Trace had only managed to shoot one of the guards when Cerys’ two guards began to act. Contrary to what he would have expected, instead of acting in the corporation’s best interests, they remained loyal to Cerys and the orders she had given them earlier. As soon as their plasma swords cleared their sheaths, they ignited and were ready for use.

  The two women blurred and began to move. The glowing swords flashed and sliced through the air. The blades cut through limbs as easily as Trace’s fork through the overdone noodles he had eaten the other day.

  His finger squeezed off a final shot, finishing the magazine in his pistol. As his gun clicked empty, his mind caught up to the impossibly fast movements of the two women. He had seen someone else doing something similar before, though that particular man’s movements hadn’t been quite as fluid as theirs were. It was something to think about later. At the moment, he was concentrating on swapping out magazines.

  His left arm was still a little numb, and fine motor control hadn’t quite come back yet. He didn’t need much of that to pull out one of the spare magazines from his holster. However, doing it from across his body, along with pulling it out, was just a little too much. He succeeded, but it took him a couple of seconds longer than it should have.

  Slipping the fresh magazine into place, he aimed at the section heads above them and began to fire.

  While all of this was going on, Ko had been busy grabbing her mother and rolling them both toward the edge of the room. Once they were pressed against the edge, she reached for the small of her back where her gun was holstered. A few moments later, she began to fire at the people above them as well. Her own shots came slower, as she needed far more time to aim than Trace did.

  The section heads above were panicking themselves, and were all rushing toward the exit, desperate to escape.

  By the time Trace’s gun clicked empty for a second time, they were alone, save for Cerys’ guards and all the dead bodies. The two women were dripping with sweat and breathing heavily, despite such a small amount of time having passed. Whatever allowed them to move at such extreme speeds was obviously beyond tiring to their bodies.

  Trace swapped out magazines, the last spare he had brought. The new magazines didn’t fit as well in the holster as the old ones did, which it had been made for. The new models were larger and strained against the fabric, bulging in ways that prevented him from keeping the normal number.

  Getting to his feet, he kept the pistol in his hand as he stared at the two guards. They still had their swords in hand, though the plasma edges were no longer glowing with ignition. Both had managed to only take a couple of minor cuts and were bleeding lightly. Harvey may have brought more guards, but Cerys' had clearly been better trained and had access to better cyberware.

  “Uh, are you going to cut us in half now?” He asked uncertainly.

  They may have turned off their swords, but they were still ready to act at a moment’s notice.

  “Our orders were to protect you. That is what we are doing,” The one on the left said between gasps for air.

  “Right, uh, thank you for that. I really appreciate it,” Trace said, lowering his guard some as he holstered the pistol.

  He limped over to Ko, the muscles in his thighs and calves still recovering from the drug. She had ejected the magazine from her small pistol and was in the middle of checking how many bullets were left in it.

  “How are you and your mom? Are either of you hurt?”

  She massaged the metal sides of her throat and coughed. “I’m fine. I haven’t tried speaking without this in a long time. It hurt a lot more than I thought it would.”

  “How much of that was an act?” He asked, helping Ko to her feet.

  “Hmm, oh, all of it. I could probably talk… after a fashion, if I needed to. It would sound odd, but nothing like what I was doing. That was just me screeching at them.”

  “So, does that mean that it actually has been helping to heal your vocal cords, like Sevorah intended?”

  “It’s a slow process, but it seems like it, yeah.” She put the pistol back in its holster in the small of her back and then retrieved the ink-sheet Harvey had slapped her hand on. “I want to look over this contract, and whatever message he got later. Right now, we need to grab my mom and get out of here. Also, I got my first perk.” She finished in a whisper right next to his ear.

  His brows rose in surprise. Trace had a feeling that might have been the case when the man had been talking about her odd adrenaline readings earlier, but hadn’t been sure. He nodded once and pointed at her mother.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Will you need help carrying her out?” He bent over and began picking through the weapons the guards had been carrying. At any moment, he expected an alarm to begin sounding and their efforts to leave this place to become a whole lot more difficult.

  “We should hurry,” One of the female guards said, moving toward the door. She slammed her fist into a panel next to it, disabling the sprayers that had misted them with drugs before. “The alarm has already been sounded.”

  Trace cursed. Of course, the alarm wouldn’t be something audible. Not inside a shared building such as this. It would be sent across a closed network messaging system of some sort. He grabbed an SMG, along with as many magazines as he could stuff in his pockets. That would have to be enough for now. He was growing more proficient with swords and knives, but he was nowhere near the level of the two female guards.

  He might be able to take on the average gangster with a sword, but he wouldn’t want to try fighting a corpo. Unfortunately, the learning module he had, ‘Enhanced Swords & Not Dying’ along with the similarly named version for knives, was coincidently oriented towards exactly that. Not dying. In other words, it was a module geared towards teaching a person the basics in a hardcore crash course.

  The modules were effective, but they were also some of the harder ones he had worked his way through as a result. Either way, they gave you a foundation, but like all modules, there came a point where you needed to upgrade to the next one if you wanted to keep learning. It was either that or just practice relentlessly against an opponent who never got better.

  Which is exactly what he had been doing recently. Learning modules were expensive.

  Trace helped lift Su-Min’s limp form onto Ko’s back, and together the five left the room, leaving a host of bodies behind.

  The guards led them toward the elevator, only to find them already locked down. “I had hoped we would be able to make it halfway down before they locked access.” One muttered with a click of her tongue.

  The other pointed to the indicators above two other nearby elevator banks. “Not all of them are locked down if you want to wait.”

  “I’d rather take my luck with the stairs.”

  Ko groaned and shifted her mother’s weight into a better position. “We’re closer to the roof than the floor, right? Is there anything up there? A landing pad, one hopefully with an aircraft of some kind always on it.”

  “Can either of you fly? Cus’ neither myself nor my sister can. We usually have a third member in our party who handles that.” The two guards were becoming a little chattier as the situation heated up. “It doesn’t matter either way in this case. All the section heads who managed to survive would have gone right for it. There is no chance that it hasn’t already left. Going down is our only option.”

  “Let’s get moving then,” Ko ground out. “I’m not sure how many floors I’ll be able to carry my mother for if we are also dodging bullets.”

  Trace stepped in front of her and looked back. “Just keep one hand on my shoulder for balance if you can. Let me know when you need to swap out and I’ll take a turn carrying her.”

  His eyes flashed as he sent her a quick point-to-point message. ‘Don’t forget, the nanites have finished repairing my muscles, and have started to enhance them. I can’t say I’m anywhere near Monroe’s level with his arm, but I can help, at least.’

  She nodded as they hurried toward the stairs and began the long climb down. Her arm on his shoulder played an integral role in keeping her balanced but also maintaining a decent speed. With her mother on her back, she couldn’t simply throw herself recklessly down the endless stairs at ever-increasing speeds. Still, each successive impact on her knees and back, along with the occasional thump against the back of her head or the NetConnect in her neck, began to build up.

  The group had only been descending for a minute when they heard the door above them slam open. It was followed moments later by the slapping of boots and the sound of indistinct voices.

  As one, the group all moved closer to the wall and kept on going. One of the two guards was at the rear of the line, while the other was at the front. That way, they had both positions covered, and with Trace in the middle, he could easily shoot in either direction if the need arose.

  No matter how hard they ran down the stairs, each of them knew they would be caught soon enough. It was simply a matter of time. There was simply no way that they could maintain enough speed to stay ahead while Ko was carrying her mother. Leaving her behind was obviously not an option, either.

  “Do either of you have a plan on how to get us out of this situation?” Trace huffed out, wondering how long they had until they ran into guards coming up from a lower floor.

  “The mistress had just left the server room when you shot Harvey. She was too late to lock the door behind us, but all the doors below have been secured for the moment.” The guard behind them said, not even breathing heavily anymore. “She believes that she can keep everything locked down for another three to five minutes before they revoke her access, and she needs to leave.”

  Ko nearly stumbled as she adjusted her mother’s weight, pausing for only a moment. Unlike the guards, she was breathing heavily and sweat dotted her brow. She wasn’t used to this sort of strenuous exercise.

  “How many floors can we run down in that time?” She gasped out.

  “It’s more a question; of how long do we have before we get attacked.” The one in front replied. “At our current pace, we’ll need another fifteen to twenty minutes, at a minimum.”

  The question was abruptly answered as the first of their pursuers began to open fire on them. They weren’t yet directly behind them, but above and to the side. They had shot at them through the open gap between the stairs.

  Trace grunted as one of them got a lucky shot in and the meat of his butt gained a new burning groove. ‘Why did people keep shooting his rear end lately? Did they have something against it?’ He desperately wanted to know, because it was so annoying!

  “Are you alright Ko?” He ground out, ignoring the pain for the moment. “Did any of those hit you?”

  “No, I’m fine, mom too. I think you are the only one who got hit.” Her hand was holding tight to his shoulder as she fought to maintain balance.

  As it became ever harder for her to catch her breath, her legs became increasingly weaker. She knew they didn’t have the luxury of stopping and swapping who carried her mother. Besides, they were going to need Trace’s ability to shoot sooner rather than later, and he was definitely a better shot than her.

  Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to rate the story and to my latest Patrons! I have other stories up on my Patreon, including my current WIPs. Which are now Created G.H.O.S.T. System(My Cyberpunk story), WetWorks2, plus The Restaurateur and His Daughter and DungeonFall. :)

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