Chapter 19

19

J esh watched almost absently as Jex's onboard system sailed through the air. The small, glowing device tumbled end over end. It was so pretty, she thought, especially when all the lights came on along the side like that.

She blinked, following the movement as a massive metallic hand shot out and snatched the onboard from the air. She dimly recognized the hulking form, pulling the knowledge from the soup of her mind. Scorperio suit. Its sleek, metallic surface reflected the harsh overhead lights, a glow around its imposing frame.

She blinked again. No… Scorperios were bad.

Fear gripped her as the suit's fingers tightened around Jex's onboard.

"No," she tried to cry out, but her voice was barely a whisper. Terror coursed through her veins. Shit, the Scorperio was active, and it was going to crush the onboard and kill Jex.

Lights pulsed erratically across the suit's faceplate in a frenzied dance of blues and greens. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched, helpless. The Scorperio suit froze, its lights holding steady for a heart-stopping moment. Then, without warning, all its lights flared brilliantly, bathing the room in an intense, almost blinding glow.

A voice emanated from the suit's speakers, metallic and tinny but somehow familiar. "J10-10M3E… It's alright. I've taken control."

She let out a shaky breath, wincing at the pain it caused. Tanner and his team didn't know her designation. So this must be?—

"Jex?" she managed to croak out. "How…"

The Scorperio walked across to her jerkily. But as she watched, the movements smoothed out, like a baby animal just learning to walk but crammed into second. By the time it reached her, its movements were smooth and graceful.

"This tech," Jex said, a hint of amusement coloring his words. "It's Zodiac-derived but not quite. Laughably easy to hack."

"I tried earlier," she mumbled, sliding in and out of consciousness.

"You don't have all my capabilities," Jex replied. After a pause he spoke again, and there was a note of… something in his voice. "I'm not just a Mark 7. I'm fleet enabled."

Surprise cut through the fog in her mind that wanted to drag her under, and she blinked owlishly at him, looking for some expression in the blank face plate.

"You're a medical general?" she breathed. "I… I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't," he replied. "There was no reason you should. MedGens don't go into battle often, and we'd never met before you found me."

"I couldn't leave you there," Jesh murmured, the memory of that day as clear as if she were back there. "I just saw the J10 part of your designation, same as mine."

"You know," he said, his voice thoughtful as he moved around her on the operating table. "I've been thinking about that moment a lot. About us."

A sharp pain lanced through her, causing her to wince and grit her teeth. She knew without asking that her systems were dying. "What do you mean?" she managed to ask, curiosity overriding the pain.

"The J10 thing… we're from the same batch," he said, out of sight for the moment. "I've never met anyone from our batch before."

She grunted. Control of her lungs was all she had and who knew how long that would last. "I think we're the closest thing to siblings that exist for us."

After a moment of silence, Jex spoke again, a note of surprise and warmth in his voice. "Yes, exactly that. I didn't expect you'd think the same. We're family… in a way."

Silence stretched out between them at the admission. Family. As the idea sank in, she found herself smiling despite everything. Despite the fact that she was dying.

"I never thought I'd have family," she said softly, a warmth blooming in her chest that had nothing to do with her injuries.

"Neither did I," he admitted, and despite the fact he had no lips in this form, she heard the smile in his voice. "It's comforting… to not be alone."

"We're not alone anymore," she agreed, her voice stronger despite the pain.

"No, we're not," he said and then his voice turned, slipped. "Now, let's focus on getting you back on your feet, sister."

The word "sister" hung in the air between them, and she savored the moment, letting it buoy her spirits as he moved around the room.

Curiosity got the better of her. "What exactly are you doing?"

"I'm building you an exoskeleton," he explained a little absently. She heard clanging and then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. "Just a temporary measure. It wouldn't work with any other class, but you're a Taurus. If I can support your systems, it will allow them to fully regenerate."

"An exoskeleton? From Scorperio parts?"

"Exactly," Jex replied, and then he was back, looming over her. She saw her own face reflected in the faceplate. Shit, she looked rough.

"Now, you're not going to like this," he continued, his tone serious, "but I need to bring your pain responses back online. I need to ensure I'm connecting everything correctly. It's going to hurt, I'm afraid."

She steeled herself, drawing on all her years of training and combat… the operations without anesthetic back before they were freed. Back then no one had cared if a cyborg couldn't take pain responses offline. They weren't human, the techs said, so they couldn't feel pain.

"Don't worry about it. Just do what you have to do to get me moving."

Jex "looked" at her for a moment longer, and then he was gone.

She barely had a moment to draw a breath before agony lanced through her body. She gasped, her back arching as she became aware of the extent of her injuries. All of them. Every nerve ending she had was on fire, each cell of her body screaming in protest.

"Your spinal column was severed," Jex informed her, his voice a steady anchor in the sea of pain. "I'm using Scorperio neural interfaces to bridge the gap. It's a hack job, but it should restore mobility."

As Jex worked quickly, he guided her through testing each connection.

"Can you feel your left arm?" he asked.

She concentrated and then found she could flex her fingers. "Yes, I've got movement."

"Good. What about the right? Excellent… testing fine motor control. Can you pinch your fingers?"

They continued this way, with her reporting each new sensation and movement as he worked. She lost track of time, the pain intense, but she pushed through it.

"I'm adding a supplemental power pack to power the exoskeleton," Jex explained as metal clanged against metal. She saw sparks somewhere in her peripheral vision as he welded something. "Your systems should be able to handle the raw output, giving you a boost while you heal."

Finally, after what felt like hours, Jex's voice broke through the haze of pain and concentration. "Okay… J10-10M3E, bring all systems online and release motor functions lock. Authorization MedGen J10-8M7E."

She couldn't refuse the command, feeling it work its way into her onboard, and then it flared to life. Relief washed through her as the familiar voice echoed in her head, informing her of everything that had been stripped from her body… then identifying the new systems of the exoskeleton.

"All good?" Jex asked as she opened her eyes.

She turned her head and smiled. For an alien machine with a blank faceplate, he sure looked worried.

"All good. My onboard is initializing and integrating the new systems now."

"Excellent." He reached out to slide his big metal arms under her with surprising gentleness. She almost got the feeling that he was used to operating in a body that was far larger than the one she'd found him in. "Let's try to get you on your feet."

She gritted her teeth as he helped her sit upright and then swung her legs around so she sat on the edge of the operating table. Her muscles screamed in protest as she stood, swaying unsteadily. She leaned heavily on him for support, her legs feeling alien beneath her.

"How do you feel?" he asked, concern ringing in his voice.

She looked down. He'd stripped several of the Scorperios and somehow melded them around her body… around her torso and legs. The only things that weren't covered were her arms. She lifted a hand to check. Yeah, he'd even covered her throat and… she swept her hand down her right arm.

She grinned. "You gave me Scorpio-class gun mounts."

He chuckled. "Of course. Anything for my favorite sister."

She took a tentative step, expecting to pitch forward onto her face, but the exoskeleton moved smoothly. Within two steps she forgot it wasn't a part of her. If she concentrated, she could feel the hum of energy coursing through it, supplementing her damaged systems. But she was moving and she was functional.

"Thank you," she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. "I'm glad I found you that day."

"So am I." He nodded, the movement very organic for the big machine. But then, his voice hardened. "Now, we need to figure out our next move. Those assholes had been trying to break my security and activate me for years. From what I've seen, I suspect you had it worse."

Her jaw clenched as she turned to face him. "You remember them trying to activate you?"

She thought he'd been inert, protected from anything these humans could do to him.

He shrugged. "Not them precisely. I knew someone was trying to fritz about in my systems. The last real thing I remember is that battlefield. How did we end up here? This looks like some kind of lab, so I'm assuming we were captured?"

She shook her head and then frowned. Shit. How did she tell him… well everything?

"No. Well, yes and no. It's… complicated." She took a deep breath. "We're not in our own universe anymore. Somehow, we've crossed over into a different reality."

The lights on his suit flickered, as if processing the new information. She had to admit, it was a lot. "A different universe? How is that even possible?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "But it's true. And yes, there are humans here too. And they're…" She paused, thinking of all she'd been through since arriving in this new world. The lies, the manipulation, the pain. "They're just as much assholes as the ones back home. They experimented on me for years. The main doctor here… treated me like a lab rat, poking and prodding, pushing my limits until I thought I'd break."

Her hands curled into fists. "And then… and then he killed the man I loved. Just to see how I'd react. Like it was all just another test."

She looked up at the ceiling, tears burning in the backs of her eyes. She would not cry. Not another tear. Not until she'd found Tanner and ripped his spine from his body so he could see it before he died.

"I'm going to track him down," she said. "I'll find him, and when I do, I'm going to overload my power core. This whole place, all his research, everything he's ever done—it'll all be obliterated in an instant."

She turned back to Jex, her expression softening slightly. "You should leave. Get as far away from here as you can. There's no reason for you to go down with me. Find a mercenary unit called the Warborne. D5-10M4 is with them."

Jex snorted, the sound of amusement odd coming from his suit speakers. "Leave? Jesh, I have nothing here but you. You're all I've got in this world."

He took a step toward her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "If you want to go out in a blaze of glory, I'm all for that. We came into this world together, might as well leave it the same way."

She placed her hand over his, tears welling again. But they were tears of gratitude. "You're sure?" she whispered.

"Absolutely," Jex replied with a nod. "Let's teach them that nobody fucks with the Zodiacs."

Jesh's eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light as she emerged from the maintenance shaft and held it open to allow Jex to climb out after her. He unfolded the big Scorperio suit with a grace that she was sure no human operator could ever match, like he'd been born in it.

She turned and frowned at the corridor that stretched before them.

"I know this place," she whispered, making sure her voice was barely audible over the hum of the environmental systems. Jex would hear her, no matter how quietly she spoke. "They dragged me through here… countless times."

Jex moved ahead of her. "Stay alert," he warned. "We don't know what we're walking into."

As if on cue, a squad of security guards rounded the corner, their weapons raised and faces set in snarls as they spotted the two cyborgs. Time slowed as her combat protocols kicked in, her cybernetic enhancements flooding her system with adrenaline, boosted by the power from her new exoskeleton.

In a blur of motion, she closed the distance to the first guard. Her hand shot out, gripping his assault weapon with inhuman strength. With a twist and a pull, she wrenched it from his grasp, his startled cry cut short as she brought the butt of the rifle crashing into his temple.

Two more guards fell in quick succession, their bodies crumpling to the floor before they could even squeeze off a shot. The remaining guards opened fire, but Jex stepped in front of her, the bullets pinging harmlessly off the Scorperio's armor. He returned fire, dropping the rest of the guards within a heartbeat.

"Nice moves, sis," he commented, and she was sure he would have winked if he could. "But we need to keep moving."

They pressed on through corridor after corridor until they came across a locked security door.

"Hold on. I got this."

Jex stepped forward, interfacing with the facility's systems. As he worked to bypass the encryption, she turned and covered the corridor behind them.

The door slid open with a soft hiss, and suddenly, she wasn't there anymore. Instead, she was strapped to a gurney, helpless and afraid, being wheeled through that very door for another round of "treatments." She sucked in a hard breath as the memory of pain, visceral and overwhelming, threatened to consume her.

"Jesh!" Jex's voice cut through the fog of her flashback, and she blinked as she realized he had a hold of her shoulders and was shaking her. "Stay with me. We're almost there."

Shaking off the remnants of the memory, she nodded, her jaw set in determination.

They pushed through the next room and the next, emerging into a small hall. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around. Row upon row of Scorperio suits stood before them, bent at the waist with their back panels open. She didn't need to see the missing neural units to know these were Tanner's new Scorperios, the army born from the theft of her systems.

Her legacy.

Her fists clenched at her sides as rage boiled up inside her, hot and corrosive.

"We could reprogram them," Jex suggested. "Use them to track the doctor down."

"No," she snarled, her voice low and dangerous. "They need to be destroyed. All of them."

Before Jex could reply, alarms blared. The piercing wail set her teeth on edge, her enhanced hearing making the sound almost unbearable. She tuned them out.

"Looks like our presence has been noticed," he observed dryly as security detail tumbled through the door and fired at them. "We need to move. Now."

They fought their way through waves of security personnel, her movements becoming more vicious with each encounter. As they battled onward, faces began to stand out in the crowd—faces she recognized from her torture sessions. Her attacks grew more brutal, fueled by a vengeance that burned white-hot in her chest. She lost herself to the high of battle, of combat. She was a Zodiac, and this was what she'd been created for.

As they rounded another corner, memory hit her like a pickaxe to the skull. She stumbled as the image seared itself into her mind. A white room, filled with gleaming equipment and the low hum of machinery. Tanner's lab.

"I remember," she whispered, her eyes narrowing. "It's two levels down, in the east wing. There's a hidden elevator behind a false wall panel up here."

The memory brought with it a wave of nausea so complete that she had to bend over double for a moment and breathe through her nose. She could feel the cold metal of the examination table against her skin again, hear the clinical beep of monitors tracking her vital signs… smell the antiseptic.

"Are you good?" Jex asked, taking a protective stance, his arms spread wide so he could cover both sides of the corridor with the guns mounted on them.

She nodded, forcing the memories back.

"We're close," she growled, her fingers tightening on her weapon as she stalked off down the corridor. She paused in front of what looked like a plain wall panel. "Here. Let's fucking end this."

He nodded and stepped forward. The security system on the hidden elevator was no match for his Scorperio access codes, and within thirty seconds they were riding it down to Tanner's lab.

The door opened, and she sucked a breath in as her gaze swept over the familiar room.

"It's just as I remember it," she breathed, standing motionlessly in the center of the room.

"My god," Jex breathed, his shock evident even through the suit's speakers as he looked around at the specimens littering the worktables, the displays on the walls detailing what had been done to her. He moved to a nearby console, interfacing with it to begin downloading data.

She left him to it. Her attention was focused solely on finding Tanner. Fragments of memory flickered through her mind—another door, another time, another place. She scanned the walls, searching for anything out of place.

Her eyes narrowed as she spotted it. There… a panel that didn't quite match the others. Without hesitation, she strode toward it. The cool metal was smooth under her fingertips as she traced the panel with her fingertips. Was it just a replacement or was something else going on here?

Leaning closer, she cut all her organic systems. Stopped her heart, froze the air in her lungs and just… listened. Within seconds, her enhanced hearing picked up the rapid, shallow breaths of someone trying to remain quiet and the frantic drumming of a terrified heart.

She grinned as she pressed firmly against the panel. A soft click resonated through the room followed by the whisper of hidden mechanisms engaging. The panel dropped back a few inches and then slid away to reveal a figure huddled in the shadows.

"Please don't hurt me! I'm unarmed!"

Dr. Tanner emerged, his hands thrust outward in surrender. Her hard gaze locked on to his face, noting the sheen of sweat on his brow and the way the blood had drained from his cheeks, leaving him ashen. And it didn't move her. Not one bit. Did that mean she really was the heartless killer everyone believed cyborgs to be?

The scent of fear rolled off him in waves so thick she could almost taste his terror on her tongue, metallic and sharp. His gaze darted between her and Jex, wide with a mixture of awe and dread.

"Please," he began, his voice trembling. "I can explain everything. I've made groundbreaking discoveries. I can tell you about other cyborgs in this universe. Just… just don't hurt me."

Her expression was hard as her hand closed around his throat.

"Hurt you?" Her voice was ice-cold. "Oh no, Doctor. I'm going to do much worse than just that."

She lifted him off the ground effortlessly. His eyes bulged in his head as she cut his air off, his hands scrabbling at hers.

"Listen carefully, Doctor," she growled. "I'm going to explain exactly what's about to happen and why. For years, you experimented on me. You treated me like a lab rat. I could almost forgive that… I'm a Zodiac, after all. We're used to humans being assholes."

Her free hand clenched into a fist, the memory of Covak's touch ghosting across her skin.

"But murdering the man I love?" Her voice cracked, a hint of the anguish beneath her fury. "That, I can't forgive. That is what you and everyone in this place are going to die for."

As she spoke, her enhanced senses picked up the minute changes in Tanner's vitals—the spike in his heart rate, the dilation of his pupils. Good. Let him understand the full weight of what was coming. Let him feel a fraction of the terror Covak must have felt in his final moments.

"When my core detonates…" Her voice was as cold and hard as hull plating. "It'll trigger a chain reaction. Everything within a five-mile radius will be vaporized. Your life's work, your precious data, all of it. Gone. Just gone. Just like you took everything from me."

She loosened her grip slightly, allowing Tanner to gasp for air.

"Any last words, Doctor?" she asked, shaking him like a rag doll. "Any final plea for mercy? Because I promise you, it'll fall on deaf ears."

Her focus lay entirely on Tanner as she deactivated the safety protocols on her power core. Heat rose as the energy within built toward the critical point. In her mind, she saw Covak's face, the memory of their time together making her heart ache.

"This is for the man I love," she snarled, her grip tightening. "And for every other life you've destroyed."

"Well, hot damn," a familiar voice rang out behind her. "You love some other dude? That's a real blow to my ego there, sweetheart."