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  “I waited outside your home for over an hour. There was a beautiful woman walking among the timbers…”

  “Don’t you fucking dare?” It was more of a threat than a question.

  Jason grabbed Thomas’s face again, smearing his blood that sheened black, and said, “Listen to me, Hornsby, I’ll get back inside my Ersatz Suit, and peel your home apart, crushing all those inside.”

  “Please don’t! Felicia is innocent…”

  “Then tell me, where is Spline?” Losing his patience, Jason curled his fingers creating a fist, and struck the naked man in the chin, causing his jaw to loudly crack. Hornsby spit up a tooth.

  Jason turned around, reached into the Ersatz Suit and pulled out his utility belt.

  “You’re lucky, Hornsby, I’m only going to remove your identity chip, and not kill you,” said Jason while clipping the belt around his waist. He continued, “Though the amputation of your arm might kill you or it might not,” Jason said with a retaliatory vexation in his voice, remembering the amputation and suffering Lexis had endured.

  “There will be no amputations here!” Sam said while swinging the large flashlight.

  Jason tuned into the voice, and saw a splash of stars when the synthetic man caught Jason upside the temple. Stunned, he dropped to his hands and knees. Still conscious but groggy, he dug his fingers into the topsoil trying to gather his wits about him.

  “Are you OK, Mister Hornsby?” Sam dropped the flashlight before undoing the naked and unresponsive man’s restraint. He continued, “I will get you home immediately, and draw you a hot bath.” Sam’s programming was limited and could not respond any differently.

  A head ringing stupefaction pounded at Jason’s cerebral cortex as he staggered to his feet. He helplessly watched Hornsby, who was cradled in the arms of his house SYN, vanish through the dark vegetation. Jason slowly pulled himself up into the Ersatz Suit, and tried focusing in on Thomas Hornsby’s heat signature that blinked across the heads up display. It took him a couple of minutes for the world to stop spinning before he could function properly. “He maybe has a four minute lead time,” Jason thought while closing up the armored chest plates.

  “What happened?” screamed Felicia holding Thomas’s bloody face as Sam carried the unconscious man through kitchen and out into the dining room.

  “I am not sure.” Again, Sam’s programming was limited. His neural processor was still trying to come up with conclusions.

  “Thomas, what happened?” Still he did not respond. Perplexed by her husband’s lack of cognitive reply, Felicia’s mind raced with worst-case scenarios. “Set him down, Sam.”

  “Should I draw Mister Hornsby a bath? He might want to wash off the blood.”

  Ignoring Sam’s misplaced help, she yelled, “Thomas!” Felicia felt a pulse in his carotid artery, but he would not wake.

  “Sam, call the emergency team.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hornsby,” Sam calmly responded. Candlelight flames still illuminated the finely dressed dining room.

  “CRASH!” Felicia watched her reflection break apart in the window.

  Shards of glass imploded, impaling Sam’s synthetic skin. Felicia stood up in terror, and watched the large invader destroy her dining room. The tablecloth erupted into flames. Jason had easily stepped through the house’s exterior and into the lives of his enemy. Sam’s protective reflexes were quick; he picked up a heavy oak dining room chair, and foolishly swung it. Jason winced inside the protective exoskeleton as he watched the near decapitation of Hornsby’s wife.

  “Idiot, you killed her,” yelled Jason. He momentarily paused looking at her brain matter oozing on to the carpet.

  Jason then angrily rushed forward, stepped over Felicia’s dead body, and grabbed the Synthetic by the neck. Fear gripped Sam’s face as he struggled to get free.

  Jason’s grip tightened around his throat, and he watched the SYN’s face turn purple, “Where do you think you’re going?” Jason breathed inside the helmet.

  Synthetic teeth shattered when Jason reached around the base of Sam’s skull, and pressed the Suit’s mechanical thumb through the occipital bone, permanently deactivating him. Jason dropped the limp body, and looked around at the room’s destruction. “Looks like a damn tornado blew through here,” he thought. Licking up the walls and on to the ceiling, the flames began spreading throughout the timber and glass home.

  Jason quickly climbed out of the Ersatz and pulled the laser-cutting tool from his utility belt. He wrinkled his nose from the burning flesh smell; smoke entered his nostrils as he amputated Thomas Hornsby’s arm. Jason needed his identity chip to escape to Mars.

  Slightly obstructing his view, Halon rushed from the hidden nozzles in the structure; the Suit protected him from the noxious gas. The dining room’s broken window negated fire suppression system as the fire spread quickly.

  Faster than the Ersatz Suit, Jason decided to take the car at the end of the drive. Time was of the essence, and he needed to stay one step ahead of the OPSS. The fire and death of Hornsby’s wife was unintentional but fortuitous in his escape. The mass conflagration would only confuse the authorities and help delay things. “I need to get on the next transport to Mars.”

  In the rear-view mirror, the night sky glowed ever so brightly from the growing house fire. Jason drove off towards the lavish elevator; next stop Mars.

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