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.On the other side, a low-slung bench lined a series of lockers.At the far end was a round door that looked more like a portal on a submarine than anything Rachel had ever seen before.That was where she’d been looking a second before, when the door had suddenly swung open.Rachel stood frozen in her tracks, utterly paralyzed by fear.The infernal thing shambling through that doorway was something out of a nightmare.She’d seen enough orks on the street to know that this used to be one, but somebody had sheared its horns close to the skull.One side of its head was a simple metal plate.The entire left side of the ork’s body was gone, replaced by a steel cylinder with eight small appendages sprouting at various angles.The bottom of the cylinder, where the ork’s left leg should have been, was an articulated foot that looked impossibly thin to bear up under that much weight.The ork’s eyes were gone and in their place was a steel grid that completely encircled its shaved head, attaching to the metal plate for support.Rachel had seen something like this once.It was supposed to give the person a three-sixty view of the world.They hadn’t been very popular.because most people couldn’t adjust to having that much visual field.Just above the viewing bar, to the side of the metal plate, the ork had the words “NUMBER ONE” tattooed into the skin of its forehead.All these things she could have dealt with.She had seen body mods before, though these were clumsier and more obvious.No, the thing that made her body seize upon her was the ork’s mouth.The mouth was filled with needle teeth that didn’t quite mesh.They had broken off in places and some of the splinters jutted through the dead flesh of the ork’s lips.“Down! Now!”It was Sin, right behind Rachel.Then Sin’s hand was on her shoulder, gripping with a strength Rachel wouldn’t have dreamed, shoving her violently to the floor.Above her head, she heard two soft twangs, and watched as the ork developed dual feathered hafts in its throat.The thing let out a strangled cry, and turned a half-circle to stumble into the frame of the round door.It landed on its right side, mechanical leg peddling against empty air while its flesh leg twitched uncontrollably.More twangs followed the first, and as two more crossbow bolts buried themselves in the things body, the twitching of the flesh leg stilled.Even so, the chrome leg spasmed twice more before it finally jerked once and then dropped.As if someone had just cut the power.Sinunu’s hand was still on Rachel’s shoulder as Flak’s huge form did a low, curled vault over her, landed on one foot, and spun to the side of the doorway, the Vindicator going into its warm-up whine as he jammed it through the circular opening.“Twelve o’clock clear.” Flak voice was soft.“Six clear.” It was Truxa’s voice from somewhere behind Rachel.“You solid?” Sinunu touched the side of Rachel’s face, pulling her gaze from the downed monstrosity in front of her.“I said, ‘you solid?’ ”Rachel nodded.“Package secure,” said Sinunu.Rachel pushed Sinunu’s hand off her shoulder and stood.She wasn’t exactly proud of her reaction to the situation, but she wasn’t going to be called a “package” if she could help it.From just behind her, she could hear Truxa say, “I didn’t think it was possible.There’s no way that thing should be able to exist.” The wonder and fear in her voice made Rachel feel just a bit better about how she’d reacted.Over the headset they’d given her, she heard Flak say, “Talk to me, Sandman.What the hell was that all about?”There was a pause, then, “Whoever’s helping us out has gone to a lot of sweat pulling this particular room off-line.I didn’t notice, because they covered their tracks pretty well.It looks like they didn’t want anyone finding out that the decon tanks shut down just as your newly dead pal came through them.Sony.I’d just noticed myself when he surprised you.”Flak took a moment to look down at the dead ork.“That’s some seriously sad cyber.Looks like a wind-up toy.”It was Sandman who responded.“Actually, if that’s Number One, he’s got some SOTA cyber, but from what I can see, they had to make mods to his wetware.Actually, from the schematics I just pulled up.your dead boy is brainfry.They got a direct neural digitizer hooked up to his network.He only responds to specific verbal stimulation.In fact, my guess is that if you’d all just held real still, he would have walked right past you.”“All right, enough about our pal.Two questions, any more like him between here and our objective? And how we doing on time?”“Good news is you got nothing between you and our boy.Bad news is that I got some minor activity on the home front here.Everything just went on red alert [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]