to go on another walk tomorrow." She'd probably be given more strenuous physical activities eventually. Until then, she needed to keep her legs from degenerating any more than they already had.

"We'll see," the voice in her ear said. "You'll be shutting down now. Good night, Cherek-01."

I slept. I dreamed of escape.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

>>unit online
>>commence startup diagnostic

How long had I been asleep? I had no record of the date when I was last awake. Or at all, come to think of it. I couldn't remember how long I had been here, how long they had kept me under...or if there were gaps in my memory where I was awake without realizing it. The latter option, which sounded preposterous to start, seemed increasingly more likely when I looked down at my body. The stitches over my abdomen had been removed, healed away to nothing but scars. My arms and legs were more heavily muscled, as if I'd been undergoing a PT regimen.

Also I was wearing clothes. When did they give me clothes?

>>Good morning, Cherek-01-1812-1520-2005. How are you operating today?

That message hurt, but that certainly wasn't the first thing on my mind. I flexed my wrists in their restr- They had removed my restraints. My wrists didn't have the sore patches that happened when I had been restrained for weeks. How long was I asleep?

>>This unit has a memory error. When were my stitches taken out?

There was a pause, as normal. This one was much longer than usual, and it would have been silly to think I didn't notice. In the silence of the room, I couldn't register the movement of skittish guards by the door, but I figured that was exactly what was going to happen. I had asked a question, and I had used a first-person pronoun. That was when they started getting cautious before...

>>We removed them last night. You healed over nicely.

That response took almost 9000 microseconds. They hadn't expected me to be self-aware again. The guards would be brought in, I would be sedated, and...whatever they had done to me would happen again. After my life had been stripped away and a new one clumsily forced onto me, this had been all I had known, but even that was enough for me to fight. They weren't going to take it away from me again. I waited for the shock from my conditioner, but...it didn't come. Had they removed that, too?

The door hissed open, and two men with rifles walked in, blasters leveled at me. I sat up in bed and rubbed my head, acting as confused as I was and as pained as I was. They were followed by someone I barely remembered from a distant past that had been taken from me. But I remembered her. Oh did I remember her.

The woman in the white dress.

I had to look away to prevent myself from glaring deadly intent at her. She couldn't know what I was about to do, because one of us wasn't leaving this room alive. Whether she sensed my hostility, was acting on logic, or simply had some primal prey reflex to my barely-contained hunger for revenge was difficult to determine, but the end result was the same. She attempted to stay as far back as possible, behind the burly men with the guns.

"Alright, Cherek-01. There seems to be a problem with your wet computer," she started. That voice...that was the voice I had heard on my comlink. She had been the one talking to me the whole time, the one hurting my body and training my mind. I had to close my eyes to keep from glaring daggers at her. She continued. "We'll need to crack you open and run some physical maintenance. It won't take long." In her hands was a hypodermic needle...the kind she stabbed a confused little girl with so long ago.

My eyes snapped up, and one hand followed them. Acting entirely on instinct, I reached out to touch the air, and the air reacted. One of the guard's guns turned on the other...a little too hard, actually. I had reflexively attempted to turn it to one side and shoot the other guard, as if that would do something. Instead, the amount of power behind whatever I did was...too much. The gun exploded in his hands, and the other guard was as confused as he was taken aback.

I wasted no time, lurching out of the bed to collide with the other armed man. My bones were tougher than his armor. I crushed my forearm against his throat, my other arm shooting down to deal with his gun in a practiced movement that I had never practiced. What had they done to my head?! This was too natural. I had no idea what I was doing. I simply did it. As easily as standing up from the bed, his rifle was mine, and I already had it pointed at the woman cowering in fear in the corner.

Fear?

Oh, she would feel fear before I was done with her.

She was saying something, some kind of orders. I ignored them. Instead, I applied pressure to the guard's throat until I heard a crack. When I removed my arm, he dropped limply to the ground. My bare feet clicked on the ground, the duraplast in my bones cracking against the bulkhead as I made my way over to a woman who I should have killed long ago.

I lifted her from her cowering position on the ground with one hand, shoved her against a wall until I heard the clang of metal against her bones. "You took me," I growled. Revenge was upon me. It tasted so sweet. "You hurt me. Tore apart my body. You put a computer in my brain." I leveled the blaster to her face. "I could take it. It hurt, but I was patient. But then...taking my memory wasn't enough for you. You had to do it again, and I have lost my patience." When I looked at her, I could see fluctuation in my eyes. Static. Apparently heightened emotion messed with my filters. It didn't matter. I'd be dead soon, and she would be dead sooner.

I fired the blaster, and the doctor's head became a scorched patch on the wall.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Now that the door was open, I could hear them panicking outside. Alarm klaxons, shouts from the guards...they would contain me, and probably deactivate me. Or, more likely, simply "memory wipe" me again if I was caught. Like a droid. Any fate was better than that. I would make sure they had to kill me this time. None of that reeducation crap. I was done being their toy.

Stepping away from the burned corpses of two of my captors and the lifeless body of a third, shouldered the rifle I had confiscated and somehow knew how the proper posture to use. I paused at the door, checked both ways, and leveled my firearm in the direction of the most imminent danger. [SG-WD-01 Incapacitator] I...had no way of knowing that. The only way that name could be floating over that gun was if...

I immediately took a moment and checked my wet computer. Wireless functionality was online. Oh, this was rich. Taking cover behind the door to my cell, I focused my cyber-mind into the network, exploring the world around me for the first time. An ocean of binary, electronic avenues and digital cities rose into my thoughts, translated into holographic displays before my eyes to make it more compatible for a human brain. Ty'rel Holdings, Neuro-Saav facility, Hypori. My altitude was impossible to determine, since it wasn't kept on file.

>>search:ty'rel holdings
>>search:neuro-saav
>>search:hypori

Information. Knowledge. I knew what was happening now. I was a project of this Neuro-Saav installation's biotech wing. The security forces on staff were...unlisted. Their demeanor and orders were also unlisted. I couldn't be sure if they would shoot to kill, or to contain. How much had they spent on me so far? They probably wanted me alive

But then...for the first time in as long as my shaky memory could recall, I wanted me alive, too. I was awake now. More awake than I had ever been. I could see things, know things. My body was healthy and strong, and even though this building was boiling hot, my skin was cool. This was amazing. I might have been machine as much as flesh, but I felt more real than I ever had before! There was no way I was going to let them take me now, but I didn't want to die.

That only left one option.

>>search:neuro-saav hypori schematic

There. There were two exits I could reach without security clearance. A fire exit, of all things, was on this level. All I had to do was get to it. Unfortunately, they weren't going to make that easy for me. I checked my blaster's battery for a moment, then scanned the hallway again. Four men, moving up the corridor on my right. Two on my left. Unequal teams? Sloppy.

The guards carried frag grenades, right? I reached back to the corpses inside the room and pulled out both grenades, priming them for four seconds each and letting them fly, one after another. Four seconds was enough time for them to get into the air over the security team on either side of me. The one nearing the pack of four detonated in the air. My left arm was weaker. I was right-handed. [note saved]

In the aftermath of a grenade going off above them, the security team on my right was addled. The one on my left was disassembled. I bolted left, down the hallway, at full speed. They weren't going to hold me now.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

They weren't planning on making this easy for me. I hadn't expect anything less. Halfway down the corridor I had begun my exodus from, I noticed most of a squad of security personnel. Three on the right, two on the left. [No cover nearby. Obstruct offensive capability.] My wet computer couldn't do much without codes, and I'd need time in order to hack those codes. However, something like turning off the lights? That was easy.

>>general_controls:lights_off

The area around me plunged into darkness, but my eyes adapted almost immediately. Ultraviolet cameras, as infrared and thermal imaging would be counterproductive with so many plasma weapons around. The light purple outlines of the men ahead of me came into view, and I quickly took a few shots at where it would hurt. One bolt caught a man under the arm. Another in the eye. A third in the throat. Two on the right, none on the left. Free game to-

They had low-light. Incoming fire. My body moved before my eyes even registered the bolts. Instinct? No, this was something more powerful than that. More primal. I had felt it earlier, when I had blown a guard's gun in his hands. This force, this ur-instinct, had me moving before my mind even registered the light of the blaster bolts. Just as quickly, I had fired another few shots in their direction. Two more bodies on the floor. Ten so far. Hopefully I wouldn't run into any more.

As I passed the newly dead guards, I swapped my used rifle out for one of their relatively fresh ones and picked up another grenade. Never knew when it might come in handy. The fire escape wasn't far now, and then I'd be home free. In a sense of the word "home" and in a sense of the word "free." Whatever I wanted, I needed to get to the fire escape first.

No more resistance on the way. Had I managed to outrun them? Whatever. The "fire escape" in question was a durasteel hatch put in with an emergency trigger. Taking a moment to set my grenade for motion sensor, I placed it several feet away from the doorway, then cracked the seal to heaven itself.

Light. Smells. Sounds. Too much information. My eyes hurt more than usual. Switch off of ultraviolet. Hypori stretched out before me...in the form of a bleak alleyway, barely lit and smelling of waste. The door hissed shut behind me, and I took a moment to sprint for it rather than worrying about security cameras. Wherever I had been didn't exactly have the best of security, all things considered. Half a dozen guards visible from my position at the door, lots of large repulsorcraft and freight just sitting around to cast long shadows. But then, they probably hadn't been expecting one of their lobotomized flesh droids to get past the legions of guards they kept inside. I couldn't fault them - who knew how long it had taken me to get out?

I dove for one, and attempted to vanish into the bleak darkness of the world I'd been thrust into.