Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

03 - Nobody's That Natural

Piper was so stunned that she almost didn't notice the first codewraith come stomping into the house over the corpse of the second.

It screeched like some kind of animal; its clawed feet crushed the wreckage of its comrade. Piper stared as a fresh jolt of terror blasted through her, and this time she didn't feel anything. No-connection - no miraculous smiting from the gods of technology.

She was as good as dead.

The codewraith lunged towards her and she threw her hands up in a futile attempt to protect herself, letting out one last petrified yowl. Before the fatal blow could land, however, something yanked the crazed machine backwards.

Dumbfounded, she watched as it went flying back through the hole in the wall, smashing down into the street beyond. A figure pivoted into view outside the house: a young man with his back to her. In his right hand some kind of short rod glowed viciously in the gloom.

The codewraith blared static, righting itself and leaping at the newcomer. He stood his ground and for a horrible instant Piper thought he was about to be torn apart, but at the last second he raised the rod. Its tip erupted with an effervescent bolt of boiling blue energy and she felt the heat even from within the house as the blast struck the codewraith, flinging it backwards.

It crashed to the concrete, and this time it didn't get up. Molten slag dribbled onto the street and a wheezing, electronic gargle rattled out of the demented machine before its appendages finally stopped twitching. She could smell burning. Then she realised she was shaking all over.

Her saviour stood there for a few seconds, apparently making sure the wraith was completely dead. The glow coming from his weapon subsided, and suddenly things seemed overwhelmingly dark. Piper scrubbed her hands across her eyes, trying to make some sense of the chaos that had just unfolded.

Footsteps made her look up.

The newcomer was in the house, looking down at her.

"Are you alright?"

Are you alright?

Despite everything that had just happened Piper wanted to punch him square in the mouth. She jerked away, shuffling backwards on all fours until she hit the wall. Piper pushed herself upright, clutching her hair with one hand, the other clenched into a tight fist to keep from trembling as she surveyed the wreck that had once been her kitchen.

"Do I look alright to you?!" she blurted shrilly.

"Sorry, I-,"

"Two of those fucking wraiths just tried to kill me!" Piper bulldozed through his words. "They wrecked my house and almost killed my family! No, I am not okay. What the hell is going on? How did those things get across the water? Who are you?! What just happened? What... what..."

The tirade gushed out of her with such force that her knees buckled and she hung her head in her hands, trying to remember how to breathe. When she straightened up again the stranger was standing facing her.

He held up one hand, doing his best to look unthreatening. In the other, the strange metal wand he carried still glowed with residual energy. The heat from ... whatever he'd done still lingered in the street.

It was enough, however, for Piper to take a breath and actually look at him. She was shocked to see that his serious-looking long black coat and iron-grey body armour did nothing to disguise the fact he wasn't much older than her. Solidly built, he had dark brown skin and a short fuzz of curling black hair. His eyes were a stormy green, staring at her with an intensity that she found uncomfortable.