Arrow watched, fear creeping across their skin as Piper, Toran, Odiye and Ferra set off, leaving them alone with Holly.

The one person they really did not want to be alone with. Ever since their suspicions had rocketed to the fore, they'd been replaying everything in their mind, combing back through every step they'd taken since they'd met Piper, and the conclusion was unavoidable.

Holly Lockley was not on their side.

The question now, Arrow supposed, was whether Holly had put the pieces together in reverse.

"So," they croaked. "Gonna help me or what?"

Holly didn't reply, though she aimed her amplifier at the deep gouge in Arrow's torso. They felt the fingers of energy reach out, probing and examining their wound. The footsteps of their companions receded into the halls beyond, and soon all they could here was the distant throb of the facility alarms deeper inside.

Sitting here right now, Arrow couldn't help wondering if they could have been a little more subtle in their approach.

"Nasty," Holly commented blandly, rocking back onto her haunches. The tendrils of force unwound from Arrow's gut and they looked up at her. Holly's face was tight with discomfort, her wand twitching between her fingers?

"Can you fix it?" Arrow forced out. Probably not a good idea to accuse Holly of treachery while they were lying here cut open.

"I could." Holly's expression drifted into sadness. "It would take a while, and hurt like hell, but I could."

"Will you?"

"I wish it were that easy." Arrow felt the dread wash over them like an icebath as Holly shook her head. "I know you too well, Arrow. You're too smart for your own good. I know you know."

"Know what?"

"You really want to spend your last breaths lying to me?"

Shit.

Arrow grimaced, shuffling up into a straighter sitting position. More blood leaked between their fingers and a jolt of pain shot through their torso.

"I don't get it."

"I wish you'd stayed at AmpCore. Maybe then I could have convinced them to go easy on you. But now?" Holly made a gesture to their surroundings. "After all this? The people I work for aren't going to let that go."

"And who do you work for, exactly?"

"Gammaton."

"And?"

"And a lot of other people." A faint smirk crossed Holly's face. "You know it was funny, listening to to Mattise. All that shit about the corps working together, about what AmpCore was supposed to be. If only he knew what was going on right under his nose. Half the corps in the city working together for the common good."

"Common good?" Arrow spluttered. "You're making codewraiths. AI machines. And they're killing people."

"I know that."

"Well then-,"

"There are prices to be paid for everything, Arrow."

"And what are you paying for right now?"

"The future."

Those last two words hit Arrow in the heart and almost let them forget about the pain for a moment. The sheer believe with which Holly said them was frightening.

"So you're going to kill me?"

"Better than leaving you here to bleed to death, wouldn't you think?"

"I'd rather not die at all."

"You know, I like you, Arrow," Holly said quietly. "I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"It doesn't have to," they managed in a strangled, desperate voice. "Holly, c'mon... you're really on the side of these... people?"

"Why not?"

"Look at what ... they're doing."

"Oh, and who would you nail your colours to, eh, Arrow? You think we should be entrusting our futures to people like Ferra Thibault – the Queen of the fucking Sharks? People so broken in the head they've lost all sense of right and wrong? Or someone like Odiye, maybe? Odiye's a man with a heart of gold in a den of thieves, and he'll be dead before he sees twenty-five." She shook her head grimly. "Toran's got to get out from beneath daddy's boot before he can think for himself, and Piper?" Holly laughed bitterly. "What god-damned glitch in the system she turned out to be, eh?"

"I guess so."

"All I've got against Piper is that she just shouldn't exist. Whatever's going on with her and the wraiths, it should have been dealt with a long time ago."

Arrow mustered up a withering look. "Then why didn't you kill her?"

"Because I – we – wanted to know more about her before making any rash decisions. They asked me to get close, to keep an eye on her progress." She shrugged. "By the time we figured out what she was, and what she could do, it was a little too late. But Piper's an anomaly, a piece of busted blacktech trapped in the body of an unlucky girl from the docks."

"She's a human being."

Holly gave them a pitying look. "Being human's not worth what it used to be, Arrow. What we're doing – it's a lot more important than any individual."

"You're building codewraiths. You're creating machines... with intelligence." Arrow tried to sit up, anger beginning to overcome their pain. "Looked across... the water lately, Holly? You know where that goes."

"If Hadrian's going to survive, it's got to progress. We can't let the fear of something that happened decades ago shackle us for the rest of our lives." In a slow motion, she stood, exhaling heavily and looking down at them. "I may not agree with everything they'd done, or how they've done it, but I don't want to destroy it. I want to learn from it."

"That's what they all thought before," Arrow growled, desperately squeezing at their wound. They could feel their body weakening, implants starting to misfire as her heart stuttered. With the machines wired into her nervous system she'd survive longer than a normal human, but fatal was fatal. "Before the Schism."

"Arrow, you should know, Hadrian South's not as dead as everybody thinks. The things they made in the Schism – they were alive, Arrow."

"I know that."

"No you don't. Pulling the plug on them wasn't enough. Killing the AI cores wasn't enough."

Arrow's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"Living things evolve. People thought they could just leave that place alone, let wasteland be wasteland and pretend it all never happened. Turns out it doesn't really work that way." Holly sighed and levelled her amplifier. "I'll make it quick, Arrow. I promise."

I can't die here. I can't die today.

That thought slammed through their mind like a supernova as they stared up at Holly. A swirling cocktail of emotions – curiosity, desperation, anger, determination – it all hit them in a surge. They had to survive; had to help Piper, and had to know more.

They still had their amplifier, clutched in weak fingers, blood seeping into the circuitry. They felt the power building at the tip of Holly's wand, its tendrils reaching out again to embrace them. Lines of force wrapped around their throat, worming through the structure of their neck. They felt the chords tighten.

Holly was going to snap their neck.

Arrow felt the structure beneath them, searching for a way out, no matter how desperate. Now was not the time for careful planning, and as soon as they found the tiniest chance of escape, they took it.

"Holly?"

"What?"

"I'll see you soon."

And with what little life they had left, they slammed their amplifier against the floor and cut loose.

It was an uncontrolled thing, a burst of force all mangled up with their agony. Holly had an instant to feel surprise, before the whole corridor simply imploded. Light fixtures blew apart and the walls collapsed in from all sides. Arrow let themselves fall, wrapping themself in as much protective force as they could.

They had no idea what happened to Holly. They couldn't focus any more, they just fell, dropping through to the floor below through the sliver of space they'd left for escape. Blackness swallowed them up in a storm of breaking metal.

*

They followed the chaos.

Kirk didn't know why Piper and her AmpCore friends were attacking this place, but corps tore each other to pieces all the time. Maybe someone had decided to take out a competitor and managed to rope Piper along for the ride. Or maybe she'd come around to the fact that this whole game was rigged and was letting them know about it, in violent fashion.

Whatever the case, the new threat had made moving through the facility incredibly easy for them. Guards flooded out of their section, pelting to the incursion on the far side of the facility, so Kirk, Nevay and Delgado followed them.

Closer examination of the plans on the security terminal showed that the Sub-Entrance Piper and her escorts were currently blasting their way through, eventually fed down to the main fabricator and storage units for the facility. The places deep underground where the facade of the battery plant was no longer required.

So down they went, sticking to the maintenance stairways on their side of the complex, and following a cluster of narrow access corridors that had been abandoned by technical staff with the alarm still screaming through the facility. After several minutes of listening to it, he really wished they'd shut it off.

"Hold up," Nevay hissed, jerking back from a corner ahead and holding up a hand to them. For a second she stayed stone still, then looked back over her shoulder and mouthed: wraiths.

A moment later Kirk heard the echoey blurts of code and the clump of metal feet seeping out from beneath the blare of the alarm. Slithering up alongside her, he risked looking round the corner. At the far end passing through a junction he saw two of the hulking humanoid machines, stomping along with half a dozen black-armoured corporate soldiers, and a slim woman wearing an AmpCore uniform, her shoulder emblazoned with a Kaysar Munitions logo.

"Looks like Rain's buddies are neck deep in this," Nevay chuckled quietly.

Delgado shrugged. "Why do you think I give her so much shit about working for a corp?"

"We should keep moving," Kirk interjected.

Nevay made a non-committal grunt, then edged out into the next passage as the facility guards clumped off. They carried on, still masked from the security strips by Nevay's disruptor. Earlier he'd been worried that the disruption would eventually be picked up by anyone actually paying attention to the feeds, but Piper and her companions had unwittingly provided them with the greatest possible distraction.

They descended another level, finding themselves in a series of narrow corridors surrounded by power conduits and armoured piping. Only a single sensor strip remained down here, running along the centre of the ceiling, and there were no corporate logos in sight. He didn't know if he should feel reassured by that or not.

Then, maybe a hundred yards later, the ceiling caved in.

"Watch out!" he yelped, reaching forward and grabbing Nevay by her backpack. Hen dragged her backwards just as an avalanche of sparking, mangled metal came crashing down. The lights of the passage sparked, hissed and died, and a series of circuits exploded from the walls.

He ducked, dragging Nevay down with him as bits of debris flew in all directions. Further back, Delgado hurled herself to the floor, shielding her head with one arm.

It took several seconds for the crashing, sparking and crackling stopped, leaving them lying in the aftermath. Gingerly, Kirk levered himself into a sitting position, checking himself over for any injuries. Nevay jerked up beside him, rifle raised.

"The fuck was that?!" she demanded.

"Collateral damage," Delgado muttered, picking herself up and checking over her shotgun. "Must be getting close to Piper and her buddies."

Kirk rose, coughing as a swirl of electrical smoke swept into his lungs. Spitting and clearing his throat, he took a few tentative steps forward towards the fresh heap of wreckage that was partially blocking the way ahead.

"Careful," Nevay hissed, catching him by the arm as she stood up. "Could be more coming down."

Kirk nodded, craning his neck to look up. All he could see through the gash in the ceiling was more darkness, occasionally punctured by a spark and a twisting, sputtering cable.

"Bloody hell," he murmured. "Ripped a hole right through from the levels above from the looks of it."

Then he heard a groan.

Kirk leapt back alongside Nevay, his jolter snapping up in one hand as he scanned the heap of debris. It was then that he noticed some of the metal sheets were starting to move, sliding apart little by little. He stared in amazement as they parted, clattering away to the left and right, collecting smaller pieces of wreckage as they went.

And beneath it, a body emerged.

A body wearing an AmpCore uniform.

"Shit." Nevay backstepped and levelled her rifle. "Hey, detective, we've got a live one here."

Delgado was up alongside them in an instant, looking down with a critical eye at the battered form that had emerged.

Kirk felt a visceral jolt of recognition at the sight of the slim frame, the pixie-like features and the short wave of blue black hair. He'd seen this person before, back during is ill-fated stay with Cutter Jennings.

Arrow. That's what Piper had said.

Then he noticed the horrific wound in the AmpCore agent's stomach.

Delgado let out a whistle. "Looks like someone got on the wrong end of a forklift."

"Codewraith, actually," the agent rasped.

"Oh-oh, machines turn against you, eh?" Nevay sneered.

"I recognise you," Kirk said warily. "It's Arrow, isn't it?"

"Kirk?" A smile. "Good to see you're still alive. Piper will be... happy. How did you... get here?"

"You really want to talk about that now?" He inclined his head to the wound.

"We're not here to talk with these AmpCore freaks." Navey pointed her rifle at Arrow's skull. "I can make it quick though, more than you bastards did for Cutter."

"Please, wait," they hissed through gritted teeth, raising a trembling hand. "Piper and the others... they need our help."

"Wait," Kirk growled, grabbing the barrel of Nevay's rifle. Part of him really wanted to let natural justice take its course. He remembered the fight with Cutter, remembered watching Piper wield the power of AmpCore and how sick to his bones the sight made him.

This person had been right there. A friend – at least someone who'd done a good enough acting job to look like a friend. He'd almost shot them himself.

"What, you wanna spare these witchy fuckers too?" Nevay sneered, shaking him off and dropping into a crouch beside Arrow, the barrel of her rifle just inches from their face. "I remember you, you little bitch. You were there when dear Piper killed my uncle."

Arrow met her stare, trembling now, their skin pale. "He picked that fight, not us."

"We don't have time for this," Delgado snapped, tugging Nevay back to her feet. "Kirk, c'mon."

"You want to just leave her like this?"

"Them," Arrow grated, mustering up a bitter glare to shoot his way.

He looked back in surprise. "What?"

"Them. Not her."

"Jesus Christ," Nevay laughed. "He, she, they, it, who, what, where, why – who the fuck cares?! Kirk, we've got corps to kill."

"I can ... help you," Arrow blurted. "You, Kirk, you want to help Piper don't you?"

"Of course I do." He glared down and them.

"And you two... you want to find where the codewraiths are coming from? Want to know where all this started?"

Delgado pursed her lips thoughtfully. "You're not in much shape to help anyone right now."

"Well... to start with ... you'd have to help me, obviously."

"Can't just knit yourself back together, eh?" Nevay sneered.

"Go to hell, you filthy fucking gangster," Arrow snarled with a sudden venom that Kirk felt. Physically. An invisible force buffeted him, sending him stumbling into the far wall. Nevay went stumbling – Delgado tripped and fell onto her rear, a yelp more of surprise than pain escaping her lips.

"You have no idea what you're walking into...none of you," Arrow panted. "Either help me, or you'll die down there. I guarantee it. Your choice."