(Point it left), I ordered the guy with the electroshock weapon.

“Huh, the fu—” he exclaimed when he suddenly shocked his buddy beside him.

“What’re you doin—? AAAHH!”

“Kev! I didn’t mean to—oof” An uppercut to the chin shut him up.

(Don’t move!) His brain still sloshing inside his skull offered barely any conscious resistance. I followed it up with a punch right on the middle of his face. Blood spurted out of his broken nose. I pushed the end of his electroshock weapon down to his friend shuddering on the floor. (Hold the trigger!) Sparks flew all around us.

Brrrt! Brrrt Ping! Ping! Ping!

Bullets glanced off the side of my head and shoulder. I almost stumbled from the impact. The guy to my left had the long barrel of his gun about a foot from my face. This fucker couldn’t wait his turn!

“Die!” said the soon-to-be-dead asshole.

Brrrt! Ping! Ping!

“Don’t shoot in here, idiot!” The guy with the weird machine crouched to the back of the elevator as bullets ricocheted everywhere, joining the shower of sparks. “I’m hit! Aaah!”

(Pino! Do you need help—)

(There’s gunfire—)

(Stay outside!) I told them both. I crouched down and yanked away the weapon of the fried guy on the floor. The asshole firing at me stopped for a moment, clear from his hesitant expression that he was concerned of hitting his buddy. I pointed my ‘borrowed’ gun at him. His eyes went wide and mouthed, ‘no’. Too bad. I tried pulling the trigger but couldn’t. Eh? The safety lock or was it jammed?

“I’ll kill you!” He yelled a string of curses and sprayed me with bullets.

I got splattered with the blood of the guy convulsing beside me.

What a friend.

I fiddled with the gun trying to figure out what was wrong, the bullets slapping my face a minor nuisance. I didn’t know where the safety lock of this shit was. Fuck this! (Hold your friend.)

“Turn it on!” he yelled. “Ha? Let go!” The guy I was linked with, still doozy from my metal knuckle sandwich, followed my order and locked him in a bearhug.

Turn what on? I knocked his head back with the butt of the rifle. Then I threw it down and grabbed his gun. “At least yours works.” I pulled the trigger. Bullet holes appeared on his chest, on the wall above his shoulder, and traced a path to the ceiling, shattering the lights.

Woah! What a recoil! I didn’t intend my aim to go up. And my joints were nearly dislocated because I wasn’t holding the rifle correctly.

“Urgkkk…don’t…kill me…urggh.” He vomited blood on the shoulder of his woozy buddy holding him.

I think I was supposed to have the rifle’s butt against my shoulder. I hoped my shoulder joint could handle this. “Didn’t you want to kill me too?” I stepped closer and held the end of the gun an inch from his forehead. I wasn’t going to miss this time.

“Please…sorry…urk…”

Brrrt!

His head slammed against the wall then slumped down, his chin touching his chest.

A quick death for you.

A few inches right and another spurt of bullets. I felt a mind link dissipate.

And a quick death for your friend.

I was being super considerate here—gracious enough to bestow them a quick death—given these assholes were part of the group that upturned my life. Like what the fuck was I going to do after everything blew over? The condominium building I was living in was now a hellhole of monsters! I was going to be investigated and shit for sure. Such a hassle. I was fucking pissed at these guys, whoever they were supposed to be.

I turned around and observed the electrocuted guy on the floor. Bloody, smoking, and not moving. I shrugged and put a few rounds in his head.

Aren’t there four of you?

“Paolo!” Doms said from outside the elevator.

BAM!

"A fucking gorilla?"

(Got him!)

BAMM! BAMM!

“I’ll be taking that from you,” said Doms. “You could’ve killed me.”

The sneaky guy somehow crawled out of the elevator right under my nose. Paolo held him up in the air by the scruff of his clothes like a mother cat would with her kitten. He punched and kicked Paolo, a smattering of blood spreading on the floor from his wounds caused by stray bullets from earlier, but achieved nothing except looking funny.

“The fuck are all of you?” he said. “Are you Adumbrae too? You fuckers must be sent by the families from Vegas?”

I raised a proverbial brow at that statement since I physically had none. That sounded familiar. If I recalled correctly, the guys with Vanessa mentioned something about rival organizations of the 2Ms in Las Vegas, the city of augs. What were the names those guys again?

Doms trained our captive’s own shotgun at him. “Shut up! We’re the ones who’ll ask the questions.” There was a smudge of black on her otherwise white bony chest plate. But there wasn’t any crack.

Ding!

I glanced over the elevator’s control panel and did some quick thinking. Yeah, better not use this. I held out my hand by the door to stop it from closing. Then I picked up the guns, the electroshock weapon, and the weird box, and threw them out of the elevator car. I stared at the bodies, considering getting another one for use later.

Nah, the one we have was enough. I stepped out of the car and it went on its merry way down.

“Wait, what?” Doms moved towards the door but I stopped her. “I thought we’re going to use it?” she said.

(I could’ve fit inside it.)

“You fucking freakshow!” said the grunt presumably working for the 2M’s. “None of you gonna leave this place alive!”

“Quiet down a bit,” I said, “I’m thinking.”

“You the leader of this crew? Release me—ugh.” I slapped him. His head snapped to the left. He spat out what looked like teeth I knocked out. “You metal bitch!”

I picked up the stupid gun that wouldn’t work and clubbed his wounded leg with it. He yelled both in pain and surprise. Geez, don’t people know how to behave anymore? “Don’t talk unless we tell you. You have an annoying whiny voice.” Then I handed the gun to Doms. “Trade! Can you figure this out? I think it has its safety on.” She didn’t respond, still a bit taken a back by what I just did. I took the sawed-off shotgun from her. “And can you take care of that security camera up there?”

She feebly nodded. “Let’s see…” There was a click after she unlatched whatever the fucking hell it was, and she shattered the camera with a couple of well-aimed bursts. “Now, can you tell us why we’re not using the elevator?”

“The floor buttons thingy in the elevator car. There’s no button turned on.”

“Uh…so?”

“The elevator car didn’t stop here because of Julie. These assholes were really going to this floor.”

“And we could’ve used the elevator?” Doms said, anger creeping in her voice. “We can escap—”

“Just now, the elevator was going down. If there’s no button lit up, it means someone is calling for it below. Either other survivors or more of these assholes; I’ll bet on the latter. Which also means we can’t use the stairs here because the enemy will be somewhere downstairs.” I gestured at the weapons I ‘borrowed’. “At least I got these.”

(I don’t know if I’m right on this one…if they pressed the button for this floor then they know that we’re here?)

“That’s right, Paolo,” I said. “That’s the main thing on my mind.” In response to Dom’s quizzical stare, I explained, “He said these guys know about us if they intentionally went to this floor.” I turned to the elevator behind me. Good thing it was still going down. Probably all the way to the basement parking? “By the way, keep an eye on if it goes back up.”

“They know about us?” Doms said. “The security cameras?”

“Yes. Although there’s something I don’t understand here. These assholes were surprised seeing me. Maybe we’re not the ones they’re looking for?”

“The easy way to know is to ask him,” Doms said. “Hey, scumbag! Are you hunting us?”

“Hunting you?” He spat out blood. “The fuck we want with you fuckers? We’re looking for a girl—”

“Erind?” said Doms. She glanced at me.

“Yeah, I think that’s her name.” The guy laughed. “Wait a minute…I see what’s going on here. You Vegas fucktards are also going for the same thing! You got to our target first then? Where is she? Is she with those girls hiding over there?”

Lizzie jumped from behind a column and shouted. “You can’t have Erind!” Julie cupped her mouth to shut her up and pulled her back to the safety of the concrete column.

Doms said, “You girls stay hidden!”

“The bosses don’t explain a lot to us,” the goon said. “But I got enough brains to figure this out. The wolf woman is working for you. It was you Vegas fucktards all along. Messing with our operations and shit. It finally makes sense! Wait until Miss Stella hears about this. You sneaky bastards going around breaking the agreement and shit.”

(What is he talking about?) Doms privately asked me.

I had no idea what he was talking about either. I messaged both Doms and Paolo with my best guess, (He thinks I’m from a rival organization. Another Adumbrae organization with nefarious goals. I’m not though. I’m part of a group of Adumbrae that wants to stop all of them from doing evil deeds.) Cringey heroic speech. I didn’t know if they believed it even though it was, in some twisted way, kind of the truth.

“You fuckers are in our turf. And you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.” He flipped us off while spit mixed with blood flew from his mouth. “You think you’ve brought enough firepower? Miss Stella and Bob are both here!”

There was a ton of misunderstanding going on. Misunderstanding I didn’t care about. But I was able to confirm the 2Ms were involved—I think I even heard the name ‘Stella’ mentioned by one of the hero wannabes before—and that they were after me once again.

Still, the question of why he was surprised to see us was unanswered. I was with my human body the entire time. I assumed they must’ve seen me leave my room through the security cameras, and they probably had someone check out my room afterwards, so they knew the body wrapped in the blanket was the person they were looking for. But then, they should also know we were guarding this body, right?

However, from the reaction of these asshats, they didn’t even expect we had Erind, or rather, my human body, with us all along. And why send just these four idiots to get it…get me? They should've sent augmented dudes at the least if they saw they had to fight us; I knew the 2Ms had some of those.

Everything was already wrong…but something was even wronger. Hmmm, I don’t think that’s a word.

The answers I sought weren’t with this guy we captured. But before I killed him for use in my plan, we could try asking him what stuff he did know. “Hey, you know how to get out of here? I assume some of you guys are in the basement parking? How about the ground floor?”

“Why the fuck am I going to tell you that?”

“Figures. Anyway, you know how to get through those vine things wrapping the building?”

He chuckled. “You went in here without an escape plan?” Paolo shook him and roared at his face. “What?” he said. “You gonna torture me? I don’t know shit about that!”

(I’m going to break this guy’s bones!) Paolo grabbed each of the guy’s arms, dangled him in the air and started to pull. (Pino! Tell this guy I’m going to rip his limbs off if he doesn’t answer.)

“What are you doing? Stop that!” Doms said.

“Hold on…I really don’t know! Stop pulling!”

Paolo bellowed and violently shook him.

“I really don’t know!” Tears streamed down the guy’s cheeks. “It hurts!”

“Paolo!” Julie rushed out of her hiding spot. “Stop it! Just stop it! Do you realize what you’re doing?” He slowly lowered the guy. “You’re doing the same thing that monster did to Dad!”

(I…I didn’t…I…uh.)

I clapped my hands to get their attention. “Enough of that. I don’t think we’ll get anything useful from him.” I jabbed my thumb in the direction of the elevator. “And look, it’s going up. We need to go.”

“You guys are fucked if our Adumbrae get here. If it’s an Adumbrae versus Adumbrae fight you want—OW!”

I slapped him again. How amusing he suddenly got brave again. But if he was right those were Adumbrae coming here then we better pack up and leave on the double. “Julie, you know how to use a gun? Here.” I gave her the shotgun. “And also take this weird machine box thingy he has.” I hung the strap of the electroshock weapon across my shoulder while picking the other assault rifle as my main weapon. “We’re moving out. Paolo, put our friend on the floor and hold him still.”

“Why are you pointing the gun at him?” Doms said.

“Because I’m going to kill him.”

“You’ll do what? Just leave him tied up. We can use the firehose over there."

“We’re not going to leave him,” I said. “We need his corpse for Paolo—” Doms put herself in front of the guy. “Hey, what’s up? Move out of the way."

“You seriously can’t be planning to make Paolo copy this guy?”

(Huh? What am I going to do? Pino?)

“The elevator’s coming up,” I said. “Move out of the way. There’s no time.” Did she have a problem with Paolo copying a bad guy? “We can discuss copying him later. But we need to kill him now. It’s much easier and safer to carry a corpse—”

We heard a distinct metallic twang followed by cracks in the air like that made by a heavy whip. Mechanical crunches and bangs that didn’t sound normal joined in. We all turned to the elevator. I assumed none of us have heard it before, but we all knew what it was. The cables inside were cut.

But where was sound of the crash? Was it too far away? Or did the elevator car have emergency brake?

The guy we captured tried to pull away from Paolo, and all of our attention went back to him.

“You’re all fucked when they get here! You’re all gonna get culled like stray mutts!”

“Why threaten us with death when we’re going to kill you?” I said. I only saw that in movies, but never expected to encounter such behavior in real life. Like, what the hell? He was just giving me more reason to kill him.

“Paolo,” Doms said, “release him.”

(Ah..eh? But Pino said…)

This is weird. I knew me and my kind couldn’t relate to the emotions of normal people, how they processed information and think and such. But we were very good at understanding them even if we couldn’t relate. And I’d like to think I had a good read on Doms. Which was why I couldn’t understand her now. “You had no problems with me killing those guys in the elevator?” I asked her.

“That’s different!”

“These are evil people,” I said. I thought we were already on the same page? Should I just kill her too? Would Paolo and Julie still go with me if I did that? Probably not. "What's the difference?"

“I know you’re an Adumbrae and you don’t think like us…but be it Adumbrae or human, what you’re going to do to him…this is a cold-blooded murder. I’m not going to let you do that.”

Hmmm.

I blinked. “You win!” I lowered my gun and walked away. There was no point arguing with her. “Leave him there then and let’s go before the Adumbrae comes up the stairs. I’m sure they’re not going to be stopped by whatever that was.”

(I’ll just release him?)

“Yeah. Let him go.”

The asshat crawled to the elevator and rested against the door. He wiped the blood on his mouth. “What? You expect me to thank you? Eat shit!”

I pointed my finger at the goon. “Stay there. Don’t follow us or do anything funny. Or else.” I traced my finger across my neck. Was that cringey? I guess so? Oh well, I can’t take that back anymore.

Without warning, the building shook. Julie and Lizzie screamed. Doms rushed to her daughter. Earthquake? A bomb? The power of an Adumbrae?

Dust fell from the ceiling. Cracks appeared.

“Run!” I said.

(Run!) Paolo echoed in my head. He scooped up Julie and Lizzie in one arm and the cart with my body with the other. All of us went out of the room with the freight elevator and into the hallway. Before turning right, I looked back at the dude sitting by the elevator door. He stared up at the crumbling ceiling.

A large pillar burst out of the ceiling and smashed him.

It continued going down, punching through the floor and onto the lower levels.

The building continued shaking.

And we continued running.