"I don't think we'll be conspicuous enough." Jack secured the latches on his new armor and scowled at his reflection in the mirror.

"Says the guy who drives around in a hearse with a lift kit and huge tires." Corona winked and leaned over to give him a lick on the cheek before taking his place in front of the mirror.

Jack walked over to stand beside Taura, leaning against one of Lefty's workbenches, and took a moment to admire Corona. Her armor was black like his and Taura's, form-fitting with a layer of non-Newtonian fluid under it, and included a helmet that was custom-designed to fit her dragonish head and flexible plates for her wings. She'd left the latter off, though, so as not to restrict their movement.

"Gotta admit, yours is pretty sexy." Jack grinned, turned to look Taura over, and smiled again. "Yours, too. Good thing I'm not Otto's age, or all the blood would rush from my head and I'd pass out."

Taura smiled, looked at the floor, and cleared her throat. She put her arm around him and ran her other hand over his chest plate. "Even if it makes us stick out like a sore thumb, I'm glad to have the extra protection in case I end up getting shot again."

"When you put it that way, yeah, I'm glad we have it." Jack gave her a peck on the cheek and turned to pick up one of the assortment of weapons spread out on the bench.

"Is it safe to look?" Lefty said from a few yards away.

"Yeah, we're all covered up now." Corona flexed her arms to be sure she could move freely and picked up a piece of armor shaped like a short, tapering tube. "Jack, would you help me with this?"

"Sure." He put the tube around the base of her tail, secured the latch, and locked it to the armor covering her backside. He waited for her to hand him the next piece, joined it to the first, and followed up with the rest, leaving the tip of her tail bare so she could use the spikes. She flicked her tail a few times and shrugged.

"Feels weird, but I guess I'll get used to it."

"I do feel better about this, knowing we're more prepared for the inevitable hail of bullets than we were yesterday." Taura picked up her trenchcoat and slipped it on over her armor. "The only complaint I have is that the armor doesn't have pockets."

"Yeah, there's nowhere to hide all the weapons I like to keep on me." Corona picked up an enormous rifle from the bench and shoved it into the clamps on her back plate. The rifle had belonged to a police mecha unit that had tried to kill all three of them a few weeks ago. Corona had taken the mecha's driver out with his own gun and decided to keep it. It was too massive for a human to pick it up without some serious cybernetic augmentation, but her huge muscles were more than adequate.

If they were about to run into any of the cyborg zombies Winslow had told them about, and if they were as tough as he'd claimed, they'd need the extra firepower to deal with them.

Corona grabbed her pistol, holstered it in the clip on her right hip, and snapped three extra magazines onto her left hip. She picked up her helmet, stared at it for a moment, turning it one way and then another, and finally raised it over her head. She slid the two conical protrusions over her horns and settled the helmet on her head. The elongated visor covered her eyes and muzzle -– a little constrictive, Jack figured, but better than leaving part of her head out in the open so it could catch a stray bullet.

Lefty walked out from behind a set of shelves, looked her three guests over, and nodded. "Badass."

Taura put her helmet on and cocked her head. "I like the heads-up display."

"The helmet has built-in cameras and the latest in augmented-reality software. It can scan whatever you're looking at and pop up info about it in your visors."

"Seems like that'd be kind of distracting." Jack tied his hair into a ponytail and put his helmet on.

"At first, I suppose, but it can provide you with vital information, so Machiko wants you to get used to it. Also, each suit has its own combat and cyberwarfare suites." Lefty pointed at Corona's right hand. "Yours has hardware and software that can control your chakram, so you can use it without having to put the control glove over the gauntlet."

"Nice!" Corona picked up her razor-edged, high-tech chakram and clipped it to her utility belt. "And with the gauntlet, I won't have to worry about accidentally lopping my talons off."

"Glad to hear it," Jack said. "I worry about that every time I see that thing zipping back to your hand."

"It's crossed my mind a few times." Corona faced Taura and put her hands on her hips. "I guess we should figure out how we're going to approach this."

Taura took her pocket computer out, placed it on the bench, and activated it. Its hard-light user interface appeared in the air. Taura tapped an icon and a second holofield sprang up beside the first. She moved it over and tugged on the edges, enlarging it until it was nearly the width of the bench. She opened a file and the layout of the Argus Defense Systems tower filled the field.

"This is the latest info I could get my hands on." Taura ran her hand along the side of the building, pushing it upward until the basement levels rose into view. She pointed at a blinking red blip in one of the central rooms on the fourth sublevel. "That's the server room. It's got sixteen different servers, though, and we don't know which one has the files we need."

"So we'll have to search 'em one by one until we find the evidence." Jack glanced at the ceiling and shook his head. "Yeah, this is gonna end well."

Corona chuckled, shook her head, and whapped him with her left wing. "So, since we won't be able to get in without being noticed, how are we gonna do this? Walk right in through the front door?"

"I'd rather not. Better to slip in through a back door – a freight entrance, maybe. Or one of the windows." Jack stared at the holofield. "On the other hand, they've probably put guards on all the back and side doors. Any info on their security?"

"They've ramped it up, but they're no longer relying on pre-programmed robots. They've brought in a ton of chimeras and ex-military humans with cybernetic enhancements, and are also using robots as support units. There's also a chance that they've started using some of their cyber-zombies." Taura shivered and nodded at the display. "You can bet they've concentrated their forces on the back and side entrances, and now that they know we escaped by jumping off the roof, they'll have that heavily guarded as well."

"Marvelous." Corona leaned over to take a closer look at the schematic, bracing her arms on the edge of the bench. "How about the front door, though? Think they might not expect us to go charging in through there?"

"Probably not. I'd like to get in as close to the server room as possible, and the ground floor is as good as it's gonna get." Jack sighed. "So that looks like our best bet. There's probably at least one noncombatant working the front desk, so we’ll have to move ‘em outside before any shooting starts."

"Sounds good to me."

Taura nodded, put her gadget back into standby mode, and pocketed it. "We'll also have Boiler drawing the guards away from us, Jamie and Adam working things from outside, and Machiko covering us once we leave the building."

Jack nodded, even though he had his doubts, especially about the huge draconid who claimed to be their daughter from the future. He kept it to himself. The girls didn't need anything else to worry about, and what the hell, the more guards Boiler could get shooting at her, the fewer would be shooting at the girls and himself.

Hmm. "Maybe if Boiler goes in at a point on the far side of the building and engages the guards, they'll send reinforcements to handle her, and we'll be able to get in and out quickly."

"It's worth a shot, but I don't feel right about using her as cannon fodder." Corona's wings and tail twitched.

"Well, we can run the idea by her and see what she says. She might be up for it. Besides, we wouldn't be asking her to throw herself on her sword. She'd just need to distract 'em and then run like hell. Who knows, she might even be able to lead 'em outside where Machiko and the 'bots can pin 'em down."

Corona sighed. "We'll see."

"There's one other thing that concerns me," Taura said after an awkward silent moment. She shook her head quickly and sighed. "One of many other things that concern me is, just how legal is our mission? If we're going in without showing anyone a search warrant, does that mean we don't actually have one?"

"Our legal department is taking care of that," Lefty said. "You'll be okay to go by the time you're on-site."

"Good enough for me, I guess." Jack shrugged. "Until any ADS higher-ups hit us with more criminal charges and lawsuits, that is."

"Our legal department can worry about that, too." Corona said. She put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. "I guess we should get started."