A moment stretched onto an hour. In the void, Sam’s hands were whole. In reality he looked at his right hand and saw his right pinky finger missing.

  His eyes flicked back to the corpse, lingering on the gore.

  “I’m a normal person. I just like video games. I never wanted to actually kill someone.” He spoke into the void, where Loki could have heard him if he were around.

  The fight he had with Ian wasn’t anything like this. Even hitting the puppets with the car wasn’t like this. This man wasn’t a tool of an evil machine. He was just greedy.

  “I didn’t even think it would work. I just thought I might get free…” He let his voice drift off to nothing.

  That was when he felt a slap on his very real face. He snapped out of his accelerated time.

  “What?” he said.

  “Get it together! I know you haven’t killed someone before, but we don’t have time for you to freak out right now! Come on, we have to move!”

  Sam checked the clock. He’d spent nearly an hour blanking out in the void. He only had three days of accelerated time saved up. He couldn’t afford to waste it. She’d have had to notice him blanking out and moved to slap him very fast, and he was grateful.

  “Right, right. I’m fine. Freakout later. Let’s go.”

  “Can you hold a pistol right now? How’s your hand?” She asked.

  “I’m left handed. I got lucky.”

  “Good. Grab that guy’s armor, I’ll get the door open.”

  He looked up, noticing that the mechanical arm was sparking from a bullet hole. When had she even done that?

  He did his best to strip off the vest, trying his best to ignore the blood. There was no way he’d have time to get the whole thing off, but the vest would stop a bullet.

  He turned around and noticed Fiona’s finger had split open, a needle piercing the wall.

  “Get the gun, are you ready?”

  “What about you?” He said as he put on his blood drenched stolen vest, “You’ll need protection too.”

  “No,” she said. “I really don’t. Alright, get ready! Things are about to get crazy.”

  She reached down to the corpse of her own fallen guard and pulled out a flashbang grenade. A moment later and the door opened. Sam slowed time, noticing that as she retracted the spike there were wires poking out of the end. It was oddly disconcerting somehow.

  Her arm snapped out and lobbed the grenade through as soon as the door opened. He spotted several people on the other side and hesitated. It was a few seconds in simulated time - enough to have gotten him killed if he wasn’t thinking so fast. In the void, however, he was able to recover and start shooting.

  With little time to practice, he decided to just slow his perception and fired. From his perspective he had hours to aim, and it was nearly impossible to miss.

  He saw the men standing on the other side of the door. They weren’t wearing stealth suits, but cheap 21st century style body armor. Bulletproof vests and helmets adorned men who looked like they should be trading stocks, not playing kidnapper.

  Bang! The gun fired, and the air filled with the smell of burning gunpowder. Sam could perceive the bullet slowly moving towards a man who had his own gun up and ready to fire, but he was too slow. His head blossomed like a crimson flower and Sam did his best not to look, trying to find other targets.

  “It’s only a game.” He thought to himself. “It’s just like a game. I’ve done this before in realism, right? It’s just like that.”

  He saw another man fumbling with his gun and fired again. Bang! Another man’s head exploded, the bullet going through the nose. At this speed Sam was too aware of a throbbing dull ache in his wrist as the 10mm round tore through another living being.

  “It’s just a game, it’s just a game, it’s just a game.” He tried his best to convince himself, but his thoughts became increasingly frantic.

  Fiona fired a shot, taking another man in the neck. Slowly, oh so slowly, he could see her shouting. “Duuuuuuuuuck!”

  Before she finished the word he was already dropping. Several bullets punched through the door where his head had just been, and he heard a thunderous roar as light flashed on the other side of the door.

  Somehow the girl was faster than him as she threw the door open and fired into the smoke.

  He looked for any standing silhouettes and started shooting too. The almost regular people on the other side dropped quickly.

  Soon they were alone, every other being in the corridor dead.

  Sam stumbled back, letting the framejacking go. He stumbled into the same table he’d lost his finger, and stared blankly at it.

  “Hey, are you alright?” Fiona said to him.

  “I need… I need to take it. Maybe I can get it reattached.”

  “Sure. You do that. Hurry up, they’re gonna bring the heavy augs in soon.”

  He turned and grabbed his finger off the table. He blankly tried to hold it to the stump for a moment, wondering if there was a setting for reattaching it, but found nothing.

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  Then he turned and collapsed to the floor, a wave of nausea overtaking him, and promptly threw up.

  “Shit, I was afraid of this. Don’t worry. I was the same way at first.” She said. “I’ve got this. Join me as soon as you’re ready.”

  “I don’t… I don’t get it. I’m not supposed to be nauseous anymore.” He said between dry heaves.

  Fiona didn’t respond, and he saw her pick up a rifle from one of the fallen men, replacing her pistol. The smoke had started to clear and the corridor looked far more horrible than he thought it would.

  A pair of steel doors at the end of the hall flung open and a hulking monster standing eight feet tall barged in. His arms had the segmented look of a pistol shrimp mod, and his torso was heavily armored.

  Sam tried to rise, but couldn’t make himself slow time. His perfect memory was now a detriment, because he could remember every horrible moment flawlessly. He couldn’t make himself look at this for another few subjective hours.

  Fiona didn’t show any hesitation, firing the rifle directly at the man’s eye. His head jerked back for a moment, but it was clear whatever enhanced skull he had kept him alive. He picked up the door and threw it at Fiona, who dodged with superhuman grace. For a moment Sam forgot he was in reality, and wondered if he was watching one of DeGausse’s films. Her agility was far superior to anything he’d seen on the screen, with her jumping, twisting in the air, and firing another perfect shot at the man’s other eye in one fluid motion.

  Sam couldn’t see the result as the shattered doorway slammed in front of him, and he had to roll to avoid it hitting him. By the time he looked up again he saw the large man swinging wildly, bleeding from both empty eyesockets.

  The man screamed a primal, inarticulate cry of rage and punched wildly, walls all but exploding where his fists impacted them. Fiona landed gracefully and took careful aim before firing again, this one into his open, screaming mouth. The back of the man’s neck erupted in a shower of gore and he crumbled to the ground.

  “Tough skin, titanium reinforced skeletal structure,” Fiona said. “Internal injury kills the fastest. The neck is the weakest part of a reinforced skeleton. I know you’re fast, so you’ll have to get ready to do that yourself next.”

  “I’m just a boxer! I’ve never killed people before!”

  She turned around and looked at him, putting her face close to his. Her eyes were focused and determined.

  “He has killed people or forced them into slavery. I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m not saying it’s okay. I don’t like doing this either but we have to or we’re going to die. I can’t do this alone. Now are you going to help me, or not?”

  He hesitated for only a moment, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in slowed time to steady his mind. “I’ll help.”

  “Good. They’re going to start sending people with aimbot accuracy mods next, so I’ll need you to outshoot them. Can you do that for me?”

  “I’ll try.” He said, grimly. “I was awake when they brought me in. I know the way out. Follow me.”

  “Alright, lead on.” She replied, patting him on the shoulder.

  He went down the hallway and past the busted doors, vaguely aware of the fire alarm sounding through the building. He looked into his hearing settings and did his best to filter it out, but was only partly successful.

  Past the doors was an elevator and a stairway. The elevator would leave them utterly trapped, so he pushed open the entrance to the stairs.

  “Shoot!” He screamed in surprise as he opened the door only to find a man on the other side with slightly glowing eyes and crosshair overlaid pupils, rifle partly raised. He slowed time again, snapping his arms up as swiftly as they could go and firing a round off at the man’s face as his would-be attacker’s rifle fired. It struck his vest and he felt an overwhelming pain that seemed to stretch on for forever as the power of a hammerblow hit his broken ribs from the fight against the Warform, likely damaging them further. His response was to immediately do his best to dampen the pain, but he could still feel his side throb through the forced numbness.

  Doing his best to ignore it, he pushed into the stairway and saw another man one flight down, his rifle halfway raised.

  Sam took another shot and the man fell back just like the first, this time before his rifle could fire.

  Another hulking man armored and augmented like the one Fiona had killed was right behind him, and Sam tried the same shot only for his bullet to ricochet off the man’s enhanced teeth. Before he could take another shot, the man opened his mouth like he was going to blow air at him, and Sam spotted fire shooting out at him. He dodged back out through the doorway as it erupted into searing flame hot enough to partially melt the stairway door. Fiona threw a flashbang in as soon as he fell back, skittering below the arc of searing heat along the floor.

  Sam closed his eyes and mouth as he heard a bang, and the two of them made it through the doorway together, taking a shot at the hulking man with the dragon’s fire augment.

  Sam’s bullet took him in one eye, Fiona in the other, and the man screamed and fell backwards, accidentally setting his own arms on fire as he fell. Two more bullets flew and silenced him, taking him in the neck.

  He realized she was more accurate than him even though he had subjective hours to line up his shots. He’d been trying to reduce the time, but he couldn’t afford to miss his kidnappers. He’d already used up a day of his fast time.

  “There are more than I thought!” Fiona shouted. “Ten more are coming up the stairwell!”

  “Don’t they have any actual grenades?”

  “No! They’re still just using civilian gear! Hold on, I’ve got an idea!”

  She reached down and grabbed the corpse hulking man on the floor that had tried to kill them and held him in front of her like a shield. Her augmented muscles were built for stealth and not brute force, so she visibly strained and struggled to lift him, but ultimately succeeded.

  “Shoot around him!” She yelled.

  “Gotcha!”

  Fiona rushed the stairway again, a torrent of bullets ripping into the body of the nearly bulletproof man. Sam kept low, letting Fiona draw fire as he let off shot after shot. With three shots came three corpses, and then he noticed a horrid grinding click.

  No game had ever prepared him for his gun to jam in the middle of a firefight, and though he knew how to use one from the RealSims he’d done over the years, he’d never fired a real gun before this day.

  He retreated to the void, but trying the things he’d learned in games simply wasn’t working on whatever had jammed this actual pistol. The first simulated try had it come loose, but replicating that motion in reality didn’t work at all. He looked as quickly as he could, but again couldn’t figure out why the gun didn’t fire. Ultimately he gave up and threw the pistol away before grabbing the rifle the marksman had used on the other side of the door, Fiona firing her own pistol as she held the corpse of the heavy aug in front of her.

  He raised and aimed it, hitting someone even as a pullet passed millimeters from his own head, a scorching heat and searing pain rippled through him as the bullet passed by. He did his best to ignore it, aiming again. By now Fiona had shot several more soldiers, and Sam let off two more shots. She hurled the body of the larger man down the stairwell, firing as well.

  Soon the stairway was clear.

  “Run!” she shouted. “We can’t handle more groups like that!”

  They ran down the stairs, practically jumping down each flight, with Sam doing his best to keep up with the nimble woman.

  “This floor!” he shouted. “Right door! There’s a loading area!”

  “Gotcha!” she shouted, kicking open the door.

  As the two rushed through, they were greeted by a wall of red and blue lights.

  “Lost Star PD! Drop your weapons!”

  Sam stared at the sea of police, covered in blood and holding a stolen rifle. More than that though, he recognized the voice of the officer shouting at him.

  It was the same one that had been speaking through the window at his interrogation.