I strode back into the room, carrying two doses of sedative for the old couple.

For something so mundane, creating the syringes proved to be quite difficult. I tried to find some, but as it turns out, most people don't own syringes, so I was forced to get creative. I took a few pens and fashioned some makeshift syringes out of them with the help of some plastic, glue, and a knife. The result was… well, it was horrible, but it got the job done.

After upgrading a tray of sleeping pills to be more potent, I integrated a bit of biogel before converting it to a liquid, and sucking it up with my syringes. Another charge reformatted the syringes to contain safe doses and overall improved the quality of the base components, making it medically safer. I didn't want Seraphim's grandparents to suffer because of any incompetence on my part.

Thankfully, my power seemed to recognize what I was going for.

[Charges: 13/30]

Overall, it took no longer than a couple of minutes, but I was able to create a way to ease their suffering and keep them stable enough until help could arrive.

I returned to the room to see Richard still bound and gagged to the chair. He couldn't even turn his head to register my re-entrance. Anomaly's gaze followed me, and he seemed curious. We came here with the intention to dispose of Richard—to kill him, but since he was alone, we had other options.

He could wait for the moment. I needed to relieve these people of their suffering first.

"I know you can hear me, and I'm sorry this happened to you. We could have made this guy disappear weeks ago. There's nothing I can really say except that we were fixated on trying to bring down Grim and didn't know how dangerous he was," I sighed. "But that's just an excuse; at the end of the day, we let this bastard slip through our fingers."

It could've been so easy. Alice and I knew something was wrong with him and chose to investigate it later. Now, these two and Seraphim were paying for it.

I prepped the grandmother's arm and slowly slipped the needle into her vein.

"He's hurt a very good friend of mine, so I'm going to try to find a way to reverse this. If I figure it out, I'll be able to help your granddaughter, and hopefully you two as well. If…" I paused for a moment, my heart feeling heavy. "If you don't make it, I will still try to help her. I can't make any promises, but I—" I stopped myself and thought of Alice and the way she sobbed in my arms. "No. I promise I will try, that I'll do everything in my power to fix all the damage he's done. I can do that much."

Once I'd finished up on both, I saw a lone tear trail down the grandmother's cheek.

I gently closed their eyes before monitoring their heartrates as they drifted off to sleep. With that problem solved, I shifted my attention back to their torturer.

"I would say I've got good news for you, Richard, but I think you'll come to realize that it isn't," I said, walking up and leaning in close to him. "We're not going to kill you. I've thought of a way you can help us out, only… you're not going to like it. Killing you… I can't say I'm not tempted." I pulled out my sniper rifle and loaded a tranquilizer round. "Though you're probably going to wish I did."

He struggled, screaming and hollering against Anomaly's appendage as I shouldered the rifle and minimized the force output. I aimed center mass and fired.

Slowly, Richard's struggling lessened, and his eyes fluttered shut. Before long, he slackened completely in Anomaly's grip. I motioned for Anomaly to release him, and slowly, his tendrils retracted. The moment he was whole, he reverted to his human form.

"What're you doing?" Anomaly demanded. "I thought you were going to put a hole in his head. That's what this was all about, isn't it? We can't just—"

I cut him off by holding up a hand.

I motioned for him to calm down, and he scowled at me. He took a few breaths as I holstered my sniper.

"I have no intention of leaving him here. We're taking him back to my workshop, and from there he's going straight into Splicer's tank," I explained. "He's never going to cooperate with us, and even if he did, we can't risk him turning on us. He'd only need a couple words to screw us all." I turned to Anomaly to see a conflicted look on his face. "I know you and Vigil don't like it, I don't either, but it's the only chance we have to help Alice and Seraphim."

I know Vigil and Anomaly hated that I had Splicer's tech, but they understood its necessity. I was thankful that they were able to put their dislike aside and trusted me with it; I just need to be careful I didn't take advantage of that trust.

"Look… I trust you, dude, but I gotta know what you plan on doing. I'm all for helping Alice and–and figuring out whatever the fuck Gaea did to you, but I'm drawing the line at the kinda shit we saw in the Bunker." Anomaly said, "I won't be a part of anything like that. I need you to promise that it starts and ends with this shithead." He turned and stared at Richard's unconscious form. "Honestly, I'd feel better if we just killed the guy."

"We kill him and there's no hope for any of his victims," I pointed at Seraphim's grandparents. "Believe me, I get the concern, but I'm not going to turn into Grim or Splicer. If I go too far, I have people like you to slap some sense into me. Seriously, I go too far, let me know, and I'll pull the plug."

It wasn't that I needed reminding. I knew what lines should and shouldn't be crossed. Human experimentation sickened me, but keeping Richard alive really was our only chance to help Sam and Seraphim.

"That feels good to hear, and trust me, I'm not trying to argue with you here," Anomaly shrugged. "I'm just saying what's on my mind. With Cyberspace being who they are and all that, I just don't want to see you going that route. I like what we got going on, man. Our group? It's good. It's the first time I felt like I was doing something that actually matters, but… I can't be part of this if we start doing the same shit that Grim was doing."

"Don't be sorry. Like I said, I'm only bringing him back because our only chance to undo the damage he's caused is with his power. Unfortunately, that requires him having a pulse," I muttered softly. "If you want, we can continue this conversation later. Right now, we need to get out of here. Vigil said Pandora is getting closer, and we're running out of time. The next set of Walkers will be through here in about four minutes. We need to be gone by then."

"Yeah-yeah, I know. I just needed to get that off my chest. When I heard you talking to Vigil in the kitchen, I knew what you were thinking. I…" Anomaly shook his head. "I don't want to see you do that shit. You're like, the best friend I've had in a long time, and I don't think it would be good for you to put yourself through that."

Stunned, I looked over my shoulder. I didn't know what to say.

"I won't," I reassured him. "If it makes you feel any better, I was planning on using Splicer's tech on myself before anyone else. I was going to ask Alice or Francis to supervise, maybe both," I turned away from him and heaved a sigh. "I was never going to ask or force anyone to undergo that. If I want to figure this shit out, I'm going to have to be the one to take the risk."

"You were going to experiment on yourself?" Anomaly's jaw almost hit the floor. "Did Grim rot your brain? You saw what that shit did to Vigil!"

"It gave her powers," I added. "If that kind of tech can potentially give powers, what do you think it can do for people like us? Gaea managed to do what she did because she saw Vigil. If I can replicate that safely, I can break down the restrictions on my powers that are holding me back. All of our powers even."

"Safely," Anomaly repeated. "Really important word there, dude. This is Splicer's tech. How do you know you're even going to be able to work it without him helping out? It's his power you're trying to copy. I'm pretty sure there's an instinctual understanding thing going on. Y'know, like how you use your power and you can figure out things work really quickly. How I can change back and forth easily and—"

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"Look I know it won't be easy, but nothing worth doing is."

"Shit…" Anomaly sighed. "Well, if that's what you're trying to do, I guess I can help. Put me in the tank instead. I survived Grim, I think I can survive pretty much anything at this point."

"I would rather not put you in the tank if I can help it," I countered, giving him a flat stare. "I'm grateful, really, but I don't think that's necessary. This waste of oxygen is a good enough test subject," I said, gesturing to the unconscious psychopath. "No one will miss him, and I'll be able to see if I can unravel his power the way Gaea unraveled mine."

"What if you can't?"

Anomaly's question opened up a pit in my gut. I couldn't do anything but push it to the side. I figured out every other piece of Mechatech I studied. Why not this one?

"Then we're no worse off than if we had just killed him now," I said. "For now, I don't believe it'll be a problem."

Anomaly sighed and rolled his shoulders.

"Alright then, let's do this. You want me to carry him back?"

"Yeah. We'll move these two outside as well so they can be picked up by Sweepers. That way, they'll get some help. I doubt they'll be able to reverse Richard's power, but…" I trailed off, my gaze turning soft as I stared at the two unconcious elders. "They'll survive until we can help them."

"I can help you take them out. I can hold more than two people." Anomaly said, transforming back.

His body shuddered as an appendage slithered around Richard and hoisted him into the air. The appendage snaked around him multiple times to ensure he wouldn't slip out.

Together, we left the house and deposited the two safely on the sidewalk. Any moment now, the Sweepers would glide into the street and spot these two outside. It gave me some peace of mind that they wouldn't decay and die in their homes like Richard expected.

I activated my camouflage and began moving.

"Same route back. No detours. Keep close."

Anomaly leapt ahead of me, crossing the street in one motion. With Richard coiled up in one appendage, he blended into the darkness, effectively rendering himself invisible. I crossed at a brisk pace just in time to hear the buzzing of Sweepers entering the street. I lingered, watching just long enough for them to identify the elderly couple. It wasn't long before a Walker came and collected them, depositing their frail bodies into a compartment that opened up beneath it.

That's one job done. Now to see what was going on the other front.

I only received three feeds from my drones monitoring the Pandora hunting squad. The fourth was offline.

They destroyed it?

All my drones were camouflaged, so they must have had a way of detecting them.

Anomaly and I pressed on, going back the way we came, for the most part. I spotted Vigil's statues forming a safe perimeter around us again, and a few minutes into our trip, she appeared before us in the backyard of a house.

"Pandora's closing in. Same group. I'm doing my best, but they're still tracking us." Vigil's frustration bled through her tone. "It's like they've got eyes in the back of their heads. They've got this weird sphere around them, and they're moving as a pack." She looked up into the sky and crossed her arms. "I think it's one of the fliers doing it, but if that's the case, then I can't do much about that."

I rewound the feed from the fourth drone to the moment before it went offline. I saw what Vigil described, a blurry sphere moving discreetly through streets and backyards. I saw no noise or anything of the sort before they went offline.

I cross referenced what happened with the other drones and saw very little. Something invisible tore it apart before it had a chance to evade.

"I lost one," I said. Vigil almost jumped out of her skin and snapped toward me. My camouflage module worked wonders at night. "I'm pulling my drones back a bit. I'm not sure what gave me away. I don't want to lose another one if I can help it."

"Why not just attack them and draw the Walkers toward them?" Anomaly asked.

I went to reply, but Vigil beat me to it.

"They're too close. We start a ruckus now and we'll be caught in the crossfire," Vigil said. "That said, we need to move quicker."

"If we speed up, we risk screwing up and running into the war machines. Not ideal," I said, frowning. "Standing around here isn't going to help, I'll think of something on the way!"

Anomaly surged forward again, and I broke into a jog. My advanced movement systems propelled me over fences and walls with bursts of compressed air. We tore through the suburbs, making a beeline for the industrial area of the city. Once there, we could use the buildings as cover to circle back toward Groves Den.

The problem was getting there before Pandora caught up.

Anomaly and I were fast, but apparently, they were catching up. Neither of us were going to be able to outrun fliers, but they had their own issues to worry about. They had to deal with the war machines as well. The only question was how they were accurately tracking us.

Did they have a Mentalist who could predict movement?

I wasn't Alice, I couldn't clue into this sort of thing quick enough. Not in high-pressure situations like this. I simply didn't have the intuition to think like that. I didn't know how they were tracking us, just that they were. All I could do right now was react to the situation, so what could be done? Cyberspace wasn't going to be much help with coded messages because the scrambler was needed to operate in secrecy.

"They're getting closer!" Vigil appeared again, popping out from behind a building. "Hundred meters and closing. Upgrade, we need to hide!"

I needed to make a decision.

Who exactly are you tracking? One of us, or all of us?

I quickly directed my attention to my visor to analyze where the closest Walkers were, and redirected two of my drones off the ones that patrolled further away. The other two I left alone. There were still two more Walkers close to our position.

That left me with five to help set this trap.

"Vigil, scatter your statues, and wait for my signal. Anomaly, go inside that building over there and wait for my word," I gestured to a corner store across the street. "Get Richard inside and don't make a sound. I'm splitting off to that building over there," I gestured to a two-story building that had a barber shop underneath it. "We need to know who they're tracking. Go now!"

No one hesitated.

Vigil shifted, turning into a statue while Anomaly blitzed toward the shop. He used his power to unlock the door before slipping inside. I did him a favor and disabled the motion sensor he tripped by entering. I was a fraction slower, making it to my building just in time for one of the Pandora fliers to swoop into the street.

My heart thundered in my chest as I grappled to the roof and immediately went prone. The flier looked in my direction. They drifted closer, and I got a better look at who they were. Dark silver costume with a cape.

Silver Sky.

It was a name I had only heard in passing.

I was pretty sure Abby had brought them up at least once before, and Alice definitely had. She had lectured me about the importance of knowing who had what power. It was why I incorporated a database into my suit. Why remember this information when I could just have my suit feed me the data when it was relevant?

His eyes scanned the roof where I lay, and I saw nothing indicating that he'd seen me. It looked like he was going to investigate further, but there was a sharp whistle from the street.

I shifted my position as quietly as I could and peered over the edge to see a group emerge into the street. They were surrounded by a sphere of twisting space, like the wind itself was trying to conceal their presence. Silver Sky drifted away from my roof and descended back to the street, entering the twisting sphere.

No sound. My suit couldn't even pick up murmurs. That was especially bad given how Anomaly perceived the world while transformed.

That sphere was suppressing not only sound but their physical presence. My suit couldn't identify them through either so I had no clue who was actually hunting us down. I could make out figures, but they were all blurred. This must have been their counter to Ajax's war machines.

Pandora's hunting group appeared to come to a stop for a brief moment when Silver Sky re-entered the sphere, but it wasn't long before they started moving again. This time, they were heading toward the shop Anomaly was hiding in, which meant one of two things. Either they were tracking Anomaly, or they were tracking Richard.

I knew which I found more likely.

"Anomaly," I said, knowing he could see the sound waves of my voice despite the distance between us. "You've got incoming. They're tracking Richard. You won't see them coming, they have some kind of sound suppression power covering their approach." I continued. "You have about fifteen seconds before they reach the front door, so I'm going to give you an opening. They're not expecting us."

I retrieved my sniper from my back and propped it up on the ledge, aiming directly at the hunting squad. I counted each second as I adjusted my aim and pushed the kinetic modifier all the way to max. It was a relatively short distance, and they had some form of shielding up. It blocked sound and potentially other things as well. I needed to make sure that my first shot wouldn't be a dud.

"Attack after the second shot," I said.

I flicked the safety off and fired.

I saw the impact on the shield. It visibly deformed, caving inward, but it didn't break. Instead, it bounced back, ricocheting violently. The bullet careened wildly and shattered the window of a nearby store.

That all happened in the blink of an eye.

The Pandora group froze a few paces from the door. The figures inside shifted, looking somewhat befuddled at what just happened. I hadn't aimed at anyone in particular; all I was interested in with the first shot was seeing how effective the shield was.

My shoulder-mounted grenade launcher unfolded, and my drones loaded high-explosive ordinance.

I unloaded everything at the ground right in front of them. The resulting explosion shook the sphere like a water balloon, and everyone standing inside was knocked clean off their feet, except for one.

The door to the shop exploded outwards, and a black tide rushed out through the fire. Anomaly slammed into the barrier with enough force to shatter it like glass. The flier responsible for maintaining it was blown away like a leaf caught in a hurricane. I watched them flop across the street before smashing into a car door.

The alarms went off, and Anomaly landed in the middle of the disorientated Pandora hunting squad.

His body shook, and a nightmarish scream rang throughout the night.

It was time to clean up some trash.

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