They were still locked in their embrace when they snapped their eyes open—pupils narrowing to slits as they scanned their damp room from infrared to ultraviolet. No threats. Only each other. The same nightmare that had been gnawing at his mind every night for the last months slowly crumbled away; shivers took its place as his tormentor. His jaw tightened, and he tensed every muscle. Brute force and overwhelming firepower were solutions to most of his problems, but not this one. This one he couldn’t even name.

  He pulled the thin Kevlar blanket over them, shielding him from the intrusive, blinding light. Her eyes glowed a bioluminescent yellow. The siren died. He found her hands and pressed them to his chest right over his heart; that was where his real name had been burned into his skin since synthesis. Her fingers ended in long, thin monomolecular claws; when they brushed his chest and drew blood, he didn’t feel it. His guilty hands stilled against her skin immediately. He breathed out. His heart slowed.

  The yellow orbs blinked once. She pressed herself against his chest; her body was cold as dry ice. One hand stayed on his chest, the other interlocked with his; this time they didn’t draw blood.

  "Surely all will go well today, Geiger," she said. The "s" from her first word dragged on—a continuous, icy hiss, like a cobra protecting its clutch.

  He kissed her forehead. She chuckled and pressed chilling lips to his. His arms wrapped around her body, covering her completely, desperate to steal as much of her cold as possible. He felt healed, then alive, as her soothing chill seeped deep into skin, muscle, and bone. She felt his violent heart calm down against hers, which was barely beating; his warmth burned into her pores. She entertained the foolish thought that she was more than a biological weapon. If only... just for him.

  Moments passed, locked in their embrace.

  Her wristwatch clicked twice. She stroked his fire-red, long beard, then brushed a strand of his shoulder-length red hair. "We must gear up..."

  She threw the blanket aside. Her feet landed on the damp, rusty steel floor, hitting the ice-cold deck—cold only by human standards. She tugged him off the bed. He was right behind her. His hand traced across her belly and drifted downward; the other brushed aside her ankle-length, gray-silver hair. The serial number branded on her neck—GW-000-076-142-G6S—was pitch-black against her completely colorless skin. He kissed the mark. She closed her eyes. A sharp smile flashed across her lips as her mouth opened—a double row of long, thin, hooked teeth that resembled those of a moray eel.

  "Glass, we have time," he softly bit her shoulder.

  His voice rumbled like a rockslide: heavy, calm, and completely lacking the guttural or hissing component so characteristic of gene warrior vocalizations. He sounded almost human.

  Her hands pressed tighter against his. Her lithe body arced backward. She exhaled. "Last day as lab rats... Geiger."

  He bit harder and held her closer; her mouth was now wide open, her eyes shut hard. Her forked tongue shot out, tasted the damp, poorly filtered air, and retreated just as fast.

  She gasped, "Scratch that... we could use... a good warmup."

  The camera anchored to the ceiling tracked them. The intercom came alive with a flat, mechanical voice:

  "Enough R&R, specimens 076142 and 01! Gear up—report to admin ASAP."

  His gaze instantly trained on the lens. His square jaw clenched. Just for an instant, his hands left her body and locked rigid at his sides as veins stood out along his arms.

  She hissed at the camera, her vertically pupiled serpentine eyes instantly trained on the lens; nails extended to three times their length with a sound like metal grinding through metal. She felt the acidic taste of her own venom.

  He whispered in her ear, "You got your arms and sack sorted yesterday, Glass?"

  She nodded sharply, deep in the moment.

  "Gear up: five minutes. Transit: eight," he rumbled.

  The nails retracted into her fingers, her hand flattening slowly at her side. "Shitcan the warmup... let's get this over with."

  He mocked a salute, his warm, bright emerald eyes lighting up like exposed nuclear fuel as he scanned her bare serpentine physique. A matching warm smile appeared on his face.

  She slapped his thigh with a sly grin. Straightening her hair—now cascading down her back like a ghillie suit—she turned and walked to her locker on the opposite wall of their cell, across from the bed.

  Geiger stood there in front of their bed just for a second. He looked at his palms, one nanosecond drenched in blood, the next clean, the next around her naked body. Instinctively, his sight lingered at the ceiling and hoped.

  He got up, strode forth, and reluctantly opened his locker; boots and fatigues were stacked neat in the same arctic camo, identical in number and place. Only the sizes differed—Geiger’s more than twice the size of Glass’s.

  They glanced and nodded—an unspoken challenge—and dressed by habit: Soviet fatigues, armored chest rigs, boots, then maroon berets pinned with a sword looming over a DNA double helix. Glass finished first, with time to spare. She smirked; he shrugged, knelt, retrieved a pre-war hard candy bar from his lowest drawer, and tossed it. She caught it, gestured a gloved thumbs-up, and stuffed it into her rig.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Glass opened her weapon locker next; she retrieved her electromagnetic railgun. It stood almost as tall as Geiger. She racked the bolt and chambered a long, thin, depleted uranium dart, barely 5 mm in diameter. A thick electrical cable stood where a magazine well would be. She equipped the capacitor-bank backpack and plugged it into the rifle. A dial next to her 30X scope lit up. Charge: 0.00%.

  She waited for the camera to avert its mechanical gaze and instantly scoped in on it.

  "Careful with that!" Geiger barked. His left hand twitched along the knuckles before he forced it flat against his thigh.

  "Cap’s empty," she said coldly.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Click. In her imagination, the camera was atomized; a hole blown in the wall behind it let warm sunlight into their room.

  "Tango down," she whispered to herself.

  Her hands strained under its immense physical weight, elbows locking to compensate. The railgun completely dwarfed her 1.6-meter frame when she rested it on the deck. She caught her breath.

  Geiger looked at his palms—commanded them to touch what they hated most. Will they obey? One way to find out... he thought.

  He drew his longsword; it shaved the red hair on the back of his hand on contact. He threw a backhand slash; it felt weightless. The sword cracked the air with a supersonic snap that sounded like a gunshot. Glass’s hair moved as if it had been hit with a sudden gale, earning him her usual thin, cold smile. He sheathed it at his side.

  With a completely blank expression, he pulled his belt-fed heavy machine gun, opened the top cover, racked the slide twice and dry-fired it, punched it closed, and then slung it on his back. All forty-five kilograms of it felt like nothing. He collected three spare barrels and five ammo boxes, placing them in his rucksack.

  She walked towards him; her eyes found Geiger’s. She stepped closer, resting the weapon against his chest. It was almost as tall as Geiger’s 2.4 meters. Her gloved hand slid over his chest.

  "Take good care of Furnace, Geiger."

  "Maybe grab a designated marksman rifle instead of a tankbuster," he grinned and waved at it.

  She pressed the gun harder into his chest; her grip tightened.

  "We won’t be holding back today."

  The shivers briefly returned to his left arm; he rolled the shoulder once, forcing the sensation down his spine.

  They stopped.

  "We will NOT be hauling those damned capacitors!"

  "Worth the risk."

  "Grab the AMR. That's an order!"

  "A tank or a heavy walker will..."

  He pulled a disposable rocket launcher from his rucksack and waved it in the air in front of her. "This gets the job done and doesn’t cook off."

  "Geiger... you’ve seen what Furnace can do."

  "That’s why! I will not have a single stray bullet atomize you, Glass!" He pointed a finger at her, then at the capacitor backpack as it started shaking. She just closed her eyes and covered them with her palm.

  She looked at her watch, then back at him, shaking her head. Glass picked up a bullpup bolt-action sniper rifle.

  "This good enough?" Her eyes narrowed to a slit.

  He just nodded, turned away, and started stuffing depleted uranium rounds and the spare barrels into his bag.

  She paced back next to him; he never heard the steps. She put a palm against him; he turned to face her.

  "We gotta talk."

  "Grab your gear. We are heading out."

  He turned away, picked up everything, and started walking towards the nuclear blast door that sealed their cell; the sickening red light illuminating the door signaled it was still locked.

  She grabbed his hand and tried to yank him around; his gargantuan frame didn’t budge.

  "Cut the crap and speak up—what the fuck is wrong with you?"

  He ignored the question, glanced at his feet, and kept walking towards the door.

  "What is more dangerous, Geiger?! An overcharged capacitor on my back or a demoralized squadmate guarding it!"

  "Take that back, Glassy."

  "No." She sniffed the air, then her forked tongue shot his way.

  "You stink of fear, you taste like fear, and you aren’t even trying to hide it," she whispered at his side as her tongue slithered his way. She tasted cortisol.

  He froze; his emerald-green eyes snapped wide open, his square jaw hung limp.

  Glass let her rucksack fall to the floor and softly rested her rifle against it.

  "Whisper it. Get it out. Damn cockroaches can’t hear us from this far," she kept whispering as she glanced at the camera.

  She squeezed his hand; it felt rigid and unresponsive.

  Silence. He turned to face her; he blinked.

  In an instant, he closed his eyes; the usual vision appeared before him: her bullet-hole-ridden corpse, beautiful vertically pupiled serpentine eyes staring at him blankly, smeared by blood.

  His eyes cracked open. She was there in front of him—real, alive. He exhaled.

  "I’m good, let's get this over with." His deep, heavy voice cracked.

  She let him go and took a step back. "Let me rephrase for clarity... What the fuck are you afraid of?"

  The shivers returned to his hands; his fingers curled inward slowly, tendons standing out beneath the skin, his calm emerald eyes now green, radioactive orbs.

  "No... you aren’t afraid of biting it... exosuits, MG nests, even attack helis..." she snarled.

  Her elegant and sharp features contorted into a venomous smile; nails shot out of her fingers and slashed the air between them. "Let me make a wild guess, GW-01-G7X... are you by any chance afraid of losing your little toy?"

  Her dagger-like nails traced over her body.

  The shivers set in.

  He felt the full weight of his machine gun.

  Then his hands, his knees, his body.

  He punched the wall.

  The impact sounded like a frag going off. Blood exploded from his fist.

  Armor-grade steel buckled, leaving a shallow crater.

  The skin had evaporated from his knuckles.

  He averted his gaze from the wound; muscle, sinew, and bone started regenerating in real time.

  "Never dare to call me and you those things again," he said between clenched teeth.

  He pointed a quivering finger at his chest and then at her face.

  She didn’t flinch or blink. Her smile disappeared. She put both palms over his heart, over his serial number, and leaned in; the shivering died as surely as if she had pulled the trigger.

  "Listen, commander, enough roachshit for today..."

  His eyes shut; he exhaled.

  "Listen, Geiger..."

  "...when I die, bury me deep in permafrost, don’t mark my grave..."

  "...and then move on."

  His tears wet the deck, landing on rust. She yanked his thick red beard.

  "Make peace and lead the way, Geiger!" She yanked his collar and pulled him into a kiss; they embraced.

  A nuclear siren echoed. Red emergency lights lit the room.

  The red light atop the door suddenly turned green. The immense blast door groaned as it parted from the floor. Air rushed into their room; it smelled of decaying bodies, molten steel, ozone, and machinery oil. Then the usual sounds invaded their cell: screams of rage, moans of pain, moans of despair. If they paid close enough attention, they could also hear crying. Little of it resembled human vocalizations; most did not.

  They collected their equipment and strode forth, hand in hand.