Kris:

  Mari had become something more.

  Kris had to admit that certain aspects of that were sexy, but a lot of it was rather worrying. Mari had received monthly transfusions of clean blood and had the infection brought down by literally extracting it from her system. And she’d had that procedure just a week prior.

  Based on what she’d heard about the nano-machines that were fueled by the disease and could repurpose that energy into fabrication, the numbers just didn’t add up.

  Mari was taller, stronger, faster, and more precise all at once. It didn’t seem right that suddenly she had gone from feeble and uncoordinated to perfect health overnight, even if she burned all of the bioweapon in her system to fuel it. Which meant that either: Kris was wrong, and the efficiency of her affliction used for fabrication was incredibly high; or Mari had found a method to get more of the stuff.

  “Karin, Kris, let’s go.” Mari’s command was as natural and smooth as ever, and the tone immediately stirred her into action. It nearly seemed illogical, the things she felt she would do for her Mari.

  Her thoughts slowed down rapidly as she stepped out from behind cover to a sight. The two prone Sylphariens started to desanguinate right before her eyes as Mari walked towards the door and paused. The blood turned into a red haze in the air, and Mari frowned, looking at something that obviously wasn’t visible to anyone else.

  “Can’t save it for later. Karin, you’re one of their targets. Here.” Mari reached out her hand, more red mist rising from her palm to form an object into her waiting palm. “It’s improved over the original design. Or something.”

  Kris frowned at the uncertain words, but recognized the device that her mother took. The moment it was handed over, Karin reached to her own back and strapped it into place. Nearly identical to the style that Kris herself was wearing, was another inertial dampener. A device that could prevent projectiles from hitting a person.

  Mari didn’t elaborate, instead heading for the doors and lowering her body as she darted out of sight in the direction of the Citadel.

  “She is turning out to be quite the woman. Is she even the girl you chose anymore?”

  As they followed Mari, Kris pondered that question. “I think she is. She’s still willing to sacrifice her own well-being to help us. To protect me. She’s still the girl who would starve herself just to ensure her friends had enough. I could do with a little less self-sacrifice, though.”

  “So long as you are happy.”

  Then, they quieted down, nearing the waterfall and the front doors to the Citadel itself. The sound of gunfire had either died down, or had moved deeper inside enough that the noise didn’t reach them.

  Mari led the way, and Kris mentally reviewed the layout. Assuming that Anvien members of the staff had shifted the moldable walls to create some shelters, the solid corridors would require they enter, turn right, and take the first stairwell down into the first sublevel. Her lab would be on the fourth sublevel, where she knew Alynne had been overseeing the transfer of Mari’s old belongings.

  With some luck, that meant that Alynne would be protecting her research and be armed with a weapon she seemed entirely familiar with.

  Just as expected, they entered and made for the right. Kris averted her eyes from the bloodbath, but the smell hit her hard.

  “No affliction in the bodies. They hadn’t turned the afflicted creatures loose, then.” Mari’s concerned words only made Kris stiffen in fear. The infamous bioweapon of the ancient humans of their world was more than just myth after all the centuries that had passed. It was the stuff of nightmares made worse by the fact that it was all real.

  “How can you tell?” Her mother’s voice didn’t carry any doubt, but it was clearly something that had piqued her curiosity.

  “Extremely fine lenses over my eyes with a full combat HUD. The design of one of Marielle’s old friends. I set it to keep track of the bioweapon if I encountered it. Those Sylphariens earlier were also afflicted, but only at around one percent.”

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  Wait, what? Kris’ mind reeled. A highly contagious biological pathogen had been loosed into the school during the brief conflict barely a few minutes prior.

  Karin didn’t look at all surprised. “All Sylphariens have a specialized genome that prevents the spread of the infection they all carry. The dirty secret behind their immortality. The bioweapon is carefully controlled into maintaining their peak health.”

  “The strain doesn’t conflict with the seal placed on the planet?” Kris felt momentarily astonished at the revelation, though she had to contain herself as they made for the stairwell.

  “Correct. The seal only applies to the original variant. The original strain was meant to remain self-contained. It took hundreds of years for the first mutation, if that was not by design as well. Then, they spent a long time finding loopholes to use to their advantage.” Her mother’s tone shut Kris up. If she kept asking questions, she had a feeling she’d never stop having nightmares.

  The seal was the great punishment the elves of distant magocracies had placed on their planet after the bioweapon had decimated entire worlds. It applied a subtle compulsion on the natives of their world to coerce them into curing those infected and helping victims return to their lives.

  There hadn’t been an envoy of the elves recorded in hundreds of years, so the coercion had faded a lot, but apparently it still had reared its head enough to get the empire to ‘help’ Mari’s colony ship.

  They stopped as they heard a low snarl from just down the stairs. A moment later, the clear sound of an animal sniffing the air reached them. Kris froze in panic, hands shaking slightly. She had no real weapon, only the single use of her glove if she was desperate.

  Seconds passed as Mari stayed still, knees slightly bent and handgun pointed ahead at the entrance to the stairwell not even ten meters away.

  The first they saw of the creature was a long, bloody snout. Followed by canine features marred by patchy fur. Red eyes. Then the emaciated frame, blood dripping from the teeth and soaking the carpet.

  Mari held steady, but Kris refused to even breathe. The infection in the creature would likely wipe out the entire city.

  Then, the creature spotted them. Intelligent eyes regarded Mari first, padding forward as they stared each other down. Then, the dog turned towards Kris and her mother, bared its fangs, and leapt.

  The instant the creature was within five meters of Mari, the blood dried and seemed to evaporate on the spot. Mari’s handgun tracked the movement of the creature before roaring one single shot, turning the canine’s head into a mess of bone and… Kris stared.

  There was no blood. Not even a single drop of blood left the creature’s corpse.

  “It ignored you?” Karin seemed more surprised by that than by the fact they hadn’t been infected and doomed on the spot.

  Kris let out a shuddering breath. “Why did you let it get that close?”

  Mari kept her eyes focused on the hallway ahead. “Stay within five meters of me at all times. That’s the range of the nanites. Nobody can be infected within that radius of me. As for it ignoring me, they have to be able to sense the bioweapon somehow, otherwise they’d tear each other apart.”

  Kris watched, eyes wide, as Mari stepped forward and eyed the stairs. At the same time, more and more of the red mist gathered towards her palm. Then, casually, Mari flicked the cylinder out of her gun and replaced the spent rounds with new ones she had made on the spot. That was followed by a somewhat cylindrical object that housed another set of bullets. Something for making reloads easier, based on a quick glance.

  “Please don’t do that again. That was terrifying.” Kris shivered as she realized she was almost outside the five meter radius. She hurried to catch up.

  The moment she was within arm’s reach, Mari held something out to her.

  The moment Kris reached to take it, Mari snatched her wrist and pulled her forward. “I’m sorry. It was foolish of me to do that without considering you didn’t have a weapon.” Mari’s whispered words soothed the panic in Kris’ heart.

  As Mari let go, Kris looked in her hand to see a copy of Mari’s handgun in her palm alongside one of the loading mechanisms.

  “Remember what I showed you last night with the gun? Feet apart, stable and braced for the kick. I could only copy the design of my own on the fly, so the kick is going to be strong. Brace for it, and be careful where you point it.” The note of apology in Mari’s eyes and voice urged Kris to take a deep breath and aim the gun at the ground before freeing the cylinder and slotting the speed loader, then stowing the mechanism and flicking the cylinder into place.

  In truth, the single shot she had fired the night before had numbed her hands and hurt her ears enough to want something quieter. The Remera would work for the short term, but she would need something of her own sooner rather than later.

  With that thought, she pulled out her tablet from her bag and swiftly sent her experimental design to the fabricator in the lab.

  “What next?” Mari turned to the two of them.

  “The creatures being loose means a few things. For one, the intruders have reached their target, and it’s a defensible position that doesn’t risk the afflicted attacking them. For another, they reached it very fast, meaning they didn’t descend very far. What would be on the first or second sublevel?”

  Karin’s nod of approval revealed the accuracy of Kris’ assessment. “If I had to guess, they’re planning to lock themselves in the server room for the Imperial Database. There’s a slim chance that the Emperor managed to immortalize himself in digital form on those servers, so we’ve kept everything offline and disconnected. That’s a huge portion of sublevel two.”

  “Alright. Let’s stop them from reviving a horrible tyrant. And kill off the monsters, too.”

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