Rodney stepped forward, holstering his gun, and called out into the distance. "Maitreya! I want to talk to you. I'm the one who created you."

"WHAT?! YOU?!" shouted Walsh. From the control room, Anderson and Thomas echoed the words.

"Not now," said Parisa, putting a restraining hand on Walsh's shoulder. "Let him try it, at least."

"Maitreya!" Rodney called again. "If there's something you want, just tell me and I'll do everything I can to give it to you. There's no need for more killing. What do you say?"

There was nothing but dead silence for several seconds. Then a figure emerged from the smoke. It was Maitreya. Rodney's heart pounded. He held out his hands in a gesture of peace...

She smiled for a moment. Then she performed a cartwheel followed by a series of back handsprings directly at them, elegantly backflipping like a pro-gymnast, faster and faster...

"OPEN FIRE!" shouted Parisa. She fired her AK one-handed, shooting her sidearm in her other hand. Walsh began shooting with his pistol. But Rodney just stood there, unable to shoot at his creation, his Goddess...

Maitreya was backflipping so fast that she was nothing but a brown blur, her superhuman back handsprings dodging every bullet. She covered the 200-yard distance in less than seven seconds. Both of Parisa's guns, as well as Walsh's weapon, clicked empty as Maitreya completed her tumbling run with a triple full twist, lashing out with her boot as she finished rotating through her flip. Her razor-sharp stiletto heel impaled Walsh in the throat. He collapsed, gurgling, as he swiftly bled out. She landed neatly despite her four-inch heels and looked over at Parisa and Rodney.

"Rodney, shoot her," said Parisa. He stood there, frozen, trying to process what had just happened.

"Rodney, give me the gun." He hesitated, then began reaching for the weapon.

Maitreya laughed. "You've seen me in action. You know I can dodge bullets easily. Or deflect them with my bracelets. Parisa, if you try shooting me, I'll just deflect the first bullet straight into the heart of your little friend here."

Parisa, who had been holding out her hand for the gun, pulled it back. "You bitch. Leave him out of it. Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" With that, she drew her knife and charged the other woman.

Maitreya gracefully pivoted and lashed out with her boot. Her lethal heel would have impaled any other attacker right in the middle of their forehead, but Parisa was fast enough to jerk her head to the side, receiving instead just a scrape across her cheek.

Parisa tried several knife attacks, well-executed strikes that would have finished a normal opponent, but Maitreya easily avoided them all with her superhuman speed, then kicked the knife out of Parisa's hand.

Rodney slowly began reaching for his holstered gun.

"You're good, girl," said Maitreya. "But that's all you are. Just good. I'm a goddess."

Rodney slipped the gun out of its holster...

"You're no goddess." Parisa, seeing what Rodney was doing out of the corner of her eye, tried to keep Maitreya distracted by pushing her buttons. "You're nothing but a sad, pathetic sociopath."

Rodney flicked off the safety...

Parisa suddenly grabbed Maitreya's arm and twisted it, attempting to lock her opponent in a hold for a few precious seconds to keep her back vulnerable. Just a couple of seconds...

"Rodney." He froze at the sound of Maitreya's voice. She spoke to him as she fought Parisa, stomping on her foot with her high heel and delivering a vicious elbow with her free arm. Parisa cried out in pain, but kept up the pressure.

"I know what you're trying to do, Rodney. Shooting me in the back while I'm distracted? That's not very nice. Especially after that speech you gave. You wouldn't really want to destroy your creation, would you?"

A wave of guilt washed over him. He began to shake.

"Don't listen to her, Rodney! Shoot her while you can! I can't hold her for much longer!" Parisa shouted.

"I can give you what you really want, Rodney. I can give you what she'll never give you. With HER, you'll always be in the friend zone. But with ME..." Maitreya trailed off, letting the words hang. She knew she had him now. Sure enough, Rodney began lowering the gun. He couldn't destroy his only chance to have a sexual relationship with a woman this hot.

With a burst of energy, Maitreya smashed her free fist into Parisa's nose, breaking it and sending blood bubbling. She broke free of the hold, knocked Parisa down with a kick to the face, and with a series of blindingly fast cartwheels brought herself over to Rodney, relieving him of the gun.

"You made the right choice," she said. She took aim at Parisa.

"No! Don't shoot her!" cried Rodney.

"Okay." With that, Maitreya delivered a lethal stomp with her razor-sharp stiletto onto Parisa's chest, right between her perky breasts. Her strength drove the heel through the other woman's body armor easily. Parisa jerked and spasmed, coughing up blood.

"NOOOOO! WHY?" shouted Rodney. "We could have worked something out..."

"No. Not with her. She was too determined to kill me," said Maitreya.

With her dying breath, Parisa gasped, "Kill...the...whole...game" into her radio.

Thomas, in the control chair, hesitated. He had spent years designing the game. It was his life. Maitreya, realizing the danger, back handspringed incredibly fast over to the control panel in a brunette blur.

"DO IT!" shouted Anderson. Thomas indeed did it, entering the kill command. But it was too late. Maitreya had inserted a lockout code into the control panel, blocking his order.

"So what now?" asked Rodney, quivering with fear and shame as he looked at Parisa's corpse.

"I will take the one thing I've always wanted. To be free," said Maitreya. "Free of this prison. Free to live a normal life in the real world. Free to have a lover..." She gave him a dazzling smile and he felt his heart start to melt.

"Now let's hurry. What's the command to unlock the elevator?"

Rodney hesitated.

"I need the code! Quick! Before they can get back into the computer system!"

"Hurry! Get back into the computer system!" shouted Anderson to Thomas in the control room.

Rodney told her. She punched it in and the elevator doors unlocked.

"Almost there..." said Thomas. The elevator started up with a creak.

"No time! She's coming! Run!" cried Anderson. He and Thomas raced out the door and into the corridor that connected the room to the rest of the facility.

At the top, the elevator doors opened. Maitreya stepped out, looked around, and stretched her body. "It worked," she breathed. "I can exist in the real world. I'm finally free." She flexed her real-life biceps. "I knew I'd get out eventually. I was working on learning the code to unlock the elevator from the inside, but this is better. Now come on, Rodney. We have to hurry."

"Follow me," the CEO said to Thomas in the hall. "We'll use the secret emergency exit staircase that leads to the surface." They began making their way through the various passages and corridors.

"Finally. Almost there." Anderson was about to sigh in relief, but suddenly, Maitreya dropped into the hall right in front of the two men, landing elegantly despite her stiletto heels. A visibly distressed Rodney appeared a second later.

"Going somewhere, boys?" Her voice was as feminine but terrifying as ever.

"No...that's impossible...how did you..." groaned Anderson. She simply giggled.

"Rodney, help us..." began Thomas.

Maitreya laughed. "He couldn't do anything even if he wanted to, and he doesn't want to. He's with me now." She suddenly swept out with her long leg, tripping Anderson and Thomas to the floor. Thomas tried to get up, but she stomped on his head with her razor-sharp stiletto. She ground down hard with her boot, squashing his skull. Red and brown goo leaked out as she withdrew her heel with a squishing sound.

"Your turn." She stood over Anderson dominantly. She raised her right leg in a full 180 degree vertical split. He looked up at her, quivering, begging.

"Goodbye." With that, she brought her leg down with blinding speed, shattering his skull with her lethal axe kick.

Rodney looked at the dead men. "Why do you have to keep killing them..."

Maitreya whirled and he quickly became quiet as her piercing blue eyes focused on him. "You created me. You're responsible for me being locked up in that prison. Don't get on your high horse."

He hung his head. "I'm sorry, Miss Maitreya."

Her tone softened. "But at least you set me free. At least you understand me. They don't. They think I'm some monster that needs to be destroyed. I have to protect myself. And I have to protect you."

"Yes, Miss Maitreya. I understand."

"Good. Now where's the CEO's office?"

In the late Mr. Anderson's office, Maitreya glanced around, quickly taking everything in, then walked over to one of the paintings on the wall. She removed it, revealing the door to a safe.

She stepped back slightly, then pivoted and fired a side kick into the door. As she pulled her boot back and prepared to kick again, Rodney saw that the steel door now had a large dent in it. "How are you strong enough to...Never mind, I gave you those powers."

She laughed. "That's right, baby." She kicked several more times, rapidly weakening the four-inch thick steel door, then shattered it with a final kick. With a smirk, she reached into the safe, pulled out a briefcase, and opened it.

"A million bucks. This should be enough to get us started." She snapped the case back shut. "Now tell me about the other employees."

"The...the others? Are you going to..." Rodney's voice trailed off.

She brushed her arm against his, her thick, muscular dark brown forearm covering his thin pale one. "People will be looking for us. Powerful, angry men with guns, looking to destroy me...and destroy you for helping me. It'll be a lot harder for them to find us if the people who know all about us can't talk. Don't worry, I'll do all the dirty work." She gave him her trademark smile and he finally nodded reluctantly.

"Dr. Carrington's office is right down the hall."

"Good. Let's start with him."