In an instant I grabbed the chief’s hand, and then pulled it almost too hard. Taken completely off-guard, the chief flew over the desk, and letting out a shout, crashed headfirst just before us. I wrapped my arm around his neck and felt his body sink.
And at the same time the desk blew into a mangled mess.
The giant carbon resin desk had been torn into pieces with a loud crackle and crunch. His sofa also burst apart, tearing through the fabric and cushions, collapsing in a heap.
As I pushed the chief against the floor and covered him, I quickly examined every direction. At my back was Yuri with her ray gun drawn, squatting low and on the ready. I had also reflexively drawn my heatgun.
My gaze returned forward. The chief’s office window. The large window looked out over Headquarters’ central garden. The entire wall was a clear glass pane. Naturally, it was made of the absolute top-of-the-line bulletproof material. It was impenetrable by any shell or explosive, and the refractive index was so carefully fine-tuned that even a perfectly aimed laser shot would be deflected into nothing.
Yuri and I stood looking through that window trying to assess the situation. Without any question, whoever had turned the sofa and desk into scrap was on the other side of the glass. From here we couldn’t tell what kind of weapon they’d used or from what direction, but we were sure it was from outside.
And we got evidence of that soon enough.
The window started breaking.
Suddenly the clear glass turned red. It warped and heaved right before our eyes and then a piercing roar filled our ears as the window exploded. The tiny blobs of melted glass came flying in our direction.
I leapt backward. Yuri also turned away.
“Ow! Hot hot hot!”
The chief wriggled in pain.
Whoops. I’d forgotten we were protecting the chief.
Pieces of hot glass had hit him straight on his back and grayish smoke began to rise from his shirt as he writhed around on the floor.
Yuri and I turned on our heels to help the chief, and momentarily averted our gaze from where the window used to be.
In that moment of distraction they struck.
By the time we noticed, it was too late. Three black shadows had jumped into the room through the torn-apart window.
I pushed off the floor with my foot, putting space between me and the chief. I felt bad for him, but I hadn’t yet figured out what the next move would be. I went to position myself with the door to my back, and Yuri was doing the same against the far wall.
As we spun through the air, we fired the heatgun and ray gun. The laser beam and heat ray intersected just over the chief’s head. It wasn’t on purpose. That just happened to be where the invaders were.
Above the desk on the side closest to the window were two flag stands. One was a United Galactica flag and the other represented the WWWA. The laser beam cut through the flag poles and the heat ray burned the wall behind them.
The wall burst into flames, which caught the flags on fire. The flags slowly fell from the cut poles, spreading the fire further.
That’s right where the unlucky chief had crawled to.
The chief had mostly shaken off the burned glass shards, and he had crawled to the edge of the wall to get out of the way, which was right where the fire we had started was now. The burning flag leaned over onto his back.
“Ugyaa!” the chief screamed, tossing any remaining dignified middle-age pride into the fire. He flapped his arms and legs into the air uncontrollably, noisily pounding the floor.
Oh dear.
I held my head in my hands, as there was nothing I could have done.
“Kei, above you!” yelled Yuri.
Before I could think my body reacted.
I rolled forward, doing a full three-sixty and stopping with my heatgun’s muzzle pointed at the ceiling. From that position, I pulled the trigger. The shadow bolted, deftly dodging the heat rays, and crossing above me. Wow… it was fast. In an instant it had moved from one end of the room to the other.
Yuri was randomly shooting her ray gun. She wasn’t aiming at the shadows, but aligning herself with the wall. It may have made logical sense, but it was pretty annoying.
A laser beam struck the left side of my abdomen. There was a sizzling sound and a white vapor rose up. My top and shorts are separate, so by all appearances it looks as if my midriff is completely bare. However, that isn’t actually the case. I was covered in an ultrathin and transparent super-strong polymer. The sound and vapor was proof of the polymer evaporating from the heat of the laser beam. The polymer was created by a WWWA research facility, and was used for its bullet-stopping and heat-resistant capabilities. However, it did have its limitations. If I kept taking hits from Yuri’s ray gun, I would start springing leaks.
In search of a shield, I ran through the room. The only thing in the big empty office that I could use to protect this one-of-a-kind body was more likely the scrap that was heaped where the chief’s desk used to be. I jumped over to the far side of the pile. The chief, who had swatted out the fire from the flag, was facing upward, twitching and wiggling.
Two of the shadows attacked me from either side.
Holding down the trigger, I swept the heatgun from left to right. The shadows slipped between the heat rays.
There was a massive shock. Like an explosion, the scrap shield blew apart into tiny pieces.
Blown from the gun blast, I flew into the wall with what remained of the desk, now a mountain of splinters.
With a jump off the wall I fell to the floor.
And right on to where the chief was laid out.
“!”
The chief had no voice left in him.
The shadows came.
I’m sorry, Chief!
I cleared away the scrap from the desk, and using the chief as a stepping stone, I did a jumping slide. His stomach was pretty soft, and didn’t give me much to push off of.
I twisted my upper torso, pointing the heatgun behind me. There were two shadows closing in from different directions as I desperately started shooting.
The heat ray swept over the shadows. The shadows separated, one darting left and the other right. Now. With my left hand I squeezed the ring wrapped around the ring finger of my right hand. The ring made a small click.
“Kei!”
Yuri had arrived. She gave me a hand. I stood up. Urp. Yuri was a bit beat up here and there. Even with the super-strength polymer cover on, she had cuts and bruises all over her arms and legs. Over her snow-white skin were spots of crimson where blood oozed out from cuts. The collar on her top was torn, and there was even a tear in the instep of her boots.
“I called Mugi,” I said. “When he comes then it’s three-on-three.”
The shadows swept in. The floor in front of us split open and began to bulge, rising up. Giant cracking and crunching sounds filled the room.
What the hell was going on?! What kind of weapon were these things using?!
Yuri pushed me out of the way. Something just grazed my cheek and went past me. Wind? Heat? No, it was power. Raw energy combined with invisible power attacking me.
The right side of my body went numb. My ears started ringing. I saw something flutter just outside my range of vision. Red. It’s hair. It’s my hair! You jerk! That’s a woman’s soul! And I just went to the beauty salon and had it set in a wolf-cut style yesterday! My hair might be kinky, but it’s still important to me! For that… for that… I will cut you down!
I aimed the heatgun at the wall. In moments it erupted into a terrific blaze. The shadows drew back, ever so slightly. Yuri sent a constant laser stream from her ray into the flames.
“Kei… Yuri…”
We heard a voice. It was a feeble call.
I turned around.
It was the chief. As hurt as he was, he was trying to get up. Don’t overdo it, Chief. Don’t attract attention to the shadows!
“It’s a fire. What are you doing?” he mumbled weakly, taking in his surroundings. It seemed he’d taken a hit to the head. He didn’t seem to understand the situation.
Yuri clicked her tongue. The shadows had turned and focused on the chief. I readied the heatgun.
But.
I didn’t shoot. If I were to fire, I would bum the chief.
Zrr-Zrr.
A heavy sound shook the room. The floor began to move slightly. The wall facing us began to shake. It was the wall with the giant screen embedded into it. Due to the shaking, the power seemed to have been switched on. The screen gave off a blue flickering glow.
This is. This feeling is.
A crack ran up the giant screen. Fragments began falling to the floor.
The shadows were confused. Due to their panic, they lost interest in the chief.
The crack widened.
It broke open completely.
Insulation, plastic, and pieces of the screen all fell together toward us. Oh no! Right at the chief!
The chief completely disappeared. When the rumbling stopped and the gray cloud of dust cleared, we could see a mountain of rubble where the chief had just stood. Looking closely, you could see what looked like one arm sticking out of the heap. There was no doubt that it was the chief’s arm.
A huge hole in the wall had opened. The video screen was gone. Torn wires and broken pipes framed the edges of the giant opening.
From the opening entered a fourth shadow.
This shadow was different from the others. Its movements were similar, but it was much bigger. On top of that, it was blacker than black. It was absolutely the color of midnight. A pitch-black shadow. A shadow darker than the abyss of deep space.
It was Mugi! Mugi had arrived!