Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

64 - Clean-Up Detail

God the questions.

So many questions, and none of them that she really had time to ask. Not that she wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth, but Piper really wanted to understand just how in the blistering fuck Kirk had found himself here, and with such very interesting company.

Nevay Jennings?

Holly Lockley?

Kaysar Security soldiers?

And an honest-to-god cyborg?

She wondered how many drinks they'd need together to make sense of that little collection. By everything she'd seen over the past months, they all ought to have been at each other's throats. And she'd yet to really decide how she actually felt about seeing Kirk again after all this time. Relief, obviously, that he was still alive, and had somehow found his way to the bloody prison cell that Osric had left her in.

But the anger still simmered there. That raw memory of their parting was branded into the back of her mind. The rejection when she asked him to join her. She remembered watching him walk away, choosing the niece of a fucking gang-leader over her. His hatred of the corporations ran too deep for him to see past what she was now.

Piper tried to bury that wound for now. Everyone had bigger problems. A conversation for another time, when she had enough alcohol to hand to deaden the blows.

The Kaysar agent, Rain, led the way, and how exactly she fitted into this mess was something Piper still had to figure out. Evidently she and Kirk knew each other – and how exactly had that transpired? – but she remained tight-lipped as they worked their way back up through the tunnels.

Only now did Piper know that, actually, Osric hadn't taken her that far from the fighting. Right beneath the Prometheus Anchorage – that's where she'd been sitting all this time. She could feel the throb of life as they climbed, the sprawling dockyards never sleeping; never stopping, not even when a war was breaking out a stone's throw away from them.

"So that thing I killed," she asked, desperate to break the awkward silence as they trudged onward, "it's called a Lurker?"

"Yeah," Kirk replied quietly. "Schism-era blacktech. An assassin, pretty much."

"How do you know about these things?" Holly muttered. "Not exactly common knowledge, even among corporations."

At the rear of the group, Nevay chuckled. "You'd be surprised. Quite the historian is our Kirk."

"I remember." She shot the gangster a bitter glance. They might have gone their separate ways for now, but she'd known Kirk all her life. Listening to Nevay act like she was suddenly his best friend in the world was more than she was willing to let slide. "Last I checked though, you didn't have anything that illegal."

Kirk gave her an awkward shrug. "Didn't exactly announce it to the world, did I? And it's not as if I needed it until now. Honestly, till one of those things got set loose in the docks I'd forgotten about it. Just heard one of the poor bastards out there talking about it, and the bits sort of clicked."

"So, just how worried should we be?"

"I'd say 'very'."

Piper wrinkled her nose as he continued.

"From what I could dig up, these things are designed to do exactly what you're talking about. Send 'em in after a bunch of spiv execs, cut the throats and slip away." He gave her a questioning glance. "Hey, don't... don't take this the wrong way or anything, but how come this Osric guy didn't kill you? If hates the corps as much as you say, I'd think you'd be on his hit list."