"Oh, I'm listening, believe me. Are you?"

Senior Administrator Mattise was not a happy man.

Piper didn't need to be a psychiatrist to see the toll that the man's new responsibilities were taking on him. He paced grimly in his Spartan office, his immaculate white uniform open at the throat, the darkness of stubble shadowing the lower half of his face. She shifted awkwardly in her seat, lips pressed tight together as they waited. Arrow sat to her left, Odiye to her right, all three of them squirming in the silence.

The holographic visor across Mattise's eyes shimmered and flickered with data, and she could see him twitching as he composed and fired off communiques, fielding a staggering array of messages in a short space of time even as his call continued. His AmpCore implants allowed him to hurl his thoughts off into cyberspace faster than any corporate neural interface could match.

Even still, he looked stressed. Piper didn't really know what to make of Mattise anymore. On the one hand he was corporate spiv right down to his bones, but on the other, he seemed genuine in his desire to put an end to the constant infighting. Even for a career corp agent, the constant manoeuvring and counter-manoeuvring was wearing thin.

"No," he growled, stopping with his back to them. She could feel his frustration simmering in the air around them, his visor flaring crimson. "I've told you already. Until such time as I have guarantees over the security of the academy and the students, the board remains suspended."

She didn't hear the reply, but it didn't seem to calm matters.

"Then withdraw your funding," Mattise snarled. "And I'll ensure that your filthy subsidiaries never set foot inside AmpCore again. I can promise you that. No, you think about what you want to do and send me a formal proposal when you've finished swinging your dick around. Goodbye."

The visor flickered out of existence and Mattise's head rocked back. He stared at the ceiling for a moment as let out a long, bitter sigh.

"Is the job all you dreamed it would be?" Piper ventured after a moment, hoping she could lighten the atmosphere just a little.

"I'm not in the mood, Russell."

So much for that.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Sorry."

"Well, you wanted to speak to me." He turned to face them. "Here I am. What's so important that you couldn't put in a bloody message?"

She exchanged an uneasy look with her companions, neither of whom looked any more thrilled about the prospect of what they were about to ask.

"I can't stress enough how busy I am right now," Mattise said icily, "so either tell me what you want or get out."

"It's about the fighting in the city – at the dock districts," she blurted.

"That's got nothing to do with you. You're supposed to be keeping your head down and attending to your studies. Do you have any idea how close you are all skating to the edge right now?" He pointed to the door. "Chorla Sinette is dead. Do you have any idea what I had to go through in order not to have to hand them Toran Knox's head on a platter?!"

"That's not our fault-,"

"But you picked a bloody side didn't you?"

Odiye straightened up. "Toran's our friend, sir. We owe him our support."

"Maybe so, but now I have full-blown factional war going on under my nose." Mattise snorted in disgust, hands on his hips as he began to pace back and forth. "On top of that, half the dockside districts are getting ready to riot and I've got funders breathing down my god-damned neck to provide AmpCore support for their bloody security teams."

"It's that bad?" Arrow asked.

"You bet it is. Now, I'm trying to keep a lid on all of this, and every stupid bean-counting prick behind a desk seems to be trying to figure out ways to make it worse. So, whatever it is you want, I'm sure it can wait."

"There are bigger things for you to worry about than riots or a corp pissing match," Piper snapped angrily. "There's a something else out there, something in docks that's killing people. It's not the corporations and it sure as hell isn't some gang."

Mattise's brow furrowed and he abruptly stopped pacing. "What, exactly, are you talking about?"

She hesitated for a moment, dragging the unwelcome, blood-soaked visions from the presence back to the forefront of her mind. It had coalesced, little by little, with Cassie's help, until she could pinpoint the location. An old Fare Row ferry terminal, long defunct and replaced by bigger, safer, shinier berth's closer to the corporate heart.

You're sure about the location, Cassie? She looked Mattise in the eye.

I am sure.

She tried not to give any indications to her companions about the private dialogue going on inside her head. It still freaked her out, if she stopped and thought about it for too long, but somewhere along the way she made herself accept that this was just life now. Cassie was there, and she could have a meltdown, or use it to her advantage.

I hope you're right, she told her passenger uneasily.

As do I. Cassie sounded confident, but the intelligence inside her didn't really register the subtleties of human emotion. In some ways she felt like she was conversing with a child. In others, like she was talking to a ghost of a lost era.

"We know there's more going on out there than 'peacekeeping'," she told Mattise, picking her words with care. "This not about corporate enforcement or reclaiming gang territory." Piper swallowed hard before pressing on to the point of no return. "I know why they really want AmpCore out there. There's whole gang, cut to bits out at the abandoned dockyards near the bridge. An old Fare Row ferry port. They weren't shot; they weren't stabbed. Somebody, or something, ripped them to pieces."

The jolt of his implants was all she needed to feel, to know that it was all true. Mattise's posture stiffened, and he lowered himself into his chair, his eyes never leaving hers. She didn't think it would be possible, but the crease of his brow deepened into an angry canyon.

"And just how do you know about that?" he asked, his voice dropping dangerously.

"So it's true?" Odiye cut in. "There really is something out there?"

Mattise glowered at him. "There are no ghosts and monsters in Hadrian."

"There are codewraiths though."

"Not anymore. The models that survived are locked in a cross-corporate oversight facility, secured by independent regulators."

"You're joking," Piper scoffed. "Since when have 'regulators' ever stopped the corps from doing anything?"

"They are under lock and key." Mattise took a breath, leaning back into his seat and clasping his hands together as he battled to regain his composure. Once he'd reigned in his emotions, he looked straight at her. "Alright, Piper. How did you come across this information?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters," he snapped. "What you're describing isn't even common knowledge among corporate security echelons, let alone in the academy halls."

Although she'd held out a faint hope that Mattise wouldn't press the matter, Piper had her lie ready.

"Camera feed," she said, making a show of reluctance as she sank back into her seat and tapped her chest. "Snared it with my implants. Kind of by accident."

"By accident," he repeated, one eyebrow rising.

"Yeah."

"Just... like that?"

"Apparently part of the new machinery." Piper gave him an innocent shrug, tapping herself on the chest. "I can't explain it. I wasn't looking, but something inside me reached and grabbed for it. Like they knew I needed to see it." She was skating a little close to the truth for comfort, but how else did you make a lie believable.

Mattise looked thoroughly ill-at-ease now as he stared at her, his mouth twisting thoughtfully.

"Do you know what did it?" she asked.

"No." The fingers of his right hand began tracing patterns on the desk in front of him, a faint crackle of energy seeping out of his implants. "I don't like this, Russell. Your implants, we still don't know where they came from – not really. And now you say they're acting... independently?"

"That's not what I said. I saw the bodies, but I'm in control."

"Everybody thinks they're in control. That's the problem."

"Including you," Odiye interjected with uncharacteristic bluntness. "Sir, we've heard the other students talking. You're rubbing a lot of people the wrong way."

"I'm well aware."

"It's dangerous."

"I know all about those hot heads and their threats," Mattise grated. "I know damn well that half the corps in the city would like nothing better than the tear my implants right out of me, but someone has to do this. Someone has to knock their heads together and put a stop to this constant infighting. If no-one else will do it, then I will. And if it all goes to hell..." he spread his hands resignedly, "then at least I'll have tried."

Despite her frustration, Piper felt a twinge of admiration for the instructor in that moment. The man certainly didn't lack a backbone.

"Then maybe we can help you," she said. "I'm not an idiot. If something happens to you, I'll probably end up on a fucking operating table so some soul-ripped ghoul can see what makes me tick."

He nodded. "So, what is that you want, precisely?"

"We want to go out there, to the docks," Piper said. "I need to see it for myself."

"Oh, you do?" Mattise let out a sharp, high pitched laugh, shaking his head. "I don't think so, Piper."

"You said they asked for AmpCore support."

"Yes, they did. And if it were anyone else, I might consider it, but you three are hip deep in everything that's spinning this place out of control. If you think I should be watching my back, you might want to think about yourself, too." He shook his head. "It's out of the question."

"Sir, with respect," Arrow said. "She was able to pinpoint the exact location of an attack that has been kept secret from the rest of the academy, just by feeling it. You have no idea what killed those gang members. Don't you think she might be able to help you find out what happened? If this carries on, the corporations are going to have a lot more than riots on their hands. It's gang members now, but it may not stay that way." They motioned with their head towards the door. "Sir, let us help. Let us show people that AmpCore, and the corporations aren't something they need to be afraid of."

A low groan slid from Mattise's mouth as he leaned back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" he said, not opening his eyes.

"I don't plan to," Piper confirmed. "I need to know what's happening out there. I saw it for a reason."

"And if I say 'no'?"

She pressed her lips together for a moment, stifling the instinctive threats that wanted to leap out of her mouth. When she didn't immediately reply, Mattise opened his eyes and looked directly at her. His expression softened a little.

"Well?"

"I'm not here to pick a fight," she told him. "Please, let us do this. The right way. We'll report anything back to you, I promise. I just want to understand what's out there."

He seemed to deflate a little, letting out a defeated sigh. "I've seen what happens when you get your mind set on something," he chuckled mirthlessly. "And I'd rather not have to chase you down through the city." Mattise's right eye twitched and the visor sprang back into existence across his eyes, a whir of text and images passing too fast for Piper to catch.

"Fine. But if you're going out into the city, you're doing it my way, by the book. Right down to the letter." He looked from Arrow, to Odiye and then back to Piper. "You will have a security escort, non-negotiable, who will take you out to the cordon, and accompany you into the affected districts. You will report back to me as soon as you find anything that can shed light on what we are dealing with out there."

Piper bridled a little at the prospect of a chaperone, but when she looked to Odiye, he gave her a firm nod. This was the best deal they were likely to get. She let out a faint huff of annoyance, but didn't press the issue. She genuinely didn't want to be on Mattise's bad side.

"If that's what it takes," she said, inclining her head in acceptance. "When can we go?"

"As soon as you're geared up," he told them. "I'll have a vehicle waiting for you."

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