his evilness—and now, she no longer had to doubt it.
Because she had. In the past month, she had begun to doubt it a lot.
“Join me,” he stated, turning around and walking out of the menagerie.
She watched him go, twitching to deny him, but her curiosity won out. He was still her captain, after all. And she was intrigued.
She also just accused him of murder, and he hadn’t denied it...
He was standing in the armory across the passageway from the lab, his back to her as he stared at a metal case along the back wall. She stepped to the threshold and glanced around. She’d only glimpsed the inside of this room several times during requisitions but had never been inside it. The room was much bigger than she expected with rows upon rows of locked metal and glass cases and drawers. The Questor’s weapons stash had more space than all the crew combined.
Excitement filled her.
There had to be something in here that could help her. Alexa walked up to a random case.
It was locked by body scan technology and fingerprint analysis. She heard Hysterian approach from behind her—his abrupt heat clouded her mind. The case scanned him and the drawer opened for her.
Inside were more scanners, not guns.
Hysterian lifted one and tested it in his grip. “This is a Glamour. It distorts your appearance for a short time if you’re wearing the corresponding suit. And this”—he picked up another, putting the first back down—“is a Stopper. It surrounds the user in a shell that blocks out external electromagnetic interference. A must-have for any Cyborg dealing with the underground.”
“Underground?”
“The world that lies under the one we live in. Ruled by traffickers, mob bosses, and the like. They fight differently. They’re better at it.”
He handed it to her and she turned the Stopper in her palm. It wouldn’t help her.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No reason. And this,” Hysterian said, keeping her attention moving, “is for you.”
He took back the Stopper and handed her a gun.
Alexa stared at the firearm before taking it. “For me?”
“I don’t want you leaving the ship without protection, and I will be too busy to do that myself.”
Another absurd giggle escaped. “Are you sure it’s not to protect me from you?” She turned the gun in her hand, liking the weight and feel of it.
“This, Dear, wouldn’t be able to dent in my frame, but it will stop anyone else in their path.”
“So what could make a dent in your frame?” she asked, meeting his gaze.
Mischief reached his eyes, and she knew he was smirking under his suit.
“Are you planning on shooting me?” he asked.
“Maybe?”
He cocked his head, rubbing his finger over the cloth covering his mouth. “Follow me.”
Alexa sucked in a breath as he strode to the back corner of the room and stopped before a glass case. She followed him to see what he was going to reveal.
There was a weapon that could hurt a Cyborg? Perhaps easily?
And he was going to show her it?
The darkness of the glass vanished, revealing a myriad of guns in different sizes hooked to a rack within. In the middle lay something she’d never seen before. The silver metal of the weapon nearly glowed, and there was an extra glass case around it that the other guns didn’t have.
“That, right there, is a Brickbuster,” he told her, indicating the gun. “There are maybe several dozen in existence. I helped design it.”
“What does it do?”
“It busts a Cyborg’s shell open.”
“Really? How?”
He laughed. It wasn’t a warm laugh. “Should I be worried?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. The buster uses pyrizian ammo simultaneously with laser tech. The same rare metal most Cyborgs are made of. It holds nanoparticles like organic matter holds bacteria. With the combination and force of the fire, it can break through our interior shell and straight into the organs protected beneath. The nanoparticles infect us, flooding our systems like a virus, ultimately skewing those same systems and corrupting them. When our systems shut down, death soon follows if we’re not stabilized quickly. But a shot to the leg is nowhere near as deadly as a shot to the head.”
“And you have one on the Questor? Why?”
“Every retriever for the EPED is issued a weapon like this in some capacity. Many of us already have something like it in our personal caches. We’re prepared for any circumstance.”
“Even going against your own?”
“We all know what happened to Zeph,” he muttered. “You’d be surprised to know there are