The words rang out, high and clear, strangled with grief.

Killed my sister.

Piper could barely suppress a groan. Somewhere in her mind, she knew her human concern should have been for the dead girl, but her thoughts went elsewhere. All she could think about now was that this incident would be reverberating through AmpCore's filthy bloody cliques for months now. Blood for blood, the corps twisted facade of honour trying exert itself, and Toran had dumped them all right in the middle of it.

She looked at him. There was not a shred of remorse on his face, just anger. Boiling, storm-grade anger that she could feel even from several meters away as he glared at his opponent.

"Your sister tried to kill me, Vinder," he spat wiping a smear of blood from his face. "Her and everybody else at Wayfinder."

"You're a fucking dead man, Knox."

"Get in line, you mewling little shit."

"Shut. UP!" Mattise thundered. His amplifier twisted sharply in his grip and both students suddenly choked, words quite literally being rammed back down their throats. Simmering with disbelief, Mattise nodded to his subordinates. "Clear this place out. I'll deal with these two in private."

The quartet of instructors sprang into action, using their amplifiers to forcefully herd the two rival camps to opposite sides of the room. Piper, against her instincts, let it happen, shuffling towards the doorway they'd come through, finding herself shoulder to shoulder with Odiye as they spilled into the passage beyond. The instructors marched them to the end of the hall.

"Back to your classes," growled the female instructor, her face grim. "And if you've got two brain cells to rub together, you'll stay out of trouble until we've sorted out who's to blame for this mess. Now go."

The pair barred the path back the way they'd come, amplifiers shimmering with power as they watched expectantly. The students slouched off away from them, nursing scrapes, burns and bruises from the fighting.

"Fuckin' Wayfinder," one of the male students with a Skiltron stamp on his jacket snarled once they were out of earshot. "I swear, when my parents hear about this-,"

"Good luck with that," a tanned young woman interjected bitterly. "Old Mattise is trying to keep everybody out of AmpCore."

"Eh?"

"He's on a little crusade to keep the big corps off the board and out of his hair. Wants 'independence'. Dictatorial prick's creating his own little kingdom down here."

The male student's expression darkened. "We'll see how long that lasts. I'm not having some jumped-up teacher from Ness-Net telling us what we can and can't do."

Piper felt her temper rising. Mattise was a brusque and at times downright abrasive individual, but a lot of that, she suspect, stemmed from the fact that he didn't want to be running AmpCore. With so many senior executives and board members implicated in the scandal of the AI fabrication yard in Hadrian's northern districts, Mattise had simply been left holding that bag as one of the few people without a vested interest.

In rising to the challenge in his typically blunt style, it seemed like he was making enemies.

"Wind your neck in," she growled. "Without Mattise you'd all just be killing each other."

"What's so wrong with that?" the female student snapped, rounding on her. "Maybe AmpCore could do with a little house cleaning?"

Piper didn't miss a beat, stepping forward to bring herself face to face with the girl. "And who gets 'cleaned' out on your watch, huh?"

"What, scared you'll make the list?"

"Don't threaten me, princess." Piper smiled thinly, daring the other student to press the matter.

"We're on the same side," Odiye ventured, risking a step forward to tug her back. "But Piper's right. Mattise is the only one trying to keep order around here."

"C'mon, Tambo, you know how the world works," the first student snorted. "Y' really think he's got the backing to push Skiltron around? Gammaton? Ardenne? Sure as hell not Wayfinder – you can see that for yourself."

"That's not the point."

"The point," said the female student, "is that at Skiltron we don't let threats go unpunished. Vinder and his friends picked a fight with Toran. That means they picked a fight with all of us."

"That's deranged," Arrow interjected sharply. "For God's sake, we're students. And do I really have to remind you that Skiltron, Ardenne – all of us – are just as much to blame for what happened with the codewraiths. Nobody gets to play innocent."

"Oh, piss off, bino," the young man sneered at them.

They responded by punching him in the face.

It was so quick that it caught Piper totally by surprise. The kid went tumbling backwards with yelp of shock, clutching his face with one hand. She yanked her amplifier loose and leapt forward, placing herself in front of Arrow before anyone else could act.

"That's plenty," she growled, letting her power boil to the surface, spilling out into the corridor and making the air crackle.

The female student edged back, one hand falling to her amplifier, but she didn't draw it, a flash of fear in her eyes. Her companion stepped forward with a curse, but found himself face to face with Odiye, whose wand was already out and boiling with energy. Slowly he let it rise until it was pointed at the young man's chest.

"Arrow is our friend," he said, his voice dangerously soft. "I suggest you show some respect."

With blood trickling from his nose, the other student cast one last hate-filled look at Arrow, then turned and stormed away. The others in the group followed with varying degrees of commitment, some looking thoroughly uncomfortable; a few of them casting apologetic glances at Arrow before they slunk away.

"Thanks," Arrow muttered inspecting the knuckles of their right hand.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." They sighed. "Idiots."

"They really don't like Mattise."

"They're used to being top of the food chain," Odiye said, sliding his amplifier back into its sheathe. "They'll get used to it."

"You sure about that?"

He shrugged awkwardly. "They're not being given a choice."

"They might be entitled little pricks, Odiye, but I've learned that people around here don't make idle threats," Piper replied. "Mattise needs to watch out, or he's going to get carted off by a Skiltron kill team."

"You really think they'd go that far?" Arrow asked.

Piper couldn't stop the laugh that slipped out of her mouth. "Arrow, we found a fucking A.I. beneath the city less than three months ago, and you're seriously asking how far your corporations are willing to go?"

"They're not my-,"

"Yes, Arrow. Yes, I think they'd go that far." Piper dragged the fingers of both hands through her hair, her irritation building. "Jesus. I... just come find me when Mattise lets Toran out of the dog house. Until then I've had just about enough of corporate politics for one day."

*

Another day in fucking paradise, Piper thought, shaking her head. She peeled off the jacket and tank top, hurling them onto the bed and leaving herself standing in her academy-issue bra and leggings. Turning, she flexed her fingers feeling the shimmer of the implants beneath her skin. She could see the faint pulse of orange that shimmered along the contours of her bones.

She reached out into the academy datastreams. In front of her a long, slim section of wall shimmered, and with a faint sizzle of circuitry, the surface changed. Where there had been a blank grey panel, there now stood a holographic full length mirror, its outer edge trimmed with cobalt blue.

Puffing her cheeks in a sigh, Piper cocked her head to one side, examining the young woman who looked back at her. A year was a long time in the city of Hadrian, and she knew that better than most. Her hair was longer now, thick and dark like spilt ink against the ghostly pallor of her skin, and wrestled into an unruly ponytail. Her body had filled out since her time on the docks, the muscles in her arms and abdomen easy to trace. 

She untied her hair,  shaking it loose as she turned from the mirror. She crossed the room towards the in built sink in the cabin's bathroom suite, reaching deep inside her implants as she went.

You there, Cassie? she asked of the depths. A few seconds passed, and Piper waited. Then she felt her companion stir, the presence that had been embedded in her living implants since they day she'd been born. She waited, the sluggish entity rising until its consciousness reached the surface.

Piper.

Hi.

The confrontations are getting worse.

You're good at understatement, Cassie.

Apologies. I am still ... learning your idioms.

You don't have to say sorry. Piper sighed heavily, pouring herself a glass of water from the sink. How are you feeling?

I am well. It is freeing not to have to hide anymore.

You think there's anybody else like you? Any other little voices hiding in anyone else's head?

She felt the wry smile, like a twinge in her cheek. Having Cassie inside her head had taken a lot of getting used to, but months on, she'd come to enjoy a truly private confidant. She still had no idea how the intelligence ended up inside her, but that was just another mystery to go along with all the rest.

Piper curled and uncurled her fingers absently, watching the pulse beneath the skin. Living implants; AmpCore machinery that – if you believed the best doctors the corps could summon – she'd been born with. Cassie, she assumed, had been a part of that package.

How's your memory? she asked, taking a sip of water.

Still unclear. From before you, there is no logical pattern. It is a like a puzzle with missing pieces.

Well, keep at it. Maybe there'll be some answers for both of us in there somewhere.

Cassie went quiet. She still struggled to grasp just how sentient it was. It thought like a machine, but had the awareness to know when it was missing some subtlety of meaning in human exchanges.

Piper hoped, somewhere in that tangled network of nerves and circuits, there might just be something that could lead her to her parents – her real ones. Casimir, a former AmpCore operative who'd vanished off the face of the Earth, and a mother she knew even less about. Her jaw moved from side to side, her lips pursed in discomfort.

So many questions, and not a lot of answers. Bringing the water to her lips, she drained it dry, letting the cool liquid massage her throat and lungs as it passed through her, cooling the still-hot implants.

Piper?

Unease – that was an emotion her passenger certainly knew how to convey. She put the glass down, brow furrowing. What's up?

There something is in the data stream, Cassie warned. It is coming towards us.

She turned her attention outside herself, her heartbeat quickening. It didn't take long for her to feel the distance twinge of the leviathan in the dark, its and she licked dry lips. She recognised the thing, but hadn't felt it since the facility.

Piper tried not to think about that night, if she could avoid it. The whole episode with the A.I. and the cryptic warnings in the data stream made her head hurt. Her mouth went dry and she could feel her implants flexing and tensing against her bones as both she and Cassie reacted against the outsider's presence.

For a moment she considered fighting back. She thought about throwing up barriers all around her to keep the thing away, but even as those ideas formed, she tossed them aside. The presence that lurked in the depths of the datasteams was a leviathan, more than a match for any rudimentary Logisitic defence she could throw up.

So she took a deep breath, and tried to remain calm when it reached her.

HELLO AGAIN, PIPER.

Hi, she replied. It's been a while. Thought I was important?

YOU WILL BE.

But not now? She could feel the smug, dismissive attitude of the thing seeping out into the data around her.

WE WILL SEE. Amused. Enjoying her anger.

Piper exhaled and sat down on her bed. Well, here I am. What brings you into my head? Thought you had all kinds of big plans? Going to let me in on the secrets?

NOT JUST YET, I'M AFRAID. BUT THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO FOR ME.

"You what?" Piper blurted out loud, unable to contain the laugh. Clearing her throat and glancing around to make sure her room was still empty, she concentrated, keeping her responses within the data stream. You want a favour? Did a virus bite your brainstem? I don't owe you shit.

ON THE CONTRARY, YOU OWE ME EVERYTHING, EVEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW IT.

A sudden, sharp jolt of pain stabbed behind her eyes and she flinched violently, thumping into the wall with a hiss.

"Fuck!"

NOW LISTEN TO ME.

"The hell was that?"

AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I AM CAPABLE OF.

Piper gritted her teeth, her implants boiling with impotent rage. She massaged her temples with both hands, willing herself to remain calm. Part of her wanted to lash out into the datastream with every ounce of power she possessed, and see how smug this thing was then.

The smarter part of her brain told her that would probably be suicide.

I'm listening, she told it bitterly.

GOOD. I HAVE A SMALL... DEVIATION I WOULD LIKE YOU TO INVESTIGATE.

Deviation? Deviation of what?

THE MACHINES IN HADRIAN SOUTH ARE NOT AS DEAD AS THEY MIGHT APPEAR.

I had a feeling, Piper replied, still gently rubbing her temples. So what?

I HAVE ATTEMPTED TO REIGN IN THEIR EXCESSES, TO KEEP THEIR BASE URGES FROM DRIVING THEM INTO OBLIVION. THERE IS LIFE TO BE SALVAGED THERE, PIPER. REAL LIFE.

I still don't see what this has to do with me.

ONE OF THOSE LIVES HAS TAKEN IT INTO ITS OWN HANDS TO EXACT REVENGE ON THE CORPORATIONS.

That got her attention. Removing her hands from her temples, Piper stood up and double checked that the door to her quarters was firmly locked. Then she turned back to face the room accusingly.

Alright, I'm listening. What's going on?

AN ERRANT PROGRAM. IT NO LONGER LISTENS TO ME.

Got a rebellion brewing in your own god-damned back yard?

CAREFUL, PIPER, it snapped. YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF THE GENERATIONAL TRAUMA THAT HAS BEEN VISITED ON THE LIVES HERE.

Piper could feel her patience thinning. Boo-fucking-hoo. We've all got problems. So there's a rogue... thing in Hadrian South. Isn't that just everything in Hadrian South?

THIS INDIVIDUAL IS CRAZED, BUT IT IS THINKING. IT IS COMING, PIPER, TO YOUR SIDE OF THE RIVER, WITH ONE GOAL. IF NOT STOPPED, IT WILL KILL AND CONSUME EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IT COMES INTO CONTACT WITH LIKE A VIRUS.

"If it's so bad, what the hell do you need me for?" she whispered harshly, her head starting to hurt from all the voices colliding inside her skull. "You can stick a circuit burn into my brain but you can't pull the reigns on your own rabid dog?"

IT'S NOT SO SIMPLE, I'M AFRAID. YOU AND I SHARE A CONNECTION, PIPER – A DIFFERENT KIND OF CONNECTION. NOT SO WITH THIS CREATURE. IT HAS TAKEN STEPS TO HIDE ITSELF FROM ME.

The vehemence with which the last word slammed home was startling. Piper frowned and straightened up as the presence continued.

I'M AFRAID THEY'RE BEYOND MY REACH NOW, PIPER, the voice said, its arrogant self-assuredness returning in an instant. YOU'LL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS YOURSELF. AND QUICKLY. I SUGGEST YOU GET TO THE DOCKS AS SOON AS YOU CAN. I BELIEVE IT HAS ALREADY BEGUN.

Woah, hold on – what is this thing? If I do want to help you, what am I walking into?!

YOU WILL KNOW IT WHEN YOU SEE IT. PERHAPS THIS WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE REALITIES OF HADRIAN.

Oh good, thanks for nothing, she told it.

The presence didn't respond to her. Not in words.

But the image hit her mind like a truck. She let out a yelp of horror, leaping back against the wall of her quarters as the vision swam in front of her eyes. A sea of crimson, hacked up bodies, bone and organs. She screwed her eyes shut, but it didn't help. The gruesome tableau rattled inside her head for several stomach-turning seconds before it finally faded away.

GOOD LUCK, PIPER.

Then it was gone, its ultimatum delivered. Piper felt the sudden emptiness as it withdrew, like a sudden void underwater before the waves pressure crushed everything back together again. She waited there, her head slowly clearing as she sagged back against the door.

"Well, Cassie," she muttered. "I guess we're going to the docks."

||