The hall on this level is painted stark white, matching the white tiles underfoot. To her left the corridor curves away toward the back of the building. To her right, the hallway ends in a glass partition broken only by a roundabout, also glass. Through it, Koda can see a second some ten feet beyond the first, but not into the hall beyond. A sign on the window proclaims STERILE ENVIRONMENT. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Koda slips out into the corridor, her finger on the trigger of her rifle. Kirsten follows, pausing only to draw and slide a round into the chamber of her automatic. “Where are we?” Koda asks softly.

“Production,” Kirsten answers. “Labs and quality control.”

“Lab coats? Scrubs?”

Kirsten’s eyes light with a hint of mischief. “Gotcha. Let’s try it.”

They pass through the roundabout without incident. Between it and its counterpart are a pair of closets with disposable whites, booties, hair coverings. Koda slips a coat over her jeans and shirt, velcroing it shut to just above her waist. She abandons her Stetson for a net that hides her hair, adds a pair of safety goggles and pauses to grin at Kirsten, now similarly attired. “Tres chic,” she observes. “So very you, ma’amselle.”

For answer, Kirsten sticks her tongue out at her lover. “Accessorized for the season with the indispensable AK. Let’s get out of here.”

Holding the rifle close to her side where it may be less immediately obvious, Koda follows Kirsten out the airlock. The corridor takes them past locked and numbered doors, otherwise featureless and flat white as the walls. Above them, the fluorescent lights recessed into the ceiling emit a soft hum that grows louder as they follow the curve of the hallway. A jolt of pain stabs through her head, striking down along her spine and down her arms and legs. Next to her, Kirsten gives a soft cry and raises her hands to cover her ears, shaking her head from side to side, her weapon pointing wildly at the ceiling.

“Kirsten?” Her tongue feels rigid as iron, unresponsive. A wave of dizziness washes over her and the walls seem to spin around her, a white whirlwind that whirrs and spins, its sound building and building as it turns, becoming a roar, a thunder like a funnel cloud bearing down on her across a dark plain. As if from a great distance she seems to hear her name, a scream carried away by the wind. Then the floor rises up and hits her, jarring her bone from bone as darkness passes before her eyes, flickering light and shadow in a stacatto rhythm that spreads to her lungs, her heart, her misfiring nerves.

Dakota feels as if she’s been hit with a cattle prod. The pain, intense and searing, spreads throughout her body, leaving no cell untouched. Her muscles thrum and jump, ignoring her commands. Her nerves spark continuously, uselessly, like live, downed wires in the aftermath of a tornado. Hearing a pained grunt to her left, she uses all her will, all her strength, to move her eyes a fraction of an inch, until Kirsten comes into focus, curled into a fetal ball, her hands now claws that clamp desperately around her ears.

The sight gives her the will to push past her own limitations and, millimeter by slow, painful millimeter, she manages to unclench her own hand and reach out, her arm shaking like one in the throes of a seizure, until her fingers come in contact with the back of her lover’s head. Long fingers slide, in fits and starts, over soft golden hair until they reach the tiny bump just behind Kirsten’s left ear. With an effort as monumental as anything she has ever undertaken, Koda bites down on her lip, drawing blood, as she wills her finger to lift, then press down on the button that triggers her lover’s implant.

A fresh wave of agony pours over her like molten fire and her breath locks in her chest. By the gods, she thinks, straining for air that isn’t there as her diaphragm refuses to accept the signals she’s so desperately sending, I’m going to die like this!

Her hand slips of its own accord off of Kirsten’s head. The pain of her knuckles scraping the floor is infinitesimal against the torture rolling over in slow, heavy waves, pulsing to the beat of a heart she can swear she feels slowing. The light from the harsh fluorescents overhead sears into her retinas, threatening to blind her and spring a heavy film of tears to her eyes. Grimacing in pain, she slowly curls her hand into a fist, raises it bit by torturous bit, and drives it into her own midsection. The blow is utterly without strength, but manages somehow to unlock her frozen diaphragm, causing dead air to rush forth from her lungs as if from an old and cracked bellows breathing out its last.

Sweet, sweet air rushes back into her lungs, compounding the dizziness in her head and causing her stomach to do a slow roll before righting itself again. “Kir-sten… .” Her imagined shout comes out as a rusty wheeze and she prays her partner can hear it. “Yo-our o-oother im-plannnt. Tu-urrn it offff.”

After a moment that seems to span an eternity in which entire universes are birthed and then die, Koda can see her lover’s fingers relax a little then move in what is now a familiar motion, pressing the button sitting just under her skin.

Koda slumps against the wall, relief washing through her, dissipating her pain and beating back the dark for precious seconds. We made it. She can make it.

For Kirsten, the relief comes all at once, like a pinprick to an overfilled balloon. Control of her body rushes back to her, leaving her with only a blinding headache to mark her ordeal. She rolls over quickly, then freezes as her eyes set upon the agonized, sweat-soaked and spasming body of her lover. “Dakota!! What’s happening?!? What do I do??”

Koda’s gaze locks with hers then skitters away, her eyes jerking upward until just a crescent of blue shows beneath her lid. At that moment, a long shadow springs into being, looming over them both and causing Kirsten, in an act of pure instinct, to grab Koda’s involuntarily discarded rifle and aim, finger white against the trigger.

“Don’t shoot!” the man who throws the shadow shouts, raising empty hands. “I’m here to help.”

Stone deaf, Kirsten can nonetheless read his lips easily, and what she reads doesn’t move her finger from the trigger one iota, though it does halt her reflex to simply pull and be done with it.

She sneaks a quick glance at Dakota, whose bow-taut form and mouth drawn down into a rictus of agony threatens to drain all strength, and resolve, from her. With a supreme effort, she tears her gaze away, back to the man who is just now slowly lowering one arm to grasp the collar of his shirt, which he yanks down, displaying a neck barren of metal.

“That doesn’t mean a damn thing,” Kirsten replies stubbornly, raising the rifle so that it now points directly at the bare neck.

“Please,” the man repeats, “I’m here to help. Your friend…she won’t last much longer like this.”

Don’t you think I know that?!? Kirsten screams in her mind, very well aware how sharp the horns of the dilemma she is poised so precariously over. She can feel her lover’s agony like heat-shimmers in the height of summer. Her own indecision claws at her. Lower the rifle and risk both their deaths, keep it poised to shoot, and condemn Dakota.

In the end, it is mercifully easy. Where you go, I go, she thinks, lowering the rifle and setting it on the cold, gray floor.

She looks back up at the man again. “If you’re telling the truth, help her. Please.”

With a nod, the stranger comes down to his haunches and gathers Dakota as one would an injured child, then stands, lifting her easily in his arms. “Come. There is a safe place nearby.”

Fifty feet down the hallway, the man makes a left turn through a door that opens on silent hinges. Kirsten follows, then stops as her eyes set upon the interior. “A kitchen?!” she demands. “She needs help, not food!”

“Patience.”

The stranger is lucky that his face is turned away at that moment, for if Kirsten had seen the word he uttered, he may well have found himself in a world of hurt.

Laying Dakota down near the sink, he moves to, of all things, the microwave, sitting by itself on an island, and quickly punches several buttons. Kirsten watches his actions with an expression of patent disbelief. Her jaw then unhinges as her lover’s steel-spring taut form suddenly relaxes and her eyes flutter closed.

“Dakota!” she cries, striding across the small space separating them and dropping to her knees, gathering the limp form tightly against her breast as tears spring to her eyes.

Koda’s strength returns in a surge and she hugs Kirsten to her tightly before releasing her and tilting her lover’s head so that her lips can be easily read. “I’m okay, canteskuye. I’m ok.”

Needing to actually hear the confirmation, Kirsten thumbs her implants back on and listens to the music of Koda’s easy breaths and the beating of the valiant heart she can hear when she presses her ear against Dakota’s chest. “Thank God,” she murmurs. “Thank God.”

“The microwaves have a dampening effect on the white noise,” the stranger says, looking a bit discomfited by the emotional display before him. “Unfortunately, the relief is temporary at best.”

Dakota gives a short nod, expecting this, as Kirsten lifts her head and glares at their savior. “Who are you and why are you doing this,” she demands.

“Forgive me,” the stranger replies, bowing slightly at the waist. “I am Adam. Adam Virgilius. An…associate of Peter Westerhaus.”

“You lie,” Kirsten growls. “That bastard never had an ‘associate’ in his life.”

“I think he was being sarcastic, love,” Koda interjects, grasping her partner’s hand and giving it a fond squeeze.

“I was indeed,” Adam answers, smiling slightly. “I’ve worked for him for several years, though less blind, and devoted, than he assumed. When the last step in his plan was implemented, this building was locked down and all human workers were…disposed of.”