“Oh my god I’m so excited!” Emma squealed, her voice high enough to hurt Kat’s ears as she clutched her hands together. “I can’t believe that we all get to spend summer break together! I have so many things planned out already, this is going to be the best vacation ever.”

Whippoorwill, glanced at Kat, confusion on her face. Jasper and Iris were already at the maglev station when the two of them arrived, chatting quietly with each other while Davis kept a watchful eye on the milling crowds of travelers.

Emma had arrived shortly after everyone else, wearing bright and revealing ‘vacation clothing’ rather than the more comfortable and conservative travel apparel of the rest of the group. Any chance that their journey to the Grand Canyon would involve discretion went out the window the second Emma spotted them.

“Emma, this is Whippoorwill,” Kat offered, indicating the younger girl. Whip brushed a strand of pink hair out of her face before extending her hand to Emma.

“She’s a close friend of mine from my days in the Schaumburg Arcology,” Kat continued, only for Emma to latch onto Whip’s hand and cut her off.

“I’m Emma Tiller,” she gushed, ignoring Kat as she pumped Whippoorwill’s hand. “Kat has told me so much about you! Trust me, by the end of the Summer we’re going to be the best of friends.”

Again, Whip looked from Emma to Kat, confusion on her face.

“Whip,” Emma said, pausing for a second. “I can call you Whip right?”

Before Whippoorwill could respond, the other girl kept rambling, bulldozing any objections before the hacker could even think of raising them.

“Anyway, Whip.” Emma released her hand only to reach up and grasp a lock of the girl’s pink hair between her fingers. “You simply have to tell me how you got this color for your hair. I’d never dare to use it, daddy would be scandalized, but it’s just so… bold.”

“Thanks I guess?” Whippoorwill answered, her voice hesitant. “I was blonde originally, but I didn’t really like it. One day while my friends and I were out looking for food, I found some fabric dye at an abandoned textile plant in the Shell. The color looked pretty good so once I got some money, I started ordering more of the dye off the commerce channels every month or so.”

“Fabric Dye?” Kat asked, finally able to find a way to insert herself into the conversation. “That doesn’t sound like it’s healthy. I mean, most of the stuff designed for human use amongst employees isn’t healthy either. It’s not outright poison, but that’s about all you can say about. I can only imagine the caustic chemicals and carcinogens laced into fabric dye.”

“What are you, a cop?” Whip snorted at her. “Of course that shit is poisonous. So is half of the street chrome samurai install into their bodies. If you get rich enough, modern medicine can fix anything it does to you. If you don’t? Well a samurai that isn’t making money probably isn’t going to grow old enough to worry about shaving a couple of years off their life expectancy.”

“Whip, I-” Kat recoiled as if stung. “I just don’t want you hurting yourself. The world is dangerous enough without you finding new ways to hurt yourself. We have access to the same cosmetics that managers and executives use. I don’t see why you can’t just use those.”

Whippoorwill opened her mouth to respond, only to catch herself. She bit her lip, chewing on the chunk of flesh nervously as she avoided Kat’s gaze.

“Sorry.” Whip ran a hand through her hair. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off like that Kat, I just don’t like being out in public like this. Your friends are nice, but everyone else here isn’t really my crowd-”

Before Kat could answer, a series of musical tones sounded over the public address system followed shortly by a woman’s voice.

“Now boarding trans continental two thirteen, service to Las Vegas. Please have your tickets and digital identifications ready. Be aware that this trip crosses multiple corporate boundaries. MagTrans, Inc. does not take any responsibility for any criminal penalties that may be assessed against ticket holders for attempting to bring contraband across these borders. These penalties include but are not limited to: fines, imprisonment, physical assault, forced labor, or death. Per page six, paragraph two, clause two of all ticketholder’s licensing agreements- ticket holders assume all legal liability for knowing and following local corporate regulations.”

“That’s us,” Davis grunted. He motioned with his hand toward a uniformed man standing beside a cart heavily laden with luggage. “We can talk about our feelings once we’re in our passenger car and have the audio filter on. No need to make a scene.”

Kat nodded, flashing a quick smile at Whippoorwill. The other girl returned the smile gratefully before the two of them filed into line behind the rest of the group. She could understand Whip’s discomfort.

Hell, Kat shared a fair amount of it. Standing in an open space with a crowd of absolute strangers at her back, she couldn’t help but imagine a Millenium hit team or stallesp flash clone taking a shot at her. It’s true that they probably wouldn’t get away, as Belle turned up the heat on the remnant forces, Kat had a nagging feeling that her head was becoming more and more valuable to the alien forces.

As high as her level was, a single attack from a long range version of the stallesp handgun she had hidden in the false bottom of one of her suitcases would be all that it took. She probably wouldn’t even feel anything, just standing and talking with her friends one second and a rapidly cooling pile of meat the next.

She followed Iris into the train, taking the half step up into the sleek metal cylinder as it hovered on a network of quietly humming electromagnets. The interior of the vehicle was luxurious. Kat had known that they were taking a first class car to Las Vegas, but that knowledge hadn’t prepared her for the reality of the situation.

An usher brought them down a hallway, the walls coated in brightly colored plastic and chrome, past a dining car and to the cabin that would be theirs for the next thirty six hours. There was a well-appointed central room complete with a drink bar, a number of genuine leather chairs, and a massive smartglass display. Each of the ‘passengers’ had their own small bedroom, with a larger bunk room for servants and security.

Kat found her own bedroom, and slipped through the polished steel security door. Ducking under a bed, suspended at about neck level off the ground and covered in high thread count sheets, Kat ran her hand over the surface of the desk wedged under it. Real wood, carefully lacquered and stained. The room was a bit bigger than the one she had shared with her sister back in the Schaumburg Arcology, but nowhere near the size of her dorm room in Chiwaukee.

“I can’t find my bathroom!” Iris shouted, her aggravated voice muted by the maglev car’s walls. “Where in the hell is my bathroom?”

Kat poked her head out of the bedroom to see Davis walk over to the wall just under the smartglass display and press a black button just below the entertainment center. Almost instantly, the barely audible buzzing of an audio filter assaulted Kat’s senses. Nodding to himself, the older man walked to the center of the main room and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Everyone into the main room!” Davis’ voice thundered over the incessant squeal of the filter. “This little trip of ours might be a vacation on the surface, but the information provided by Miss Debs indicates that it will be putting Jasper at risk. I respect his dedication to the cause. Agreeing to put himself at risk in order to give the combat elements of our team cover was very noble of him.”

As Davis spoke, Emma, Iris, Whip, and Jasper joined Kat and him in the main room. Whip and Emma just looked bored, leaning against the main chamber’s walls while Iris and Jasper frowned at their chaperone.

“Davis,” Jasper interjected. “I told you that I wanted to participate. The stallesp threaten all free life on Earth, and defeating them could directly lead to us looting the sort of technological innovations that would assure GroCorp’s economic hegemony for another fifty years.”

The old man fixed Jasper with a withering stare before continuing, ignoring his employer’s objection.

“That said, even for those people staying at the vacation home, there will be plenty of danger to go around. If we want to stay alive, the most important factor is to be prepared.”

“Belle Donnst has capitalized admirably on the information sold to her by Miss Debs.” Davis nodded in Kat’s direction. “With my help, dozens of compromised managers and executives have quietly ‘disappeared.’ It is my understanding that she is currently questioning them inelegantly, if effectively.”

“Before we start on this Mr. Stoller,” Iris whined, “I need to lodge a complaint. I understand that we’re traveling and accommodations are spartan, but my room doesn’t appear to have a bathroom.”

“There is a communal bathroom that everyone will have to share,” Davis replied, missing a single beat. “Unfortunately we were only able to secure a first class ticket, the premier class and shareholder class tickets were sold out.”

“But-” Iris began, only to wilt as the old man glared at her, melting her under the heat of her gaze.

“Now that preliminary comments are out of the way,” he raked his gaze across the room’s occupants. Only Kat and Emma met his gaze. Kat, silently and with her arms crossed. Emma simply smiled happily, her bubbly and cheerful demeanor undeterred despite Davis’ best efforts.

“NeoSyne is as powerful as GroCorp economically.” Davis paused for a moment, cocking his head to the side. “Actually, I think their military wing is a bit larger and more active than ours. Of course, if it ever came to a knock down, drag out fight both corporations would weaken each other to the point that one of our competitors would simply swoop in and clean up the mess.”

“Unfortunately for us.” Once again the older man scanned the room, a severe expression creasing his face. “When the world became aware of the stallesp infection, it was too late for NeoSyne. Like GroCorp, there was an internal struggle to purge the corporation. Unlike GroCorp, humanity didn’t win that struggle.”

“Worse,” he continued. “We don’t even know what we’re looking for. Miss Debs retrieved a couple of names and locations, but we have no idea what will be waiting for us there. Hell, if the enemy is savvy they would already know that their North American operation has been compromised and shifted vital operations. We’re about to stick our head into a lion’s mouth, and we’re doing it blind.”

For a moment, Kat could hear a pin drop. Davis leaned back, a satisfied look on his face as the rest of the car ruminated over his words. In the distance, the hum of the electromagnets lifting the maglev increased as the train began moving smoothly forward.

Then, Emma clapped her hands together excitedly, breaking the silence.

Kat jumped, twisting her body in the air so that she rotated and came down on the balls of her feet facing the other woman.

“That reminds me!” Emma squealed, hopping up and down. “There’s a really great animal taming attraction in Las Vegas that we should totally visit. One of the tamer’s puts their head in a lion’s mouth. They even have some genetically reconstituted sabertooth tigers and dire wolves. I’ve been watching replays of their shows on the entertainment channels.”

“That,” Davis began, only to stop. He shook his head, more rattled than Kat had ever seen him by Emma’s non sequitur. “That was your takeaway? I give a speech about how we’re delving into enemy territory with insufficient information, forces, and preparation in order to fight literal shape changing aliens, and your response is to bring up a circus attraction?”

“What?” Emma asked, recoiling. “Neon Dome Entertainment, the exhibit I was talking about, has only managed to extract DNA from fossils and revive extinct predators in the last five years. From what you’ve been saying about these aliens, Neon Dome’s timing is incredibly suspect. If you combine that with their location in NeoSyne territory, there doesn’t seem to be much question that they’re associated with the bad guys.”

“I, I mean,” Davis stuttered, looking frantically to Whippoorwill. “I don’t know much about this Neon Dome company. I suppose they could be one of the fronts that we’ve managed to identify using the dataset that was retrieved from Chiwaukee.”

“They weren’t, but let me try something,” Whip said absently, her eyes glazed over as she stared off into space. Her lips moved soundlessly as she accessed the computer installed in the back of her head, sifting through the stallesp records.

“There.” Whippoorwill shook her head, sending her pink hair slapping back and forth. “I just accessed the public records on Neon Dome and cross referenced them with the information we extracted from the stallesp. The company’s chief financial officer and head of research are both listed as flash clones. Apparently it’s also a subsidiary of NeoSyne, and the executive in charge of the holding company it operates under is also a flash clone.”

“I guess we never bothered to look closely at NeoSyne’s subsidiaries,” Whip continued with an embarrassed shrug. “I haven’t had a chance to follow up on this theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a good number of NeoSyne’s subsidiaries are all but solely controlled by Millenium’s remnants.”

“So we can go to the show then?” Emma asked brightly. “I mean, once we get situated in the Grand Canyon, you guys can like do all of your preparation stuff. Then once you’re ready, I’ll get us all tickets and we’ll get a good view of everything so that we can come back a couple of days later and do all of that super secret spy stuff you’re talkin about.”

“I,” Davis barely got the word out, shoulders slumping.

“A circus sounds like a lot softer of a target than the R&D center or the fortified residential blocks we’ve been able to identify,” Kat supplied helpfully. “I mean, we can’t know for sure that there will be useful information on site, but on the other hand, that’s the same story with everything else we’ve found.”

“The electronic security on their public facing pages isn’t very impressive,” Whippoorwill supplied. Next to her, Emma nodded enthusiastically, flashing Davis a thumbs up. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that their secure systems won’t be running cutting edge hunter-killer programs or something like that, but this looks fairly doable.”

“Fine,” the old man grumbled, straightening his shoulder but unable to completely reclaim his earlier gravitas. “If we’re going in blind, testing the waters with an easy mission first seems logical to me. We’ll have to look into the target a bit first, but it would make sense for us to do a final tour of the site under the guise of a tourist visit.”

“After all,” Davis finished with a weary sigh. “Our cover for this trip is that you’re a bunch of guileless kids out on a vacation. We’ll need to get spotted engaging in festive activities if we want to maintain that facade. A trip to Las Vegas is more than warranted.”

“OhmyGOD, THANK YOU!” Emma squealed, drawing a wince from Kat as the girl streaked forward and threw her arms around Davis. The dignified older man looked profoundly uncomfortable as she gushed all over him.

“The big cats are so cute but the dire wolves are even better.” Emma stopped suddenly, eyes widening.

“I know!” She practically shouted. “If we’re going to be burglarizing the place and breaking all sorts of laws anyway, there’s no way I’m walking away empty-handed.”

Kat cocked her head at the girl, brow furrowed in confusion as Emma peeled herself off of Davis. The blonde woman swiveled around, a wide smile on her face.

“Come hell or high water, I will get myself a dire-wolf puppy. They’re just too cute not to.”