A shot silenced the officer, tearing through his shoulder and throwing the man backward before his hand could close around his own weapon. Svetaker took a step, and bullets drummed against the raised bde that shielded his helmet. He grunted, perhaps irritated, as a bst of psma nded against his weapon, partially melting the cleaver and burning through the cloak, sending the disgusting mass flying free. An acid grenade engulfed the man, but he showed a hand through the cloud, jabbed the hand cannon’s barrel into a soldier’s face with a disgusting, champing sound, and rammed the handle of his cleaver into the Orais’ head.

  He was unharmed. T’s eyes refused to believe it, but the man emanated not a single hint of pain for him to devour. Even the arm that had been damaged by the shaman no longer ached. Already back to being healthy. Insanity.

  Svetaker moved fluidly, the hydraulics of his armor barely producing a sound, but his generator roared an infernal scream, fueling his might. His minions opened fire, but he had no need for their assistance. In a blur of unhinged violence, the hordeman kicked a soldier in the groin, liquidating his pelvis, dragging his leg through his intestines, and rupturing his stomach. His oversized cannon fshed pure white, and the top of another soldier’s head disappeared. Yellow lightning conjured by one of the orange-robed soldiers trapped him, sending two hordemen thrashing in agony, locked in the yellowish cage.

  But while their suits hissed and spewed smoke, and their eyes popped inside their visors, Svetaker remained unharmed. He banged his weapons together, fttened the head of the New Breed that was summoning the energy, and engaged in a brief duel against an Ice Fang.

  T had dared to believe in the werewolf’s victory, encouraged by the inspiring stories the teachers had told him of the Order’s incredible exploits. The warrior in the dented pte rose to face Svetaker, his white cloak, adorned by the regal emblem of the sword piercing the sun, in tatters, but his tower shield remained untouched, and the axe cracked with energy. The cleaver collided against the shield, sending a shockwave of such intensity that Halina nearly fell. But the Ice Fang grunted and rammed the shield into Svetaker, almost pushing him back, and his axe went down, blocked by the cannon.

  The Ice Fang’s shoulder cannon began spinning, firing directly into the fat bulk of the man. Armor-piercing rounds ricocheted off the featureless gray surface, igniting sparks and bouncing off the Ice Fang’s soot-covered, ornate suit. Svetaker fired his own hand cannon, and the audible crack of the pte through the chaos of battle froze T in his tracks.

  He, Jay, and Halina were pulled down by the Investigation Bureau officer, who ignored his own bleeding stump and tried to cover them with his body to save them from the flying bullets. Jay pushed him off, and Halina unfastened her belt and tried to make a makeshift tourniquet. I… T stood on his knee, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. What am I… Again. The Ice Fang fought with resilience and skill, parrying the cannon aside, but even his axe couldn’t even dent the immense power armor Svetaker wore. The sadist raged, utterly silent, sshing at the shield again and again, mercilessly beating the Ice Fang into the ground.

  At st, the arm’s hydraulics and artificial muscle fibers could take no more. They snapped at the elbow, weakening the werewolf’s hold, and the next blow flew over the shield, sinking deep into the shoulder and through the cvicle. Svetaker could not be denied. He could not be stopped, and they will all die, there was no chance; it was over…

  “T!” Halina shouldered him. “Don’t give up! Help me drag her…” Her one working hand, so tiny compared to his, held the wounded Mark by her colr.

  Something clicked inside him, and T smiled. “Thank you, Hali, Jay,” he said.

  “What are you thanking me for, dumbass?” Jay asked.

  “For the idea and the bravery.”

  T snatched a grenade from the chest pocket of the one-armed agent, ignoring his screams to stay low. He opened up, absorbing every source of pain and agony. The Recimers, the hordemen and his friends. Everything that bothered them and caused even the slightest discomfort fueled his supply, instantly replenishing it. Hands, his hands, protruded from his back without tearing his jacket. It was as if twos and threes of T’s had overpped his body and were now uncoiling. They jumped to his side, giving him the sight of six pairs of eyes, but he wasn’t done yet.

  Oh no. He had no intention of holding back anymore, and as his clones charged toward the hordemen, each carrying an acid grenade, he drank again, refilling not just his stock but that of his clones as well. Seven became forty-two, and forty-two changed to two hundred and fifty-two. Bursts of gunfire sliced through his copies. The slightest cut had enough power to banish a clone, but T didn’t care. There was enough of him, and he had a supply of pain in abundance.

  His friends and the Recimers were in danger. And he was done holding back.

  “Suffer and die, you dirty savages!” He roared.

  The horde of furious copies reached the ranks of the hordemen, climbing over the dead killed by the state’s troops. Hands wrapped around the men and women, bodies glued to Svetaker, giving the Ice Fang an ample opportunity to dart aside. And then, in unison, they pulled out the safety pins.

  Not every grenade went off. Elbows bruised his copies, dissipating them, and those of the Ts who rushed to join the fray vanished in the spshes of the ensuing acid dome. Still, he roared, ughing with pure glee at the desperate shrieks of these merciless, subhuman scum. Their screams were music to his ears, the hiss of acid melting their ptes and visors in a symphony of unparalleled beauty. Barely a person died in the first wave, but the acid lingering in the air, seconds after the copy that unleashed it disappeared, damaged suits and crept into the cracks of armor, dripping onto bare skin and providing more sources for him to drink from.

  “Useless!” Svetaker sliced through the air, obliterating a dozen Ts with air pressure alone. His next shot carved a hole through the horde that was closing in on him. “A futile attempt!”

  “Oh, really?” Now calmed, he saw the melted spots on the surface of his ptes and the occasional cracks left by either the axe or the bullets. His fear pyed tricks on him. The man wasn’t invincible. “Well, if one doesn’t tickle you, I might as well do it twice!” The copies approached Svetaker and his troops and detonated themselves. “And then thrice for good measure! You know what? I am feeling generous! Have a hundred times!”

  The first dome of acid disappeared, but several hordemen were on their knees, howling in terror as his shapes leapt at them, sprouting more and more Ts every second. Frantic gunfire ripped through his body, but the sheer number of Ts and their approach from all directions did the job. He heard the frightened whimpering and the fear in their eyes as they gnced at the thinning visors brought him joy. Ts sneaked closer, and another dome of acid briefly blossomed, leaving bodies rolling on the ground, covered in the horrible burns.

  “Suffer, suffer, writhe in agony, you sick fucks!” T ughed bombastically; the chains of restraint slipped off him. At st he was good for something too; he was as useful as Halina and Jay! At st, he could protect those he cared about! He stood at full height, drunk on alcohol and his invincibility, feeling like a god. The concrete sank under Svetaker’s legs, and he disappeared in it up to his waist, as if it were a muddy quagmire. “Recmation Army for the win! Thought you’d end us? Ha! Enjoy hearing screams? Sing for me, you psychos, and pay for all those you hurt!”

  “Want a song? Listen to a soprano.” Svetaker said.

  A single round ssh cleared the area around him, and his tusked helmet roared, buckling T on his knee. This noise... it was unbearable. The windows shattered, his bones felt like they were shaking, and Halina screamed, pressing her hands to her ears. The sound weighed upon them, not exactly a roar, but an eerie note that resembled the beginning of a never-ending tribal chant, amplified to an overwhelming degree. T sensed wet in his ears and gasped, losing the connection. Most of his clones disappeared due to the ruptured eardrums, and the tusked helmet looked directly at him.

  Svetaker knew. He knew where the real T was. His cannon fired.

  The grenade dropped to the street, rolling away from the four twitching fingers. The projectile flew past his hand, barely grazing him, but it was enough. T screamed in pain, holding his mangled hand, and the weapons disappeared from the hands of his copies, along with the fingers. New versions of him were still slipping into reality, each cking fingers on one hand.

  “Flesh has become drunk with its power,” Svetaker stopped his roar. He used his weapon to help himself get free from the ruined concrete. “Power doesn’t make a man. It’s how you use it that matters. Ponder on it as I skin you, fatty.”

  “I am just a child!” T screamed, thinking feverishly. Hurt, hurt, it hurt so much! He couldn’t let himself be distracted; there had to be a way to save Jay and Halina. “And yet I fucked you up twice already! Not bad for a flesh! Catch me if you can, dog-faced freak.”

  He ran. There was no time to expin anything to his friends. They could hate or reject him afterward; T didn’t care. Svetaker shifted. He noticed. The man wanted him, focused on him. He knew it from those days; the sadists like him thought themselves so smart, but all they had was strength and little brains. He knew how to py their kind.

  Two Ts tried to use the machine guns of the dead Recimers to cover those still alive as they took shelter in the building. But even though the newer copies that had sprouted from his armed copies carried weapons, it was impossible for him to use them. One was empty, and the trigger on another was meant for an Orais; his weak fingers couldn’t squeeze it. So he threw his many selves at Svetaker and his crew, trying to slow them down, while another T helped Halina drag the wounded Mark and the officer away…

  Wait…

  “Idiot!” Someone shoved him in the back, and he heard a gunshot. Jay staggered beside him, barely regaining his footing, and two freshly made Ts grabbed him under the armpits. The skin on the back of his head was missing, revealing gleaming bone. Jay blinked.

  “Jay, I am so sorry," T cried, leading him into the alley, hearing the pounding footsteps of Svetaker behind them. “I didn’t mean to abandon you; I should have tossed the grenades. I was so stupid; I…”

  “Do you even know where you are running?” Jay whispered, blinking again.

  “What? No!”

  “Retard.” Jay smiled through the pain, his eyes fshing. “You pnned on a noble sacrifice, leading the bastard away? No dice, T, we are getting out of here alive!”

  “But how! He can’t be stopped! No one can beat…”

  “Trust me!” Svetaker squeezed into the alley, too narrow for him. The edges of his armor splintered stone and metal, denying him the opportunity to run at full speed. Part of his crew surrounded the Recimers, but none of them paid any attention to Halina, following their leader’s orders like loyal dogs. He wanted them.

  “I’m sorry; I’m so sorry for leaving you,” the fake T murmured, helping Halina drag the two wounded away. “I thought it was the best way to…”

  “Beat it, T,” the girl said fiercely. Her arm in the sling twitched, incapable of movement, and she sighed. “Your poor hand! Should I…”

  “Not the real me, don’t feel a thing,” he reassured her, half-lying. His condition was transferred to his copies, but copies couldn’t heal. “Actually, I’m not sure if this clone can even disappear from a blood loss…”

  “You weakened the beast; now we need another Recimer’s patrol to finish him off!” Jay said.

  “Where are we supposed to find them?!” asked the real T.

  “Think, T! Think! The Recimers hold the vital areas, right? All we have to do is rush to a pce that our guys consider important.”

  “You came up with this idea so fast?” T whistled. “You are smart. Wonder how this pn will backfire on us.”

  “Screw you, T!”

  “Already pnning on cheating on your girlfriend, stickman?”

  “Never… I mean, she is not my girlfriend, fat ass!” Jay blinked again, touched the back of his head, and began to run more steadily. “Listen, can you talk through your clones? Know what she is doing?”

  “Yes! She. We are still trying to rescue the soldiers!”

  “Tell her…”

  ****

  Taking a short break from her important task to water the flowers, Lyudochka thought that she missed her fleshy body. To be unable to smell a flower or warm your fingers with a slice of freshly warmed bread and to never taste cold chocote milk in the morning… Even such trivialities as a simple breath occasionally gnawed at her, especially when she was all alone and under stress. She remembered every sensation as her circuits stored her memories, never letting them fade. But it wasn’t possible to experience them again. No more stretching in front of a window and enjoying the sunlight. Thousands upon thousands of little things she knew and did in the past were no longer possible. Dad had saved her, but immortality had come at a cost too high for her taste.

  Oh, enough brooding, Silly-Billy! She scolded herself and whirled back to the papers.

  The embassy wasn’t a small building; it served as proof of status, three stories high, framed by the immacute marble statues of the famous saints that held up the roof. A stone path from the gates led past two fountains, where the revetions of the Taker of Oath were secured in the waters, kept safe and visible inside limpid casings. The picture of the founder greeted anyone stepping across the rugs covering the wooden floors. A little trick of lighting kept a faint golden halo around the Founder’s head. Simple bronze letters, “Every soul in need of refuge is welcome,” were inscribed on the main gates.

  Lyudochka’s workpce was on the first floor and partly in the basement. Her duties consisted of greeting prospective immigrants, preparing paperwork on behalf of the ambassador, conducting background checks, answering general questions about the Oath, and showing new believers how not to worry about the auras after they had sworn their fealty. It wasn’t an overly difficult task, made easier by her boundless stamina. The personnel had been super nice; no one had even mistaken her for a robot.

  She took the job hoping to finally meet her mothers, since writing long letters seemed to be a rather stupid way of communication, but Janine and Martyshkina were such stupid cusacks occasionally! But the job grew on her, and Lyudochka found true fulfillment in it. Not that working behind a counter in the capital was bad, but here she met people she never even knew existed!

  Scattered papers y all around the envoy’s office, with part of them burning in the firepce. She stopped, reminding herself about the important detail, and stomped on the ashes. If she still had a heart, it would have threatened to jump out of her chest. No helping it now. She began reading and sorting the documents. Rich donations—essentially bribes—had been made to a company in exchange for industrial espionage to obtain schematics of an augmented mining limb produced by Ingo Industrial. Definitely into the fmes. A list of the faithful, with an added chip. The Recimers had very strict rules about spreading the Oath, keeping the embassy under surveilnce. But according to the papers, the ambassador, Craven Wickedbreed, and not the impostor like her, had gotten around the rules, pnting informants. Yep, to the hearth you go! Her leg crushed the chip.

  Next was a catalog of people applying for asylum and immigration. Nope, this is important. She clutched the ledger and the USB drives to her chest. Part of her job was in there! Nothing incriminating here either! Nothing incriminating here either. Lyudochka pced the heavy brown ledger, edged with silver, on a table, intending to preserve it, and continued reading. Information about someone going by the moniker Academician, who was trying to establish a retionship with the Oathtakers, offering to trade supposedly valuable information for the acquisition of Ice Fangs children.

  Disgusting. Craven Wickedbreed scheduled the deal for refusal but deyed his response, pnning to use the Oathtakers’ agents to secure the would-be kidnapper. There was nothing like showing these Recimers how it was done. What to do… She tapped her metal teeth, examining the sizeable blue folder containing the knowledge of the underhanded deals the various svers offered the Oathtakers. They didn’t owe the Recimers any help, but in a more literal sense of the word, she really wanted to see the bastards screwed over with a red-hot iron bar.

  No more hesitation! Her ocurs scanned the document, and she inserted the USB drives in the sockets of her body, loading the information. Then she connected to the Net, uploading it in full to the Investigation Bureau. Wait! She panicked, realizing she had forgotten to use a burner email and encrypt the connection. Oh crap, crap, I’ll be fired! From a cannon, probably! Stupid, idiotic girl! How many times had Martyshkina told you not to hurry, take a breath, and tackle each task with care and attention? Did you listen? No, of course not…

  “What. Are. You. Still. Doing. Here?” A voice asked her slowly and deliberately, and Lyudochka turned around, dropping the folder.

  The dispy standing on the redwood table stood on the four thick wires, waving two more in the air. Its screen showed the face of a handsome man in a bck leather jacket. He furrowed his brows angrily, nervously tapping on the table with a wire. His keen bck eyes dug into her very soul, searching for answers.

  “Greetings, sir, LS, sir.” She bowed to Lord Steward, the Oathtakers’ de facto ruler. “I have committed a treason.” Lyudochka decided to come clean.

  “A treason? Girl, you are fast.”

  “A very little one, yes! And an unintentional one! I didn’t mean it!”

  “Not relevant.” Lord Steward ran a hand over his badly shaved chin. “Why the hell haven’t you left by now, Lyudochka? The city is under siege.”

  “Duly noted, sir, yes, noticed it am I.” She began to chatter her teeth, even though she was using the voice modutor for speech. That was her natural reaction to admitting a fault. “But I had reasons! We purged the mainframe, but I decided to follow protocol to the letter so as not to leave this treasure trove of potentially incriminating evidence…”

  “Screw the documents! Ignore the protocols.” Lord Steward’s voice sent a nervous jerk through her. “The Recimers already know or suspect most of this. Hide in the underground bunker, seal it, and sit tight until a rescue team …”

  A beep spurred Lyudochka into action, and she raced out of the room with the portable communication device, clumsily chasing after her. Someone had pressed the emergency button on the entrance gates! What if there was news about Moms, or if her siblings needed a pce to hide?

  “Lyudochka! You will stop right here, or I will restrain you with… what are even these? Tentacles? Tendrils? Wires? Oh, who cares? Stop right here…”

  She ran down the stairs to the second floor. The third floor, reserved for self-defense and combat training, stood empty, and Ur-Champion rested in a meeting room to the left, listening to the binary music that eased headaches and helped focus. His head moved, but she ignored him and flung open the doors. Outside, two badly injured children climbed over the fence. Despite the soot, both were pale, with bloodstains covering them. One bled profusely from his hand, and another had his entire back soaked in the blood spilling from his head.

  “It’s a robot!” the skinny boy gasped as another boy colpsed, unable to walk any further. Lyudochka stopped herself from correcting him and rushed to them. “Listen, call the guards,” he whispered, “and run. Bad people…”

  “Won’t step in here,” she said sternly.

  It was a mess, both inside and outside the compound. Smoke and ash stained the water of the fountains; clouds of smog almost completely obscured the street. Her eyes flickered, focused, and discerned an armored group advancing on them. They stepped on another body; she wasn’t sure who it was, and she heard the crack of a spine. Their leader, a man in a tusked helmet, kicked the gates wide open and pointed a partially melted cleaver at her.

  “Pretty doll,” the intruder said, examining her. “Worth ten thousand м?нг?, minimum. What a catch. Mad Hatter will adore you.”

  “I have no intention of being sold, sir,” said Lyudochka.

  “Talking,” the man gasped. “A doll that talks. Precious. Step aside from the flesh before I scratch your porcein.”

  “No.” Lyudochka brandished her staff, pointing it at the intruders. All were blessed; there wasn’t a single person unloved by God. That’s what many people misunderstood about the Oathtakers’ philosophy. But these individuals carried blessings grander than most; it was their responsibility to aid and lead, yet she was certain they had misused those gifts, led astray by an inability to control their impulses. “I don’t like the way you talk of my guests.” She tried to speak steely and sure, and squeaked instead. Her voice modutor produced a gulp, and she wished Moms would be here. “I’ve… I’ve already granted them asylum! Yes, that’s it! I am the ambassador; I have that right! And I deny you entry; please vacate the premises, otherwise you will be forced to leave!”

  The leader raised his cannon and aimed the horrible weapon at her head. It was big enough that a single shot would send her head flying. Lyudochka pressed a button on the staff, activating a protective field around herself and the children, convincing herself not to be afraid. The adults were supposed to protect the young, and her personality was stored in the multiple cores in her body; the loss of a head meant little.

  A sofa creaked inside the embassy, and she heard the unsheathing of the legendary sword.

  “It is a dangerous thing to refuse us entry,” the hordeman told her, towering over her. “Bad. Bad metal. I will educate you on how to be compliant prior to selling. Be reasonable. Do you truly believe you can compel me to do anything? Will you fight me, shiny toy?”

  “Oh, I have no idea how to fight at all,” Lyudochka whispered. The stomping steps intensified. The intruders ughed, relishing her weakness. Their leader lifted a leg to enter. “But he can.”

  Ur-Champion walked through the embassy wall, crossing the distance to the intruders with thunderous strides, pebbles rolling down his smooth armor. A flicker of fme danced between the dragon-shaped jaws of his helmet, and he looked down at the enemy leader, saying nothing but casting a long shadow over the man. The silent offer of surrender was declined, and the tusked freak charged into battle.

  He was kicked back, and the spewed fme engulfed the entire group, setting men and women alight like candles. Lyudochka heard the crackling detonation of the ammunition and grenades; the intense heat made it impossible even for her lenses to pierce the veil, but where a few lucky survivors darted away, the massive figure broke free, bringing the cleaver up.

  “No one cheats Svetaker!” he roared.

  Another kick sent him away from the entrance.

  “I have decided otherwise.” The sword struck upward in an arc, without form, carrying no finesse, but using sheer brute force, severing the man’s arm and ruining a section of the street. Another burst of fme followed. “Shut up and burn,” Ur-Champion spoke in a deep, grave tone that carried with it a slight arrogance and assurance given by his station.

  Lyudochka turned off the shield, took the staff under the armpit, and lifted both boys, carrying them inside the embassy. She called the looking-down machine bearing Lord Steward’s image, half-surprised by her own unexpected decisiveness. Without asking permission, she brought the patients into the bunker, turned on the lights in the hospital wing, and prepared to examine the patients, clean their wounds, and then perform surgery. Lord Steward joined her, patting her hip and pointing to the freezer with the blood packs.

  Yes, the poor kids will need transfusions. But first... she had to take care of the immediate issues and determine their blood types.

  Lyudochka’s arms trembled once, and then she followed Janine’s advice and began performing her duty, not forgetting Martyshkina’s lesson about not rushing and staying focused.