When Red walked into the room behind Dag, Jack looked up. He didn't miss the disappointment on the man's face, the way his cold eyes reacted to his very arrival. Nor did he miss the way Jack's gaze kept flicking to the doorway behind him. 

Guess Ash wasn't lying about that part.

It wasn't a secret. The two men didn't like each other.

He walked to his bunk on the other side of the room and threw his bag of meager possessions onto the top.

Dag ignored them both, his arms wrapping around his wife and son.

"Hey, Red!" Dag's son Dex threw him a smile from under his Dad's arm. Red smiled back and waved before heaving himself up onto the bunk.

There, he froze, his sensors went out to the periphery. Something was wrong. The usual cyberspace traffic wasn't there. He expanded his search. Even without the resident AIs normally in attendance on the net, there was a bustle of activity from your normies, humans who couldn't stay off cyberspace. Panic surged through him. It was a trap.

"Get your stuff," he shouted, jumping down. His feet hit the ground with a thud.

They were already moving. This was the moment they'd known could come for some time. Red went through everything that could have given them away. He'd altered all of their tags, his appearance, even his DNA registry didn't have his original name attached to it. None of them did.

And yet...

They knew.

How? 

Red snatched his bag off the ground and headed for the door. Jack, Dag, his wife, Leah, and Dex followed in silence. Red felt a moment of pity for the kid but it passed as he focused on other things. Now wasn't the time.

His augments lit up as he scanned the corridor outside their room.

"Shit. There are two of them." 

That was a lie. 

There were at least ten. Whoever had ratted them out hadn't left this to chance. Two Scandroids wasn't a problem. Not for him. Ten or more was a death sentence.

"We can take them." Dag stood next to him.

"No, I've got this." Red turned to Dag. "Get them to New Elysium."

Dag hesitated. He nodded, his fist clenched. Red didn't know how to tell Dag he was wasting his faith and friendship on a broken man.

"Jack, take them out the back, the gas-powered four-wheeler is still there."

"I can't believe you have that thing, it's so slo--..."

"Unhackable?" Red couldn't help getting one last dig in. "Those Scandroids would be all over anything else in a heartbeat. Go, get them to New Elysium. This is it. We're never going to be more ready than this."

"Red, come with us." Dag made one last plea.

"Nah, someone needs to stop these, they can't know where we're going. You know that."

Jack nodded in agreement but he'd been trying to get Red killed since Red first arrived. Red was about to grant his wish.

His sensors lit up again and he felt a brief moment of panic. The Scandroids were enclosing in on them. Jack and the Dorons were still here. "Go! Now!"

"Thank you, Red." Leah laid a hand on his arm and squeezed it. Red looked at her and nodded. If there were good people out there worth fighting and dying for, Dag and his family were it. The epitome of everything that was fucking good. The opposite of everything he was. Dag shook his hand and Red felt his impatience growing.

He turned away from them and walked out the door. He wasn't going to have them waste any more tears on him. He was a weapon, a thing of violence, and he was about to turn himself on his maker.

He ran down the corridor using his sensors to pinpoint each Scandroid as it landed. He didn't bother hiding or being quiet. He was loaded with enough augments to take down a contingent of men and a last resort bomb if it came down to it.

And Red was pretty sure it was going to come down to it.

Could he do this?

The first scandroid ran at him, metal legs thocking against the stone ground when Red emerged outside. 

"Surrender or you will be eliminated," it barked at him. It was all they knew to say, their total modus operandi. 

Red watched it come but there was no sign of its fellows. They were nearby but they needed to be here, not hunting the Doron family. He opened his sensors to broadcast across all channels. He was being jammed but at least the scandroids would find him.

Right here you fuckers.

There was a shift in the air and rumbling, more thumps hitting the ground as they changed course. He was a big target. He felt the gun in his pocket. He was still faster than these pathetic machines. They weren't artificially intelligent, at least not what he was used to dealing with. These had one-track minds. He drew and fired striking the head off the first. Its repeated "surrender or be eliminated" broadcast was cut short with a garble and sparks flew off of its destroyed head.

Red smiled. For the first time, he had a purpose. Something he could die for. His senses locked up, taking the hostiles and displaying across his vision a fight pattern he could take, including all the points of failure.

<Prognosis> Defeat Y/N?

Y...

He walked into them, guns drawn, and started firing. He dodged into a forward roll as a beam cut at him. He could hear the ground singing where the beam hit dirt. When all of the Scandroids lit up, there would be no way in hell he could avoid them. He ran through the info in his mind, he could detonate. His last resort bomb was still firmly installed in his center mass. He smiled at the thought even as he dodged another laser aimed.

He cut one down, its body running into a fellow as he aimed at the head. Maybe this wasn't suicide, maybe he'd live... He'd go to New Elysium too.

A sharp pain in his side caught him off guard. He jumped away with a yelp. Blood dripped over the hand he had pressed down on the wound. It wasn't serious. His augments cooled the injury as fast as they could. He was built to keep fighting until he dropped. No matter his injuries.

Strong arms wrapped around his shoulder. A flash of silver caught his gaze.

No.

Dag held Red in an iron grip, his titanium arm kept him in place. He held a hand up, "We surrender, drop your weapons."

"No!" Red struggled but it was in vain. He felt Dag's other arm wrap around his throat in a choke hold. Dag wasn't supposed to be here.

"You aren't ready for that, Red," Dag kept his arm tight. "The others got away safe."

Red broke out of the strangle hold long enough to let out an inhuman scream, his frustration getting the better of him.

Who sold us out? was his last thought as he slid into darkness, the enemy closing in around them.