The night erupted in a thunderous crash as the shotgun rocked into my shoulder. The orc I had in my reticle had barely spotted me, the brilliance of his weapon's light dimming against my helmet's flare dampeners. His head exploded with a wet, crunchy pop as the slug hammered into his forehead. One down. Five to go. The other rifleman rattled three shots off, each one skipping off concrete or smashing into the corner of the building we had left from. A lance of brilliant golden fire erupted from over my shoulder, spearing into his throat. His screams died as the magefire guttered in his esophagus.

  Another crack of thunder came from my left, Bella bounding over the planter we had hidden behind and firing a spray of buckshot into one of the men wielding pistols. He cried out, ducking behind a multicolored, neon-toned sedan. I moved forward steadily, scanning across the parking lot. The remaining four had all gone to cover. One fired blindly from around an open car door. One shot skimmed off my shoulder pad, leaving a leaden smear across its surface.

  My shotgun belched fire again, putting a slug through the door panel big enough to shove my thumb through, right where the reticle in my view bloomed. The man jumped back once, but lay still on the ground, the side of his torso blown open. Bella had ducked behind a car, trading shots with the man she had injured earlier. Three left in the parking lot.

  As I moved forward, a car door kicked open, and a raging orc swung a sledgehammer for my chest. Then a brilliant light flared in view. From the tip of Arthur's staff came a blade of pure light, driven under the man's sternum. He spun as he flicked it out, cutting across his heart. The orc staggered and clutched at the smoldering slash in disbelief, sledgehammer forgotten. Arthur spun around, twirling his weapon in an arc.

  The windows of the motel's front rooms erupted in a spray of automatic fire, filling the parking lot with green tracers. Brick by brick, a wall of translucent gold erected itself between the fire and Arthur and I, chipping but not breaking. A warm, thrumming static ran through my body as he advanced, the wall grinding ahead of him. The weapons fire was distinct. Most came from more AK-219s. But the central window's muzzle flashed constantly, spraying a solid beam of tracers. With a sound of unzipping cloth, it sounded like something belt-fed.

  "Medium weapon, room 111, prioritize." I spat into the communications network.

  Bella shot back. Glancing over, she threw a round object, pinned down behind the engine of a car. Snapping up mt hand from its place on my weapon's foregrip, I caught a smart grenade.

  "I don't even want to know where you got this from." I sighed. Hunkering behind Arthur, I let it sync to my system before pulling the heavy pin. Throwing it straight up, a dozen microjets ignited along its geometric surface, sending it hurtling towards room 111, which was indicated on my HUD by a throbbing red blast radius that made my eyes burn.

  It whizzed towards the window with a shriek. Its arming LEDs went from solid red to rapidly flashing long before it reached its destination. A cold sliver of fear wedged in my heart as it prepared to detonate prematurely, static surrounding the grenade in my view. Its microjets began firing at random, sending it zipping wildly through the air. Arthur reached out towards it with a snatching motion, surrounding it in a barrier of light before it detonated midair with a bassy . "Conduit, enemy Decker has his attention on us!"

  He snarled over the comms. I hissed loudly, grasping a magazine of ammo from my plate carrier's webbing.

  "Changing ammo!" I snarled. I clattered the magazine against the side of the one loaded in the weapon, thumbing the magazine release and grasping it with the tips of my claws. With a quick shift, I jammed the magazine of black cased shells into the mag-well. Jamming the partial magazine of slugs into the now-empty slot, I leaned out from cover.

  Only five yards separated us from the window now. Arthur's shield was dimming by the moment, crumbling under the torrent of lead. With a steady breath, I squeezed the trigger. The chambered slug punched into the wall, taking the loader of the belt-fed machine gun under the chin, splattering his spine across the floor. The second shot filled the window with zirconium-laden buckshot. There was a Saurian snarl behind me. Dropping my shotgun, it hung from my chest in its sling.

  Whipping around, I drew my pistol. Bella was pinned to the hood of the car she had been in cover behind, an orc trying to jam a revolver barrel down her throat. Two shots slammed into his chest, before a third took him in the eye, ammo counter under my reticle ticking down. Sweeping it right, across the parking lot, I saw the man behind the sedan had slumped over. Then a shot from my left drilled into my chest, driving me to one knee. Pain bloomed across my pectoral, but I didn't feel blood or an impact against the back of my rear plates. Snapping to the side, I watched as the last man in the parking lot we knew of took two shells of buckshot to the side, tearing the arm facing Bella to bloody pulp.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Parking lot clear! Move to enter, room 111 is the entry point! Bulwark watch left for contacts in the hall. Quill, stand ready to break right!" I shouted, turning further to pepper the windows of rooms 110 and 109 with suppressing fire. Arthur slid his wall to cover the windows of rooms 113 and 112 while Bella dashed up, skidding to a stop against the wall next to the window. Guttering flames slowly died as the sprinklers in the ceiling began sputtering water. I slid home a fresh magazine for my pistol, racking the slide before sliding it into its holster. Arthur's wall shattered with the sound of breaking glass. He dove through the window first, robes not even catching on the shattered glass. Bella followed.

  Finally, I vaulted into the room. Then landed in a heap on the floor as my eyes filled with tearing pixels. I met eyes with a digital rendition of a horrific orcish god of war. Every element of my HUD was replaced with flashing green laughter.

  Everything stopped. My breathing. The beat of my heart. Bella yelped in surprise as I nearly bowled her over, whipping around to check on me. Arthur's smile broke for the first time into a neutral mask of surprise. Another red pop-up ran across the bottom of my HUD.

  =//LYSOGENIC_PROTOCOL = RUNNING//=

  With it came a filling, pulsing bar that made my stomach twist. As soon as it completed, there was distant screaming. The war god image in my view shattered into more tearing pixels as the various elements of my HUD returned to warm ambers. A blue counter-daemon from Vsevolod was a balm against the pain that wracked my body as it could finally gasp for air.

  Arthur had just thrust his spear into the throat of a man who had bowled through the door, though his gaze snapped to the right, boring through the walls. "Enemy mage," he mused aloud. I grasped Bella's arm as she held it out, hauling myself to my feet.

  "Got spiked. It's passed." I wheezed, voice crackling through my helmet. "Continue as planned." I pushed forward behind Arthur as he spun to face the left side of the hallway, raising a fresh wall of golden bricks that immediately came under fire. I spun right. Six men had poured into the hall. Pity. With a blink, the shotgun's fire selector flicked to burst fire. The next trigger pull filled the hall with a wall of flaming lead as three shells of dragon's breath buckshot erupted from the barrel.

  The men in the front began shrieking as they blazed. Vsevolod said in a panic.

  "Understood, Conduit," I replied. Readjusting from the recoil, I lined up the next set of men behind the first four. Both humans had gone stock still, eyes glittering with data. The gunfire stopped slowly, as the orcs looked around at their human comrades. Then the screaming began anew. Each human clawed at their cyberware, one tearing his own eyes out in a panic. Arthur started to chant at a rapid pace, in a language that sounded like tinnitus in my ears. Ornate circles of magic flared underneath all three of us as he looked around. The orcs were watching in growing horror as their human comrades began to die in a myriad of ways.

  "Someone has levied a curse on them all," Arthur muttered, his usual smile replaced with a soft frown as he finished casting whatever spell he had been intoning. My mind raced.

  Then my heart dropped into my stomach. "We need to get the patient and leave. Now. Right now." I snapped. "Bulwark, Quill, check the office. I'll head to 108." I snarled, turning and shoving past a dumbfounded orc. It sent the orc running, all his desire to fight gone in hopes of escaping whatever curse was spreading.

  The door to room 108 looked no different than the others. Dropping my shotgun to hang from my chest, I drew my pistol. Whitewashed paint across its plastic face. My boot met it just above the lock, sending it slamming inwards. Inside was an orc, panicked and confused. The orc had grabbed the server, her lithe frame held before him like a shield. Before he could finish raising his revolver to her head, my pistol answered with a furious report. "Patient is secure. Further medical aid will be rendered en route. We are at risk of Third-party intervention!"

  Vesevolod demanded.

  "Later, Conduit. Clear our tracks." I shot back, already grabbing the elven woman. She was weak. Barely able to stay standing on her own. Once I had her in a fireman's carry, I kept my pistol forward as I stepped into the hallway. Bella and Arthur waved me up from the front of the building by the office.

  "Front door is clear, Sawbones," Bella called. I moved as quickly as I could. Cars were tearing out of the parking lot. Any vehicles that refused to start were left abandoned. For a brief moment, all the lights in the motel flickered to life before shattering in a hail of glass.

  Vsevolod shot over as we ran full tilt towards the van. Bella skidded around its side to bounce into the driver's seat, engine starting to turn over with a chattering rumble. I moved more carefully, getting the patient laid down on the van floor where I could access my tools, flinging open my medical kit to set to work.

  Arthur sat up front with Bella, giving me room, as Vsevolod pushed up from where he was lying out. "What the hell happened?" he demanded.

  "I need to focus on the patient first. Then we can figure that out. All I know is it started just after the Decker spiked me. He was digging deep into my systems." I ignored anything else he said. The Patient was dehydrated, beaten, cut, and barely conscious. I thought, quickly setting about my work.