“Warning,” a soft voice chimed from a hidden speaker. “Security breach, level one. Weapons in the surgery. Repeat, weapons in the surgery. Automatic recovery of test subjects in progress.”
Instantly, the ceiling became alive with mechanical arms, clacking and snipping, a rain of rust heralding the limbs as they extended for the startled woman.
Standing in the open doorway, J.B. randomly sprayed the entire ceiling with his Uzi, the 9 mm rounds ricocheting off the servomotors and guide rails to ricochet down onto the operating table and the control consoles. Burning sparks flew everywhere, the overhead lights flickered and the robotic arms began to wildly thrash about, smashing open the cabinets and spilling out scalpels, forceps and other healing instruments indistinguishable from primitive implements of torture.
Drawing her Samp;W .38 revolver, Krysty fought a rush of panic as she dodged an arm tipped with rapidly spinning blades. In cold precision, a robotic limb clamped around her upper arm and lifted the woman off the floor. At point-blank range, Krysty fired her .38 into the assembly of gears, to no effect. The pre-dark surgical droid was made of the finest alloys, much tougher than the soft lead slugs of her revolver.
The limb began rolling along the ceiling, and Krysty wildly fought to break free. With her feet off the ground, she couldn’t even summon her special strength because she would still be helpless in the iron grip of the computerized machine.
“Patient reacquired,” a speaker crackled. “Prepare bed six.”
At the end of the line, an operating table’s curved restraints snapped open, and water began trickling along the blood trough to flush away the excess flesh.
The lab was going to harvest her! Now icy panic hit Krysty, and she fired the last two rounds trying to disable the table. The slugs zinged off the bare steel, leaving gray streaks from the lead but nothing more.
Frantically shooting his way across the lab, J.B. tried to reach the redhead, but the gyrating arms made that impossible. A clamp lurched for his throat and the man ducked, the pincers crushing his fedora instead.
“Subject two is male,” the speaker announced. “No ID. Terminate at once.”
Trying to reload the Uzi, the Armorer was forced to dive for cover under an operating table as metal rods tipped with spinning drills and spinning bone saws thrust from converging directions. His disappearance seemed to confuse the equipment for a moment. Slapping a fresh clip into the Uzi, J.B. then swung around the M-4000 and blasted the ceiling with steel flechettes. Hydraulic fluid began spurting from a cut hose somewhere, and two of the arms dropped to the floor.
Charging through the gap in the rods and snaking cables, the Armorer reached the control console and emptied the scattergun into the keyboard and dials. Half the board went dark, but the ceiling-mounted machinery still continued to function. Dark night, the bastard things had to have reserve capacitors! Those would weaken and fail eventually. But not soon enough. Krysty was already suspended over the operating table, kicking and jerking to avoid the clamps.
Putting another long burst into the active section of the control board, the man reached inside and began pulling out handfuls of wiring. But a reflection in a dark monitor made him drop low as a metal claw slammed into the console exactly where he had just been. J.B. felt the passage of the metal through his hair and, staying on the floor, he began firing the Uzi at anything coming his way.
Grabbing an animated cable trying to encircle her waist, Krysty hauled herself higher into the ceiling and managed to rest an arm on the guide rails. This eased the pain of the tugging clamp attached to her other arm and gave her enough time to fumble in her pocket for a gren. J.B. was far enough away to make the explosive charge safe to use. Unfortunately, a telescoping rod slammed into her hand and the gren fell to the floor, rolling put of sight beneath the tables.
Swearing, Krysty desperately pulled out her knife and rammed the blade deep into the spinning gears of the clamp holding her prisoner. Instantaneously, the robotic limb stopped moving, the resulting jerk throwing her free. Krysty landed sprawling between two of the steel tables and dived for cover beneath another table closer to the open doorway. As fingering ceramic rods and ferruled cables quested for her location, the woman pulled out a fistful of rounds, dropping most of them as she quickly reloaded the revolver. Her dropped gren was nowhere in sight, so Krysty darted from table to table, firing at anything that moved. She had to reach J.B. Covering each other’s back, they could make a stand and shoot their way out of there. Fighting alone, each of them stood little chance of survival.