"Quick! It's here!" Gwen called as the door opened.

"Okay, be there in a sec!" I yelled back from the far end of the terminal. One of the two androids I had been kiting tried to grab me while I was distracted. "Eehehe!" I ducked out of reach and dodged around the other before bolting for the tram car. Gwen slammed the button to close it at soon as I was in, leaving Mr. Grabby Hands and his friend all by their lonesome in Mission #11.

I leaned against the wall as the tram jerked into motion. "Hehe. Bet you thought they had me there," I said, looking up at Gwen.

She rolled her eyes and grinned. Gesturing towards my left arm, she asked, "How's the arm? I doubt it's coded that getting your blood pressure up starts wounds bleeding again, but if it is, we could use a medkit now while it's safe."

I checked the bandage wrapped tightly around my left forearm. I had gotten complacent at the end of Mission #10 and acted like the Alien was going to move like it always did. And I'd paid for it. The Alien had raked its claws across my arm before the air lock closed and cut off the clawed appendage. The wound cut into muscle and exposed ulna in one place, and I had to keep reminding myself the injury wasn't real. It sure felt like it was at the time. The pain was muted somewhat by multiple medkits and the pressure of the bandage but was still enough to make using the shotgun we'd just acquired near impossible, and I needed Gwen's help reloading it and the flamethrower. The bandage was firmly in place, if maybe a little tight, and it didn't look like there was any fresh bleeding.

I gave Gwen a thumbs up and kicked Meza's chicken away from where it paced next to my foot. "Dumb chicken," I mumbled. The boxy bird scampered to hide behind Gwen. For some reason that irked me more.

The tram whined to a stop and the door opened at the SciMed terminal. We were only a short elevator ride away from the department that handled android maintenance and the artificial intelligence that ran them and half the ship's systems—APOLLO. "So, you remember the android who came here with us?" I asked as we headed out.

"Samuels, right?"

"That's the one. We get to see him again this mission, but don't get too attached to him."

Gwen gave me a confused look. "Does everyone in this game die?"

"I...Eeee...well," I waffled, not making eye contact. "Pretty much?"

"Yeah, really no way to sugarcoat that one," Meza commented in my head.

"Oh, hey, Meza!" I said quickly to forestall further questions from Gwen. "How are things going out there?"

"The police still haven't found the hacker, but they've cleared the southern half of the convention center and the exhibit hall. It's only a matter of time before they find him."

That puts us on a time crunch too, I thought. "How about the virus; any luck there?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Meza said, irritation creeping into his voice. His tone lightened as he continued, "I think we figured out why the hacker nuked all the save terminals though."

"Oh?" I asked, eyebrows raised.

I gave Gwen a quick summary as Meza explained. "Devon thinks that resetting to a save before the virus was introduced would buy us enough time to get you out before it re-infects your code."

"What?! Then why haven't we done that?" I asked angrily.

"A 'hunch' isn't something I'm willing to bet your lives on, not unless we run out of options. It could just as easily trigger the kill code."

Gwen interrupted our squabble. "Would crashing the game to force a reset have the same effect?"

"Yes, but the same risks apply," Meza answered. "AI isn't very likely to crash. Devon says the beta testers only got the remake to crash once. A glitch in the android spawning mechanic put dozens of them in one place, which caused the game to lag out. They fixed that bug months ago."

That reminded me of a problem I'd run into in Minecraft, and I chuckled, recalling how much stress a high entity count could put on a system. Meza left me to my thoughts as we reached the elevator and descended into android central. "Dead" androids and bits of electronics were strewn about the hallways and labs. I carefully steered Gwen clear of the androids, unsure which ones were playing possum after the hacker's meddling.

Whether because of my paranoia or by luck we reached Samuels without incident. Turning a corner we spotted him right before a blast door slid shut between us and locked into place. "Aren't we supposed to go that way?" Gwen asked, looking for somewhere to use the access tuner. I set my hands on Gwen's shoulders and turned her to her right. There was a vent opening hidden behind a box. "Oh, that works too."

We could hear Samuels and an android talking through the dusty vent as we bypassed the door. "I must have access to APOLLO," Samuels urged in a remarkably emotive voice. Gwen hadn't believed me at first when I told her he was an android, albeit a much newer model than the ones on the station. His voice was spot on. His eyes were one of the only things that gave it away.

The outdated station synthetic refused to let Samuels by, prattling on about restricted access due to some biocontainment hazard. After a minute of this, Samuels grew frustrated, much as the NPC had back in Mission #4. But Samuels could do something about it. "I don't have time for this," He snapped. Brief sounds of a struggle preceded the sound of an android's head being smashed against something hard.

When Gwen paused in the vent, I reassured her, "He's fine. That was the sound of Samuels not taking sh*t."

We climbed out of the vent into a supply closet. "This station has the strangest vent system I've ever seen," Gwen commented, looking around.

"Couldn't agree more," I said, dusting myself off. "Still got that pipe bomb I told you to save?"

"Yeah, got it right here," She said, carefully pulling it out of her pack.

"Good, we're going to need it. Do you want to, or should I?" Gwen cast an apprehensive glance between me and the explosive before handing it over. "Ok, keep that revolver ready. Sometimes one survives."

Gwen nodded her understanding and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. As soon as she'd pulled the gun and checked the ammo—only 5 rounds—I opened the door. Normally the half a dozen androids in this room were clustered to one side and inactive until I got too close. Nope. They were all scattered across the space, roaming. Just perfect.

It took a few minutes of sprinting and adrenaline to kite them all to one end of the room, and Meza's chicken screaming in a panic wasn't helping. I found myself wishing we'd gotten enough supplies for a second bomb as we backed towards a corner. The synthetics were still spread out enough that I couldn't take them all out in the blast. Nevertheless, I flipped the arming switch on the pipe bomb and threw it. The blast took out four of the six. One of the remaining androids was damaged and on fire, but still moving towards us, and the sixth was completely untouched by the blast that left my ears ringing. Gwen took the damaged android down with two shots to the head. I pulled the shotgun without thinking and shot the last one, immediately regretting it as the pain in my left arm flared. I dropped my weapon without seeing if the shot connected, swearing loudly and clutching my arm.

I heard one more bang from Gwen's revolver, then silence. As the pain subsided, I noted that the last android was down. "Good...shot," I grunted.

"That settles it; no more shotgun for you," Gwen said picking up my dropped weapon and sliding the strap over her own shoulder. I was still cradling my bad arm, and she motioned for me to let her see it. I reluctantly extended my arm. That simple motion made the edges of my vision blur for a second as the pain spiked. "That jar got it bleeding again," Gwen reported.

"I think I'll take that medkit now," I said, voice thin. I blinked several times to try to clear my vision as it blurred again. That didn't bode well for my health bar. Maybe I didn't throw that pipe bomb quite far enough. While I was distracted, Gwen jabbed a medkit's needle into the inside of my elbow, no doubt aiming for the artery there. "Ow!" I yelped, pulling my arm away from her and scowling. My vision cleared in seconds, and the pain faded enough for me to be annoyed with her. "That really smarts, you know!" I scolded, rubbing at the already closed puncture.

Gwen laughed at my behavior and held the handle of her revolver out to me. "I think you should stick to running this one-handed for now. Don't have enough for another medkit."

"You're just saying that to get the weapon with more ammo," I protested grumpily. After a moment I sighed and took the revolver, checking the chamber. Two shots left. Better make these count. Gwen helped me clip the holster onto my belt; then we moved on, unaware of how useless our weapons would be when trouble finally came.