Fear fueled our pace. The geth knew where we were now. Exactly where we were. Exhaustion didn't even register mentally, though dimly I thought I could feel my legs shaking. It could have been from fear, though. That's what I kept telling myself, anyway. It was fear, use the fear, run faster, don't stop, don't stop...

"Red. Get up, Red!"

So closed and narrow my mind had been to running, I didn't even realize that I had tripped and fallen. Instinctively I had thrown my arms up, slapping my forearms against the rough uneven rock floor to break my fall.

It took several seconds for my brain to catch up to my body. My head and chest ached. Medi-gel was a miracle drug, but it wasn't a cure-all, and it would take time for my wounds to actually mend.

"Red?"

I rolled over. The backpack prevented me from lying on my back, so I sat up against it. The shocking coldness against my bare skin indicated that I was really, really sweaty. "I'm okay," I managed to whisper. "I'm fine."

Lara stared down at me, biting her lip. I stared back up at her. Neither of us said anything for a while, and then she took a deep breath. "Red—Pyrrha—you have to get up."

"I know. And don't call me that."

More staring. I couldn't seem to focus—well, my eyes focused fine; it was my brain that had all the trouble—and after another moment Lara drew her foot back and very deliberately kicked me in the side.

Pain exploded into my senses and the world grew fuzzy. I remained still and silent, my breath frozen in my chest. Again I felt my face pressed to rock; the force of the kick had knocked me back over onto my side.

While Lara had a cybernetically-enhanced foot, she had also kicked the spot that I'm sure my ribs had been crushed by the white geth stalker-thing. Pieced together by the Medi-gel, they were hideously weakened and gave without complaint at the force of my friend's limb.

Lara was babbling something, and I felt her hands on me. Everywhere she touched flared up with fiery pain. "Omigod, Red, I'm so sorry, I didn't think it would actually—I didn't mean to kick you that hard, I'm so sorry, are you okay? Red, talk to me!"

Cool stone pressed against my cheek—I had rolled onto my side and curled up around my throbbing ribs, trying to banish the fuzzy yellow spots that threatened to hijack my vision from both pain and lack of air. Then, a sudden relief as Lara dispensed more of the stuff. "There," I heard her say. "There, that should be better. Red, can you say anything? C'mon, girl..."

I rolled back over and glared at her. "What the fuck, Lara," I snarled.

"I'm so sorry! I just wanted to get you up—"

"You have metal supports on your legs, you idiot! Are you trying to kill me?"

"No! I'm sorry!"

I managed to sit up. "Fuck."

"I'm sorry."

I felt myself calming slowly. "I know."

She sat back on her heels awkwardly. Now that she was resting, she was brought back to the present and her shoulders and legs began to shake so violently she had to lean back and sit on her butt. She was panting, her face and body dangerously white. Her cybernetics could only do so much, and they were only programmed to deal with her legs. Of course, all the blood in her body had to go through her legs, too. By no fault of hers, Lara was in seriously bad shape.

"We need some sort of weapon," she said after a moment. "Just in case they chase us."

"You mean when," I replied, and accepted her weary hand to help me to the wall. I tried to lean against it, but pain prevented me from putting any pressure on my torso. Lara dithered, then sank down next to me. I gently put my forehead against the cool stone, and we let it soothe our nerves for a bit.

I looked down at my trembling hands. They were stiff and covered with flecks of dried blood, caked with dirt, and dotted with bruises. Half of my left ring fingernail was missing, and as I flexed the finger a stab of pain shot up my hand. Funny, I hadn't noticed that before. I'm sure there were a lot of things I didn't notice, but I didn't want to focus too much on them. The last thing I needed was to be crippled with pain (though Lara had already done that rather efficiently). I closed my eyes, just letting the stone cool me off.

I wished I could take off the damned backpack and let my shoulders and chest rest for a while. But I needed what was in the backpack, and if I took it off I wouldn't be able to put it back on in a hurry because of the ache in the muscles associated in those parts. Not to mention my twice-broken ribs.

"We still need weapons," Lara was saying.

I opened my eyes reluctantly and snorted. "Yeah, okay. Like that's going to do anything? Neither of us could manage to hit them enough to actually hurt them."

"We could take them by surprise." She refused to be daunted.

I glared at her. "They're robots," I said. "They can't be taken by surprise. They'd hear us coming a mile away."

She hunched her shoulders. "Well, I'm not running around an empty, potentially unstable mine shaft with geth hunting us empty-handed," she snapped back. "It's better than hoping they don't find us!"

"It doesn't matter. We're dead anyway," I replied. I didn't mention the fact that the end of the mine shaft was a potential death trap. We both knew that.

Lara turned to glare back at me, and I realized that she was getting pissed. My friend very, very rarely got angry like I did, and she was annoying when angry, especially since she couldn't move like a normal person. Also, unlike me she would completely fail to channel her anger into something useful, so I sighed and tried to think of something that would dissuade her. No dice, my mind just wasn't working. "Lara, just shut up for a minute and let's rest. We can argue later."

"We need weapons!"

"We'll find weapons, maybe. But right now, just... shut up, and let me rest, okay?" It was hard enough to do that while my feet were throbbing and I couldn't sit down or lean against anything, and it was doubly so while she was nattering on like that.

Lara's scowl deepened and she looked away, rubbing one arm absently with the opposite hand. Her anger filtered out of her just as abruptly as it had appeared. "What about that... whoever it was. The person who... destroyed that geth."

I didn't want to think about that, so I stood up straight again and forced my mind on a track I could more easily think about. Weapons. Right. "Let's keep going. We'll have to come across a... a mining station, or something, later."

Lara slowly stood. I had to grab onto her arm to keep her from falling over as she did so—she wasn't the most coordinated person, and the backpack made it extra hard for her to balance when she tried to stand from a sitting position. "Yeah. Think they'll have a mech or something down here? Something we could... reprogram, or whatever?" Once more she was uncertain and worried, her teeth chewing at her bottom lip.

I rolled my eyes, but I was glad that our roles were back the way they were supposed to be. "Think about it, genius. Can you program?"

"Uh... no."

"Neither can I."

"It can't be too hard..."

"Okay, well, you try if we see one. You don't even have the right programs in your omni-tool!"

She looked quickly down at her arm and sighed, but didn't answer.

"C'mon."

We continued down the long, dark shape of the tunnel, the light from Lara's hastily-drawn glow-stick slowly dimming as we proceeded. It would be out soon, and we only had one left after that—mine. After that, our omni-tools would serve as flashlights. Our tools weren't exactly the best on the market, though, and I knew mine only had maybe twelve hours left of battery. I had to use it sparingly, though I had no idea how much energy Lara had in hers.

"You never answered my question," Lara said suddenly; I glanced at her from the corner of my eye.

"What?"

"The sniper. Who could it have been?"

I considered, glad for a chance to keep my mind from our gloomy surroundings. Rock and mineral gleamed quietly in the shine of the glow-stick, a bubble of gentle light moving slowly down the tunnel. "I... I honestly don't know."

There was a silence. "Couldn't have been a colonist," Lara mused after a bit. "None of the people there were soldiers or infiltrators, or otherwise knew how to use a sniper rifle."

"How do you know that? Maybe someone was a soldier before they moved here. Maybe they were on a walk, like we were, before the geth came."

"With... a sniper rifle?"

I hesitated, struggling to find a logical response for that. "Maybe... maybe they liked to watch people in the colony through the scope?"

"That would be creepy, Red."

Suddenly, the bubble of light expanded into darkness and illuminated a small side-passage. We hesitated. We had never been down here before, obviously; we had always been worried about the stability of the mine and had never ventured past the entrance and immediate vicinity of the extending tunnels.

"Which way?" Lara whispered.

"I... I don't..." The larger path was likely the main path. "Let's check out the side passage. I want to see what's down there."

Lara jerked her gaze over to me. "What the hell? We don't have time for exploring!"

I shook my head gently, so I wouldn't get a headache. Or a worse one. "You wanna find weapons, don't you?"

She was quiet, but she did follow me down the side passage. Not thirty feet down the tunnel it had caved in, and we were forced to return to the main tunnel.

"Smart fucking idea," Lara muttered.

"Shut up. Keep your eyes open for another one."

The next one was caved in as well, a little farther in. Useless. Fuck!

"Red," Lara hissed. "It's lighter down there. Where we came from. I can hear that sound too... there's something..."

"Run," I whispered back. Slowly, we forced our aching, injured bodies to accelerate, striving to keep our feet from hitting the ground too hard. I glanced behind us. Yes, the tunnel had definitely gotten lighter, and I could hear those light skittering sounds—no, I had to be imagining it, I couldn't hear anything over the pounding of my blood in my ears.

"Down here!" Lara panted. We darted into yet another side-passage. If anything, it would buy us some more time... maybe.

It was a short passage, and it opened up suddenly into a small cavern. Lining the walls were...

Lara stared in confusion at the hand-held tools. "Why the hell would they use these? Why wouldn't they use mechs, or laser cutters, or something?"

"Maybe it's a spare store room, for emergencies." I shrugged. "It's all we have though... a laser would be awesome, but—"

A sudden sound made us both freeze. It was a slight shifting noise, a gentle scrape across rock, and my friend grabbed my arm in horror as the end of the small path brightened slowly at the approach of a flashlight-headed artificial intelligence.

I didn't think. I grabbed an ancient pick-ax and threw it as hard as I possibly could as the white stalker geth that skittered around the corner, hitting it dead-on and knocking it from the wall it had been clinging to. Agony exploded from my shoulder and I doubled over in pain. The backpack nearly knocked me over.

"Grab something! Anything! Quick!" I screamed at Lara; white-faced, she lunged for the metal tools as the thing rose from its prone position and stood, white liquid streaming from where the pick-ax was embedded in its chest. Lara grabbed what looked like a gigantic hammer and instead of throwing it she lunged, holding the hammer aloft and swinging like a madman.

I don't know why the geth didn't move more quickly. Maybe it was disoriented after being stabbed in the chest—maybe I had hit something important. But either way, as Lara ran yelling at it (heh, she did have quite a mouth on her. I'd probably laugh if I weren't worried about both of our continued existences) it took a step to the side—not far enough, and not fast enough. Lara gave a mighty swing and absolutely obliterated the geth's single eye in one foul swoop.

It staggered back, righting myself as my adrenaline dulled the pain in my arm and chest. I gathered my own courage and ran forward, following her as she swung again. Grabbing the pick-ax embedded in its chest, I braced myself and pulled back, ripping synthetic muscle and spraying white fluid everywhere. It convulsed and missed my face with a metal hand—just barely. Unwittingly, Lara had saved my life (again) by smashing it in the head once more.

The geth made odd stuttering noises, dropping to all fours and scuttling away.

"Oh fuck no!" Lara followed it. "I don't fucking think so, you metal son of a BITCH!"

I stepped back and watched, stunned, as she proceeded to beat the ever-living (or non-living) shit out of it.

Whoa.

"Does your head hurt? I can fix that!"

"Uh, Lara?"

"What?"

"It's dead."

"It's still moving."

"That's called 'death-throes.'"

Lara glared at me. "It's a robot, Red. They don't have 'death-throes'."

I considered the twitching AI. "Well, they have to have sort-of nervous systems. I wouldn't be surprised if during the dying—forced deactivation—process, random electrical surges caused the same erratic movements than that of an organic going through the same process."

My best friend stared at me, a distinctly crazed look in her eyes. I managed a smile.

"Did you just." She glared. "Pull a scientific explanation out of your ass about the dying process of the geth."

I scratched my head, flaking some dried blood loose. "Yeah."

Lara's glare intensified, and she suddenly sighed and dropped the hammer, her arms hanging loosely by her sides. "Okay," she said, and plopped down too, finally overcome with exhaustion.

"Get up. We can't just sit here." I walked over and grabbed the hammer, holding out a hand for Lara to take. She took it and slowly, laboriously, stood. Sweat glowed on her exposed skin and she trembled with fatigue. I turned and hefted the pick-ax, then handed it to her. She looked at me, and I looked at her and cracked a smile. With a groan she closed her eyes and wiped sweat from her face.

"Okay. Okay."

"We've got to hurry."

"I know. Wait—your shoulder—"

"Medi-gel later. Come on."

She put a foot in front of the other, then the other, and the other. I matched her, step for step, as we accelerated into a jog, once again disappearing into the darkness of the mine. Vaguely, I hoped we would live to see blessed daylight as the very last vestiges faded from view.