Six became a bright spot of noise as she jerked back, wailing, arm and hand incinerating. She wheeled in reverse, colliding with the desk that held Two’s PDA. It dislodged from its position and fell forward, leaving Two in the dark about what came next.

Lee wailed as well as the bit of SmartBlood that had landed on her wrist burned like hell against her skin. Then she gritted her teeth and as hard as she could started yanking against her right wrist restraint, currently being weakened by the SmartBlood burning into its fibers.

One yank, two yanks, three yanks … four. There was a ripping sound, and Lee’s right arm was free. Without bothering to put out her wrist or uncover her eyes, she reached over to the table and grabbed the shears and as quickly as possible started cutting her other restraints: left wrist, neck, waist and ankles.

It was when she got to her ankles that Six exclaimed through her pain; Lee guessed that Six had finally figured out what Lee was up to and scrambled toward the table with the shotgun on it. Lee cut through the final restraint and leaped for the table, too late; Six had the shotgun.

Lee yelled, grabbed the scalpel Six had dropped and pushed up, getting inside the radius of the shotgun and driving the scalpel up Six’s abdomen. Six made a surprised gasping sound at the sharp, slicing pain, dropped the shotgun and slid to the ground.

Lee finally removed her blindfold, turned off the audio map and blinked down at Six, who was looking at her with something akin to wonder. She was, Lee noted, a bloody mess.

“How did you do that?” Six whispered between panting breaths of agony.

“I have good ears,” Lee said.

Six had nothing to say to that or anything else.

Lee grabbed the shotgun, checked the load and then moved quickly to position herself by the door. Less than twenty seconds later, the door burst open and a man came through, sidearm at the ready. Lee dropped him with a shot in the abdomen and then pivoted to get a second man in the doorway square in the chest. She dropped the spent shotgun, picked up the sidearm, checked the clip and went through the door.

There was a hallway with another doorway five meters down. Lee grabbed the second dead man, dragged him down the hallway with her, kicked open the door and hurled the corpse through. She waited until the second shotgun report and then shot the man still holding the shotgun. He went down. Lee resighted and aimed at the PDA sitting on a table, blowing it to pieces. She went into the room and looked at the chair to find Hughes, naked, restrained and understandably anxious.

“Private Hughes,” she said. “How are you?”

“Ready to get the fuck out of this chair, Lieutenant,” Hughes said.