In the moment, with the gunfights, the killing, and the horror-show of the ferry terminal, Kirk had just reacted, adrenaline helping him push through the gruesome state of affairs. Now that they'd slunk back to the subway hideout and he actually had time to think about all of it, he felt sick.

Even Nevay had lost some of her brash confidence by the time they'd finished their investigations. Nobody really knew what to say. In a perverse way, it had all worked out for their crew – a rival dead and territory open for the taking.

But a massacre like that took the shine off of everything.

He wondered if it really was possible that the unfortunate salvagers had somehow brought something back to Hadrian with them. Hard to imagine that any of the mad things across the water could actually stow away on a barge without someone noticing. And they weren't supposed to have the capacity to actually operate one.

A bitter smile tugged at his mouth. Codewraiths were supposed to be banned, and yet one had nearly killed him less than a year ago. AIs were supposed to be banned, but he'd come face to face with one. Corporate history didn't fill him with a lot of confidence.

He sat down heavily at one of the tables in the loose common area, scrubbing his hands wearily down his face. The adrenaline was making him shake; he could feel it.

A clank and a hiss snared his attention, and he turned in time for Targe to thump a bottle of beer down on the table in front of him. Kirk blinked and eyed it dubiously.

STEERHIGH CRAFT! the label blared obliviously. BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IT'S BETTER THAN THE REAL THING.

Somehow, he doubted it, but he didn't exactly have the crypts or connections to have real hops in his drinks. For now, he'd need take them at their word.

"Get it down you, kid," Targe grunted. "You did good today."

"Don't get too emotional on me," Kirk managed weakly. The big man gave a snort of amusement before stumping off, handing out beers to the rest of the crew who'd been on the strange excursion.

Several of them gathered in a loose circle, lounging on chairs and crate, cracking open their own bottles and drinking deep. An uneasy quiet hung there, punctuated only by the clink of glass and the sloshing of liquids.

It was Targe who eventually waded into the silence. "Boss, the hell'd we find out there?"

Nevay twisted a glass of clear spirit back and forth, her lips pursed in thought. She shook her head, her eyes gazing into the distance. In her other hand, she balanced the long-bladed knife, palm resting on the pommel, its point digging gently into the tabletop.

"Corp weapons test maybe," she murmured. "But Maddie's barge... I don't like it. Don't like it one bit."

"Maddie's been scavin' over the water for years," Targe replied. "Y'think she'd be dumb enough to let something come back with her?"

"We haven't seen her, have we?" Nevay's gaze drifted to meet her second in command. "Gut says Maddie's dead'n'buried somewhere on that black fucking shore."

"Hold up," the red-haired administrator, Thackenby, blurted. "You're saying you think something from Hadrian South commandeered that barge?"

"Makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Except for that fact that there's nothing sane enough to run the bloody hot tap in that wasteland."

"Says who?" Kirk interjected, shooting the man a contemptuous smile. "Corps?"

"I'm not talking about manipulating a balance sheet," Thackenby protested. "Hadrian South was dead. They killed it."

"Well, you know what they say." He shrugged. "History written by the victors an' all that."

"Aye, no shit." Nevay twisted the point of her knife into the surface of the table, her face twitching with irritation. "Big question is what the fuck we're gonna do about it." She took a sip of her drink, sucking in a breath through her teeth. "We got any word of anything like this before?"

"Nothing," a scrawny older man answered with a shake of his head. "Got some of the usual knives out, and some scuffles with the corps, but not heard anythin' like this. Doesn't seem like word's gotten out yet about Priatt."

"Great. So now half the gangs on the docks are gonna think we're the psychos that did this." She pointed her knife at Targe. "We gotta get ahead of this."

He nodded. "I'll send get some runners out."

"And work our contacts while you're at it. Soon as the sun hits, I want every set of eyes we can pay to be watchin' that piece of dockside. This... whatever it is pokes it head out again, I want to know about it."

"You got it."

"Alright then. The rest of you get some sleep. We got a lot of work to do tomorrow." Swallowing down the last of her drink, Nevay dumped the glass back on table and stood up, stalking off in the direction of her private bunk.

End of meeting, apparently.

A few uneasy seconds passed before the rest of the group followed suit, chairs creaking across floors and footsteps shuffling as they dispersed. Kirk gathered up his half-empty beer and slouched off towards his own bunk. He could have trekked home, he supposed, but he didn't have the mental energy left to lie about where he'd been; what he'd been doing.

Instead, he sat down heavily on the bunk and closed his eyes. Things couldn't just stay simple, could they? Couldn't just be them against the corps, a good, old-fashioned revolution in the making. No, no, there had to be some thing sticking its oar in. He'd had his fill of things that weren't supposed to exist anymore. If someone, or something, had stolen the barge and rode it all the way here, then it meant corporate history was even more skewed than he thought.

On impulse, he reached beneath the bed, rummaging around until his hand close on something solid. He withdrew a small black case, six inches long and etched with a silver bear's head logo. He tapped it against his palm, staring. After a moment, he clicked it open with gentle reverence.

Three darkleaf cigars lay inside it.

Kirk leaned back and closed his eyes, breathing deep. The rich smell of real tobacco wafted out of that case, and with it a host of memories that he loathed and loved in equal measure. The case belonged – had belonged – to Detective Chloe Delgado, one of the few honest cops he'd met in Hadrian. When he'd first blundered into this mess, she was one of the only people who actually helped.

Now she was dead, and he was still here. He turned one of the cigars over gently between finger and thumb, wondering what it would taste like. He'd never smoked something real before. In Hadrian, if you weren't in a corporate high-rise you were relegated to the cheap, vat-grown synthetic knock-offs.

"Need a light?"

He looked up to find the black-market technician, Beela, standing over him. Her dark frizz of hair was tied back into a bun behind her head, the tawny skin of her face smeared with muck and oil from the industrial generator she'd been trying to fix. Another 'liberation' from a corporate recycling yard that Nevay and her crew found to be a steady source of parts.

A cigarette between her lips, Beela sat down beside him, bringing a slim turbo-lighter up to her face. Her thumb depressed the activation switch and a short blue flame spat forth. Drawing deep on her cigarette, she offered him the lighter.

He took it, weighing the little thing in the palm of his hand.

"Somethin' wrong?" she said through a fug of smoke.

"No, no." Kirk gently brought the cigar up and placed it between his lips. The lighter flared, reflecting briefly in the blue of his eyes.

He breathed in, bringing the smoke into his mouth and letting it swirl there for a moment. He tasted a hit of real coffee, mixed with woodfire and some kind of herb. It all felt so real that he could barely believe it. Letting his head loll back slightly, Kirk exhaled, slow and soft.

As the smoke wafted around him, he remembered the first time he'd met Delgado, after the first wraith chased Piper to her home and tried to kill her. That all seemed like a mirage now – a simpler time. Just him hunting a monster.

"Good shit?" Beela chuckled. "Look like you just tanked a morphee."

He smiled thinly and shook his head. "Just not used to the good stuff."

"Must have a piggy bank we don't know about, floating that kinda swag."

"I wish." He sighed, considering the smouldering end of the cigar. "Souvenir from a friend."

"Must've been a hell of a friend!"

"She was." He took another small draw, letting the taste linger on his tongue. "She's gone now."

"Gone?" Beela hesitated between puffs of her cigarette. "As in...?"

"Dead. Corps."

"Ah. And that's what brought you to Nevay's party, eh?"

"Something like that."

"Well, careful you don't like it too much," she advised. "Expensive habit."

Kirk nodded, smiling thinly. She lounged back on the bed beside him, her expression darkening as she smoked.

"So what do you think did it?" Beela asked.

"That's the eight billion crypt question, don't you think?" As he spoke he held the cigar up staring at it. Something in the back of his mind twanged; like there was something obvious lurking just out of reach.

"Yeah, but I..." She gave him an awkward shrug. "I know you and Nev saw some shit. Like, a real AI. It was really there wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"You think it could be something like that again?"

"Maybe." Kirk hung his head, letting his neck stretch out. "But we had a lot of help the first time we did this."

"Like your friend?"

"Her name was Chloe. Detective Chloe Delgado."

"A badge?"

"Better believe it."

Beela sniffed dismissively. "Most of the ones I've met would look the other way for a cheap fuck and a pack of smokes."

"They're not all like that."

Then a belated the realisation hit him.

Chloe Delgado had had a partner. He wrenched his mind to the first time he'd walked into that police station, back when all he wanted to do was find Piper and get his life back to normal. The man hadn't shared Delgado's sense of idealism, but that hadn't stopped him saving her life when it came right down to it. He remembered being stunned when Chloe had recounted the tale.

Detective Doser.

Kirk's eyes narrowed in thought. The guy worked the same districts near the docks. Even if half of the place was on lockdown right now, maybe he would know something that Nevay's gangland snitches didn't.

"You alright?" Beela asked. "Look like someone just needled you."

"I'm good." He nodded and treated himself to another deep draw from the cigar. "I just realised I've got contacts of my own to check out."

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