The moment the door closed behind me, I was given back full control of my body, and the shock of it made me fall to my knees. The only reason my face didn’t kiss the concrete was because my hands came up quick enough to stop it.

  I let my breath catch up with my racing heartbeat, and as it settled, I took in my surroundings. I was in the backrooms of the gym. Everything was concrete floors and white walls. It was larger than expected. I was presented with three whole hallways to choose from, and none of them looked like they connected, but they did look like the one that I had seen Lexa run down during her call. I was about to choose one at random when I heard a loud crash come from one of them.

  , I thought, and started limping down the hallway, slowly picking up steam as I went, eventually hitting a slow jog.

  I ran down the longer than expected hallway, not getting any other indication of where to go until I almost reached the end. I heard another crash, this one coming from behind a door.

  I kicked in the door, gun ready. It was a storage room of some kind. Mars Gym branded merchandise was stacked on metal shelves. There was even a table of folded Mars Gym yoga wear to my left.

  Scanning the room quickly revealed the source of the crashing sound. Something had blown a hole through the wall. The concrete wall.

  “Mr. Alvarez, get down!” yelled Lexa. She was vaulting toward me, over the table stacked with yoga wear.

  She crashed into me and we rolled on the floor together. I was in a daze, but Lexa was already up. From the corner of my vision I could tell that she was flipping over the table, creating a barrier.

  Still on the floor, my vision was beginning to refocus, and I saw that, on the wall, about where my head would have been, a pinprick of smoke appeared. A half second later the pinprick exploded into a large circle of black stained wall.

  There had been no sound to it, or visible light.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Where’s Gav?” asked Lexa.

  I got up on my elbows.

  “He’s still holding back that horde of meatheads, I thought you would have seen, didn’t you open the door for me?”

  “Yeah, that was me, but I thought I turned off that weird sound system too. Damnit!” She slammed the back of the table.

  Lexa looked like she was about to say something else, but she stopped. Her nose wrinkled and she sniffed at the air. Then I smelled it too. .

  “Move!” She yelled.

  Lexa rolled away from her ad hoc barrier, and I did the same. A second later the table we’d been hiding behind had a hole in it with cauterized edges.

  The source of the broken barrier wasn’t trying to hide itself. The old man, Lexa’s manager, was out in the open. His hand was still extended, and there was a hole in his palm where the ray of heat must’ve come from.

  Lexa and I had rolled behind a shelf with a large stack of boxes. I saw her lips moving, but she wasn’t speaking. It looked like she was counting. I wanted to ask her what she was doing, but she seemed to be concentrating, so I kept my mouth shut

  A few seconds later she told me to move again, so I did. This time we rolled away from each other, ending up on opposite ends of the aisle of metal shelves. The boxes we’d been hiding behind a moment before had a perfectly cut tunnel in them. The edges were still smoking.

  “I do not plan to hurt you monkeys,” said Lexa’s manager. “I will remain merciful, and only erase your memories, you surrender.”

  , I thought.

  Across the aisle from me, Lexa was holding up all ten fingers. .

  I raised my gun, and nodded, letting her know I understood.

  She bolted from behind her cover, drawing her manager’s attention, and jumping behind another shelf with a stack of boxes. Her manager raised his arm and opened his palm. A singed tunnel appeared in the stack of boxes.

  I rose from behind my own cover, gun ready.

  I took aim.

  Fire.

  The bullet went right through his chest, exactly where I’d been aiming. The old man lurched, and his non-heat-ray arm came up to clutch his undamaged shoulder.

  The old man turned around, intent to fire on me, but I unloaded my magazine into his chest. Every bullet landed, and some even caused sparks to fly.

  When my magazine ran empty I instinctually switched it out for a fresh one, but there was no need. He was done for.

  He collapsed into a heap on the ground, bending backwards at the knees. His feet remained planted, as if they were made of iron, and who knows, maybe they were.