Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

57 - Gemstones

"Piper!"

Arrow's scream was the first thing she heard when she faded back into consciousness. Her skull ached. She had a vague memory of something heavy striking her skull. She touched her right temple and her hand came away lathered with blood.

Ow, she thought weakly.

Piper!

The second scream, this time right inside her skull came from Cassie. She jolted upright like she'd been hit with a defibrillator. The world spun violently back into focus, and with it came a rock-blunt smack of pain behind her eyes. She reeled and almost threw up, fighting down the nausea.

Then she did throw up. She heaved and vomited across the nearest pile of rubble. Smoke and dust filled her eyes and nose and mouth and she couldn't focus.

Cassie...?
We are hurt. Cassie sounded more distant, like they were shouting across a canyon to reach her.

Ow.

Then a slender figure came into view. A dull voice.

Sharpening, sharpening like knife until she heard the words clear and painful.

"Piper, are you okay?!" Arrow howled, amplifier flaring to clear away huge chunks of shattered concrete to the left and right. Piper felt a weight rise off her legs she hadn't even realised was there.

She shifted and blinked furiously, trying to get her brain back into gear. Arrow twisted and lashed out at something she couldn't see. A brilliant white glare of combustive energy lit up the crumbling passageway, and she heard a gurgling screech of garbled code, followed by the sound of crashing metal.

"Piper, you've got to get up!" Arrow screamed, spinning back towards her. They lunged down, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling hard.

Her limbs felt heavy. It took a few seconds for the commands from her brain to kick in and she scrambled awkwardly to her feet, with Arrow steadying her with a firm hand. Gunfire popped in her ears. A scream; cut off by a horrible cracking crunch.

Her fingers were still clamped around her amplifier. The realisation came like a punch in the jaw. She blinked again and squeezed tight, feeling the connections simmer through her body again. Finally the fog in her head cleared and she managed to actually look at what was happening. Through the rubble and the dust, dark hunched forms poured towards them. Above her head, the tunnel roof was a sparking, smoking mess, with pipes and circuits hanging out like ruptured organs.

A few of their security detail were still alive, rifles cracking and flashing in the gloom, but one by one the hoard of metal monsters from the Schism swallowed them up. Looking past the bloodbath, she saw a shape that looked more human than the rest, striding along nonchalantly at the back of the pack.

She saw red eyes peering out from beneath a faceless dark hood, and felt them latch onto her. A surge of emotion tore through her as she looked back – a deep, boiling well of hatred and loathing that made her head swim all over again. In that instant she knew.

This was the thing she'd been warned about. The person she'd been warned about; been hunting for all these weeks.

And here he was. Her mind cleared with the violence of a brushfire. Shaking off Arrow's hand, she lurched unsteadily forward, and raised her amplifier.

Piper ripped the closest mech clean in two. She punched her invisible fingers into its midsection and pulled apart sharply, like prying open a stubborn sliding door. The two halves of its rectangular torso crashed aside, sparking and spitting blood and oil and hydraulic fluid. Pain thundered in her skull as she focused on the next target: a cyborg on four scorpion-like legs with a humanoid upper body, like a nightmare vision of a centaur.