Two figures sat slumped in office chairs, their corpselike forms the color of old bruises, with sickly yellows bleeding into deep purples across their sallow flesh. Their hands stretched across several keyboards, each sporting too many fingers. Curving like talons, each finger stabbed down on the keys with mechanical precision.

  Both turned in unison. Their luminous sickly orange eyes widened in what might have been surprise. Tubes and cables riddled their flesh, pulsing faint blue. Wires sprouted from their heads like shimmering, metallic hair, that slithered down their necks and shoulders before burrowing into their chests.

  They were laced with technology like cyberpunk cadavers, the cables finally trailing out of their stomachs and into a tangle of wires on the floor. Light flickered rhythmically up and down the strands, pulsing with metronomic consistency.

  "Please don't hurt us," the first said. Adam guessed it was a male by the similarities in anatomy visible through the rat’s nest of wires.

  "Please. We're only doing our jobs,” the second pleaded. This one may have been female, somewhat shorter and slighter than its counterpart. A single drooping breast hung free of the cables strewn across her flesh, and Adam swallowed back a surge of revulsion.

  He crouched and seized a fistful of the cables attached to the creatures. They shifted beneath his grip, and he fought the instinct to pitch them away.

  "You saw what I could do on the security cameras," Adam said, his voice flat.

  Both nodded, their eyes locked on the tangled wires in his hand.

  "Answer my questions," he continued, sliding the bat back into its sheath, "and I won't kill you."

  The female's voice trembled. "We saw what you did to the drones. You'll kill us anyway."

  "And if you don't, you die for sure." Adam gave the wires a yank and the creatures flinched. "If for no other reason than the fact you came into MY WORLD and all you and every other piece of shit monstrosity have done is break or destroy. Now choose."

  The pair exchanged an unreadable glance, then nodded at him.

  "Good. Now, what are you doing?" Adam asked with flint in his voice.

  "We're integrating your 'technology' with ours,” the female said. The tone of her response made it clear how much contempt she had for Earth’s level of technology.

  Adam glanced over his shoulder, a prickle at the back of his neck drawing his attention. "Why?"

  "Because that will help facilitate the exchange of power. The -" A blast of static noise ripped through the air. "-will unite your world under one voice. One will. Then there will be peace."

  "What would the price of this peace be?" Adam asked.

  "It's not for sale. It's freely given. You join with us and you will never-"

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He fired a bolt of energy into the cable. It raced along the length, snapping and popping, then burrowed into the both of their abdomens. They threw their heads back and howled in agony, clutching at their midsections.

  "First, I heard you talking about us before you knew I was here. Something about 'apes?' You're no benevolent 'one voice, one will' cult types. You were speaking about us as if we were lower beings." Adam said, drawing power into his right hand until it hummed and sparked. "Second, if you meant what you claim, those people wouldn't have been used as meat shields. Lie again, and what I just did will feel like a fucking tickle."

  A wave of nausea hit him. The strain from the fight in the lobby was finally catching up. He sat on the edge of a desk, taking the moment to rest while he could.

  "Now speak," Adam demanded.

  The male tensed, but the female put her bruise-colored hand on his shoulder and he relaxed. "Most of the population will become drones. The most intelligent members of your species will be joined to our collective," the female explained.

  "And by joined what you really mean is run through with machinery, or turned into mindless slaves." Adam shivered, glancing at the cables disappearing into their flesh.

  A shadow of a sneer snaked across the female's features. "I said what I said. You can interpret it however you'd like."

  Adam shook his head, barely paying attention to her retort. "The drones. Is anything left of them? Their personalities, I mean."

  The male shook his head. "The song hollows them out until only fragments remain. The only ones that remain intact are those with enough will to join with us."

  "Essentially, you cull the weak and keep whatever's left," Adam laughed. "How cliche can you be?"

  The female frowned. "Does your species not do the same? There are many examples from your history of those that purged undesirables from your ranks. Why is it wrong for us, but acceptable for you?"

  Adam shook his head and glanced over his shoulder, the prickle on the back of his neck returning. "We have a word for people like that. Nazi. And we exterminated them."

  The computer screens behind them came to life for a moment, flashing a series of unintelligible symbols and then went dark again. Pulses of blue light shot down from the cables in their heads, traveling almost too fast to track into the network of wires on the floor. Adam realized they were keeping him talking for a reason.

  "How do I get to the roof?" he asked, the sensation on the back of his neck intensifying by the second.

  They both looked shocked at his question, exchanging another glance before the male spoke. "If you wanted to self-terminate, you only need to pure the Esoterica from your face."

  Something about the way he said "pure" made a wave of goosebumps ripple across Adam's arms. It felt more like a sacrament than a technical procedure. "Stop stalling and answer the question."

  "If you're determined, then we won't stop you,” the female said, shrugging with her hands and shifting slightly in the chair. "The elevator shaft at the end of the floor will take you there."

  "Not the elevator? The shaft?" he asked.

  "Yes,” she said. “The elevator won't reach the top. If you seek death you will have to climb."

  Adam stood up, feeling no more rested than when he sat down. "How do I know you're not lying?"

  "We don't lie. We're connected-"

  Adam cut her off. "Literally one of the first things you said was a lie."

  She paused and shrugged again. "It doesn't matter. You're out of time."

  The sensation on Adam's neck doubled, unease crawling down his spine until it forced him into motion. Figures rose from the cubicles on either side, some with cables like the pair before him, others with grotesque alien technology fused into their flesh.

  "I figured you were stalling for backup, but how the hell did they get here?" Adam pulled the power back from his hand, preparing himself to run.

  "They were always here," the male said, smiling so wide Adam wondered if the corners of his mouth would split.

  "So, why answer my questions at all? Why beg me not to kill you?" He drew his bat and stepped away, still gripping the cables.

  The two exchanged another look and then said in union. "We were curious."

  "Wonderful," Adam said, before he turned and ran.