“Oi. Dickhead. Wake up.”

Dack stirred from beneath his blanket, grumbling as a boot-clad foot prodded him in the face.

“If I have to poke you again, I’ll kick your teeth in.”

Sighing, Dack slipped out from underneath his makeshift covers, and up off of the old mattress which served as his bed.

“Sleeping beauty awakens.” Jamila smirked down at him, whilst he slowly floundered awake.

“You couldn’t have left me five more minutes?” Dack grumbled, scooping his boxers up off of the floor, and slipping into them to cover his nakedness, whilst he set about scavenging the rest of his clothes, before putting them on.

“Grendel wants you up and eager, before her majesty arrives,” Jamila explained “you’re front and centre today, hot shot.”

“I honestly think I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out.” Dack groaned, slipping into his oversized faux leather jacket. He was a short, scrawny kid; smaller than most of the guys in Grendel’s crew, and some of the girls. Nevertheless, he had an aptitude for getting into places he shouldn’t be, and his sticky fingers had made him indispensable to Grendel.

“Relax, it’s not like you’re going live on stream,” Jamila made her way over to him, giving him a quick hug for reassurance “I’m sure Grendel will do most of the talking. He’ll probably just want you there to big himself up.”

No sooner had she finished speaking, then a booming voice came thundering up from down beneath them.

“DACK, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE, BOY!”

Dack exhaled, rubbing his temples nervously.

“Come on,” Jamila slipped her fingers in between his, squeezing his hand tightly “lets go get this over with.”

Dack and Jamila, along with the rest of Grendel’s crew, had taken up residence in the shell of an old Osi-Corp warehouse, in the bleakest depths of Ghajotia; Mega-City Arcadia’s biggest slum. Ghajotia had allegedly been constructed to store affordable housing for Arcadia’s more destitute residents, but had quickly fallen into a state of neglect. With Osi-Corp showing no interest in maintaining the district, Ghajo had become a cesspit of crime and poverty; with many of Arcadia’s lesser gangs taking up residence in its crumbling ruins.

The pair shimmied down the ladder which lead to Dack’s “room”, and made their way downwards into the central chamber of the dilapidated warehouse. Grendel’s thugs were scurrying around warped metal beams and collapsed aisleways, clearing away what rubble they could manage, before the guest of honour arrived.

Even Grendel himself was moving rubble out of the way, heaving huge chunks of debris above his head, and tossing them to one side. He was a large man, but the payload he was lifting was beyond massive, and wouldn’t have been possible without the cybernetic prosthetics which had replaced his organic arms.

“Dack,” Grendel gave the boy a slight nod of his head, drumming his metallic fingers idley against one arm “how you feelin’?”

“Like I’d rather be in bed.” Dack replied, honestly.

“Cheer up, buttercup,” Grendel snorted, scratching at the stubble on his rock hard jaw “you’re about to make me very rich. You got the disk?”

Dack reached into his jacket pocket, fishing out the Golden Disk.

It wasn’t much to look at -a small golden circle, which was smooth and featureless to the naked eye- but Dack knew that this piece of metal was worth more to Grendel than every member of his crew combined.

Grendel’s metallic fingers shot forwards, snatching the disk from Dack in a blurr of movement.

“This little beauty is gonna get me enough ass and Trance to level Arcadia.” Grendel grinned.

Just then, the old mechanical warehouse doors slowly screeched to life, and a group of alien figures came striding into the light.

Grendel’s thugs stopped what they were doing, whipping out handguns, and brandishing them at the new arrivals.

“Put them away, you mangy fucking cunts.” Grendel snarled, hissing at his men.

“Just the sort of welcome I was expecting.” Aurora Baines said with a smirk, her hips swaying as she came swaggering over to Grendel, with her security entourage marching behind her.

Every inch of the queen of the Black Brethren had been meticulously sculpted to the very definition of perfection. She was deliciously curvaceous, tall but not too tall, and had the etched features of a greek goddess. Frosty white hair flowed over her shoulders, and she was dressed in the finest designer gettup.

Dack very much doubted that any of Aurora’s beauty was natural, but right now he felt like he was standing in the presence of excellence incarnate.

Baine’s muscle fell in to place besides her; a squadron of heavily-armed soldiers, who looked more like a paramilitary force than gangsters. They were clad from head-to-toe in jet black body armour, and each soldier was holding a rifle. Dack had no idea what lurked beneath their protective clothing, but he suspected that each of them had an arsenals worth of augmentations.

“Aurora Baines,” Grendel greeted the queenpin with a broad smirk “welcome back to Ghajota.”

“Not to sound ungrateful, but I prefer the view from my penthouse.” she said flippantly “show me the disk.”

Grendel unfolded his massive palm, revealing the golden disk.

“As promised.”

A cone of blue light erupted from the optic augmentations in Aurora’s eyes, bathing the disk in a soft neon glow.

“That’s a neat trick.” Grendel murmured.

“Just making sure its the genuine article,” she reassured him, as the light flickered out “I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, Aurora, of course. Can’t be too careful,” Grendel gave an overly-enthusiastic nod “but I promise you, I’m a man of my word. Now, shall we discuss payment?”

Aurora Baines paused for a moment, her head tilting slightly. She turned, and her eyes fell upon Dack.

He froze, almost instantly.

“What’s your name, kid?” She asked.

“Dack.” said Dack.

“Ah, yes! I was getting to that. This is the one who got the disk for me.” Grendel explained, but the queenpin stared right past him, keeping her eyes fixed on Dack.

“Well then, Dack,” Aurora smiled slyly “I’m going to teach you a very important lesson about opening your door to strangers.”

Before any of them had time to react, Aurora Baines had pulled out a handgun, and fired a round straight between Grendel’s eyes. The back of the mobster’s head was blown out across the warehouse in a cone of dark red, as his body went tumbling to the floor.

In a fraction of a second, Baines’ security team had their weapons drawn, and were tearing Grendel’s crew to shreds in a torrent of gunfire. Jamila took a round through the neck, and was dead before Dack could even grasp what has happening.

She was one of the last to go.

Dack stood still, his heart pounding, surrounded by the lifeless bodies of his makeshift family.

“Grab the disk,” Aurora Baines instructed her soldiers “and throw the kid in a cell. I’ve got plans for him.”

Mike stepped off the hover-train and into the terminal. Osi-Corp had built a train system to link the many districts of Arcadia during it’s first few years of explosive growth. The hover-train had been envisoned as the golden standard in easing transportation problems that are so common in mega-cities. Now, years later, the hover-train system is more akin to a mosquito. It carries the vagrants, criminals, the worst of Arcadia, and makes sure that every district gets infected by it.

The terminal in Ghajotia was, in Mike’s opinion, one of the least hospitable dwellings on Mars. Because it had become just that: a dwelling. Hundreds of impoverished who couldn’t afford shelter had set up cardboard or cloth huts against the slick concrete walls of the dying terminal. Most of the terminal was blanketed in twilight, with a few dozen small pockets of light coming from old halogen light bulbs of the that could still emit some photons. It seemed the well lit areas were valuable real estate, cardboard homes clustered around them like tiny neighborhoods. The almost metallic odor of Trance weighed heavily in the darker areas. Mike hurried through as quickly as he could.

He finally rounded a corner. A security checkpoint lay between him and a set of stairs that led up towards the neon glow of Arcadia’s skyline. Since Osi-Corp did technically still run the hover-train, they charged an incredibly small fee for usage. The point wasn’t the fee, but the checkpoints. Users of the hover-train had to pass through a security gate and present their badge to be scanned. Osi-Corp didn’t care about the tiny sum they earned from this transaction, it was their method of monitoring Arcadia’s lowest class. The people who couldn’t afford to not take the hover-train or live in the terminals. Mike didn’t care about being tracked. He’d spent years making sure that Osi-Corp had a bogus profile on him, and often made a point of riding the hover-train to scrupulous locations around Arcadia just to further this cause. Today’s destination however, had been planned.

He joined a line and listened to a machine accept each person as they presented their badges. Most had their badge logged on an implanted chip somwhere in their body, like their wrists or palms.

Beep!

Beep!

When Mike stood in front of the machine, he held out a worn plastic badge. The machine hesitated, not liking such an ancient piece of technology, but it begrudgingly let him pass with a Bereeep!

After climbing the stairs and emerging onto the street, Mike was finally in Ghajotia. For some reason, the dislapidated slum reminded him of the beehives he used to see back home, in a time so long ago that it felt like a previous life. Small tight alleys honeycombed in and out of the large housing complexes that seemed to buzz with constant noise. It was hard to believe that Osi-Corp had long ago constructed this district with relief in mind. Just like they did with the hover-train. Or with Mike’s old home.

He stood on the street in disgust of everything humanity had become when a rattle of gunfire in a nearby warehouse roused him. Gunfire was a common occurrence here, but it still reminded Mike to get moving and to stay alert. The entire district was a breeding ground for the likes of the Nazyashi, or the Black Brethren, whom Mike knew had a particularly large presence here. It was also the reason why he had to go stomping around in one of the most dangerous parts of the city.

It was no secret that the Black Brethren and their leader, Aurora Baines, have been hot on the trail of the Golden Disk. Mike was furious with himself that they would find a lead on the Disk before he would. He’d spent years haunting after it, and considered his investigative abilities to be second to none. Now, what he wanted almost as badly as he wanted the disk, was to know how. Half the city was erupting because a map had set her on the path to the disk, but Mike wanted to know who had given Aurora Baines the information she needed, and how this person had it. He knew that in her posession, the Golden Disk would be virtually untouchable. But if he could trace its’ origins and learn more about it...Who knew what useful knowledge he might discover?

Of course, this would mean a meeting with them, and the only thing more dangerous than a meeting with the Black Brethren is an unscheduled one.

Mike pulled his jacket tighter around him as an acidic drizzle began to fall out of the hazy atmosphere above him, and marched further into Ghajotia.

There are rules, there are goddamned rules. Miranda thought as she briskly walked through the station, people milling about as she made her way to her destination, only stopping to lift a Hornet Scooter. The rules were very rudimentary, almost all based on a twisted honor code, but they were there. You don't deal where you don't have permission, you don't shoot other people's dealers, and you don't shake down Info Brokers that are gathering info on somebody else cred!
Miranda had been sniffing around Ghajotia for weeks, looking for the boy made of matchsticks who had done the impossible, gotten his fingers on the unfingerable. And now that she finally, finally got wind of him, the Databreaker was intercepted by some gunsel. The guy was described as some kind of wannabe MilCorp in black, but between the Militia, the Brethren, scruffier members of actual MilCorp and several freelancers with more firearms than fashion sense, that could describe half of town. And given what the Grendy's kid had, there was no way there were that few people involved.
All of this was running through Miranda's fuming mind as she picked up speed scooting towards where the kid was, a warehouse, with a roof that was nearly concave, just the sort of place a loser like Grendy would hold court. All wasn't lost yet, the situation was still salvageable, if nothing else she should at least be able to buy some ti-
Gunshots. First one. Then a lot. Then silence. Miranda winced, the gray-green images of her eyes flickering out and back onto the screen of her eyes, then leapt off the Bug and crept into the shadows. Disk or not disk, she wouldn't do C any good with a bullet in her dome.

Calypso squashed the cartoon goat that was cheerfully dancing around on her phone screen and locked the device, cautiously setting the dinosaur piece of technology screen-side down below the counter. Frugality and sensibility demanded that she buy a smartphone instead of some fancy newfangled implant that let someone slide a SIM card into their neck and give the phone company permission to view their memories and stream relevant ads directly to their subconscious. Yet even though the device was outdated, she treated it with the certain care of someone handling another person’s newborn; every minor scratch nearly causing a major heart attack.

At the moment she couldn’t even dream of affording a new one, and that was what was making the ability to swipe away a new gig from Capri more and more difficult—even after it had made her, or at least the hat and coat she had burnt in a dumpster, the latest public enemy for about fifteen whole minutes. She heard her phone vibrate and didn’t dare to look, instead sliding herself down the bar and turning the music up a few more notches to “What? What?” levels, forcing the young couple at the far table to begin chugging their beers so that they could leave.

Calypso leaned back against the wall, finding a comfortable spot between the cheap liquor and the bottles of wine that had been there since open, and let out a frustrated sigh of boredom as she lazily watched over the barren landscape. The Black Hole wasn’t really a special bar in any sort of way. It was dark, damp, and smelled of desperation. There was a stage for bands that never saw any use, a projector that had never worked, and two pool tables for games that never ended in anything but violence. The walls were covered in neon adverts for beers and liquors and tasteful drawings from the patrons of phalluses and the contact information of a scorned lover. The floor was sticky with what Calypso hoped was beer, and the bathrooms were considered a biohazard. The only windows were high up off of the ground, and there was only the front door and the fire exit near the office. For safety, there was a gun stashed under the bar and the quiet bouncer, Maxi, who stood by the door, although he only hurt people if they threatened the staff; drunks were free game.

Also, there was generally a crowd of scumbags from the Black Brethren getting drunk and wild and giving Calypso something to do and someone to talk with—Maxi wasn’t one for words. They had invaded the Black Hole, located in what Calypso’s absentee boss called “the nice part” of Ghajotia, although technically in was in the neighboring district of Bandi, which was only slightly less of a flaming junkhole and the area Calypso was born and raised. Calypso remembered the day the Black Brethren had moved into the area and claimed the Black Hole as their own, back when it was called Bar 451 and occupied by junkies and wannabe gangsters that called, laughably, themselves “the Bandi Banditos”. Things didn’t go well for the Banditos that didn’t quickly change loyalties. She had stepped over the corpses of more than a few of her regulars when walking home after close. The way the Black Brethren had handled things had always made her kind of hate them…

...although not as much as she hated them now for not even showing up to the bar they had made their own. She was bored, bored, bored. Calypso slumped forward onto the counter, the brim of her hat pushing up as she let out another, louder sigh of frustration that was drowned out by the blaring music. There was no way of actually knowing, but she wasn’t certain that her phone had just vibrated again. She pushed herself up and began to look around for the device just in time to see all six foot eight inches and however many hundred pounds plus chrome add-ons of Maxi stand up from his stool and slowly lumber towards the door. Calypso shouted something at him, scrambled over to turn the music all the way down, and then shouted at him more loudly than she had intended to over the sudden silence: “Where are you going?”

The big bouncer stopped, but he didn’t say anything or even turn around to acknowledge her, prompting Calypso to continue. Her voice was steadier now, calm and reasonable as she slipped out from behind the counter and started to approach him, “I know we’re dead right now, but we still gotta stay open for at least a few more hours before calling it quits. You know the boss hates it when we close up early.”

Nothing.

Calypso furrowed her brow and stepped in front of him, “C’mon, man. You can’t leave me here by myself. What gives?”

“Work.”

“Work?” she repeated. Calypso knew Maxi wasn’t the brightest—cheap cybernetics and painkillers would make anyone half brain dead—but he wasn’t delusional either. “You got a new job?”

“No,” he said. “I quit.”

And then he left. There was really nothing Calypso could do to stop the man. Unbeknownst to Calypso, in an hour or two Maxi would be suiting up in a jet-black suit and helping his queen seize control of a certain disk. Later, once the information leaked, she would be able to put together that he hadn’t been hired on until after the Black Brethren had taken over the neighborhood, and that he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t have a new job. He had an old job, and it was one he could never leave, even if it meant no longer being able to watch his fellow gang members beat the snot out of drunk idiots who wandered into their bar. Later, as someone with a double life herself, Calypso would find something to almost admire in someone who was able to keep their shadiness so well hidden, but in the moment she was dumbfounded.

The bartender walked back behind her bar. She didn’t even think to turn on the music as her hand rested next to the gun underneath the counter. In the silence, it was impossible to drown out the fears that crept into her mind of what could potentially happen to a lone woman in an empty bar. It was the same fear that made her keep her phone pressed to her ear, pretending to have a conversation with someone, and her other hand wrapped around her static pick when she had to walk home alone at night. Her hand shook as she reached for a glass and poured in a bit of whisky to calm her nerves, her eyes never leaving the front door. In such a packed city, it was strange to be alone—and then, as if to counter that point, her phone vibrated. She didn’t even bother looking. She knew what it said.

accessing database “event_record” ...

ACCESS_ID: ktakeda3168
ACCESS_DATE: 2120.08.23
CLEARANCE: RED-4

“Fireteam One give SITREP.” “Fireteam Two, confirm alley is secure, over.” “Viper reporting all clear on top. Orbiting at two hundred meters.” Two black SUVs, a tactical van, and an MRAP were already on site when the third finally caught up. The growl of a V-72 on patrol saturated the air. From the third vehicle, another six burly men in full SWAT gear burst from the rear doors. From the passenger seat emerged a petite asian woman wearing a hard-shell armor vest calling out orders the minute her boots hit the ground.
“Team Two stack up on rear entry. Team One stack up front, Teams Three and Four secure a perimeter at one block radius. Viper keep us posted. All teams, breach in tee minus forty seconds.”

She sauntered over to Fireteam 1, pulling a small silver device from her belt. The device was placed against the wall and given a hard smack, anchoring it to the surface. Agent Takeda stared off into space as though she could see through solid matter. Except that was exactly the case. The silver gizmo was a sensor beacon linked into the tactical feed running into the soldiers’ helmets, and into her optical implants. She racked her weapon and gave a three finger countdown and on “go” the preplaced charges blew the door in. Explosive breaching had startled the literal piss out of her the first time she was around it. Now after having done it over a dozen times it was just another day in the field.

She filed in with the rest of the team, sweeping left while the agent behind her swept right. The sensor beacon had the target located to a room but the picture was fuzzy. There was no telling if he was armed, or had company, or both. Takeda gestured two of her goons towards the hall where the room was while she and another two held steady aim on the suspect. She slid a hand forward from the grip to squeeze a trigger, but not for live rounds. He kept a sensor cartridge loaded on the lower rail that embedded another, smaller sensor node into the sheetrock. The suspect was clearly alone, and was seating the magazine of a pistol. The agents knew what needed to happen the moment the sensor feed updated. The door was kicked in, commands were yelled, and then shots were fired.

Both agents with Takeda had fired one shot each. Her rifle had fired a three round burst. The odds of any suspect surviving five bullets to the head was next to zero. The breach had come just two seconds too late to catch the suspect without a loaded weapon. He panicked and tried to shoot his way out, and there was never a chance that would have worked. Of course that meant any leads the suspect could have provided just died with him. “Secure the location then we sweep the place.”

Takeda stepped out to make the requisite series of phone calls following the unfortunate change of plans. Her team could sweep the remainder of the building by their lonesome. Evidently caller ID was on point by Bill Card’s prompt greeting. “You’re early. Tell me something good.”
“For better or worse, the pharma burglars case is over.”
Without a live suspect, the prospect of leads were entirely in the hands of scene investigators. Still, this was the last suspect on the list and the last end to tie up. Dead was almost as good as alive in this case. “Why do I get the feeling you’re bringing me a corpse instead of a detainee?”
“Because I’m bringing you a corpse instead of a detainee,” she joked, “it should go without saying that wasn’t the initial plan but things happen fast on the ground.”
“No need to remind me I suppose,” he grumbled, “Can you let Strike finish up by themselves? The higher-ups are hounding me about wanting you free for something they haven’t told me about yet, and there will be paperwork to close out this case.”
“I’ll get right on that...” she patronized, and clicked off the headset.

---

She had stayed to monitor the building sweep anyway. Jian gave her full authority over Strike Bravo and she wasn’t about to feed them to the wolves. Anything that happened to them was on her head. Besides, who ever actually wanted to do paperwork? No one, that’s who. The paperwork wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

The team had found no other individuals on the premises and the labrats went to work picking apart the apartment for anything useful. Takeda knew the likelihood of a lead strong enough to keep the case open was low, though it didn’t bother her. This was the fifteenth and final suspect they were running down. There was no one else identified in the case file to be hunted unless this guy had given her one. After eleven different sting operations, she was comfortable letting the case be put to rest.

That did mean the aforementioned paperwork though. Maybe Card would be helpful and part of it would be done already. She would find out soon enough as the not-at-all-suspicious black SUV pulled into a gated below-ground parking deck. Card was waiting for her when the driver dropped her off by the lift. “Well someone’s impatient ...”
“And someone’s late ...” he scolded back.
“Koko de jissai ni nani ga okotte imasu ka?” (what’s really going on here?) she questioned as they got in the elevator and headed up.

Despite his British-American descent, he still spoke rather fluent japanese, or at least enough to carry on full conversations with Takeda, her being a native speaker, and enough to know she had put two and two together and knew there was more to the story than what he let on. “on'nanokodesu ...” (clever girl ...) “whole office has been retasked. That big assignment that was gonna be yours? They made it mine now since you’re so good at administrative work, and they said you’re the most qualified agent we have to be point man on this.”
“Point man on what? You haven’t said what this assignment is.”
Card didn’t answer immediately, gesturing her forward as the elevator doors opened to let them pass. There were people in briefing room 02 down the hall she could see. The briefing room walls were soundproofed double-layer display glass. Unless set to blackout, the occupants were plainly visible. Thus it was readily apparent half the agents of Jian’s number 35 complex were already waiting for them.

The number of file folders that the man got barraged with when they joined the gathering was impressive. Moreso was that he seemed to be expecting all of them, and that everyone then went quiet expecting him to start explaining this mess. “I know it’s early in the morning so I’ll get right to it. The situation is simple enough. A top priority assignment came down from way high up and it’s all hands on deck. Every branch on the east side of Arcadia is on hand and Central will be assisting the coordination efforts. Everything else has been tabled.”
Suddenly this was huge, grand conspiracy huge. Somebody very high up in the corp ladder must have screwed the pooch big time to necesitate this kind of cleanup. Card was digging through his stacks of files for who-knew-what before he carried on.

“We are in charge of coordinating the effort in Ghajotia, Pleiades, Kyoto, and Ishmirynsk districts, so that’s a lot of pressure. Everyone needs to bring their A-game. We will be inserting agents into various criminal syndicates within these districts in order to attack the problem at the grassroots level. Our objective is the location of this data disk.”
He had handouts prepared it seemed, judging from the papers he circulated around.
“When we locate the package, we will secure and extract it, or if extreme circumstances present themselves, we will destroy it. This data disk presents an extreme security risk and it cannot be allowed to remain in the hands of dangerous criminals. Briefing packets are here on the table for everyone and individual assignments will be handed out shortly. We will meet back here at 1pm to touch base with 33, 34, and 37. Let’s get to work people.”

Long feminine fingers flexed gently, the tendons of the disembodied arm pulsing slightly near the raw end of the elbow, a nasty mess of bone and electronics that resembled an old world car wreck. Reverent hands caressed the architecture of the woman’s arm; her flawless french tipped nails, untarnished in the ugliness that involved separating her from it, glittered darkly under the harsh infrared surgical light system rigged above the table. Lain open palm, the nano-carbon skeleton of the hand exposed, a maze of complex sensation circuitry, meticulously arranged sensors, chips and data cables running beneath the perfectly tanned skin. The hunched man at the table cast an aggressive shadow against the opposite wall, his eyes dancing across the delicate machinery.

Bits of information: serial numbers, parts manufacturers, warranty details. Text written in crisp white hovered above the relevant components, appearing and disappearing in the blink of a biological eye. There was a distinct gleam visible within the orbs as the synthetic optics focused in on specific areas, the data processed and stored faster than it could display.

“New model, top of the line.” He muttered aloud. It was a quality piece, not something he had expected to find in his latest shipment.

A steady finger lowered toward the artificial forearm, a narrow drillbit emerging from beneath it’s fingernail. Deft movements produced a handful of screws, hardly thicker than a human hair from the mechanism that ran down the synthetic structure of the radius & ulna.

“Power Cores are intact...Disruptor coils..?” There was a soft grumble spat from the figure. “Mm. Salvageable.”

Practiced fingers cautiously teased bright colored wires from their position lodged in the meat and sinew of the biological elbow they were attached to. There was a soft squishy sizzle as the forearm came free, clotted blood dribbling audibly on the metal surface of the table. As the final adapter was unlatched the artificial nerves tensed the woman’s severed hand into a tight fist, a final gasp of effort before its machine death. The hand went limp as the train screamed past outside.

Without looking up from his work, The Florist dropped the oozing elbow, landing it atop a bin to his side nearly overflowing with scraps and chunks of human flesh, the receptacle decorated by a worn biohazard symbol. With the train still rattling the walls of his cramped subterranean storefront Casio maintained blinding speed and laser-precise technique, the forearm completely disassembled in seconds. The outer coverings, chunks of RealSkin™, bearings, screws, corporate data chips, and hydraulics dispensed into organized piles of similar components.

Flores rolled his shoulders, out of habit more than anything else since he could scarcely remember the last time he felt sore, the glaring red hue of the room morphing to a soft white as the command passed through his Neural Lace. The angular, angry shadows shifted along with the color of the room, illuminating to reveal dozens of shelves packed with cryptically labeled boxes, long sequences of numbers and letters which indicated minute differences between virtually identical components.

The scientist busied himself distributing the deconstructed pieces into the appropriate receptacles, just as the Warp assimilated Digi-Comm© embedded in his arm lit up. He grimaced slightly, there was an extremely select list of people or organizations who had necessary firewall permissions to access his direct line, and he had a sneaking suspicion the news would not be good.

Casting a glare to his inner wrist to engage the line, the symbiotic processing of his heavily augmented body brought up a holographic display before his eyes. The shifting, swirling visage of a million faces trapped on a single silhouette gazed blankly back at him. The Mouth of The Iron Salamanders. Leader and speaker for the enigmatic group of hackers, though they themselves might better prefer the term 'Reality Manipulators.'

A mechanical chorus of a thousand simulated voices emanated from the amorphous image. “The flowers of fall don’t grow at all.”

“The birds of spring have no song to sing.” Flores replied flatly.

“Hello Florist.” The display purred.

“Mouth.”

“The Salamanders carry news.” The Iron Salamanders always did. It was their best quality. There was a pause. “The Queen has shifted the board.”

“Mm. As predicted?”

“We think you know the answer to that.”

“Mm. Present location?”

The churning maelstrom of faces distorted with momentary static. “Location Unknown.” It hummed.

“Survivors?”

A buzz echoed off the comm’s speaker, the broiling features expressionless as it transmuted into that of someone Casio had never seen before, Dack. “One.” Casio’s eyebrow arched skeptically. “Indeed. We know nothing of him.”

“Impossible.”

“The data has been encrypted. Buried. Black Brethren’s recent financial maneuverings suggest bribery to UEA Records Database AlphaVectorBravo. Triple Bypass clearance. Level Zero1Niner.”

“Reason to believe he’s being kept alive for a purpose?”

Dack’s face melted away, taking the hologram with it, the symphony of voices fading in pitch as it signed off. “We think you know the answer to that.”

accessing database “event_record” ...

ACCESS_ID: ktakeda3168
ACCESS_DATE: 2120.08.23
CLEARANCE: RED-4

A rather massive case file was on Takeda’s desk, covering absolutely everything Jian had on the whereabouts of this so-called “golden disk.” Some of the surveillance data here required corporate clearances beyond anything she’d even heard of in a ten year tenure. Someone way high up the ladder was pulling strings for them. This was the mythical “Hand of Osiris” some of the old white men talked about if she was ever going to see it. A case that had the attention of Osiris Holdings Ltd. was a once-in-a-lifetime deal for a mid-level corporate spy.

Card rapped a hand on her door, drawing an eye away from the mess of intelligence. He waved another manilla folder filled with what Takeda assumed was an assignment. She turned her attention back to the documents she already had until he took a seat on the far side of her desk and tried to close the folder on her. “Don’t touch my intelligence.”
Card dropped the new folder square on top of the documents as she flipped a page. She gave him a scowling face. “You touched my intelligence ...”

“Kira are you mad at me?”
Around him she couldn’t hold a flat face. There were two types of operatives: those who were enigmatic and deceptive all the time, and those who needed to not be from time to time. Takeda seemed to be the second, probably from her upbringing. “You told me two hours ago I was going to be running this op, and I only find out when I show up that you took it away from me,” she snarked after thumping the intelligence file back on top of Card’s mission dossier, “So yes Bill, I’m a little mad at you right now.”

He sighed, trying to have the patience to not just pull rank which would end poorly. “That came from over my head,”
“And I don’t care.”
“Look,”
she dropped her file and gave him the same scornful stare, “you lost out on running the op because you have more connections in the criminal underworld than most of our other agents. We can’t afford to have you sitting in a com van.”
“Most, not all. I’m not the only one with old contacts in dark places.”
“And all of them are going into the field too. I wasn’t kidding about all hands on deck. The deputy director is pretty sure the Hand of Osiris is in play with this.”

“I figured as much...”
She closed the intelligence file she insisted on reading through the duration of their conversation and pushed the folder aside so Card could finally show what he had brought her. “Alright show me the assignment.”
He finally got to open the folder with the assignment. None of the criminal organizations she saw immediately referenced was one she was ever involved with, oddly enough. “I knew you’d probably kill me if we put you back in Kyoto so we opted to take advantage of your reputation instead. The pla-”
“Anyone who’s heard of me would know I’m not exactly friendly with Yakuza anymore.”
“Yeah, we’re counting on it. An old grudge to settle is the story to get you in with Militia.”

That plan seemed dubious. Kyoto Yakuza was affiliated with the Nazyashi Consortium. They and the Militia were at war with each other and had been for years. She rubbed at her temple, head hurting at the prospect. “That’s gonna be a hard sell to not just get shot.”
“Yeah I figured as much. If you can step back into your old ruthless criminal persona, I have a plan put together for convincing the Militia you’re no friends to your old affiliates.”
Takeda gave him a sideways look. “Why do I get the feeling this plan of yours involves a body count and explosives?”
“Because it does,” he affirmed.
“Perfect...”

---

The drink Calypso had fixed herself put fire in her belly, effectively burning away the yellow and pushing the creeping feeling of dread away from the center of her attention. She limited herself to just the one. She had learned at a young age that there were what people called “fun drunks” and then there were people like her who drank a handful of vodka tonics and then spent the rest of the night crying into a toilet. She hadn’t been drunk like that in a long time, and she wasn’t planning on ruining her mascara today. There was plenty she could do around the bar while it was dead, from detail cleaning to tossing out all of the expired snacks, but she didn’t bother. Her job was secure ever since one of the members of the Black Brethren threatened to burn the place down if her girl Calypso wasn’t there to mix her famous margarita.

The trick was just to use an orange instead of a lime, or in the case of the options at the Black Hole Bar, an orange flavor spray instead of a lime flavor spray. Anyone could do it, but it was nice to know that she could slack on the job without facing reprimand as long as she kept the Brethren blitzed.

While the drink had steeled her courage for the lonely red-eye shift, it had down little to qualsh her boredom and had directly damaged her willpower. Her phone was in her hand, and she was scouring intently through the Capri requests. The onset of day didn’t mean the closing of the bar, but it did mean that it was nearing the end of her shift. A little power nap, a caffeine pick-me-up, and a light snack was all that stood between her and a quick, immoral payday, assuming she could find a job that didn’t rattle any alarm bells. Surgically she swiped away requests that she found suspicious, knowing while Peacekeepers didn’t know the terrorist had just been an unknowing Capri courier that they still set up stings to hit a monthly quota of arrests. She was doubtful that she was suited to survive in a private prison.

“Good morning.”

Calypso jumped at the voice and almost dropped her phone as she looked up from the screen, more embarrassed than anything that she hadn’t noticed a customer enter. The mild embarrassment faded from her face except for the slight betrayal of color in her cheeks as she gave the man a smile while shoving the phone in her jacket. She quickly looked over him, to see if he was drunk, dangerous, or both, but he mostly seemed just like any normal sad sack who started the day out with a drink or five. Shoot, if it wasn’t for the beard, as well kept as it was Calypso still saw facial hair as a gross food and sweat trap normally grown to hide a weak chin, he’d almost be okay looking, for an older dude. However, more than anything she just felt relief to see another human being; for a moment there she felt as if she had missed an invite to Bingo.

“A whisky, neat, please.”

It was just for a moment, but Calypso continued to stare at him, somewhat in awe that he had said please. When was the last time she heard that word?

Then she realized she had a job to do.

“Oh, crap, sorry,” she said hurriedly with a light laugh as she fetched him a glass and heavily poured in some well whisky since, well, it was the only kind they had. “I’ll start you a tab,” she said over her shoulder as she turned back around, hit the touch screen, unzipped the top of her jacket, and then grabbed herself a glass. “Nobody should drink alone.”

She filled it with tonic and shot of water from a vodka bottle, typically reserved for the patrons who were too drunk to serve but too rowdy not to give a drink, and walked to the bar across from the man to join him for a drink. Calypso leaned forward and squeezed what mild assets she had together as she propped herself up against the bar before pushing up her hat and giving the man a sheepish smile. Her face wasn’t the prettiest, but it was a friendly one. Meanwhile, she prayed that it wasn’t obvious how desperately she needed a halfway decent tip after a night of making absolutely zilch.

“Feel free to tell me to shove off if you want some privacy, but as you can see things are a bit slower around here than usual,” said Calypso, stirring her drink with a straw as she squinted at the man. “Although...I’m pretty good with faces, and yours is one that I haven’t seen before. I’m Calypso. It’s nice to meet someone whose mother raised them right, for a change, although you might wanna stash those manners if some of the regulars show up. So," she took a sip from her watered down tonic and then ran a finger along the rim of her glass, "would you rather have some deep probing questions and unwanted wisdom from a less-than-qualified bartender, or talk about how poorly they programmed the weather on this rock and listen to me pretend to know about sports?”

The bartender was doing all the usual tricks to grab a few extra dollars out of Ardur's pocket, and he was going to play along with them for as long as possible. He noticed her pressing her body forward, while squeezing the twins closer together to add some depth while also digging for whatever conversational topic he would like best; even if he chose to drink in silence, which he wasn't. He was behind enemy lines, after-all, he needed to get acquainted with someone and get acquainted fast before the regulars showed up for their drinks. This girl, Calypso as she called herself seemed genuine enough to Ardur. A little obsessed with outdated tech, maybe,though definitely not a cut-throat gang member. Ardur did not get that vibe from her. Maybe, she could keep him company when the Black Brethren showed up and keep them off his back while he let his ears do the real work. Ardur placed his metallic hand around the glass, raised it up, and stopped in front of his head.

"A pleasure to meet you, Calypso," Ardur spoke as he allowed a sly grin to spread across his face, "and thanks for the tip, I'll make sure to drop my manners when the old crowd starts shuffling in," he paused as he took a sip. "My name is Johnathan, though everyone calls me John," Ardur lied. "You gave me some interesting choices but I think I'll settle on deep probing questions," Ardur finished with a soft chuckle before taking another sip.

Man, this whisky is terrible, I'd prefer Something Else, Ardur thought to himself. Ardur did a quick scan of the bar from his perspective and noticed the only entrance or exit appeared to be the door in which he came through, unless of course he was forced to jump through a window.

"Phew," breathed Calypso with an exaggerated sigh, her eyes lingering on his cybernetic hand. "What a relief, John. I really didn't want to have to BS my way through a conversation about how the Olympus Monsters really need to focus on their defense. Let's see, probing question, probing question," she said as she pretended to think hard about what she would say next, her fingers drumming on her cheek. As if hit by a spark of genius, she snapped her fingers. "I suppose the obvious thing to be curious about is why someone would forego coffee this early in the morning in favor for the good stuff. Rough night at the office, I take it?"

"Roughest," Ardur said as he lost the smile as he rubbed his forehead with his hand before letting it drop to the bar-top bellow, "I'll spare you the details, I can only imagine how many sad sacks like me you see every morning, but suffice it to say that the boss has it out for me," Ardur paused as he took another sip of whisky.

"What about you?" Ardur asked. He looked back towards Calypso, "you seem like you'd be better suited for a," Ardur paused as he pretended to search his head for the word, complete with a drawn out uhh, "a club that's more, umm, bumping... is that what you kids today say?" Ardur asked with another chuckle as he playfully shifted his eyes from side to side, "What are you doing in a dive bar like this?" Ardur finished as he took another sip.

"Us kids actually wrapped back around to calling things the bee's knees," she said with a chuckle, brushing a wisp of hair behind her ear. "I'll take what you said as a compliment, but from the few times I've been dragged to a club I can assure you that I would not like working in one. Much rather deal with the occasional creep or junkie than some rich, like, ohmigod shots, underage daddy's girl any day if the week."

"What is it that you do?" she asked, taking the drink up to her mouth and letting it linger for a moment.

"You are too right, I guess the clientele you serve here also develop a closer relationship to their trusty bartender so the tips must be better," Ardur chuckled again before taking another sip, "in the clubs you rarely see the same people twice, after-all." Ardur paused as he took another sip; she had asked the dreaded question but Ardur was ready, "I'm an analyst for my nine to five. Boss sends over a bunch of spreadsheets and other files filled to the brim with numbers and I convert that, with some skill, into something he can later present to the board," he paused as he took a sip, shaking his head from side to side again.

"Those damn numbers." Ardur again paused as he adopted a thousand yard stare into the counters behind the bar, and held it for a few seconds.

"My side hustle is that of a private investigator," Ardur chuckled. "Thank god I have my day job because I suck at finding people," he added as he turned his attention back towards Calypso. He took another swig of the whisky, though careful only to take in a little bit at a time. Today was going to be a long one, after-all.

While most people's eyes would glaze over when someone talked about their boring, pencil pusher gig, Calypso kept her interest on John. An eyebrow raised ever so slightly when he said he had a nine to five. Either he worked the weird hours of nine pm to five am, he worked drunk, or he was lying. She didn't have much time to think it over, however, as the thought was rushed out of her mind with a wave of panic the second he mentioned he was a private investigator. Calypso unwillingly tensed and straightened herself upright. He wasn't investigating the bombing, was he? Even if he was, she needed to act cool. She gave a stretch, twisting her torso side to side, and leaned back on to the counter as he finished talking.

"An investigator? That's so cool," she said. She was being honest there, even if she was now on edge. She leaned in and gave him a wink, "Are you on a case right now, Mr. Private Eye?"

Ardur turned his attention fully to Calypso, "As a matter of fact I am, Calypso," Ardur responded as he returned the wink. "Nothing exciting though, little kid runs away from the foster home and is never heard from again, his foster sister retained my service about a month ago but I haven't made much progress," Ardur lied as he shook his head from side to side. "I'm worried that he has simply joined a gang and if he did, I can't help him out of there," Ardur took a drink, "but that's the way that works, you know," Ardur finished. He wasn't going to spend much longer in the bar, maybe another two drinks before he headed out and tried his luck elsewhere.

"Tell me about it," said Calypso, trying to suppress the relief in her voice. "I grew up in this area. A lot of my friends thought joining a gang was the best way to get out of their bad situation. Needless to say, a lot of them ended up in an even more helpless situation." She looked down, her face clouding with darkness before she noticed his empty drink. As fast as it had disappeared, her friendliness was back, "Let me refresh that for you."

She grabbed the glass and traded it for a new one with yet another heavy-handed pour of cheap whisky. "It's pretty noble of you to take a job like that, though. There can't be that much pay in it," she said. "Consider these on the house. Mostly as a thanks for keeping a girl company during the slowest shift of her life. So," she propped her hand underneath her chin and played with the straw in her drink, "does this kid have a name? I'd love to help the cause."

"I'd still like to leave a tip for the excellent service," Ardur said as he took another sip, keeping his composure as best as possible as the horrid taste left a residual burn on his soul, "I do appreciate the gesture nonetheless."

Ardur paused as he grabbed a napkin from nearby as well as snagging a used cigarette in lieu of a pen. He proceeded to write a phone number on it, every carefully, using the burnt soot of the cigarette as best as possible and after he was finished the number 1-800-968-4357 was somewhat legible through the crude penmanship.

"The kids given name, according to my client, is Dak though, again, I presume he has a street name by now," Ardur shifted the napkin towards Calypso, "he was last seen here in the Ghajotia district, at an average height for his age, with an average build for his age, and clean of cybernetics. The only photo I have of him is back at the office so I can't show you much other than that." Ardur pointed to the napkin. "That's an anonymous tip line, I check it every day,” he said before he took another, longer sip. "If you hear something, give it a call and I will follow up on it," Ardur finished with a grin.

While his plan was looking dead in the water involving the gang, at least he could get some more contacts on the ground.

"I know if I had a name like that I'd be changing it the first second I could," joked Calypso, folding the napkin up before she tucked it away for safekeeping. "Still, I'll ask around. For his sister's sake, and to make your work a little bit easier."

At that moment, the front door opened and a small group of people walked in as they talked loudly. Calypso recognized them as a group of regulars, some small timers that talked big and ran with the Black Brethren. A look of frustration passed over her face as she excused herself from the man she thought was called John and grabbed a handful of beers before they even approached the bar, although not before she cranked the music back up to a quiet roar. One of them, a young punk that tried to look mean with his ripped leather jacket to show off his cybernetic arm, gave Ardur a stare down as he and his friends flocked around Calypso. She talked to them for a minute or two before they slunk off to one of the pool tables.

She had hardly settled back next to her drink and her new friend when two more toughs entered the bar and flagged her down. With an apologetic smile, she went over and took their order, all the while growing slightly more and more peeved that the only business she got came at the last few minutes of her shift. She could smell her replacement before she saw him, a big, burly fellow with a bushy beard named Johann who was always heavily perfumed with the stench of weed. He lumbered off to the bathroom, where he'd probably toke one final time before taking over, but it was close enough that she could bounce. She approached "John" one more time, pocketing the dough he had left on the counter, and leaned forward so that she could be heard over the music.

"Let me give you a tip since you were excellent company," she said. "I told that kid you're cool, but he's always itching for a fight and he's just dumb enough to do it. The smartest thing for you to do would be to finish your drink, pretend your going to the bathroom, and slip out of the back. But if you really wanna find this boy of yours, ask that girl with the pink hair he came in with. Her name's Amaretto, and she has a thing for put together older dudes. No offense," she added, quickly. "Make her think that you're interested in her, and she'll keep those guys on a leash."

Calypso stood up straight and, with a smile, said, "Come see me again if you're ever in the neighborhood, okay? Good luck."

Then she turned away and left Ardur alone in the pit of vipers as she headed through the exit, concerned for his well-being up until the moment she unlocked her phone and resumed her dig through the ever growing list of dirty jobs.

Takeda sipped on her latte at the patio table down the street listening to the com van crew droning on making checks of their gear and what not. “Go for Scorpio, come in agent.”
Ah her old field callsign. Card had the bright idea of making it her horoscope sign when she drew a blank at the question, not that she even bought into such things. At least it was better than the alternative that she’d rather forget. “You three done ogling your gear I take it?”
The command van team for today was Card and two low-level field techs she didn’t know or really care about. This was an insertion into a hostile force with no strike backup. There was nothing the field support personnel could do if it went sideways, so it didn’t matter who was watching. Were it to matter, she had a number of people from E-War division she trusted.

Among them, Card was marginally less tolerant of her talking down to the command team than the rookies. “Focus Takeda, game time.”
“...right... How much of a show do you want me to make out of this?”
“A big one. Drones have four targets inside the building and at least a half dozen militiamen staking out the place.”

The target was a Yakuza safehouse where a handful of up-and-coming enforcers lay in wait to cause all kinds of problems for rivals and debtors alike. When someone didn’t pay their dues on their deal with the Devil, these were the people who came to collect. Needing to play the role of a fellow criminal, there were no fancy sensor beacons this mission. Takeda was back to basics with a P3030, a nanoweave ballistic vest under her shirt, and a backpack loaded with forty pounds of incendiary payload. That would cover most of the necessary fireworks. There was just one concern left: “And our spectators aren’t going to storm the place themselves once I start dropping hostiles?”
“Should be negative on that. They were waiting for some heavy weapons to be delivered but that shipment got nabbed by Black Brethren in transit.”
“I assume there was an anonymous tip involved somewhere that you had absolutely nothing to do with...”
He most certainly had. Card was a master at plausible deniability after all. “Of course not. Why would you suspect something so unethical?” he sneered.

She tried not to spill coffee on herself from chuckling whilst taking a drink. No doubt there was some brilliant blackmailing involved in whatever Card had arranged. “Drones have four tangos inside the building, one patrolling the street, and eight militiamen watching the compound, and clear of peacekeepers,” one of the rookie techs came over her headset, “It's now or never.”
She gave a sigh. She wasn’t adverse to the thought of gunning down the four in the building, so much as the thought of this being different than a normal mark. This was an audition for a gang of ruthless killers. She had to be the ruthless killer once again. “Before we get started...” she trailed off, “... shiroi hebi o mezame sasete mo yoroshīdesu ka?” (Are you sure you want to wake the white snake?)

Only William Card understood what that meant. He gave a rather somber acknowledgement. “We both wish there was an alternative ... but yes.”
Kira gave a nod as if they could see her directly. “Going silent. Tracker and neurolink are on for emergencies. Going in.”

---

She set down her earpiece and walked down the street.

Rookie tech number one switched one of the monitors over to watching the video feed from Takeda’s neurolink. They could see through her eyes as long as she let them: a byproduct of having optical implants plugged into the same neuro-interface device. Having eyes on an operative was usually a good thing, though as bloody as this was about to get, Card hoped the rookies had strong stomachs.

She knocked on the door and took a step back.

A kid no older than 20 opened it, silver revolver in hand held down at his waist. Takeda and the van team could all see his brain engage in slow motion, registering just who had showed up. The mythical Takeda Kirido, the terror spoken of only in whispers, was suddenly very real for him. He tried to raise the weapon but there was no such thing as beating Takeda Kirido in a quickdraw contest. Not, at least, since her cybernetics were upgraded in accordance with her special agent status.

She grabbed at his wrist and the gun fired past her shoulder.

She yanked him forward onto her extended knee, then planted a fast elbow into the back of his head. Her extended hand down by his gun now caught the kid’s collar as he fell face first towards the cement, and her free hand unholstered her sidearm from the inside of her sport jacket.

She fired two rounds into the back of his head point blank.

Both the younger tech gurus in the van winced when the kid’s brain matter instantly painted the concrete. Card just bowed his head. He’d seen this before, but knowing he unleashed it again was a hard truth to swallow. It had taken years for her to recover the first time. Kira was already in the building, sweeping for the other three who should have been scrambling for weapons.

She turned a corner and put two rounds into the head of the man behind the sofa.

He had been watching the TV maybe 20 seconds ago. Tech Guru One couldn’t take his eyes off the screen in horror and morbid curiosity. Tech Two was monitoring the top-down sensor view which was less brutal to behold. Card half-looked away shamefully but still kept an eye on his operative. She worked with the ruthless efficiency of a professional hitman, double-tapping targets rather than trusting the first bullet to kill, always aiming for the head, and methodically clearing the building.

She sliced the corner and shot the next target twice in the head.

The sensor view showed the last one hiding in the bedroom. Kira was tapped into that sensor feed from the drones despite not having the devices on her directly. She honed in on the target ... a lioness stalking her prey. The mission directive called for four bodies. There would be four bodies; there was no escaping that fact for hunter or hunted. The cold math of black ops never lied, and never changed. She took no pleasure in that, but showed no mercy either.

She leaned around the corner and shot him in the shoulder.

He had a rifle in hand ready to spray her down through the door. The vest could probably stop the rifle’s rounds but the climbing spray of an automatic weapon often spat rounds at head height before the magazine ran dry. Even with a support team on standby, there was no coming back from bullets to the face. All the amazing medical technology Jian Group had access to was not really magic, but that didn’t matter when the wouldbe ambusher was promptly turned into the ambushee.

She trekked up to the writhing male and fired twice.

Even she turned away just slightly when she pulled the trigger on a hapless victim. It seemed to bother her too, returning to the brutality of the underworld. She had warned Card never to awaken the monster. She never wanted to feel that rage again, but here she was. If she got the chance to be with Card in private anytime in the near future, a piece of her mind would be given for it. How soon that would be was very up in the air. She would have done it right here and now had the neurolink feed included audio. Of course that wasn’t the case.

She returned to the living room and set down the backpack bomb.

The device was pre-configured for a 45 second timer. She could be down the street by then and safely clear of the fireblast. It was built for a lot of flash, fire, and visible effects but almost no structural damage. Looking destroyed was good enough; putting the entire structure in the dirt was excessive and overkill. Blowing out some windows and setting it on fire would suffice.

She set the timer and made for the door.

There was one more Yakuza hitter out on the street who would have heard the gunfire and would be on her as soon as she left the building. The com van team was tracking him. And just their luck, a peacekeeper had shown up. Just a beat cop, but nonetheless someone who wouldn’t just sit idly by as a gunfight played out on the littered streets of Ghajotia District. The rookies tried to figure out a way to prevent him from becoming another body, but deep down Card knew the poor soul was about to bite the dust for no fault of his own.

She strolled down the street as the timer counted down.

Card and the rookies could see the timer counting past 20 seconds. The detonation would be the trigger of a gunfight for certain. The peacekeeper was on drone tracking now too with the last Yakuza target. Takeda’s HUD had both lit up for her when the shooting inevitably started. And then the fireball burst through the building windows. The recoil of passersby propagated like a slow-motion blast wave through the street.

She turned around to face the last target and fired twice.

He tried to draw on her too but she had surprise on her side. Her first round was aimed low because of distance, catching him in the chest but only staggering him. Likely he had a vest on, same as she. The follow-up shot was a signature Yakuza execution, planted right between the eyes. Over the roaring inferno billowing smoke thick as tar, the peacekeeper still caught sound of the gunshots, but his holster was ill-suited to a quick draw. He barely had the weapon free by the time Kira had turned on him too.

She took careful aim and only fired once.

She had the time to while he was struggling to get it up. She put her round square in the throat instead of the head. It was the closest thing to mercy she could show given the operational parameters. To the head was basically guaranteed brain death, but on the off chance he had a nano-injector, he had a 50/50 shot at surviving that wound. Card let out a sigh back in the van. That was technically a friendly fire incident, for which the resulting paperwork would be extensive and depressingly detailed.

She holstered her sidearm and kept walking.

Drone scans had four militiamen stacking up in an alley for a snatch’n’grab. The com van team saw it. She saw it. None of them could do anything. That was the mission objective: get noticed by the Militia. She had to go with it. The com van team had it worse. They had no way of telling the difference between successful insertion and sending her to her execution. Even Card couldn’t hide his concern on ops like this. All they could do was watch and hope.

She kept walking.

The Asseylum Estate. Once a biodome from the original colonization of Mars, now a massive pleasure dome that dominates central Arcadia. Within its dome lies several different microbiomes, maintained and cultured explicitly for comfort and enjoyment, as well as the central-lying manse itself.

Saturnina being of the eccentric sort, had invited a great deal of people to one of her ever-increasingly strange party premises; A picnic, hosted in the artificial forest of her very own estate. The debacle resembled a picnic only in that people were dressed casually- for the upper class, that is- and that everyone was subjected to lounging about on the ground. Everything else was, as people would remark sociably the next day, delightfully Saturnina.

Drinks flowed freely, food was plentiful, music was had, and many a game were played at Saturnina's whim- the kind of whim that a nymph might possess in such an environment, a dainty and playful coyness that danced through an evening and carried an event along interesting endeavors.

Though by the time the party came to a close, Saturnina herself found her mind slipping- even her nanomachine hives incapable of handling the full brunt of the toxins she pumped into her body.

And so when she awoke a few hours later, on the bank of the river going through her artificial forest- a river she is quite proud of, mind you; setting up a recycling water system was an expensive endeavor for something of this scale!- she was in for a rather mild surprise.



The first thing Saturnina was aware of was the distinct warmth she felt, as well as the mild chill she paradoxically experienced. She lingered there, unmoving, in that hypnotic state, falling and rising, cooling and heating, that beautiful state of flux that held her mind in awe, for several long moments.

Then the nanomachines purged the last of the Trance out of her system and the chill faded, leaving that warmth... And, now that her mind was thoroughly cleaned of her inebriation, she could even feel the weight of a human pressed into her back.

A small writhe clued her in to the sex of her presumed conquest- a woman. A very curvaceous one, at that, if Saturnina's well experienced tactile senses had anything to say about that. A small smirk filled the woman's face even before she had opened her eyes for the first time that day, and she slid her hands back to get herself a feel of the very nice feeling woman at her back--

Bzzzzzzzzzz

She groaned internally, and slowly moved her hands back to her own body. She pulled away, lithely slipping from under an arm, and sat up. She stretched, bare-bodied, in the darkness of a morning so early most people would still call it late night. She dug through her pile of clothes and pulled out her apparently discarded commlink, establishing its rightful place upon her ear before answering the call that had interrupted her waking moment.

"Asseylum speaking." She said in a voice that sounded as awake, alert, and clear as if she'd been awake for a 6 hour work day already, despite having woken up from the first sleep she'd had in a week just a minute ago.

"Mornin' Nina, I've made some progress into--"

"Toby. For the love of God how many times do I have to tell you to-"

"--Call you mistress, yeah, yeah. I don't ever do it, and you don't ever fire me. Why is that?"

Saturnina briefly considered firing him on the spot just for his insolence, but eliminated her womanly vindication as swiftly as it arose. Tobias was very...very...good at his job, and she liked having the best of the best on her staff.

"You know why I don't fire you Toby, now will you please tell me why you're calling me at three AM." She could feel his smug grin rather than see it, and it pulled her emotions towards annoyance just by thinking about it.

"Well first off I knew you'd be awake. The party last night was only about halfway towards the trouble caused by You Know What, and that only knocked you out for about six hours. So I did basic math, Nina. Secondly, I'm partially through the digging you asked me to do into Osi's web... Well you were right about one thing- money's being shifted something fierce, and the red tape is so thick on these deals that I'm having trouble keeping up with where it's all going."

Saturnina dressed as she listened, her mild annoyance shifting into mild curiosity. Tobias was good, almost as good as Saturnina herself, but unlike her he could dedicate himself to the job while she had to wield every thread at once. One of her many useful pawns.

Scratch that, Tobias was a Bishop.

"You? Having trouble?" She teased coyly as she wriggled herself into the faux-denim retro shorts she had been wearing the night before. "If you need an assistant I'm sure I can find-"

"God, Nina, no. I work alone, or with you, and that's it. Anyone else and I'd literally be holding their hand." His voice came through the call almost as annoyed as he made Saturnina feel, and that made her feel very good about herself as she pulled on the loose-fitting nylon-mesh overshirt atop her sports bra.

"Point taken, proceed Tobias."

"Right. Anyway, yeah. I said 'trouble'. Not 'can't do it'. They've made it rough on purpose- you can tell just by looking at how the money flows. You definitely need to get up here and take a look at this yourself, Nina, I can't put it into words how beautiful of a job they've done. It's almost like something you'd pull, but on the megacorporate scale."

His words made Saturnina eager to get going, but a stray thought pulled at her mind as she took her first step.

"I'll be right the--" She paused and turned her head back to gaze at the woman who lay nude beside the riverbank...and her brow furrowed. "Tobias I'll have to call you back, I don't know who the hell I just woke up beside. And I know everyone I invited last night."

"Shit. Need me to call Tombstone?" Tobias offered, only for a consternated snort to be his response. "...Point taken, be careful Nina. I'll keep working either way, I'll call later if I have any significant updates."

When the call ended, Saturnina allowed the surprise to play across her features fully- as if the phone call and the, however limited, social contact had given her an anchor to balance her own reaction upon. As she gazed down at the...well, she had curves. But not much else. A plain woman with high sex appeal. She didn't resemble a single person Saturnina had invited--

"Oh. Ohhhh. I fucked the delivery girl."

She brought a hand to her head and rubbed her forehead idly as she forced her mind to recollect the events of last night.



Sipping what had to be his fifth cup of coffee that night- he'd bumped it up to four shots of espresso this time, God bless the Asseylum wealth affording him a near endless stream of caffeine- Toby let his hands fly over the paperwork before him. Tobias Baxter preferred to work with one of the rarest forms of data transference in the 22nd century...

Real paper.

The smell was like Ambrosia to the man. Old or new, paper had a certain air to it that just couldn't be denied. The comm call ending like it did left a sour taste in his mouth, but he knew Saturnina could handle a sleeping woman on her own. Tombstone wouldn't be needed.

His fingers plucked up a sheet of paper, and eyes fueled by caffeine rather than energy pored over every piece of information on the sheet.

"...Nusynth, reduction... Optiwave, increase. Optiwave under Genefix, Genefix reports reduction...Bless the Asseylums and their expansive portfolio, this is the most fun I've had in years!" He laughed wildly as he kicked against the desk and slid his chair back across the room, where he circled 'Nusynth' in red with a pen and tacked it to a wall-

a wall covered in other sheets of paper just like the portfolio record he had just placed there. The lanky, almost starved-looking, man rose out of his chair, red pen in hand like a gladiator holding a sword, and he began to make over-exaggerated connections with the pen, drawing straight across the sheets of paper to create a literal web of ink that only Tobias Baxter- and, by proxy, Saturnina Asseylum- could read... Nusynth was a shell for- Who was a parent of- who was partnered with-

Saturnina's hunch about Osi-corp being spooked was right, they were shifting their money around. But there were layers upon layers to this story, and every shell he peeled open just revealed a thicker and more opaque one beneath. As the lines crossed, grew thicker, intersected other lines of blue and green, the story of the finances of the biggest corporation on mars began to dance like a marionette before Tobias' eyes.

He stepped back, a full wall of the office- a rather large wall, at that- covered with sheets of paper and ink marks.

"....Fuck, I might need to scan this all into the computer after all. I'm running out of wall space."

The man rubbed his eyes and slid back to his desk, where he picked up a pair of goggles and strapped them to his head.

"Alright Nina, you win this time. I'll get digital for you." he mumbled to himself as he adjusted the focus of the headpiece manually, before letting it read the data and amalgamate his connections into a more concise and pleasant digital format. The man then turned to his computer terminal and let his fingers fly.

Augmented Reality established, welcome to your mind palace Toby the androgynous synthetic voice welcomed him in its usual fashion. It has been six months since you've last been here.

"Six months, damn. Thought I'd make it longer than that before needing this crutch."

his vision flooded with the augmented perception of the office- walls falling away, cubicles disappearing, even the other staff fading from his sight. Once everything was cleared away, Tobias inserted his data- and referenced the formal digital file of Saturnina's stock portfolio to create easy digitized cross references.

He then overlaid the data atop a representation of Arcadia and the relevant corporate headquarters. The intricate web of ink on the wall became an elaborate and, in a sense, gorgeous spiderweb over the city. Tobias Baxter was a man of paper, but above all else he was a wizard of money. Following it was what he did best.

And he had a long way to go- this intricate web was just a fraction of the mountain of records and data he had to go through.

"All roads lead to Rome, Osi-corp. Once I find the end of this trail, I suspect I'll find your ghosts. If that disc is real, you'll have all the spooks on its trail...And Nina'll be right. Again. As usual."

Tobias Baxter got to work.



The ground felt softer than it usually did- and warmer. The incredibly dull in her mind alerted her to the fact she probably passed out after the delivery last night, and probably from taking Trance.

Ugh. Florist's gon' wreck me for sampling the product. She thought painfully as she rolled onto her back and scratched her thigh. She paused and frowned-- ughhhh where are m' clothes? Frag...If I open up me eyes I better not be in the mud of Ghajotia next to a Neanderthal again.

But then a scent wafted over her- the smell of Lavender and lilac, and she felt at peace. Safe. Like she was back at home, back when Mom wore perfume, back when dad was still around to pay the bills, back when the upstairs bed didn't creak every night as mom earned the next week's rent. The smell of Lavender and Lilac made her feel like a little girl again, safe, warm.

She smiled at the scent as it flooded her senses, and because of that smell she didn't scream when a hand caressed her face. She opened her eyes and peered up at the--

"Chrissake yer a beaut, aincha?" She blurted as she stared upwards at the blue/pink halo'd angel kneeling over her. She didn't have a shred of shame in her voice, even at being woken up by this visage of youth and beauty in such a vulnerable state. "...Wait, wait, wait, I cog ye. Yer that Asseylum lass- the one I was supposed to-- Ughhhh Flores is gon' wreck m'." She lifted a hand to her sore head, rubbing the throbbing veins in the base of her skull. She looked up at the smiling face of Saturnina and couldn't help but smile back.

"...We shacked up, din't we?" Still no shame in her voice, though mild surprise had managed to creep into her features as she considered the situation; she, a slums gal straight from Ghajotia, bagged the highest class bitch in Arcadia? Some party.

"I wouldn't know, last night's a blackout, but I woke up pinned beneath those arms of yours so I imagine we did. Not complaining, you're far from the ugliest person who I've woken up next to."

Vivian found her clothes pushed into her arms, and the girl didn't need any further prodding to begin dressing; the rough hewn industrial clothes she wore were a long way away from the gorgeous athleisure wear that Saturnina wore. Once she finished dressing she ran a hand through her long brunette hair, letting it flow down her back and to her waist.

"Ehhh… Not a word to th' bossman, hear? He'd be none too happy hearin' I ended up in bed with a customer. E-Especially not with you missus-"

"Mistress." Saturnina's interjection was clear and concise. "I prefer that address, if you please."

"...Er, right. Mistress." That one seemed to have reached through the girl's boldness, as a pink flare flushed onto her cheeks. This seemed to please Saturnina, whose smile shifted ever so slightly into a smug smirk. The woman stepped closer to Vivian and that intoxicating scent grew ever so much stronger.

"And who might you be? I'm at... a conversational disadvantage." God, the woman's words made Vivian's skin crawl. She couldn't help but let her gaze wander down over the see-through top and ogle Saturnina's body, even as her skull wanted nothing but to be driven through by an ice pick.

"Viv. Er, Vivian-- but erryone calls me Sunflower. On account of m' sunny disposition, ye see." She rambled awkwardly as she shuffled back a step. She found the woman's attractiveness and disarming scent suddenly intimidating, part of her mind- dulled by the Trance, still- screamed at her that this bitch was a Viper in a goddess' body. Something about the way her eyes looked at Vivian like a slab of meat to be appraised. Part of her liked it, and she hated that it was the part that showed.

Saturnina's giggle drove her back another step, then the woman spoke;

"Well I can't send you back to 'the boss'..." She rolled her eyes as she spoke of Flores, clearly respecting the man but mocking the title Vivian used. "...All dirtied up. Come, I'll get you cleaned up...And this time I want to taste you while I can keep my head."

"---Eh you wot-"

Vivian's words were halted by the soft press of Saturnina's lips against her own, the shorter woman having to go up on tiptoe to perform this action. Vivian's protests and thoughts of resistance melted, and she wrapped her arms around Saturnina and lifted her up into a tight embrace as she bent the woman in her arms and returned the kiss in no gentle manner. After a few seconds she broke it and set the estranged near-noble down.

"A'ight I'm game. Lead the way, er… Mistress."

---

And a few hours later, Sunflower found herself gifted a dress she knew she couldn't afford with a year's pay. Her own outfit was folded up and packed away into her messenger's satchel, and she stared at herself in a full body mirror as Saturnina stood a few feet to the side, wearing a similar dress. Vivian's was bright blue, hugged her hips, showed off her curves, and billowed out into a frilly skirt that reached her thighs. It was made for the shorter Saturnina, but on Vivian it made her plain features stand out and seem...more. Saturnina's was a little red scandal that Vivian imagined had caused more than one head to turn.

"Eh...Y'sure? Jus gon' give me this cos I was a good tumble?"

"And polite company. I can't have my guests leaving my home looking like Ghajotia gutter trash. Even if that's what they are." Saturnina's words didn't bite as they might have from anyone else, and Sunflower grinned at the woman.

"A'ight. Thanks then, Mistress. I gotta be goin', the boss'll be right mad wi' me for being so damn late. I prolly got another shipment to get goin'." Vivian began to walk away as if that ended the conversation- only to find herself grabbed by Saturnina's surprisingly strong grip. That petite frame hid an athleticism that Vivian wasn't going to forget anytime soon- not after some of the tricks the Asseylum woman had pulled in that shower, at least. She turned her head back and down to look at the woman.

"...eh, I'm not really the sentimental type..." Vivian complained as she leaned down to kiss Saturnina again.

"Well I am. I like that mushy crap. Even for one night flings." Saturnina sighed happily after the kiss. "Now tell Flores that I want you to be the one delivering all my orders from now on."

The way she said it wasn't a request. It was a demand. Vivian quirked an eyebrow up and rubber her nose- that damnable scent of lavender and lilac twisting her thoughts. The boss won't like being ordered. Vivian'd have to make it sound like a request.

"Really now? Fine by me, it is. I'll put the word in. Can I get goin' now, mistress? Boss really might geek me at this rate."

"Fineeee." Saturnina sighed and leaned on the wall. "Get out of here. The peacekeepers nearly impounded your truck twice already due to it lacking a parking pass. I'll be sure to have it registered in my system by the time you come back."

Vivian shook her head and tugged at the skirt of her new dress as she walked away. She really wasn't one for goodbyes- especially not goodbyes to crazy snakes like this one. Still, though... she had to admit she was excited about the idea of coming back. The lavender scent lingered in her nostrils and made her smile as she left.



Saturnina watched 'Sunflower' leave and licked her lips slowly.

"...Pawn. Definitely a pawn." She said to herself as she shut her eyes and made a sound of delight, the sound rising up out of her throat softly. "...But that's the fun of the day done, time to get back to work." She opened her eyes once more and began to walk briskly. Almost as an afterthought she lifted a set of fashionable glasses from her pocket and placed them onto her nose, gazing through them into the augmented-reality visual feeds she had prepared.

Workout - Complete for the day. Primary exercise:

She paused for a moment, wondering what to list it as.

Gardening. She submitted with a shrug. She thought the morning deserved a flower joke, all things considered.

---

Saturnina brushed out her skirt, the scandalous little red dress fitting her frame perfectly. She ran through her schedule on her augmented feed. She disliked this part of her day, but understood it as a necessity.

Meet with Tombstone was penned for an indeterminate amount of time in the midafternoon. Her security chief required much time and privacy, and his concerns often stretched into the realm of near-impossible rather than just improbable... but he was an extremely good soldier, she was lucky to have him. Lucky the militia could spare him.

But she also knew he was there to keep tabs on her. She was a critical piece in the Militia system, and they wanted to both protect and watch her. It was the price she payed for wielding the power she did, and for dancing with this particular devil. It was worth it. She felt safe. And if the price for that safety was the Militia themselves being the guns that stood on her metaphorical walls, then so be it.

She looked through her feeds as Tombstone entered the underground chamber- the very same one used to broadcast the Vox Populi. They were alone, he always made sure of that. The petite woman removed her glasses and folded them away, her eyes taking in Tombstone's hulking frame as he approached her.

Tombstone's real name was Antonio Ramirez, and he was a massive man. He was a mine worker before he was a Militia man. A lot of the mining on Mars was machine assisted, and some of it outright automated, but Tombstone had hauled the heavy drilling equipment back and forth underground for much of his life. Nearly seven feet tall, over two hundred and fifty pounds, a clean shaven bald head, and a beard that would make a lumberjack jealous... Muscle and testosterone embodied, our Tombstone. His body twitched every few steps, a telltale mark of the wired system augmenting his reflexes. Saturnina had seen first hand how impossibly fast that slab of meat could move, and she loathed to imagine being up against him with anything less than a one hundred yard advantage and a rifle in her hands.

The thing that frayed Saturnina's nerves more than anything in this world? Tombstone would never tell her what she smelled like, and the curiosity killed her every time they met and spoke.

"Mistress." He struck a Militia salute, a fist over the heart, as he approached.

"At ease, Sergeant." She said easily. The man relaxed and dropped his salute at those words, but still stood at attention. "What's the situation today?"

"Another squad is overseeing a pickup of a weapons shipment. An actual one this time. Through yakuza channels. The Militia has requested the use of the Vox's network to move the supplies."

"Granted." Saturnina said easily. "It's what I'm here for. Is that all?"

"No. In light of the Golden Disc's surfacing, Command has expressed a concern for your safety--"

"That's why you're here Tombstone." She interjected. "Take care of the concerns." Tombstone fell silent at her fast words. He silently appraised her, before speaking;

"Understood. Nothing to worry yourself over. I will handle Command's requests, mistress. The security budget will swell slightly, but I'll keep the costs down." Saturnina smiled at him. Tombstone was the one person she could trust to get the job done for cheap. Even Tobias had his expensive habits, but Tombstone was all business. The one thing she appreciated about him above all else.

"Lastly, I've dug up that old record you wanted. Before the coup." Tombstone continued, his professionalism not wavering even as he spoke of an event that made all Militia angry. "Ardur Sage. If I didn't know who you were, I'd be surprised you remembered him."

"It's always a good idea to keep assets in mind. Especially ones capable of rallying so many like he did." Saturnina said simply, holding her hand out to Tombstone as he extended the file to her. "I'll be stepping out tonight, following up on this file personally. You are to accompany me, Tombstone. No questions, just keep me safe. I don't want a full entourage, just bring a fire team. If things go loud, I'll be the fourth member."

Tombstone saluted immediately, no hesitation; "Yes, mistress. I'll make preparations for the excursion."

Saturnina smiled sweetly. She'd be seeing an old face tonight.

As the ringing in Miranda's ears started to die down, she mentally went over a list of contacts. Her initial plan had been to come here and either pretend to be the courier for whoever Grendy was selling too, or outbid the other buyer. She was expecting some trouble, but not the exact moment the buyer met the damn seller. Why couldn't it have shown up in Goose's territory? Or even Lamby's? Goose was a bastard and Lamby was crazier than a bag of ferrets, but at least they understood basic bargaining techniques. Like not shooting the guy who just sold you the world.
Miranda sighed, looking down at the glowing list of names on her Simcard. Regardless of her feelings on the matter, this wasn't going to go peacefully, and she needed muscle. Preferably the kind that wouldn't raise a fuss about what everyone is killing each other over, or accept a "I'll explain later, just shoot!" She went over the list. C was right out, his place was in a Lab, not a burgeoning combat zone. Calypso? No, like Miranda, she was a more a lover than a fighter. And had enough on her plate without pissing off either the Brethren or someone dumb enough to shoot up a warehouse in their territory. Tobs? Hah! It'd serve the arrogant twit right if she brought him to a combat zone. She wouldn't call Mouth either, being that she distrusted the Salamanders something fierce. Which, regardless of Casio's constant ribbing was not out of jealousy. Miranda simply distrusted anyone who knew or met without her vetting them and hated seeing him rely on them despite the obvious risk to his Anonymity. Actually, okay that probably is jealousy, shut up. She couldn't pick anyone with the Brethren, Consortium or Sculpters, either because they would want the disc and because she didn't want to get within the same district as Lamya, repeat customer or not.
This left, a pretty short list of people who owed her a favor, or had some (generally positive) history with. Trouble was there wasn't much telling how'd they react if they found out about the disc.
It was probably a terrible idea, but she closed her eyes and clicked on a random name.

A short rest on a sagging mattress, a lukewarm shower, a cup of reheated coffee, and a stale nutrient bar made up Calypso’s post-work routine. She didn’t live far from work, about a twenty minute walk through dingy streets where a girl had to keep her wallet close and her knife closer. Her room was a simple studio apartment in a rundown building that served mostly as a hangout spot for kids whacked out on Trance or a pitstop for escorts and their Johns that wanted something a little more classy than behind the dumpster. The elevator was broken, everything smelled like mold, and the neighborhood was loud, nearly constant club music being occasionally punctuated with the yawk-yawk-yawk of gunshots. There was a lock, which was nice. It gave her neighbors something to struggle with before they realized that they had broken into an apartment poorer than theirs. Calypso described it as “minimalist”, which was her cute way of saying “empty and sad”.

It was on her shoddy, sagging mattress that she was sitting, since her couch only existed in a distant fantasy, one where she hoped to also be able to afford a box spring and perhaps, as if her dream wasn’t incredible enough, a frame. There she was battling with the ever eternal struggle between doing the right thing of not taking another job that had inadvertently turned her into a terrorist versus doing the only thing that would keep her from becoming homeless. It’d be easier if she had a partner, except her last relationship had bled all of the money out of her account before a fatal overdose closed any hopes of getting some reprimand. Good was ultimately losing to desperation, as was the case with many of the people who lived in the slums of Bandi and Ghajotia, and in the end she clicked on the first gig that didn’t scream “entrapment”. It was a face-to-face one. Normally not the type she liked to take, but considering how the last stash job went Calypso felt like a change of pace would be smart.

Within moments she had pulled on her hat and jacket and ducked out the door, taking care not to make any direct eye contact with the fellow low-lifes hanging in the stairs unless she wanted to risk hanging from the stairs. Calypso buzzed herself out and into the dreary street. It was daytime, but in her neighborhood it was impossible to truly tell—the buildings were suffocatingly close and buried underneath a web of rail lines, with most of the lights being from neon adverts for pachinko parlors and nude girls that gave everything a sickly pink glow. She hoofed it down the block, passing a flock of Black Brethren, a mix of homeless and junkheads, and a few unsupervised children playing that were not aware of how dark their future would be. Her phone buzzed. She’d look at it when she was on the hover-train. It wasn’t smart to flash anything of value out here, even if said thing was an old hunk of junk. It buzzed again. Her brows furrowed with annoyance. All night nothing, and now that she was busy she was getting hit up. Typical.

She ascended the stairs towards the rail stop. Calypso was headed to the business district. In Bandi, there was no train that went directly to the business district. She’d have to hop on one that stopped on the outskirts of the Kyoto District and take a transfer from there. Between the two rides and waiting on the train the next hours or so of her life would be taken up with the joy of public transportation. Ordering a direct ride would’ve been faster, but the Capri app only scrambled the ticketing system for the train; trying to bypass the payment on an automated vehicle just sent you on a one-way-trip to the nearest Peacekeeper holding cell. So she waited on the train, leaning against a railing with her fingers tapping out the rhythm of a song she couldn’t quite remember. What felt like an eternity later and she boarded the hovertrain, taking a seat in the almost empty car.

Safer than before, she pulled out her phone. There was a message from the Capri app; she was to meet her contact in their lobby building and should message back when she arrived. Calypso raised an eyebrow at the missed call from Miranda. She didn’t know why the woman had called her, but she knew that the Florist’s street translator wouldn’t ring her up for anything outside of cashing in that favor Calypso owed her. Sorry, lady, already got a gig, she thought as she pretended to not see the call, already moving on to the text she received from Sunflower. For a moment she thought that maybe the Florist himself wanted her for a job, with two of his ladies blowing up her phone, but the former Capri delivery girl turned exclusive drug mule just felt like bragging to Calypso about the fact that she had gotten laid. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except she always went into very heavy details and tended to embellish greatly. Calypso rolled her eyes. Like an Asseylum would ever screw someone who called themselves something a lame as Sunflower, thought the girl who called herself Calypso.

She switched trains at the Kyoto station and continued the second half of her commute in peace, watching as the poverty line retreated from the window as the train screamed towards the business district, its towering skyscrapers serving as sentinels. In some way or another, each building had some kind of ties to Osi-Corp, operating through subsidies and shell companies. Calypso felt as if she was moving into hostile territory as the train drew nearer. It was strange. She knew she was in danger in her own neighborhood, but at least there she did not stand out. Here, she was a target for Peacekeepers, who could take one look at her and see the poor fuming off of her body. They didn’t like her kind of people so close to their money centers, as they tended to ruin the illusion that everything was going all right for everyone. The train halted to a stop, and the sacrificial scapegoat stepped off onto the platform. She paused for just a second, rolled her neck, and began walking with a purpose to her destination.

She didn’t know why, but Calypso was already beginning to dread her decision of taking this job.

Little projects.

This was how The Florist saw the world.

Little problems. Little steps to solve them.
Sunflower was late. Baines had struck, hard and fast. Both women reliable as ever in their behavior.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the horde of sniveling weasels and artificially-primped hags that would be chittering about Saturnina’s Estate Party, and the equally large swarm of villains and vultures that would be descending upon The Black Brethren once the news spread. If Casio Flores were a gambling man, he would bet one would find a considerable amount of overlap among the groups.

A flicker of a smirk fled across his thin lips as he meandered casually through the aisles of his workshop.

Humans operated at certain frequencies just like machines did. An animal brain tugging at the controls of a complex robot that nonetheless retained incredibly base programming. The most successful machine nature ever built. A seemingly limitless creature that had recreated itself in the image of the very gods they themselves had once created, still shackled to the bonds of primal urges. It was enough to make one scream.

Casio’s eyes glazed over as the Neural Lace took over his shopping duties. Data streamed through his perception : blueprints for buildings, schematics for a dirty bomb, the latest news. Things were largely quiet, as far as Mars went, but word of the Disc would spread like a wildfire through dry brush once it broke. He stopped momentarily to view CCTV footage of a small woman putting a bullet in a peacekeeper’s neck. An eyebrow raised as he replayed the footage several times. In a flash a message was sent to The Mouth, the footage attached.

All the while, his swift hands skillfully plucked a precise amount of screws, fittings and wires from their respective labeled containers. Careful strides brought the Florist to a new aisle, snatching up three super-condensed high payload mining charges and an accompanying trio of cellphones as he weaved passed dozens more diligently organized containers.

So few were willing to take their time. A single meticulous step was often more beneficial than a handful of heedless leaps and bounds. Though the smash-and-dash approach had its advantages, provided the ensuing chaos didn’t lead a path straight to the creator's doorstep.

Sunflower’s delivery had certainly been a gamble, but it appeared sending the empty headed bombshell in would reap benefits after all. The delay likely meant a close encounter with the hostess herself. No doubt Saturnina would be thinking of playing the delivery girl’s employment against him.

Such an opportunity would be hard to pass up, he knew, because he and the wealthy socialite had spent the entirety of their 'friendship' smiling daggers at one another. They were the the same beast wearing different skin, two apex-predators stalking the same prey. It was only a matter of time. Friend or foe? Friend or foe?

Hauling his loot, he interfaced with the pressure sealed, heavily fortified door which lead deeper into his domain. The Neural Lace engaging the complex security sequence to unlock the door like an invisible arm before him as he stepped through the threshold.

Every last eye, optic and camera would be on Aurora. Every last petty crook and badged criminal, all the self-important, self-financed megalomaniacs and corporate moguls would be gunning for her. Every serpent and devil on Mars would have a target now. Their greedy hands wringing in delight, their minds whirring with possibilities.

He gingerly placed his collected menagerie on a small tray that hovered adjacent a series of much larger tables. The obfuscated images of humans, two males and a female, blurred within them, the whole room basked in a sterile green glow.

Their focus on the disk meant one thing, Mars wouldn’t be playing attention to the other pieces on the board. They would move for the Black Queen.

With a wave of his hand, Flores removed the blur on the first body, the lights above brightening to revealing the grisly inner workings of the man’s chest, pinned back by tiny claws, his organs pulsing with life.

Mars would be red again, the coming bloodbath would see to that.

Casio, for his part, had some ideas on how to get that blood flowing.

Briefly The Florist considered the man breathing peacefully on the table despite his opened chest cavity. An irrelevant Militia grunt whose destiny was about to be hijacked by a drug-dealing super genius? It read like a bad comic book premise.

But it was just a little project.

Flores had a number of them walking around the city now. Though most of them were unaware. It was hard to find willing participants, which is why he hadn’t bothered. People came to him to be altered, to be put under, or Flores found them, broken, discarded and alone. It was only a matter of ethic and virtue which might stop another in his position to resist a little tinkering here and there, where it suited him.

It was to be a long game after all, and the opening whistle had scarcely begun to blow.

One thing about having your phone stored in your eyes, it's really hard to glare at it when somebody who has no business not answering refuses to answer.
On an intellectual level she realized that it was probably for the best that Calypso didn't. And that it was her own damn fault for, of all things, attempting to choose protection for this coming fuckfest randomly. All of this she understood. This understanding didn't make her any less angry. She had half a mind to call up Mouth and have him Spam her phone with animal erotica videos for the rest of the damn month, suitability be damned!

Fortunately for Calypso and Mouth's eyes, it was at this moment that Miranda's phone blew up. Figuratively, that is.
A small torrent of phone calls, messages and spam from the warp, all transmitted itself right to Miranda's eyes. It was horrible. Why of all times was half the city calling h-

"Son of a Glitch." She muttered. Aurora. They were all asking about Aurora Baines. And being uniformly and transparently cagey about why. Her plan, had been pretty simple. Get to the disc before her mystery rival (apparently, 'Rora), snatch/grab, get it to the boss man, E-Z/P-Z-Praise-me-C. And now there were these losers. You had boys from the Consortium, Militiae, at least one Sculpter, a surprising amount of smalltime gangs that worked under the Brethren, numerous Freelancers and to top it off some of the most obvious Corp/COIN spooks and O-Sec Agents she'd seen since the Flying ElecVend Assassinations.
Some were calling in favors, others were offering money or raw materials, information, a few were even threatening to unmask the Florist (HAH!) and all of them, were doing it for the same piece of information. Information of Aurora Baines current location. Which, is to say, Miranda's current position, give or take a dank alleyway.
This presented a minor conundrum for our intrepid entrepreneur. On the one hand, she was currently in a seller's market, trouble was she was also a stone's throw away from where the fireworks would start. This put her in need of two things. One, a person who did not care about the Disc, and had the gumption and firearms to keep her alive, and time for said person to get here. This lead to basically..one person. Great. All she could do was pray he was vaguely sober, while working on that second part. Simple enough, though not easy.
But, first things first, she called up one of Mouth's boys and had him run System Ops, under the usual SoP, uninvited guests and people trying to hack her current location would be in for an ugly ass time. Next, she set up a virtual room, allowing all contacts, and set them all to mute while she said her piece.
"Okay folks, you know who I am, and I won't insult you by asking what you want, I see a lotta new faces in here, so lets go over the ground rules, First off, blackmailers and marker callers can take a hike, only thing that flies in this case is Cash, Crypto and Credits." A silent course of denial. "And Chemicals and Materials!" she amended. "Whatever you think you have on me, or whatever you believe I owe you, believe me, isn't worth half of what's up for sale here. Only one item up for sale, and if you want it you can go out, do your own legwork like I spent the last month doing, or stick around here..and start bidding." She tried to keep her knees from shaking as she sent a private message, over a secure channel to Po-po's little VC friend. The contents of the were pretty simple, as keeping up with the torrent of bids coming from the now un-muted customers threatened to overwhelm her. A picture of Dack, the kid, address of the building she was standing by and the message "He's here, hurry"

"Heads will roll." The feminine voice purred from behind a cocktail glass, the prelude to the gentle sound of a dainty sip, the barest hint of the Manhatten making its way past her lips before being placed back down upon the counter. The process of doing so stirred the visual display that ran across the whole counter, a miasma of optical illusions spreading across the sleek counter. A visual sensation which captivated many new acolytes to the lounge, but for these two veterans, was barely noticed.

Her companion, sitting across from cocktail-sipper replied with the barest chuckle, bold considering their circumstances, before voicing his response; "Heads 'are' rolling, they're already bouncing off the ground, setting off other problems, none as big as this." The male wasn't drinking and sat forwards, wringing his hands together as a means to occupy them sans drink.

"No one important." With no glass blocking her features, the female set her gaze entirely upon the man across from her. Emerald eyes that were 'almost' feline bored into his, one perfect eyebrow raised in contemplation of him, or their circumstances, one could never really tell. A dismissive wave of her hand accompanied her words before she continued. "How do you plan to proceed?"

"Officially recognising the existence of the disk, and even then, acting as if the rumour of its discovery is true, only compounds the issue. The Corp will need an excuse to keep Ghajotia under wraps and search the district. An excuse that's not an excuse, but a necessary measure." The man was wiry, but in the sense that carried condensed power, leaning back to straighten his tie. A minor tick, but these days, with all sorts of systems working to make human interaction as artificially seamless as possible, it was an easy tell. He was either impossibly proud, or she made him nervous. Perhaps both. She made no response, until she arched her eyebrow a little higher, prompting him to continue past his dramatic pause.

"Outbreak, Quarantine, Emergency Peacekeeper patrols and powers. As always, have the boys in Blue do the Crops groundwork for them." It could work, and it earned him a nod from the female, which brought a smile to his face.

"I take it, given the expedience necessary, you haven't advised them to attempt to 'fake' such a thing." Her voice was almost a whisper as she prompted, not from shame or subterfuge, but merely the minimum effort she wished to expend. As if begrudging even that, she shortly took another sip of her drink.

"Faking a such a thing would be difficult and expensive regardless of time, no, matters are already set in motion." That earned him a genuine look of pensive thought from his companion, studying him, as if for the first time. Her glass was set back down, a finger trailing across the rim.

"Already? Impressive." The Corp employed an army of similar consultants, and one could be assured they were currently pressing on all of them for solutions. To cut through that so quickly 'did' merit attention.

"There's an R&D Biological Barge crossing Mega-City airspace, en route to City University Labs. It is going to experience technical difficulties, that will bring it down into Ghajotia." The man's smirk was beginning to seem unseemly. Personal success at the cost of how many lives? Even she was unused to such, but it was not enough to stir any more reaction from her beyond the barest of nods.

"How long until the Corp is in position?" Her voice betrayed little of the myriad and calculations her mind was running through, altering her own predictions as to the nature of things, running alongside a mounting calculation of the human and economic cost.

"We should only be mere moments before impact. I've been promised footage if you'd like to watch with me?"

She buried herself in her calculations to hide any reaction to that, but nevertheless, her eyes turned to the screen that the man presented from within his suit.



Life in the Mega City can often be a lonely thing. Surrounded by billions, but ignoring all but that which effects you directly. Crime and disaster could occur and be ignored by passersby.

Even for a city such as Arcadia though, countless eyes turned to the sight of the vast atmospheric craft descending towards the city, past the high rises and glittering estates of the grand spires, trailing smoke as the crew onboard fought to level the stricken vessel.

Communication screamed through the air, digital warnings of what was occurring, scrambled efforts to prevent, and contain the imminent disaster. Peacekeeper craft began to swarm the descending, crippled, giant. Metal screamed as the craft attempted to alter its own course at a speed it was never designed to maintain. It was futile, and increasingly the rest of the city was becoming aware of this.

For any who may not have been watching the aerial display before, the concussive BOOM of the City's aerial defences opening up certainly did. Efforts had been made to save the crew, but quickly the situation had evolved to preventing damage to the city. Heavy rail-rounds struck the barge, ripping through the civilian vessel with ease, but calculations appeared to be off, rather than rendering the vessel a crumbled wreck, the shot struck too far back on the craft, ripping free its engines, but leaving it to fall, now without the hint of control it had before, in two pieces. Peacekeeper craft now scrambled to avoid being caught in the descent. A flurry of other weapon fire struck the barge, but it was too late to alter the outcome, a moment later, the shower of wreckage struck into Arcadia. Three districts fell under the blanket of debris. Individual buildings, hab-blocks, warehouses, were pulverized beneath the descending wreckage. Slowed by the incoming fire, the impact casualties would be numbered in the hundreds, rather than thousands. It was the cargo containers, ripped open and exposed by impact, that would be the real killers.



Breaking News!

Following the as-yet unexplained crash of an unknown atmospheric craft, Ghajotia, Troia and Delcos have been quarantined under suspicion that the craft may have contained dangerous contaminants. Peacekeeper cordons are in place both in the air and on the ground, with units even moving into the deep-city to maintain the quarantine. Aid and relief efforts for crash victims, and any potential outbreak are being held back along with all civilian traffic.

Calypso had never been shot before, although she had been shot at. Still, she imagined that the feeling in her stomach right now was quite like being shot in the gut. She stood in the fountain square outside of her appointment as the news broadcasted the crash, her head still ringing from the distant sonic boom, her mouth agape in disbelief as she watched the footage of the crash loop and loop. Already, it was being reported as an accident; every disaster in Arcadia was an accident. Despite this, it struck Calypso as odd that all of the accidents seemed to happen around the poorer districts—although perhaps she had been reading too many ramblings of a paranoid shut-in on the message boards again. Even if there was some grand conspiracy out to get the little guy, she wasn’t concerned about that; she was concerned about her mother.

How many times had she tried and called that woman? Three? Five? Everytime the line went dead, and every message she sent went unread. From looking at the map of the quarantine, Calypso’s neighborhood had been absorbed into Ghajotia, which meant she was now temporarily homeless, but her mom was living in proper Ghajotia. So each unanswered phone call, each unread message meant either one of two things. The first was that her mother was in a Trance-induced coma, dead to the world for the next couple of hours. The second was that her mother was just dead to the world. Calypso failed to keep the tears contained as her phone buzzed, an alert from Capri that she was due to meet her client in ten minutes.

Screw this, she thought, sitting down on the edge of the fountain. Already she knew that she was going to go through with the job, despite being nowhere in the proper state of mind. The fact of the matter was that she needed money if she was going to stay somewhere that wasn’t in the streets tonight. She had friends she would have relied on, but they were in the quarantine. Perhaps dead. Like her mom. And anyone she cared about. And anyone she didn’t care about. And…

Stop it, stop it, stop it. You can’t control this, but it doesn’t control you either. Focus up, she thought, patting her cheeks and wiping her tears on her sleeves.

A few deep, controlled breaths later and Calypso was standing. One or two more heavy sighs and she had started to walk, heading towards the revolving doors of the silver tower in front of her. From the base, it was nearly impossible to see up to the top of the building that was a beehive of offices and research labs. The windows were mirrored and polished to a shine, blinding anyone who stared at them for too long when the sun hit just right. A blue hologram of a woman dressed in a smart suit welcomed visitors to the Jazani Plaza, reminding them to check in with security if they did not have their access chip to their floor.

The lobby was clean, it was quiet, and it didn’t smell like piss. Already it was vastly superior to the Black Hole Bar; just being in it made her feel slightly better. Calypso liked to imagine a life where she worked in a building like this. However, her fantasies never included her doing any actual office work, which likely would have driven her into a bottle to escape the drone lifestyle, and instead focused more on the glitz and glamour of what she imagined life with a steady paycheck would be like. She thought of things like rooftop pools with hot cabana boys, dinner parties where people were only murdered with words, rubbing elbows with socialites that she couldn’t stand but desired to stand amongst, and other stupid things.

Normally, Calypso wasn’t the kind of girl who turned many heads, and she personally liked things that way. She was rarely the prettiest person in the place even in Ghajotia, and here where all of the men and women were crafted nearly entirely out of silicon she wasn’t even close to being anywhere in the running. Thus, she knew that when the few people inside of the building’s lobby turned and stared at her it was in the same way someone would stare at a sideshow in a carnival. At least, that was the best she could hope for, because if the security saw her as any kind of threat there would be nothing more than a slim chance to escape. More likely, she’d be dumped out back in a black bag with the rest of the garbage. With that thought in mind, she slightly quickened her pace to the check-in.

The woman behind the desk was a perfectly designed blonde who seemed pleasant enough with her fake smile full of bleached teeth. Calypso noticed the lobby guards shift ever so slightly closer as she approached the desk, ready to escort her away at the first sign of worry in the secretary’s eyes. Calypso pushed her hat up and gave the secretary a pleasant nod as she reached the desk, putting her hands on the edge where the other woman and security could see them.

“Hi?” said Calypso, adopting a somewhat airheaded accent where all of her sentences rose in tone, “I was told to check in here? I have an interview with Bachman & Clench? Name’s Sara Sampson? Am I in the right building?”

“One moment,” said the blonde, likely assuming that the woman in front of her was wasting her time with an interview considering the way she was dressed. She stared off into space, her eyes seeing something that Calypso clearly could not. A second later her focus returned. “I’ve called an elevator for you. Please, head on through.”

“Thanks?” she said, and walked past the desk.

Calypso hardly blinked as she stepped through the security scan, knowing that nothing would be picked up on her body that was out of the ordinary—her static pick, which cost a few jobs worth of dosh, was undetectable on almost all scans. She gave the man who waved her through a smile, playing the part of a happy-go-lucky college grad about to be absolutely devastated by the realities of the business world as she bopped by lightly, and rounded the corner to enter into the elevator that was waiting her arrival. The theatrics did not end until the doors closed with a ding and the elevator began to rise. Calypso collapsed against the wall as the numbers went up and up, her hand shaking as she pulled out her phone and prayed to see a message from her mother. She was greeted with the dancing Capri goat, eagerly awaiting her to confirm that the package had been picked up, and nothing else. Moments later, the doors opened and she choked back her emotions.

It was time to play her part.

The shuttlecraft shot through the air, gliding effortlessly between the gleaming towers and spires of Arcadia. Inside the transport ship, Drake Squad prepared themselves for landing, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the claustrophobic metal cabin, as it bounced and rattled.

“Our mission is simple,” Cadell Robbins -the captain of Drake Squad, explained, from the front of the shuttle “we’re to assist corporation forces on the ground, and make sure that the objective is secured as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

Robbins’ well-built form was adorned with state-of-the-art body armour -the kind that was only available to Osi-Corp’s private security sector- and a bulky gauss rifle was strapped to his back. Despite being just over seventy, the corporation had frozen the captain’s body clock at twenty five; which was the age that he currently outwardly resembled.

“Acquisition of the objective is paramount,” he continued “and nothing else matters here. Casualties, civilian or otherwise, are inconsequential.”

There were four other figures crammed into the tiny shuttlecraft, who comprised Drake Squad.

They were;

Salvador Jung, the weapons master. Jung was a lean man, clad in the same body armour as Robbin’s. A combination of training and neural implants had granted him finesse with countless short and long ranged weapons, making him a priceless asset to Drake Squad.

Valentina Trent, the physician. Valentina unerved Robbin’s. She was a thin, waif-like figure, with stale blonde hair, and sunken eyes. She was augmented with long, spider-like mechanical arms, which protruded from her back, and held a variety of surgical equipment.

Jax Hansen, the cyborg. Hansen reminded Robbin’s of the Awakened gangsters that he’d crossed paths with. What little visible flesh remained on Hansen was pale and lifeless, pulled tightly across a body of gleaming steel. Glowing blue optics sat in the gouged sockets of his eyes and he spoke with a mechanical echo.

And then there was the new guy.

The man that Robbin’s superiors had called “Knox” dominated the back of the tiny shuttlecraft. He was a huge, gargantuan presence; featureless in his full body armour, and was yet to speak, thus far. Robbin’s hadn’t seen him in battle, but he had come highly recommended.

“Any idea what this objective is, Captain?” Jung asked, scratching at this square jaw.

“Some sort of data disk,” Robbin’s replied “can you give us a visual, Hansen?”

A dancing blue hologram lanced out of the cyborg’s eyes, projecting the image of a small, simple circular device into the space in front of them.

“That’s rather unremarkable.” Valentina observed, her mechanical spider arms clanking and clicking behind her.

“Whatever it is, its stolen goods,” Robbin’s declared “and we are going to re-possess Osi-Corp’s property.”

---

Dack sat slumped in the back of the Black Brethren’s wheeled cruiser, separated from the rest of the passengers by criss-crossed metal bars.

He gazed morosely at the floor.

Jamila was gone.

Grendel was gone.

They were all-

“Don't look so glum, kid,” Aurora said with a sneer, watching him from her seat in the back of the cruiser “you’ve got lots to look forwards to.”

“Are you going to kill me?” He asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Perhaps,” Aurora gave a shrug “but first I want to know how some insignificant little street rat managed to get his hands on the Golden Disk before me...what we me having invested a -LOT- of time and money in acquiring myself a map, and all.”

“I-”

Before Dack could speak, an earth-shattering boom rocked the transport, throwing the passengers against its walls, as the cruiser was shaken back and fourth. Dack slammed, face-first, into the bars, his jaw cracking against the metal. He hit the floor with a thud, the wind having been knocked out of him.

“What -THE FUCK- was that?!” Aurora snarled.

“Looks like something just go brought down, not far from here,” said one of her henchman, checking his arm-mounted scanner “something -BIG-.”

“Fuck!” Aurora hissed “someone's on to us.”

“You think it's the corp?”

“Probably.” she growled, rubbing her temples in frustration.

“If it is Osi-Corp, then we can forget about slipping out of here unnoticed,” Aurora muttered “there’s an old club, a couple of streets over. Its called the rusted bitch. Get us there ASAP. We’ll shack up, and fortify our position, before we plan our next move.”

And 'Rora was on the move again. Miranda took a moment to thank god that her quarry had such an old Soul to still be using an Old World Asphault roller. Sure, it was faster than her Hornet, but it left nice, fresh tracks for her to follow on Ghajotia's mud caked roads. She checked in on the bidding war going on for Ms. Baines last known location. A lot of people had dropped out and it had gotten to the point where the boys started Nickeling and Dimeing each other, raising the minimum bid after every "Going once, Going twice", the tedious gunsels. But a part of Miranda welcomed it. It was almost like a routine day back when she and C first went into business, bidding on who got had the privilege of a ministration by the mysterious and secretive Florist.
Except, back then, bidders didn't suddenly disappear after a sudden earth Shattering Kaboom. Mouth's boy did a quick IP check on some of the bidders who went silent. It was ugly. Whatever hit down there was doing bad things to the locals.

This was getting too rich for her blood. Miranda had long prided herself on making the smartest play she could and tonight that would be to close the bidding, hand off the Info to the lucky winner, go home, take a nap, and pay respects to whoever the hell would be running the world when she woke up. How much could things possibly change? Lose a few clients, gain some more, listen to the bitching of whoever still survived. There was no sensible, profitable reason to keep on keeping on. Just like there was no profit in telling Po-Po about the kid. Miranda sighed, and sent a call out to Casio.