Shopping Trip

Kailey didn’t realize that she was being followed until she’d rounded the third makeup counter at the upscale department store. She went to another counter, caught sight of him in one of the mirrors.

He wore tan slacks, and a dark blue sport coat, with the store’s logo over the breast pocket. As Kailey made her way to the escalator, he increased his pace behind her.

“Miss,” he said, voice brusque.

She turned, and he kept walking until he’d interposed himself between her and the escalator.

“Miss, I’m going to have to take a look in that bag,” he said, nodding to the duffel she wore over her shoulder.

Kailey took a half step back as he uncrossed his arms.

“It hasn’t been opened since before I got here,” she said.

He frowned. “Miss, the bag. Could you open it, please?”

She could open it. And show him the drab grey Joint Projects flight suit. The carbon-filament gel-suit gloves, and matching ovaloid collar rig that, paired with the helmet aboard the XG, made the gel-suit spaceworthy. None of which civilians were supposed to see.

She took another half-step back, placing her foot to pivot and turn. “I’ll just leave,” she said, and turned to go.

The man grabbed for the bag, but she turned too quickly, and his hand closed around Kailey’s upper arm.

She was intensely aware of her heartbeat, it thudded too loudly in her ears.

Thump!

Her whole body shivered, ice lancing through her nerves, white-hot static racing nanoseconds behind it. Her optic screens flared red. She suddenly had the eerie sensation of being thrust away from herself, as Sensei overrode her motion control centers, impulses firing entirely through the synthetic nervous system.

Thump!

Her free hand crossed, closing over the man’s hand upon her arm. She let the momentum of his grab spin her around, and she kept going, her turn fluid, dance-like as she sidestepped around him, holding his fingers fast against her arm, bending them back as she flowed around him. His hold dissolved in a gasp of shock and pain.

Thump!

Kailey planted a foot behind his, driving her knee into the back of his, sending him awkwardly to the floor. She followed him down, her knee moving to his lower back. She kept her hand on his fingers, keeping his arm straight out behind him as he fell, the other hand moving to his shoulderblade, keeping that shoulder to the floor.

Thump!

Behind the surging rush of her heartbeat and the hissing static in her ears, she heard shouts, several cries of alarm. She couldn’t look around. Sensei kept her eyes locked on the man on the floor before her.

He tried to rise, and Sensei twitched Kailey’s hands, the man gasping as his body jerked with the pain of her hold.

“Stay still,” Kailey hissed, fighting her way through to her speech center.

Motion in her peripheral vision prompted a quick glance around and behind her. More men in dark coats were coming, two down the escalator, another from each side around the corners.

“The trouble you’re in just got a lot deeper, kid,” the man snarled beneath her. Again, he tried to rise, to push her off him, and again, Kailey’s hands moved, this time a bit further as they bent the man’s hand in ways it wasn’t quite meant to go.

“Tell them to back off,” Kailey said. “I can’t let you go while I’m being threatened. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Hell of a way to show it,” the security man gasped. “Just let go, kid.”

She wanted to. She wanted to close her eyes, take some deep breaths. Relax.

But Sensei kept her eyes open, watching the men advancing from the corners of her vision.

Static surged in her ears.

“-ley, we’re registering a Panic mode activation. What is going on?”

Wizard, help me! I don’t want to hurt him, but there are more coming. He won’t stop struggling, and—

“Kailey, you’ve got to calm down. Tin Man is on his way.”

Great but that won’t help this guy. Or the four others that are closing in. It’s going to turn into another Red Thursday if I don’t—

“Stop thinking, Kailey. You’re only feeding the adrenaline spike. I’ve closed your link to the motion control mainframes, but Sensei has already buffered up quite a bit of material.”

Wizard, this is going to be bad, I know it! I don’t want to hurt—

The communication link closed with a squeal of static in her head, and Kailey felt her right leg lift and snap sharply behind her.

The man beneath her grunted, as she shifted all her weight to the knee in his back, and her right heel connected solidly with the knee of the security man who thought he was sneaking up behind her. She felt him stagger back with a choked off curse.

There was a commotion towards the front of the store, someone shouting. Kailey’s eyes darted that direction and she saw a tallish man with short blonde hair pushing his way through the crowd.

The man beneath her thought to try to take advantage of the distraction, and he cried out anew as Kailey flexed his wrist back even further.

“Bitch!” he spat.

“Nobody but me calls her that,” came a voice from the crowd, and Kailey again looked up to see the tall man drawing bead on her with a sleek, oddly rounded handgun of some sort.

“I hope this doesn’t hurt too much, Hot Cakes,” he said with a wink, and then pulled the trigger.