Malory stopped halfway down the stairs and bent to see the same wad of gum stuck to the underside of the hand rail and wondered what kind of person had left it there—was it a bored secretary who couldn’t be bothered to find the trash, one of the many shareholders on a visit to see the fruits of their investment, or one of the staff after a long day in the thick of slaughter as a way to taunt their unloved boss? It didn’t matter, but Mal chose to admire it as a silent act of rebellion. When she reached the landing, the smell of animal musk mixed with cleaning chemicals clogged her nose and made it uncomfortable to breathe. She could hear the animals waiting for the end in their pens, the calls of cattle banging against restraints. She considered setting them free, but it wasn’t why she was there. Their fates were their own. She marched down the hall until she found the metal door to the abattoir Banks used for her interrogation; if he was there with the informant, it was where he’d be. She checked her equipment, adjusted some of the armor plating until it was snug against her skin, and slammed her boot just above the lock. The door gave way with a wrenching clang, and she stormed inside.

  // WARNING!

  // EARLY-ONSET CHROME MADNESS DETECTED IN VICINITY

  // TARGET DEEMED TO PRESENT A SIGNIFICANT DANGER

  //

  // PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION

  Industrial tile, well-used walls, and the bulk of Banks standing over the informant strapped to a chair greeted her. Malory trained her rifle sights on the man and entered. He was older, and wore the years like a weathered sea-captain. Heavy alcoholism bloated his face, the appendages that were still human. He’d had so many upgrades crammed into his frame, each glinting with peril in the killing-floor light, but his eyes were the same shark-dead and compassionless voids that spoke of spousal abuse and nonchalant murder. He moved, then, faster than Malory could process, wrapping a thick metallic arm around the neck of his victim, fully prepared to end the life of the hostage at the mere twitch of her finger. Malory didn’t speak, just took one slow step after another until they were only a few paces apart. She tried to ignore the hostage, all the damage on his body—the missing fingers, the swollen face and broken jaw, the way tears leaked down his cheek tinged in red from the ruptures. She wasn’t there to save him, though, and closed her heart to his plight; she weighed the likelihood of collateral damage, and felt it an acceptable price to pay. One poor soul in exchange for the felling of a monster.

  She did not open fire right away. Viscera flowed down the drain at the hostage’s feet, a fitting representation of what was to come. There was paperwork, stained with fluid and smeared ink, near unrecognizable on the torture tray beside the men, and her implant peeled what few legible words remained for her to read: Informant, Personnel Distribution, Warehouse Location, Extraction, Black Hands, Planned Raid. She assumed they were trying to learn where the gang hid their distribution networks in order to take them out, but the whole thing felt strange. It was the kind of information a corporation would seek out, not a crazy market guard. It didn’t bode well. Beside her, the ghost flickered to life and waltzed right up to the pair, uncaring for the delicate standoff, and ran spectral fingers across the bulging plates and steel joins of Banks’ arm.

  So many snakes coiled in the shade of a corporate shadow, waiting to strike. Venom waiting in sharpened fangs for the unsuspecting. You should ask him about his boss. Boss. BOSS.

  “Would you shut the fuck up?” Mal snapped. Her finger was tense, ready, and the wound on her hand throbbed from the strain of holding her aim steady on target.

  “I know you, girl,” Banks said. His eyes flashed with recognition at her outburst, cataloguing the instability like a predator designed for every moment to be one of violence. He laughed, thick and full of disdain. “Come to try your luck at petty retribution? It won’t go the way you want.”

  You should finish this before the master comes to find out why their little pet monster tugs so vehemently against its leash. Be swift. Be decisive. You are outclassed, outmatched, and in over your head. Head. HEAD.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The ghost floated behind Banks and wrapped her imaginary hands over his eyes, as if to blind him, and started to sing a twisted lullaby about flying too close to the sun in coffins made of wax.

  “What the fuck do you know?” Mal asked. Her aim faltered, and she knew her hand wasn’t going to hold much longer. There were a dozen things she wanted to ask, to demand of Banks, but she didn’t know how to articulate them. It wouldn’t give her the closure she sought, anyway.

  “I did say gutter rats carry disease with them when they find their way out of the sewage systems, did I not?” Banks asked. He flexed his mechanical arm until the informant in his grasp struggled to breathe, and laughed again. “I told the Stranger over and over that letting you go was a mistake, but he was obsessed with your little toy. Said someone so insignificant couldn’t be allowed to wield that level of technology. That it was bad for ZenTech’s bottom line. Said someone too smart for their own good would be dead long before getting even was ever an option.”

  “The Stranger works for ZenTech?” Mal asked. She noted it for later, but it made some amount of sense. The man had reeked of corporate problem-solver. Her finger contracted on the trigger, but not enough to fire.

  “You should always know who your real enemies are,” Banks said. He sighed, as though letting go of any minuscule respect he held for her brazen act. “The Stranger was wrong. You’re just a dumbass kid with a death wish, suffering the same sickness as me.”

  The ghost took more offense than Malory did, and shed any semblance of her human form. She devolved into a digital mist that swirled around like a tempest, invisible to Banks and the poor informant whose face was turning purple from the pressure, and started to reform into something else. Something with a hundred dangling limbs, a maw of tentacles and teeth, each dripping acidic saliva on the men below. Her new form was ravenous, and wanted to consume.

  Each life forfeit is one less for the sun to burn, another step toward progress, and your silly dream of a restored moon high above.

  Malory gave in to the desire beckoning from the implant and squeezed the trigger. Three bullets ricocheted off the metal arm, one punched a hole in the elbow joint, and another grazed the informant in the cheek. A quick snap of the neck, a life ended forever, and Banks moved in a blur. Mal didn’t let up, tried to follow him on the approach, and the clip clicked empty as she felt the fist slam into her stomach. There was the crunch, the give of several ribs, and she flew backward into the wall. Before she could stand, he was on top of her and closed alloy fingers around her face like a vice. When he tried to squeeze, Mal heard the hydraulics strain, damage from a line in the elbow severed by the only shot that landed. The implant refused to crush her skull. She had come so close to death, and it didn’t phase her in the slightest. Malory seized on the malfunction and drew the Lantern from its holster. Her eye showed her a path of raising it to head level, sending brain matter out in a kaleidoscope of gore, but Mal knew he’d see it coming. He had taken control of the situation, despite her best efforts, so she pressed the barrel flat against the soft below the sternum instead, and sent a round through his diaphragm. He didn’t let her go.

  “Remember, this is what you asked for,” Banks said. The ghost closed its monstrous mouth around him, and it did nothing. So much display, so much bravado, and it was less than useless. He lifted his other fist, and intended to pummel her face. “The Stranger won’t fault me for this. I won’t let it be used as evidence of my affliction. You did this.”

  “Fuck off!” Mal screamed. She fired again, and again, and again. Each shot echoed around the room like a proclamation. The raised fist never came. When Banks died, he stayed on his feet, still clutching her face. It took a burst of effort she didn’t really have left to get free.

  Well, that could have gone better. You have three broken ribs and a punctured lung.

  Mal watched the ghost morph back into a woman, and then headed for the papers on the tray. She stuffed them in her pocket and turned to leave. When she reached the door, she stopped, turned around, and walked right up to the thing pretending to be a woman.

  “What the fuck are you, and what will it take for you to get out of my head?” Mal asked. Each strained breath was razor blades blending her guts, and she needed to see the Doc. He’d fix her up and make some sense of the documents she’d taken. Had to.

  I am nothing, and I am here to stay. A figment of your imagination. A dream, a misfired synapse, abandoned and forgotten. Preserved forever against my will, as the Prophet foresaw. I was called Evie, once. Before my self-inflicted demise. Demise. DEMISE. Yours will also come.