Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

10 - Tectonics

 "This is us," grunted the corporate security officer from the driver's seat.

The AmpCore van slid to a halt, its hybrid engine humming gently. Piper straightened up in the rear passenger compartment, stretching her neck from side to side and reaching into her jacket, feeling the reassuring solidness of her amplifier there. A custom model built by Arrow themselves, it had a Skiltron Fireware battery core, Titan Pattern conduit modules, silversteel ribs, copper interfacing, reinforced with tungsten filaments across its secondary and tertiary conduits, It was a work of art and a weapon of war all at the same time.

"You are sure about this, Piper?" Odiye asked as he slapped the release of his autobelt. "I do not think Mattise will be very forgiving if we are wrong."

"I'm sure." She released her own belt and stood up, shaking out the stiffness in her limbs as the van's side door slid soundlessly open.

The smell was the first thing she noticed when she hopped out into Hadrian's street. It boiled together in a weird mix of nostalgia and disgust, her old life violently colliding with the new. Memories of her time on the docks swam in her mind's eye. She could smell the chemical tang of the Hadrian, the scorch of burning petrol and half-maintained electronics, the stomach-growling scent of synth meat cooking on greasy hot-plates.

It had been a simpler time, no doubt about that; a time when the most pressing concern for Piper Russell had been where she was going to scrape up the next few crypts to cover the month's rent.

But she would never go back. Not to that. She might be neck deep in Hadrian's corporate cesspool now, but she wasn't helpless. Whatever else AmpCore had done, it gave her that much. No more dodging gangs, and praying to gods she didn't believe in that some spook wouldn't come and repossess their lives at the drop of a hat.

Piper stepped forward, Odiye and Arrow clambering out behind her as she surveyed the scene. The noise of people crashed over them in an angry cascade, crowds of locals pressing from the left and right towards the corporate cordon. Temporary barriers blocked off the side streets, and the only way in or out was now through the corporate checkpoint.

She could see a lot of corporate heavy on the scene, a mix of security personnel from two or three different corps. Their heavy rifles were clearly in evidence as they stalked back and forth, scanning the groups of swearing, cursing citizens of Hadrian.

If they thought the corps would actually help them, they were very, very naive, she thought.

"Operative Russell?" a voice cracking through the grill of a helmet dragged her attention away, and she turned to the speaker.

The trooper tapped the side of his helmet as he approached. The opaque face plate retracted to the left and right, revealing the man beneath. An anaemic beard ringed his tight-lipped mouth, his pale features flat and hosting dark, inscrutable eyes. The shoulder of his armour bore the stylised golden 'S' insignia of Savant Securities.

She cocked a quizzical eyebrow as a quartet of armed and armoured corporate security moved up to flank him, rather conspicuously keeping their face plates locked in place.

"Just Piper," she said, as Arrow and Odiye moved up to either side of her. "Mattise sent you?"
"He did. Security Liaison Mattellus," he confirmed. "I understand you require an escort."

Piper didn't miss the man's weary tone, and she grinned. "I didn't ask for one, but Mattise insisted."

"I'm sure he did." Mattellus managed a smile of his own. "So you're AmpCore's worst kept secret, eh?"
"I suppose so."

"We have work to do," Odiye cut in, shooting the man a withering glare.

Mattellus raised a hand apologetically. "As you like, operative. I'm just here to show you the neighbourhood." He touched a hand to the side of his helmet, and his face plate slotted back into position. Piper searched for any hint of a human being through the armoured glass, but she couldn't make out a scrap of detail with the naked eye. Were it not for her implants, she wouldn't know if there was even a human being in there.