Джей Кристофф - Lifel1k3 (Lifelike)

“Matches your chest.” Faith smiled.

“Let her g-go, Gabriel,” Silas growled.

Mercy climbed up from the terminal, joined Faith and Gabriel on the landing.

“Who let you out of your cage, old man?” she asked.

“I said let her go!” Silas rasped.

Gabriel broke his stare from Ezekiel’s, turned his eyes on the man who had helped make him. “We bend the knee to no one, Silas. No man. No maker. No master. I would have thought we taught you that lesson during the revolt.”

The old man shook his head. “Haven’t you…hurt h-her enough?”

“I am the hurt you made me to be,” Gabriel replied.

“We made you to b-be better than us!”

“And we are, old man,” Faith sneered as Silas bent double in another coughing fit. “In that, if nothing else, you can rest easy. Not long now, by the look of you.”

Gabriel squeezed Ana’s throat and she hissed in pain. She stabbed an elbow into the lifelike’s ribs, stomped on his foot, trying to break free of his impossible grip. Bare-handed, she might as well have been trying to hurt one of the Goliaths. But still, she seethed. Kicked and bit and fought.

“Spirited, isn’t she?” Gabriel smiled at Ezekiel. “Her father’s daughter.”

Ezekiel stepped forward, glowering. “Get your hands off her, Gabriel.”

“Ever the hero, eh? Dashing in on his charger to save his poor damsel from her tower. Even if it means betraying your own kind. Again.”

Gabriel shook his head, turned his glare on the Myriad door, still stubbornly closed. The readout, flashing red on the terminal:

IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.

IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.

IDENTITY: UNKNOWN. MYRIAD ACCESS DENIED.

“It hardly seems equitable, though, does it?” Gabriel said. “That you get to rescue your love by denying me mine? With the blood you have on your hands?”

“You could have asked her, Gabriel,” Ezekiel said. “Ana loved Grace almost as much as you did. You could have just asked her, and she might have unlocked Myriad for you.”

“And therein lies the difference between you and me, little brother.” Gabriel reached behind his back, hauled out his pistol and pointed it at Ana’s temple. “These humans are insects next to us. The slime that first crawled out of the ocean. And while you might be content to be their beggar, I take what is mine.”

Ana was choking now, Gabriel’s grip cutting off the blood to her brain. Fighting against the lifelike’s hold, the terror of the pistol at her brow, the thought of ending like this. Her eyes were locked on Ezekiel. So much unsaid between them. So many wrongs she might never make right. Unable now even to whisper his name.

Ezekiel stepped closer, eyes on the pistol in Gabriel’s hand.

“Gabriel, if you kill her, you’ll never get that door open. You’ll never get Grace back.”

“Ah, but therein lies the mystery, little brother. Myriad refuses to open anyway.”

Black spots were swimming before Ana’s eyes, her vision beginning to glaze as her struggles became ever weaker. Gabriel again looked back at the denial flashing on Myriad’s screen. At the luminous angel and its empty face. At the huge logika looming at Ezekiel’s back. At his sisters beside him. Weighing the odds.

“Let. Her. Go,” Ezekiel said.

Without warning, the lifelike seized the back of Ana’s neck and held her body out over the whistling drop.

“As you wish,” Gabriel said.

And he let her go.

“Ana!”

Lemon watched as Ezekiel dashed across the landing and leapt out into the abyss. The lifelike plummeted after the falling girl, snatching her from the air and crashing into the shaft’s wall with a gasp. Reaching out with his prosthetic arm, he seized a tangle of optical cable to stop their fall. The cable groaned but held, the lifelike dangling over the drop with Ana held tight in his other arm. She was barely conscious, gasping for breath.

“Ana?” he yelled. “ANA!”

“Nice…catch, Braintrauma,” she whispered.

“Terminate intruders!”

The four Goliaths at Myriad’s door shuddered into motion at Gabriel’s command, eyes burning blue as autocannons unfolded from their backs. The weapons spewed a deafening barrage, Cricket crying a warning as he knelt to shield Lemon and Silas, sparks burning and shells bursting all over his armored hull. Shrieking, Lemon hunkered down behind the big logika’s leg, covering her ears at the sound of thunder.

Lemon’s skull was still throbbing, concussion pounding in the back of her head. But her anger was building, too, bubbling up inside her in a blood-red flood. She reached out, letting the fury ripple from her fingertips. A psychic shockwave blasted outward, frying every circuit inside the Goliaths. They staggered, sparks spewing from their eyes and chests in crackling waterfalls. The terminal controlling Myriad shorted out, and the holographic angel flickered and disappeared as every globe in the chamber exploded.

Gabriel, Mercy and Faith dashed out of the strobing gloom. The three lifelikes moved quicker than anything Lemon had ever seen, a terrifying blur that even Cricket couldn’t match. Faith drew her electrified sword and started swinging at the pistons and hydraulics around Cricket’s knees. Gabriel and Mercy leapt atop the big logika’s shoulders, tearing away the armor plating, hoping to get to the vital cables and relays beneath.

Lemon squealed and ducked behind the bay doors as the logika and lifelikes fell into a tumbling brawl. She didn’t dare risk another surge of her power—she might fritz Cricket by mistake. She watched as the big bot tore Gabriel from his shoulders, hurled him like a thunderbolt back at Myriad’s door. Fresh blood spattered across Gabriel’s Three Truths as the lifelike crumpled to the deck. Cricket danced with Faith, the logika’s fist crashing down as she darted aside, lashing out with her arc-sword. Mercy was still up on Cricket’s back, shredding his armor with her bare hands, face illuminated by bursts of current.

“I’m…sorry, kiddo,” Silas said.

The old man raised the Preacher’s flamethrower, so racked with coughs, he could barely heft the weight. But still, he pulled the trigger, a burst of homemade napalm streaming up onto Cricket’s back. The big logika caught fire, the fuel setting his paint job ablaze. But along with him went Mercy, the lifelike screaming as her shift and curls burst into flame. She fell off the logika’s back, flailing as the fire began consuming her. And with a final agonized wail, she tumbled over the railing and fell into the abyss.

Gabriel climbed to his feet, gasping and unsteady, roaring Mercy’s name. Lemon saw him raise his pistol in slow motion, the world slowing to a crawl as he opened fire. She screamed, hand outstretched, helpless as she watched two shots catch Silas in the chest, a third in his belly, the old man crying out and staggering.

“Silas!” Cricket bellowed.

“Mister C!”

Lemon dashed out from cover as the old man fell, skidding to her knees at his side. Silas’s face was twisted, scarlet spilling from his lips. His chest was soaked with blood, her hands sticky with it. She pressed at the awful wounds, tears streaming down her face.

“Mister C?”

The old man could only groan, blood bubbling at his mouth. Lemon looked around desperately for some way to stop the bleeding, some way to make it better.

“Somebody help me!” she wailed.

“Lemon, take cover!” Cricket roared.