My brain floated in a freezing chemical swamp. A thick, metallic sludge coated the back of my throat. The overhead surgical lamps burned hot white circles into my retinas, bleaching the edges of my vision. Latex squeaked against my skin. Two doctors in white coats flanked the metal table. They moved with silent, machine precision. They neither spoke to me nor met my eyes. I was a broken engine on an assembly line. Cold steel scissors slid against my ankle. The blades snipped through the heavy fabric of my jeans.

  A biting draft from the vents hit my bare legs. Goosebumps erupted across my skin in violent waves. One doctor yanked a thin, papery hospital gown over my head. The coarse fabric scratched my shoulders, offering zero warmth. My bare toes brushed against the freezing steel edge of the operating table. Great. Zero dignity and a terrible draft. Five-star service.

  The doctor on my left seized my wrist. His gloved fingers, tight and clinical, probed the heavy metal band housing Handy. My onboard AI. The doctor pressed the release catch. The clasp popped open.

  Ice dropped in my gut.

  He peeled the metal band away from my skin. The absence left a cold, phantom weight around my wrist. He tossed the expensive piece of hardware into a gray plastic container. The heavy plastic lid snapped shut, a final, hollow sound bouncing off the white tile. Then a guard carried the container away from my sight.

  “Hey.” My tongue swelled, thick and useless. The word struggled past my dry lips, cracking into a pathetic rasp. “Give that back.”

  He didn’t even blink. He just dragged thick leather straps across my chest, my thighs, my ankles. The heavy hides smelled of antiseptic and old sweat. The steel buckles snapped shut one by one. The ratchets tightened. The leather bit into my collarbone, pinning me flat against the rigid steel. The table groaned and tilted backward. My head lowered. My feet rose. Blood rushed into my skull, pounding a slow rhythm behind my eyes. A massive robotic arm descended from the recessed ceiling track. Pneumatic pistons hissed. A surgical drill rested at the end of the multi-jointed limb. The fluted metal bit caught the harsh glare of the lamps.

  A tech assistant strapped a plastic band on my wrist. Probably a bio-tracker in case I fled.

  I closed my eyes. I reached inward, searching for the familiar, burning heat deep in my chest. The wild, untamed energy humming just beneath my ribs.

  Nothing.

  Empty black space. The green chemical ice had frozen it out entirely. The beast slept under a suffocating blanket of heavy Pandora sedatives. No fangs. No claws. No primal fury.

  In five minutes, that spinning drill would breach my skull. Precision lasers would slice through my neural pathways, burning away my memories. The werewolf attack in the alley. Tessa’s laugh. Cody’s terrible jokes. Everything that makes me Nikki Nova would burn to ash. I would become a blank slate. A hollow, obedient puppet constructed of dense muscle and reinforced bone. An attack dog hunting down corporate targets for Moldark.

  The robotic arm locked into position. The drill spun to life. A high-pitched, mechanical whine pierced my eardrums. The vibration shook the air. The heavy metal bit lowered. Three inches from my bare forehead. The air from the spinning flutes cooled my skin. Two inches. I squeezed my eyes shut. I braced for the agonizing bite of tearing skin and shattering bone.

  A crack split the air.

  Every light in the room died. Total darkness hit the theater like a physical wall.

  The drill stopped spinning. The deadly whine cut out. The robotic arm froze exactly one inch from my skin. The heavy drone of the sub-level power grid vanished. A silence filled the surgical theater, broken only by my own ragged breathing.

  Acrid smoke drifted across my face. The sharp, bitter stench of burnt ozone and fried copper wire filled my lungs. An EMP blast.

  “Grid failure.” A doctor shuffled across the slick tile floor. His voice shook. “Check the manual override panel. Hit the emergency switch by the door.”

  Footsteps scuffed the ground. A heavy boot kicked a metal surgical tray. Stainless steel scalpels and retractors clattered across the floor.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Who’s there?” His voice cracked.

  A rush of displaced air swept over the table. A dull, heavy thud sounded in the dark. A sharp gasp. A body hit the tiles. Dead weight slapping hard.

  The second doctor scrambled backward. His rubber-soled shoes squeaked hard against the floor. He bumped into a glass cabinet. Vials rattled. “Security! Breach in Theater One! We need—”

  The crunch of dense metal hitting bone cut his scream short. A spray of warm liquid hit my cheek. The doctor collapsed. Total silence returned.

  A narrow flashlight beam clicked on, a blinding white line cutting through the absolute dark. The beam swept the bloody floor, lighting up the two knocked-out doctors. One bled from a broken nose. The light rose, blinding me.

  A tall woman stepped into the spill of the emergency lights. Heavily armored tactical vest, tight black turtleneck, and a red ponytail. Glasses magnified her green eyes above magazine pouches lining her ribs. Slapping a smoking EMP rifle to her back, she drew a serrated combat knife from a rigid belt sheath. The dark metal blade absorbed the light.

  Stepping to my side, she brought the blade down in a swift, practiced arc, severing the thick leather straps pinning my chest. The pressure on my lungs vanished. I sucked in a massive breath as she moved to my legs, slicing through the ankle restraints.

  “Up.” She grabbed the fabric of my flimsy gown, hauling me forward until I sat upright.

  My head lolled uselessly to the side. The dark room spun in circles. Gravity pulled me toward the floor. I blinked heavy, leaden eyelids, fighting the thick chemical haze blanketing my brain. “Who…”

  She slapped my cheek. The jolt of pain rattled my teeth and forced my eyes wide open.

  “Focus, kid.” She holstered the combat knife with a sharp click. “I don’t carry dead weight. I need you on your feet right now.”

  I slid my numb legs off the edge of the steel table. My bare feet hit the freezing, slick tile. The cold sent a shock up my spine. My knees buckled under my weight. She caught me under the arm with an iron grip, hauling me back upright and bracing my shoulder against her armored side.

  “Who are you?” I rubbed the burning red mark on my cheek, leaning heavily against her.

  “Roth Grace.” She turned her head, checking the pitch-black corridor through the narrow, reinforced glass window on the double doors. “I’m the one getting you out of this corporate chop shop before they scramble your brains.”

  I shifted my weight, leaning back against the solid metal edge of the operating table to stay upright. “Do I owe you money?”

  “I dated your uncle,” Roth ejected the spent battery pack from her EMP rifle. It clattered to the floor. She snapped a fresh block into the receiver with a sharp, metallic clack. The action cut off the fifty urgent questions loading onto my swollen tongue. “We need to move. Now.”

  My jaw dropped. The chemical haze in my brain cleared a fraction. My uncle? The guy who calibrates microscopes for fun? He dated a corporate merc? My brain short-circuited.

  The facility struck back. Rows of red emergency lights kicked on along the ceiling, bathing the surgical room in a harsh, bloody wash. Massive backup generators rumbled deep beneath the concrete floor, humming up through my bare feet. A mechanical alarm bell rang through the stagnant air, setting my teeth on edge.

  Roth ignored the blaring alarm. She drew a matte-black handgun from a molded kydex thigh holster. She checked the chamber, then flipped the weapon through the red-lit air toward me.

  I snatched the heavy metal grip out of the air. My fingers wrapped automatically around the cold, textured shape. The familiar weight grounded me.

  “Safety is off.” Roth raised the heavy barrel of her EMP rifle, aiming at the center seam of the heavy double doors. Her stance widened, boots planted firmly on the tiles. “We work together, we cover our corners, or we end up in matching corporate body bags. Clear?”

  I dropped the magazine into my palm. Full stack of heavy rounds. I slammed it back home. I racked the slide back. A hollow point bullet chambered with a sharp, satisfying clack. The final fog of the sedative burned away. The wolf remained asleep, but the human was wide awake and armed.

  “Clear.” My grip tightened on the polymer frame. I pointed the muzzle at the floor. “But I’m not leaving this room without my wristband.”

  Roth shot a quick glance at the clear plastic bio-hazard bin across the room. She gave a single, tight nod. “Grab it fast. We got company incoming.”

  Heavy, rhythmic mechanical clicks rattled from the red-lit hallway outside. The distinct, grinding sound of heavy metal treads rolling over smooth tile. The high-pitched, electronic whir of optical targeting sensors panning and locking on to the surgical suite.

  Pandora security drones.

  I sprinted across the bloody floor, my bare feet slapping the tiles. I ripped the plastic lid off the bio-hazard bin. I snatched Handy from the bottom and snapped the cold metal band back around my left wrist. The tiny glass screen sparked to life, flashing a comforting blue light.

  I darted back toward the entrance. Roth pressed her spine flat against the tiled wall directly to the left of the door frame. I slid into position on the opposite side, mirroring her tactical stance. I raised the barrel of the handgun, aiming it at head-height for a standard drone chassis. My finger rested on the trigger guard. My breathing slowed.

  The alarm blared overhead.