The van Toran had procured for them slid neatly into the AmpCore vehicle bay. In the passenger compartment, Piper waited impatiently for the all clear. She needed to speak to Mattise. She needed to think, and needed to try and reach out to the presence again.

Any ideas? she enquired silently of her passenger.

Vague shadows. Cassie sounded peevish. Out of my reach.

Better than nothing.

Whatever haunts, it is different to the codewraiths. No code to feel. Its implants felt dead.

Implants? Piper frowned as she pressed the autobelt release. Like AmpCore? Odiye, Arrow and the Skiltron security detail riding with them rose up around her. She joined them, trying not to appear too distracted.

Not AmpCore. Not like yours. Dead things, designed that way.

Stealth tech, she offered. Something designed to stop someone reading it. To stop people like us from knowing what it was.

People like us. Cassie's mood brightened. She felt it in the back of her throat, like she'd just swallowed a fizzy soda.

"Alright," Toran barked from the front seat. "Everybody out!"

Cassie receded into her mind, seemingly understanding that interacting with two worlds at the same time was a struggle. She made a mental note to follow up as she fell into line behind the others. They spilled out into the main garage – a low, neat cavern lined with cars, bikes, vans and a handful of armoured trucks.

She looked around, noting with some confusion the lack of noise. Normally the main garages were busy places, with AmpCore agents and their escorts coming and going. Particularly with the volatile situation at the docks, she expected to see a lot more people here. There were a handful of corporate security strolling disinterestedly around, and a lone AmpCore agent with a Ness-Net stamp on her shoulder who seemed to be in charge of them, but not much else.

Officer McMurdo, the head of Toran's security detail, slid gracefully out from the driver's seat, the door sliding shut and locking behind him at the flick of a wrist. In his early thirties, he was a shaven-headed hawk of a man, with sharp features and dark, piercing eyes. His thin mouth formed a tight line as he gestured to his team, motioning them into position as the group started towards the entrance.

"Welcome home," Toran chuckled as he walked after them.

"It is quiet," Odiye said, looking perplexed. Piper caught his eye; gave him a small nod to let him know she felt the same.

"It is quiet, isn't it?" With McMurdo sticking close by his side, Toran led the way, walking up to the agent on duty.

Barely into her mid-twenties, she must've only just qualified as a fully fledged operative, Piper thought. She had pale skin and unruly red curls swirling around her head like fire. Her bored expression changed quickly to one of surprise when she saw them coming and she stood straighter, clearing her throat and giving Toran a deferential nod.

"Mr. Knox."

He eyed her dubiously. "Hi. You're operative..."

"Clough. Danni Clough." She nodded again. "Something I can help with?"

"Where the hell is everyone?"

Clough shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. I'm just on my assigned shift." Her mouth moved uneasily behind closed lips for a moment, as thought she was sifting through which words to say. "It is a little... odd. Haven't had any excursion parties in and out for two hours."

Toran's eyes narrowed. He glanced at McMurdo and the security officer gave a small shake of his head. I don't like it.

"Keep an eye out," he said after a moment, capping his temple. "Let me know if anyone else shows up, yeah?"

"I... let you-,"

"Yes, me."

Clough swallowed hard. "Will do, Mr. Knox."

Toran set off without another word, with his security detail coalescing around him. Piper scrambled to follow, Odiye and Arrow close behind as they passed through the first security door leading into the academy itself. Two guards waved them through without incident, but the sense of wrongness still prickled on her skin.

Curling her fingers, she reached out subtly, looking for anything wrong in the academy datastream. At first all seemed right. She could feel the ever-present river of corporate advertisements as they walked, the security systems and firewall codes tracing their steps.

As they went deeper, however, she found black spots in the stream. Dark areas where no information could be gleaned. The emptiness of the halls grew more pronounced.

"Okay, what is going on?" she blurted. "What's with the ghost town?"

"She is right, Toran," Odiye agreed, suddenly very close to her. "Where is everyone?" She got a waft of his cologne, a cocktail of mint and cloves that set her implants tingling with the proximity. Piper crammed those feelings back down and edged away a little. Now's not the time.

"I don't know."

"Try and reach Mattise," Arrow said, their voice tight with unease.

Toran tried. Three times. Each time static rebuffed him.

"Orders, sir?" McMurdo asked, scanning the corridors ahead uneasily.

Arrow looked back the way they'd come. "I don't like this."

"We need to find Mattise," Toran grated. "He'll know what's going on."

"Toran-," Odiye started to object, but his comrade wasn't listening, already walking off down the corrdior.

Piper forced herself to ignore the intoxicating feeling of his implants as she reached out, giving his upper arm a gentle squeeze of reassurance. "C'mon. He's only going to get himself into trouble without us."

Odiye didn't look particularly at ease, but he nodded, managing a smile as he placed his hand over hers for a moment. Their skin crackled – literally – their implants snapping at each other with a connection that Piper didn't understand. She remembered Ferra explaining it to her once.

You can feel others' emotions whether you want it or not. When you are that close; when you unleash your full power in such close proximity to each other, it can cause a connections. The implants don't create your feelings . . . They just amplify them.

He pulled away and started walking, but she felt his whole body twang with reluctance.

Then all of those thoughts evaporated when, a few minutes later, the trouble found them.

Piper, down!

Cassie's scream of warning lit up her mind, like someone had just slammed a thousand switches.

"LOOK OUT!" Piper yelled without really knowing why. She didn't need to. The raw panic in Cassie's eruption left her in no doubt. She lurched backwards and grabbed Arrow by the jacket. With a yell of effort, she launched herself to the left, dragging them both into the connecting hallway.

Just in time.

Bullets spat through the corridor.

There was no roar of gunfire, just the barely discernable tap-tap-tap of silenced weapons. Up ahead in the corridor, the guards in the lead had no chance to get out of the way – warning or no warning. Both of them went flying backwards as rounds tore through them. McMurdo dropped to one knee, swinging his rifle up and firing with eye blurring speed. Fast as he was, he only got off a short burst before more silent projectiles whipped down the passage.

His leg went out from under him in a spray of blood; the shoulder of his armour cracked and spun away as it absorbed a direct hit, and third round smashed through his armoured face-plate in a storm of blood.

Odiye lurched to the right and let out a hoarse bark of pain as a bullet clipped his arm. He clutching it as he launched himself into cover, blood welling between his fingers as he swore. Toran hit the ground flat with lightning speed, bullets crackling off the wall and floor around him. He rolled frantically to join Odiye.

"Odiye?!" Piper yelled as she hurled herself into cover.

"Flesh wound," he snarled, shuffling up against the wall with gritted teeth. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

"What the fuck is this welcoming committee?" She looked around furiously. "Toran, what is going on?!"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Toran whipped out his amplifier, his visor appearing over his eyes and instantly flooding with data. "This is Knox, report! What the hell is happening around here?"

The surviving security personal scurried into positions to the left and right, fumbling for their guns. Bullets clanged back in response. There was a sudden crack and another of the guards dropped dead, his neck twisted unnaturally.

Piper gritted her teeth, pulling her amplifier loose. Then she felt a sting behind her eyes. Her vision swam and spurts of broken code filled the corridor in front of her. She hissed, scrubbing at her eyes to no avail.

"AmpCore agent," Arrow hissed. "Logistic attack." Beside her, they pressed their back to the wall, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, one hand flattened against the metal plate, wand pulsing gently in the other. Some kind of countermeasure salved the air and the bits of broken code fell away. Piper blinked several times, the pain in her head subsiding.

"Four empties and two agents," Arrow rasped, head twitching as they worked, creeping their consciousness through the very structure of AmpCore's circuitry. "Kill team."

"A what?"

"A hundred yards in, using the junction for cover." Their eyes snapped open and they looked at Piper. "I can get their attention. You ready?"

"Wha-? I... yeah, do it!" Piper blurted, bracing herself to spring, knees bend and on hand on the floor for balance.

She felt the violent surge of electrics, followed by a crash of breaking metal. The lights in the corridor flickered and flashed; there was a break in the gunfire.

"Now!"

Piper exploded forward, barrier wrapped right around her as she sprinted into the haze and flickering lights. She reached as she'd been taught, hunting for the shapes in the half light. Panicked yells erupted ahead of her.

Her amplifier shot out. She brought a heavy sphere of gravity wrenching into existence right in their attackers. The plating of the corridor around it warped, then four bodies were suddenly ripped from cover. They smashed together with bone breaking force, guns and pieces of body armour scattering in all directions before she let go. The new bubble of gravity disappeared and the bodies fell.

A combustive bolt screamed out of the gloom and slammed into Piper's barrier. The force hurled her backwards, heat washing over her and singing her uniform. She let out a yelp of pain and shock as she hit the ground, tumbling head over heels. Her eyes dimly refocused and she saw a dark shape standing, wand outstretched. A second figure was just visible, weaving patterns with their amplifier. Electricity cracked the air.

She rolled until she hit the wall, lying flat on her front. Amplifier in both hands she wrenched a whole section of the ceiling out of its housing, bringing it crashing downwards. The operatives in front of her barely reacted, the one standing giving a flick of the wrist that tossed the metal contemptuously aside.

Piper felt storms gathering in front of her. Stray bolts from Toran and Odiye began whipping down the passage, deflected by the powerful barrier of the operative barring their way. The figure stepped forward.

She frantically hauled her barrier into place as she felt the tendrils reaching out for her, crawling beneath her skin, coiling around her veins and arteries, hunting for an opening. They squeezed, sending a creeping numbness through her body.

No. Cassie surged into the front of her mind, holding back the pressure, stopping the enemy agent from crushing her internal organs flat. Piper felt the twang of confusion in her attacker, before they redoubled their efforts, the weight on her body increasing, like she'd been dropped onto a high gravity planet.

The operative's chest blew open in a spray of gore. A blinding, white-hot stream of fire ripped through them and they collapsed in a convulsing, smoking heap. The second attacker froze for an instant in shock, before another blast hit them square in the face and their head simply vanished.

A few seconds later, the lights came back on, like nothing had happened.

"All clear," Piper coughed as she pushed herself to her knees, rolling her neck from side to side, eyes looking down the corridor. Footsteps clattered up behind her and she felt hands under her arms, hauling her upright.

"You okay?" Arrow asked, holding her steady.

"Yeah, just a little scorched," she replied, dusting herself down.

Toran stalked past them, striding up to the first dead operative and turning them over with his boot. Rage twisted his face.

"Wayfinder," he spat. "Jesus, you'd think I'd killed Ferra with my bare hands, the way they're acting."

"It's not about Ferra," Arrow snapped. "That's just an excuse, Toran. This is about everybody who's been waiting to take a shot at Skiltron deciding that now is the time."

"They're right." Odiye trudged up through the warped hallway, wincing as he aimed his amplifier at the wound in his arm, twisting and twitching the wand this way and that. A few seconds later he extracted a small, flattened bullet and let it clatter to the ground. His blood spattered around it. He kept working and the wound closed up a few seconds later.

"You okay?" Piper asked.

He nodded, his eyes flashing to Toran. "What's happening?"

"Wayfinder and their fucking serfs just declared war," he snarled. His amplifier twisted in his clenched fist. An errant trickle of force made the light fixtures spark. "That's what's happening."

"Toran Knox?"

Eyes and amplifiers snapped up to see a dishevelled man in an AmpCore uniform emerge into passage. His wand was still clutched in one hand.

"Wait, wait, wait!" the man yelped, holding up his other hand defensively.

Piper barely heard him as she levelled her amplifier, ready to blast him in two, but Arrow caught her arm.

"Woah, Piper! Easy, easy," they said. "I'm pretty sure he saved your life back there."

She stared for a couple of seconds longer before her frazzled brain joined the dots together and she lowered her weapon.

"Oh... sorry," she said. "And thanks, I guess."

"Don't mention it."

"Who are you?" Odiye asked.

"My name is Bannerman," the newcomer replied. "I worked with Mattise."

"Really?" Toran looked sceptical. "I've never heard of you."

"That was sort of the point." He winced, and only then did Piper notice the blood running down the side of his head from a gash just above his ear. She looked a little closer. She didn't recognise the badge on his shoulder.

"Ventris Refineries," he explained. "Ness-Net subsidiary, off the books."

"What the hell is going on around here?"

"Just like your friends said," he told them. "Looks like everybody with an axe to grind with Mattise and Skiltron managed to put their differences aside for long enough to stage a coup."

"Then we need to find him."

Bannerman shook his head. "Mattise is already dead."

Piper felt a jolt of shock. She fumbled for words to say, but couldn't find any. For a moment a stunned silence lingered in the air. Whatever his faults, Mattise had at least given a damn about her life, which was more than she could say for a lot of people around her. With him gone...

"You're... you're sure?" Odiye ventured at last.

"Of course I'm sure," Bannerman hissed. "Look, you all need to come with me."

"You want to run away?" Toran's eyes flared with fury. "They cannot get away with this."

"It's too late to stop them here. The students and instructors who might have helped you, they're keeping their heads down. For a lot of them, this isn't worth dying over. A lot of the others are already dead." He pointed back the way they'd come. "I can get you out of here but we have to go now."

Toran glared at him, and Piper could feel his anger sizzling in the air around them. A piece of floor plating beside him buckled and collapsed on itself, the solid metal sheet crushed to a ball the size of a fist.

"Toran," Arrow said quietly, stepping between them. "I know what you want to do."

His black look turned on them, the muscles in his neck standing out taut with the tension. "Then you'd best get out of my way."

"No, Toran! These kill teams are out for you. You know have to know that!" He moved to step past, but they blocked his way, giving him a firm shove back. "Damn it, Knox, get a fucking grip! You know how this works. They won this round. Live to fight another day."

Odiye moved up, grabbing Toran's wrist. "Listen to them, Toran," he said, his voice low with barely contained anger. "We will have Vinder's head for this, I promise, but only if we are smart."

The fight seemed to trickle out of Toran. She felt his implants loosen, the power in his amplifier leaking away into nothingness. He breathed deep, anger still simmering right beneath the surface as he looked at Bannerman.

"Lead the way."

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