“Are you planning on shooting me?” he asked.
“Maybe?”
He cocked his head, rubbing his finger over the cloth covering his mouth. “Follow me.”
Alexa sucked in a breath as he strode to the back corner of the room and stopped before a glass case. She followed him to see what he was going to reveal.
There was a weapon that could hurt a Cyborg? Perhaps easily?
And he was going to show her it?
The darkness of the glass vanished, revealing a myriad of guns in different sizes hooked to a rack within. In the middle lay something she’d never seen before. The silver metal of the weapon nearly glowed, and there was an extra glass case around it that the other guns didn’t have.
“That, right there, is a Brickbuster,” he told her, indicating the gun. “There are maybe several dozen in existence. I helped design it.”
“What does it do?”
“It busts a Cyborg’s shell open.”
“Really? How?”
He laughed. It wasn’t a warm laugh. “Should I be worried?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. The buster uses pyrizian ammo simultaneously with laser tech. The same rare metal most Cyborgs are made of. It holds nanoparticles like organic matter holds bacteria. With the combination and force of the fire, it can break through our interior shell and straight into the organs protected beneath. The nanoparticles infect us, flooding our systems like a virus, ultimately skewing those same systems and corrupting them. When our systems shut down, death soon follows if we’re not stabilized quickly. But a shot to the leg is nowhere near as deadly as a shot to the head.”
“And you have one on theQuestor? Why?”
“Every retriever for the EPED is issued a weapon like this in some capacity. Many of us already have something like it in our personal caches. We’re prepared for any circumstance.”
“Even going against your own?”
“We all know what happened to Zeph,” he muttered. “You’d be surprised to know there are others out there like me who are not built like me, Alexa—neoborgs, cybots, and mechas. Who knows what kind of technology the Trentians are developing? Preparation is key.”
She stared at the gun, at the power such a small thing held, and clenched her hand to stop herself from reaching for it through the glass. “Right,” she whispered. This was it. This was what she needed to finish the job.
This, and Hysterian facing away from her so she could get a clear shot to the back of his head.
The glass dimmed and the weapons vanished. Hysterian motioned to the other gun she still held.
“That won’t hurt me, or others like me, but it will startle me for a moment—perhaps a moment is all you’ll need—and allow you to get away. It will stop a human or alien in its tracks, as long as you’re a good shot. Are you?”
“I trained.”
“Good. Keep it with you on Libra.”
Alexa glanced at her new weapon once more and made sure the safety was on before sliding it into the lip of her pants. This wasn’t a gift she wasn’t going to take from him.
If the captain of the ship you’re working on gives you a gun, you keep it. She licked her lips.
Hysterian’s gaze dropped to her mouth before quickly leaving her. He moved to another case, pulling a weapon from it and sliding it into his own pants. And for a sliver of a second, she glimpsed something underneath his uniform. He wore another mesh covering she’d never seen the likes of. One of the suits needed for the scanners maybe?
Her eyes trailed back to that particular case.
It occurred to her that they were alone as she stared at it, and he was between her and the exit again.
Her heart thundered. He turned and looked at her, heated yet cold, and wrong in every single way.
