Araphel: Daughter of Mars, #2

1

Sanctuary

Shattered bits of glass crunched under Risa’s boots in a dark, subterranean alley. She dragged herself away from the heart of Primus City, wandering among a sea of people, seeing figures but not faces, hearing voices but not words. Men, women, and children became little more than smears of background color. Had any of them meant to attack her, she wouldn’t have seen it coming—nor would she have cared.

Bright lights danced and flickered in midair around a thick column at the center of a courtyard intersection where two main tunnels crossed. Dozens of holo-panels displayed everything from cartoons, to NewsNet stories about dancing poodles, to Gee-ball games. As far as she could tell, no one had ever really paid much attention to the ubiquitous screens. They’d been there longer than she’d been alive, but no one seemed to know why anyone had bothered to install them.

She trudged away from the bustle into the relative quiet of the shadowed southeast corner, where a tangled mass of heavy cables, most as thick as her wrist, draped from the wall. Risa climbed without thinking, a mechanical execution of an oft-repeated task. Soon, she pulled herself up onto a metal ledge. Her perch, a vent cover for an ancient atmosphere purifier long since fallen into disuse, had not changed since her last visit. Thick, warm air fell from heater vents in the ceiling of the underground chamber, whipping her hair about in a stiff, gusty breeze. The once-silvery plastisteel bore a patina rendered in shades of green, layers of dried industrial coolant and oil.

Her sanctuary.

Risa cloaked herself in the dark, out of sight above the people of Primus, as physically removed from society as she felt. The NetMini in her hand chirped with the thirty-fourth message from Tamashī begging her to call. Holding the device hurt enough; it contained a recording of Pavo’s last minutes of life.

The little hacker had told her of it. She’d discovered helmet-cam footage of him fleeing soldiers, being shot in the back, and falling. Different versions of what it might have looked like played out in her mind, each more terrible than the last. She curled up and rested her head against her knees, clutching the device to her chest.

In the past, Risa had come here to reflect on her guilt. Seldom had she taken a life and not considered it wrong on some level despite assurances her actions were a necessary evil. Many had died by her hand, the majority never having laid eyes on her. All this time, Garrison insisted those who had perished to her bombs had been enemy combatants—soldiers enslaving the people of Mars. How many times had he told her she did things no one else could do? How many times had he attempted to justify the use of explosives that couldn’t discriminate guilty targets from innocent ones? The Front’s justification never sat right with her, yet her anger at what the UCF did to her father kept her going.

Dalos always said, ‘It’s unfortunate if ten civilians get caught in it, but it’s worth it when the blast neutralizes thousands of enemy targets.’ He’d died in a failed attempt to take supplies from an ACC outpost almost two years ago.

Risa came to her perch this time to seek absolution for Pavo’s death rather than some faceless people one of her bombs killed. She had yet to think of a way to blame herself for it, but his loss burdened her as though she’d been the one to slit his throat. How close she had come the day they’d first met. Garrison sent her with him as a test. If Pavo had put one foot out of line, she’d have ended him. Up here, far away from the people of Primus City, surrounded by the stink of metal and grease, Risa wept.

She peered over the side at the people passing six stories down. She could be with Pavo again. All she’d have to do was lean too far forward and let go. Risa daydreamed about falling, embracing the freedom of death. Ivory fingers clasped the edge, squeezing, preparing.

Kree.

Thinking of the little girl’s probable reaction to news of her suicide stalled her. Would they tell her Risa had killed herself? Or would Garrison blame her death on ‘the enemy’ and groom the little girl into a killer as he had done with her? She let her weight settle back from the edge and scowled again at the NetMini. Once, she had been immune to the fear of death. She taunted the reaper, dared it to take her, dared it to interrupt her single-minded search for revenge on whoever murdered her father.

The truth crushed her more than hearing him die.

A broken Angel of Death had been her persona for years. It would be easy to put the shroud back upon her shoulders and dedicate herself to finding Pavo’s killers. So what if she died on the way; that wouldn’t be suicide.

Raziel? She closed her eyes, tracing her thumb back and forth over the cold, smooth NetMini screen. Why did you let Pavo die?

She sat, eyes closed, tense and bracing for the paralytic weight of his presence to descend upon her—but he did not speak.

Have you abandoned me, too? Tears rolled down her cheeks as she leaned her head back to stare at the grimy square tiles five feet overhead, picturing the sky beyond twenty-five meters of rock. What did I do to earn your scorn?

When no response came, she let her head sag and breathed in the metallic taste of her environs. Long, ebon hair whirled about, a wavering tunnel around her vision. Hundreds of people wandered back and forth, oblivious to the tragedy in the air above them. She glanced at the NetMini and swiped it unlocked. A gold star marked one icon as new—the video file. Tamashī had titled it, ‘Gomenasai. Do not watch alone.’

Risa glared at it until she perceived individual pixels making up the yellow frowny face. When the gaps between the dots felt as though they would swallow her, she poked it.

A ten-inch holo-panel opened, paused on a view looking down the length of a metal-walled corridor with grating for a floor. Heads-up display information surrounded the edges, including a small map, bio stats on the left, ammo and tactical info on the right above ‘MDF-1C52F Sgt. P. Aram.’

She brushed her index finger at the holographic play button, eliciting a faint chirp. The image sprang to life, wobbling back and forth as he ran. Pavo’s voice whispered, Shit, shit, shit, shit, repeatedly as the sound of gunfire accompanied azure flashes reflected on metal walls. Boots clanked; sparks flew from a near miss.

‹Warning: incoming fire› flashed red in the middle of the view.

Thanks for the heads up, grumbled Pavo. I wouldn’t have—he ducked as a loud gunshot went off—noticed.

The sound of his voice squeezed her throat like a crushing hand.

Risa watched from Pavo’s eyes as he ran to a locked door, leapt away from another burst of sparks, and ducked down a different hallway. He seemed to be in some manner of abandoned complex. ‹Weapon link failure, unable to update ammunition display› scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

Risa gasped when Pavo’s run lurched into a stagger and his bio monitor went haywire. The vision tilted forward; bloody hands slid in at the bottom of the screen. His camera peered further down at a hole in the front of his armor.

No… Risa… I’m sorr—

As the ground came up to meet the helmet, she stopped the playback.

Pavo! she yelled. Raziel, you bastard! Why did you let him die?!

She fell sideways across the angled slab, bawling. The acrid-sweet scent of chemicals flooded her nose as her forehead touched the warm, oily metal. Grief wracked her with each convulsive sob. A little voice in the back of her mind told her she deserved this for everything she had done.

Time faded in and out; eventually, she realized her cheeks had dried, though the moment she’d gone from uncontrollable weeping to lying still, like a broken doll abandoned in some forgotten corner, escaped her. She pushed herself upright with one arm, pulling her hair off her face with her other hand.

Why bother killing them? It won’t bring him back.

She let her legs dangle over the edge and leaned forward to watch the crowd. Her attention leapt around, seeming drawn to the outburst of every tiny voice. Each time she spotted a child, an irresistible urge welled up within.

I’ve gotta get Kree away from this war. She sucked in a breath. To hell with Mars. To hell with whatever happens to me. She doesn’t deserve this. Those people don’t even care about freedom from Earth.

Risa pulled her feet under her and grabbed the wires to begin the long climb down.

I need to get her away from Mars, away from the MLF, away from… me.

A rat’s nest of hoses and wires upon the wall provided an easy route to the floor. Easy, at least, for anyone with their agility ramped up beyond mortal limits. Risa set her boots on the thick cables and grabbed smaller lines only as wide as her finger. As long as she’d been using this place for solace, she had no idea what they held: fiberoptics, old copper electrical wires, or hoses full of fluid. For all she knew, none of them did anything useful anymore. Countless times had she climbed the techno-ivy to her roost, yet never thought of them as anything more than a way up. So many things in the underground sections of Elysium City had been left to rot. The government only cared about what people could see.

She jumped the last six feet, landing in a graceful, silent squat. Not one person in the concourse reacted to her. Society went on as if she didn’t exist. Risa straightened on her feet and shook her head to settle her hair behind her back. The edge of her NetMini pressed into her side.

Raziel? She stared at the grimy floor between her boots, brown-green smears of lubricant dried on plastisteel grey. I need you. I need to know if the video is real.

Silence.

Her jaw clenched. Damn it, Raziel. I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me. Why do you turn away from me when I need you most?

Simultaneous rage and grief left her unable to cry or fume. She stood there clenching her fists; a turmoil of emotion stormed behind a stoic face. It seemed impossible for her to have angered the angel. He had not wanted her to pursue General Everett, but even after she learned of her father’s true identity, he’d been there for her. The UCF Military hadn’t betrayed one of their own; they’d killed a spy from the Allied Corporate Council. At Arden Settlement, Raziel saved her life, even manifesting in the physical world to do it. No, his silence could mean only one thing—he couldn’t bear to confirm the truth.

She walked as if on autopilot, moving without a conscious decision of where to go. Perhaps she didn’t have a destination and no longer felt like standing still in the shadows. Her life could take two paths from this moment. She could go on fighting for the people of Mars, put Pavo behind her, and try to protect Kree as best she could; or, she could go back to the familiar non-life of revenge and hunt down anyone and everyone involved in Pavo’s death.

Kree would be better off without me, anyway. I’ll only get her killed.

Distracted people stuffed themselves together in the aperture of a wide exit tunnel by the western edge of the courtyard. The congestion came with commuter hour, everyone on their way home from work. Risa shoved her way in, pushing anyone light enough for her to move and getting shoved back three times as much. The citizens of the Elysium City underground didn’t consider it rude. Hands and elbows bumped and rammed her from all sides. Someone grabbed her breast and recoiled.

Sorry, didn’t see, yelled a man.

She ignored him, though a distracted older woman paid the price for that man making her think of Pavo. Risa shoulder-blocked the woman out of her way. The middle manager and her dark skirt-suit went flying, kept on her feet only by the sheer number of bodies in close quarters. No one seemed to notice or care. Collisions happened all the time. Risa bumped her way through the crowd past multiple crossing tunnels before eventually entering a connecting corridor where the walls widened to a street lined with gadget shops, clothing stores, bars, and restaurants.

Her body-hugging ballistic stealth armor had one advantage over normal clothing: an obvious lack of pockets. All the little thieves in the area gave her a disinterested berth. She made eye contact with one boy; a touch past thirteen, he regarded her with curiosity likely piqued more by her outfit than by what he might steal from her. She looked like death in black, and he seemed interested in watching the fight.

The boy tailed her for a few minutes before boredom sent him back to the denser crowd. Flickering yellow-green light at an upcoming corner caught her eye. A blonde woman—quite a rare sight on Mars—leaned against the wall outside an unlabeled doorway cut from a plain silver wall. A wreath of emerald leaves adorned her head. Matching greenery formed a skimpy skirt. Holographic two-inch faeries, projected from the gem in her crown, danced around her bare chest and thigh-length hair. She looked too thin to be real, and the tops of her ears tapered to graceful points. As if in a daze, she reached out and played with the imaginary flying creatures. Since elves did not really exist, the woman had obviously modified her body to resemble something from the Monwyn franchise. She’d of course seen some of the holovids and played some of the games growing up. A fun escape, but to try turning yourself into a fantasy being…

Now that’s Cat-6. Risa watched the ‘elf’ play with her faeries. Or she’s high as hell.

People lounged on sofas in the room behind her, visible through a long round-cornered shop window. Their almost-nonexistent attire, ensembles of black strips and transparent gauze decorated with bright cobalt blue light strips, made their profession obvious. Four men and two women inside winked at her as she went by. The ‘elf’ didn’t react to her presence whatsoever.

Maybe a sub-sent.

Three people emerged from the alley behind the brothel, falling in step behind Risa. A muscular figure in the middle flanked by a thin silhouette on one side and a normal-sized man in a long coat on the other. They made no move to get too close, but didn’t bother hiding that they followed her. Risa glanced out of the corner of her eyes, left and right, catching bits and pieces of them in reflections on storefront windows. They had the look of Vykes, a disorganized group of street toughs with a techno-Nordic mindset. Suppose living in Elysium’s gotten to their heads.

Unconcerned with the threat level they presented, Risa kept walking, gaze on the ground. She’d have changed course to throw them off, but had no particular destination in mind and didn’t need to disguise where she went. Tamashī seemed quite convinced of the authenticity of the file showing Pavo’s death. A sharp squeal broke the steady din of shuffling feet; a child’s startled yelp gave way to giggles. Risa didn’t look; in her mind, the sound had come from Kree. The two paths her life could take from here went back and forth in her thoughts, yet neither of them appealed.

Option three. Risa stopped. Take Kree and leave Mars. Get away from this madness before whoever got to Pavo finds the safehouse.

As good a place as any, said a male voice.

Guess they want to play after all. Risa let her posture slacken and spread her fingers. They all think I’m an assassin anyway.

A different man circled to her left. Pretty little thing y’ar. This don’t gotta be bloody.

This bitch real? The high-pitched voice came from the right; a scrawny man with no shirt and a permanent tremble flashed a wicked grin. Between his huge nose, wild black hair, and thin face, he resembled a raven on cheap street amphetamines. Think you tracked down a busted fuck doll. Wot, Bax? Lookit da way it standin’.

Hah, said Bax, the largest of the thugs and the first one to speak. Dolls don’t have body heat.

Pavo’s gone. Risa closed her eyes. I don’t care anymore. She tensed, preparing to leap into a death spiral. She flexed her hands, but her claws remained dormant. Her eyelids parted to slits; bare fingers, no blades. She tried again, and the left half of her vision exploded with a stream of red text going by too fast to read. The word ‘system fail’ on the far right of each line froze her blood.

Class 3’s do, said Risa, no trace of fear in her voice. You shitheads aren’t worth the paperwork. Get lost.

Her sense of 360 vision faltered and shut down; the two grey wraith-forms behind her evaporated to whiffs of digital smoke. No claws, no ‘eyes in the back of her head,’ and no explanation. A synapse fired, commanding her speedware to kick on—she still had pistols. Time dragged to a crawl, but slid back to normal in less than a second. Another stream of red errors ran down her field of view.

I don’t think you’re a doll at all, said the white-haired one in the middle. An indigo NanoLED tattoo formed circuit-line patterns around his eyes like a raccoon mask, glowing with blacklight. Silver wires in his dark blue coat matched, though they seemed only decorative. He reached for her cheek. This’ll only hurt as much as you want it to.

Not much to her, ’eh? The scrawny one let off a hoarse laugh. Best go easy Bax, not like last time.

Risa crossed her arms, reaching for her pistols, and kicked white hair in the groin. The bird-man pounced on her from behind, wrapping his arms around her and keeping her from pulling out her guns. She drove her head backward into his huge beak as hard as she could. He let off a growl, but didn’t loosen his grip.

Bird-man laughed, bloody spittle flying. You right, I/O, not a doll.

I/O sank to his knees, grabbing his balls and moaning.

Bax jammed a sparking handheld stunner into Risa’s gut. Though her rubberized armor shielded her from the effect, the impact knocked the wind out of her. She fired both lasers still in their holsters; green light streaks scorched the ground on either side of Bird’s boots. He laughed. Bax went for her face with the stunner. She kicked his hand aside, growling and grunting as she struggled to get out of Bird’s grip. The wiry bastard had a lot more strength than his size implied.

Oh, this one’s frisky. Bax swung again, more of a punch.

She let her weight hang in Bird’s arms and torqued her entire body into a kick for the stunner. Bax lost his grip on the device, which flew across the street and fell amid the scattered trash with a piff. I/O drew a straight-bladed gladius from under his coat in one smooth motion as he forced himself to his feet, putting the tip beneath her chin. Risa froze. Soldiers used swords or bladed weapons in space, when fighting inside boarding links between starships. One bullet in the wrong place could result in explosive decompression. The idea of modern humans engaging in ship-to-ship combat with swords like something from a thousand years ago always struck her as funny.

His left eye seemed unable to open fully. His face had gone beet red from pain. He twitched. Now, bitch. You’re gonna hurt for that.

Risa clenched her jaw, shivering, staring at the glowing circuit lines around his eyes, stark icy blue on blacklight-violet skin.

I/O held her at sword point while Bax rummaged for the stunner. Once he found it, he grinned, tossing it up and catching it as he walked closer.

No! Dammit, come on! What’s wrong with me?!

Hold still, sweetness, whispered Bird. You’ll probably wake up if you behave yourself.

Risa closed her eyes, trying over and over to get her speedware to activate. For years, she’d hated herself for becoming a machine. For years, she’d dreamed of being fully human again. Fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of timing. She’d gotten her wish.

Normal.

Helpless.

2

Blind Wish

Wet breaths puffed over the top of Risa’s head, laden with the flavor of greasy salami. Bird’s bear hug crushed the air from her chest, pinning her crossed arms and trapping her weapons in their holsters. Risa strained to lean back from the sword point at her throat, staring down the length of gleaming metal at the man holding it.

NanoLED tattoos of glowing indigo circuit lines on either side of his face lit I/O’s paper-white hair cobalt blue where it draped in front of his eyes. Red tinted his cheeks, the aftereffect of her kick. He shook with rage, glaring at her as though he wanted to make her imminent death hurt as much as possible. She shoved, summoning all the strength in her legs against Bird as the tip teased a droplet of blood from her neck. She locked eyes with I/O, feeling more anger than fear.

These idiots shouldn’t be a threat. What the hell happened to my ’ware?

I/O’s malignant rage seemed to evaporate in an instant. Now, play nice. He tapped her under the chin twice with the flat of the blade.

He leaned back to give Bax plenty of room to raise the handheld stunner to her cheek. The scent of ozone filled her nostrils as the blue glowing tip neared. Primal panic took over. Risa thrashed and screamed. Not since the flames filled her childhood bedroom had she experienced such terror. Desperate, she snapped one leg up into a lucky high kick, knocking the stunner out of his hand yet again. Bax roared incomprehensible malformed words and punched her in the gut. She let off a noise like a stomped-on goose, and hung limp.

Risa screamed inside her head, hating every ounce of feeling weak and helpless.

I thought you liked ’em feisty, Bax? asked Bird.

I/O frowned. That’s not what this one’s for. Four-hundred-grand, boys.

Yeah, man, wheezed Bird, grunting from the effort of restraining her. But he didn’t say we couldn’t—

Argh! Risa yowled, and slammed her head into the man’s teeth.

Pain exploded in a starburst at the back of her skull. She rammed her head into his nose a second time. Bird squeezed her harder and she thrashed, growling and kicking. I/O grabbed her left leg and fumbled to contain her other wild limb.

Bird staggered; hot blood flowed down the back of her neck, under the high collar of her armored suit. Sensing his grip weakening, she forced her arms apart while letting her weight hang dead in his arms. Risa wriggled away, falling to the ground a second before Bax rounded another ham-fist. The punch caught Bird in the chest, knocking him stumbling a few steps. Gurgling, he fell to the ground. Risa, still fighting to breathe, kicked her leg free of I/O’s grip. She rolled onto her front and squeezed the trigger on the pistol under her right arm. Judging by the howl, the laser scored a hit on Bax.

Fuck! he roared.

I’ve ’ad enough of this bitch. I/O advanced. We’ll still get half for a corpse.

Risa dragged herself upright, cradling her gut with her right arm while gyrating her left in a desperate search for balance. Bax sprawled on the ground, both hands clamped around his smoking thigh. Blood and smoke oozed between his fingers from the half-inch hole burned straight through his leg. I/O swung his blade in a wide, telegraphed arc. Risa ducked, losing one or two hairs. Bird pulled a ballistic handgun off the back of his belt. It’ll hurt, but it won’t pierce. Risa instinctively held her fingers in claw posture, but her implanted blades refused to deploy. Expecting a bullet any second, she clenched her jaw and braced for impact, but he didn’t take the shot. She remembered how to breathe an instant before I/O slashed a backswing at her. She jumped backward, avoiding the tip of the gladius and pulled out her weapons. The usual floating crosshairs from her cybernetic eyes failed to appear. Bird pulled a gun. Risa scooted to her left, keeping I/O between them.

Outta the way, man, yelled Bird.

I/O pulled his blade back, starting an overhead chopping motion. She shot a nanosecond glance to the right where an alley offered cover, but to go for it would put her right in the path of the descending strike. With the grace of a matador, Risa slid to her left, avoiding the attack. I/O smacked his gladius into the plastisteel floor hard enough to make a spark. Woozy from the stomach hit, she swooned backward, raising her pistols. I/O lunged after her, knocking her guns aside with a dismissive swipe of his sword, but not fast enough. Emerald laser light streaked from her left-handed weapon, pierced his shoulder, and hit Bird in the cheek.

I/O screamed in pain, reeling from the agony of his muscles and bone burning. Smoke peeled out from both holes. Before he could recover and counterattack, his chest exploded in a series of red spurts. A flurry of faint pops came from the dark alley to her right. An infrared light dot appeared at the center of I/O’s forehead, and the back of his skull exploded in a sluice of gore. He lingered upright for a second before collapsing in a heap. More pops rang out in time with metal clanks on the ground; sparks appeared in a trail, walking over Bird as bullets riddled his body. Risa stared at the glowing spot invisible to anyone without cyberware or visors.

What the… silenced ballistic weapon?

Risa whirled toward the source; her throat dried up at the silhouette of another man emerging from the alley, his eyes bright luminous green spots. She took a step back. The figure advanced, extending his arm out to his right side, firing two quick shots into Bax’s chest, and two more in the face, though his gaze never left her.

Bax slumped in a heap.

Oh, shit.

She aimed both her Hotaru-6s at the new arrival, hating the obvious fear visible in the wavering barrels of her lasers. The man let his gun pivot on one finger, weight pulling the barrel to point upward. Another step brought Shiro Murasame into the light. His eyes stopped glowing, once again seeming ordinary.

Shiro… Her heart thumped in her chest; she let her arms drop. Raziel, did you send him?

His lip curled in a cocky grin. Hope I’m not interrupting. I’m sure you had that handled.

She squatted, arms crossed over her bruised stomach, and gasped for air. Umm. Not so much.

Shiro slipped his pistol inside his dark suit jacket. He glanced at the three dead men and offered her a hand. Glad I went looking for you.

He’s never going to let me forget this.

How did you find me? She coughed, rubbing her gut. Bastard hit me right in the sweet spot. If I still had real eyes, I’d be seeing stars.

Call it a hunch. He offered a hand, pulling her upright. You don’t look so good.

Thanks for noticing. She glared at what remained of Bax and shivered. Any chance of a ride?

I thought you’d never ask. He held out his arm as if about to escort her to a private club. Shall we have dinner at The Azure?

I… no. I have to find Pavo. Risa wobbled to her feet. I can’t. I’m in the middle of something.

Shiro brushed the back of his hand over her cheek. She cringed inside, but kept it from showing. Red text appeared at random in her field of vision, errors about diagnostic failures. One panel suggested updating the firmware version of her NIU, but the MarsNet link showed as down. She navigated a fritzing menu with eye motions, and triggered a diagnostic routine. Random text messages full of hexadecimal code appeared here and there, flickering in and out too fast to read. Nine seconds in, the self-check process crashed, and her vision went dark. Green text lingered in the blackness, the glowing characters fading gradually as if burned into her retinas.

‹Diagnostic routine has failed: neural memory overflow - too many errors.›

‹Unrecoverable fault at address: FF0A:82B1. NIU Link error code 02. Kernel panic. Unrecoverable error.›

‹00:00:0A:42:84:9… ›

Blind.

Shit, she whimpered, trembling.

Risa? asked Shiro, a touch over a whisper. He grasped her arms.

I-I’m blind.

He slid an arm around her back, supporting most of her weight. The purple lights went out.

That’s not good. Something’s wrong with me. No. No. No. Terror raked an icy claw over her heart. Pavo was dead, and she had one foot in the grave right behind him.

You’re shaking. He tried to gather her in his arms.

You’re not Pavo. She cried, wanting Pavo to be the one to carry her broken body to the medical pavilion. No… The shutdown of her augmented hearing came on with a sensation like cotton swelling up inside her ears. While her hearing had become ‘normal,’ she felt deaf.

Shiro overpowered her pitiful struggle and lifted her off the ground. Come on. You’re in no condition to be out here on your own.

Her eyes didn’t reboot. After two full minutes of darkness, she stopped wriggling and let her head lie against what she assumed to be his shoulder. Soft bouncing motions rocked her as he moved. Never before had she felt this helpless, not even as an eight-year-old on the street with only underpants to wear. Not even the night her father died.

Lost in a world of void, Risa clung to memories of a time before her life spiraled out of control. Between glimpses of her old bedroom and her father’s smile, scenes of fire and blood appeared with the roar of his scream. She embraced the sight of it, staring defiance at the flames in her mind’s eye. No longer did the nightmare control her. She summoned it, reveled in it, owned it. Deep within, she knew the same political machinery responsible for her father’s death also killed the man she dared to love. Too fast… I killed him. It had taken her at least a full year to trust the capricious whims of fate not to take Garrison away enough to lower her guard. She couldn’t remember how old she’d been when she’d finally stopped sleeping in the vents and allowed herself to attach.

Wicked memories of flames fed anger instead of fear, and she found herself snarling into Shiro’s shoulder as he guided her along for a short walk. When he stopped, she reached out to find a large, smooth, cold object in front of them. At the beep and hiss of actuators, she recognized the side of a small car. Shiro lifted her off her feet again and set her down on a cushioned seat. Her hand brushed a surface reminiscent of suede, cool and soft, and the scent of a man’s cologne mixed with the lingering remnant of green tea.

Risa’s voice cracked with emotion. Shir—

The door on her right closed, stalling her question. A moment later, the opposite door opened and he got in. She decided against speaking, and sat straight with her hands over her face, replaying the day she’d agreed to have her eyes replaced. General Maris favored the tactical superiority of artificial eyes to the use of a semi-external implant like a ViewPane. He believed eye replacements would be easier to hide, and couldn’t get knocked off her head.

Dustblow. Glowing purple dots are so inconspicuous. You just wanted the money a young girl’s eyes would get on the market. Shame fell on her shoulders. Normal people don’t give up perfect organs for machines. I was so idealistic… and pissed off.

She clung to her anger in an effort not to give in to panic. Inertia pushed her to the side as the car took a corner. The lack of warning left her unable to get her hand up in time to prevent her head colliding with the window. Shiro put an arm around her, triggering an involuntary stiffening of her back muscles.

Hey, easy. You’re safe, said Shiro in a soothing half-whisper. You can relax. You’ll be able to see again soon, and I’ll stay with you until you can.

If Pavo’s ghost is watching me, I don’t want him to think it only took me hours to get over him. I’m okay. She reached a hand out until she found the wall, and braced herself. Thanks, but—

Too soon. He lifted his arm. I understand.

What? How could he know? W-what do you mean?

That Imari woman has not been subtle in her search for your associate. Your NetMini went offline within seconds of a call from your Japanese friend, and your current mood gave away all I needed to infer. He grasped her hand, pausing for a moment. I’m sorry, Risa.

Trembles in her arms ceased. In place of sorrow, determination swept over her mind. I will not cry for Pavo until they all pay. I will find the people who killed him.

That didn’t work out so well for you the last time you chased revenge.

A mental image of the smug grin he might’ve had caused her fist to clench. You know so much about me.

She flopped into him as the car swerved into a hard left. He muttered a curse under his breath about idiot pedestrians. As soon as the vehicle straightened out, she pushed herself upright and grabbed her head in both hands, fingers splayed in her hair. I can’t stand this. Over and over, she concentrated on the mental command to activate the Wraith implant. Almost seven years I’ve been able to see in the dark, now I’m blind. I’m going to go crazy.

Risa?

How? She pulled her hands up and over her head, gathering her hair out of her face. How do you know so much about me?

I thought I mentioned I have research people. Well, rather the company does.

Risa swiveled her head as if to glance toward the sound of his voice. The same featureless darkness surrounded her on all sides. You never did tell me which company you worked for. Can those ‘research people’ help find who I need to kill?

Starpoint, and possibly… but—

They’re in bed with military intelligence, so if C-Branch is involved, they—Risa made air quotes—won’t be able to find anything. She let her arms fall dead in her lap. Shit.

Shiro chuckled. I was going to say ‘but people would start asking questions I don’t have answers for.’

She lurched forward as the car stopped, but managed to get her hands up in time to avoid kissing a hard, plastic barrier separating the passenger area of the taxi from the front. The soft chirp of a NetMini’s credit scan came from her left, seconds before the door opened on a whirring automatic arm. Sounds of an open area with a large number of people moving about flooded her dulled senses. She held absolutely still and focused. Minimal conversation existed. Most of the noise consisted of footsteps. A courtyard. Muted melodic tones framing automated announcements paging medtechs or waiting family pierced the ambient din every so often. Primus Medical Pavilion. She caught herself trying to glance at Shiro again and fumbled her way out of the taxi, cursing under her breath while taking baby steps to feel for the curb. A hand caught her by the bicep and she instinctively drove her elbow backward, aiming for the solar plexus of an adult male. Shiro let off a weak oof, and threw his other arm around her, trapping her against his chest.

It’s me. Calm down.

Sorry. She stopped squirming. Little warning, please. People who sneak up on me tend to end up dead.

Shall I carry you?

Again, her mind painted a smile on his face that made her want to punch it. My legs aren’t broken. I’m only a little stiff.

"That’s your agility wiring. You’re so