Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

62 - Which Devil Do You Know?

Kirk followed the others into the dark, his hands shaking, feeling horribly out of his depth. Rain had loaned him a slender night-sight visor so he could actually see what was happening, but he still felt like the only one who wasn't equipped for this. The Kaysar soldiers had their spiv-tech. Nevay had her cybernetic eye. Holly had her fucked-up AmpCore senses and Treysi had the dubious gifts of the Schism-tech implants.

He was just plain old Kirk Balfour, once again finding himself somewhere he really shouldn't be.

Get it together, he told himself. You wanted this. You chose it. You could have fucked off into the shadows a long time ago if you really wanted to.

"You okay?" Treysi whispered, her shoulder brushed against his as she moved up close beside him. "You seem a little tense."

"Aren't you?"

"Not like you." She paused for a moment, her gaze flicking to their companions moving up ahead, picking their way through the cluttered, abandoned mess of corporations-gone-by.

Then she looked back to him, smiling mischievously in the dark. Treysi tapped the metal lines on her forehead. "Turns out, when you get used to them, these things can see all kinds of things, eh?"

"Like what?"

"Like your heart about to bounce outta your ribs and take somebody's eye out."

He managed a half-hearted laugh. "Well, thanks for that."

"Don't worry, okay?" she said. "I got you." Then she leaned closer, close enough for him to feel her breath on his neck. He felt a tremor of excitement shoot up his spine as she spoke. "No matter what happens, with this, with the corps, everything – stick with me, okay?" She hesitated for a second. Then continued haltingly, "when this is done, and if we're still alive, I'd like to... you know..."

Kirk nodded, feeling her awkwardness without the need for any corporate gadgets. "I'd like that, too," he told her, and turned his face, letting their lips touch for a brief instant. Then he grinned. "First things first, let's just make sure we both get out of here in one piece?"

"Fuckin' count on it."

"Oi, you two, don't fall behind," the Kaysar soldier up ahead of them called softly, beckoning. "Dunno how many more fucking jack-in-the-box surprises are waiting in this place."

They edged apart, but not before Treysi gave him a reassuring squeeze of the arm. He breathed out, his heart feeling a little less frantic than before as he followed her down the passageway.

That vague sense of calm lasted for a few minutes, until another machine erupted from rusted a supply cupboard and almost beheaded him.

Kirk barely got a look at it. He just heard the violent bang of the cupboard opening, and glimpsed the big, dark metal shape out of the corner of his eye. With a yelp, he spun sideways and fell backwards, swinging his overclocked stun-gun around and firing on instinct. Fortunately, at point blank range, he hit the thing square in the chest.

A blood-curdling code scream ripped through the passage as he hit the ground, flat on his back. When he actually looked, he saw a woman whose body was mostly metal now, save for the pallid skin of her shaven head. She convulsed violently, screaming until her cybernetic eye-implants blew apart. With smoke coiling from her ruined eye sockets, she toppled backwards, ramrod stiff. Her body struck the row of storage lockers like a metal pole, before she crashed to the ground, dead and in some kind of instant rigour mortis.

"Fuckin' hell." Treysi hauled him up effortlessly by the scruff of his jacket. "Kirk, you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." The words came out in a shrill blurt and he cleared his throat, shooting her a nervous smile.