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The drive back to Biosphere was miserable on account of the heat, the fussy V8 and my screwed up ankle. It was nearly impossible for me to clutch the car with my right foot and my left ankle hurt too much to even try. I couldn't brake and downshift, or accelerate and upshift. To do either required both my feet that that was something I didn't have. I won't tell you how many times I stalled the car out, because I don't really know, but it would make my brother angry that I couldn't drive a manual.

I sighed. Once thing Aegean and I loved doing together was going to race his car on the weekends, when he was off from training and Mom didn't have me stuck underneath her. He always told me that he would teach me to "Drive stick" as soon as I was tall enough to reach the pedals. It made me want to cry a little with the idea that a miserable experience was what was reminding me of my older brother.

When I finally did make it back to the lab, the garage door opened and I drove the car right inside, pressing the brake and not bothering to down shift as I went through the corner. The garage door closed behind me as I clutched the car with my good foot and put it in park, shutting it off as a shirtless, peeling skinned Mike and chili pepper red Tyler came to meet me.

"You saved our asses Sky", Mike said, "figuratively and literally."

"Your welcome", I said switching off the suit and opening the door, "help me up? I screwed up my ankle really freaking bad back at Ransol."

"How so?", Tyler asked as he took my arm and pulled me up.

"Well they kept pressure at more than three times normal levels for starters", I said as we limped for the elevator, "combined with slick ass staircases."

"You slipped on a staircase?", Mike asked as he hit the button for the fourth floor.

"Yep", I answered as I leaned against the elevator wall and pulled the suit's hood off, "how's the HAVOC feel by the way?"

"Like a candy bar given to us by God himself", Mike said, "I've never been so fucking hot in my life."

"Me either", Tyler said, "we were starting to blister from how hot it was getting and Sarah even passed out."

"Was it a heat stroke?", I asked.

"We thought so at first", Tyler said, "but it was dehydration, we had a lot of electrolyte water up in the lounge, so she's fine now, but things would have been a lot worse if you hadn't been at Ransol when you were."

"I'm glad I'm back here now", I answered, "you have no idea the big freaks of science I had to fight while I was over there."

Tyler sighed, "Chemical 240 is over there too...isn't it?"

"Yes", I said, "It did some...terrifying...things to one woman."

"Don't ask don't tell", Mike said as the door clicked open, "I'll let James know. Tyler helped me limp back to the lounge where I stripped off my gear and the suit, grabbing my rain pants and a white shirt from my pack before going to sit on the couch. Sarah came in shortly after with a small first aid kit.

"What you do to your ankle?", she asked.

"Sprained it when I slipped on a stair case", I said, "it hurts like a bitch."

Sarah rolled up my pants leg and for the first time I had a good look at my injury. My ankle was swollen to the size of a small grapefruit. The black Chitin had taken on a light, red tint and just her touching it hurt.

"Ahgghh", I winced.

"Just hold still", she said. She took a long bandage from the kit and put ointment on it before wrapping it tightly around my ankle and underneath my heel.

"That should help the swelling go down", she said, "how long were you on it after you twisted it?"

"Feels like forever", I said, "but...20 minutes? 25 at the most."

"Stay off it for a few hours then", she told me.

"Ain't gotta tell me twice", I said leaning back on the couch.

I heard the back door click open and saw Matt and James walked out, they were both red in the face and their skin was peeling just as badly as Mike, Tyler and Sarah's was. Matt looked worse than any of them though, and he seemed to be having slight trouble walking, so I guessed that even combat grade circuits were still heat sensitive.

"You look wasted Skyline", Matt said sitting on the floor in front of me.

"Feel wasted", I yawned, "had to fight giant wasps, crazed synthetic humans and one, very pissed off, very angry woman blended into a Gravity shaft mixed with a turret."

"Well it was worth it", James said sitting back against the wall, "with the generators online we won't have to go poking around in the dark and we have the cameras in our wing up and running again."

"Good to hear", I yawned.

"Get some rest", James said, "you earned it. Allen and I will try and figure out what our next move is. By the way, Tyler said that Chemical 240 is at Ransol as well?"

"Yep", I sighed, "it's blending humans and machines now."

" Lovely", James said, "that means it's mutating ", he sighed and turned back for the security room, "just how much worse can things get in this fucking lab before they send some real help?"

I yawned. I didn't care to contemplate just how much worse things could get. Short of Nuclear Detonation and a slow death by radiation sickness, I figured the suck factor and dangerous factor were maxed out.

"Can't believe this", I said yawning again, "just when I deal with one problem another, worse one springs up somewhere else."

"Story of life as a Bio Mechanical engineer", Sarah said sitting against the couch.

"I thought you loved your job?", I asked sitting up.

"I do", she answered sitting on the edge of the cushion, "never have, never will want to do anything else except be a biomech, but sometimes you have a rough time with projects and other times you screw things up."

"With shit like Chemical 240 and Number 12 no doubt", I answered.

She shrugged, "a valid point, but I was referring to problems I've had, me personally."

"Like what?", I asked.

"Mostly with developing Matt's electronics and AI", she answered, "he first problem we found was a complete failure of his FR4 CPU. When we subjected it to a direct, level 5 EMP blast, mind you this is the strongest possible EMP, his CPU completely fried, the blast penetrated all four layers of EMP 5 shielding and brunt his chip to a crisp. Took us a good five months to find the formula to make shielding that would stand up to a direct, 5 second pulse. Problem two was that his natural heart and organs were completely rejecting the synthetic modification they needed to support the natural and artificial parts of his body, the cardiac muscle that makes up the heart completely dissolved upon contact with the oil based EI2. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find an isotope of EI2 that doesn't eat away at sensitive tissue?"

"How?", I asked.

"Very", Sarah replied, "point is that I know the feeling of "Solve one issue, have a dozen more show up to troll you."

I snickered, "I was the troll back home. My Mom always had me stuck under her and it annoyed the fuck out of her Royal Advisers. I think that they thought I was getting in the way of things, but I could be wrong, maybe they just didn't like the idea that she'd rather be my mother than a Queen."

She laughed again, "you hungry?"

"Always", I laughed.

"Then I'll get started on something to eat."

Sarah stood up and left the room, walking into the kitchen. I put my head back on the arm rest of the couch and closed my eyes. It had barely been two minutes before James tapped my shoulder.

"Dr. Freakshow is on the line", he said, "I think you should come see this."

I groaned and rose from the couch. I used James as a crutch to limp back to the security room, where I found Allen down to shorts and a tank top staring into a monitor that, strangely enough, held an image of Dr. Martin that looked un affected by the heat wave.

"Put your bounty hunting pet on the screen please", Martin demanded.

Allen moved aside as I looked into the screen.

"Do you insist on messing up my plans on every way possible?", Martin asked casually, "you've set me back quite a few days with your little power restoration boy."

"Yes", I answered him, "and eventually I'm coming up there to kill you as well."

"Oh come now", Martin said putting his head in both his hands and making a face as if he were scolding a two year old for getting caught with his hand in a cookie jar, "don't make threats kid, it's not polite and you could get into some trouble."

"That wasn't a threat", I told him, "that was a promise."

He smiled at me, "saying your going to kill someone is a threat. I might call the police, but seeing as how this is the first time offense, I shall allow it to slide. Do not cross me again, if you do, you'll know what true pain and a visit to hell feels like."

"Hell?", I asked lowering my voice and showing my fangs, "I've already been."

Martin's laugh at my words was that of a deranged lunatic, "no, you haven't. You've been warned boy. Stay out of my way, or you'll regret it."

The monitor cut off.

"What is wrong with that man?", I asked.

"Everyone has a different theory", Allen said, "what you think he meant he said "you'll regret it?"

"Probably meant he'd shoot me", I answered, "he thinks he knows me but he doesn't. I'm going to kill that mother fucker."

"And I'm gonna help you", Mike said walking in, "bastard damn near cooked us and he's laughing about it."

"I would love to know what his "plans" are", Allen said leaning back in his chair, "what I fail to see is how restoring the power set him back, seems to me like having more systems in his tower would help."

"Was he referring to the fact that because we have power", Matt began as he entered, "that his grip over the lab and his control of our actions has lessened?"

"That's a pretty decent observation Matt", Jacob commented, "if his toys were running on his own generator, then it probably kicked off just long enough to force manual resets on all his equipment when main power came back on."

"See?", I said, "were smart. So what's the next move Doc?"

"For now", James answered, "lets get something to eat and get some rest, it's been a long day and if Martin is up there trying to work through a few days set back, then we have breathing room and some time to come up with a plan of our own", he looked at my ankle, "stay off of that Skyline. I'd really rather not have you mess that up so badly we gotta put you under a knife to fix it."

"Message received", I answered him.

I left the room and went to sit at the table where Sarah was just putting food around. We talked over what the next move would be over dinner, eventually coming to the conclusion that we should head up to the tower and try to kill Dr. Martin. A decision I was just a little too happy hear. I figured I'd enter the tower, pop a slug from the High-Power into Martin's brain pan and that would be the end of it.

I had never been more wrong.