Odiye scrambled backwards with a yowl of surprise. Piper yelped and very nearly reduced the man to ashes there and then, but at the last second managed to cram the combustive charge back down into her amplifier when her brain caught up with what was happening.

For his part, the man let out a gurgling cry of his own, his eyes bulging in their sockets as he looked around wildly. He went rigid and lurched into a sitting position against the wall, the muscles in his neck and shoulders bulging.

"Fucking rippers," Mattellus gasped, his rifle levelled.

"He's alive?!" Arrow exclaimed from the doorway.

Odiye scrambled to his feet, chest heaving as he regained his breath. "Apparently," he panted, smoothing down his jacket.

Piper took a couple of steps forward, her amplifier still levelled, but the man didn't seem to register her presence. His manic stare bored into the far wall of the room, his body wracked with uneven, juddering breaths like a misfiring system. She winced, and edged a little closer, putting herself in his eyeline.

Still, he didn't respond.

"I think he's fried," she murmured, sinking down onto her haunches, head cocked quizzically to one side as she examined him.

"I'm not surprised." Arrow squirmed their way back in past Mattellus, and their eyes widened when they got a proper look at the injured man. They shook their head bleakly. "Total catatonia."

"We should move on," Mattellus grunted. "Nasty work, but it's not what you're looking for."

"How in the hell are you so sure?"

"Plenty of black-market ampers out in this part of Hadrian. They'll hack up anybody for the right price, and the right spare parts. Somebody probably needed an arm."

Odiye shook his head dubiously. "That's not a surgical cut."

"Did I say they were surgeons?"

Piper grimaced. Logically, she could see Mattellus's point. The images she'd seen from the ferry terminal showed an all out bloodbath, which didn't seem to fit with what she was looking at. But the coincidence was too much for her to set aside. They just happened to stumble across a mutilated person, right in the place they'd traced the disturbances in the data stream to?

"Red eyes," the man spat suddenly, the words sounding like they'd been dredged up from a chasm. "Red, red, red."

"What?" Piper swallowed her apprehension and slid to her knees alongside the man, taking a grip of his ragged, stained vest. "What happened? What did you see?" She shook him lightly.

His right arm unfurled from its position tight across his abdomen, and his fingers snapped open. Something popped free and clattered across the floor. Piper turned her head to look, and found a small, white pod, about four inches long with a cluster needle nestled at one end. She could see a faded Maxpharm Medical logo printed near the base.

"Shit." Odiye's amplifier pulsed and the device flew up into his open palm. He lifted it examining it for a moment.

"What is it?" Arrow asked.

"Adrenaline shot."

He tossed it to them and dropped down beside Piper, his face pinching with concentration as he moved his wand back and forth over the body of the man.

"Gods," he breathed after a moment, his eyes widening disbelief. "He has... been through a lot. His body is a wreckage."

Piper felt her stomach twist, the prospect of their only lead slipping away. "How bad is it?"

"Bad." He looked at her grimly. "That adrenaline – it's the only thing keeping his heart pumping right now. When it wears off..."

"Can you fix him?"

"Fix him?"

"Well, you're good with Internals aren't you?"

Odiye looked at her aghast. "Piper, this isn't a broken leg. His internal organs are ruptured all over from blunt force trauma, and he's lost almost half the blood in his body. Even if I could fix the tissue – which I can't – he needs a transfusion if he's going to survive."
"Then we need to get him out of here," Arrow said.

Mattellus shook his head. "No time. By the time we cart this meat out of here to a half-decent hospital he'll be dead. Keep him alive and get your information. Here and now."

"Ah, crap." Piper hopped sideways like a crab, shunting Odiye out of the way and placing herself right in front of the man. She took a hold of his shoulders, and looked straight into his wide, mad eyes.

"Hey, hey." She squeezed his shoulders lightly. "Can you hear me?"

The man managed a twitchy, jerking nod, though his eyes still struggled to truly focus on her, like he was looking right through her skull to the wall beyond.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Piper persisted, fighting to keep her voice level and not freak the guy out any more than he already was. "What happened to your arm? And what has red eyes."

"Don't know, don't know," he gurgled through gritted teeth. "Bad acid trip – I thought. Thought till I didn't wake up. Turns out it was all real, real, real. They grabbed us."

"Us?"

"Grabbed us and took us down." He squirmed, his breathing erratic and his whole body beginning to spasm. "Only saw him for a minute – saw those red eyes. Then they started cutting, cutting."

"Cutting," Piper repeated. "Why? Why did they do this?"

"Said they were helping." He managed to loosen his jaw long enough for a hysterical laugh to slip free. "Didn't feel like help."

"They used you for spare parts," Arrow murmured. "Were they people? Humans?"

"Metal people," he spluttered.

"Ampers? Black market surgeons?"

His gaze cleared a little, and he looked right at Arrow. "I fucking wish. They didn't want me dead. Were fixing for an... operation. Said they needed to cut out the dead weight first."

Piper swallowed hard. "Dead weight? Like your arm?"

"Would've been more. But I don't die easy. I don't die easy." Another bitter cackle escaped from his mouth. "Thought I was gonna lie down and take it didn't they? No, no, no. Not me. Maybe those other fucking limp-pricks, but not me."

"You got away," Odiye said quietly.

"They took a piece," the man sputtered, blood beginning to leak from between his clenching teeth. "But he didn't get what counts." He tapped his head shakily with his remaining hand. "Didn't get my soul. Just an arm. Just an arm. Couldn't finish the job. Corps couldn't finish me, cops couldn't finish me, ghouls ain't gonna... ain't gonna..."

His voice trailed off into a delirious babble that Piper could barely comprehend. Then a few seconds later he convulsed violently and coughed, spraying her face with blood and spittle.

"Jes-FUCK!"

She recoiled in disgust, springing to her feet and wiping her face with her sleeve, spitting and shaking her head as she backed away. When she looked again, she saw the man arching is back, every vein looking like it was ready to pop out of his skin as the last of the adrenaline from the hypo battled to keep his heart pumping.

A few seconds later a final breath choked its way out of his mouth and his body went limp, blood seeping from both sides of his mouth, his sightless eyes staring at the sealing.

"Son of a bitch," Piper hissed.

"Piper, I – hold still for a second." Odiye put a hand on her shoulder turning her to face him. He cleared his throat. "Let me..." He raised his amplifier to her face, its tip glowing softly. She felt the heat across her face as he evaporated the remnants of the spit and blood from her skin.

She felt the touch of his implants as he worked, and a surge of feral desire crackled through her bones at the sensation. Piper crammed it back down, but she could feel her face flaming as she looked at Odiye, her eyes tracing the contours of his jaw, his lips; his cheeks. She felt her implants coiling and tightening against her skeleton.

Then the feeling was gone. If Odiye had felt it too, he was doing a good job of hiding it as he stepped away.

"Cleaned up." He managed a small smile.

"So, did any of that psychobabble make sense to you?" Mattellus grunted disdainfully.

Arrow turned a withering stare on him. "Well, he was pretty clear it wasn't some back alley ripper that did this to him. I'd say that means we're on the right track."

"Think we can retrace his steps?" Piper suggested.

"We can try," Odiye said as he turned for the door, stepping past Mattellus and back into the main rail. Piper spared one last glance at the dead man, before she followed him out. They gathered with Mattellus and the guards outside the storage house, and Piper was about to give the corporate security officer a heavily weighted 'I-told-you-so' before another voice cut her off.

"So this is what all the ruckus was about," someone chuckled from behind them. "Look who got let out to play."

Piper whirled around, finding a figure in the gloom of a connecting pathway. She recognised the voice, and a twinge of unease shot through her as she felt the simmering energy of AmpCore implants in the air around them. God, she hoped that her luck wouldn't be this bad.

But hope was for fools in Hadrian, apparently. The person that emerged into the light was exactly who she thought it would be, and her heart sank like a brick.

Lenor Karga stepped into sight with a nasty smile cutting across her face. Her blonde hair was tied back in a tight bun, her sturdy frame visible beneath her academy jacket and skirt, and she wore heavy dark boots that rose to just above her ankles. Her amplifier was already out in one hand, gentle eddies of power swirling around it.

And she wasn't alone. Two more AmpCore agents emerged, along with a detachment of sleekly armoured corporate security guards. These men and women eschewed the full face helmets of Mattellus and his cohort, instead clad in light, body-formed armour, with holotargeting sights shimmering over their faces from their helmets.

"Hey, Piper," Lenor said, with all the warmth of a glacier. "Been a little while, hasn't it?"

Piper frowned, and didn't bother replying. Even without seeing his face, she could see the surprise in Mattellus's body language as he stopped, his free hand snapping up in a clenched fist to bring his subordinates to an abrupt halt. The other security personnel spread out behind Lenor and her comrades, hands resting on holsters, but for the moment they kept their guns to themselves. Their chest-plates were stamped with the insignia of Gammaton Avionics.

She glanced at the other AmpCore practitioners. One she didn't recognise – a hawk-faced young man with a Skiltron badge on his shoulder. Presumably one of Karga's leftover allies from the purge. The other, however, she knew very well.

Grennick Lanson, Real-Raid Pharmaceuticals. The kid who, on virtually her first day at the academy, she'd gotten into a full blown fist-fight with and sent him to the infirmary with a bruised ego and a broken nose.

The vicious sneer twisting his face showed her that he remembered the incident all too well. He met her gaze, smiling a smile that only a corporate golden child could manage.

"So what, exactly," Lanson purred, "would you three troublemakers be doing out in the city?"

"Mattise sent us," Odiye said before Piper could reply, giving her a warning nudge. She sniffed dismissively. Lanson didn't scare her; nor did Lenor. They were irritants – bumps in the road. "There are incidents we have been asked to look into."

"Yeah, the abattoir at the docks," Lenor shot back. "We know all about that."

"How do you know about it?" Arrow interjected, gently easing their amplifier from its sheathe, the motion deliberately overt.

Piper's eyes narrowed. "And how did you know we were out here?"

"Not everyone's busy knuckling under for your friend Mattise," she hissed. "Some of us don't trust a dockside freak with living metal crawling in her bones. You shouldn't be out here."

"You think so? And where should I be?"

"A cell, if the idiots at AmpCore had any sense."

"Ah. Still so daddy's friends are still a little sore about me busting up their... project are they?" She rolled her neck from side to side and took a step forward, letting the power from her implants leak into the air around her. "Well, here I am, Lenor."

"Easy, now," Mattellus said as he edged forward, though his heart wasn't really in it. Piper suspected the man had enough common sense not to want to get between two groups of AmpCore practitioners spoiling for a fight. "We're all here to do the same job."

"Are we?" Lanson's contemptuous gaze swept over the guards. "Mr. Mattellus, I'm aware that you're following orders, but I'd suggest you stay out of this."

"Yeah? And what's your glitch, Lanson? Angling for another broken nose?" Piper sneered, waving their chaperone aside as she reached for her amplifier. "Or maybe you want a more permanent souvenir this time?"

"Piper," Odiye caught her by the arm. "Now is not the time."

"Hey, I'm not the one looking for a brawl."

Arrow moved out in front of them, raising a hand. "Stop. Lenor, I know how you must feel, but this is crazy."

"Crazy?" Lenor edged forward, her face twisting with bitter anger. "Do you know what happened to my father after what you people did?"

"No," Piper said, "I don't."

"Well, neither do I." The girl's implants flared beneath her skin. "He just disappeared off the face of the Earth, thanks to your friend Toran and that bootlicking piece of shit, Mattise."

"He's not the first and he won't be the last," Piper snarled back, uncaring of the stunned look that flashed over the girl's face. "See if you can bed this into your god-damned circuits, Lenor. I don't give a shit. Not about you, your dad, AmpCore – any of it. I never asked to be a part of anybody's corporate dick-measuring contest. Anything that I've done is to stay alive."

She could barely believe that Lenor and Lanson would be this stupid and in filled her with righteous fury. She'd been sent out here to hunt something, and maybe along the way find out any tiny scraps of information about herself.

So when Lenor's implants trembled with rage, she stood her ground, daring the girl to make a move. Her amplifier shook, energy crackling around it, and she felt the air chill just a fraction. Before the pressure could bubble over, however, the other AmpCore agent reached out, placing a hand firmly on her shoulder. Lenor looked back at him for an instant, her face twisting with anger, before she dragged in a deep to calm herself.

Piper smirked, and spread her hands.

"I see Toran didn't have the nuts to come out and join you," Lenor spat eventually, making a dismissive gesture towards them all. "I owe him."

"The last time you had a duel with Toran, he knocked seven kinds of hell out of you," Piper reminded her.

"I'm stronger now."

"Sure."

"He's not going to be safe and sound under daddy's skirts in AmpCore forever," Lanson put in, his mouth twisting into a nasty smile. "And when Vinder gets a hold of him-," he let out a whistle, "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes."

"So you're just out doing Vinder's dirty work?" Odiye growled, his patience apparently having run its course.

"No, Tambo, we are out here because we don't trust you. Our sponsors don't trust you. You have your own agenda, even if Mattise doesn't want to see it. Well, we don't need him. We are going to keep Hadrian, from falling into the fucking abyss, and if you get in our way, there will be serious consequences, I can assure you."

"Alright, that is enough!" Mattellus barked suddenly, a measure of steel in his voice this time around, as he took a decisive step to stand between them. His guards formed up – albeit with obvious reluctance – to make a line separating the two camps. "All of you, lock it up! Mr. Lanson, Ms. Karga. I am here on direct orders from Administrator Mattise, to escort these three during their investigation. Their safety is my responsibility. I have no glitch with either of you, or your sponsors, but I am not at liberty to disobey those orders. Now, whatever your assignment is, I have no intention of interfering, so I would appreciate it if we could go our separate ways."

The woman leading the other group of security guards smiled thinly as she moved up beside Lanson, one hand still resting gently on the side-arm holstered at her hip.

"Officer Mattellus us quite right," she said in a sultry drone. "We are all just following orders." Touching Lanson gently on the arm, she gestured back over her shoulder. "I believe you've made your point."

Lanson's lip curled distastefully. "Perhaps."

"Watch your backs out there," Lenor said as she stepped back. "I've heard people have a way of disappearing out here."

"We'll bear that in mind," Piper replied, and with a flick of her wrist she sent a crack ripping through the concrete in front of the other AmpCore agents, showering them with grit. "Now fuck off, before you become one of them."

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