“So how long was it for you?  Nine years in the hole?” Sonja asked as she wandered up behind Alma Warren.

            Scowling at being interrupted as she continued tinkering with the inner workings of her massive instrument of personalized class revenge, a grease-splattered Alma nodded at her co-worker without turning around.  Her hand didn’t even cease its motion inside the device.

            “Guess that makes you the winner,” the redheaded weapons specialist chuckled, picking at a chunk of food between her teeth from the filched Beta lunches.  “I spent five myself.  Busted out twice.  The third time, Gail came to get me, like when we came for you.”

            This elicited no reaction from Alma, who continued twisting the metallic contents of her deadly art.

            “But you just spent nine straight in there.  Sounds like being a handywoman only gets you so far,” Sonja continued, leaning against the machine and blocking out some of Alma’s light.  “I guess that’s what’s made you go all… screwy like this, huh?”

            At this, Alma’s sinewy forearms stopped their rhythmic twisting of gears inside the machine and plunked the wrench she’d been holding onto the floor with an ugly clatter.

            “You want to know what made me go all screwy?” Alma snarled, rising to her feet and letting her clenched fists hang heavily at her sides.  Sonja remained standing near, though she couldn’t help but flinch at the advance.  “Try being born into a world that’s fucked up beyond fixing.  Where everyone’s living a lie, that things you could kill with your goddamned pinky are worth as much as your life or even more.  Where giant fucking freaks run your entire life and can put you in a box whenever they please.”

            “You don’t have to tell me about the Omegas, Alms, I’ve been screwed over plenty of times by them.  How do you think I kept getting put back in the slammer?” Sonja replied, crossing her arms proudly.  “They had to bring in the big guns to get rid of me.”

            “I’m not finished,” Alma snapped, aiming a bitter index finger at the black-clad gunslinger.  Her voice grew haggard as a pent-up grudge was dredged to the forefront.  “Maybe try giving birth to a child into that same world you had to grow up in, knowing it was a lie.  Try giving her the chance to retake it with you, the golden opportunity in a place that believes your rights aren’t worth jack-shit.  And then imagine her throwing it all back in your face and turning you over to the enemy.  For a couple of fucking insects.”

            “Can’t say, Alms.  I never had kids,” Sonja shrugged.

            “All right, then.  Then maybe try this one,” Alma grumbled, her eyes clouding as the memories unfolded.  She could hardly even see Sonja any longer, as her gaze affixed to the back wall with a thousand-yard stare, the tactile sensations incoming again.  “Waking up every day for a year in a fucking funhouse of a room, made for the giant freaks.  No one to talk to except for the giant bitch who gets to take you out and play with you whenever the hell she wants.”

            “Never had any sessions with an enforcer either,” Sonja reported.  “I’m too quick for ‘em.”

            “Let me give you a little perspective then,” Alma spat, jabbing her finger at Sonja’s throat.  “I’d wake up and get dangled over the ground.  Tossed around for a while, until she’d just stick me in… in her shoe… and put her fucking foot in with me.”

            Sonja was working very hard to keep an entertained smile from forming on her lips.

            “Do you know what that’s like?” she continued.  “Can you even fucking imagine?  Being stood on?  Having her toes coming down on you, over and fucking over, pounding, fucking with your life, like it doesn’t mean anything to her?  Being used like a goddamned accessory when she does that… that thing they do?  Being told you deserve it, because it’s what you’ve done to the fucking Betas?”

            “No, not quite,” Alma’s listener casually said.  “Doesn’t sound like any fun, though.”

            “So that’s it.  Tell me, are you still wondering at all what made me go screwy?” Alma scowled, dropping to her knees and scooping the wrench back up.  “Prison’s a vacation.  And I’d rather go back for a goddamned century then spend one more hour with the motherfucking Omegas.”

            Sonja only smirked now, admiring the tapestry of bottled-up fury that was Alma Warren.  At last satisfied with her goal of somehow getting the shrewish woman to crack, she stepped back, wandering toward the center of the auditorium again.

            “How’s it looking, Alice?” Halle called from nearby, pressing a finger to her earpiece.  “That bird still on schedule?”

            “Yep, as far as I can see,” the voice crackled into her ear.  “Everything’s looking good.”

“Roger’s still on patrol.  Can you see him now?”

            “I saw him head past my door and into our blind spot in the north wing.  I guess he’s just doing a sweep.  Nothing going on out on the front steps, though, so he should be just fine,” Alice reported.

            “Glad to hear it.”

            Glass from the truck window spilled out across the floor as Roger pulled his fist back out of the vehicle.  He wagged his arm, mumbling something under his breath to work through the soreness, and turned toward where Taylor had fallen.  His intended target, though, had already scampered back behind a stack of bricks and out of sight.

            Stamping over the crystalline particles in his combat boots and crunching them to dust, Roger’s hand slid down to his belt, reaching to pull a handgun from its holster.  Before he could draw it, though, he eyed the opaque tarps draped over the open windows of the hall, realizing just how little of a sound barrier there was between here and any Aegis forces loitering around the building.  Resolving to keep the matter quiet and, more importantly, avoid Halle’s wrath, the bearded ogre of a man shoved his firearm back into its place and instead yanked a machete from its sheath on his thigh.

            “Hey, c’mon out, uh… Taylor, isn’t it?” he said sunnily as he raised the broad-edged blade up to an offensive stance.  He neared the pile of bricks.  The light of the thinned sun shining through the tarps reflected off the machete and flashed several times across the floor, stretching all the way to the wall.  “I promise I don’t bite.  Not when I’m on the job, anyway.  Gotta save some fun for after hours, you know.”

            Once he’d reached the brick pile, Roger clambered on top for a clear view of the other side, which was emptier than he’d been expecting.  He leaned down, wrinkling his nose and simpering at the girl’s pathetic hide and seek game.

            As soon as her hunter was preoccupied, Taylor popped up from the opposite end of the pile and flung a brick at his head.  Surprised, the man put a hand up just in time to swat the chunk of building material out of the air, laughing as he watched it bounce to the concrete and shatter into red dust.  It wouldn’t have hit its mark even if he’d missed it coming.

            “Let me guess.  They never let you play pitcher in little league, did they?” he snorted, turning back in Taylor’s direction just in time to see a mortar spade spiraling through the air, this time aligned with its target.  Gulping air, he swerved a little too late to avoid the tool’s cold tip clipping against his temple and drawing blood.

            Roger sputtered and tumbled awkwardly off the pile of stone, punching the ground with enough force that more of the brick dust was kicked up into the air.  He wiped a finger over his forehead, swiping away a smear of blood, and felt the veins in his joints tightening.  It was a little too novel of a sensation to have been cost an injury from something that still continued to live.

            Taylor held the breath in her chest as she took cover again behind the bricks and placed a hand over her pocket to ensure Ben hadn’t been too jostled after she emergently stuffed him in.  He wriggled responsively as her fingers fished gratefully inside for his well-timed warning.

            The moment was short-lived, though, as the entire stack of bricks, supported on a wheeled forklift raft, suddenly lurched to life.  Roger, with his shoulder pressed to the other side, grunted as he shoved the entire pile forward, nearly burying Taylor under the cascading bricks if she hadn’t taken off running again.

            By then, she was off in a flash.  Her eyes flew over the area littered with bags of powder cement and improperly stored tools, looking for a hammer or screwdriver to defend herself.  Vaulting over a folding table, she looked over her shoulder just in time to see Roger’s machete slicing down through the air, catching the light again as it had so helpfully a few seconds before.  The man brought his blade down into the table, bisecting it with the smallest added thrust and kicking the crumpled metal legs aside as he closed the distance with Taylor.

            The Alpha’s black hair bounced over her eyes, blocking out her peripherals.  In the next instant she felt Roger’s hand on the back of her shirt, defying gravity with a single lift.  Thinking fast, she windmill-kicked with both limbs, meeting Roger’s chin with her feet before his machete could rise back up to meet her stomach.  He huffed, instinctively throwing Taylor through the air, where she fell head-over-heels and collided across the surface of another table, this time knocked a wrench to the ground.

            She gasped, ignoring the aching pain in her back from the hard landing, and flung herself at the tool.  Before she could lift it, though, Roger’s boot came back down, stomping onto the handle and nearly taking Taylor’s fingers off with the force of it.  He kicked the wrench well out of her reach and leaned down, meaty fingers extended to make a grab at the young heathen’s throat.  Taylor’s eyes flashed back up to the table, and gritting her teeth, she kicked back up into the underside of it, propelling its top board into Roger’s side.

            The machete dropped from his hand as the six-and-a-half foot giant staggered to the side, patting at his bruised hip.  As soon as he went down, Taylor swung herself onto her feet and reached her into her pocket.  Her blood ran cold as she realized it was empty of anything, Beta or otherwise.

            In the instant of her frantic realization, forcing the young Alpha to look back to the floor for her displaced charge, Taylor’s world became a flash of fuzzy neon color as Roger’s fist met her jaw.  She tumbled back onto the ground with a hard slam and felt a lost tooth ricochet off the inside of her already-swelling cheek.  The salty metal flavor of blood spread over her tongue.  There wasn’t even time to think about getting back up before the grizzly brute’s leg wound back and launched forward, impacting Taylor square in the stomach and sending her sliding over the floor like a hockey puck.  Crashing into a pile of wood scraps that puffed a noxious cloud of sawdust up into the air, the Alpha blinked, fighting to avoid blacking out.

            “Now I just gotta know…” Roger drawled contentedly, wiping another trickle of blood from his forehead.  “…where did such a pretty little girl like you learn those fancy tricks?”

            Taylor coughed, struggling to regain a full breath, and feebly reached out.  Her vision swimming, she settled on the wrench Roger had punted aside, a mere stone’s throw away.  She crawled forward, aching in her side, determined like never before.

            “Ah-ah-ah!” Roger scolded churlishly, suddenly standing above her.  Putting his thick legs overtop the subdued woman, he lowered himself down onto his haunches, purposefully giving Taylor plenty of time to grab the wrench.  As she rolled back around, though, preparing to bludgeon his face, she was met with a smarting slap to the cheek that blocked her blow and caused her arm to plop onto the ground again.  “C’mon.  You’re gonna have to be much, much faster than that to get anywhere with me.  Though if you want to try beating a different part of me, maybe a little lower down, well…”

            Taylor spit a thick wad of blood-tainted saliva into Roger’s face, halting his sanctimonious foreplay, and the swaggering grin faded from his face.

            “Okay, pretty little girl.  You want to play around rough?” he uttered venomously, dropping all pretense of playfulness.  He lifted his arm again, colliding his fist with the concrete mere inches from the side of Taylor’s head.  “We can play rough, then.”

            In a flash, Roger’s expression changed once again from irritated resolve to one of distilled agony.  Opening his mouth, he let loose a furious roar that nearly discombobulated Taylor’s sense of hearing.  Blinking through the last of her temple-thumping dizziness, the endangered Alpha looked down the length of Roger’s body, down to his ankle, where the cuff of his pant leg had been shredded.

            Ben, clutching a jagged scrap of loose metal with all his might, dangled from the end of Roger’s now-bleeding shin, where the Beta had just jammed the shard in all the way up to the hilt.

            Practically foaming at the mouth now, Roger wheeled around and spied Ben, who’d let go of the makeshift weapon and begun to back uncertainly away, knowing full-well he’d be a stain under the towering Alpha’s fist before he took more than one stride.

            Bleary with pain and frustration, Roger reached for the miniature annoyance.  A shadow was cast morbidly over Ben, who now remained perfectly still, his clothes stained with Roger’s blood and his arms folded reverently behind his back as if waiting for the gallows to drop him into oblivion.

            A second before the barbaric mercenary’s fingers could close around the Beta, Roger’s world fractured into a cold, unconscious void as Taylor cracked her wrench across his skull.