extract_8651_messagelog-hardcache201104

networkIdent:[ACCESS DENIED]

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Do we know the target's location?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Yes. Our contact reports she's leaving the academy to meet with Jennings.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – The academy is allowing that?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Of course not. They're going off the books – she's got help. All she needed was a push in the right direction to send her off.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Finally some fucking good news.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Our contact is going to stay on site with her – make sure everything goes as it should. They'll keep us linked up with coordinates and I have a wetwork team standing by.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Good. But I want that fucking rat's nest cleared out – every tunnel and every single member of Jennings crew hunted down.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – What exactly are you suggesting? We don't have the manpower for that kind of operation. Besides, what would be the point? They're no real threat.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – You think so?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – No one's going to take the word of some gang leader over the official newscasts. If he could follow through on his little threats we'll just spin it away.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – That's not a chance I'm prepared to take. Prepare Phalanx 16 for deployment.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – You're sure? After everything that's happened you want to risk putting them on the streets?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – I've had assurances from our tech partners that the anomaly has been isolated. We won't lose control again.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – You sure about that?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Stop arguing with me and do what I tell you. It's my responsibility. We've sunk too much into this to let some petty racketeer blow our cover. It's time to get our property back and kill Cutter Jennings.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – All right. And what about the girl?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – No more screwing around. The other corporations already know too much. She needs to be terminated. She's to be shot on sight – I'll make sure kill metrics are loaded into the Phalanx command codes.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – And the students helping her?

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Acceptable losses.

SenderID || [ACCESS DENIED] – Alright. We'll be ready.

extract_terminated

*

Piper jolted awake.

An avalanche of sensory data piled onto her as she came crashing back into consciousness, an invisible tether wrenching her into reality. Bright lights; the breathy hum of a car engine. She smelled expensive cologne and polished leather – some kind of cinnamon air freshener.

She sat up so fast she almost smashed her head off the seat in front of her.

"Woah, easy, easy!" A gentle grip closed around her shoulders, tipping her back again until she pressed against the headrest. "You're okay – you're in the car, with us."

Odiye. That was the voice. Piper blinked a few times. She felt a strange emptiness in her bones, as though she'd been hollowed out and her body didn't have the mass that it should. The sensation of the tether slowly uncoiled itself.

She found she could breathe again.

Welcome back.

With that voice came the memories. It piled into her mind like a rushing waterfall and in an instant she remembered exactly where she was. And what she was doing.

"It worked." The words slipped out of her mouth awkwardly and she winced, clearing her throat as feeling gradually seeped back into her limbs.

"Indeed it did," said a voice from the driver's seat. A moment later she saw Holly's head peek back briefly, before she returned her attention to the road ahead. Rain sheeted off the car's wind shield, muffling the neon blaze of street lights.

"Did anybody follow us?"

"If they did," Arrow replied from the passenger seat. "Then they've kept their distance. How are you feeling?"

"Okay... I think." Piper nodded. Then she forced herself to look to her left. Odiye sat there, looking a little haggard and drawn. She wondered what it had been like for him, reaching down into the depths of her body to haul her back into the land of the living. It was easier for her, she supposed. All she'd had to do was die.

"Are you alright?"

Odiye's mouth twitched and he shrugged. "I think so. It was... very strange."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"I have connected with implants deeply before," he said, his brow furrowing. "None quite like yours."

"Well, you all keep saying how special I am."

"I just felt something different."

A twinge of dread filled her. Had Odiye inadvertently sensed the thing inside her that had made it possible for her to even pull off such a stunt?

"Well, thanks for doing it," she told him. "We couldn't have gotten out otherwise."

"They will figure it out, sooner rather than later," he replied grimly. "If Ferra hasn't already set them on our trail."

"Let them come," Holly interjected. "We're almost there."

The car carved a path through the rain, turning right towards the toxic flow of the Hadrian river. The water battered against the side windows as they went, joining a thronging flow of cars and several Prometheus branded hauler trucks. On the nav-screen build into the dashboard, an innocent red dot showed their destination inching closer by the second.

"He said I had to come alone," she said after a moment.

"He also said we were supposed to bring his son's body," Arrow answered uneasily, folding their arms so tight they looked like they might collapse in on themselves and disappear. "But we don't have that."

"Well, we'll just have to pray that Cutter's in an understanding mood," Piper muttered.

Odiye shook his head bleakly. "I don't like this, Piper. I want to help but... well, if you go in there alone, I think he will simply kill all of you."

With a gentle touch, Holly guided the car along a looping avenue that ran along the riverside. Piper watched the red dot, meters counting down on the side of the nav-screen as they closed in. They pulled off down a slip road, away from the boil of light and cascading water and down through a dingy underpass.

The road swept them under the main flow of traffic and into a part of the docks she recognised – a sprawl of old fish factories that lurked destitute on the riverbank. Once they might have gathered great bounties from the vast flowing water of the Hadrian, but not anymore.

Anything that could survive in those waters, you didn't want to eat.

Holly brought them gliding in and parked the cruiser in the shadow of a large, low building of rusted metal. A broken sign hung mournfully off its corner – Gellix Fisheries Inc.

"Looks like the meet is on the far side of the fisheries yard," Holly said as she cut the engine, tapping the nav-screen with one finger. "You still up for this, Piper?"

"Of course I am."

Then she looked over at Odiye, her conflicting feelings ratting around her brain all over again. Being stuck next to him in such close proximity brought back those raw memories of their duel, of the sheer energy that had flowed between them in that instant. She felt her heart beginning to beat faster just at the thought of it.

She quickly averted her gaze again, feeling blood rush to her cheeks.

"Remember what we agreed," Odiye said. If he'd noticed her discomfort, he didn't show it. "Don't try and do this alone. Find out what we're dealing with, and when you're ready, give Arrow the signal."

"I will." She looked to Arrow instead. "You sure you want to lock yourself inside my head?"

"Just your eyes, really," they returned breezily. "Simple connection really, but one that takes a bit of practice to maintain. I should be able to see what you see."

"Alright. When I get to Cutter, don't do anything until I give you a signal." She looked at each of them in turn. "AmpCore's your world. This is mine. I know how Cutter operates, so you'll have to trust me."

"I don't think we're going to have much choice," Odiye replied with a wry smile. "We'll be ready."

"Good luck, Piper," Holly said. Then, to Piper's surprise, the young AmpCore agent twisted around in the seat and reached back to place a firm hand on her shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. "Be careful, will you?"

"Didn't realise you cared so much," she replied, smiling uncertainly. Holly's fingers pressed into her shoulder for a few extra seconds before releasing, leaving faint creases in her jacket. "Thanks."

Rocking her head back against the seat for a moment, she took a deep breath, pressing her fingers against her trousers and flexing her hands. The fear was there coiling around in her stomach, but along with it was a deep, hot burn of determination. Tonight was the night she took her life back – at least one piece of it. To hell with AmpCore, with the corporations and Cutter fucking Jennings.

"Here I go," she said, more to give herself the necessary impetus. In a quick motion she swung open the car door and jumped out.

The rain hit her. The icy cold water battered across her face and she exhaled long and slow, letting it wash away the filth of the corporations. At least she'd be fighting this battle in a world she knew. Gathering up her nerves, she hunched her shoulders and started walking.

*

The darkness in the doorway was absolute, but Piper could feel the heat of the bodies within. Maybe five of them if the tremors in the air and minute gravity distortions were to be trusted. She steeled herself and walked inside, resisting the urge to rip her amplifier out and atomise the first person she saw.

She turned right, and at the end of the dingy metal corridor she saw the sickly white-grey glow of a light. Her implants crackled with unease as she drew closer, and with an effort she suppressed the sensation. This was not the time to lose control – at least not yet.

So she kept walking, and turned to enter the lit room with her hands raised, fully expecting to have a gun shoved in her face.

Her expectations weren't far off. She found herself greeted by a vicious young woman holding a long, nasty-looking knife, and four ragged armoured gang members bristling with firearms. Piper's jaw tightened as she stopped in front of the woman, her eyes drawn to the string of dark tattoos that coiled up and over her ear before spilling down the side of her neck in a storm of geometric shapes.

"Well, Cutter told me to come," she said flatly. "And here I am."

The woman looked past her, making a show of examining the corridor behind. Then she fixed Piper with a look of mock confusion, her knife twirling dangerously.

"I don't see my cousin."

"What? Barson?"

"Yes."

"Lucky you."

The mocking demeanour evaporated in a blink, and the woman surged forward like a striking cobra, her knife stopping inches from Piper's throat.

"That's family you're talking about, bitch."

"I didn't lay a fucking hand on Barson," Piper hissed, glaring at her assailant. "So back off. And I couldn't steal his body from AmpCore either. It's a miracle I even got out of there at all. I just want my friends back. I'll do whatever Cutter asks."

"I hope that's true." The knife withdrew and the woman's lip curled in a sneer. "Because without the corps holding up their end of the bargain, you're going to have a lot to make up for, Piper Russell."

"Where is Cutter anyway?" Piper made a gesture to their surroundings. "These are the coordinates, right?"

"What, you think he'd actually show up in here in person? After painting a bullseye between his eyes for every fucking corporation in the city to aim for? Not likely." She clicked her tongue and gestured to two of the guards. "Check her."

Rough hands began patting her down and Piper gritted her teeth. They hadn't really expected to find Cutter here, for exactly the reason his lieutenant had just illustrated, but they could look for all the trackers and bugs they wanted. There was nothing physical to find.

So she let the search happen, at least until one of the thugs tried to take her amplifier away. As his hand closed around it, she let a small ebb of force escape from the thundering flow inside her veins.

As he touched the metal it suddenly flared white hot, and he leapt back with a yowl, clasping a badly scalded hand.

"What the fuck?" the other guard blurted, levelling his shotgun at her.

"I'm keeping that," Piper said evenly, looking at the woman in charge. "You think I'm walking into Cutter's basement alone and unarmed, so he can stick a bullet in my brain after everything I've been through?" A smirk played across her lips. "Not likely."

The woman considered that for a moment, knife blade tapping against her thigh. She cocked her head to one side.

"I heard the rumours – wasn't sure if we should have believed it," she said quietly. "They said AmpCore'd turned you into one of their freaks."

"AmpCore didn't turn me into anything," Piper snarled. "I'm here, aren't I? They might not care about what happens to Kirk and Arden, but I do. Now, are you going to take to Cutter so we can figure out a way through this, or not?"

"Keep that fucking thing sheathed," the woman told her, glancing at her subordinates. "You so much as reach for it, and you'll be so full of metal we could use you as an anchor."

She made another motion with her hand and one of the guards moved around behind her, his snub-nosed machine gun levelled at her back. "Let's go."

||