Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

12 - Free Pass Revoked

Odiye scrambled backwards with a yowl of surprise. Piper yelped and very nearly reduced the man to ashes there and then, but at the last second managed to cram the combustive charge back down into her amplifier when her brain caught up with what was happening.

For his part, the man let out a gurgling cry of his own, his eyes bulging in their sockets as he looked around wildly. He went rigid and lurched into a sitting position against the wall, the muscles in his neck and shoulders bulging.

"Fucking rippers," Mattellus gasped, his rifle levelled.

"He's alive?!" Arrow exclaimed from the doorway.

Odiye scrambled to his feet, chest heaving as he regained his breath. "Apparently," he panted, smoothing down his jacket.

Piper took a couple of steps forward, her amplifier still levelled, but the man didn't seem to register her presence. His manic stare bored into the far wall of the room, his body wracked with uneven, juddering breaths like a misfiring system. She winced, and edged a little closer, putting herself in his eyeline.

Still, he didn't respond.

"I think he's fried," she murmured, sinking down onto her haunches, head cocked quizzically to one side as she examined him.

"I'm not surprised." Arrow squirmed their way back in past Mattellus, and their eyes widened when they got a proper look at the injured man. They shook their head bleakly. "Total catatonia."

"We should move on," Mattellus grunted. "Nasty work, but it's not what you're looking for."

"How in the hell are you so sure?"

"Plenty of black-market ampers out in this part of Hadrian. They'll hack up anybody for the right price, and the right spare parts. Somebody probably needed an arm."

Odiye shook his head dubiously. "That's not a surgical cut."

"Did I say they were surgeons?"

Piper grimaced. Logically, she could see Mattellus's point. The images she'd seen from the ferry terminal showed an all out bloodbath, which didn't seem to fit with what she was looking at. But the coincidence was too much for her to set aside. They just happened to stumble across a mutilated person, right in the place they'd traced the disturbances in the data stream to?

"Red eyes," the man spat suddenly, the words sounding like they'd been dredged up from a chasm. "Red, red, red."

"What?" Piper swallowed her apprehension and slid to her knees alongside the man, taking a grip of his ragged, stained vest. "What happened? What did you see?" She shook him lightly.

His right arm unfurled from its position tight across his abdomen, and his fingers snapped open. Something popped free and clattered across the floor. Piper turned her head to look, and found a small, white pod, about four inches long with a cluster needle nestled at one end. She could see a faded Maxpharm Medical logo printed near the base.

"Shit." Odiye's amplifier pulsed and the device flew up into his open palm. He lifted it examining it for a moment.

"What is it?" Arrow asked.

"Adrenaline shot."

He tossed it to them and dropped down beside Piper, his face pinching with concentration as he moved his wand back and forth over the body of the man.

"Gods," he breathed after a moment, his eyes widening disbelief. "He has... been through a lot. His body is a wreckage."

Piper felt her stomach twist, the prospect of their only lead slipping away. "How bad is it?"