“So.  Tell me about your side project.”  Eugene said, glancing at David sidelong.  “Why haven’t I heard about it before now?”

“Well.  I know you have had some bad experiences with big robots so I sort of wanted to make sure it was, uh, ready before I told you about it.  I don’t have an AI in it or anything, it just uses the basic programming I’ve put together from my other experiments for balance and stuff.”  David looked at him sidelong, “And I suppose if I’m honest, you’re like a genius and I didn’t want you to see my early kinda crappy attempts.”

“That’s fair.”  Eugene said, “But I won’t judge other than to give constructive criticism, and right now I’m pretty grateful that you started making the thing in the first place.”  He focused on driving, the way he always did and felt his hands twitching slightly.  After all that had happened, he really wanted a cigarette.  He wasn’t going to smoke in David’s car though, especially not with the kids in here.

“I want to know more now though.  That thing looked pretty cool honestly, even if it was a tad rough.  No more secret projects, we can make things better together than we can apart.  You’ve got quite the gift for robotics David, more of a natural talent than I do and with your father being who he is, you probably have more experience too even if you haven’t always had the benefit of the technological toys I have.”

“You made most of those fancy toys yourself.”  David countered, “You’re way more advanced than I am.”
“Give it time.  I’m in my thirties David.  You still have your twenties to grow.”  Eugene glanced at a road sign and put on the Beetle’s turn signal.  “If you stick with me, I’ll make sure you’re ten times the prodigy I was.”

Turning onto a freeway entrance, Eugene smoothly heel and toe downshifted, tapping the emergency brake and sending the car into a drift with sudden savagery.  The tires screamed in protest and he revved the engine to its limits.  He grinned as his passengers were tossed about with the g-forces, not having the steering wheel to hold onto or the warning of intent to brace themselves.

“All right kid, this car is OK if you push it hard enough.”  He said, “Good balance, even if the power to weight ratio is crap.”

Eugene flew into traffic, using the drift and the downhill angle of the entrance ramp to accelerate to speeds the Beetle hadn’t ever seen before.  Yuen-Ja laughed in exhilaration from the back seat while David tried to avoid screaming in terror.  In a mere seven minutes they were pulling off the freeway and down the frontage road towards their destination.

They reached the parking lot just in time to see Victoria stepping away from a motorcycle and towards Dmitri’s slate gray Bentley.  She was wearing what was left of an elegant dress, there were a myriad of scrapes and cuts visible on all her exposed skin and she was moving in a strange limping gait, the carbon fiber of her legs obviously splintered in a few places.

“Why she is not waiting?”  Yuen-Ja asked, her voice sharp with irritation.  “She knows we are coming and yet she goes with him instead!  Why?”

Eugene rolled his window down and tapped the horn.  Victoria looked up and saw them, pausing to wave.  In that moment of hesitation, the trap was sprung.

Victoria

She had been feeling that “someone’s watching me” itch again but had still not been able to pinpoint anything. The last few minutes had nearly made Victoria jump back on the motorcycle and ride to a different location, but then she had seen Dmitri’s steel gray Bentley and relaxed.  As she approached, reaching her hand out to the door, a familiar car horn made her look over to see David’s Beetle with Eugene at the wheel.  She waved and something slammed into her side with the speed and power of a charging bull.

A figure wearing dark clothing hammered her across the parking lot, sending her flying off her feet.  Victoria struggled to control her fall, barely managing to get her feet under her, but the attacker hadn’t slowed down.  The initial rush was followed up by a second burst of speed that smashed her into the trash cans behind the Tommy Burger.  Only by throwing herself sideways in the air with a desperate wrenching motion was she able to keep her head from slamming into the grease dumpster.

Even so, her shoulder connected with painful force and she cried out in pain.  Instinctively, she rolled into a ball, her arms over her head and hit the ground.  Attempting to get her bearings, Victoria heard a pair of gun shots followed by a savage roar and turned to see a small figure slamming a fist into Ivaonov’s hulking form, knocking him back into Dmitri’s car hard enough to spider web the bullet proof glass.

She stood unsteadily on her broken carbon fiber legs, feeling the strain vibrate through her limbs as the strands of carbon fiber grated against each other.  This was not good.  The shorter figure was outlined by a flickering red light courtesy of Adam, she mentally acknowledged the threat.  No shit, this person was dangerous.  Thank you captain obvious.

Reaching down, she picked up a bottle that had scattered when she had toppled the garbage cans and flung it with speed and accuracy that would have gotten her a starting position on a major league baseball team.  The figure casually leaned out of the way as it turned to face her.

“They want to replace us with you?”  It said, its voice sounding like an animal trying to form human words.  “You are nothing. I could kill you with the slightest effort.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Victoria said, fumbling for anything else she could throw or use as a weapon.  “Who are you?  Who are they?  What the FUCK is going on?”

“Too bad.  You will never know why you died.”  The figure said, taking a few steps forward, lithe and sinuous like a cat stalking a mouse.

It ran forward again, fast as an Olympic sprinter, but Adam had been able to analyze its movements and speed.  He and Victoria were working together out of instinct born of the bonds of trust they shared and had recently strengthened.  Just when it sprang, Victoria made her move.

She leaped to meet her attacker’s charge, only using her left leg but still getting high enough in the air to swing her right leg down in a kick.  Her left leg tore itself apart as the carbon fiber gave way, the tensioned cables and cams destroying the damaged limb.  With superhuman agility, her opponent twisted and grabbed her right leg by the ankle.

“Predictable.”  Victoria said in a totally calm voice and activated the emergency lift on her right leg.  A face she recognized looked up at her in shock and astonishment as Chelsea Daceiron was flung down out of the air to slam into the pavement with bone shattering force.