Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

61 - Not Like This

Kirk lurched stepped back in surprise.

"Do I know you?" he managed after a moment.

The soldier sighed, and slapped the side of her helmet irately. The opaque head-plate retracted down into the helmet housing around her neck, and Kirk reeled at what he saw beneath it. He recognised that short dirty blond hair, and the narrow snaking ponytail that slipped free to lie across one shoulder. He recognised the distinctive black tattoo of black concentric rings around her right jaw, stretching down to darken the snow-pale skin of her neck.

"Rain? Rain Kaulitz?"

"Yeah, it's me, kid."

"Aw, that's just what we need," Nevay groaned. "Another fucking spiv joining the party."

"Jesus Christ, aren't you dead yet?" Rain shot the gangster a scathing look, sounding genuinely shocked.

"Can't say I haven't been trying."

"What the hell are any of you doing out here?"

"Could ask you the same thing," Kirk answered as he looked around at the wreckage. "I thought you had a nice cushy desk job with Kaysar?"

"Oh, I did have a nice cushy desk job, until I decided to help you and..." She hesitated for a second, her lips twisting. "You and Chloe with your little crusade."

That took some of the wind out of Kirk's sails and he couldn't keep the wince off of his face. Rain Kaulitz and the late Chloe Delgado had a whole lot of romantic history – most of which he wasn't privy too – and it had been enough, if not for her to follow them into the lion's den, to at least point the way.

When everything had gone to to shit in the aftermath, he didn't have any way of contacting her, about anything. Evidently her involvement had not gone unnoticed by the higher powers of Hadrian.

"They couldn't prove it, nothing on paper," Rain continued, "but they knew. They knew someone had to have helped, and they knew I had a history with Chloe. Couldn't outright fire me, so this is what I've got. Demotion to the fucking front line, just in time for... this."

"Yeah, speakin' of," Nevay said, "what the fuck is going on around here? Where'd these tin-soldiers spring from? And what's got you and your bloody kill team out patrolling the streets like the local polis?"

"Wait a minute." Rain clapped the stubby SMG against her chest plate, where it mag-locked and hung there. "You really don't know, do you? You've actually got no idea what's going on out here right now?"

"There's more?" Kirk blurted, making a sweeping gesture to his surroundings. "We know there are things on the loose in the city, and that they came from Hadrian South. We know some looney fucking escapee from the Schism is trying to start a revolution in Hadrian and he's building and army to do it."

"Not building. Built." Rain's voice was cold enough to send a genuine shiver right up his spine. It wasn't fear in her words, but a deep, dark loathing, like she was speaking of some ancient blasphemous ritual. "They attacked the Heart."

"Fuckin' what?" Nevay shook her head in amazement. "Our boy's got a steel-plated set of balls to go along with everything else, sounds like."

"Oh, yeah, a real god-damn champion of the common folk," Rain sneered, "except that your bloody Robin Hood is slaughtering civilians."

"Huh?"

"Huh?" she mimicked contemptuously. "Yeah, normal people, you bloodthirsty bitch. They might have a few more crypts than you and me, but that's about it. Not enough of a difference to have them cut to pieces by a cyborg, wouldn't you think?"