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I'd seen my share of devils. Machines designed to kill with impunity, infrared eyes glowing murderously in the dark like something from a kid's nightmares, sweeping across a frozen no man's land where my gunner squad crouched hidden from sight, packed in crystallized snow to hide our thermal signatures. Those monsters may have had heads, arms, and legs, but they were nothing like us. Anthropomorphized robots, nothing more.
Unlike this creature.
He'd been a man, once. Barely out of his teens. But those days were long gone. Guttural screams, reptilian features, the strength of half a dozen men. All things considered, he was a real monster. A devil in the flesh.
Clawing his way through solid steel.
"I can hold him." Sanitoro planted his shoulder against the security door and grimaced as it jostled him. The devil slammed against the other side, shrieking, roaring, wanting in like we were his last meal. "Go on."
I couldn't leave Sanitoro alone with this thing. I kept one forearm against the door and leaned my weight into it. The locking mechanism wouldn't be back online until the entire wing's security system rebooted. No telling when that would be. Until then, none of the doors on this level of the facility would lock.
Lucky break for a private investigator like yours truly. I had free reign of the place to stick my nose where it didn't belong and find out what the hell was going on around here. But there were no safe corners, no places to hide and wait out the monster's wrath. And there was no telling what else could be on the other side of that door. More like him? Something worse?
"We're getting out of here. Both of us." Two glowing deskscreens provided the dark office's only source of light. Strange that they were still running strong while everything else was out cold. Must have had their own dedicated power source. I dragged a chair across the linoleum floor and positioned it underneath an air vent in the ceiling. "Long as you don't mind close quarters."
"You go. I will keep him out." Sanitoro cursed in Japanese, straining to press his full weight against the door. "You do not want him following you up there."
Not a pleasant thought—crammed into an air duct with our obnoxious friend clambering after me. From what I'd seen, the guy could move like a flying lizard, leaping onto walls and scurrying as fast as a cheetah. Able to dodge bullets. And to top it all off, he spat acid.
No kidding.
"There's gotta be help nearby." I drew my .38 snub-nosed revolver and fired at the ceiling vent, smashing the hinge with one round. The shot sounded like a bomb going off in the small office. "The whole complex can't be run by robots."
"That sign indicated otherwise."
The dust-caked placard posted outside the facility may have mentioned something about trespassers being shot on sight—by robots, of course.
"We're not trespassing." Slipping my gun into its shoulder holster, I climbed onto the chair to pry open the stubborn air vent. "We're guests."
Junior had invited us, after all. In a roundabout way.
"We are saboteurs," Sanitoro countered.
"How was I supposed to know an EMP would shut down the whole system?"
"And release the detainees."
"They're better off." The ductwork beyond the open vent looked wide enough for a small dog to fit through, but that was about it. Not a man my size, even if I tore off my arms and came back for them later.
"Out in the Wastes?"
"They'll find their way home." With a little help from Sergeant Douglass, I hoped.
Sanitoro cursed at a sudden frenzied assault from our monstrous friend outside. The door bucked, cracking open nearly a centimeter. Just enough of a gap for him to send a spurt of acid squirting into the office. Part of a plasticon wastebasket melted on impact, oozing onto the industrial carpet as wisps of foul-smelling smoke rose upward.
Sanitoro's shadowy form shifted against the reinforced door. He was strong, a force to be reckoned with. Most yakuza were. But he was only human. Sooner or later, that door would crash open, and we'd be at the mercy of a man-sized dragon.
"Go on. Find out what happened here." Sanitoro cursed again. "I will keep this devil occupied."
I appreciated the sentiment. And believe me, I liked the idea of getting out of there—and discovering the truth, while I was at it. But I joined him at the door instead, giving it my full attention.
Keeping that door shut required a team effort. For now, answers would have to wait.
Neither one of us was going anywhere.