I stopped short of the trio of MergoTech enforcers, torn between surprise, annoyance, and a haunting sense of deja vu. They weren't even pointing their guns at me—if anything, they looked lazy. The female officer who led them at the front raised her eyebrow at me with a bored, business-like look on her face, gun half-raised as if pondering whether she’d even bother aiming the stupid thing at me.

  I honestly wondered if I should even worry about them. I assumed that the construction workers had called for their help when I plummeted into the yard, but from the looks of the enforcers, I could walk right past them and they’d do nothing to stop me.

  They might even be afraid to stop me. An oddly reassuring thought.

  Experimentally, I took a step to the left. Then another step. Then another. I moved a little further each time, not taking my eyes off the guards, orbiting around them just to see if they'd do anything about it.

  As if snapping awake from a dream, one of the guys' eyes opened wide and he violently jabbed his gun in my direction. "Halt! Where do you think you're sauntering off to?"

  Hmm. Figures it wouldn't be that easy. The deja vu was coming on stronger, now.

  I halted and met his gaze, raising my brow like I thought he was an idiot (granted, I did). "Away from here, since you fellas don't seem all that invested in apprehending me. Seriously, is that a squirt gun or something? Why have it if you’re not even gonna pretend that you want to use it?”

  The man sputtered indignantly, and his posture swiveled on a dime. Now he seemed ready to pull the trigger out of sheer annoyance.

  The woman at the front put one hand up; he glanced it out of the corner of his eye, then slowly, reluctantly lowered his aim—though his glowering didn't relent.

  The female officer lowered her hand, then tilted her head at me. “No need to sound so combative,” she said. “As far as I can see, this might just be one big misunderstanding. So if you don’t want to be shot at, don’t give my lads a reason to shoot at you.”

  I paused, then nodded. I tried not to show how confused I was that they were casually talking with me. “Can't argue with that reasoning, I guess. But what misunderstanding?” I crossed my arms. “Why are we talking when you all have guns out?”

  “Well, we were called down here by some construction workers. They talked about there being an armed and armored disturbance down in their yard, interrupting their work and getting in the way, or some nonsense like that. My squad here came down expecting to neutralize a threat.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Instead, I see someone in one of our company’s powersuits down here. Mind explai—”

  “Hold on,” I cut in, wide-eyed. “Hold the fuck up. Are you trying to imply that I work for MergoTech?”

  She frowned, her look of bewilderment hardening by the second. “Do you not? That design looks one for one like…”

  “Of course I don’t! What do you take me for: some goon in a suit? I’d sooner shit myself in this armor than even pretend that I’m doing anything in your company’s name!”

  In the split-second it took for the woman’s face to harden into a full glare, I realized that denying her so vehemently was probably a mistake. “If that’s so, then where did you get that armor from? Or that arm?”

  “Uhhhhhhhh…” I tried to think of where I could feasibly say I’d gotten a fucking military-grade powersuit from, but the only idea my brain supplied sounded like a flatlining heart monitor. “Well, I didn’t steal it.”

  “I never suggested that you did.”

  Oh for fuck’s sake, I walked right into that one.

  “Have you revised your view of the situation, chief?” the man who pointed a gun at me earlier said, as he raised the aforementioned gun to restore the status quo.

  “I am considering revising it, Barry, but I suggest you don’t shoot the man before we’re sure that he doesn’t have the premium to resist arrest.”

  I blinked. “The what?”

  The woman sighed. “If it wasn’t clear, then you’re under arrest for suspected theft of company property and for trespassing on company property. Now, before we take any action to follow through on it, do you have any insurance as purchased through MergoTech or its subsidiaries to resist arrest from corporate security?”

  “... Fucking what?”

  She tilted her head at me again. “Can you hear anything through that helmet?”

  “No no, I can. I’m just not sure I heard you correctly when you said insurance to resist arrest.”

  She groaned just as the third officer, who hadn’t spoken yet, said, “I don’t think corporate’s done a good job at advertising that one, chief.”

  “Then God knows why they’re requiring us to ask for it before anyone’s heard of it,” she said. “Alright, no point in bothering with this, then. You, mysterious man in armor, are coming with us to answer directly to the company. You have the right to—”

  “Oh, no I ain’t,” I said as she began rattling off the usual list of “rights” officers give you whenever they’re about to arrest you, which I had already heard a billion times before. “If you think I’m gonna go with you that easily, then come and try me.”

  I spread my legs in a firm stance and flexed my right fist—which crackled with electricity as I funneled extra strength into the arm. The third officer’s eyes widened at it.

  I couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, like these losers could do anything to me.

  The woman looked down at my fist, looked up at me, then said, without a hint of inflection in her voice, “Barry, kneecap him. Aim between the armor plates.”

  My expression slackened. “Hold on. Wait just a—”

  “Gladly,” the trigger-happy officer said, and before I could throw out a single word of protest or curse, he aimed down and fired a bullet at my leg.

  My initial instinct was to panic and flail out of the way in the hope that I could somehow dodge a piece of lead that broke the sound barrier.

  Something stopped me, though.

  My head felt really weird all of a sudden. At first, I thought my brain was fucking with me out of denial that my kneecap was about to explode. But then… well, it wasn’t so much that time froze as it was that my perception of it shifted.

  I could see the bullet hanging mid-air as it left the barrel of Barry the Corporate Security Enforcer’s handgun. And, exclusively through my left eye, I saw the exact trajectory that bullet would follow as it shot through the air. A digital display in my vision showed me various stats about quadratics and meters per minute and all that nonsense that detailed how it traveled, but the only thing I focused on was a 3D display that showed exactly where the bullet would land. Straight between the plates of my armor and through the kneecap.

  Well. That’s a new one.

  I didn’t pretend to understand what the hell I was seeing, but the sight gave me an idea. It was time to try something risky. Something a lot more fun than letting my kneecap get shredded.

  I moved my electrified hand down and pinched my fingers precisely around the point where my display said the bullet would collide with my leg.

  In the split-second it took for my perception of time to return to normal, the pistol round zipped through the air at full speed. A sharp crack boomed in my ears, followed by complete silence.

  The three officers' faces were awash with confusion. There was a barely-perceptible tremor of pressure in my metal fingertips.

  I carefully lifted my hand up and admired the impossibility I had achieved: the dull grey metal of a pistol round, perfectly pinched between two fingers. There was a slight crease in the plates of my metal hand where the bullet had been caught, but I was otherwise entirely unharmed.

  “Huh.” I looked at the officers, then dropped the bullet. “I think it’s safe to say you missed the point there, eh?”

  The chief snapped out of her baffled trance, then shook her head and trained her pistol on me. “Fuck it, this isn’t worth the risk. Just kill him. I’ll handle the paperwork.”

  My eyes widened and a beat of panic pulsed in my chest as all three officers firmly aimed their pistols at my face. I held my hands up. “Now, now, wait! Hold on! What I meant to s—”

  The popping gunshots drowned out my negotiation attempt.

  For a split second, I was surprised that I didn’t immediately die. Then, I opened my eyes.

  The same thing had happened again. Through my left eye, I could track each individual bullet as it was fired at me with a degree of accuracy that made them seem a lot less threatening than they had been two seconds ago.

  Since they were being fired at me simultaneously, I couldn't use the same tactic as last time, but I was still able to visualize my next actions with shocking ease.

  I grinned with bare teeth. It was time to see what this armor could do.

  I perfectly slipped between the bullets as they zipped towards me, moving with speed and agility that only a powersuit made possible. I heard them whizzing through the air beside my arms and head. Dirt kicked up behind me and the air rang with sharp, metal snaps as they ricocheted against the metal fencing.

  Not one hit me. I didn't even break a sweat.

  The chief briefly lowered her pistol, then quietly muttered, "The fuck?" before giving the signal to fire again.

  I ducked around their next flurry of bullets just as easily. It was really hard to feel threatened by them after that. Confidence took fear’s place. I felt energized.

  Dangerously empowered, even.

  Invincible, dare I say.

  I stood straight, putting my hands to my hips with unrepentant smugness. I’d never been happier to have MergoTech’s shit.

  I didn’t have long to relish my newfound certainty of invulnerability. The chief pulled her gun back, put a hand on the rear of its barrel, and said, “Okay, enough. Lads, set firearms to full automatic. Aim for the same point.”

  Click. Click. Click. They all flipped unseen switches on the backs of their guns, keeping their aim fixed on me.

  Before the next crack of gunfire, the display in my left eye let me know that I wouldn’t be able to remain in place, this time, unless this suit somehow allowed me to dance at the speed of light.

  As the bullets zipped at me in rapid succession, I ducked to the side and kept moving until I was fully out of the way of the deadly spray of dirt and mud.

  The officers’ gunfire followed my movements, so I had to keep moving. I let the strength of the suit carry my legs, and tried not to focus on how close the bullets were until I slipped behind a rusty excavator.

  I put my back to the giant machine and held still. Bullets clattered against the other side without going through.

  I chose not to move until the bullets quieted, at which point I heard the chief shout, “Hold fire! No sense in wasting rounds if you can’t even see the bastard.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping they’d give the fuck up and go away.

  “Look, man!” the chief shouted. “There’s only one way out of here, so you’re not leaving without facing us. May as well step out of cover so we can resolve this amicably.”

  Dammit, she has a good point. At least the point about them blocking the only path out of the construction yard.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  I felt my brain cells pouring out of my ears as I shouted back, “Oh yeah, step right out so you and your buddies can riddle me with bullets? You gave them the order to kill me!”

  “I can rescind the order.”

  “Okay. Will you?”

  “I may.”

  “I meant right now!”

  “I’ll consider it if you step out!”

  Wow, people really think I’m that stupid, don’t they? But I actually had nowhere else to go. The excavator was right up against the metal fencing that surrounded this section of the construction yard—which, now that I looked at it, also had some barbed wiring up top—so I couldn’t see a way around it that wouldn’t risk seriously lacerating myself; in retrospect, the powersuit would’ve minimized that issue, but I struggle to think clearly with automated guns pointed at me.

  Maybe I could try to break through the fence, but that’d waste enough time that my pursuers would have plenty of time to flank around the excavator and turn me into a lead pincushion.

  There was no way they were just standing there, waiting me out. If I couldn’t guess that from the obvious stalling, I could hear the soft footfalls of the chief's two subordinates approaching the excavator—alongside the angry muttering of Barry the Overpaid Corporate Officer.

  No time. Shit. What if I just wait it out and try to clock them in the faces when they get here?

  Considering all three had automatic weapons, I didn’t think my chance of surviving a short-range encounter was terribly high—even with the powersuit. But what other options did I have?

  I considered phoning up Darian, but a barren shred of dignity stayed my hand. I furrowed my brow, feeling my remaining time tick away by the second.

  Oh well. If I only got one option, may as well give it my all. The thought left me pleasantly resigned.

  I held up my right fist to test how much strength I could put behind the first punch. Hell, if I had any chance of surviving a volley of bullets up close, then this piece of tech gave me the best possible odds.

  This time, though, when I looked at my fist, I noticed something I had previously overlooked.

  There was a small, rectangular plate on the underside of my wrist, ready to pop off at the slightest pressure. It barely concealed a tiny compartment beneath the surface of my arm.

  Unable to hold back my curiosity (even with death itself breathing down my neck), I brushed a finger against the plate. With a hiss of air, the compartment clicked open.

  A lump of metal resembling the hilt of a goddamn katana fell out of the compartment, with a small red button on the grip and no visible blade to speak of; the pommel was connected to my wrist by a thin black electronic cord. A faint electric current flowed into it from my metal arm.

  I frowned, then flipped it up so I held the hilt upright in my cybernetic hand—in which it was a perfect fit.

  Was this arm designed by a weeb? I thought before impulsively pressing the red button.

  A long blade of silvery metal that crackled with bolts of electricity sprouted out the top of the hilt. It expanded out far longer than the tiny device could have possibly realistically contained and impaled the side of the excavator next to me.

  I stared at the sizzling hole it left in the machine. The blade had perfectly cleaved into the metal, with no sign of resistance except searing burn marks around the entry point.

  I slowly pulled the blade out and glanced along its shimmering length; despite cutting through a rusty machine, it didn’t look any dirtier. I studied the nasty hole it had left in the hull of the excavator, which was deep enough to render the machine utterly useless.

  My stare shifted to the metal fence next to the excavator.

  Sly glee thrummed in my chest. If I couldn’t find a way out, then I could make one after all.

  I shuffled over to the fence as the enforcers closed in on me, their audible steps cautious and hesitant.

  Four blinding-quick slices later, I cut a rectangular door-sized hole in the fence; a bundle of metal wiring with clean-cut edges fell back from it. Sword gripped firm, I decided the best course of action was to throw myself through the hole and out of the construction yard without giving my movements a second of further consideration.

  So that’s what I did.

  Now, funny thing. The clinic I had just escaped from was built atop a hill that overlooked a large part of the city's outskirts. And the construction yard was located right outside the back of the clinic. As in, it ran along the edge of the same hill the rest of the building sat upon.

  This is all to say that, distracted as I was by evading the three little pigs, I didn't notice that the other side of the fence had nothing but a grassy hillside that plummeted directly into one of the lower highways. The slope was so steep it bordered on being a cliff.

  None of this clicked until I was already through the fence.

  In short order, I was barrel-rolling down the hillside so fast that I would have been bathed in dirt if it wasn’t for the protection of my powersuit. I recovered the situational awareness to dig a hand into the grassy slope to halt my descent. A quick glance down from where I hung was enough to really drink in how utterly fucked I was.

  Then I remembered how I tumbled several stories out of a building earlier and landed on the ground unscathed. After that, all I felt was a much more subdued version of the kind of fear and excitement you get when you step on board a rollercoaster. My entire body was protected, after all.

  I gained enough control over my descent, and slid down the steep hillside on my two feet, dragging my buzzing sword through the ground alongside me. My feet dragged with it, spraying dirt behind me like water behind a surfboard and carving a deep groove into the hill that would probably take more effort to fill than had ever been put into the construction yard I’d left behind.

  Voices shouted somewhere far above me. I zoomed towards the grassy patch at the bottom of the hill—part of a little clearing on the side of a curving highway.

  As I reached the bottom, I decided it would be more fun to simply jump off the hill.

  I didn’t put any real thought into the motion; I funneled my powersuit’s energy into the boots, yanked my electrified blade out of the dirt, and threw myself away from the hill while still several feet off from the ground.

  I did a little spin in the air just because I could, then SLAMMED into the earth, miraculously on my feet. The impact made yet another small crater where I landed; a cloud of dirt kicked up in my wake and blew across the street, pushed away by my impact and the gusting wind.

  It took a moment to blink back to alertness, slightly astounded by my own recklessness and being-aliveness. Then, I smiled wide, threw one fist into the air, and shouted “WOOO!”

  I wouldn’t have been able to pull that trick off with my old normal body, that’s for fucking sure. Not without breaking half my bones and fragmenting the other half.

  This shit would’ve been a lot more useful when I was facing that oversized android bastard, but now that I did have it, my mind burst alight with the possibilities. What would Darian think when he saw this and heard what I did with it? Well, first he’d judge me for throwing myself out windows, but that’s besides the point.

  My sudden blind delusion of safety was broken with a shout of, “There! He’s still there!”

  I hoped sliding a quarter-mile down a hilariously treacherous hill would get them off my back, but I turned around, looked up, and—

  Yep, there they were. The same brick-headed officers that had tried to riddle me with bullets mere moments ago now stared down at me through the hole I made in the fence.

  I smiled up at the officers and flipped them off with both hands.

  Their looks of confusion twisted. There was an instinct shout from one of them. Shortly thereafter, all three aimed their guns down at me once more.

  I scoffed. As if they can—

  Three ear-shattering cracks later, the electronic display in my left eye helpfully informed me that the fresh spray of bullets were on a clean collision course for my giblets.

  I considered slipping out of the way of the bullets once more, but I’d cornered myself. Directly behind me was a highway zipping with noisy cars, a narrow sidewalk running along the base of the hill, and flat empty grass where I would be an equally easy target for those assholes. All I could do was delay the inevitable bullet-riddling.

  I had a better idea, anyway.

  I tightened my grip around the hilt of the illogical sword as I watched the bullets approach my left eye’s weird-ass perception of time.

  Once they were within arm’s reach, I kicked into action.

  I rapidly slashed my sword through the air in rippling waves of metal and electricity. Bisected bullets fell to the grass and were deflected aside by the blade, spraying clouds of dirt in their wake. My thinking stopped; it took all my concentration to ensure no zipping bullets skewered me like a marshmallow.

  After a minute of working my wrists to death, the gunfire stopped.

  A bullet I’d deflected bounced back at the corporate crooks. The last thing I saw of them was a brief, distant spray of blood before one of lot screamed in pain. The other two yanked them back, frantically murmuring the whole way.

  I cringed at the sight. Fuck. Hope that didn’t kill them. Not that I was particularly attached to them as people, but uh… shit. I didn’t want to be the sort of thief who just does people in like that, you know?

  But thinking of myself as a “thief” was starting to sound weird to me—even then. Because most burglars don’t go around swinging electrified swords that broke the laws of physics.

  I wasn’t ever a, hmm… discrete thief in the first place, but I wasn’t sure what the hell else to call myself now that I had all of this. Maybe having this tech just meant that I could be a higher-maintenance thief than Queen Victoria.

  I stared at my arm for a long moment, as if doing so would eventually unveil the answers to my brand new identity. Then I remembered that I was still technically in danger, and looked back up at the hilltop instead.

  The officers were nowhere in sight. Didn’t hear them, didn’t see them.

  I was only then able to appreciate how deeply idiotic this idea had been. The only thing stupider than believing I could slice bullets out of the air was that it had actually worked; the grass all around me was riddled with bullets and scraps of lead that might have once been bullets. Not a single round had so much as grazed my armor.

  Guess I’m safe? It wouldn’t hurt to keep my guard up, but I was keenly aware of how the only breather I’d been afforded lately was a day-long coma after getting shot in the head. So I would take the marginal relief without question.

  I probably didn’t need to keep out the weird electrified sword anymore, but I barely understood how I made it pop out of my metal arm in the first place—let alone how I would get it back in there without bending the cord to snapping point.

  Experimentally, I pressed same button I used to activate the sword in the first place. The moment I did that, the electric current dissipated and the blade retracted back into the hilt with a quiet hissss. The grip swung back into the small compartment in my wrist all by itself; the metal plate that had concealed it slid back into place after it.

  Huh. That was easier than expected.

  I looked back up the hill, then down at my arm again, feeling a vague sense of anticlimax. Not that I was mad that it was over, but it had been… fun. Brushing against the edge of life and death always was, and whenever it was over I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. Even though I rarely sought to prolong such carnage.

  As I stood, listening to the silence above and the rushing cars behind me, I realized that I’d slightly fucked up. Sure, I was out of danger for now, but Gracious was supposed to find me at the construction yard.

  Which was all the way up there. So how the hell was she going to find me, now?

  I scratched through my short and messy scalp, trying to think of any option that didn’t entail “Walk right back up and maybe give a merry little wave to the people who tried to kill me.” I could’ve tried to get Darian to lead me to his location by ear, but since he didn’t do that in the first place, it wouldn’t be easy to find.

  I sighed. Fuck it. Moving is better than waiting for the blueshirts to get down here and paint the grass with my intestines. I resolved to find a way back up the hill from further down the street, and that would provide enough time for me to decide if the best course of action was to wander right back into danger.

  I strolled down the right side of the hill, moving alongside the rushing highway. There was a traffic bridge that hung between two large building-topped cliffs down that way, so I could get back up the hill using a highway exit on the other side. Would only take a little jaywalking.

  As I moved along, something rustled above me. A few specks of dirt landed on my metal-covered shoulders.

  I frowned in confusion and looked up. Just in time to see a cannonball of fur rolling down the hillside.

  I stared, trying to figure out what the fuck it was, which had me distracted for just long enough that I almost didn’t notice that it was barreling toward me.

  My eyes widened and I moved without thinking, flipping back and away from the spot on the ground where that weird brownish ball would’ve crushed my skull. I settled back on one foot and a knee.

  Can I catch just one fucking break? I thought, as if the surge of adrenaline it caused didn’t electrify me.

  The fuzzy thing landed where I had just been, exploding dirt around its point of impact and leaving a small crater in the grass.

  When it unfolded, stood straight, and looked at me with its bright little expressive eyes, I felt amazingly stupid for my prior paranoia.

  The “cannonball of fur” was, in fact, just a medium-sized brindle pitbull with remarkably good dexterity and zero fear of heights. The distinct exception to its average appearance was its prosthetic front leg and an entire metal jaw—both features that would’ve made it terrifying if I didn’t know this particular dog.

  The dog stood still in the crater it made, panting and staring at me.

  I stood back up, and stepped toward it, smiling. “Hey there, girl! You, uh, took a bit of a tumble there, huh.” I scratched the side of my head. “You sure you’re okay?”

  Gracious sat down and cocked her head at me. The look felt judgemental.

  “Right. I guess you’re fine. Sorry I couldn’t meet you up there, but uhm. I’m sure you saw all the commotion, right? You know why I had to break for it! Or at least you should...”

  I interpreted the dog’s continued stare as an attempt to figure out why I was holding an entire in-depth conversation with something that couldn’t speak back.

  I knelt down a few feet away from her. “Okay. I gave you my apology. So don’t you go blaming me for your choice to barrel roll down the hill. I was just about to head back up there, y’know! I wasn’t just going to abandon you.”

  She kept staring at me, brow furrowed.

  The silence was starting to grate, so I held my metallic fist out. “We still buddies?”

  She stared for a little longer, stepped forward to meet me halfway, then tilted her head down at my fist. Instead of biting me, she made a quiet, happy little growl, and threw her non-prosthetic front paw at my hand in imitation of a fistbump.

  She glanced back up, panting.

  I snorted back a laugh. “Thanks, girl. It’s good to see you again, too.” Her tongue lolled out, and I gave her a little scritch behind the ear—she leaned hard into my hand, like she was trying to angle my scritches to the right spot. “There’ll be plenty of time to chitchat later, though. ‘Bout time you took me back to your dad, right?”

  As if snapping awake, Gracious pulled her head back, shook her ears, and nudged back toward the side of the road. She emphasized the gesture with a “Woof!”

  I resisted the overwhelming urge to keep petting her. “Alright, girl. Lead the way. I’ll try to keep up.”

  Before I could second-guess my choice of words, Gracious spun around and sprinted along the side of the hill, heading in direction of the bridge I had pondered walking toward mere minutes ago.

  I stared at her distantly-zooming form for only a second. I’m not about to get outran by a fucking dog.

  I took off after her.