The crack of simulated gunfire echoed off of cement and steel, muted slightly by the transparent floor separating Kat from the practice arena. She frowned, hands behind her back as she walked across the open space. On one, Whippoorwill’s pink hair bobbed as the smaller woman hurried to keep up with her. On the other, Heather, a thin but well muscled corporate security officer, matched Kat stride for stride.

Kat’s hand itched as she looked down through the floor at the shadowy figures of her rapid response team leap-frogging from one fragment of cover to another. One man had a ‘heavy machine gun,’ really a rapid fire targeting laser modified to look, sound and kick like the real thing, mounted on a tripod behind the remains of a half-junked car. He sawed the weapon back and forth, barrel flashing as he traced the stuttering laser across the outside of a two story compound.

All of the exercise participants were wearing combat smocks that looked a lot like her old infiltration suit. One ‘hit’ from a laser would trigger the outfit, stiffening it into rigid immobility as if the user had been hit by a bullet.

She winced as the machine gunner froze, collapsing on top of his weapon. A half second later, there was a second flash of light from the compound's roof. One of the figures dashing through the open toward the building went still as the sniper claimed another victim.

The attackers jumped behind cover, shouting indistinctly. A second or two later four fist-sized canisters shot up into the air from around the compound. They flashed with yellow light as internal engines ignited, changing the grenades’ trajectories and arcing them toward the building’s roof where they exploded in strobed white light, simulating an explosion.

Kat reached down, touching the hilt of her knife for comfort. One of her first orders as a shareholder had been to write exceptions for herself into all of the rules about people going armed in the research complex. She didn’t really care how secure the facility was officially, she was personally responsible for too many VIP deaths in ‘absolutely safe’ environments to trust the designation.

In the practice arena, four of the attackers popped out of cover, laying suppressive fire as they ran their ‘rifles’ back and forth across the compound's windows. A half second later, the remaining four broke into a sprint, guns cradled to their chests as they tried to cover the distance between their hiding spots and the building before they were spotted.

“They aren’t ready,” Kat said unhappily, even as one of the building’s shuttered windows was kicked open to reveal the defenders’ ‘heavy machine gun.’ The assault team tried to scatter, but there wasn’t any grace or intention behind their motions. They simply turned and ran, often in the same direction as one of their companions.

“No,” Heather replied, her tone terse. The practice weapon’s barrel turned into a flashlight, its laser running almost constantly as it gunned the fleeing attackers down.

Finally, one of the riflemen that had been providing covering fire managed to launch a grenade into the gun nest, silencing the heavy weapon, but the damage had been done. Of the ten attackers, six of them lay on the concrete floor of the combat zone, held immobile by their suits. Another was firing inaccurately with only their right arm. At some point their left had been clipped by a laser and promptly deactivated by onboard computers.

Another two of the building’s windows opened, revealing the muzzles of practice rifles. They flashed, their speakers emitting a series of cracks as the gunners opened fire on the surviving attackers.

The scene devolved into chaos with the attacking team firing the last of their grenades at the compound in order to buy themselves the time to escape. Neither of the self propelled explosives managed to hit the armored windows that the defenders were firing from, but the bright flashes of light from the ‘explosions’ were distracting enough that the assault team was able to withdraw from the light cover near the defensive building and back toward their starting point, another structure used for when the security team was playing capture the flag.

“At least the defenders did a good job,” Whippoorwill offered. “They lost two people but they managed to cripple the attacking team. That’s something you can work with.”

Kat opened her mouth, an acid retort burning on her tongue, but one look at Whip’s expression made her swallow the words. She was beautiful in the dim light of the observation deck, a couple wisps of pink hair framing her slim face from where they’d escaped their pony tail. Her eyes were cast upward, looking hopefully and expectantly at Kat.

“Not entirely,” Kat replied, stepping over Whippoorwill, absently putting her left hand on the other woman’s left shoulder as she leaned past her to point at the battlefield below. “Their positioning has left a number of blind spots. If the attackers were a little better at choosing their targets, they could have made it into the building undetected.”

Whippoorwill froze, muscles tightening as Kat’s chest brushed against her back. Almost immediately, Kat could feel blood rushing to her face. She’d pressed her body against Whip’s without thinking, almost on instinct, but now she was in an absolute panic.

Despite her conversations with Dorrik, she hadn’t asked Whip out on a date. The time never seemed right, and every time she tried to work up the courage, her nerve failed her. As foolish as it was, Kat would rather charge a bunker filled with stallesp warriors that put words to her feelings.

But how she should, her shoulders looming just over Whippoorwill’s, all from an unconscious act, stepping closer to the young woman in order to demonstrate what had gone wrong with the assault.

“Look at the alleyway to the left of the compound.” Kat tried to think about anything but how warm her breath must have been on the back of Whip’s neck as she pointed out the highlighted portion of the arena. “The only one with eyes on it was the rooftop sniper, and you saw how exposed her position was. Once she revealed herself, it only took a couple of airbursts and it was all over.”

Heather coughed, clearing her throat awkwardly. Kat used the excuse to back pedal away from Whippoorwill. She couldn’t make eye contact with the woman, instead letting her cheeks burn as she turned to the security officer.

“That’s at least one positive we can focus on Shareholder. The troops have adapted to using the GG-30s pretty well. The airburst volley to clear the roof was well organized and executed.”

“It was,” Kat relented. “Of course, the blasts didn’t overlap completely, and if the sniper had taken advantage of the HVAC system and used it as cover she likely would have survived the explosion. Then it would have been a simple matter for her to pick off the grenadiers that were aiming for the machine gunner.”

“Also,” she continued, tapping a toe on the see-through floor of the observation chamber toward a burned out semi in the ‘street’ of the arena. “That truck blocks most of the defenders’ lines of sight. A quick eye might spot someone closing the gap over there, but-”

“But if Ronald had done his job with the heavy machine gun, he could have kept the defense team occupied long enough for a team to make a move.” Heather finished for her. “Fuck.”

“If he had been teamed up with a pair of grenadiers,” Kat said, tapping the floor with her toe in two spots next to the immobile gunner. “Behind the dumpster here and the stack of filing cabinets there, they could have staggered launches at the compound. Made it dangerous for anyone to poke their heads out. The rules of the exercise didn’t give them enough GG-30 ammunition to keep it up for long, but they had more than enough to get a team of three or four people inside the building.”

“Then it only would have been a matter of keeping the defenders distracted long enough for the flanking team to loop around,” Heather replied thoughtfully. “They could have turned the defenders’ emplaced positions against them, sneaking up behind them and executing them one by one. Hell, they wouldn’t even know that their position was compromised before it was too late.”

“Even without using magic, I probably could have soloed the entire building,” Kat said with a sigh. “And that’s with them knowing that I was coming. If no one was expecting me, there’s a good chance that no one would get a glimpse of me before I finished them.”

“Is it really that bad?” Whippoorwill asked, sending the blood rushing back to Kat’s face. “I thought they looked very professional from up here.”

Heather shook her head, SynthSkin covered chrome arms whirring as she clasped them behind her back. She frowned down at the final minutes of the mock battle below them. The attackers attempted one final charge only for half of their number to be cut down by precision fire from the compound.

“The two teams are skilled,” Heather acceded. “They wouldn’t be here for training if that weren’t the case. Their athleticism, accuracy, reflexes and abilities under fire are all top notch, but Kat is right. If they were guarding a secure facility such as a research laboratory or a factory, it would only be a matter of polishing off the skills they already have.”

“But, Shareholder Debs is much more important than a secure facility,” she continued, nodding toward Kat. “Even letting a Shareholder come under threat would be seen as a black mark on GroCorp’s pride. Ordinarily, that would be awful, but right now it would be a tragedy.”

Kat nodded as she swiveled on a heel and began walking toward the elevator that led to the arena and practice gymnasium. Behind her Whip and Heather fell into step as she responded to Heather.

“There isn’t any room to show weakness. Every megacorporation in the world is eyeing up GroCorp right now. So far, we’ve shown ourselves able to integrate the stallesp technology quickly and defend ourselves. Right now, they’re only trying to probe our facilities, looking for gaps in our armor as they try to steal scraps of research. If we show any weakness, that’s liable to change.”

“What about the 3445 then?” Whippoorwill asked. “They’ve done a good job handling threats to the facility so far. Why can’t we make them your personal bodyguard or something. Just give them a couple of the futuristic looking pistols the research guys are working on. Once they melt a couple samurai, that’ll send a pretty strong message to the rest of the world.”

Kat felt the corners of her mouth tug upward despite herself as she pressed her thumb against the pad that would summon the elevator. The electronics flashed, signaling that the device was verifying her biometrics as Heather responded to Whip.

“That would almost be as bad as failing. The 3445 are a mercenary unit, somewhere between a plausibly deniable samurai and actual corporate security. If we need to rely on non-employees to protect a shareholder, other corps are going to take it as a sign of weakness.”

The door to the elevator whooshed open, revealing an immaculate, stainless steel interior. Kat stepped inside, pressing the button that indicated the ground floor of the practice arena before taking a space at the rear of the lift. A second later, Heather and Whippoorwill filed in after her. By unspoken agreement, all three of the women found spots with their backs to the walls, relics of the paranoid survival instincts hammered into them by a dangerous world.

“I’m not trying to critique you Heather,” Kat said to the older woman. “I’ve seen you fight, and I’ve read your resume. We both know that if you were a samurai, you’d have a name by now. More importantly, the training regimens you’re putting the teams through are both rigorous and thorough, but for some reason they don’t seem to get it. I get how this sounds, but it just seems like a job for them. No matter how skilled they are, they don’t seem to have developed the edge you see on samurai and mercenaries with half their experience. The muscles and chrome are there, but none of them have that desperate killing edge I expect from a top tier operator.”

The elevator hummed, almost drowning out Heather’s half sigh.

“I never thought I would be the one tasked with protecting the great Erinyes, but you’re right,” she replied before shooting Kat a half smile. “You know Shareholder, in the six months or so before you took up your duties, you were giving security teams across Chiwaukee fits. You weren’t as quiet about your jobs as the other big names like Wight, Funnelweb, Toothfairy, and Silver Cord, but security services were in fits about having one of the major up and coming infiltrators in town. As many times as Shareholder Donnst told us ‘not to worry’ about you, it was hard not to get antsy seeing the body counts you left in your wake, especially after you and your friends took out the better part of three companies in bringing down Shareholder Williamson.”

“Now I’m here,” Heather continued with a helpless shrug. “And you’re living proof of how hard it is to protect a VIP. You’re probably one of the top ten people on the continent to consult on the question of corporate sabotage and assassaination. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t really really argue with your expertise.”

“But it isn’t fair to compare the security team to Kat,” Whippoorwill cut in. “She had experience, levels in the tower and some of the most intense on the job training I can think of. There aren’t a whole lot of humans that can go toe to toe with her.”

“Whip, you don’t understand,” Kat responded, her voice low and intense. “It won’t be every-day corporate infiltration teams coming for us. It will be the other nine experts. This isn’t about me, I can more or less handle myself, I’m scared about you. Samurai will know that I care for you, and they will try to hurt you because of that.”

“Kat.” Whippoorwill practically choked as she forced the word out.

“I couldn’t live with that Whip.” Kat wasn’t sure when or how, but she was on the other side of the elevator, both of her hands on the pink-haired woman’s shoulders, eyes stinging with unshed tears as she locked gazes with her. “Xander’s death hollowed me out, but if something happened to you, it would destroy me. I… just couldn’t. Whip, you know I lo-”

She froze, eyes widening as the reality of the situation. Her movements, crossing the lift, grabbing Whippoorwill by the shoulders, the heated speech. It had all been instinct, driven by primal emotion and fear.

Whippoorwill melted into her, wrapping her arms around Kat and burying her head into Kat’s shoulder. The smaller woman shook once, and Kat embraced her, a look of wonder and disbelief on her face as she tried to process what had just happened.

“I know Kat.” Whippoorwill’s voice was muffled by her shoulder. “It took you long enough to say it, but I know.”

Kat took a deep breath, trying to steady herself despite the heady smell of Whippoorwill’s shampoo warring with the endorphins that were flooding her body. The entire world felt like it was spinning, a pleasant gauzy haze having settled over everything. When she replied, all confidence had left her voice, reducing her usual banter to a hesitant stammer.

“D-do you maybe want to go on a date? I k-know that I should have said something earlier, but m-aybe we could get dinner together and have some ice cream afterward w-while going for a walk?”

“I mean,” Kat said hurriedly, “if you don’t want to do that we can do something else. I’m sure there are some good entertainment vids that we could watch. Or maybe we could go dancing or-”

“I’d love to,” Whip’s content answer silenced her, draining the nervous tension from her in three words.

Kat’s mind went whirling. After weeks of trying to concoct the perfect way to bring up the subject, everything had flown out the window. In one panicked moment she had blurted out her feelings, an eruption of words that released weeks of anxiety and pressure.

Despite everything, it worked. Warmth filled Kat’s stomach and she tightened her arms, pressing Whip closer to her. Fizzy soda bubbles of happiness filled her world, everything was going to work out. Whip said yes. Now she just needed-

Heather coughed. A discreet, entirely artificial sound that froze both of the young women.

“Not to disturb your moment ma’am,” the security officer said as diplomatically and politely as possible, “but I’m presuming you will have security arrangements that we need to iron out for your upcoming date?”