Sprite grabbed the knife’s handle. Scotty stared from the pavement, slack jawed. Helen screamed something. Probably no, but Sprite wasn’t listening. Her focus was on the blade and there was no time for sound yet. Only light. Vision.

A moment later the knife was loosed. An elegant blood arch followed its path, bright, red, and delicate. The knife bounced on the blacktop, skittering away. Blood drops followed, stopping where they landed, dark circles and smears.

Helen was still screaming. She rushed to Sprite.

She had already pulled her other hip shooter and looked to the sky, saying simply, “I’m fine.”

Sprite cursed, looking to the sky and standing quickly. She made to draw her hip shooters, but only succeeded in pulling one. She looked down, confused. The knife. The knife sticking out of her side got in the way.

Sprite looked up to the sky again. Her hyper-focus thought she spotted movement, a small spec, slowly growing larger

There wasn’t time for a knife in her side. And besides, the shock was over, and the adrenaline bath felt marvelous.

She looked down again, bright red blood soaking her side, sun reflecting brightly off the portion of the blade still exposed.

“What model?” Sprite asked, her face going even paler than it was before.

“One seventy.”

Sprite swallowed and nodded; adrenaline suddenly surged through her small body. She was awakening, knife still in her side but the shock rapidly fading to the background. Her vision was still blurred, but it was more like a hyper-focus, her eyes trying to see everything at once.

Helen still had her knee on Scotty’s chest, his finger in her grasp, watch on the blacktop, question on her face.

“How much time is left?” Sprite asked. But before Helen could look, the watch’s alarm started beeping.

“Break his fingers,” Sprite said, knowing the most important thing to Scotty was a steady hand with lightning quick fingers. Helen looked at her then turned to act on the suggestion, grabbing Scotty’s hand.

“Wait, wait!” Scotty yelled, struggling to pull away, but with Helen on top of him, there wasn’t very far he could go.

“Talk,” Helen said, grabbing his pointer finger roughly in her hands, ready to snap it with one swift movement.

“It’s a guardian orbiter!” Scotty yelled.

Helen blinked, a blank look on her face. She didn’t release her hold, instead looking to Sprite for guidance.

In response, Helen punched him in the face, still holding the watch. The hit wasn’t hard, but it was strong enough to smack Scotty’s head into the pavement as well. She shoved the watch in his face again and yelled louder, “What does this mean?”

Again Scotty didn’t answer.

She punched him once more, head slamming into blacktop.

“The numbers,” she yelled, and punched him again. “What is this countdown for?” She punched him again.

Tears were rolling down Scotty’s cheeks, but still he said nothing.

“His fingers,” Sprite said, knowing the quickest way to get a cypher hack’s attention.

“What is this?” Helen asked, a little fear entering her voice. Clearly Sprite’s own concern for the countdown over the knife in her gut was evident, and Helen had been quick to realize the situation they were in but what little information they had.

“Ask him,” Sprite said.

There was no pause, no hesitation. Helen grabbed Scotty by the hair, knee pressing into his chest. “What is this?” she yelled, watch in his face.

The little man was too shocked to answer. But they were running out of time, and Sprite was glad to see that Helen realized this too.

Helen threw Scotty to the ground. “Watch him,” she said. The Dober Bull growled, his teeth bared, black eyes on the little man. Sprite still lay on her side, knife protruding upward toward the sky.

“Believe it or not, I’ve seen worse,” Helen said. “You’re gonna be fine. I’ll uplink a medivac, and”

“There’s no time,” Sprite interrupted.

“You’re fine. The bleeding is minimal, you’re breathing is strong.”

“No,” Sprite said and tried to toss the watch. Instead, it just fell to the rocky blacktop. Helen picked it up. The count had dropped to 22.

“There’s no time,” Sprite repeated.

“Sprite, you all right?” the woman hollered, keeping her eyes and gun still on Scotty. It was Helen.

“There’s no time,” Sprite managed to say, but her yell lost steam half way through.

Helen looked over and realized Sprite was injured. She quickly grabbed Scotty by the shoulder, squeezing his nerve tight, and dragged him with her. He screamed, though whether it was the nerve or the bullet wound in his leg, it was hard to say which would be worse.

Sprite’s eyes blurred focus again. Her head fell, and she checked the watch.

41. 40. 39.

“There’s no time.”

Sprite fought sleep. She couldn’t look, but her side felt wet. Warm. Sticky.

She watched Scotty, sad at his escape, unable to do anything about it.

The watch read 59 seconds and now tenths of seconds were displayed, the numbers flying downward. What would happen in 58 seconds? 57? 56?

Then gunshots in the distance. Still on her side, Sprite looked out and saw a big dog tackle Scotty. The little man fell hard to the pavement. The dog quickly righted and stood growling over him.

Twenty feet further, a red-headed woman appeared, training her gun on the little man.

Scotty was getting away. Sprite knew she had to take care of this knife, but she knew she couldn’t let him get away. Her eyes filled with tears and the image of the knife in her side went blurry. She was very tired but with much effort swung her face upward to watch the little man.

He was limping his slow escape. That couldn’t happen.

Her head slumped back down.

1:12.

She tried to push up from the ground but instead tipped over. She laid there sideways, wanting nothing more than to close her eyes. Scotty continued his slow flight.

Scotty dragged himself to a standing position again. Unable to put much weight on his injured leg, he fell as he tried to get away. Sprite watched him, then fired a couple more shots at him, this time missing. Scotty continued to struggle through his escape, but Sprite’s eyes were drawn to the knife again. So strange. Just sitting there.

It didn’t hurt, but it should have. Sprite dropped her gun and this even surprised herself.

Scotty was hobbling away, and Sprite had to sit down on the blacktop.

She looked at the watch still in her hand.

1:30 left.

Sprite looked down and a small switchblade stuck out of her side, the blade probably two inches deep. Her stomach turned; she got dizzy and light headed. Already Scotty had pulled himself off the ground away from her. She looked up, aimed her gun, her throat contracting, and put a bullet in Scotty’s leg.

He fell to the ground, screaming. Sprite looked down at her side again, the knife still there. She wanted to put her gun back in its holster, but she was afraid her arm would hit the knife. She stood there, swaying, not sure what to do.

“Scotty, what is this?” she asked, furious, shaking his arm.

“Let go of me,” he said.

Sprite only tightened her grip. “What is this countdown?” she said, teeth clenched. “So help me, Scotty. Whatever horrible things you think I’m capable of, is nothing compared to what I’ll really do.”

Sprite undid the watch’s clasp and removed it from Scotty’s wrist.

“Think about it, Scotty,” Sprite said. Scotty swallowed and looked to the ground. Sprite nodded her head. “Exactly. Now tell me what this is.”

But Scotty clawed at his pant leg and a strange pain hit Sprite in the side.

Master of the trade? Sprite almost smacked herself in the head. Instead, she smacked at Scotty’s hands, knocking them away from the watch. But a watch wasn’t the right term, and Sprite realized that now. Scotty was a true master of the trade. Sprite wasn’t sure what she was, having missed something so obvious.

She grabbed his watch arm, twisting to look at the display. He winced. The time was there, small, at the bottom. There was also a signal gage that appeared strong, latitude and longitude listings, other mysterious readouts, and a countdown that just dipped below two minutes.

Sprite didn’t understand the terror in Scotty’s voice. They certainly weren’t friends, but last they met, the two shared a professional air. Not a brotherhood or even a bond, per se, but at least a mutual respect between fellow masters of the trade.

This was odd indeed.

And just as odd, Scotty’s manic need to know the time. Sprite hadn’t noticed his watch before; it was black, strapped to his wrist, and large. Scotty was hammering away at the display buttons. Where did Scotty have to be? Was he looking up an appointment?

And why was the watch so big?

Sprite slapped him again. She yelled right in his face, shaking him. “Scotty!”

And suddenly Scotty seemed to wake up. He blinked, his pupils shrinking, and his eyes focused on Sprite right in his face. She couldn’t believe it. He was ok.

Sprite hugged him, shouting his name gleefully, forgetting that before his armor ever took center stage, Scotty had been running from her.

Scotty forced himself away from her. “Sprite,” he said, obvious fear in his voice. He scrambled away from her, then seemed to remember an appointment, eyeing his watch desperately and pushing several buttons on its display.

Sprite cursed and started pacing. If she couldn’t get through to Scotty, she didn’t know how to track the rest of his guild. They were sly figures, paranoid, trolling below the radar, careful, avoiding the surface, living their alias lives out of focus.

She knew if Scotty were still on Griffin Isle, he wouldn’t be able to resist the prices at Mioko’s auction. But none of his fellow moles had the same predictable weaknesses.

Sprite fell to her knees and shook Scotty hard. “Wake up, Scotty!” she yelled, slapping him across the face. “You owe me and you’re paying now!”

Scotty lay on the ground, trembling. He looked small again, his pants worn and his sweatshirt missing, having been shredded by the liquid armor which was now nowhere to be seen.

Sprite stood up and drew a gun, carefully approaching.

He was breathing hard, his small chest moving up and down with each pant. His eyes were wide open, and he appeared terrified, staring out into space.

“Scotty, it’s ok,” Sprite said, putting away her gun after verifying the armor was indeed gone and seeing Scotty posed no threat. “Are you injured, Scotty?”

He didn’t notice her, still staring off.

The liquid armor flashed out, shaking with spasms, tentacles flailing about madly. Scotty’s muscles tightened, his head thrown back, jaw locked, fists clenched.

But the armor still did its job rather well, taking the majority of the hit and protecting the wearer. Holes began forming as the molten armor expanded. Pieces dripped and fell off in nebulous globs, landing on the blacktop, steaming.

Sprite momentarily blacked out and it took a short moment for all her senses to come back online in working order. She first noticed the smell of hot tar. Then her vision returned, and she sat up.

Sprite pulled her face back and to one side, trying to keep as much distance between her and approaching death as possible. The bladed tentacles continued to force their way forward. With a hard push, the final sharp strand breached the translucent surface of her shield, and Sprite acted.

Immediately she reversed the charge, sending tremendous feedback out through the arm shield band and reverberating through the shield itself.

The charge knocked Sprite backwards, throwing her to the ground, but the majority of the electric field coursed through Scotty’s tentacles and hit him like a head on with a tanker.

The extending blades hit the shield hard, nearly knocking the ace to the ground again. But Sprite was ready this time, bracing her foot behind her and leaning forward into the blow. Time appeared to slow down for Sprite.

Scotty was yelling, spittle flying from his gaping mouth. A drop of sweat ran into his left eye. He didn’t notice.

The tentacles started to force their way through the thin shield, first one, then the next, now twelve deadly points pushed their way through the barrier toward Sprite. One blade had yet to break through.

Scotty screamed.

The blades approached.

“Scotty, please, listen to me,” Sprite yelled.

This time Scotty’s head shot up in an instant, his eyes clouded and dark, his face a grimace. He threw both arms out in front of him. Several gleaming extensions wrapped tightly down his arms, over his watch, and flying out, past his fingers, turning deadly sharp.

Sprite threw up her translucent shield again, forming from the band around her right forearm. She made it bigger this time, extending to the ground and several meters out, not wanting any tentacles to go around. But as a result, the shield was made thinner too.

There seemed to be an internal battle with Scotty; he held his head as if trying to keep it in one piece. Perhaps if he was preoccupied, Sprite might be able to get in a shot. She didn’t want to kill him, but did she have any other choice?

Taking aim, Sprite fired several shots at his exposed limbs. Scotty didn’t seem to even notice, but his armor did, thin veins extending and deflecting each shot. Sprite readied herself for a return attack, but there was none.

“Scotty,” she yelled. He didn’t respond. “Scotty, let me help you.”

Still nothing.

But what to use against an enemy such as this? If she had a week in her workshop, Sprite knew she would find something. But fighting now, without any warning, covered in dust and sweat, a man out of control advancing, she didn’t know what to do.

Clearly projectiles wouldn’t work, her guns useless. Her shield held out against the initial attack of those spikes, but for how long? The shield was created to absorb impact and the blow still sent her flying backwards to the ground.

But Sprite had to try something. She was quickly running out of time.

Scotty’s projectiles swarmed back into his arm and chest covering. His eyes showed pain upon the armor’s rejoining.

Sprite hadn’t ever seen a glyph in combat and her understanding of their armor-weapon was minimal. She supposed it worked something like this, but while she always imagined their armor a natural, fluid extension of their bodies, this seemed a monstrous bastardization of such beauty. A forced mashing of two unique identities, each struggling for dominance over the other.

Despite his own initiating of this armor, Sprite hoped Scotty won out in the mad battle between himself and his liquid metal armor.

Sprite raised her right arm defensively and a translucent shield formed from a band around her forearm. The piercing nodes deflected off the shield, but their sheer brute force still knocked Sprite off her feet.

“Scotty, what are you doing?” she yelled. But looking at the small man still encased in the madly expanding armor, Sprite didn’t think she saw Scotty in there anymore. His eyes were dark and clouded. Anger, fear, and pain formed a horrific mix on his face.

He would kill her if Sprite let him.

Sprite scrambled to her feet, shield still in front of her.

Scotty’s armor went nuts, responding to his fear and anger and Sprite’s still drawn handgun. Long arms and short tongues formed everywhere as he came toward her, his apparent size increasing fourfold as tentacles grew. Sprite’s initial assumption that the armor was purely defensive was about to be proven incorrect.

She backed away, squeezing the trigger. Advancing arms batted bullets aside, ricocheting off the concrete.

Scotty shot his arm forward and seven thin strands flew out straight at her, ends coming to points reflecting the early morning sun.

The small framed mechanics ace screamed in horror at the monstrous hybrid.

The armor was good, immediately responding. Three strands shot out from the whole, one wide tongue covered Scotty’s leg and two longer arms lunged out to intercept the bullet. The first caught the small slug, deflecting it. These long strands weaved around each other, eventually returning to the main body which remained on alert, puffing out around the shoulders and head, readying its response to further hostile action.

Sprite was impressed. “What is that, Scotty? Did you actually steal glyph technologies for your personal body armor?”

Scotty spun around.

“The Sororal will not appreciate that,” Sprite said, shaking her head.

Scotty stood, starting to sway, sweat forming on his forehead. Clearly this armor had taken a lot out of him. The armor itself continued to flow visibly around his torso, strands forming, stretching outward, then joining the main body again.

The small man’s eyes unfocussed, and he started to stumble away. Sprite drew a gun.

“Don’t move, Scotty,” she called.

Scotty looked at her over his shoulder, a scouting strand moving out of his line of sight before rejoining the rest. He turned back and didn’t slow his walk.

Sprite aimed and fired a shot meant to graze his leg.

“Scotty, what is that?” Sprite asked, her brain not believing what her eyes were seeing.

“Just stay away from me, Sprite! Stay away.”

“No, I don’t think so, Scotty,” Sprite said, standing up and wiping away blood that had formed at the corner of her mouth. “No, you owe me and you’re going to help me. And I don’t care what sort of armor you’ve got under your cloths to protect you. Nothing can save you if you don’t help me get what I want.”

The little man was looking more and more nervous.

“You owe me, Scotty!” Sprite yelled.