Shadows wound in thick rivers over the walls, eyes opening up in them, the air pulsing and breathing. The dark knew this was the moment for it to emerge, and it raged that he denied it. It strained at the cage, poured through gaps. Let me join… it whispered and begged, reaching for the merger of him and the others.

  His eyes narrowed. You are a Module, he thought, and it was. He had Control, and the dark’s progress was stymied, the shadows stilling and the eyes fading. Time to begin. The enemy was close behind. He could feel the pings of her sonar getting louder as she came closer, brief pulses of pressure in his ears.

  He slowed his run, acting tired. He turned and shot the scout drone that had followed him then his rapier slipped out, already charged. It lunged into position in the gap between two of her sonar pings, then lurked pressed tight against a wall just beside the corner.

  His run slowed further. Just enough to ensure he remained close to the corner, so as to reach with Soul Sense. He didn’t bother to act tired because without the drone, she couldn’t see such detailed sights. However, with her sonar she would know his general actions. He could hear her coming fast from behind, soon to turn the next corner. He stopped, turned, and took aim. He did so because she would expect it. It would reassure him to see he was doing the logical thing and behaving predictably, and she would be especially reassured because she’d know it was fruitless. Without a way to deal with the lasers he would be dead before the AA-12 did significant damage to her.

  She had stowed her rifle, hanging from its strap on her back, and had both her hands alongside the laser on her shoulder ready. Her hands glowed ominously, the palm-lasers activated and charged.

  The blue lightning was not quite charged, not yet, and she knew that—it was the reason she’d rushed so. She’d gained vision on him from another drone which had come shooting down the corridor. The blue lightning needed another couple of seconds.

  Then she was there, just around the corner. The moment she was close enough she threw herself, and did as he’d expected. She positioned her body so that each of her hands and the laser on her shoulder would come around the corner at the exact same moment.

  All three laser’s were spitting out lances of red that dug into the wall. She knew that his only option was to shoot out her lasers before they turned him into smoking chunks of meat. She knew that by arranging herself in this manner, at least two of the lasers would have time to do more than enough damage before he could fire a second shot. On top of that, these were tough and well made lasers. There was no guarantee one shot would be enough to properly destroy them.

  He pulled his pistol and held it in his other hand, and then she was there, coming around the corner, and it all happened in an instant. The chains on his body stirred and darted into the air before him. His rapier, hidden pressed flat against the ceiling, swung down. Nicolai squeezed the triggers.

  The three lasers speared through the air towards him but found themselves abruptly blocked by his rapier. As they were arranged in a line it was able to block them all. It simply had to be very close. It slid upwards and the lowest laser was revealed.

  His first shots, coming in that exact instant, took out that lowest laser.

  Almost instantly the cyborg’s hand with the damaged laser swooped out and grabbed the rapier, hurling it aside to clatter off the wall.

  Now the lasers speared at him, initially aimed at his head. But the chains were already there, in a tight clump before him, and the lasers swiftly shifted their aim to any areas that were not protected.

  Burning pain erupted over his body as Nicolai kept squeezing the triggers.

  A barrage of gunfire erupted alongside the exchange of lasers. A dozen different actions in a moment. Her lasers adjusted and started targeting his hands and weapons, attempting to disable them just as he was doing to her, but he adjusted in the milliseconds, chains shifting swiftly to protect these points.

  A second later it was over.

  Nicolai struggled to move backwards. There were lines of burned flesh drawn over his body, and the smoke rose and got into his nose and eyes. One of his wrists was fucked where she’d got through and his pistol dropped from his limp hand. None of it mattered.

  The Cyborg’s three lasers were all down. Her movements stuttered, the floating motion she’d used to ensure a perfectly stable firing position and instant ability to shoot him when around the corner shifting as her legs blurred. All her weapons had been disabled and yet he was not yet dead. While he struggled backwards, the Cyborg did the only thing she could: charge him.

  Nicolai let his AA-12 fall, grabbing the chains wrapped around his body by the handle with his good hand. He pulled them off in one fluid movement. The lasers had done little to them except heat them up in places. He raised them towards her just as she came into range.

  The chains lashed and wrapped tight, but the Cyborg was only slowed slightly, her legs and arms strong enough to overpower the chains as they struggled to get a good hold.

  Nicolai threw himself backwards but she was gaining, bulling through the chains, and she had a pair of small vibro-blades which had emerged from slots in her hands. She was only feet away from him, the chains the only reason he was able to hold her and her enhanced speed off. The chains flipped, some of them suddenly worming around her legs, and just for a moment she staggered.

  Then the knives cut in a blur through several chains at once, and she lunged with savage speed.

  But she was too late. His bad arm was raised and though his hand was unuseable, that didn’t matter. It thundered, blue lightning pouring into her and once more the Cyborg spasmed, frozen for just a moment. Nicolai bid the remaining chains to use that moment to wrap tighter, and they snapped her legs together and dragged her arms to her side. The Cyborg began to topple. As she fell, the chains performed one final action before he let go of the handle. They pried the anti-material rifle from her back and held it aloft.

  He collapsed backwards to the floor, rolled, rose and regained his feet with slightly less than his usual poise. There were significant burns on his legs, but he couldn’t stop and breath from an orb, not yet. The Cyborg was already struggled, her metal form jerking within the chains. He reached for the anti-material rifle held aloft and dragged on it with the Grasping Finger. It spun through the air, past her collapsing form, and Nicolai caught it in both his hands. It weighed ten kilos and he let its weight carry him backwards in another roll. He ended with one knee on the ground, in as stable a firing position as he could manage. The rifle barrel rested on his raised knee, and he held its trigger with his good hand.

  The Cyborg’s struggled ceased as she froze, recognising that she’d lost.

  With his enhanced strength he was just about able to manage the heavy weapon. While he aimed it, he breathed through the emergency Rejuvenating Orb on his shoulder, which he’d replaced with a fresh one while fleeing from her. His burns began to rapidly heal as he took three solid breaths from it.

  The rifle was already loaded as she hadn’t succeeded in firing the round. His Soul Sense checked everything was in order as he took aim, centre-mass on the Cyborg. Her struggles had slowed, the blue lightning fading. His finger began to squeeze the trigger. Another fight won, and this had been among the best yet. His right eye was gone but he didn’t care; he could get another eye. The loss only showed how close he had come to death, and that he had eluded it yet again. The satisfaction was immense as the thrill poured through his veins, curling his lips in a smile.

  ‘Wait! Wait! Don’t kill me!’

  Nicolai paused. He rose to his feet, as now his body was almost entirely recovered, and gained a better firing position. The weight of the rifle was now easily managed. It felt good in his hands.

  In general he held to the view that it was best to kill ones enemies immediately, before something unexpected happened. But he was willing to give this one a moment, some time to speak her final words. She’d been perhaps the most worthy opponent yet. She deserved a little something.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked tolerantly.

  ‘Because I can help you.’

  Nicolai chuffed a laugh. ‘Sure you can. Your name is Gilvine, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It was a good fight, Gilvine.’ He gestured to his burned out eye. ‘Very good.’ He raised the rifle and squeezed.

  ‘I can help you kill Vikrum!’ she blared from speakers.

  Nicolai kept his finger tight on the trigger, just a millimetre of movement required to fire. Now his brows creased in irritation. The more she talked the more she was damaging his moment. Killing her was the only correct end to the fight. But though much of Nicolai agreed with this, the calculating core at his centre, for once, disagreed.

  The reason for this was simple. Through his Soul Sense wrapped tight around her, he was able to feel the faint emotions of her brain. They were reduced due to her advanced state of augmentation, but there was enough. Not only that, but his skill at reading others with his Soul Sense had only continued to grow. Perhaps when he’d first gained the power he wouldn’t have been certain about what he read from others, but now he was comfortable what he sensed.

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  From what he felt, to his great surprise, she was being honest. I suppose I can test and check. He was aware that she might be attempting to buy time for help to arrive or something else to happen, but was willing to take that risk.

  If she tricked him and got away, he’d just kill her another time. He had gained what he truly wanted: the anti-material rifle. He began to move, sidestepping slowly to the left, then to the right, the rifle’s line-of-fire remaining fixed on the centre of her chest as he moved. He had kept the Blue Hornet active but would charge faster if he was moving. Since he was going to stop and talk, then he might as well build up the charge. Just in case.

  ‘First, stop fighting me for control of your drones,’ he said. Since he’d turned the situation on her, Cyberwarfare had began seizing at those drones and a continuous Local battle was even now occurring. Gilvine did so immediately, releasing her hold and vacating her position in the Local. The various drones she’d posted nearby popped into his feed, seized by Cyberwarfare.

  After the Module formatted and reprogrammed them with its own drone software, a simple but effective method of removing any little tricks or traps that might be left in the old software, Threat Analysis took control and sent them on sweeps.

  He also had her open up the pouch containing rounds for the anti-material rifle, which was near to one of her hands. Once it was open he used the Grasping Finger to pull the heavy rounds out one by one, putting them into one of his own pouches. In total she had seven 50.cal rounds remaining.

  ‘Of course you can help me kill Vikrum,’ Nicolai spoke once that was sorted. ‘Anyone can help me kill Vikrum. But are you not only willing, but determined to help me kill Vikrum?’ Nicolai worded this question carefully. From his singular failure when Soul Sense reading, when Maric had lied to him, he now knew the best move was to ask various questions from various angles, and compare how the subject responded to each.

  ‘Willing?’ she hissed. ‘Oh, I’m far more than just willing. I want to see him broken and dead.’

  Every word rang true. Her mind pulsed with seething hatred and loathing, so strong that he was able to make out a faint misty image of her thoughts. A dreamlike vision of Vikrum.

  Nicolai considered his enemy thoughtfully. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because he’s pathetic. A fucking child suited up in Level 3 augs, doing everything his nanny AI says to do. The fact that he considers me one of his “Elites” disgusts me.’

  Nicolai snorted, amused. Useful attitude. But he wasn’t quite convinced, not yet. He found it very convenient that this Level 2 Cyborg, by all accounts one of the Chosen’s top brass, had at this moment where he had her at his mercy, suddenly come out with this desire to work together and kill Vikrum.

  ‘That’s all it takes then, is it?’ he asked next. ‘You’re just bitter that you have to work for some rich kid? You hate him so much because of that? I don’t buy it.’ Her emotions might have convinced him of the “truthfulness” of her words but the truth could be twisted and the best lies have some piece of truth within them. Having such an overwhelming hatred and desire to kill Vikrum, simply because he was lucky and rich, didn’t square up. It was stupid, and this Cyborg didn’t strike him as stupid. Either she was lying or there was something deeper. Until he knew all the facts his finger would stay tight on the trigger. The blue lightning had finished charging and crackled over his body, ready to go.

  The Cyborg was silent, gazing at him. He felt her mind squirming, filling up with new emotion. Loss, regret, rage, hatred.

  ‘His proper name is Vikrum Erkonne,’ she said. ‘Do you know of the Erkonne family?’

  ‘I do.’ They were a fairly typical oligarch family, owning many corporations, engaged in all the expected underhanded dealings. Though, amongst such families, the Erkonne’s ranked a little higher than normal when it came to viciousness. GRECKON had leased Zero-Twelve to them a few times and all of the jobs had been bloody, some excessively so. They were the kind of people who liked to make a point, of the indiscriminate-machine-gun-fire and napalm variety. Those who crossed them were used as warnings to everyone else: don’t fuck with us.

  ‘They killed my… friends,’ said Gilvine.

  Nicolai nodded, continuing to observe her emotions closely. This was starting to make sense. ‘Go on.’

  The Cyborg creaked, flexing slightly within the chains. ‘What else do you need to know? That’s it. They killed my friends. I want them dead.’

  ‘Vikrum killed your friends?’

  ‘No,’ she snarled. ‘But his family did. What does it matter? I want them all dead, and he’ll do fine as a starter.’

  Truth, truth, truth. Every word was true. The hatred within her was something alive and hungry, a demand for bloody vengeance.

  He poked at her a bit longer, asking a few more questions which clearly irritated her, as they were more abstract in nature, a method of testing her from different angles to further determine her truthfulness.

  ‘How many people have you killed?’

  ‘What? I don’t know. Lots.’

  ‘Why did you join the Game?’

  ‘I… had to get away from Earth.’

  ‘How much do you want vengeance?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Who are you willing to kill for it?’

  ‘Anyone.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘So long as you don’t get in my way, I don’t care about you. I don’t even know if I can kill you, anyway. Who are you? You shouldn’t have been able to beat me. No human can be as quick as you are. You don’t have enough augs for what you’re capable of, and your cyberwarfare capabilities...’ Though she had no face with which to craft an expression, and was viewing him through cameras, still he felt her glare. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘I’m the one asking the questions.’

  Her body shifted with frustration. ‘I do not see the purpose of these random questions. Why are you asking all of this?’

  Nicolai didn’t answer. He was largely satisfied, but there was another step. ‘Open up your Link and let me in with full view access.’

  ‘What?!’ hissed the Cyborg. ‘No! Fuck you!’

  Nicolai squeezed the trigger and the anti-material rifle thundered in his grasp, lunging against him. Gilvine was knocked sprawling as one of her arms was removed at the shoulder, turned into shrapnel that rocketed down the corridor and bounced off the walls. As she recovered, he worked the weapons bolt, ejecting the spent the round. The large round let out a dull ring as it bounced off the ground. He slotted in a fresh one and cranked the bolt, then took aim at her once more.

  ‘Open up your Link. And let me in. With full view access,’ he repeated, gazing at the Cyborg who was struggling in the chains. Her struggles paused, head tilting, numerous orbital cameras settling onto him. She didn’t reply, but he felt her consternation and anger.

  ‘Going to be tough to take down a Level 3 with only one arm,’ he said, shifting the rifle to aim at her other shoulder. ‘Even harder with none.’

  ‘Fine!’ she snarled, and over Link he felt a pulse from her. Acceptance.

  Cyberwarfare was immediately on the case, diving into the artificial part of her mind and rifling through what it found.

  As an advanced Cyborg her brain was peppered with implants. Most Cyborgs like this had their thoughts tweaked and tuned by these implants, and they allowed further functions. Parallel thinking, for instance. These parts were outside of Nicolai’s ability to read with his Soul Sense, but now that she’d let him in, he could have a look around and gain a full picture.

  Or, Cyberwarfare could, as he left the Module to do that. Rifling through the memories and artificial thoughts of other AI’s and Cyborgs was something it was well accustomed to, a manner of gaining information from fallen enemies mid-mission.

  The Cyborg’s artificial mind was well setup compared to most, but Cyberwarfare was emitting the AI version of a contemptuous sneer as it slid through barriers, poured into concealed areas, rattled and poked at everything it found.

  It did so in a manner that was difficult to read. To the Cyborg it likely felt like just an odd fuzzing alongside confusing error messages and warnings. Nicolai kept an eye on her emotions with his Soul Sense. She was in a state of wary unease, but he saw no changes or reactions as Cyberwarfare found things, which told him that, unless she was significantly better at this sort of thing than he’d pegged her, she didn’t know what had been found, or even if anything had been found.

  Here, said Cyberwarfare, returning to Nicolai and sharing its findings with him and Threat Analysis.

  After piecing through it all carefully, Nicolai found pretty much what he’d expected. The thoughts the Cyborg had kept hidden from him were:

  Though she wanted Vikrum dead, right now she also really wanted to survive and was willing to say whatever she thought might get her out of the situation.

  If he let her go she would not view this as any kind of debt, and would still happily murder him if given opportunity and a reason to do so.

  As to them “working together” against Vikrum, what this actually meant to her was that she intended to stay well back from any conflict between them, watching carefully until she felt sure Vikrum could be finished in an instant via a surprise backstabbing. Only then would she strike, and she certainly wouldn’t come to Nicolai’s aid if he fared poorly in such a fight.

  That last part was less than ideal because in truth Nicolai could really do with some help. In fact, he would prefer to use the very strategy she intended, himself. Make her fight Vikrum while he relaxed in the background, and then he could strike at the opportune moment. This method had minimal risk.

  However, after seeing all this Nicolai finally came to his conclusion.

  He was going to let her live. She was honest in her desire to kill Vikrum, if little else. He could use that. Though she was dangerous and untrustworthy, he understood her well, capabilities and mind. He did not see the way, not quite yet, but he felt there were good odds he could make use of her.

  What he needed was a way to force her into the open, set her and Vikrum against one another. Once her cover was blown she would have little choice but to cooperate more fully. With the information he’d copied from her mind, he had numerous routes to blow that cover. She’d be aware of this, of course, and would take precautions. But Nicolai wasn’t too concerned. This wasn’t a situation where he had a plan, it was more like prep-work for a future plan. Gilvine was a fish he was tossing back into the river, because it might end up doing something useful for him.

  A part of the misty plan floating in Nicolai’s mind slid to the side, making way for the new piece, which slotted in. Everything began to shift and slide.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ asked Gilvine.

  He nodded to her. ‘You live. Consider us… allies.’

  ‘Allies,’ she echoed.

  ‘I’m keeping this,’ he told her, tapping the anti-material rifle.

  The Cyborg stirred. ‘That’s not ideal, it was lent to me by Vikrum. He will be able to pressure me because I lost it. He is wary of me. He might suspect we talked and came to an agreement.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s your problem.’

  She didn’t appear to realise how lucky she was that the rifle was all he could take from her. Due to her particular augmentation setup, that of being a largely artificial being—just organs stuck inside a metal body—he couldn’t make easy use of any of her bionics. They were all non-flesh compatible parts and would require so much expensive and difficult alteration, if he were to try and install it into himself, as to not be worth it. He was better off just buying the correct parts for his body from the Trade Link.

  Even her remaining vibro-blade was the same, it had no handle as it was a part of her arm, wired into her central power. He could have tried to tear it out but would have had to then find a new power source for it and work out how to affix some kind of handle, if he didn’t want to run around hitting people with her arm.

  If all of her body parts had been easily pilferable then he wouldn’t have been entertaining this deal and would even now be taking her apart.

  He began stepping backwards, keeping his eyes on her and remaining ready. Even injured as she was, precautions had to be taken. Reaching the end of the corridor he sidestepped, then turned and began to jog away.