Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

20 - Phalanx

She left Alba, Kaiser, the destroyed cyborg, and her brush with death behind in the bar.

It took an hour before the after effects of her encounter faded away, and Holly could propel herself out of the place under her own power. She didn't say much; didn't have much to say. She just slouched out into the streets, tearing hungrily at a second meat sandwich as she went.

The nutrients, synthetic or otherwise, helped bolster her shocked system.

What the hell had she found out there in the depths of the data stream? She'd grown up in Hadrian, a respected scion of Gammaton Avionics, well-sponsored, with a future assured among some the greatest, glowing data centres on the planet.

Never had she even brushed against something with that kind of power. Thousands of petabytes of sheer will. Just skimming the edge of it very nearly killed her.

The fear crept back into Holly's bones. Nothing in corporate history, sealed or otherwise, hinted at anything like that. Her eyes flashed across the water, to the bleak, haunted hell of Hadrian South, and she wondered just what might be festering there, away from the oversight of the corporations.

They'd told her a little, back when she'd still been of use to them. Things in Hadrian South were not as dead as people thought. The monitoring posts reported clumps of things moving in groups through the ruins, hidden in the shadows. Rumours trickled through Hadrian's corporate overlords of some of the denizens of that place regaining some semblance of self over the long decades.

She didn't know how true any of it really was, but the codewraith programme, and the AI, had all been in response to that. Of course, Hadrian's corporations could have just atomised the place with a single, well-placed bomb, but what a waste that would be.

The overlords of the city hadn't gotten there by destroying every problem they encountered. Manipulation, subversion, repurposing resources – that was how you survived the cut and thrust of the corporate game. Holly felt a pang of longing for being part of it. The corps were all that kept this cesspit of a city from devouring itself, and now they'd cast her out, because she failed.

Could she atone for it?

Perhaps the encounter with this... thing would give her some leverage.

Devouring the last of the sandwich, she stepped out into the main street, her mind beginning to recover some of its sharpness. A smokey neon bustle enveloped her as she walked, past food carts, bars, mod-shops and drug stalls, thick with clientele. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she wove through it all, trying to put the pieces together.

How did that presence connect to the murders in the docks? Why had she found it locked away in the deep darkness of a dead cyborg?

Resting on hand against the pocket of her jacket, she felt the faint outline of the cyborg's memory chip – the last lead she'd extracted from the dead creature. She wasn't about to go diving into it herself any time soon, but maybe something could be gleaned from more, conventional methods.

The hum of a corporate drone pricked at the edge of her senses, and Holly took a sharp left out of the machine's path, sliding her hands into her pockets. It passed by a few seconds later, several meters above the rooftops, its spider-like frame barely visible in the fading evening light. Most of the people below probably didn't even notice.

She waited, feeling around with her implants for any other unwanted interruptions. Finding none, she walked quickly back onto the main street, crossed over, and fixed her eyes on the shining spires of the corporate heart on the horizon. The help she needed wouldn't be found here.