<P>There were two guards patrolling the hall. One of them was a man in simple armor. The other seemed more metal than flesh. His body was coated with thickish chunks of metal, robotics lining his legs and torso, electronic masses of nothing, grinding and weighing no more than a feather to the man buried somewhere beneath all that alloy and fakery.
<P>
<P>The man looked as Dom and Jess passed. The machine did nothing and said nothing, and it occured to Dominic that there might not have been a man within the shell at all.
<P>
<P>Jess looked up. Somewhere at the top of the corridor there was a frame of darkness. Within it stood a pinkish figure, suited in black.
<P>
<P>They were, of course, being watched.
<P>
<P>--- --- --- ---
<P>
<P>Walking into VersaLife with weaponry of many categories had been easy enough. The elevator upwards had been unguarded; It required only a combination that had been provided by Jock.
<P>
<P>There had been security in the lobby, in the offices, and there was security in the labs. But they did not expect a man, or an existence somewhere beyond a man, to acquire lab passes through explicit fear. There had been security cameras and guards. There had been locks and combinations. There had not been a single weapons check or search.
<P>
<P>Their fault was in their assumptions.
<P>
<P>Jess knew that somewhere within the belly of the labs was their goal. She knew that beyond all the security and protection and armaments was where they had to be.
<P>
<P>She stood now in a concrete hallway that had a glass floor. Through it could be seen the lower labs, though whatever experiments were being performed there were undeterminable.
<P>
<P>And then, somewhere high above, Mr. Hundly, who had just before come very close to urinating his pants, realized what shame had been put upon him, and it angered him.