Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

46 - Nightmare Fuel

Cutter Jenning's face ran through a rapid gamut of emotions, from confusion, to pain, to shock, to agony, to fury before he collapsed with a strangled scream, his right leg buckling beneath him after she snapped his femur. Breathing heavily, she straightened up, wincing at the pain in her abdomen where he'd kicked her. The gang leader glared up at her.

That was when she noticed the quiet. No more gunfire. No more codescreams.

Piper looked around.

Odiye, Holly and Arrow had battled their way from end to end, eventually reaching the main platform where she stood. The smelting yard floor beyond them was a sea of bodies – most of them the unfortunate members of Cutter Jenning's crew.

Codewraiths were receding into the rafters like metal spiders, and to her shock, she saw some of them dragging their ruined comrades along with them, leaving trails of debris as they went. The surviving corporate troopers scurried away as well, some of them fleeing out through the hole they'd created, some of them rappelling up the side walls and disappearing through entrances on the upper walkway.

She watched them go, her implants pulsing with eagerness, almost willing her to chase them down. Sucking a breath through gritted teeth, Piper resisted that urge, but energy still coursed through her skeleton like wildfire.

"Piper!" Odiye can bounding up onto the platform with the others in tow. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she grunted. "I'm fine."

"What in the hell just happened?" Arrow exclaimed, still twisting this way and that with her amplifier raised and ready. "Where did those wraiths come from? And those troopers?!"

"Corp hit squad," Holly interjected, shaking her head grimly.

"Working with the wraiths." Piper's stony gaze turned on the groaning form of Cutter Jennings who lay sprawled in front of her, clutching his shattered leg. "Well, congratulations, Cutter. Is this how you planned everything?"

"Go to hell," he snarled. "All of you little corp slaves."

"Like you're any better," she sneered. "As if you don't grind people up and spit them back out when you're done. How many years of my life did I have to spend looking over my shoulder for you or your greedy pig of a son?"

"Don't you dare-,"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Her voice leapt to a scream. "You're a slave driver, Cutter – a fucking vampire sucking the blood out of every single person you can find."

"I'm more human than any of you," Jennings snarled back through bloodied teeth. "Packing your bones with your tech, playing God because you think there'll be no consequences? But there will be. Oh, there will be."

Finish him off.

Much like Piper, the voice in her head seemed to have run out of patience.

Slowly and deliberately, she let her amplifier rise, pointing it at Cutter. Right and wrong faded into nothingness, and all she could see was the years of fear – years of jumping to the step of this glorified gangster. Years of grubbing in the dirt because half her wage got siphoned off by Cutter's thugs, trapping her in the slums of Hadrian. Years of being scared. Years of being helpless.

Not any more.

"Piper," Arrow said quietly. "Are you sure-,"

"Stay out of this." She shot them an acid glance, and then focused on Cutter Jennings, reaching out to grasp every atom of his body. Hate surged inside her.

"Going to kill me in cold blood, eh, kid?" Jennings levered himself into a sitting position. "They got you well trained."

"Oh, I would have done this without them," Piper said letting every ounce of bitterness flow through her, "believe me."