A wave of gunslingers poured into the saloon and funneled straight into Misty’s line of fire. She lit into them with vigor, her cackling laughter drowned out by the steady chunk-chunk-chunk fire of the assault rifle in her hands. Confused screams lit the air as the Company Men dove for cover. They turned their weapons on Misty, trading shot for shot. Caught up in the frenzy, they didn’t realize there was a second shooter until it was too late.

  Dobson blasted the hand off one and took out the eye of another before the enemy discovered her. The room erupted into chaos with bullets spraying overhead in every direction. A slug ricocheted off the solid stone wall and struck the lantern hanging at the center of the saloon. White sparks flared across the ceiling before fizzling out, blanketing the room in darkness.

  Dobson heard the crunch of glass underfoot as someone moved in her direction. She blinked hard, but her vision refused to switch. Cursing, she slammed her open palm against the side of her head, forcefully jumpstarting her vision from standard to mech mode. With a disgruntled whir, Dobson’s vision obeyed, and she opened her eyes to the ghostly blue outline of an augmented skeleton hurtling through the dark towards her.

  Dobson threw herself to the side and rolled before springing back up on one knee out of the path of destruction. She unloaded the magazine into the perp’s chest, six, seven, eight times, until the bullets pierced his spider mesh armor and punctured the vital organs housed beneath. The man dropped dead with a wet gurgle.

  A flash of ghostly blue appeared out of the corner of Dobson’s eye a split second before a blast lit the air, followed by searing pain. The slug burrowed deep into her shoulder, knocking her backwards. Snarling, Dobson swung around and gave the advancing gunman a faceful of hot lead. She squeezed the trigger again, determined to wipe what remained of his soft tissue from his face, when the empty click spelled out her worst fears—jammed.

  Dobson slapped the magazine to reset it, racked the slider, and squeezed the trigger once more. Still nothing. Useless hunk of scrap metal and plastic! The gunslinger’s howl rattled the inside of Dobson’s ears as his pounding footsteps drew closer. Gripping the rifle with both hands, Dobson leapt to her feet and channeled her fury into the swing, breaking the stock across his face. Blood splattered across the front of Dobson’s uniform as the goon went sprawling.

  Her victory was short-lived, lasting little more than half a second before the mangled remains of a chair broke over her head in a shower of splinters.

  Dobson’s mech vision blinked out, swallowing her in absolute darkness. Blind, she swung around and was rewarded with the satisfying thump of her right fist striking something substantially less solid than the titanium alloy fused to her bones. She lit into the goon with full vigor, raining down strike after strike, determined not to let him slink away alive. In the background, muffled by the chaos, she heard Misty interrogating one of the others between the occasional blast of a shotgun.

  “Where’s your conductor?” Misty shouted. Dobson didn’t hear the muffled answer, only another question from Misty. “And how many are with him, eh? They got any nasty surprises tucked away in that train?”

  Dobson gave up trying to make sense of the one-sided conversation and focused on beating her opponent to a bloody pulp. He went down, eventually, allowing another two to take his place. Dobson tried to hold her ground, but they worked together, one drawing her out, the other catching her from behind, slowly wearing her down blow after blow. The inside of Dobson’s mind flashed in distress. Her instincts, heightened by the chemical flood of borg juice rampaging through her veins, screamed at her to fight back. But how could she when she couldn’t damn well see where her attackers were!

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Dobsy!” Misty’s voice hailed from across the room.

  A fist slammed into the center of her chest, expelling the breath from Dobson’s lungs in a violent wheeze. Mouth open, gasping for a breath that would not come, she grappled blindly in the dark until she found her opponent. Hand locked tight, Dobson yanked her attacker off his feet and threw him to the ground. Her foot followed, stomping repeatedly, until she heard the satisfactory crunch of metal and bones.

  “A bit busy at the moment!” she hollered to Misty through ragged gasps of air.

  “You’re still alive!” Misty said, as though this surprised her. “Excellent.”

  “Yes, I am still alive.” Dobson felt the thunder of footsteps as the second goon charged. She threw up her guard and blocked his swing, and then retaliated. She pummeled her attacker into retreat. Normally, she would have followed, giving no quarter, but Dobson felt her energy reserves sapping. She stepped back out of range to catch her breath, spitting the pooled blood from her mouth. “Is that all you wanted, Misty?”

  “I got the information we needed.”

  What good was information if they were going to die before it was helpful? Dobson held back her biting tongue and said instead, “Good job, partner.”

  At least one of them could die happy, she supposed.

  “Thank you, kindly.” Misty added, quickly, “Oh, and you might want to cover your eyes. Like, now, preferably.”

  Had the warning come from anyone else, Dobson would have hesitated. But not Misty. That’s how one got killed. Dobson dropped to her left knee and shielded her face with her arm, squeezing her eyelids shut tight. A surge of white light flashed on the other side of Dobson’s arm. Electricity crackled as Misty’s makeshift flash grenade ignited, pulsing from light to dark with enough juice to fry every automatic vision modulator in the room. The strobe effect lasted nearly ten seconds in total before it snuffed out, rendering the saloon pitch black once more.

  Cautiously, Dobson lifted her head and peered out through half-slit eyes, disappointed to find the room as impossibly dark as it was before. She struck the side of her head, repeatedly, until her mech vision slowly reared back to life with a protesting whir. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed before the telltale blue glow of augmented skeletons dotted Dobson’s vision.

  Four goons remained scattered throughout the dark saloon, all bent over and exhibiting various states of disorientation sickness. The closest to Dobson was on his knees, upchucking his guts onto the ground, while the three others remained somewhat upright, holding their heads in their gloved hands and groaning softly. A total vision reset would take two minutes. Just enough time for Dobson to put half the gang in the ground before the others recovered.

  She leapt into action. Pounding across the room, Dobsons seized the head of the kneeling goon between her hands and twisted, snapping his neck like kindling. She launched herself at the next one. The woman put up a fight, managing to land two blows to Dobson’s ribs before a debilitating clip to her chin put her under. The gunslinger sank to the ground in a limp pile at Dobson’s feet.

  A bullet glanced off the side of Dobson’s right temple in a spray of blood and sparks. Bursts of color erupted across her field of vision as the gentle whir between her ears turned to a high-pitched scream. Dobson staggered backwards, fighting to keep her footing. Her attacker descended in a flurry of flying fists. Dobson put up her guard, blocking the worst of the assault while she waited for her opening. The offender misstepped, venturing too close into Dobson’s guard, and was rewarded with a bone-crushing kick to the knee. He fell and Dobson followed, slamming her foot down over and over, crushing the metal joint in his leg to fine powder.

  The perp pulled away, still regretfully alive.

  Her damaged mech vision flickered on and off, plaguing her eyesight with flashing blue phantom forms. Dark to light, light to dark, Dobson could no longer trust her eyes. Her world devolved into a chaotic blur as she dodged and blocked the remaining fighters, steadily losing steam as their attacks hammered away at her fragmenting body. The agonized whine of system failure filled her ears. Dobson’s speed slowed as the steady shift and click of her internal gears strained to keep up. The metallic stench of her own augmented parts overheating reached her nose.

  She was nearing total system collapse.