Through the blackness of the airshaft in the old abandoned laboratory, Cindy Brice climbed. She was a part of a small independent political party called, The Neo Ameras (New Americans). Their main goal was to have an independent Mars government, separate from the United Earth Federation’s rule. Earlier today, their contact Alex Locamon, from the C.T.C. revealed to them information about a discovery of one of CTC’s test sites that was lost a hundred years ago during the war between Earth and Mars. It was important enough for Mark Solmers, the head of the Neo, to risk everything. They were told by their contact that the C.T.C. had sent a retrieval team prior to a plan distraction. Their orders were to extract anything that was related to the research of Cyber-genetics. The Neos had to work as discretely so the could beat them at the punch.

             Her cyber enhancement made the climb easy. But as strong as her body was, her mind began to wonder if this was going to be a bad idea. Cindy continued to focus on the mission ahead of her and hoped this would drown out her fears. She popped out of the ventilation shaft and landed quietly into the darkness. No one was around, only remembrances of storage lockers for heavy explosives. A thick blanket of dust covered the area. Nothing had bothered this place for years. Cindy went to the back of the storage lockers and called out on her communication implant in her ear, "Hey Glen, you read me?"
            "Yeah."
            ”I’m finally here and on my way to meet with our contact."
            The implant in her ear hummed and gave out a reply, "Okay, be careful, Mark and I are in position. We will wait for you here. Remember we have a small window of time."
             "Don't worry. As soon as I find him, we'll be on our way."
             "Cindy, also remember that there is still a skeleton crew up above us and watch out for the C.T.C.’s troopers."
             "Troopers! I thought they were just a retrieval team that the C.T.C. sent."
              "Yeah, I thought so too. But from the arsenal they were carrying, it looked like they are ready for war. So watch your step."
             "Will do Glen, over and out," said Cindy as she clicked her communication device to silent mode.

              Alone in the darkness, she impatiently waited for her contact, who was already late. Cindy turned to scout for a place to hide so she wouldn't get caught. This night's mission was too important for the Neo, to scrub. But still, she couldn't shake the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that this would go bad for them. Finally, after five minutes of waiting, her enhanced senses picked up a single heartbeat heading her way. Quickly she rose to her feet and made her way toward the door. Cindy saw the flickering of light that was coming through the cracks in the wall. The light stopped in front of the door. Cindy stealthily moved up to right base of the center support beam as the door opened. The tips of her short black hair glowed with a tint of red as her body gave off a chameleon like camouflage to blend with the background. The person who entered the room was unaware of her presence.
            "Hello, is there anybody here? Hello?"
             She saw the person was a medium sized man that was wearing a white trench coat. The man went further into the room and closed the door behind him. It was still too dark for Cindy to see who it was. Just before she jumped down to attack, she saw the shine off his glasses; it was Alex, her contact. She sighed in relief and stopped her attack.
             "Hello, is there anybody there? Cindy, are you there?"

              Alex looked around the room. The flashlight's glare moved up toward the ceiling. He spun the light around him thinking he saw a blur moving past him in the room. Before Alex could even blink, she came around to his back with a one arm choke hold. She lightly held onto his neck while pointing a gun in his direction with her other hand.
              "Gotcha!", she said with a playful grin on her face.
              "Jesus! Cindy you scared the living crap out of me."
              "Sorry Alex, I was just teasing you. Besides you should keep up your guard at all times. I can't protect you all the time, you know."
              "Huh, Cindy can you release me."
"Oh, sorry."

             Cindy released the hold and picked up his flash light as he got his composer back.

            “Here, you dropped something.”
            "Oww! Damn, why did you have to be so rough on me?"
             Cindy playfully pouted as he took back the flashlight.
             "Sorry Alex, I knew it was you all along. Besides I'm just excited about sneaking in here. We haven't done this in a long time but....."
              "But?"
              "But I have this lingering feeling that this could be a mistake, a big mista...."
              Alex came around to the back of her neck to open a small port behind the ear lobe that connects to her synapse. "Alex what are you doing? That tickles.."

               “Just hold on a second and let me check your higher functions.”
               ”Why?” 
                "I'm just checking you over, to see if you're damaged. It is not like you to worry about possible risk."

                Cindy backed away a bit from Alex and said, "Well this is the first time that you had to be directly involved with this type of operation. You're one of a few research scientists that could go inside the C.T.C. special project rooms. By you coming here with us, this could place your life in great jeopardy. I mean, has it even occurred to you?"
                "Yes it has, but you need me in this one, okay?"
                "I know, it's just..."
                The creamy white skin of her cheeks gave off a reddish glow as she faintly blushed. She turned away from Alex so he wouldn’t see her acting like a school girl. He didn't see her reaction, only the concern in her voice.
                 "Cindy, how about I promise that I won't hex this operation?"
                 "Okay, okay, I get it. I'm just worried. Anyway, let’s go. We don't have much time."
                  Alex turned his flashlight back on and a glimmer of an old small floor generator hid in the corner wall caught his eyes. This generator had three hookups that connected and almost fussed to the left side corners of the room. It seemed strange to Alex that the generator looked warped, as if it was also fused into the floor and walls of the room. Two of the connections of the main lines resembled veins coming out of the floor panels rather than regular connection cables. Alex knelt down to get a better look.
                "Hmm, this generator is still active. But no one has been here for a long time. If I am right about this lab, it is one of the old genetics labs for C.T.C. during the war."
                Cindy came up to him and bent down beside him, "So what do you and Mark thinks that you're going to find in here?"
               ”Well, a few weeks ago, I overheard my boss at work talking about a project called "Living Metal" with the head of the CTC special projects."
                "Living Metal?"
                "Yeah, a program to merge metallic properties with human DNA."
                "What, how is that possible?"
                "I am not sure, but the person who created it supposedly died during the war. He was the one who started the CTC Corporation."
               "So you think that this lab has some significance to this project?" asked Cindy as she removed some of the fallen girders out of their way.
                ”I am ninety percent sure that this location has cryogenic storage rooms and that's why the Earth security force is here, to make sure nothing could get out."
              They moved on into a larger room that was across the hallway. This room had a second floor connected to it. In front of the stairs was a huge generator. Surrounding this generator were groups of sentinel robots. At one time, they guarded the room from intruders but now they rusted away in a technological graveyard. Alex walked away to marvel over the complexity of the generator.
He was amazed at how well it had kept through the years. Apparently this was the main power system for the entire lab. The main line went all the way up through the mountainside. Cindy was near the main generator and looked onto the fallen sentinel robots,
              "Hey Alex, have you noticed the sentinels condition over here?"
              Alex came over to her, to see what she was talking about.
              "Yeah, I was wondered about that too. There's so much we can learn in the lower levels. Take this generator for example. Have you ever seen connections like this? Not only this generator had it, but it was the same type of connection in the other room."
               "Well don't get too caught up in here, Alex. We still need to meet up with the others and we have only a little bit of time left."
               "Yeah, I know. But you don't understand Cindy. These generators should not be here."
               "What do you mean Alex?"
               "They looked like they were moved here. I wish I had more time to study it but..."
               Cindy finished what Alex was about to say, "We have to meet up with the others."
                 With a heavy sigh, Alex scooted his glasses up close and took out the stolen schematics of the lab, that he had lifted from one of the guards.
                 "Let's see here. Oh, okay we are close. The map said that the way to the computer room was up those raggedy stairs and down the corridor. Then it should dead end right at the entrance of the computer room."
                 "Alex are you sure no one is down here?"
                 "Oh don't worry, without these schematics that retrieval team would not know the way down here. Plus, I took the only copy. No one, except for us should be down here."
                  As soon he said that, they heard a voice from above yell down from the second level, "Hey! Who's down there?"
It was a man dressed in a light colored armor battle suit with a duffle bag on his right shoulder. The light from the man’s flashlight blinded Alex’s sight. Like a deer in front of headlights, Alex froze.
                 "Alex, put your hands down, it's Glen," said Cindy as she waved back at Glen. Alex’s heart skipped a beat as he was sure that he was done for. He sighed in relief as they made their way up the stairs Glen turned off the flashlight and leaned against the rail, "For a second, I thought you weren't going to make it."
                 "Sorry, Alex got held up. He was looking at the broken toys downstairs."
                Alex sarcastically laughed at her comment, "Oh, ha, ha, Cindy. Anyway where's Mark?"
              "He's down the hall. Alex, I think he needs some help getting the computer room door to open."
               "I'll give him a hand."
               Glen pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
               "Hey Cindy, how much time do you think we have?"
               "Not long, the explosion happened about thirty-five minutes ago and this place wasn't more than twenty miles away."
                Cindy turned around and grasped the rails. Below she saw the magnitude of the cybernetics decade down below. She remembered how Alex founded her in a dismal place similar to this. This was a sickening reminder that she wasn’t a normal girl or a cyborg. To the world she was only an experiment on cybernetics that went wrong. Alex was the only one who gave her new life. She smiled as she watched Alex leave.
                  "You know, I just hope what we are doing is worth it," Glen said as he took a puff off his cigarette.
                  "If we find the evidence of this living metal program, and from what Alex has told me about it I am sure that our government would listen to us."
                 "Yeah, but with the small amount of time we have, we will be lucky to get out of here alive, more or less anything of value of our cause."

                 Cindy turned back around and leaned onto the rails, “It doesn’t matter anyway, if Alex thinks there is something to this place. Then it is worth coming here……. Besides.." Cindy paused for a second before continuing, "I would go anywhere with Alex....If he wanted me to."
                 Glen gestured to Cindy if she wanted a drag off his cigarette and said, "I hope that they're right about this."
                 Cindy kindly smiled and shook her head, "Me too, but have I do have the utmost confidence in those two."
                Glen took another puff off of his cigarette and nodded.
               "Well, I am going to see if Alex needs any help." said Cindy as she left. 
                Moving her way through the poorly lighted corridor Cindy didn’t notice that the cables on the floor were like the ones from the generators. From the blast marks on the wall, it had appeared that there was an internal fight that caused the corridor to decade so rapidly through out the years. But what was so strange to Cindy was some of the substructure of the wall. The titanium metal support beams that had fallen were so brittle that when she tried to move them, they shatter into pieces. This caused a cascade effect with the other fallen beams. One by one they shattered. Cindy backed to the side of the corridor and called out on her communication device.

                  “Mark! Alex, are you okay?”

                 “Yeah, what’s going on back there? Sounded like glass was breaking.”

                  “I don’t know Mark, I touched one of the support beams and it crumbled. Is Alex okay?”

                  “Yeah, he’s just fine. He said to get some samples of the alloy in the walls. We’ll try to figure it out when we get back.”

                 Cindy chipped a piece of metal off and proceeded carefully through the corridor. When she got to Mark he was looking at the schematics of the area while Alex was working on a control panel to the doors.

                 "Hey Mark, make any sense on where we are?" 
                 "Cindy, I am glad you found Alex. If I am right about the location then we will need him to decipher the codes. In fact, I was getting worry about you both, considering the activity upstairs."
                 "I know Mark, sorry about that. But hey, we made it, right?"
                  "Right."
                  Cindy went over to Alex and lightheartedly placed her forearm on top of his head while he was connecting the service wires to the main port, "So you know the blue wire goes with the blue hole."

                Alex smirked at her comment as he continued to work, but time was a factor and he did not respond. She sat right beside him and held the flash light up for him.
                "Thanks I think I’ve almost got it.”
                Glen arrived a few minutes later and casually sat back on a fallen girder. He observed Cindy’s interaction with Alex. Her eyes glittered with affection for Alex. But as much as she was blatantly flirting with him, Alex wasn’t the wiser. He kept working on the doors.

                 “This is sad,” thought Glen.

                   Mark walked up Glen with the map, "Come on Glen, I think we're ready."

                   “Cool, because I don’t think I could watch anymore of those two.”

                   Mark turned around as Glen gestured toward Cindy as she playfully
helped Alex.

                    "You think they will ever hook up?" asked Glen as he flicked his cigarette to the ground.
                   "Wait, I thought you wanted to hook up with her?"
                   “She's too caught up with Alex. It wouldn't be right if I tried."

                    “Beep!” went the doors as they unlocked. Alex motioned them to come. As they did, Alex stood up from the control panel and said with confidence, " Now open ......"
                   The doors to the computer room opened and standing right in front
of them were at least ten men with blue and white armor that had the CTC. emblem on the right side of their chest plates. The troopers already had their fully automatic guns pointed right at them, with the lazer tip beams targeting their heads. Alex finished the saying, "Sesame."
                  There was no choice but to surrender. The CTC unit forced them to a side wall near the main computer system. An older man with a scar on the right side of his face slowly approached them with a grin. With his reddish blue armor reflecting off their worry looks, he stopped in front of Cindy and laughed, "Well, well, well, looks like we have some opportunists here, boys. Who are you folks and I know you are not from the research group from upstairs."
Alex's eyes widened as he saw his fellow scientists who were tided up, and appeared to be unconscious on the floor.

               The troop’s leader stared angrily at Alex as he watched his reactions,  "Except for you, I believe that I have seen you from.."
             "What me?..... I never...I mean uh.."
                    Cindy interrupted Alex in hopes of bringing the troop leader’s attention back to her, "He's our hostage. We were going to use him as a bargaining chip if needed."
                    Quickly Mark agreed, "That's right. He is not with us, just a hostage."
The troop's leader paused for a moment and again laughed, "Do you think I care? I am not here for any hostage negotiations. No more games missy. Who are you guys and what are you doing here?"
Cindy stood there silently and smiled.

                    "Lady, what in the hell are you smiling about?"
In her left hand was a little surprise for them, which was concealed from the CTC's search.
                     "I’m smiling, because I have the answer in my hand."
Curiously, the troop leader looked at her and asked, "What do you have?"
                     “This!” said Cindy as she threw a timing grenade, shaped like a golf ball. It landed in his hands. A look of fear shot through his eyes and shivered down his spine. "What the f..!"
                      With a big flash of light the grenade went off in his face. The smoke flushed the entire room and the chaos quickly spread through the troopers. Cindy grabbed Alex’s coat and tugged him out of the room. Mark and Glen quickly followed. Cindy laughed out loud as they ran down the hallway.

                   “Hey guys, how did you like the show?”

                    “Show! You brought a grenade!” shouted Mark.

                  "That grenade was just a smoke bomb, nothing more," Cindy explained to him as they turned the corner. Glen turned about to see if they were being followed. As he looked around, he became conscious that they were going the wrong way. Just before he said something, he detected that Mark didn’t have the schematics with him.

                  “Hey guys! Mark! We are going the….“ just before he finished, an explosion erupted behind them and some of the troopers began to open fire.

                  "Okay, just what I wanted to do on a Saturday night. Attack a heavily armed right wing military group and let them chase us. We're going to die, you do know that."
                  The confused CTC troops stumbled and coughing their way out of the room sporadically shooting at the Neo’s. Standing in the middle of the smoke filled room was their leader, holding out his singed fingers. Few of his men came back in to see if he needed some help. Before they could say anything he screamed out loud, "Get.. Get those son of bitches. Before I shoot all of ya'll myself!”

                  “Ahh…. Yes sir!”
                  ”Now, get them!!"
                  Without any hesitation, the troopers scurried out after the Neo's, who were escaping down the hallway. Mark caught up with Cindy as they turned down toward the stairs, "Cindy where in the hell did you get that grenade?
Cindy grabbed the rail and leaped over to the first level, so she could hold point at the bottom stair. She replied back as he passed by, "A girl got's to have her secrets, and a grenade for a back up. Just in case something like what just happened a few minutes ago."
                  Alex sprinted up the hallway to find an exit, but every turn he made ended up blocked by debris or locked from the other side. He began frantically checking the doors. From a distance, Alex could hear the firing of the guns, that was getting louder each time he checked a door. Cindy and Glen were holding the CTC troopers at bay. With limited gun power, they made use of the volatile canisters that littered the area. Mark made his way through the hallway to help Alex find an exit. He saw Alex trying to kick the last door on the right.
                 "It's a dead end. All of them are dead ends. We have to find another way out," said Alex as he pounded his fist on the rusted door.

                 "Alex just calm down. We'll find a way."
                 Mark leaned back on a door behind him to rest for a second. The few seconds of rest caused the hinges of the door to break off. As the door swung open from his body weight, Mark fell on his back side, "I think…..I think I've found an entrance."
                 Alex approached him to give him some assistance but stopped. Inside the room was another huge area filled with non-functional defense robots. They were in groups of three, facing away from the back of the room. Unlike the other rooms, this area appeared to be offset and the floors were distorted like ripples in the water. But they were centered around the back wall. Alex bent down to help Mark, but his eyes were still focused on the background.
                  "Hey what’s wrong?"
                   Alex just pointed to the other side of the room. Mark turned around to see what Alex was looking at, and they both became aware as they made their way through the debris, that the mechs inside the room were more or less striped of their body forms. There was no metal, just some of the wires and plastic from the inside of the bodies.  Alex stopped and knelt to see how this happened. What he found in the mist of the plastic and stripped wiring was the same type of connecting wires that were from the other generators. Alex brushed off the fragments around him and saw more of these wires that were like the metal ripples on the floor. Both seemed to lead toward the back of the room. He felt one of the wires that was on the floor, "They're warm too. Could this be?"
                 Mark took out his flashlight to see what was ahead and standing near the back wall was a huge mass of metal that was twisted and warped.

                 Alex looked on in disbelief, "Whoa, no way, I would have never imagined that I would see this. I believe this is what we came for."
They moved forward and became aware of a small faint sound,

                  "Hey, Alex did you hear that?"
                  "Yeah, it sounded something like a heartbeat. Do you think.." Alex paused.

                    Mark moved in close to it and tapped on the outer hull. The tapping gave off a hollow sound,
                   "You mean it's in here?"
Cindy and Glen came up to the doorway and shut the door half way.
                  "I think we lost them for now."
                  Glen glanced toward the back of the room to see if Alex and Mark were all right. They were facing toward the back, Glen couldn’t see what they were looking at. He backed up and saw the deformity that was in the wall.
                 "What the hell is that?"
                  Cindy turned around to see what Glen was yelling about. She became very quiet when she heard the sound of the faint heart beat, "It's here, I can't believe it."
                   Carefully Glen walked toward Mark and Alex. He took out of his duffle bag a small sensor device that fit on his hand like a glove. The reading from the data that the sensor was receiving immediately started to overload its processors.
                 "Weird…..Look at this Mark. From the looks of the readings, it appears that is a cocoon or something."
”It’s only reading the outside of the so called egg. But inside it only showed a hot spot.”

                      Alex placed his hand on the obtrude lump that was sticking out of the wall.

                     "It's warm, not hot.. Just warm, just like the wires from the generators. I think you’re right, Glen. In fact this was the area where the cryogenic tubes would have been stored. So in a since this is a cocoon or an egg."
                     Mark had a puzzled look on his face. He heard of the CTC’s involvements with experimental warfare for the Mar’s military during the war, but all he was expecting were data files and maybe DNA samples that could have survived a hundred years. Not something like this.

                   "Wait a minute Alex, do you think there's someone alive in that, so called cocoon? If this is what we were looking for Alex, and how do we know for sure? For all we know, it could be a radiation back wash that warped this metal."
                    "No it's more like a womb.. If we could open this up we could.. This might be..."
                     The faint sound of a heartbeat was swallowed up by the commotion coming up the hallway. Cindy peeked through a crack on the side of a rusting wall and saw four heavily armed men approaching.
                     "Here they come!" said Cindy as she backed away from the doors. There was nothing much to block the doors. Each time she grabbed onto the fallen support girders, the metal crumbled in her hands. Mark and Glen jumped to attention and frantically looked around for another exit. Alex was too caught up in his curiosity and did not want to leave. Mark noticed his reaction, but due to the circumstances there was nothing they could do.

                      "I am sorry, Alex, we'll find another way. If we can, we'll come back for it." 
                      “Yeah I know….So close though.”
                      Just before he got up, he stumbled in front of the tube and brushed off a clump of dirt. Alex noticed a name that was engraved close to the bottom side of the tube. He wiped off the rest of the dirt to reveal the name, "Sara."

                     “I can’t just let them have her,” he thought.
                     Cindy ran toward the rest of the Neos and discovered a hole in the wall near the warped cryogenic tube. It was big enough for them to hide in.
                    "Mark, look to your right.”
Mark leaped behind the wall.

                     Glen stopped and shook his head, "Are you freaking nuts? We only have two guns and they have an arsenal. Mark come on, I don't want to die for this."
                     "Glen, if we surrender to them now, they'll shoot us for sure. It's too late now."
                      Cindy came up to Alex and clutched, his jacket.

                      "Come on Alex. If they realized that you're more than a hostage, you'll be in bigger trouble than all of us, so come on."
                       Everybody hid, hoping the men that was aproaching wouldn’t find them. Cindy quietly cocked her hand gun and peeked thought a small hole. There were four men, three up front checking the area and the forth was at the door.

                 “Just a little bit closer,” she thought. The trooper to the left noticed some movement behind the wall.

                 “Hey, I think there….”

                 Before he could finish, Cindy popped up and fired a shot right in the head of the leading man. Without haste the CTC unit jumped for cover and opened fire with an intense bombardment of bullets toward the Neos. Cindy dropped back down to reload; Mark, Alex, and Glen looking at her.
                 "What? Now there are only three of them."

                  The Neos were at their wits end and time was about up for them. The Earth’s security forces were on their way back to the lab. They were penned down from the onslaught of bullets bouncing above their heads. Trapped behind the wall, they had nowhere else to run.

                   Out of frustration Cindy screamed, “Damn, is there anything we can use against these guys? I’m almost out!”

                   “I got one clip left Cindy but…” Glen paused for a second. Alex was hiding further in the busted out wall. Glen looked closer at what he was sitting on.

                    “What Glen, why are you looking at me?”

                     Cindy looked over as well and noticed that he was sitting on a small military’s mech that fused into the floor bed. All but it’s arm, that was a fully armed tri rotating barrel, was stripped from its metal. Alex looked down and became aware of what he was sitting on.

                      “Oh.”

                    Alex took off the arm and quickly made a make-shift gun. Cindy gave her gun to Glen so Alex could connect it into her cybernetic arm. “All right now, when I started to fire ya’ll get out of here.”

                   “No we are all getting out of here.”

                   “I don’t want to argue, Alex but this is the only way. Now…..” As she was about to say “go” she rose up between rounds that were fired at them and unloaded three hundred rounds toward of the CTC troopers. Quickly, they scattered like rats near a fire. They jumped behind the fallen support beam. Unfortunately, the accuracy of the bullets was horribly off due to the age of the gun. The gun fire spread around the room and it was no where safe for the Neos to escape. This was only a temporary solution for holding the CTC off, but they were still stuck in a hole.
                  The trooper to the left of Cindy ejected his normal fire bullet’s clip from his rifle and loaded up with an armor piercing bullet. Even thought the fire from Cindy’s gun wasn’t on target, the CTC trooper couldn’t get a clear shot of her. The closest person he could get to was Mark who was hiding behind the wall directly behind the distorted tube.

                “Ha, that won’t help you. If I am right, that lump your hiding behind will explode,” thought the trooper as he fired a shot straight through the lump of metal and through Mark’s right shoulder.
                 "DAMN!" screamed Mark as he held his bleeding shoulder. He fell back against the wall and slid down in pain. Alex crawled over to see about the wound. Glen crouched to the side, holding his head in anguish. His guns were empty and he had stopped paying attention to the fight. Cindy squeezed off the last few rounds of her makeshift gun before she went for cover.
                "Damn, I am out."

                 She looked over at Mark and Alex, "How is he doing Alex?"
                 "I stopped the bleeding for now. But we need to get him out of here as quickly as possible."
                 Cindy peered over to see if the escape was possible. But oddly enough the CTC troopers had stopped firing. An eerie rumble came from the floor bed, followed by an electricity shot through the vein-like wires. She caught a glimpse of the cryogenic tube that was now swelling. That was when she remembered what they were hiding behind, that was now active. Her eyes widened as the metal from the tube began to crack. The CTC troopers had regrouped and began to approach them. She ducked back down, "Hey guys, you better hold your ears and watch out."
                 ”Ka-boom!!!” went the tube. The explosion shook the foundation of the whole mountain side. The shock waves had thrown the CTC trooper twenty feet away from the tube. The Neos were sheltered from most of the blast, but were shaken up. Out from the dancing blue flames quickly came a blurrily figure. It landed in darkness of what was left of the lab. Two of the troopers went over to see what it was. They stopped just a few feet away from the shadowy corner of the wall. A glowing outline of a woman's body could be seen. The female looked right at them with her glowing red eyes. Not knowing what to expect, she tried to wait for clarity. Her eyes were still blurry from her abrupt awaking and only able to make out shapes. The female held her right arm in pain, because of the shot that went through the tube struck her as well. The pain made her realize that she was awake and not a dream.

              One of the CTC troopers started to come close to her, thinking that she was helpless. Just before he stepped into the shadow, he was stopped by the other trooper, "Dude, what are you doing? We don't touch anything until we report in."
              "What, you’ve got to be kidding me. She's harmless."
               "Just let me call in, okay?"
               "Sure, whatever."
               "This is red one, to red two, do you come in?"
              Shssck.. "This is red two, we copy. What was that noise? It nearly caused a cave in."
              Shssck.."We hit a gas main, nothing more. But Commander…… I think we have found the package."
               "Red one, do you need backup support for the intruders as well as for the package?"
              "That is a negative, Commander. The intruders are penned down and we are about to pickup the package. Apparently, the package is a female and does not seem to be a threat."
                The other CTC's trooper on the right side looked down on the smoldering tube and saw some writing, "Hey, I think her name is Sara. There's something else is here, but it looks Greek to me."
                 The other CTC person who was closer to her bent down and smiled,
                  "Sara huh? Well Sara, you're a cute little thing. Why don't you come back with us?"
                 He held his right hand out toward Sara to be gentle as he could be,
                "Trust me, I won't hurt you."
                Still dazed and confused, Sara had no idea what he had just said, but her eyes had cleared up enough to see the dangling rifle on his right side that was still hot from the fight. She nudged away and used the side of the wall to prop herself up, refusing to leave. The CTC trooper sighed as he stepped in closer, she still refused to leave her position.
               "Hey, you still got those tranquillizer darts for the gun? She's not coming out. I guess we will do this they hard way," said the trooper as he backed her into a corner. Like a caged animal, Sara trembled of the unexpected, until she detected more guns in front of her. She became fixed on the two troopers as they armed the tranquilizer gun. Her body stopped trembling and became still as her defense mode came online. She identified them now as hostile.
                 "Yeah, I got it. Sorry about this little lady, but this is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt us," said the second trooper. He started to come closer with the tranquilizer gun and stopped his approach. Sara's eyes had turned a brighter shade of red that pierced through his eyes.

                   “Hey, what are you waiting for? Tag her and lets go.”

                     “She looks different, I don’t……No wait she….”

                     The trooper quickly aimed and fired. But it was too late. Sara’s soft skin had become hard as a rock. The dart shattered on impact. The two troopers noticed that the metal floor bed started to become distorted as if it was pulling toward her. In seconds, armor formed around her whole body. The glow that silhouetted her did not dissipate but increased with intensity. The metal interior around her instantly became warped around the spot where she stood.

                      Their immediate reactions to her transformation were too late. Sooner than they could switch over to their main weapon, Sara soared over the trooper in front of her. In midair for a split second Sara and the trooper that was below her, eyes met. Both of them knew that he was going to die. Sara landed over the trooper, her intent was not to attack him first. Instead she landed in front to the second trooper, catching him off guard. With a swift right upper-cut punch to the face. She followed through with the punch and grabbed his neck in a reverse choke hold, with the same arm. At the same time, the trooper that was in front came around with a haymaker to get her off of his comrade. She was well aware of his action. Sara delivered a hard standing sidekick into his face that pushed the cartilage in his nose forcibly into his brain. At the same time, she cracked the neck of the second trooper, killing both instantly. As both men fell down, Sara leered with her glowing red eyes at the remaining trooper who was getting up near the corner of the room. The trooper saw his teammates lifeless on the floor. In a panic decision he dropped his weapon and cowered behind a fallen beam.

                    Quietly the Neos watched on as Sara killed the men. They stood still hoping that she wouldn’t turn around and discover them. But her attention was on the CTC man who was crying outloud with a shaky voice for back up on his communication device, "Red two. Red two.. We need some back up now. They're…… They're all dead and I am next if you don't get here……. Now, Goddamn it!"
                     Seconds later the other CTC unit with their troop leader had arrived. They saw what he was talking about. Each time Sara walked, the metal on the floor bubbled up as if it was on fire. She turned toward them and was ready to attack. The trooper leader tried to calm things down.

                     "Now hold on, we do not want to harm you but..."
Sara had no control of her actions. Her defense mode had kicked into overdrive. Her pain sensors had over ridden her conscious control. She took a step forward with intent to harm. Fearing for his life, the trooper from the Red Two unit freaked out and fired at her. This had caused the other troopers to fire. Sara had no chance to move out of the way. The barrage of bullets struck her hard enough to force her against the wall. Smoke and electrical discharges engulfed the area that she was in. The leader came over and smacked the trooper who started the attack and screamed, “Stop you idiots……”

                   The troopers stopped and the smoke cleared.

                   “Uh…..Sir!”

                   “What……” He paused because each of his men had an expression of shock as they backed. He turned toward Sara and saw her holding the bullets that were fired upon her at bay, floating around her as if there was a barrier in front of her. The metal casings of the bullets began to seeping into her hands like melting ice and formed razor tip blades out from her each of her fingertips. Against his orders and his better judgment, the troop leader ran. He jumped over a fallen beam and signaled his men to continue the attack.
                  "Screw this! If they want her so badly, we'll pick up what's left of her. Take her down now!"

                   Sara dodged their assault with ease, like a graceful marionette dancing to the music of a hail of a thousand bullets bouncing around her feet. She leaped into the air and snatched the cable wires above them. Using her own momentum, she flipped from the hanging wires and repelled off the wall to make a direct assault into the middle of the unit. As she landed, one of the troopers came up from behind holding the butt of his rifle. He was trying to hit her on the back of the neck while she was off guard. Sara stooped down and struck his torso with a back elbow strike. Then she turned with the elbow to grab his chest armor. Sara jerked back and kneed him into the ribs. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another trooper coming up to her. She back kicked him while holding onto the first attacker. As her foot retracted back, Sara used her own drive to throw the other trooper into two support beams. The impact instantly cracked his spine in two.
Three more troopers came in for support and attempted to unload their weapons at Sara. They quickly moved around to catch her in a cross fire. Bullets were bouncing off of her and forced her into a shadowy corner. But to there surprise, Sara had vanished into the darkness of the room. The troopers couldn't detect her, no sensors could pick up her sound or her body heat. What she had done was shifted through the connected metal frame of the lab’s substructure.

                   “This is not possible! No freaking way is this possible!” screamed the troop leader.

                   “Where is she?”

                    Trying to stay out of the way as much as possible, the Neos looked on with frightful amazement. Cindy turned around and sat down. She looked at Alex,
                   "Okay, what the hell did we just see here?"
                   Alex sat back and crossed his arms as he laughed a bit, "I don't believe it. They do exist."
                    "Who exists? Is she a type of a Frankenstein or something?
                    “Actually Glen, Frankenstein’s monster…But no, she is not...”

Glen propped his head out to see the chaos that Sara had made.

                   “Whatever…What is she?"
                     Alex pushed his glass up and said, "The future. I think it was about a hundred years ago during the war, a CTC scientist discovered a possible way that man and machine could combine together. Not separate identities like a cyborg, but as one. By his discovery a new race of humans could have been created. But it was just a myth and now as I see it, it must be true."
               Mark stood up and leaned on the side of the wall. He felt the hole in the wall where the bullet had traveled through that woke Sara from her slumber, "The future you say, but for whom?" 
                   Alex paused for a second, "I don't know, but what I do know is that we have to help her."
                   Right after Alex had said that they heard scream from one of the CTC men. They all poked their heads out to see Sara remerging out from the side walls slashing the closest trooper before jumping back into the darkness of the room. Frantically they tried to track her movements.

                 “Hey, I got something. she….”

                  Sara was so quick the trooper couldn’t finish his alert. Out from the shadows she leaped forward and belted him in the stomach. As he tumbled forward, she grabbed the back of his shoulders and threw him against the wall where the Neos stood. He slid down right beside Glen,
                    "Are you kidding me? I think she is doing just fine."
                     Alex looked at the man who was thrown by Sara. Alex noticed a disk in the man's side pocket. On the side of the disk it said, "Data disk: subject    "Living metal."
                    Alex took the disk out of the dead man's pocket and thought, "If I can't help her now, at least they won't find the others and with this disk we can find the others like her..."

                  Before Alex could say anything to the others, the lights started to flicker. A pulse of electro-magnetic energy was coming from Sara’s body. She was using this to disrupt the energy flow around the troop’s equipment. The room sank into darkness. Alex placed the disk into his back pocket before the black out. The CTC troopers were firing frantically in the darkness. The blaze from the gun barrels lit the room like a strobe light. Still signs of Sara's aggression were apparent every time a gun was fired.

                 "We have to get out of here. I am not dying for this company."
The troop leader pointed his gun at the frightened trooper's head,
                   ”I do not have time for this. If anyone of ya'll even thinks about leaving. I will personally shoot you myself. Is that clear?"
                   The troopers were unaware of Sara’s position. She phased through the metal structure a few feet behind them. The frantic trooper did not care of his leader's threats and started to run. Without looking ahead, he tripped and bumped into Sara. The trooper’s skin turned pale as a ghost as he stared into the eyes of his own death. Sara quickly jumped into action. When he tried to run, she delivered a kneed to the back of his neck and an elbow to his forehead that severed his spinal column. The remaining men over heard the cracking of the bones and turned around to see Sara approaching them. The troop's leader was closer to Sara and pulled out his handgun to shoot. Sooner than he could squeeze off a round, Sara had sidestepped to the right, with a hook kick aimed at the base of his hand. The force of Sara's kick caused the gun to fire off a round into the head of the trooper who was beside him. Sara dropped down and spun around into a back foot sweep. The impact of the sweep broke both of his legs. As he fell, Sara used her momentum from the sweep to come back around with a spinning crescent kick to his chest. She kicked him so hard in the air his lifeless body was slung into the other horrified comrades. Again she backed herself into the shadows.
                      "She's picking us off one by one and we can't event touch her!"
The few remaining CTC troops made a circle pattern, so their backs would be facing each others. Every second they waited for her to advance on their position, their fears intensified.
                       "Man! I am making a break out of here. Who's with me?" said the trooper on the left side. He never had a chance to flee. Sara fell from above.

                   Mark quickly leaned over and said to the other Neos, "I think we should leave while she is occupied."
                    Everyone agreed, except for Alex. He was a little bit hesitant. Alex quickly changed his mind as he witnessed Sara breaking the neck of one of the CTC's troopers. Alex ran up front to the Neos, but they did not get outside of the room without Sara noticing their movement. She jumped back into the shadows and swiftly proceeded to take out remaining troopers. One by one the Neos could hear the screams of the last troopers getting slaughtered. The sounds that the Neo Ameras heard were incentive enough to quicken their steps. 
                      They made their way through the hallway and thought they had escaped. From out of nowhere, Sara phased through the metallic floor in front of them to block their exit. The Neos stopped in their tracks. Alex was in front at the time. He was the first one to come face to face with her.
                     "Uhhh, Hi.."
                      Sara’s hands dripped with crimson red as she quietly looked at them. Her vibrant red eyes pierced Alex's mind with awe. He noticed there were tears in her eyes.
                     "She is not in control of her actions," thought Alex.
                      Before he could react, Cindy rushed up front and shoved Alex out of the way. She came up aggressively. Somehow Cindy was able to get the upper hand on Sara and locked her in a full-nelson hold. Not for long. Sara's strength had over powered Cindy's threshold for pain. She couldn't last much longer. Cindy thought to herself that this was imposable. She had more strength than most cybernetics enhanced humans of her time. Cindy screeched in pain as Sara savagely ripped her arms out of the sockets. She then elbowed Cindy right to the side of her face. The impact shoved Cindy very hard to the ground, cracking part of the floor.
                    Mark and Glen hid at the side of a fallen pillar. Mark wanted to help. He was bleeding too badly to do anything. All he could do was watch in horror. Glen sat back on the pillar and closed his eyes. He wanted to save his friends as well but there was nothing he could do to stop her.

                     "I am sorry," said Glen as he placed his hands on his face. Sara turned her attention back to Alex and grabbed him by his jacket.
"Please lady, I don't mean any harm."

                 She replied back by hoisted him up in the air, her expression filled with rage. Alex's eyes stared straight into hers eyes and it was the complete opposite. Sara paused for a second and looked into his eyes. Alex had no weapons and he was no threat to her. But more or less it was his eyes that made her stop. The refection of the innocent hazel green eyes had brought her back to reality and at that moment she was able to calm down. Once she had regained control of her senses, her body began to shut down from exhaustion. She collapsed into Alex's' arms, and they both fell to the ground. She whispered into his ear just before she lost consciousness, "Please, help me.."
Alex was on the ground holding Sara as she slept. The rest of the Neo came over to them.

"What the hell just happened here? First she was in our face and now she’s sleeping like a baby." Glen said.
                      "I wasn't a threat," Alex calmly replied.
Cindy bent down beside Alex while Glen was held Mark up,
                      "What do you, mean?"
                     Alex looked at Sara and brushed her blond hair back, "Yes, that must be it. I didn't have a weapon on me. She attacked you Cindy, because you tried to attack her. So she was threatened and then grabbed me because, I was with you. But since I had no way to harm her, she came to her senses. So that means the reason she attacked those guys was because they could inflict pain on her."
                  "When one of those guys fired on us, we were behind the wall where she was at. Probably that same bullet that got you Mark, also struck her. She woke up. I guess if I was her, I would kick some ass too."
                 "What are we going to do Mark?"
                  Sincerely Alex looked at Mark, "Before she fainted, she asked me for help. If some one needs help, I'll do anything to help them."
Alex looked at Cindy when he said that. Cindy blushed a bit because she remembered that Alex helped her almost in the same of way, "I agree. Please Mark lets help her.",
               Mark just sighed and then coughed in pain, "Well you know, I have a weakness for blonds. Okay we'll help her."
                Mark thought of the carnage and hoped that he was not making a mistake. As they left with Sara, one of the CTC troopers who was barely alive staggered to his feet. Using the wall for support, he tried to make an escape. On his way he stumbled over a body and hit the wall hard with his shoulder, he breaking through a weak spot. As the dust settled the trooper looked around and said to himself, "Where (cough) am I?"
                   Behind him, he could feel the heat from the wall. He turned around and saw a reddish glow coming from the back container. He stepped closer to the glow and turned on his flashlight to get a better look. There was second cryogenic tube with a see through surface. This had another warrior like Sara. This one had been away from Sara’s tube and away from the fight. The man collapsed to his knees and braced in front of the tube, "She..she's alive.."
                Blood poured from his side from Sara's vicious attack. He could feel his life slipping away, "So..so beautiful and..." He twisted around to face the outside of the room and slid to the ground, "And so deadly.."
            With his last bit of energy, he radioed in for a pick-up before the Earth government forces could come back.