That's when I noticed a detail that I didn't like at all. It might have been a small thing, but it hinted at bigger problems.

As Rook's minions put down their packages and their arms transformed into weapons, the claws disappeared and shortened into straight barrels. That would be nothing except that, assuming normal human proportions, the barrel ended well before the human arm would have.

Even assuming all of Rook's henchmen had short arms, the gun was just past where the elbow should be.

Put bluntly, there was no room for an arm in there.

Well, not unless Rook's minions were toddlers. I wouldn't have put that past him, but it didn't seem likely.

As if answering my unasked question, my implant volunteered, "Abominator implant communication protocols detected."

In response to wondering where, the implant overlayed dots showing the centers of communication on Rook's minions. That's when it came together for me.

My own implant had offered permanent modification of my body as an option for healing. I'd refused, accepting only healing of my body and no permanent modifications. I had a gut feeling they'd gone further.

After I'd destroyed one of Rook's hands, his minions all had one of theirs replaced with an artificial claw limb. Who knew what they'd modify at his command (or unwillingly at the Dominators')?

My implant added, "Subjects show an inadvisable degree of body modification."

Bearing in mind the level of body modification it once proposed to me (and that I'd actually seen within the Xiniti we killed), I wouldn't dare guess how much human was left.

It also made me wonder a little about the origin of some machine races in the galaxy. My implant readied a barrage of information to tell me about that, but I didn't have the time for the full download.

Keeping it short so I didn't die, the Xiniti's recorded history did include instances where archeological finds of suspected Artificer tech prompted a transformation from biological beings into machine races that destroyed an unknown number of species.

About the didn't die part? Death was closer than I'd like to imagine because despite having four possible targets, every single one of the minions turned in my specific direction, following my every zig and zag as if Rook wanted to kill me personally and everyone else was an afterthought.

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Except…

You know how I've always thought "The Power" was one of the dumbest possible superhero names for Sean? In certain situations, he could use magnetic powers well enough to deserve it.

Even though Rook's armor designs contained as little metal as mine or shielding that prevented electromagnetic-based powers from affecting it, the carts, tables, tools, and machines in the lab all contained metal.

Beyond that, a work area like this one contains boxes upon boxes (or even barrels) of screws.

He buried them under a barrage of, well, all of that, sending another stream to knock the crowbots out of the air.

The crowbots fell, pierced by screws.

The first hits knocked the minions over, bright beams from their guns firing and hitting the ceiling, releasing chunks of concrete which then dropped, destroying Rook's work and tools. On the bright side, the ceiling didn't fall in.

Other beams hit armor under construction, shattering it into burned bits. That worried me. While I'd had more time to absorb alien tech than Rook had, I couldn't know that our suits were better.

"Stay out of those guys' direct view. It looks they can punch through my armor in a shot or two," I said, aiming to land in the midst of a line of shelves.

Dayton asked, "What about camouflage?"

"Might work on these guys, might not. Don't assume," I said, landing, releasing a few spybots, and activating a bunch of killbots. Rook shouldn't have had time to block my latest design yet (probably).

"Yo, Sean," Dayton said, "get out of sight."

"Not yet," Sean said, "I've got them."

Technically, I couldn't argue. I couldn't even see the minions under piles of metal litter—including shelves very much like the ones I hid behind. They were made of metal.

Amy landed next to me, but since she was still invisible, I only knew because she told me so, asking, "Where's Magnus?"

"Working on that," I said, connecting to the stone again.

Slipping my awareness into the stone came easier than ever before and felt stronger. It was almost as if I'd opened another eye, this one looking out into another plane of existence.

A misty darkness overlay the visible world, but within it, a circle glowed, and that circle was located off to my left, inside the left wall, and further down the room toward the buried minions.

I couldn't know, but a gut feeling said it was either in a room between this one and the submarines or about to board one of the submarines. If so, that wasn't good news. My suits would allow us some time underwater, but we wouldn't be able to break into a submarine without killing everyone on board. If we wanted to save Jody, that was a problem.

To Amy, I said, "Magnus is over there."

I also shared the location both on our implant channel and comms. Now, everyone knew for all the good it did. I knew from the picture in my HUD that everyone who wasn't with us was still fighting in the room with the submarines or far above us in the control center.

"Impressive," Rook said, his words filling the room.

Checking the cameras on Sean's suit and the spybots, I didn't see him anywhere.

"Impressive, boy," Rook said again. "But I'm not here for you. I'm here for the Rocket. We've had a nice little rivalry, he and I. He blew up my hand. His friend burned off my leg, and just a day ago, he destroyed my prosthetic and my other hand. I thought I'd have to make more prosthetics, but I didn't have time.

"Thanks to the Abominators' technology, I had another option. You're going to love the new me."

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