Cole looked away, then he realized what they were working on: another wiring harness.

“Hey—” Cole said, standing up.

The duo reacted as if shots had been fired. They took off, running toward the double doors leading out of the workshop. Cole crawled out of the cage and gave chase. One of the workers shoved open the doors as the other man turned, his arm a blur. Something glinted in the fluorescent lights, twinkling as it spun through the air. Cole felt the impact on his chin before any of it fully registered. A loud crack reverberated through his skull. He fell to the ground, dazed, as an adjustable power wrench clanged to the floor beside him.

Cole tasted blood in his mouth, could feel the laceration along the inside of his lip like a swollen ridge of tenderness. He shook his head clear, grabbed the wrench, and scampered to his feet. Stumbling forward a few steps—his legs still resistant to keeping the rest of him upright—he shouldered open the workshop doors, one of which slammed into someone on the other side.

“What in the hell?”

Doctor Ryke came into view as the door snapped shut. His annoyed expression moved from the men running down the hallway to settle on Cole.

“You boys need to—”

“Stop them!” Cole yelled to the handful of aliens milling through the hallway. He brushed past Ryke and gave chase as the two Humans disappeared around a corner. Cole ran as fast as his wobbly legs could take him. He skidded around the corner, caroming off a spinning Mortimor, who looked even more annoyed than Ryke.

“Watch where you’re—”

“Sabotage!” Cole yelled, pointing. He tried to think of the word for the people committing the act, but his head was even less clear than his legs were sturdy. He pushed away from Mortimor and continued to run awkwardly, his arms windmilling, his grasp furious on the power wrench. Two aliens came out of a doorway, and Cole nearly plowed them over; he brushed against the hallway wall and took the next corner too fast, bouncing off an open door. He pounded his feet as fast as he could as the men ahead slowed to round another corner.

“Stop them!” he yelled once more, but the motley group ahead just turned from one curiosity to the other, everyone frozen by the spectacle of the footrace. Cole weaved through them, pushing aliens twice his size out of his way as he turned the next corner.

There was no sign of the men in the next hallway, but a smattering of gawkers turned from a closing door to look at him. Cole traced their bemused glares back to the door. He ran to it, pushed through, and found himself in a stairwell, could hear the rapid slap of descending feet below. He hurried down after, swallowing more blood as he slipped and slid down the steps.