I open up with the semi and rounds tear through the white walls behind them, but she's too fast and I hit squat. Drake goes for her and she backhands him--I hear something snap in his head and he goes halfway through a wall before falling down limp to the ground. Tess pats her hands together complacently, starts towards me with a slow, sexy stride.

"Allright, robo-bitch," I say, and still holding the gun out in one hand, I slide another under my coat. And grip the magno-sword Drake gave me.

"Jack," she smiles, cocking her head to the side. "What's the matter, Jack? No bullets? What a pity. I forgive you, Jack--I forgive you because I want you to share in the eternity that awaits us all. When we are one, your hatred will dissolve into nothingness."

Time to play the most dangerous game of my life. "I... I don't know, Tess. Is it really... heaven?" I make my gun hand tremble even more than it already is.

"Its better, Jack. Heaven on earth. Your body will never decay--you'll become one with all of us, part of the network of human consciousness--infinite, all-reaching. Come with me, Jack."

"I..." slowly I lower the gun. And drop it. "Please... hold my hand?"

Beaming with all the wisdom of an enlightened Buddha, she reaches out, takes my hand in hers.

And like lightnight I tear the magno-sword from its sheath and gripping her hand with everything I've got to keep her right there I lash out with the blade.

And hack her arm right off.

She just stares there for a minute, bluid and fluid spurting out of the perfect cut, wires neatly spliced, glowing with blue electricity. Then the rage enters her eyes, the red killing fury.

"Why you--" she grabs me by the throat and the sword topples. She constricts and my vision starts to go black--

She topples, and drops me. I cough and sputter, gasp for air, blood pounding back to my head.

Standing behind her is Drake, panting, bleeding black fluid from both eyes, with a busted fire-extinguisher in both hands.

"Am I glad to see you," I say with a grin.

And then I get this real strange feeling that everything's falling away. Drake--the room, everything, becoming more and more distant... There's some kind of network in the air, finding a few dormant backup circuits inside the chip in my head and--

Oh shit oh no, no--not after all this.

I spent too much time fighting Tess and now--now...

A garden shimmers into being around me. Above, the sky is blue. Angels play trumpets amongst the clouds...

They won. She bought them enough time to get off their launch, and the bastards won. I--I--losing... myself...

And then like a massive power failure the whole universe goes black and I'm lying on my back coughing out my lungs and Drake is walking towards my through a doorway ringed in flames, shards of metal and circuitry scattering around him like bullets.

"It's done," he says. "Thanks to you, Jack. I brought down their whole damn mainframe. Time to go."

I take his arm, and we start down the steps, one by one.

After the third or fourth flight, the numbness wears off and I start thinking. I turn to Drake.

"So what now?"

He glances over at me--that unnerving blue depth in his eyes still turns my blood to ice. With one finger--burnt clean of flesh to display its wires and coiled steel muscle. He points deep into his eye. I look.

The message fades out.

"Welcome to life," he says.