"Alright eyes sharp," Jacqui's voice was a low growl, her digital face a mask of cold focus. She led them into the apartment, her movements fluid and predatory.
The silence was the first thing that hit them with the eerie music playing in the background. Jimmy found a sleek remote on a nearby table and jabbed the stop button. The jazz saxophone cut out mid-note, leaving a heavy, waiting void that felt louder than the music had. The air smelled of copper, strong antiseptic, and something else… something sickly sweet, like burnt sugar.
Jacqui and Jimmy peeled off to the right, sweeping the main wing. But Ethicca heard something else, a sound that curdled the blood, coming from the left. A child's giggle, high and thin, woven through with the wet, tearing sound of a man's scream.
Her training screamed at her to stick with the team, but the horrifying sound pulled her forward. Gripping her pistol so tightly her knuckles were white, she crept down a short hallway. What she saw made her stomach try to crawl up her throat.
Stretched between two marble pillars was a glistening, dripping banner. It was stitched together from severed arms and legs, the flesh still weeping blood onto the polished floor. A single hand, its middle finger defiantly extended, formed the 'L' in the word it spelled out: WELCOME.
Beneath it, a little girl with pigtails the color of bubblegum and a pristine white dress sat cross-legged on a medical-grade cryo-cooler. She was watching a dual-screen monitor, a vintage camcorder jacked into it. On one screen, a man in an NCPD uniform screamed as a laser scalpel methodically flayed the skin from his face. On the other, a naked woman was being torn apart by what looked like cybernetically enhanced dogs with serrated steel jaws.
The little girl was clapping her hands in glee, a rhythmic, delighted patter. "Get him! Get him! Yay!" she chirped, as if watching her favorite cartoon.
Disgust and horror warred in Ethicca's chest. She flinched, looking away for just a second. When she brought her gaze back, the girl was gone. Vanished. The only thing left was the humming monitor and the cryo-cooler.
"Guys!" Ethicca's voice was a ragged shout. "You need to see this! Now!"
Jacqui and Jimmy were there in a flash, weapons raised. They skidded to a halt, taking in the gruesome welcome banner. Jimmy grabbed Ethicca's arm and yanked her back, putting himself between her and the scene.
Jacqui, her face unreadable behind the digital mask, approached the cooler. She popped the lid with a soft hiss of escaping cold air, glanced inside, and just shook her head, a slow, tired gesture. With a sigh, she unplugged the camcorder, and the screens went black.
Curiosity overriding her fear, Ethicca peeked around Jimmy to look inside the cooler. It was packed with ice and decapitated heads. She recognized two of them—the 'muscle' from their crew. Their eyes were wide with the final, dawning horror of the trap they'd sprung.
Jimmy let out a low whistle. "Well, shit. Looks like the welcoming committee got a little overzealous. That's what's left of the Roaches." He started pulling Ethicca toward the elevator. "Time to go. Now."
They had almost reached the doors when a voice, sweet as candy and cold as the grave, echoed from right infront of them.
"Oh, look! More party guests!"
Ethicca peeked from behind Jimmy's broad, cybernetic back. The little girl, was standing right in front of the elevator doors, blocking their escape. She had a lollipop in her hand.
"You Sector 9 rats are so rude," she said with a pout. "The last ones broke before we could even finish playing. I'm Ella. Will you play with me?"
[WARNING. BIO-SIGNATURE ANOMALOUS. THREAT CLASSIFICATION: KETER. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED. ENGAGE. NOW.]
X's voice was a spike of ice in Ethicca's mind. Without thinking, pure panic taking over, she raised her pistol and fired.
The bullet screamed through the air toward Ella's face. Faster than thought, the girl moved. With a lazy, dismissive flick of her wrist, she swatted the hyper-velocity round out of the air like an annoying fly. The bullet spun away, trailing sparks, and embedded itself in a marble pillar with a loud thwack. Her small hand crackled with contained arcs of blue electricity.
"What the hell is that thing?!" Jimmy roared, shouldering his railgun. "EAT CHROME, YOU LITTLE PSYCHO!"
The room erupted in the deafening, high-speed thump-thump-thump of the railgun firing. The concussion forced Ethicca and Jacqui to drop to a crouch as hyper-velocity slugs shredded the air where Ella stood. A thick cloud of smoke and pulverized plaster filled the space.
Ella walked forward, emerging from the smoke, the slugs striking her small frame with metallic pings and ricocheting harmlessly into the walls. She didn't even flinch.
"TAKE THIS, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" Jimmy screamed, a manic grin plastered on his face. And then, the railgun coughed, choked, and went silent with a pathetic click. "Scrap-heap son of a bitch!" he bellowed, tossing the jammed weapon aside. He raised his cybernetic fists, ready for a brawl.
The room fell silent again, except for the faint tinkle of a stray slug casing hitting the floor.
"I think you got her," Ethicca whispered, a wave of relief washing over her.
The smoke cleared. Ella stood there, untouched, brushing a speck of dust from her pristine white dress.
"You didn't do shit," she said flatly. Then she casually tossed two chrome spheres that looked like polished ball bearings toward them. They rolled across the floor with an innocent clatter.
"GRENADES!" Jimmy roared. "GET BEHIND ME! NOW!"
He shoved the two girls behind him and slammed his cybernetic fists into the floor. A shimmering, hexagonal lattice of hard-light erupted from his knuckles, forming a translucent blue shield just as the spheres detonated.
The world became white light and thunder. The force of the blast was immense, shattering the shield and launching them across the room like dolls. They slammed into the far wall, the impact cracking the marble pillars. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind them exploded outwards, revealing a dizzying 300-story drop into the neon-choked abyss below.
As the dust settled, Jacqui groaned, pulling a bruised and battered Ethicca to her feet. But Jimmy… Jimmy was a wreck. He was slumped against the wall, his legs gone, sheared off at the hip. His cybernetic arms were ripped from their sockets, and his entire torso was a mangled ruin of burnt flesh, exposed wiring, and shattered plating, sizzling and sparking.
"Jimmy! Are you okay!?" Jacqui yelled, slapping his metal cheekplate.
He coughed, a spray of blood and oil splattering his chin. His voice box glitched, but he managed a laugh—a horrible, gurgling sound. "Of course I'm not okay! I look like a half-eaten burrito! What part of this screams 'I'm feeling peachy' to you!?"
Jacqui let out a breathy, relieved smile. "Goddamn, you are hard to kill."
"Heh… that's why they call us Roaches," he sputtered, grinning through the blood.
Ethicca managed a weak smile at their gallows humor, but then her eyes widened in terror. "Guys! She's still alive!"
Ella stood in the center of the destruction, not a scratch on her. "My, what a mess," she sighed, as if scolding a messy pet. Behind her, the elevator doors opened again. A woman flanked by two hulking robotic guards with faceless chrome helms and pulse rifles stepped out.
Ella stepped aside respectfully.
The woman was an avatar of cold authority. Her long, white hair cascaded over a coat that seemed woven from captured light, its surface constantly shifting and reflecting the room's carnage. A general's beret sat at a precise, arrogant angle on her head. She strode toward them, her boots making no sound on the debris-strewn floor, and stopped before the broken trio.
"Jacqui Staxx," she began, her voice calm and clear, cutting through the ringing in their ears. She looked at Jimmy's ruined form. "Jimmy Square." Finally, her piercing gaze landed on Ethicca. "And Ethicca Psylux."
She knew their real names.
"So glad you could make it."