The guy inside was only a few years older than Malory, his face sunken from a lack of food and genetics, and he let out a little yelp. She pointed the barrel of the shotgun at him, and he was crouched as far back in the corner as he could get. He was crying, there was a puddle of yellow at his feet, and he held up his hands in surrender. He didn’t have a weapon or intend to fight. Either his rail-thin stature, the way he parted his hair to the side, or the cleft in his chin reminded Malory of Spencer, that still body in the aquarium water that had died for her, and she took a deep breath. Her implanted lungs inflated, and she lowered the weapon. The guy groaned in relief when he realized she wasn’t going to kill him. A shudder passed through him, and he fell into his own piss. He wasn’t a threat to ZenTech, and Malory didn’t see the need in killing him. She closed her eyes and resisted the ghost’s influence. It wanted to push her, to turn her into a machine, to take over and do it for her, but she refused. When she opened her eyes again and moved to turn away, a shot rang out and splattered blood on her face.

  “What the fuck?” Mal asked. She wheeled around to see the commander standing in the doorway, a spent casing ejected from her rifle.

  The commander stared at Malory for a moment, and then shrugged. Orders were meant to be followed, no exceptions. The hardness in her expression made it clear that Malory was no exception. If she got in the way, or jeopardized operational success, she’d catch a bullet in the back. There was a flash, a blinding light behind Mal’s eyes, followed by a searing pain. The ghost, incensed by her refusal to give it control, spread through her synapses like a virus and rioted. The urge to raise the shotgun on the commander and fire was overwhelming, and it took everything Mal had to resist. Her vision blurred as the world started to spin. With it, came the sensation of falling. Through the blur, she watched the commander turn and leave, and then fell to one knee. She slammed her fist into the floor and let out a scream. Her throat burned, and she had to resist the impulse to give up. It would be easier, she knew, but she didn’t want to be used ever again. The first time had been a mistake, an option of desperation, an escape. The Doc had died, and she couldn’t handle it, but this was different.

  Give in. You don’t have what it takes to get what I need and survive. I will have those blueprints returned to me and be free. Free. FREE. Give me control, and you can pretend what’s happening is a horror movie you’re watching with your sister. Let it all go, and be better for it.

  Malory slammed the floor again, felt her abused knuckles pop from the force, and tried to shut the implant off. It fought back, the user interface refusing her commands, and then it turned its full malevolence against her. It sent out pulses of electricity to every neuron it could reach in an attempt to beat her into submission, and it was stronger than her. All her limbs went numb, and in the process, Mal lost her grip on the shotgun. It clattered to the ground, and then everything faded away. In the darkness, in the void of creation, she found herself standing in front of an impossibly large oak tree. Its branches spread out in every direction, as if it was meant to hold the sky. Little flowers bloomed from them in brilliant yellows and reds. She stared at it, full of awe, and time passed by—a second, a minute, a year, three decades, an eternity. And then the branches moved, just slight enough to shake her from the reverie, and she recognized the tree as all the scars engraved on her back. She had known pain before, and came out the other side alive. The ghost could harm her, but it could not break her, and then she was on one knee again in front of the closet while sounds of slaughter continued outside.

  “I’ll get your damn plans,” Mal grunted. She was on the verge of hyperventilating, and focused on slowing down her breathing. The pain faded, and her vision returned to normal. The attempt to take control of her body was unsuccessful.

  We’ll see what you amount to, my wind-up soldier, when you beg me to save you. When we met, I thought you were just like her, but I was wrong. She’d be disappointed in what you’ve made of her family name. You might look just like her, but you are weak. All that grit, all that pride will never be enough. Enough. ENOUGH.

  “What the fuck does that even mean?” Malory asked. There was no answer. The ghost smiled, and then faded away. Mal clenched her jaw and headed outside.

  Above it all, a chunk of iron that used to be part of the moon scraped the edges of the atmosphere. It heated up as it started to drag, turning into a shooting star. It sank lower, and lower, and once it had begun its long delayed funeral approach, its trajectory was successfully calculated by observation telescopes and broadcasted through the network. New Detroit was deemed safe and secure, so no alarms were sounded. The skyfall was angled to touch down a few hours away in the wilderness. It happened all the time, and everyone knew the wall would keep any debris away from the city. Who cared if a few nomads didn’t make it. No one knew the impact zone was where the ZenTech squad was massacring its way through the evacuated Black Hands to try and end their war once and for all. Down below the fighting, the flood had reached knee-deep through most of the old facility. Certain areas were sealed behind heavy doors, but it was only a matter of time until the water made its way inside. Anyone trying to hide was forced to the surface as Malory had expected, and with the leadership out in the open, the finale was approaching. Resistance grew fierce, and not all of the hit squad survived.

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  For her part, Malory cleared a half-dozen more of the cheap prefabs. The occupants fought back, and she killed them. It wasn’t what she wanted, but she didn’t have a choice. She’d never had a choice. She was trapped just like everyone else. Her mind was still lit up like a lighthouse, but she was searching for the Stranger, so the ghost didn’t push for control again. Mal wanted to start over, to work toward something better, even if it was built atop his corpse. She could become a merc, join a crew, find her sister and earn enough credits to retire to that cabin with Nadia. As she stepped into an alleyway between a ruined building and one of the entrances to the old structure, she heard a whistle and an explosion, and two members of the ZenTech squad landed at her feet. They didn’t get up. Malory grabbed one of the incendiary grenades hanging from her belt, pulled the pin, and threw it into the entrance. It clinked on the concrete as it bounced around, and there was a scream of realization just before it detonated. When a woman ran out on fire, limbs flailing as she tried to put herself out, Mal raised the shotgun and fired. The least she could do was provide a swift end to the misery. Maybe the woman’s next life would be kind.

  When no one else came out, she bent down and checked on the squad members, but they were gone. Fluid leaked from their soft membranes, their insides scrambled by the sudden force under all that armor. Mal sighed, stood, and continued on—there were more buildings to clear, more senseless slaughter, more searching without results. Her shoulder was numb by the time she ran out of ammo, so she discarded the shotgun and drew her Lantern. He was there, somewhere, she just had to find the bastard. When it was over, she could crawl into Nadia’s arms and work through her grief the way other people did. There was a growing rumble up above, but she paid it no mind. Another room, a bloody tarp, a screaming face, and a dull ache in her purlicue. It passed by in a slideshow. Another room, the damp of wet footprints, a higher-up but not the one she was looking for. She moved, one room at a time, until she reached the outer edge of the encampment. She could smell the latrines nearby, and wrinkled her nose. The rest of the squad was elsewhere, and she was alone. She reloaded the Lantern, and as she moved to double back, that’s when she found him.

  The Stranger, clockwork gears spinning in his eyes like a metronome, his hair slicked back but messy from the scramble, climbed his way out of an escape hatch. He adjusted his suit, smoothed out the wrinkles, and then looked right at her. His face was contorted with rage. All the meticulously crafted plans he had set in motion to seize control of the gang, to work as a double agent with ZenTech until he found himself on top of the city; all that ambition, dismantled by someone he considered less than human. A gutter rat that refused to die, even when he sent her off on a doomed mission. There was a question forming behind his eyes, but Malory didn’t give him the chance to speak. They raised their weapons at the same time and fired. Her aim was precise, aided by the voracious will of the ghost in her implant, and she put a bullet in the center of his forehead. He fell, and it was over. He was used to being the one behind the scenes giving orders, and had never had much practice, but he was lucky enough to catch her in the abdomen. It knocked the wind out of her as it punched through the armor and dug inside, but she stayed on her feet. She walked over to his body, twisted his head to the side, and pulled out two memory chips from the slot in his neck.

  Malory sat down next to the body, scanned them both, and sighed in relief. One of them had the plans the ghost wanted, and the other was encrypted financial information. She felt the wet flowing from the hole in her stomach. She knew the Doc wouldn’t be there to patch her up, but she felt peace knowing the old man had been avenged. She wished she could see him sleeping at his desk again, that she could pull up a chair beside him, but he wasn’t coming back. Her body was numb, and she was far too cold. She started to cry, and as she turned her head upward, her thoughts fragmented. She could almost swear there were two suns. Alerts flashed in the corner of her eye, but she didn’t read them. The sight was far too beautiful to turn away from. It was a twirling, raging light. A neon incandescence that filled the whole world as she bled out. In a moment of clarity, she remembered she’d seen the same thing before all those years ago with her cohort on top of the satellite tower. The skyfall was coming, and she didn’t try to stand. Her body swayed from side to side, and then she fell. Her eyes never turned away.

  Weak. You’re so damned weak. Weak. WEAK. I told you, over and over again, but you never listened. Flew into the sun in a coffin made of wax. Bennet deserved a better legacy. I will help you one last time, for her sake, but then our partnership is through.

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