Facing Ruby Page justified field-testing the new rounds.

  His optics scanned, and he thought, even the odds. He selected an EMP grenade from a box, turned on his heel, and left.

  Outside, the rain caressed him. A dim corner of his mind said You’re running through Seattle half-dressed. You don’t even have shoes. The much larger part of his mind said You need to find Ruby Page and kill her.

  Good chance he’d die, but that’s what he wanted. Mike hoped, despite the low odds of going against someone so modified, he’d die after she did, but it didn’t matter either way.

  Mike ran through Seattle’s streets. He didn’t remember the sprint to Human Energetics, only the burning need to get there. Mike was sure he passed people and cars, but they slipped between memory and hysteria, lost to the rain. The passing of a crazed man drew no lingering stares. The world was mad, top to bottom, and one more asshole running the streets at night with a gun was about normal for a Friday.

  The good part about being a lone man without a shirt or shoes was it made it easier to slip through the war zone of Metatech’s clash with Human Energetics. Aircraft roared overhead, raining fifty caliber rounds onto armored vehicles. Men and women screamed, bodies torn apart, some on fire. An APC thundered past Mike, heading toward the HumanE line, exploding as a laser cored the battery.

  He cut his feet on broken monometal. Mike wouldn’t have noticed except for the overlay’s nagging. He made it past the HumanE line, drawing no eyes. Enforcers on both sides looked for heavily armed and armored opponents, not a shirtless fool with a death wish. He ducked past a barricade, noting the scorching on the side facing Metatech, and wondered if his own team would shoot him in the back. The street behind the main line was mostly clear, a mass of HumanE enforcers milling at the base of their tower.

  Mike’s optics scanned. He saw the remains of a broken concrete statue, making for it. Noise and fury drew his attention to a store that tried to sell decks in a syndicate zone, failed hard, and closed its doors. Inside, light and fire. Harry, duking it out with Ruby, and losing the whole damn time.

  Padding closer on the rain-slick streets, Mike entered the hole no doubt left by Harry as Ruby prepared her killing strike. The big chassis was down and out, fluids of all kinds leaking to the floor. Harry was missing an arm, the other one flailing. Mike’s overlay highlighted ALLY NEEDS MEDICAL AID, showing the hole in the chassis where liquid from the core leaked.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?” Mike grinned, aimed his sidearm, and fired.

  Ruby dived for cover, the drywall far behind her exploding in fragments. She yelled, firing. He rolled, coming up against Harry’s chassis. “You okay?”

  “I’m dying.”

  “Good talk.” Mike darted away, questing for his prey. The trick with fighting someone like Ruby Page was to do random shit. She’d always relied on the tech, betting hers was superior. This time, Mike brought a small equalizer. “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. We’re going to have a discussion.”

  “I don’t think you’re using the word the way it’s intended.” Ruby’s voice came from deeper in the store.

  No problem. Mike primed the EMP, tossing it, then fired the sidearm to keep her interested in the outcome. Shelving exploded, metal turning to slag. The EMP went off, Mike’s optics hazing to blackness. His limbs jerked, lattice offline.

  Optics came back first. Mike noted the trembling in the hand holding the sidearm. Same kind of tremble as when he put the gun in his mouth. He heard a whining, turned, and fired. Behind a thin cabinet, sparks flew. Ruby screamed.

  Mike grinned. “How’s that feel?”

  “You fucker!” Ruby rolled out, nice and low, her own sidearm out. She fired at Mike, which didn’t concern him at all, because he wanted to die. The bullets hit him, one in the shoulder, one in the chest, but not in the arm holding the gun. He shot Ruby again.

  Both his rounds hit her arm with the coilgun. Hell, that’s some armor. The tank buster rounds in his sidearm penetrated but didn’t shear off a limb. Mike would talk to the eggheads in the lab about that. Optics switched to thermal, rolled in a haze of static, fzzzt’d to low light, then returned to standard vision. Enough of a look to see Ruby’s arm wasn’t entirely metal. Ceramics or polymers, most likely. Without conductive metal, the electrical discharge wouldn’t work. If Mike was lucky, he’d have hit a few of Ruby’s internal electronics, and it hadn’t been that kind of week.

  The DPU casing did enough damage to take her coilgun offline, though.

  Ruby slid behind a screen, kept rolling as he fired on her, and shored up against the wall as Mike’s gun clicked empty. He looked at it, then his pants, free of spare clips. She stood, her weapon pointed at him. “Mike fucking Takahashi.”

  “Hey.” Mike tossed his sidearm aside. He closed his eyes, breathing long and deep. His lungs caught a little because of the holes in his chest, but it didn’t hurt. Pain suppressors were a thing of beauty.

  “You come here with the trashcan?”

  “Who? Oh, Harry. No, we didn’t come the same way.” Mike opened his eyes, watching Ruby pace around him. He turned, following as she walked a slow circle. Her arm trailed smoke but seemed otherwise fine. For fuck’s sake.

  “You’ve seen better days. You should get yourself to Psych.”

  “I’d prefer to iron my balls.”

  She gave a soft laugh and an easy smile. Mike figured smiling wasn’t a problem when you were on the right side of the gun. “Two for two. You were supposed to be good. The best, even.”

  Mike thought about that. The things that made you the best were a good handler. A partner who had your back. And you theirs. “Not anymore.”

  “I guess it’s me who’s the best, then.” Still smiling, something nasty in it now.

  “No, you’re not.” Mike shook his head. “I’m not on top of my game today.” He eyed the distance between them. You’re not likely to get to her before she blows your head off. “You are the biggest cunt, though.”

  She snarled, pointed the sidearm lower, and fired. The shot holed Mike’s right leg, overlay complaining of SYSTEMIC FAILURE. He sprawled. The old carpet tiles before his optics were pilled and stained, the record of a thousand dirty feet passing before his face arrived at this spot. “How’s that?”

  “About what I expected.” He spat, red and wet, lungs leaking around the hole, and offered her a bloody smile. “You’re just sore about when I exposed your lying, thieving, stealing ass.” Mike got himself up on an elbow. “You remember, right?”

  “I thought it was Delilah.”

  “You’ve thought a bunch of wrong things in your life. This is hardly the first.”

  Ruby strode forward, looming over him. The sidearm in her hand didn’t shake or tremble as she pointed it at his head. Mike waited for it to be over. His chest wouldn’t ache anymore.

  She got a far-off look in her eye, then turned and ran without another word.

  Mike wondered for a minute what would cause her to not wait the five spare seconds to shoot him in the head. And how long it’d be before he’d see Sam. His optics found Harry’s chassis, smoke making a slow rise from the hole where his arm used to be.

  Remember, you can kill yourself later. Mike dragged himself across the floor, making for Harry. Maybe they could hobble out of here together. Mike didn’t know why either would do it. There wasn’t much to live for these days.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mason’s grip on the wheel tightened as they approached the war zone. It felt weird to call any part of Seattle a war zone, but there was no other term for it. You helped start this. All the work you did for Apsel laid wood on the pyre.

  Laia gasped as a Metatech gunship roared overhead, chain cannons spitting fire as the vehicle laid into HumanE defenders far ahead. Rockets trailed contrails of smoke as Human Energetics enforcers responded. She knelt behind Mason and Delilah, gripping their seats as the van sped toward the enemy syndicate.

  Drones were everywhere, some HumanE, some Metatech, all of them fighting human and machine alike. The sound of automatic weapons fire was a constant, like television static plugged into one of Sadie’s amps. Mason’s lattice jerked the vehicle’s controls, keeping them out of harm’s way, but still heading toward the enemy. It let him put his hand in the fire.

  You’ve always done the smart thing, Mason.

  This wasn’t smart, but those fuckers had his friend locked up. A second chance at life, and they tried to kill her all over again. Mason gripped the wheel tighter, urging the van to go faster. The wheels jarred and skipped over broken asphalt. Stray rounds hammered a tight line of holes on their right flank. Laia screamed. Delilah gave a glare in that direction the rounds came from, shaking her head. “They shouldn’t be targeting civilian vehicles.”

  “Write them a sternly-worded memo,” suggested Mason. “I’m going in there.” Through the link he highlighted a chunk of road, peeled back like a scab. A ramp, just high enough to toss them over the barricade at the end of the street. Behind the barricade were auto turrets, a collection of sentinels that would end this merry ride. “Can you do something about the guns?”

  “On it.” Delilah’s voice on the link was calm and cool.

  Mason’s overlay marked his path and their likely arrival point. It suggested the van would land on two out of four wheels, offering a meager twenty percent chance of staying upright. I’ll take it. Once they landed, being upright wasn’t the most important thing. They just had to get there.

  The van accelerated, the small engine shrieking like a beast in pain. Mason’s foot jammed the accelerator to the metal. He swerved, the vehicle jigging to the left, a hard blast shaking them as rockets impacted around. The wheels skipped as they mounted the broken roadway, skittering and scrabbling for purchase on broken stone.

  Overtime made the makeshift ramp’s distance seem like a long, lazy toboggan run, but it was a mere thirty-meter sprint. It passed in no time at all in the real, Laia’s scream building but not peaking. The van left the ground, soaring over the perimeter defenses. Delilah braced herself against the console and door, eyes on the turrets.

  The van tipped. Mason held the wheel, teeth locked in a snarl. The ground hit them like God’s hammer, and they bounced once, twice before slewing sideways, the rear of the van heading toward HumanE’s tower. Four wheels back on the ground, the vehicle’s tires screaming murder as they slid, collecting defenders with loud clunks and thuds as their speed cut from over two hundred klicks per down to zero.

  The turrets didn’t fire. Delilah’s tricks worked.

  On the right side of the vehicle, Mason saw a red-headed syndicate enforcer break from a dilapidated store. Ruby Page. He knew her from the data packet. The number one hostile on HumanE’s side, ignoring Goliath. On the street about her, he saw figures emerge from buildings, behind cars, and from sewers. Mason slipped from the van, trying to work out where to go first.

  His optics scanned, overtime giving all the time in the world. Mason recognized many of those faces from memory, and his overlay filled in the remaining details. Each of them was a soul he and Laia saved from Abinal. Brought here somehow for a war against the devil himself.

  Men and women sprinted past Mason, many wearing ill-fitting clothes. Their weathered faces spoke of living without clinics, and he wondered if they were Masters. He didn’t wonder for long, confirmation coming as ordinary citizens of Seattle ran with them. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. All someone’s friend, or lover, or the guy who made your latte. Civilians working under the yoke of Masters, brought here to do HumanE’s bidding.

  You can’t fix this bottom-up, Mason. You need to go right to the top.

  Mason highlighted Ruby on his overlay, feeding the data to Delilah. “I’ve got her.”

  “You’ll die. You’re fresh out of the shop, and she’s had more work than you ever will.”

  Mason nodded. “That’s a good working theory. While I’m dying, take Laia and end this. Find Austin Ainley and shoot that motherfucker between the eyes.”

  A Master screamed as blood boiled from her eyes. A man beside her yelled defiance, cut off as an auto car landed on him. Standing around here might feel like justice, but it’d get them dead. Delilah took in the scene, then gave a tight nod. “Take care of yourself.”

  Mason looked about for a longer-range weapon than the Tenko-Senshin, finding nothing in easy reach. Five paces on, a dropped nanoblade rested on the street, the transparent length shimmering in the rain. “Looking after myself is what I’m best at.”

  “I don’t think so.” Delilah held a hand out for Laia’s. “Not anymore. You should know there’s some signal chatter on enemy comms. Seems they’re concerned about wild telekinetics overrunning their position and destroying Goliath. I’d bet that’s where Ruby’s going.”

  “Not Austin’s MO. He’s called his chief dog back for his own skin.” Mason grinned. “She’s not going to make it in time, is she?”

  Delilah shook her head, answering his smile with one of her own. Laia ran to Mason, kissed him on the cheek, then went with Delilah, casting glances back over her shoulder. Her eyes spoke of sadness and understanding in equal measure. They’d done time on Abinal together, and each fight could have been the last. This felt like either of them might die, but for all the right reasons.

  Mason ran at Ruby, scooping up the nanoblade on the way. The grip felt tight and ready in a way the sloppy forging of Abinal’s weapons didn’t. His feet skipped over the wet road, eyes front. He held no anger in his heart for Ruby Page. She was a symptom, not the problem itself, but she still needed treatment.

  The blade in Mason’s hand was the cure.

  Ruby saw him approaching, changing her high-speed route to intersect with him. Good. Mason didn’t want to chase her down. He suspected he wouldn’t be able to catch her anyway. She saw the blade in his hand, a smile coming to her lips. One of her arms looked worse for wear, but the hand on her other slid back, a short blade dropping out. It was black, glinting in the rain. The rain sizzled and smoked as Ruby’s blade heated, the black length turning cherry red, then orange, then glowing white.

  That’s some unnecessary shit right there. Mason and Ruby clashed, the nanoblade striking Ruby’s heat sword. Sparks showered, falling with the rain. They broke apart, then came together again. Ruby gave a mighty overhead swing. Mason dodged, slicing horizontally. She stepped back, sliding as her cleated feet scrabbled for purchase.

  Ruby stood, rain falling around them, her face showing a hint of surprise. Her link chatter was bright and clear. “That’s not Apsel code. Which chip are you running?”

  Mason kicked water with the side of his foot. Ruby ignored it, taking his charge on her blade. She thrust, the heat sword glowing as it passed by Mason’s face. He spun away, sword trailing, narrowly missing taking her head off at the neck as Ruby stepped back.

  “Definitely not Apsel. Something from Metatech? Doesn’t feel right for them. Too mongrel.” Ruby snarled a grin. “Something Russian? I know all about the Russians.”

  Mason held his silence. They walked a circle, facing each other. The streets raged behind them as people screamed their defiance or pain in equal measure. An explosion shone bright as a tank shelled the front of HumanE. Mason spared a thought for Laia, but he couldn’t help her. Not until he fixed the problem here.

  Ruby charged, leaping. She led with the blade, but at the last swung her damaged arm in an eye-watering haymaker. Mason slipped beneath it all, ignoring the anger and desperation in her move. He slid, sword finishing its arc. Ruby staggered, her damaged arm falling free with a clatter of metal. It spasmed as it lay on the street, fingers clutching at nothing.

  Mason gave his nanoblade a low, lazy swirl. “It’s not too late to change to the winning side.”

  She laughed on the link. “I am on the winning side.”

  Mason held the nanoblade in one hand, keeping his other free. It’d be over soon. When Ruby ran at him, he caught her blade on the edge of his. Rain hissed as the smoking sword crossed Mason’s nanoblade. He felt the heat transfer down the grip of his weapon. Ruby’s face was a handspan’s from his, her eyes hard, hate boiling inside. Mason’s bionics trembled with the strain of holding her back. She was so strong. Not as strong as Harry, but a lot faster. He heard a creak from his nanoblade, the heat and pressure stressing the weapon to its limits.

  Time to finish it.

  Mason’s free hand found the Tenko-Senshin. He drew the little weapon, the hard link showing the AI’s burble of happiness. He fired, the handgun shrieking. Mason held it low, pointed at Ruby’s stomach, but at an angle. The flechettes spat to the side as they chipped at Ruby’s armor. The air sparked and flared at the heat produced by the little weapon as it hungered for Ruby’s death.

  She leaned forward, trying to shatter his sword. She couldn’t break away, or the Tenko-Senshin would chew her apart. Her only chance would be forcing Mason back.

  He let her have it, stepping to the side. She stumbled for a moment. Mason whipped the nanoblade around and through her neck. Ruby’s head tumbled free, her body jerking, remaining arm pinwheeling. Mason stepped clear, watching the surprised expression on her face as the life drained from her eyes.

  Mason slicked his sword clean, then raised it in a salute. “I don’t run chips. Everything I know came from the street. It’s where the real people live.” He eyed Human Energetics. The enforcer crowd thinned at the entrance, rubble leading inside. Bodies were everywhere, few combatants left alive. Metatech regrouped. The rain fell, judging no one. His overlay cleared, reporting LATTICE PROPRIOCEPTION ALIGNMENT COMPLETE.