Kirk lurched stepped back in surprise.

"Do I know you?" he managed after a moment.

The soldier sighed, and slapped the side of her helmet irately. The opaque head-plate retracted down into the helmet housing around her neck, and Kirk reeled at what he saw beneath it. He recognised that short dirty blond hair, and the narrow snaking ponytail that slipped free to lie across one shoulder. He recognised the distinctive black tattoo of black concentric rings around her right jaw, stretching down to darken the snow-pale skin of her neck.

"Rain? Rain Kaulitz?"

"Yeah, it's me, kid."

"Aw, that's just what we need," Nevay groaned. "Another fucking spiv joining the party."

"Jesus Christ, aren't you dead yet?" Rain shot the gangster a scathing look, sounding genuinely shocked.

"Can't say I haven't been trying."

"What the hell are any of you doing out here?"

"Could ask you the same thing," Kirk answered as he looked around at the wreckage. "I thought you had a nice cushy desk job with Kaysar?"

"Oh, I did have a nice cushy desk job, until I decided to help you and..." She hesitated for a second, her lips twisting. "You and Chloe with your little crusade."

That took some of the wind out of Kirk's sails and he couldn't keep the wince off of his face. Rain Kaulitz and the late Chloe Delgado had a whole lot of romantic history – most of which he wasn't privy too – and it had been enough, if not for her to follow them into the lion's den, to at least point the way.

When everything had gone to to shit in the aftermath, he didn't have any way of contacting her, about anything. Evidently her involvement had not gone unnoticed by the higher powers of Hadrian.

"They couldn't prove it, nothing on paper," Rain continued, "but they knew. They knew someone had to have helped, and they knew I had a history with Chloe. Couldn't outright fire me, so this is what I've got. Demotion to the fucking front line, just in time for... this."

"Yeah, speakin' of," Nevay said, "what the fuck is going on around here? Where'd these tin-soldiers spring from? And what's got you and your bloody kill team out patrolling the streets like the local polis?"

"Wait a minute." Rain clapped the stubby SMG against her chest plate, where it mag-locked and hung there. "You really don't know, do you? You've actually got no idea what's going on out here right now?"

"There's more?" Kirk blurted, making a sweeping gesture to his surroundings. "We know there are things on the loose in the city, and that they came from Hadrian South. We know some looney fucking escapee from the Schism is trying to start a revolution in Hadrian and he's building and army to do it."

"Not building. Built." Rain's voice was cold enough to send a genuine shiver right up his spine. It wasn't fear in her words, but a deep, dark loathing, like she was speaking of some ancient blasphemous ritual. "They attacked the Heart."

"Fuckin' what?" Nevay shook her head in amazement. "Our boy's got a steel-plated set of balls to go along with everything else, sounds like."

"Oh, yeah, a real god-damn champion of the common folk," Rain sneered, "except that your bloody Robin Hood is slaughtering civilians."

"Huh?"

"Huh?" she mimicked contemptuously. "Yeah, normal people, you bloodthirsty bitch. They might have a few more crypts than you and me, but that's about it. Not enough of a difference to have them cut to pieces by a cyborg, wouldn't you think?"

"Spare me the bleedin' fucking heart," Nevay growled back, taking a step towards the Kaysar agent. "Might not be how I'd go about it, but if you're asking me to shed a tear for people who'd fucking spit on me if I walked past them on the street, save your breath."

"Meirda, stop!" Treysi shouted.

Kirk realised, abruptly, that she really should have kept her mouth shut. He was moving even as Rain turned her attention from him. She saw Treysi now – really saw her – and didn't like it. Her gun unlocked from her chest, and dropped into her hands. In a single motion she caught it and swept it up to take aim.

"Wait – fuck – stop!" Kirk blurted.

"Kirk..." Rain shook her head. "This better be good."

"It is. Shit, it's probably the best news you've heard all day." He raised his hands desperately. "You want to get back in Kaysar's good books? You want to know where all these fucking things are coming from?"

She looked at him dubiously. "I'm listening...?"

"They've got a leader," he blurted, "and he's set up shop somewhere right beneath your fucking boots, Rain."

"And just how in the bloody evergrind would you know that?"

"Why do you think she's with us?" He pointed back at Treysi. "She was almost part of ... all this. But we got her out."

"And now I'm lookin' for a little payback," Treysi interjected, moving out to stand beside him, her hands raised. "Kind of a long story, okay, corp? But we know he's out here."

"He?"

"Yeah. He." Holly lifted her chin slightly, looking Rain in the eye and lowering her amplifier. "I've seen him."

"Ma'am." At the moment one of Rain's squad members strode back into ear-shot, his faceless helmet turning towards them for a moment, before he saluted. "Area is secured, ma'am. Medical pick-ups authorised for civilian casualties, action reports relayed to local CC."

"Good." Rain's face contorted distastefully, trying to coalesce all the information she'd just received. "Change of plans, Sergeant."

"Ma'am?"

"We're splitting up. I'm taking Sanoss, Parker and Gatzmyer. You take the rest of the unit and secure our patrol sector. Advise command we're staying out past our operational deployment."

"I... err, yes, ma'am. Can I ask why?"

"Tell them I'm following a hunch. Stay in radio comms. If it turns into anything, I'll report in immediately. If it turns out to be nothing, I need you to keep this sector secure. Understand?"

He nodded. "I do."

"Then get to it."

The man darted off, and they waited in silence as the selected soldiers joined them. The three Kaysar troopers gave Kirk and his companions bemused glances as they formed up with Rain, but none of them questioned her. She thumbed the helmet trigger, sending her face-plate sliding back up and over her head, concealing her from view.

"Alright, Mr Balfour," Rain said, "show us what you've got."

*

Holly did not like having four heavily armed soldiers from Kaysar security following her right now. Or ever, for that matter. She could feel it every time their gun-sights swept across her back. In an effort to occupy her mind, she tried to piece together where this Rain Kaulitz fit into everything. It had been a long time since she'd had access to any of the intelligence files about any of the people involved in upending the ill-fated development of a new AI. Longer still since she'd actually had a chance to look at them.

She remembered the detective, Delgado. A tenacious pain in the ass. Even when Holly had managed to set an AmpCore kill team on the woman, she'd somehow slithered free of the net, and turned up right in the lion's den. She'd died for it, but done more than enough damage before she went.

Holly rather hoped Rain never found out about her involvement in that project.

Everywhere they went, they heard the sporadic crack and pop of gunfire, sometimes distant, sometimes very close. They even came across the aftermath of another skirmish, where a group of hulking security troopers were clearing through a handful of wrecked and ravaged cyborgs and mechs. Medics attended to the wounded soldiers, and drones whined overhead. She could see visors alight, frantic messages flying back and forth across them.

She risked brushing her senses against one. The resultant backwash off comms data stung her skull and she quickly batted it away again with a grimace. Mayhem was the only word that came to mind. Even with that fleeting connection she felt the deluge, groups of security personal all across the heart giving constant status reports, casualty counts, coordinates and patrol routes.

No wonder Rain had been able to take a punt on their dubious data. How anyone would keep real control of that chaos was beyond her.

They skirted around the battleground, not wanting to reveal Treysi to a bunch of soldiers with already itchy trigger fingers.

"Gotta ask, Kirk," Rain murmured as they made their way around into a backstreet, "how in the fuck do you keep mixing yourself up in all the worst things Hadrian's got to offer?"

"Same as you I guess," he replied from near the back of the group. "I just know all the wrong people."

"Oh, very funny."

"I'm serious." He snorted. "Though I guess I should have known hanging around with Nevay Jennings would land me in some shit."

"Get fucked, Balfour," Nevay laughed.

"I think we're way past that."

"Lock it up, would you?" Holly grated, casting an irate glance back at her companions. "We're almost there."

She felt them close up, Rain's soldiers fanning out in perfect order, while Treysi, Kirk and Nevay filled in the gaps. The alley spilled them out into a deserted street running parallel to the Prometheus Anchorage. Lights were on in the windows of the apartment blocks on either side, but people were staying indoors now. Sirens blared on the air, echoing eerily through the quiet.

She knew there was an access tunnel nearby that would take them down into the old drainage and slipway systems that had long since disappeared beneath the ever-changing architecture of Hadrian's largest port.

What they might find down there made her blood chill. She hoped, given the information from Rain, that most of the codewraiths and cyborgs and god-knows what else too busy wreaking havoc in the rest of the city to bother them.

Holly scampered across the street, and the others moved with her, quick and quiet. Through between two buildings, and down into a manhole. As she slithered here way down the dark-metal ladder, she could hear the churn of water below.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Nevay hissed from above as they descended single file. "Your sewers don't even stink!"

Holly sniffed. Then bit her lip when she realised Nevay might actually have a point. The chemicals pumped through these undercity waters virtually obliterated any waste matter from the high and mighty of the heart. Even when she reached the bottom it didn't actually smell that bad. She shuffled along the footway, her amplifier flickering to send light into the gloom.

Rain landed next, followed by Nevay and two of her troopers. Then came Kirk, with Treyi glued to his back, before the last of the Kaysar security personnel. Leading them on, single file, Holly couldn't stop the memory of her last encounter with the stranger, or the creature that had been set upon her like an attack dog.

She felt sweat on her palms, and hoped there weren't any more of those killing machines on the loose.

At least she had some back up this time though. Stuffing the fear down into her guts, she carried on into the dark. Nobody was talking now, the rush of the sewer water more than enough to conceal sounds that might give them warning as it is.

They twisted their way through a long, snaking section of tunnel, until she found the flat, solid iron access hatch that would take them down into the depths of the anchorage. It was a big, heavy thing, square and almost black against the gloom of the sewer. Four bolt-locks anchored its right side, with matching hinges on the other.

Somehow, Holly thought it should look a bit more rusted and old than it did. Not enough grime on the hinges and locks, the surface scuffed with fresh marks.

"This the place?" Nevay asked, scanning the tunnel in both directions with her claw-barelled stun gun raised.

"Looks like it."

"Then let's open her up," Rain said, motioning two of her guards forward.

They stooped to the locking bolts. All four of them came free a little too easily.

"Looks like someone's been down before us," one of them grunted, looking up at Rain.

"Then let's find out who." She stepped back knees bent and her gun levelled at the doorway. "Open it."

Holly spread out with the others, moving around to the opposite side of the hatchway. Beside her, Kirk levelled his stun-gun; Treysi crouched a little further back, her metal feet digging into the solid concrete like a sprinter ready to take off.

The two troopers heaved the hatch open. The hinges creaked a little as the slab of metal swung upward, before locking into the place in its open position.

A dark stairwell greeted them. Holly tensed, ready for some cybernetic horror to come bounding out of the gloom. Instead there was just a puff of stale air tinged with chemicals and rust. She edged forward, reaching out into the gloom for any sign of life.

"Guess we're not getting out of this," Kirk chuckled nervously.

"Nope." Nevay glanced around. "Any volunteers?"

"C'mon," Holly grunted, barging through her fear and descending the riveted metal ramp.

The others filtered in behind her, more lights cutting into the darkness. High above from the streets and docks of the Anchorage, she could feel the residual trickle of churning electrical currents, engine thrums and flowing data. Down here, it was a different story.

Holly felt the dead light fixtures running down either side of the cube-shaped passageway, old conduits beneath her feet, long since starved of power and life. Amongst that decay, she sensed the residual sizzle in the air where the ever-seething datastreams of Hadrian had been broken and distorted. She could feel the shallow scrapes and divots in the ground beneath her feet, where heavy metal forms had walked.

"This place feels wrong," Treysi rasped, her voice tight through gritted teeth.

"You feel something?"

"I... these things, in my head. They're trying to connect with something." She sounded angry, confused; desperate. "But it's not there. I can't find it. It's like... it's like trying to stand on stepping stones but they keep disappearing."

"Not sure I like the sound of that," Nevay grunted.

"It probably means we're on the right track," Holly replied, not looking back. She turned right, trusting her instincts, and the faint signs of un-life that she could detect. They moved into a stretch of cluttered, cargo tunnels, littered with abandoned carriages and loading cages. The mag-tracks were dead; the darkness felt all consuming.

As she rounded a bend in the tunnel, however, Holly felt a small twinge of something that made her pause.

A power source. It hadn't been there a second ago. It surged in her senses like a sun, spiking in power.

"Look out!" Treysi yelped suddenly

"Drop!" Rain barked at almost the same instant.

Holly folded down to one knee, her AmpCore training kicking in. The moment she touched the ground, the roar of gunfire exploded in the confined space. The muzzle flare of Rain's gun lit up the passage. She looked up in time to see a stream of armour-piercing bullets smash into the chest plating of a cyborg that had lunged out from behind one of the dead-hulk cargo carriages.

Powered down, the ambusher almost got her, a length of heavy piping swiping towards her skull, but Rain's Kaysar-fashioned machine gun had enough stopping power to fling the cyborg backwards hard. He crashed back against the solid metal flank of the carriage, his chest smoking and sparking, brackish blood trickling from his lips. He twitched and managed to struggle into a sitting position, before a final bark from Rain's gun put a three-round burst right through his skull.

The cyborg slumped. This limbs continued to spasm for a few extra seconds, misfiring circuits crackling in the gloom before he finally went limp. An abrupt silence filled the passageway.

"I think," Holly murmured through the smoke as she stood up, "this is the place."