Alien vs. Alien

low-key thing she could to get me in a room with her alone. Her clothes didn’t fit her right, and Susan, whom John had been expecting, wasn’t around. I had a feeling she hadn’t gone home sick but that she’d gone home dead.
    And I knew androids—really good, really believable-as-human androids—existed. Androids so good they’d fooled Jeff based on their emotional output.
    I didn’t have a lot of options, but there was a really good way to tell a human from an A-C and an A-C from an android. I jumped to my feet, grabbed the desk, and swung it at Sandra with all my strength.
    The desk shattered. Sandra jerked a little and kept on coming. It so figured.
    “Android attacking! Len, Kyle, get Amy and John out of here!” That was all the time I had before Sandra was on me.
    She grabbed me with one hand and held me at arm’s length. I tried to break free, but her grip was far too strong. The other hand she held out, fingers slightly splayed and pointed at Buchanan, who was running toward us, while Len grabbed John and Kyle picked Amy up as they ran for the door near the teacher’s desk.
    “Malcolm, down!”
    He ducked just as bullets sprayed out of Sandra’s fingers. Antony Marling had told us, right before he’d killed himself, that the supersoldiers we’d found in D.C. were our friends compared to what else was out there. If we had weaponized androids running around freely, he’d undersold what was coming.
    The bullets missed everyone, but not for Sandra’s lack of trying. She spun us around, still firing out of her fingers.
    Sandra wasn’t that big, as people or androids went. I hit her with a strong front ball kick to her side. She seemed to feel it, but only a little. Bummer. I grabbed another desk and hit her with it. She staggered a bit while the desk fell apart, but that was all.
    She was still shooting bullets, and we were still spinning. Getting dizzy and sick was going to be in my near future if I didn’t do something. These rooms were insulated, so no help was coming from Jeff, Christopher or Chuckie until Amy and the boys found them, and by then one or more of us could be hurt or dead.
    Buchanan, using desks as shields, was getting closer. Sandra stopped spinning and focused her firepower at him. The desks didn’t last long, but as near as I could tell, Buchanan wasn’t hit yet. I couldn’t spot White anywhere. I was sure he hadn’t run out the door with the others, but I hadn’t seen him while we were spinning like a really badly made dreidel.
    Of course, as someone tackled Sandra from behind and both of us went down, maybe I hadn’t seen him because he’d been using hyperspeed to stay behind us.
    Because Sandra was distracted by White, I was able to get out of her grasp. As I scrambled away, she flipped around and slammed White into the ground, while she landed on top of him. He was strong, because he was an A-C and a big man, but he wasn’t enhanced. Buchanan had made it over and was trying to help White. And while he was a big, strong guy, he was a human. Even if Len and Kyle came back to help, I didn’t think the four of them were going to be able to stop Sandra.
    After all, the only person who’d been able to stop the androids who’d been passing as Leslie Manning and Bryce Taylor had been Jeff. And he’d been high on adrenaline in order to do it.
    I was still experiencing control issues with my powers, and I hadn’t been able to work with Christopher at all while in exile in Florida. However, the one thing I knew for sure by now was that if I wanted to kick butt in a really serious way, rage was my friend.
    It didn’t take much to get really angry. I just had to focus on the fact that I hadn’t had sex with my husband for a month and that if this heinous robot won I might never have sex with him again. Presto, pissed.
    I grabbed a broken desk and pulled a solid piece of metal off, as Sandra landed a good hit to Buchanan’s sternum. He went flying and slammed against a wall. She kicked White right in the gut with both feet and he flew into a different wall. Both men were down and they looked out.
    Not a problem. Just made me angrier that she’d hurt my friends.
    Sandra looked a little mussed up, but she got to her feet easily. “You will complete your test,” she said. Her voice sounded a little slurry, which meant the men had managed to do some small damage at least. We circled each other, like fighters in the ring. I wished Tito were here—he was a really good