Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

60 - A Little Slice of Forbidden Fruit

The map of Hadrian swung and twisted in a manner that made her feel a little bit sick. Piper pressed her lips together tightly and folded her arms, watching as Arrow keyed in the directions she provided. It was like they were looking down on the city's sprawling, bloated mass from a satellite.

In her mind's eye she tried to marry up the route she'd followed through the wraith's memories. She hadn't mentioned to anyone the presence of the thing she'd encountered during her trip into the machine's consciousness, partly because she had no idea what to say. Whatever it was, it hadn't seemed hostile, but it still scared the shit out of her. A presence that seemed to wander the minds of the demons from the past like a human would walk in a park. The brief instant when she'd touched it, Piper had felt an ocean of power like nothing she'd experienced before.

There was something big out there.

But if she ever wanted to find out what it was, she needed to deal with the codewraiths. The thing in the dark had made that abundantly clear.

You still have a lot to learn, that's what it told her. The mind she touched knew all about her already.

"This is the northern industrial quarter," Arrow said, taking a moment to crack the knuckles of one hand before they returned their fingers to the holo-keys. "Where did it take you?"

Piper closed her eyes, thinking back through the route. Shit, it would have been easier just to walk out the door and show them the way. The maps made everything too abstract.

"Can you show me the street view?" she asked.

The fingers of their left hand flickered over the controls. "Of course."

Under their direction the screen swooped again, plummeting street-ward, where the crisp lines of satellite imagery morphed seamlessly into a three-dimensional display of Hadrian's streets. Piper grimaced. She wished it would just transition without the showmanship, but that wasn't how corps operated. Whoever had developed this system clearly decided that they need a little extra flash to attract potential buyers.

Well, it was installed in AmpCore, so she guessed they must have been right.

"There," she said quickly, pointing at the screen as Arrow brought the screen to a halt at a junction. "I recognise that."

"Where from here?"

Piper took a moment, closing her eyes.

"Do you know or not?" Ferra hissed.

Her eyes snapped open again and she glared at the other girl. "When you've taken a little stroll through the mind of a fucking codewraith, then you can shoot your mouth off. Until then, shut up and let me think."

Ferra's eyes narrowed, but she made a vague gesture towards the screen with one hand. Go on then.

After a few seconds of orienting herself, Piper nodded slowly and pointed. "Left."

The screen turned and the display began moving through Hadrian's streets. She continued directing Arrow as best she could until she saw the same heavily armoured gate she'd found in the codewraith's memories. The Goliath Freight Industrial emblem shone to the right of the image and she knew they were in the right place.

"That's it," she said quietly. "That's the place."

Toran stepped forward, eyeing the image dubiously. Then he looked to Arrow. "What's supposed to be there according to city planning?"

"Apparently it's a battery plant." They smirked. "But I think we know better."

"So that's it." Ferra leaned forward, placing her hands on the desk just to Arrow's right as she stared at the screen. "All this time that's where they've been hiding? You're sure?"