Misty convulsed on the plush red and gold carpet, gazing wide-eyed up at the ceiling. Blue coolant leaked out from under the edges of her bandaged forehead and trickled down her pallid face. Her lips twitched, but no sounds escaped her mouth.

  Dobson lifted her hands to either side of her head to no avail. The electronic buzz popped and crackled like hot static between her ears. Blistering pressure swelled inside her skull. It ballooned outwards, pressing against her eyes until they felt like they were going to pop from their sockets. She dropped from the chair and fell forward on one knee. Arms trembling, she placed her hands against the carpet and steadied herself.

  Breathe. The thought wormed its way through the popping static that clouded her mind. Dobson drew a slow breath, filled her lungs, and then exhaled. She lifted her gaze, peering through the flashing distress signals currently obscuring her vision.

  Bradley hadn’t stirred from his chair. He sat comfortably, lounging with one slender leg crossed over the other, watching Misty writhe on the floor. A sadistic grin stretched across his face, spanning from ear to ear. Misty didn’t have long. She started to cough. Her expression contorted in pain as the coughing turned violent. Specks of fresh blood dotted the skin around her mouth.

  Dobson willed the last of her strength into her knees and stood. Her vision rippled in protest, flashing distorted images of her surroundings. Stubbornly, she stepped one foot forward. Her leg nearly buckled beneath her weight, but Dobson refused to allow it, managing another step before the first felled her.

  The smirk slipped from Bradley’s lips. He rechecked the switch, ensuring the machine was amplifying at full power. The results stumped him. Confused, his gaze lifted, taking in the tower of muscle and might that loomed over him. “That can’t be.” He rechecked the settings only to arrive at the same conclusion as before. “You’re…”

  Dobson smiled around the pain. “You can’t scramble what isn’t there.”

  Realization flooded his face. Quick as a flash of greased lightning, Bradley jumped from the chair onto his feet, upsetting the little black box from his lap. The device tumbled to the floor. Bradley didn’t notice. He was too preoccupied with trying to get away.

  Dobson seized the man by the elbow as he flew past. She pulled in the opposite direction with all her might, dislocating Bradley’s arm from his socket with a sickly snap. He stumbled backwards, screaming, and whirled around, desperate to slip her iron grip. Dobson grabbed the ballpoint pen from her pocket and slammed it into his face. She drove the pen through his eye socket, sinking it as deep as it would go. A mix of liquid chemicals and body fluids poured from the bloody socket.

  Bradley screamed and tried desperately to batter her away with his remaining hand. His blows glanced off her reinforced flesh like a stone skipping across water. Dobson wrapped her arms around his flailing body and squeezed. Metal and bone snapped beneath her crushing grip. She squeezed harder, harder, harder, crushing the life out of him. Bradley’s screams turned to wet gurgles until his augmented skeleton was compressed so tightly it punctured his organs. His body wrenched two final convulsions before he went limp in Dobson’s arms.

  Dobson let go, allowing him to collapse onto the floor, nothing more than a leaking sack of meat, broken bones, and metal.

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  The piercing whine of the disrupter rang out in a steady scream. Dobson switched the box off, but it did no good. She threw her head back with a roar and slammed it to the ground next to Bradley’s body. Dobson’s boot followed. She stomped the wicked device to pieces, over and over, even after the electronic buzz faded from between her ears. By the time she was done stomping, the scrambler had been reduced to a pile of shattered plastic and flattened coils.

  Dobson’s heart pounded mercilessly against her chest. She wiped away the sheen of sweat that stung her eyes and turned at last to face Misty, fearful of what she might find. Her partner was curled into a protective ball on the soiled carpet, unmoving.

  “Misty?” Dobson limped to Misty’s side. She pressed two fingers against the underside of Misty’s chin and felt for a pulse. It was weak, but there. Barely.

  Dobson shook her by the shoulder. “Come on, Misty. Wake up. You can’t go out like this.”

  Misty remained unresponsive.

  “Not like this,” Dobson said. She glanced around the train, searching for something, anything, to bring Misty back around. Her gaze settled on the colorful bottles neatly arranged on the mahogany shelves behind the bar.

  Dobson staggered over to the bar. Her left knee tried to give out on her several times, but Dobson compensated with the right. She’d survived this far. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let a worn knee joint take her down now. Not while her partner lay dead and dying. Somewhere over the course of the meeting with Bradley, Dobson had realized she really didn’t care for dying. As such, she’d unilaterally decided neither she nor Misty was allowed to die. At least not until she discovered what in tarnation rhymed with orange!

  She limped behind the bar and found what she sought tucked in a cabinet underneath the counter. Her left leg started to drag on her way back, but Dobson hobbled onwards, unwilling to stop. Misty was still curled into an unmoving ball when Dobson reached her. Kneeling, Dobson propped Misty into an upright position. Misty flopped over against her as lifeless as a rag doll. A trickle of crimson blood leaked from her mouth, staining the collar of her soiled prison jumpsuit bright red.

  Dobson held her breath and popped the can open, shoving it directly under Misty’s nose. Despite Dobson’s best efforts to avoid breathing, the revolting combination of salty brine and fermented mollusk infiltrated her nose and into her mouth all the same. Dobson lurched forward with a wet gag, fighting to keep whatever was in her stomach from hurtling back up her throat.

  Misty’s eyes fluttered open. “Dobsy?”

  “I’m here.” Dobson helped her drink, steadily losing the fight against her own mounting nausea. The inside of her mouth flooded with sour bile. She swallowed hard, shoving the stomach acid back down where it belonged. “Steady now. No sudden movements. Take things slow while the rest of you has a chance to catch up.”

  Tears leaked from the corners of Misty’s eyes. She choked, not on the revolting swig of raw clam juice sliding down her gullet, but on emotion. “Dobsy, you didn’t let me die,” she sputtered. The tears fell faster. “You do care.”

  “I think you’re misinterpreting what happened.”

  Misty brushed the tears from her eyes with the back of her tattered sleeve. “Nah, nah. You can’t fool me, you big softie. I can see it. You’ve gone and embraced the spirit of true partnership.”

  Dobson’s sluggish thoughts raced to counter Misty’s statement with a logical alternative. “It was a matter of practicality, Misty. I still need you to operate the train, remember? I can’t do that if you’re dead.”

  “Train-ay-to, train-ah-to, Dobsy.”

  Even on the brink of death, her partner never ceased to annoy her. Dobson did the unthinkable. She rolled her eyes. Not just on the inside, but the outside too. “Don’t read into it.”

  “Too late!” Misty plucked the drink from Dobson’s hand and raised it overhead in celebration, inadvertently spilling some of the can’s vile contents onto the front of her stained uniform. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated. She swayed a little, like a drunkard on a stool, but no amount of mechanical impairment could stop the stupid smile that pulled across her battered face. “You’re stuck with me.”