Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

28 - The Kind of Help I Don't Need

Bannerman, at least, was true to his word. With the coup against Mattise's short-lived reign in full effect, a brief, raging chaos engulfed the academy. In that time, they left the dead kill team where they'd dropped, and slipped away to a hidden cruiser, tucked away at a subsidiary tunnel that Piper didn't even know existed.

Piper didn't know how many people would die as the board re-asserted itself, and she also realised that she didn't care. She didn't give a fuck anymore. Thoughts of Hadrian South, the presence out there in the datastreams, and the slaughter at the docks filled her mind. That was what mattered.

But here she was, on the run for her life all over again because Hadrian's corporations just couldn't help themselves. Mattise tried to put a leash on the worst of it, and they killed him for it. She clenched her hands into fists. Whatever her differences with the man, Mattise was one of the few people who at least seemed to give a damn about something bigger than himself.

She smouldered in the back seat as the tunnel spat them out onto the fringes of the corporate heart – the sleepless, blinding mass of Hadrian's central district. Skyscrapers soared out of view on all sides, lathered in colour and light. Adverts the size of houses blazed down from them, extolling the virtues of products and treatments she could only dream about.

People flooded the streets, all elegant dresses, glittering tech-body art and sleek suits. Piper glowered at them as they slid past. They had no idea of the shadow war raging beneath their seat.

Or maybe they did? She wondered, how many of these faceless, simpering spivs held a thread of her life? How many of them funded AmpCore, inadvertently or not? If you weren't up to your eyeballs with the corporations, you didn't live here – period.

"Is everyone alright?" Bannerman asked from the driver's seat, his expression grim as he turned a corner, watching for any sign of pursuit.

"Just terrific," Arrow murmured, leaning back against the headrest.

"No, I'm not alright," Toran said coldly, sitting in the passenger seat up front. "You understand a civil war just started in Hadrian, don't you?"

"Not necessarily."

"Oh, very necessarily."

Odiye shook his head. "Toran..."

"I don't wanna hear it, Tambo. You know what has to happen now. I'm not going to debate about. You and your boys at Vector just be ready to come running when I call."

"I don't tell them what to do."

"You'll tell them what I want them to do. And Arrow, you best remind Ardenne who's been covering their asses for the last six months. We'll need all the subsidiaries moving fast, and I want people leaning on any cowardly bastard still sitting on the fence." He glanced at Bannerman. "Get us to a Skiltron safe house. I need to speak with my father."

His visor flashed briefly and she saw Bannerman twitch. The man nodded once, and they took a lazy, looping right hand turn off the main thoroughfare, gliding into a street filled with neatly planted and symmetrically trimmed trees. Honest to God, green trees. She could barely believe her eyes.

Nobody else seemed to notice, Toran kept talking, his words spilling out in a stream that he didn't seem to be able to control, sketching out counter-moves and strikes against half a dozen rival corporations in the city.

"Fucking hell," Piper scoffed. "It's like you've been waiting your whole bloody life for this to happen, eh, Toran?"

"I just know how this works, Piper." He looked around at her, his eyes hard with resolve. "This ends one way, and that way is bloody. If you want to be on the right side of this, stick around."