The environment was an alien one to put it simply. I had been smaller, yet I felt more minuscule than ever before. The trees towered above us, reaching into the sky. The light was dim, and I had to strain my eyes to make things out in the distance. One massive trunk, and then meters of empty space to the next one. Towering columns holding up a leafy sky.

The SS Ramses was a dark shape. The lab was closer. We all slunk towards it, boots thumping on ancient massive roots. Despite the dim visibility, we moved with no light. Surprise would be to our advantage.

I wasn’t sure how much of an advantage we had, considering I was tripping over my own feet trying to keep up. I wasn’t trained for this, and I was horribly aware that I was supposed to be.

Nicole was our doctor, our medic. She hung back and let the soldiers go first. The rest of the civilians and I were mostly there for support. And for carrying stuff.

Tobias held up a hand, and everyone slowed to a halt.

I could just make out the waterfall, letting in light from the cliff face where the river flowed down beside the lab.

There was no movement. The only sound was the splashing of water. I couldn’t even hear the drone above, which kept an eye on things. No more working joes wandered around. The lab’s sturdy metallic door stood up ahead.

I had many questions, but now was not the time to ask. I just hoisted my rifle and did my best to keep up. Nicole was effortless in her balance. I knew it was synthetic shanangins, but she did look powerful. Above the silly humans stumbling around. And yet despite all of it, she liked me. I bit back a dumb smile. She liked me.

Tobias led the group forward again, picking up speed as we hurried towards the door. Our boots clanged, unfortunately, on the metal ramp as we all tried to hide as much as possible against the blank metal wall. One of the officers moved forward to investigate the door. I held my breath.

Nicole stepped forward, holding out two separate little android motherboards. The officer took them, plugging something in. The screen blinked red, the officer shook her head and tried the other one.

The screen blinked red again.

“McLaren, you’re up,” Tobias said quietly. Everyone backed away from the door, so I followed suit as McLaren stepped forward, putting a contraption out of his back and affixing it to the door. He then pulled out another, sticking it to the other side.

“Three… two… one..” Tobias counted down, barely a whisper to accompany his gestures. Everyone closed their eyes and covered their ears. I followed suit, already guessing the backup plan was for a large metal door.

Boom!

Smoke billowed, smelling horrid. The door was gone, and two officers disappeared through the murky doorway. Short bursts of gunfire rang out. Then another.

Tobias made a signal as the rest of us moved in. Well, I didn’t, actually; I was rather opposed to stepping through noxious smoke into a war zone. I knew the plan; we had gone over it during the hike again and again. But now that it was truly happening, I was freezing up.

Someone shoulder checked me, the man rushing in after. One by one, I was left alone. Except Nicole, she waited, ever so patiently, she waited for me. She wasn’t even armed. I suppose it made sense. Well… she was armed, just unknowingly to anyone else.

The gunfire stopped.

Nicole stepped forward, squeezing my shoulder. “You can do this, Elsy,” she smiled, quickly but gently pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth.

I immediately felt much braver. Nodding determinedly, I stumbled through the smoke.

The first thing I saw was Nylund, the officer who had tried to hack the door, pull a hammer from her belt and bring it down, smashing into the skull of a working joe twitching on the ground before her. I tried not to grimace.

“Keep in touch, and good luck,” Andrews’ voice crackled over comms.

Another working joe had been quickly dispatched, also now bludgeoned to be doubly sure it wouldn’t get back up. The room was a big one, mostly full of crates and other forms of storage, with a large forklift in the corner. It was… mundane, but it was lit. That was nice. We could see clearly.

What had once been the metal door was a crumbled, smouldering heap that had destroyed several wooden crates, all of which seemed to contain glass… something, now just absolutely shattered. There was only one door to move deeper into the facility.

“Got it,” Nylund chirped, pulling something from the working joe. She hurried over to the door and began plugging it in. It beeped a moment later and opened as everyone readied their weapons.

“Let's go,” Tobias barked.

The door beeped and closed before anyone could go through it. Nylund tried to open it again, and the door remained closed.

“This facility is off limits. Please vacate immediately, or I will be forced to take decisive action.”

The words echoed around the place. I recognized the voice. Matthew. Everyone looked around quickly.

“Blow it,” Tobias told McLaren, not particularly interested in what Matthew had to say.

“Perhaps it would change your mind to know you had a traitor in your midst?” Matthew spoke up. “Nicole-013 is the only one among you who was invited. The rest of you are trespassing.”

I snapped my attention to Nicole. That couldn’t be true. Nicole didn’t even look up as she inspected the working joes. I looked around, and no one else seemed to care either. What was going on? Did they know? Was he lying? He had to be lying. But I needed to know for myself.

“He invited you?” I hissed, hurrying over.

“No one believes him,” Nicole blinked. “He is just a machine programmed to defend this place.”

The next door was blown from its hinges. Nicole didn’t deny it.

“Why?” I demanded.

“So we could have our cabin,” she said quietly, sweetly, almost. “He turned my counteroffer down. I destroyed another Matthew-076,” she explained, leading me away from the doorway as everyone else rushed through. “Please focus, Elsy. He is trying to use inconsequential information to disrupt us.”

Gunshots rang out, but I couldn’t move on quite yet. I sighed. “You promise it’s unimportant? You’re not going to kill everyone here, are you? I don’t want you to do that even if it gets us our cabin.” I regretted the words the moment I had spoken them, too harsh, too accusatory, too loaded.

“I promise,” Nicole replied simply. “Any hope of a mutual agreement died when he destroyed my repair pod,” she reassured in a very non-reassuring way.

She might have, she might have actually betrayed everyone for my sake in a different time. For my sake, for us. It was sweet and terrible. I–

“Elsy, for the love of God, please focus right now,” Nicole pressed.

“Sorry, I’m… being dumb,” I sighed, raising the rifle awkwardly; it at least looked intimidating. We headed through the doorway into the hallway beyond. More working joes were dead. Another explosion came from up ahead. God, they were fast at this. We were falling behind. I picked up my place.

“Please stop deploying explosives,” Matthew crackled over the speaker system. “We have much more volatile specimens that would be detrimental to the ecosystem if released.”

“Open the fucking doors then!” Tobias yelled as we rejoined everyone. “You poisoned my people. We’re not leaving without some kind of antidote.”

“I’m afraid I am unable to comply with your request. However, as the baron of this planet, I would expect some degree of concern for its well-being,” Matthew replied, sounding annoyingly calm about this whole thing.

“Clear!” Nylund yelled from the room. “I should be able to get a map from here. Figure out where we need to go.”

“This is your final warning in accordance with Security Order 149,” Matthew added. “After which I will do everything in my power to kill all of you.”

“Can you shut him up?” Tobias muttered.

Nylund shook her head. “Probably coming from whatever command centre this place has. Give me a minute. I’ll have a floor plan.”

The door across the hall slid open, working joes, eyes glowing red, lunged themselves at the two nearest officers. The door thunked closed as they were dragged to the ground.

One of the civilians opened fire, destroying the working joe but also peppering the officer with rounds. Both stopped moving.

“You fucking idiot, friendly fire,” Tobias snapped, smacking the man upside the head, letting the other handle things.

The other working joe was bludgeoned to death while attempting to rip the other officer’s arm off. He screamed, his arm dangling uselessly at his side, as the working joe’s limp form was pulled off him. Nicole hurried over to investigate his injuries.

“It’s certainly dislocated, likely fractured if not broken,” she grimaced. “I cannot adequately treat this here.”

“Just make me a damn sling, I’m good,” the officer panted, teeth gritted. “Fucking androids!”

Nicole blinked and then got to work wrapping his arm in a sling.

“Right,” Nylung emerged from the room, staring at her tablet. “Bio containment… cryo lab… command centre…”

“Where are we headed, Nylund?” Tobias asked.

“Okay…” she hummed, pointing to one door. “Robotics is that way, central intelligence, ah and the command centre. It looks like all the labs are more cordoned off and have extra security measures. Do we want lab one, lab two, or the cryo lab?”

“I don’t know,” Tobias sighed.

“Lab two and cryo are that way,” Nylund shrugged, pointing to a different door. “Lab one is all by itself. A lot more doors between us at lab one, too.”

“Lab one it is,” Tobias decided. “Let’s get the worst done first.”

“This is gonna rattle some bones,” McLaren warned, already getting ready to blow the next door.

I ground my teeth. We were just getting started, and yet already I was exhausted. I stared at the rifle in my hands. At least Tobias and everyone had a handle on things. At least I hadn’t made the mistake of killing one of our own. Maybe if I hunkered down enough, I would just disappear.

Maybe I should just flee this host and hide in Nicole’s pocket until this was all over.

No. No, I had come to help. I had come to get Nicole a repair pod. I couldn’t let fear get the best of me.