The woman looked up sharply as they entered, her eyes blazing and red with spent tears.

Doser's visor flashed over his eyes for a couple of seconds, then vanished. "Mrs. Portrelle? Gaia Portrelle, is it?"

She twitched; looked back down at the table. Doser sniffed, nodding to one of the empty chairs opposite her. Kirk breathed deep, and sat down, leaning back and clasping his hands together on his lap. She didn't look dangerous – hell she looked like she weight eighty pounds soaking wet – but something in that wild gaze made him not want to get too closer.

Doser slumped down beside him, an unlit cigarette between finger and thumb. He reached across silently, just holding it in the woman's field of view.

After a few seconds she reached out shaking fingers and took it from him. Kirk watched the ritual unfold as the detective lit it for her. She breathed deep, shakily at first, her bony shoulders heaving. A couple of drags later she seemed to relax, sinking a little further against her chair.

"Are you alright?" Kirk asked quietly.

Gaia looked up at him, eyes watering. "Am I alright?"

"I'm asking how you are." He cast a sidelong glance at Doser. "I figure no-one here's asked you that yet."

"So you're good cop?"

"I'm no cop." Kirk tugged his jacket open to the left and right. "See, no badge."

"So what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Outside consultant," Doser rumbled, shooting Kirk an irritated glance before returning his attention to Gaia. "I take it you're done swinging for people?"

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I didn't mean... I was just-,"

"I know. People do a lot of silly stuff when they're upset."

"Upset?" Her eyes flashed angrily. "I'm not some crazy pill-popping error message. I know what I saw."

"What did you see?" Kirk asked, keeping his voice level. He could see it, that instinctive distrust of any kind of authority, twisting and grinding right beneath her skin. For her to have come here at all, she must have been scared out of her mind.

Her lips twisted. "Tried telling you already. Look where that got me."

"You're here because you assaulted an officer," Doser told her flatly. "I'd like to know what you saw that put you in that state."

"I..." She sucked on the cigarette to steady herself. "Shit, you're not gonna believe me. I don't believe me."

"I'm from Fare Row Range," Kirk interjected, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table. "I've seen plenty of crazy shit out there. Saw a codewraith – looked it dead in the eye."

"How come you're still sucking oxygen?"

"Thing wasn't after me. Just lucky I guess."

She smiled grimly. "Me too, I suppose."

"Gaia," Doser growled. "What did you see."

"I work sluiceway maintenance," she answered. "I was just doing my fuckin' job, alright? Wasn't looking for trouble. Me and my shift mate, Briggers."

"Where's Briggers now?"

"If I knew that I wouldn't be sitting here." The words started coming now, rushing out of her like she couldn't help it. "We're just down there, tryin' to patch one of those piss-weak Atlantis filter units, and the fuckin' power's down in that section too, so we're working with headlamps and prayers – slow as shit, behind on our quota. Next thing you know I'm hearing some kinda clanking. We think it's another piece of shitty spiv-tech giving up the ghost, so we go knocking." Gaia heaved in a breath; dragged frantically on the cigarette before continuing.

"So we're movin' along, and we're lookin' for the noise. Next thing I know something's moving – right on top of us. Briggers' light goes out, and I'm looking, looking, looking." She rubbed the heel of her palm across her eyes, her breaths becoming more ragged. "Then I see it. Right outta the fuckin' Schism, looking me dead in the face. Never forget that – white eyes, like those old-world fish things in the deep. The ones with the big fuckin' underbite. What do you call them – angerfish?"

"Anglerfish," Kirk corrected his eyes slowly widening. Her description sparked something in his mind. He clasped his hands together, pressing his fingers against his lips as he tried to think.

"So, what, a codewraith?" Doser ventured.

"This wasn't no fucking codewraith, detective," she hissed, locking eyes with him and pointing with the cigarette's smouldering end. "I saw flesh and blood, and I saw metal, and I saw all the nasty places they fit together. And I'm not talking about a cyborg either. I'm talking about something that ain't human, but sure as shit ain't a machine. Moved silent, like a bloody spider. I'm there, looking at it, it's looking back. Then it just..." She threw her hands up helplessly. "Gone, just disappeared."

"So if it wasn't a codewraith, what do you think you saw?"

"How in the fuck should I know? Do I look some kinda blacktech coder to you?"

"Wait," Kirk breathed, his eyes slowly widening. The individual facts clacked off each other like a game of snooker, slowly pocketing themselves as he pieced them together.

Not a machine. Not human. Flesh and metal. Silent like a spider.

"What is it?" Doser swivelled to look at him. "You know what she's talking about?"

"I think so."

"You hourly? Out with it, kid."

"I think it's a lurker." He swallowed hard and stood up sharply and started for the door. "I'll be back."

"Wait, where are you-,"

"I've got to check something."

"Kirk, hold on," Doser scrambled awkwardly out of the chair and stumbled after him.

They stumbled back out of the room, where Kirk came to a halt, raking both hands through his hair, trying to think. That gave enough time for Doser to get in front of him and bar his path, the big man's frame making it impossible to pass.

"Just hold the fuck on, would you?" Doser growled. "What the hell are you talking about? What's a lurker?"

"I... I think... it's something I've read about." He dragged a hand down his face, thinking back through all the corporate crap he'd waded through over the years. He couldn't be one-hundred-percent sure – not here – but the woman's descriptions were too close for him to let it go.

"Read where?!"

"It's a long story." Kirk pointed back into the interrogation room. "I need to go back to my house. I need to check that I'm remembering it all right, okay? Talk to her. Get her to describe every inch of what she saw. I'll give you my coding address so you can contact us."

"And where are you going?"

"Home."

"Fuck sake." Doser planted his hands on his hips, eyes rolling skyward in search of patience. "Alright, alright. Go!"

*

"Okay, I'll play," Nevay said, looking at him with an expression of both concern and apprehension as he walked as fast as his legs would carry him. "What's a Lurker?"

Around them, the thin-walled buildings of the Fare Row Range clambered up to two or three stories at their tallest, their flimsy pre-fab structures not strong enough to be stacked much higher than that. He didn't look back at her, storming ahead, unable to think of anything else until he cleared his head of the horrible thoughts that were swirling around in it.

Frankly, he wasn't totally comfortable with her knowing where he lived, but she hadn't taken no for an answer. Too much risk – too many corps on the prowl right now. She didn't want to leave him alone. He wasn't sure if he should be touched or insulted.

"Kirk, fucking hell!" she blurted, grabbing him by the arm and wrenching him to a halt.

"What?!" he erupted.

Nevay recoiled. "You are starting to give me the creeps, Kirk. What the hell's going on? What is a lurker?"

"Something bad," he snapped impatiently. "I just... I need to check. I've got notes, back at my house."

"Something wrong with my CPUs?"

"I mean real notes, Nevay." He held his hands up, as though holding a newspaper. "Physical, printed notes."

She only looked more baffled. "Why would you-,"

"Because no-one is supposed to have them anymore." He grabbed her by the shoulder, tapping his head with his other hand. "I'm talking about corporate blacktech, Nev. History, reports from before the Schism. Stuff that they've torched a long time since."

"Alright..." Nevay peeled his hand off of her, raising a concerned eyebrow. "So these notes of yours, you think they have information on this lurker thing?"

"I think so. I think so." He rubbed his eyes with both hands, trying to bring the pages to mind from memory. "There's just a lot there. Just, everything Doser's survivor said, it reminded me of something. But I need to be sure."

"Say you're sure. How fucked are we?"

"Let's crack that code when we get to it, eh?"

She frowned, but gestured for them to carry on. Grateful for the conversation to be at an end, he didn't waste time, resuming his furious pace through the streets. In the evening things were getting busy, as people gratefully shed their workday shackles, spilling into crowded bars at shift's end. The Fare Row Range was dominated mostly by salvage and repair yards for ships coming and going – those who couldn't afford top end corporate hospitality. Smaller corps ran the rackets out here, supported by a healthy net of freelancers with dubious credentials.

Most people didn't pay much attention to them as they hurried down the sidewalk. Snarling techno-rock thundered from car speakers and shopfronts, colliding with the rising hubbub of conversation to create an impenetrable blanket. A handful of people seemed to notice Nevay, nervous glances coming their way.

Whether they actually knew who she was, or just thought she looked scary, Kirk couldn't say.

Turning right out of the main road, they descended a steep slope towards his father's salvage yard. Unlike Nevay's ill-fated acquaintance, Derran Balfour had no designs on Hadrian South, instead making ends meet from dredging the nearby waters of the Hadrian, and hoovering up wreckage that accumulated on the banks.

The yard straddled a section of raised, armoured embankment, well above the corrosive waters of the Hadrian. A large, oval maw opened to reveal the steam-filled chaos of the yard itself, with the sizzle of plasma torches and scream of metal grinders filling the air. In front of that open section, a series of thick, galvanised pulley systems worked, raising the bulky salvage tugs up and down from the river.

On the outside, Kirk knew it looked like a good gig. Owned by his dad, with a dozen seasoned salvagers on the payroll. Except, if you dug a little deeper, the yard's lease belonged to a subsidiary of Cartwright Residential, who owned half the real-estate along the river bank, and used that fact to keep rents steep.

Hazardous maintenance backstop fee.

He remembered the wording in the agreement even now. Everybody here got gouged the same, locked into contracts that they could just barely keep ahead of and handily lining Cartwright's pockets along the way.

"Now, remember," he said to Nevay as they approached the yard, "I told my dad that I'm working construction renovating that trainyard in Allchem. So don't say anything about wraiths, or murders, the corps, or fucking gangs, alright?"

"What, afraid you'll get grounded?"

"I'm serious."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it." She smiled thinly. "Wouldn't want to get you into trouble, would we?"

Kirk closed his eyes for a moment, and prayed she would keep her mouth shut.

The heat of the workshop was like a wall. He winced as the familiar sensation engulfed him, and he heard Nevay exhale sharply as she followed him in.

"Hells, it's a furnace in here," she muttered.

"You get used to it."

The workers who noticed him gave Kirk nods and muffled greetings from behind their protective breather filters, but most were too engrossed in their work. He wove through the workshop towards the stairway at the back corner, where a door on the upper led through to his actual home.

Between them and the house, stood Kirk's father, leaning against a heavy work bench that was strewn with mangled pieces of metal. Salvaged parts from a tugboat engine if his memory served. A lean, wiry man with shaggy burnt-red hair, he spotted them approaching and his thick beard parted in a smile to reveal his grimy teeth.

"Well, well, well!" Derran Balfour chuckled as he wiped grease from his hands with an oil-stained rag. "Look who decided to put in a shift? You're a little late for today's haul, Kirk."

"Sorry, dad," he answered, doing his best to look suitably shamefaced. "We've been busy at the trainyard."

"Christ, at this rate that place'll be up and running by year end. Careful, corps'll get jealous."

"We'll keep our heads down," Kirk assured him.

"So what's got you traipsin' in at closing time?"

"Just gotta grab a couple of things from the house."

"And who's your friend?" Derran eyed Nevay curiously. "If you're toutin' for work, lady, afraid I can't help you."

"I'm good, thanks," Nevay replied. "Already got a job with your boy at the construction site."

"That so?" Derran grinned, and winked at Kirk. "Sure thing. I gotta get back to it, son. You gonna be back for a bite tonight?"

"I'll try, dad."

"Don't work too hard, eh?" Then his attention shifted back to the pieces of machinery laid out before him, Kirk and Nevay forgotten as he leaned in over them.

They ascended the slim, painted-iron staircase up to the thin metal door. Kirk swept his wrist link over the lock sensor. The old processor wrestled with the reading for a few seconds before accepting his identity.

"Your dad seems chill," Nevay said as the door closed behind them, its thin structure doing little to soften the din of the workshop.

"He likes his job," Kirk replied. "Not that many people around here can say that."

"Doesn't seem too worried with you being out and about all hours."

"I'm not a child, Nevay. He knows he doesn't have to babysit me, and he doesn't want to. Since mum..." He shrugged as he stepped through the cluttered front room and into the narrow corridor beyond leading to the bedrooms. "He's got enough to do keeping this place running without worrying about me."

They had to move single file through the connecting hall, before turning left into the little cubicle that passed for Kirk's bedroom.

He breathed deep as he stepped through. It wasn't a lot, but it was still his – more or less – filled with memories, for better or worse. A cot of bed just large enough to fit him folded out from the wall on the left, with a home made table opposite it, jammed with folders and bundled up documents. Even the space beneath it was packed with makeshift shelving to handle the overflow.

His heart jolted as he looked over the reams of old paper. A laugh from a forgotten life tinkled in his ears. Piper used to tease him about his collection. Obsession, that was what she'd said. None of it had been serious – he knew that – but he still felt a small twinge of smugness.

Told you so, he thought. Corps burned all this for a reason.

"Jesus," Nevay breathed as she ran her eyes over the collection. "How long have you been squirrelling this stuff away?"

"Longer than I'd like to admit," he replied as he sat down.

He took a few seconds, recalling what passed for a filing system in all of this. It ranged from old news reports to defunct corporate contracts, antique technical specs to arcane lawsuits from before the Schism. Each document in isolation didn't give away much, but if you packed it all together, you could paint a very nasty picture.

Kirk started flicking through the papers, acutely aware of Nevay's eyes on him. She kept quiet, but he could feel the questions wanting to leap off her tongue as she meandered uneasily around the room.

"You want to know where all this came from," he said.

"You bet I do," she laughed, "but let's find what you came here for first. You can give me your life story on the way back."

He smiled weakly, fingers moving swiftly as he moved through his mental map. It came back to him in waves, everything he'd gathered together over the years. At the time, he'd never really known what he would do with it all – it was just something he wanted to know, for his own sanity.

After a few minutes he found the thick bundle of scavenged corporate technical specs. Shuffling through the documents, it didn't take long to find the one that matched up with the survivor's description. He extracted two sparse pages and let the rest thump back down to the table.

"Shit," he breathed.

"What? You find what you're looking for?"

"Yeah." He stared at them, and felt a cold chill of fear begin to creep along his bones. The header of the document read:

MCAT-IND. DOC 648391647[REDACTED] | AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY

T-SPEC. DESIGNATION: LEK-3R

Below the heading was an image, all sanitised down to its specifications. Kirk didn't understand much of the specifics – he was no engineer – but even the blueprint was scary. It showed a multi-limped mess, almost arthropod-like in its construction. On the top and bottom clusters of four limbs protruded, and there were places along both sections marked as 'graft vectors'.

Outlined between the two halves was a layout of a human skeleton. There were a dozen ancillary pieces of tech dotted around the diagram that Kirk didn't recognise, but near the head section, he could see the ocular implants. Spec'd for full visual spectrum – they could see through smoke, darkness and even solid walls.

"The fuck is this thing?" Nevay murmured as she leaned in over his shoulder to look.

"Supposed to be an Alpha-Test that never got off the ground," he replied. "The next gen of corporate wetwork grafts for someone crazy enough to try it. Silent, able to get through any defences, kidnap, kill or anything in between and not leave a trace behind."

"Alpha-Test." She shook her head slowly. "And it never got to Beta because...?"

"Apparently the grafting caused some 'psychological side-effects'."

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, Kirk. Are you telling me one of these juiced-up super assassins dragged itself across the river and is running around the docks?"

He swallowed hard and put the paper down. "Yeah, I think I am."

||