I don’t know how she did it, but one moment this Arcadia- my sister, supposedly- was thirty feet away, and the next she was in my face. A slender fighting knife in her left hand darted for my throat, painted in red threat-markers and trajectory-traces by my bionic eye.

“Wha-!” Despite my state of shock I managed to backstep out of the way and draw the saw into a sweeping blow. She said she was my sister, but she was also trying to kill me- and as far as I knew she was just high or crazy anyway. The three-foot blade hissed as it carved a massive swath through the air, but she managed to mimic my own backstep, dancing out of range. I followed her forward with a tight upward slash, but she slid past it slick as oil on water. The blade in her hand was a streak of quicksilver in the dim light, twirling, darting, always moving. That was a typical knife-fighter’s trick, meant to distract, confuse, and obfuscate intention. She was good at it- but it begged the question, why not just shoot me? Lyu had been an over-confident idiot, but for this Arcadia to be the same was too much to believe.

I kept coming at her, throwing slashes one after another, all aggression. She slipped smoothly around each cut, her movements blurred- but not just by speed. She seemed to smear from place to place, like someone’s blurred-out face on a camera feed. It was hard to even look at, reminding me of the way the saws’ microteeth blurred into indistinction near their ends. My SKH eye practically threw a fit, doing its best to trace fragmented outlines around her position. She’d done the same thing to get the drop on me earlier. Maybe it was just a fancy holoprojector augment, but I had to assume the worst: that it was nothing normal; that she was a menschenjaeger.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, I wound up like I was going for another huge chop, trying to draw her in. She fell for the feint, snaking inside my reach blade-first. I skipped backwards and flicked the saw through a tight arc. It hissed right through her wrist as I’d planned. My savage grin died before it could fully form as I realized something was very wrong. There was no blood, none of the shudder through the saw’s grip as it bit through sinew and bone- and while the sleeve of her jacket frayed, her hand was still very much attached. What the hell? She definitely wasn’t normal.

The knife swing missed, but without missing a beat she slid in further and drove an uppercut into my jaw with her offhand. She could throw a better punch than Mirabeau could, that was for sure. My teeth clacked together, and a spike of instinctive rage drove through my brain. I had to ward her off with a clumsy swipe of the saw as I staggered away from the blow, but once I caught myself I was pissed. I didn’t give her any time to get situated, bulling right at her behind a shrieking net of serrated diamondoid. Arcadia blurred in and out of my reach, unable to strike at my vitals. Her flickering blade struck at my hands and the grip of the saw, but I hardly felt the cuts. Then she did something strange. My eyes were on the knife, which let her reach out with her off hand and grab my wrist. The skin there felt cold, tingled, and I braced myself-

Just in time for nothing to happen. For an instant I met her eyes, which were a weird, deep indigo, the color of ink or a well-blued gun. We stared at each other, equally mystified for different reasons. Then I smashed my head down into hers. She recoiled and let go, clapping her hand to her forehead with a shout. “The nerve!”

Arcadia stumbled back several steps into a puddle of lifelight, and I got a little better look at her. Other than her height I didn’t see the family resemblance. She was six-foot-four and well built, with skin the color of caff with cream. Her face looked like it belonged on a statue of some ancient queen- well-formed and perfectly imperious. Those strange eyes were heavy-lidded, fixing me with a glare sharp as knapped glass. Dark hair hung beside her face and was pulled into a messy bun behind, fixed in place with a pair of blued-steel pins. Topping it all off was the suit, pure white over a blue brocade vest and tie. It was like she was trying to mirror me. Of course, I’d already ruined the suit, and now I’d given her a cut on her forehead to make sure her face matched.

“Perhaps I’ve been going about this wrong,” she mused as she reached into her jacket. Then I had to lunge forward into a slash as my bionic eye tagged the shape of a gun emerging in her hand. It was a heavy hammer-fired automatic, silver-plated and engraved. The kind of thing a Jet Colter villain might carry. As the saw came round and her pistol’s fat muzzle drew to bear on me- just like last time- I braced myself for another slug to the skull. Cutting her hadn’t worked last time. I really can’t make a habit of this. Then I had an epiphany: at the last moment, I switched targets from her arm to the gun.

It worked. The sawblade bit through her weapon with a chiming squeal, separating slide from grip- the grip that she’d already dropped. Shit. That long dagger in her other hand described a shining arc across her body and straight through the saw. I felt no jolt. Heard no sound. The blade just fell to the ground with a clack, cleanly severed at the base. For a moment I gaped at it like an idiot. That was impossible. The sawblades were made of carbon nanotubes, with a tungsten frame and diamondoid coating. They could be snapped by harmonics if they bound up while running, but a steel knife could no more cut one than it could a brick.

Metallurgy could wait. What mattered was that the saw was out of commission. I barely dodged a few lightning-quick thrusts with help from the SKH’s tracking software, then lashed out with a low kick at her calf. It connected, but felt wrong- as though I’d kicked a soft pillow rather than a fit person’s leg. It still got Arcadia off me for long enough to reach down to my waist and draw my own iron. As the coilgun came free of its holster, I thumbed the fire selector down to the setting I thought of as ‘purèe’: flechette loads, max spread, max fire rate. As soon as the holographic crosshair reached her vicinity I mashed the trigger. The gun fired in a single continous blurt of noise, the recoil nearly tearing it free of my grip. It sent a cloud of high-velocity uranium darts slicing right into her.

And did nothing. No gaping wounds, no blood, not even a split lip. It was just like with the saw. Exactly like, in fact. Though she was unharmed, her fine suit was so shredded it looked like she’d found it wrapped up in a waste hauler’s driveshaft. I flashed a mean smile as she looked down at herself with almost comical outrage. “Void damn you,” she murmured. “This is an antique, you know!”

Whatever stupid quip I was about to throw out died on my lips. She flowed at me and chopped the front half of my coilgun right off, using the same impossible cutting power she’d demonstrated on the saw. I tried to grab her by the lapel but she darted out of reach and stood there smirking at me.

I threw the remains of my gun to the ground before the ruptured power cell could cover me in acid or something. “Fuck you, that was expensive!” I yelled at her. “Instead of breaking my shit and trying to kill me, do you wanna just tell me what’s going on?”

Arcadia was silent a moment, her gaze appraising and unreadable. She had this odd ability to look down on me despite being shorter; I felt like I was something she wanted to scrape off her shoe. “…No. I don’t think I do. You haven’t proven anything yet.”

“Proven what?” I spat, lunging at her with a series of quick jabs. She slipped some with her weird blurry movement and caught the others on her forearms.

“That you have to ask is in itself proof I’m wrong, perhaps.” Her leg lashed out a high kick at my side. I tried to grab it but she pulled it away too quickly. Instead she herself took hold of my outstretched arm, pulled me close with her other arm around the small of my back, and with an explosive, twisting movement threw me over her hip. I flew in an upside-down arc before slamming back-first into the crumbly asphalt. Before practicing with Willy I might have been out for the count, the wind knocked out of me and unable to catch my breath. Now, though, I was ready. Before she could lock my arm up or put me at a worse disadvantage, I twisted and axed a kick of my own into her leg. It buckled and I got ready to get on top of her when she hit the ground.

Only for her to fall straight through the pavement like it was a pool of water. I blinked at the spot she’d disappeared before realizing what it meant. “Shit!” I scrambled upright and made it about half a step before she leapt out of the road surface knife-first. The blade sank in just above my left ankle and laid my calf open up to the back of the knee. I tried to ignore the sick, freezing sensation of steel sliding through my muscle and drove a low punch into the side of her face. For once the hit felt solid, and she tumbled away ass-over-head- only to come up with another fancy drug-kingpin pistol pointed at me. The click of the safety coming off was audible from here. “Shit,” I repeated.

“It would seem my information was bad.” Her eyes were a little unfocused over the sights, but the gun remained steady.

I could feel blood running down my leg, filling my shoe. There was only one thing left for me to try, and I’d have to be careful. I inched my hand toward my pocket.

“I won’t lie and say I’m not disappointed,” she went on. Yeah, keep talking. My eye had a solid fix on her, tagging her heart, head, major blood vessels. My fingers got into my pocket, curled around the Slukh’s narrow grip. I’d never practiced this but it was all I had. “I’d hoped you were number sixty-three, but you’re just-

I squeezed the trigger. Four silent little shots, as fast as I could squeeze them off. The second bullet went through her without damage. The third and fourth went wide, pinging off a garage door behind her. The first, though…

She glanced down at her belly, at the red stain spreading there. It was all the distraction I needed to jump at her and send the gun clattering from her hand. Then my cut leg buckled under me and I hit the street. My head cracked against the pavement and in the moment I was stunned I realized what she’d said. Number sixty-three…my dream. That recurring dream I’d had on and off as long as I could remember. Of being rolled along on some kind of gurney, unclear markings centered in my vision…except now I finally realized what they said.

LXIII

QVIETVS

I managed to scoot myself over to a lifelight pole on my hands and elbows, then lay against it, panting. What does that mean? I was starting to feel a little woozy. Arcadia’d definitely caught a big artery or something. There was one behind the knee, I thought…Shut up. Didn’t matter right now. Those words from my dream. Dad had taught me about the weird letters that came first. Old Latinate numbers. “Sixty-three,” I muttered. “Quietus.” What did that word mean? I wasn’t very quiet at all.

“Ha! Ha-rrgh…” A crow of laughter came from the other side of the street, where Arcadia was slumped against another pole with her hand clamped against her belly. “I knew it was you! I wonder what she’ll say when she hears…”

“Who?” I managed to call through the haze of shock. “Who’re you talking about?”

She squinted at me in that haughty way I was becoming familiar with. “That was a…passable performance, I’ll grant. Perhaps you deserve something.”

“Passable? You’re fucking gutshot!”

A pained, lopsided grin slid across her face. It was shockingly out of place on that regal visage. “Ah, but it’s how I was gutshot that matters. You fought a rather sloppy fight, in my estimation.”

Even through the blood loss, I was exasperated. “Who fucking cares? I won!”

“You seem- you seem to care rather a lot.” That stupid smile widened.

“Maybe!- maybe because I never knew anything about where I’m from or who I am, and now I find out I have a fucking sister! And the first thing she does is try to kill me!” Wait. Considering what I was like, maybe that wasn’t so strange at all.

Arcadia gave me a quizzical look. “I wasn’t trying to- Wait. You don’t remember?”

“No! First thing I knew was waking up in a kingsdamn crate!”

The smile returned. “Ah. How appropriate.”

“That was an invitation to fucking elaborate.”

“You know, I’d love to, but unfortunately I’ve-ngh!-been shot. I’m afraid I need to find a doctor.”

I tried to get over there and grab her but I didn’t even make it upright. ”Are- are you at least serious? About being my sister?”

She actually seemed to consider it. “…In a manner of speaking. We were made by the same person. Not in the conventional way, of course.”

My answer brooked no argument. “Who.”

“The Sculptor. Learn some history, would you? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back. Sorry about your leg, sister. It won’t happen again.”

“Wait, you stupid-“

“Goodbye!” She fell backward through the light post and smeared into a rapidly receding blur, lost to sight within a second.

I sighed, feeling too sleepy to really care. “Kings damn it…” Related or not, if she had one thing in common with me it was being an absolute asshole when she felt like it. I noticed I was feeling pretty chilly. Ought to call someone about that… I fumbled my slab out of my pocket and unlocked it on the fifth try or so. I managed to get to the contacts and dial one of Walker’s numbers. He answered after two rings.

“Sharkie? What’s-”

“Hey, man, I- uh, I need a hand. A ride to Doc Laggard’s. You think you could come get me?”

“Where? Stay awake for me, now. Where you at?”

“Near where you dropped me off.” I heaved in a breath, and it took far too much effort. “I’m-I’m feeling pretty beat, Walker. Bleedin’. Might just lie down for a sec…”

“Dammit, woman! Stay up, I said! Just gimme a few minutes…” I heard a roaring engine in the background.

My eyelids were getting very heavy, my vision graying. “See you soon. Mm…” I tried to keep my eyes open, but I was just so tired. The pain in my leg was a distant ache. My vision fluttered and I descended into black, still sleep.