“By the Makers let me in!” The fearsome sound of metal on metal reverberated as “Cassie” bashed at the closed GC&S building door frame repeatedly. She had just finished sprinting across town when she peered through the glass windows and spotted Iris being escorted to the Security office on the ground floor. Low on power and patience, she contemplated smashing her way inside, when a familiar sound roared up from the street.
“Cassie? What are you doing?” Mr. Cavendish called from his black sedan as it idled by the entrance. It was difficult to make out details in the darkness, but he recognized the exhausted look of desperation etched into the roommate’s face. “Hop in. We’ll enter together through the garage.”
A hop was more than Cassie could manage now, and she collapsed into the passenger seat which creaked under her immense weight. Her head tipped backwards to relax as Mr. Cavendish swiped his key card to enter the subterranean parking garage.
<WARNING: Low power. Fifteen minutes of Primary Power remaining. Overheating detected. Initiating Active Cooling matrix now. Adaptive Camouflage stable and holding at eighty-nine percent.>
“…Cassie? Are you still with me?” Mr. Cavendish’s voice rang in her ears as the Augment snapped to attention. “We’re here. Security is right through those doors and to the left. Are you up for this?”
“Yes.” Cassie squinted and forced her eyes to focus on seeing things clearly again. “Hurry.”
The Security office was cordoned off and tucked away in a recessed hallway and required a key card to enter. Mr. Cavendish swiped his access card and escorted Cassie into the back rooms. They were met by a dimly lit hallway with hellacious, loudly buzzing fluorescent lights that flickered randomly. It didn’t take long for the pair to arrive at the room occupied by Iris and two Security officers. Mr. Cavendish stopped Cassie from barging in, so they might hear what was going on without interruption.
“Look, we just want to know who else was upstairs with you.” Joyce sat opposite Iris and played “good cop” for this interrogation. “Do you know how much trouble you could be in for allowing unauthorized people into the building after hours?”
Iris sat in a well-worn stainless-steel chair on the other side of the table. Her eyes had a wide, thousand-yard stare and her trembling was visible to everyone. No matter how friendly or matter of fact the officers were, Iris remained practically catatonic, dissociating to some happier place where things were kind, and good, and free.
Cassie pressed forward but was met by Mr. Cavendish’s arm blocking her way. “Just a second. Give her a chance to respond—”
“WHO WERE THEY?” Ramirez demanded, his patience finally at an end. “If you don’t tell us right now, we could have you fired, or press charges for trespassing, illegal entry, and—”
Iris crumbled into her outstretched hands with tears streaming down both cheeks. Her arms raised high enough for Cassie and Mr. Cavendish to spot darkening bruises on her wrists and a welt on her cheek from being pressed against the elevator door frame. Sobs reverberated in the echoing, sterile room, and Mr. Cavendish had seen enough.
“Joyce, Ramirez.” Mr. Cavendish commanded as he threw open the door, startling them both. “I want you to stop harassing this woman immediately.”
Cassie dashed behind Mr. Cavendish and crouched low to meet Iris’s eyes and examine her for injuries. “Iris, it’s me. It’s me.” She brought a gloved hand to Iris’s face and brushed a rivulet of tears away. “It’s okay.”
“Khaz!” Iris cried out and flung her arms around the Augment. “It was him. He was here…” Iris repeated through her terror. She clutched onto Cassie as if she would melt away if they parted.
“It’s okay, little one.” Cassie hugged Iris back with enthusiasm. Despite her mechanical embrace, she held Iris with the same warmth and earnestness that she would hug her “little brothers” with so long ago. Not once during this hug did she think of Iris as her means of getting home, but rather as a cherished family member in distress. “I’m here.”
Iris ignored the pain in her wrists when she hugged the Augment, but Mr. Cavendish noticed the anguished urgency of her grasp. Rings of angry red bruising marked her delicate wrists and forearms, resembling welts left by too-tight manacles.
“I’d like you to explain yourselves.” Mr. Cavendish insisted as he blocked Iris from the guards’ point of view. Ramirez eyed Joyce in surprise, as Mr. Cavendish was known to be uninterested in building security in the past.
The pair of guards explained how they found Iris sprawled out on the floor, and that the security camera footage they reviewed had been corrupted by some unknown force.
“We got nothing but static on these units, sir.” Joyce confessed and scratched his neck for relief from this interrogation. “We checked each one, and the other units are all running just fine.”
Cassie listened impatiently as she comforted Iris and prevented herself from lashing out at them as the pair made excuses for detaining Iris. Mr. Cavendish stopped the pair abruptly to scold them for misreading the situation.
“Ramirez, Joyce… Did you see the marks on her arms? What about her cheek?” Mr. Cavendish closed in, his face reddened from fatigue and rage. “You don’t think she did this to herself, did you?”
<WARNING: Primary Power at zero percent. Switching to Auxiliary Power now.>
Cassie’s camouflage flickered briefly, but no one in the room noticed the discrepancy in her appearance. Desperate for a recharge, Cassie permitted the power cable in her forearm to slink across the floor and hunt for an unoccupied outlet. She jacked her tendrils into a dusty wall socket and attempted to discreetly absorb enough power to keep her systems operational.
It wasn’t enough, not by a longshot, but she couldn’t afford to be discovered now. Cassie siphoned off enough electricity to be confused for a charging laptop or tablet, and no more. Not since her days as an organic had the Augment hungered for a more substantial energy source. If she hadn’t promised herself, the Makers, and Iris, she might have considered taking energy through more dubious means.
“That’s all I’m going to say about it tonight.” Mr. Cavendish concluded by giving the guards a stern stare. “You can expect a full report from me tomorrow afternoon. Now, if you’ll excuse us, it’s time to go home.”
“Did you hear that, Iris?” Cassie pulled back and met Iris’s glossy gaze. The poor woman’s eyes boggled briefly and refused to home in on Cassie’s face. “We can leave, right?”
Mr. Cavendish gave an approving nod, and Iris bolted out of her chair to reach for his uninjured hand to hold it. “Thank you, sir.” Iris gave him a pained, tight-lipped smile. He could feel her tiny body trembling horrifically and couldn’t bring himself to release her hand from his grasp. “Thank you so much.”
The trio meandered to the parking garage and Mr. Cavendish drove them to Iris’s apartment by way of the back roads in case they were followed. Cassie sent a series of messages to the roommates as they left downtown, and she had difficulty typing as Iris nestled close to the Augment. Iris initially wanted to tell Cassie more about the encounter with Cruxuss but was too tired to distinguish who was appropriate to speak candidly to.
“It was him, Khaz.” Iris mumbled against Cassie’s shoulder. “He wanted me to… But I didn’t have the thing that he needed, and…”
“Hush now.” Cassie stroked Iris’s hair until she passed out under the Augment’s protection. She let out a reflexive, breathless sigh and allowed Iris to slump onto her bolero jacket. Another low power warning echoed across her fading vision before Cassie closed her eyes to rest.
Mr. Cavendish kept his eyes on the road, save for a brief moment when he thought he saw something flash in his peripheral vision. It was only an instant, but he could have sworn that Cassie’s skin changed color as they passed under an overpass to reach the outskirts of town.
I must be seeing things. Geez, Al, get it together, man.
Zayne was already waiting for them on the stoop of their apartment despite the lateness of the hour. Mosquitoes and other night bugs pestered him unceasingly, but the stubborn Paxoram held his position and sat as a quiet sentinel of the night, until the familiar sedan pulled into the parking lot. He didn’t wait for the sedan to park before vaulting over to intercept them.
A subtle, familiar odor seeped out of the back seat as the passenger door swung open. It was too faint for a human to recognize it, but Zayne correctly identified the smell as being associated with Khazmine’s reserve power battery. He’d caught whiffs of it before, when Khazmine was depleted after her fight with Cruxuss, and after she’d given him a demonstration of Paxoram camouflage.
“Zay… Please, help me up.” Cassie begged the Paxoram for help. “So tired…”
The power-drained Augment was dead weight in his arms, forcing him to strain and flex to hold her heavy body. A mirror image of this scene played out on the other side of the sedan, with Mr. Cavendish toting Iris in his arms. He was amazed at how light she was and understood how Cassie must have lifted her with ease before.
Zayne slowly ambled to the stoop and carried Cassie up the stairs reluctantly. His metaphorical feathers ruffled to see someone else carrying his watch-mate and he stifled his ill-feelings with great difficulty as they entered the apartment. Once inside, they spotted the archfiend standing alone in the kitchen with a phone to his ear and a free hand tapping the laminate tabletop with long, black fingernails.
“Uh-huh, yeah. I just got word.” Byxx comforted an unknown person on the other end of the line. “They should be home any minute now.”
Byxx’s ears twitched at the sound of Zayne schlepping Cassie to the spare room to charge. He turned to find Iris in Mr. Cavendish’s arms and motioned to end the call. “Hey, they just walked in. Everyone’s home safe… Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Oh, honey.” Byxx strode over and immediately noticed the painful bruises on Iris’s body. “Set her down on the couch, please. I’ll get her patched up.”
Mr. Cavendish did as he was told, and laid Iris down on the threadbare couch for Byxx to treat. The archfiend worked tirelessly to clean, powder, and wrap her forearms in light bandages to reduce the swelling. Byxx absentmindedly frowned as he considered how lucky Iris had been to not get scorched by an Augment’s ungloved hands. He looked up at Mr. Cavendish once he’d finished and recognized the human’s concerned stare.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Mr. Cavendish asked.
“I can make a fair guess, mister.” Byxx rose to his full, towering height and dwarfed the weary Cavendish. “No need to worry. I know you didn’t do this. I’m a fairly good judge of people, you know.”
“Right.” Mr. Cavendish wiped sleep from his eyes and turned his back on the archfiend. “Listen, uh, Iris doesn’t need to come in tomorrow if she needs more rest. I’ll send out a message to the staff. Could you let her know, please? I don’t want to wake her.”
“You got it.” Byxx nodded and Mr. Cavendish could hear the approval in his voice. “Take care, friend.”
No sooner had Mr. Cavendish left than Byxx overheard a distressing moan from the living room and spotted the confused Paxoram cradling his jaw where he’d been struck.
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