Gunfire ripped through the bay. I hit the floor hard, shoulder-first. Sparks flew. I rolled behind a rusted locker, breath tight, pain in my ribs sharp and rising.
Too easy getting in. No guards. No drones. No ICE signals. Just an unlocked door and silence. That was the first bad sign. Someone had waited.
Neural interface spiked, adrenaline dump triggered. Overlay flickered with static, half the HUD freezing mid-frame. Blood loss or cybernetic lag, hard to say. Everything was moving too fast to tell.
My leg screamed. I reached down, no blood. Just muscle wrecked by kinetic force. My leg servos lagged for half a second, then recalibrated. I shoved forward.
Rounds hammered the crates. Sparks flew. I ducked, moving before the next found me. One round ricocheted and clipped me. Hard hit, knocked the breath out of me. I grunted but didn't scream.
Whoever was shooting had the high ground and the upper hand. Clean angles. Tight fire. No wasted shots. Another burst. I tracked her pace by sound. My brain kept tally without asking. Hard to tell under the noise, but something in the way they moved—lean frame, tight footwork suggested speed over muscle. Could've been female.
No panic.
I grabbed a rusted utility cart with one hand and shoved it into the open floor, using it as a noisy, rolling cover. The wheels squealed. I kicked a toolbox toward the far side of the bay. It clattered loudly.
She took the bait. Three rounds cracked against metal, one skipped off and shattered the cryo-glass behind me. Nine, maybe ten. I didn't know how much she had left. I just knew I had to close the gap before she zeroed in again.
I moved with the noise, sliding left. My eyes caught a bent prybar jutting from the side of a half-toppled shelf. I snatched it. My sidearm was holstered, but I didn't trust it. Half a mag, maybe less. This would go up close.
My lungs were burning, but I kept pushing with the noise. That gave me a narrow window to move before she adjusted or reloaded.
A shot hit a pipe overhead, steam exploded in a hiss. Thick mist flooded the space. Vision scrambled. Good. I ducked under it and moved fast, boots skidding on wet tile.
My optics blurred, struggling to filter through the steam. Auto-calibration kicked in, too slow. I disabled the overlay and trusted muscle memory. The tiles underfoot were slick old oil, chemical residue, and the runoff of decades without maintenance. My boots slipped once. I corrected it without thinking.
A shape moved through. I crouched and slid beside a toppled supply rack, shoulder brushing rusted mesh. No cover here, just shadows and noise. Good enough.
I pulled the pry bar tighter in my grip. My cybernetic fingers buzzed faintly, haptics straining under stress. The system was too old for this, but it still held. A burst of heat pulsed past my face. Another round. Too close. Time to move.
I didn't know how many were left, but the heat was rising. The air reeked of metal and burn. Cover wouldn't hold much longer. She moved too, ghost-quick through the fog. Still I was faster. I caught her silhouette just long enough. She didn't see me coming.
Another crack echoed. I pushed off the wall, breath tight, closing fast. She pivoted, tried to fire, too late. One round caught my shoulder, spun me, but I powered through it.
A final burst. Then came the dry click. Chamber empty. That was my window. She ditched the SMG and reached for a holstered pistol. I didn't let her finish. I crashed into her full-body, driving us both against the nearest support beam. The steel groaned under the impact.
We slammed into each other. No finesse. Just raw force and desperation. I landed a punch to the jaw, then drove an elbow toward her head. She struck back with a knee to the ribs. It hurt, but I kept moving. She was fast, trained, and pissed. Still I'd been hit by worse, and I hit harder.
She tried to fire the pistol. I caught her wrist, twisted hard. Bone popped. She grunted, but didn't scream either. I hit her twice in the ribs with the pry bar. She stumbled, breath hitching, off balance. She responded with a headbutt, split my lip open. I tasted copper.
She rolled, trying to gain leverage. I kicked a stack of rusted tools into her path. Wrenches clattered. A pipe skittered across the floor. She slipped. I grabbed her by the collar and slammed her face into the side of the cryo-pod. Her mask struck the cryo-pod's corner and fractured, polymer shards dropping as the HUD panel inside blinked dead. A fine web of cracks split across her mask, the impact breaking it down the center.
She shoved me off, staggered. I circled her like a cornered animal. My chest heaved. My leg screamed. Blood ran down my side, but I stayed up. Then I lunged again, grabbed her mask, and tore it free. My body locked up. I knew that face.
It was Marlene. No doubt. Her hair was shorter. Skin pale. The same eyes. The same face I'd kissed goodnight a thousand times. The face I'd stared at in a coffin. I froze.
I choked out her name, stunned... "Marlene?"
She didn't blink. Didn't say a word.
I hesitated.
She drove her knee up into my thigh. Pain flared. My leg buckled. I dropped back a step. She hit the floor and rolled fast. Drew a sidearm from a thigh holster. The slide snapped back, then she fired. A burst cracked the air. I ducked behind the cryo rack as bullets chased metal and sparks into the dark. One caught the vest. I stayed low.
"Marlene, what...!"
Three more shots followed, tight grouping. Straight into my chest. One shot hit the vest, dead center. The others landed lower. My legs gave out. The world tilted. Light spun. I went down hard.I collapsed, spine to floor. The pain faded behind a wall of static. Nothing in my body wanted to move. I watched her silhouette stand over me, gun still raised but no final shot came. She just looked at me, turned without a word and walked away. Like none of it meant anything. She didn't look back.
Breathing got harder. My vision started breaking apart. The world dimmed between blinks. I tried to move. Nothing worked. All I could see was her walking away.
So this is how it ends...