The first thing I notice is the smell. It’s like pork, a whole hog scorching over an oil-drum barbecue, mixed in with burning plastic and hot metal. Then I look around and realize it’s not pork I’m smelling.

I stand overlooking a pyre. All around I can see dead men and destroyed vehicles, ripped-up and smoldering. Foul black smoke trickles into the sky. They fill a valley between two ridges, the ground melted-looking black rock. Past the valley’s end I glimpse huge mountains, so much larger and farther away than anything I’ve ever seen that they almost induce vertigo. White stuff streaks their tops; probably snow, which I’ve only seen in holos. A huge city crawls up the flanks of the largest peak. It’s burning too, but that’s not the strangest thing. I can see it. It’s all lit up, clear as day.

Without meaning to I look up. The sky is a searing blue, the color of plastic chemical drums and radioactivity. It’s streaked with white clouds like torn bits of gauze, riven by huge columns of dark smoke. And even higher up is a spot of brightness I can hardly look at, a circle of burning-white light that illuminates all I can see. I know in my heart what it must be.

Sol. The Sun, Earth’s star, shines over a battlefield.

Huge beams of energy and columns of flame streak up from the ground and back down from the sky, fired at targets I can’t see. Multitudes of aircraft perform a twisting dance through them, screaming engines trailing white flame. Sonic booms shatter the air. I can make out the trails of missiles and lasers and weapons I have no names for, fired as they chase each other. Higher in the sky hang fainter shapes. Despite their distance, I get the impression that these craft are truly massive. These leviathans all bear different shapes- some rounded and bulbous, some blocky as flying skyscrapers, some sleek and sharp, some so industrial their designers must have had no care for aesthetics at all. As I watch, a strange rippling effect tears out of one and into another, leaving a scar of multicolored fire where it strikes. In the distance a white tower spears impossibly high into the sky, its top lost in the haze. The fighting around it is so fierce I can only partly make it out behind all the esoteric weapon discharges. With the mountainous terrain I can’t see the ground battle, but based on the smoke and corpses I’d bet its still going on.

At another time I’d fall to my knees in…disbelief? Reverence? Some kind of overwhelming emotion, take your pick. However, I find myself unable to move. Rather than completely freak me out like it usually would, I feel content to just go along for the ride. That’s it, I realize. I’m not me. I’m seeing this dream or vision or whatever it is through someone else’s eyes.

As if to confirm this, I- my host- let out a sigh. I can tell her voice is different from mine. She glances around and I see that we’re atop some kind of half-destroyed concrete structure. The perspective is strange and I realize she’s taller than me, inhumanly so. She takes a step forward and glances lower, and even in this small movement I can feel a terrifying strength. It’s not just muscle. It’s like the world shies away from me in fear, like I could take up reality in my fists and crush it into a shape I like better.

We look down on a supine man, or what’s left of him. He’s blown in half at the waist. Rather than a mess of entrails the wound is a morass of electronics, mechanical bits, hoses, and biological components so densely mixed I can hardly tell what’s artificial and what’s not. The fluid that puddles beneath him is thick and iridescent, somewhere between maroon and brown in color. Above the wound he wears a fancy cream-colored robe embroidered with gold, and an engraved chain of the same rests around his neck. His skin is deeply bronzed and almost seems to glow from within, and he’s got short hair and a beard but no mustache. Despite the white hair I’d put him at a healthy forty. His face is the kind that belongs on a heroic statue, and he has some kind of golden circuitboard mark tattooed on his forehead. The stark blue of his eyes matches the sky, though flecks of gold sparkle through them. Rather than being twisted in pain like I’d have guessed he looks a mixture of angry and apprehensive.

“You didn’t have to do this.” His voice is a barely-raspy baritone, honey-rich, whiskey-smooth. I could listen to him read the ingredients off a bar of arpaste and enjoy every second.

My host is unmoved. “I did. As big of a mistake you made, I definitely did.” Her voice is low and surprisingly quiet, but it carries. Theres an edge to it that makes me nervous despite being ‘on her side.’

The golden man flinches as if slapped. Maybe people don’t usually talk to him like that. He swallows. “You could have let us go. That was always an option.”

“You knew I was fighting, and yet you still flew close. As soon as the stealth unit on your shuttle popped it was over.” We snort derisively. “All those still fighting saw their commander try to sneak away. Do you think that’s good for morale?”

There is a monstrous explosion in the distance before he can answer. The golden man cranes his neck in vain, but my host looks over to see a mushroom-shaped cloud of dust rise into the sky a few mountains away. By the way she shakes her head it must not matter much.

The bisected man gathers himself. “Doing this will be even worse,” he admonishes. “For the Everesters to see us move against each other-“

“On the contrary.” My host interrupts without raising her voice, but he quiets down right away. “To see you run without consequences would be worse. This way they will know that the one in charge still cares.”

His expression briefly curdles into anger before he smooths it away. “Regardless. This battle is lost. Earth is lost.” We regard him without expression. My host begins stretching her fingers one by one while he talks. She’s wearing power armor, I realize, a suit of dull gray much scarred with use. It feels like a second skin. The Zamok is like taping springs to your legs compared to this.

“I recieved word of a stronghold,” he goes on with more confidence. “Some backwater world, far spinward. Some very powerful, very strong people are gathering there. Survivors of Rigel, K’enna, the Hyades…should we regroup and refit there, we will have a fighting chance to reinforce the sector, perhaps even the whole canton, and use it as a base- and with you along, such a strategy will be even more effective.” His face turns sly. “In fact, I’m given to understand that she’ll be there as well-“

We laugh in his face. “Dangling her in front of me? Really. You ought not to let emotions cloud your judgement, sir. That wouldn’t work a century ago, let alone now.” A hundred years? That has to be an exaggeration, but who knows.

“Even so.” He moves past it slick as the oil leaking out of him. “Join us there and you will be made the highest military authority. Full stop. Over the Marshal, over me, even-“

“Oh, how generous.”

“-yes, over me. It’s as I said. This system is done.” He’s getting more animated now, moving his hands. It would look absurd from that blown-in-half body if he wasn’t so serious, so earnest. “There are too many of them past the asteroid belt. Mars fell in hours. The Oort Cloud practically lights up solid on sensor sweeps! We are lost if we remain here. But if you join me, join us, with your skill we surely-“

“No.” The shadow of a starship high above creeps across his face as it drops in dismay. “I won’t be going,” we continue. “Neither will you.”

For a moment I think he’s about to say something as he cycles through different expressions, but they all drop away to reveal a look of raw contempt. I get the idea it’s the first honest emotion he’s shown. “Damn you. We never should have made you part of the Pact; I see that now. Too late. You’ve always been a mad dog.”

“You’re right.” I can tell we’re smiling, and by the golden man’s expression it’s not a pleasant one. “Your mistake was ever thinking I was yours.” We pace slowly towards his broken body, boots grinding through crushed concrete. He gathers himself, building up for something, but all he does is speak again.

“Halt.” The word echoes weirdly, the golden circuit on his forehead shifting as he speaks it. Inexplicable things happen: the wind stops. The air gets heavy and chill, frost precipitating out of nowhere. Swirling dust hangs in place. Sounds are squashed. Even the light goes thick and strange in a way I can’t describe, throwing a reddish cast over the scene.

None of it matters. We walk through his weird effect like it’s not there. All I notice is a prickle of cold from within, just like when I got near the Winnower’s string. I feel it go through us- through me- and for an instant I contact a well of freezing, solid hatred, as deep and abiding as the void between stars. It’s gone in an instant but still, it terrifies me. Is that inside of my host all the time?

The golden man looks like he didn’t expect it to work, but he’s still disappointed. Then we say something that chills me just as much as the cold before. “Aurambard Krisostomicon, King of Man,” my host murmurs, softly mocking. “He whose word is gold.” We’ve reached him now, and bending down we lift him by the throat. One hand reaches round his neck with room to spare, and we begin to squeeze. The look of hate on his face melts into fear, into agony. “Speak no more, my fellow king” we tell him. “This war is almost over. Now is the time for iron.” Our huge fist tightens, squeezing, crushing-

“Sharkie! Let go, damn it!” Somebody pounded me on the shoulder- the unhurt one, thankfully- and I came back to myself, back to the jagged pain on my left. What the fuck was that? I’d been totally, completely, out of it right there, on the kind of trip you were only supposed to get off of heavy-duty psychedelics. I didn’t remember drinking jimsonweed tea or licking any radioactive toads- so what gives? I’d…Well, I’d met Martyred King Aurambard, the most significant figure in Savlop-2’s most significant religion, and I’d killed him. That didn’t make sense for several reasons. And I myself had to have been-

“You are alive, ain’t you? Gotta be. So let…fuckin’…go!” It took whoever it was physically prying at my fingers to make me realize they were still clenched aorund the Winnower’s throat. Okay, maybe I wasn’t all the way back. Just like in the vision. I cast that thought aside for later and released her, clanking back onto my ass. My accoster turned out to be a bloody, scraggled Walker, who favored one leg as he stood.

“Good shit! Thought you bled out on me, Sawyer. Though, looks like you still might. We gotta get out of-“

“Walker…” I muttered, trying to remember what was going on. It took a second before things clicked. “Shit! Walker! Are you alright?” He squinted down at me a moment, limping, bloody-faced, the fingers on one hand looking like he’d run them through a fan belt. Maybe he had. “…Right. What about Ximi and Bodine? Are they- are they okay?” I didn’t sound hopeful. They would have gotten rattled around like empties in someone’s trunk when the Winnower tossed the van around.

“They’re in one piece, that’s all I could tell. Now hold still.” He pulled off his belt.

Oh, now what? “Hold still for what, man? I’m kind of in a compromising position here.”

He gave me a withering look through the blood streaking his face. “Tourniquet, you dumb pervert. You want to die or no?”

“Right, right. Go ahead.”

“Thank you so very kindly.” He undid the emergency latch on the upper arm guard and got it out of the way. That felt unpleasant, but it wasn’t anything compared to when he cinched the belt down. I hissed in pain, fingers scraping against the asphalt.

“There. It’ll hold for a little while, at least.” Walker glanced back up the road. I could hear still hear sirens but so far they stayed distant. “Monta’s got a ride coming. He’ll meet us by the van.”

“R-right. Just let me get out of this fucking thing…” The dead Zamok weighed heavy on my limbs. I wasn’t going to try getting it off the mess the Winnower made of my left arm, but the rest had to go. I started pulling at emergency-release levers and wriggling free of the plates.

“How come you gotta ditch it?” asked Walker as he bent to help.

“Outta fuel,” I gasped. Waxy sweat beaded on my face. Every movement jostled my cut-up arm.

His eyes narrowed. “You shoulda had enough for- shit. Whatever. But if I find out someone cut their product ‘fore they sold it to us, oh, boy. Better hide while they can.” I didn’t think that was it, but I’d explain it to him later. Finally I got free of the suit and staggered to my feet. I cradled my hurt arm in the other but I was still unable to suppress a moan of pain. The Zamok lay lensed open on the ground like an insect’s molted shell.

“Hate to- to just leave it there.”

“Did its job, didn’t it? In fact…” Walker bent down and punched a complicated sequence into the powerpack. “Better get moving. She’s gonna burn herself down in about thirty seconds.”

“Oh. Oh, okay.” We went for the van at the best pace we could both manage, which wasn’t much better than a brisk walk. I’d miss the Zamok, to be honest, but without fuel it would just get in the way. The self-destruct charge went off behind us but I didn’t bother looking. I was too busy just putting one foot in front of the other. Blood loss had me feeling punch-drunk, though I never dropped completely out of reality like earlier.

The van looked like it had already been through the crusher. I had no idea how Walker was conscious, let alone walking around. “Build ‘em tough in the quarries, that’s all,” was his excuse for an answer when I asked. “I’m gonna try and get Bodine and Ximi pulled outta there. Our ride’ll show soon so yell if you see it.”

Without further ado he crawled through what used to be the van’s rear door. I peered in and was just able to make them out- along with a third body. Willy. I hadn’t even begun to process that. Two funerals to hit, now, I thought dully. Two? Oh, Kings, I’d almost forgotten about Plehve’s. I’d promised myself I’d go. Hopefully I hadn’t missed it-

The cheery double-beep of a car horn shocked me back into awareness. A bright yellow hatchback pulled up next to the van. It rolled on three tiny wheels and had a sign on the roof reading ‘JOHAN-TAXI.’ Fidi hopped out of the driver’s seat dressed in full tac-ninja gear, freezing for a moment when he saw me.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” he managed to say.

Laughing made my arm hurt. “Bad as it is for you, well, I promise it’s not any easier for me.”

“It doesn’t look like it. Glad you’re alive, Sharkie.”

“Same to you.” I felt useless as he went to help Walker, though if I tried crawling in with them I’d probably just pass out and have to be extracted in turn. Between the two of them they got the others out, though. Ximena had a nasty break in one arm and a cut on her face, but was shockingly untouched elsewhere. She even seemed partway conscious, whispering a litany of profanity as they lay her on the asphalt. Bodine was worse off. Broken leg, broken wrist, some horrible bruises everywhere else and a big cut on his scalp. He was completely unconscious, though his chest still rose and fell.

Walker went back in for Willy’s body as Fidi did what he could for them with his trauma kit. “Damn straight I’m bringin’ him out,” he muttered as if one of us had argued. “Went in with me, so he’s damn well coming out with me.” He got out both pieces- and here even I felt queasy, remembering Willy’s head landing in my lap- then clambered down from the van with the black case from the bank in hand. He stopped when he got a good look at our transport.

“A fuckin’ auto-cab, Monta? For real?”

Fidi just shrugged. “Short notice. You’re lucky I convinced it to come through the police line.” They loaded up the more immobile passengers before we got in. I moved gingerly as I could as I folded myself into the plasticky passenger seat. My arm had gone numb, though it seemed like rather than going away all the pain had just migrated into a ring right where the tourniquet was placed. Fidi swung into the driver’s seat, the only one uninjured. There weren’t any controls, though. Instead a hologram of a chubby little blond boy appeared above the dash, rosy-cheeked and smiling. He wore some weird-looking green shorts-and-suspenders getup complete with buckled shoes.

“Guten tag!” said the apparition cheerily. “I am your driver, Johan! Where shall I take you on this fine-“

“Wastewater plant. 4902 Draganovich,” rasped Walker.

“Certainly, Herr Customer! Right away!” The cab pulled out, motors whining under the strain of an undoubtedly excessive load. The hologram did somersaults and jogged in place. If it had substance I would have punched it.

“Wait, wait. Sorry, Sharkie. Have it stop here.” Walker said from the back.

“You are, of course, free to talk to me yourself!” said the hologram as it hit the brakes. “Johan is friends with everyone!”

“News to me,” muttered Walker. “Gimme a hand here, Monta.” I looked out and realized why. We’d stopped next to the Winnower’s corpse- or maybe just the Winnower. I’d never made sure.

“Careful, man-“ I called out the window right before Walker grabbed her right arm and tried to yank it off the gristle still holding it to her shoulder. “Oh, Kings.”

After a few seconds of straining he dropped it in disgust. “Sheeit. Tie that up real good. Don’t want ‘er using it.”

I raised my free hand. “She’s got a gun in the other arm, too. Maybe it’s empty but I don’t know. Is she really alive?”

“She is breathing,” Fidi said as he bound up her arms and legs with aramid cord. “Probably means she’s still ticking, though with her sort it’s always hard to tell.” The Winnower got shoved in the back next to Walker, who sat on her weak side with his pistol shoved under her chin. So far she stayed unconscious, or sandbagged like she was.

“Step on it, Johan,” Walker snapped at the hologram.

“Right away, Herr Customer! Except- Achtung! There is a police operation going on up ahead! I will have to stop-“

“Oh, no you don’t,” Fidi muttered. He pulled a little black box off his belt, plugged it in under the cab’s dash, and punched a few buttons.

The hologram boy frowned a comically worried frown. “I must warn you, Herr Customer, that interfering with the operation of an Administration contractor’s vehicle is a felony offense under Administration criminal code section three-twenty-dash-“ Johan’s voice garbled into a fading demonic shriek as his body fizzled away into static.

“There we are,” Fidi muttered, fiddling with the box some more as the cab accelerated.

“Why didn’t you do that in the first place?” I asked.

“Because driving via comslab is not the easiest thing in the world.” He focused on the road, taking us on a jerky course through alleys and side streets. There was one hairy moment when we encountered a couple parked police cars. Rather than open up with guns, one blue-uniformed cop pointed what looked like a big holo remote at us. He seemed very confused when we shot right past him unaffected.

“Dumb fuckin’ pigs,” snorted Walker.

“Was that supposed to stop us?” I asked. Anything to keep my mind off the pain.

“Yeah. Idiots. Why would criminals use a car with the external shutoffs still working? S’illegal to turn ‘em off like Monta did, but would you look at that- I’m committin’ a crime just bein’ here, so what do I care?”

I just shook my head. Amazing. The streets were still pretty empty even past the police cordon. People must have got the idea this was a bad day to be out. We made it to the wastewater plant and from there down into the big service tunnels. They creeped me out: pitch black where the lights weren’t working, their walls crawling with intestinal tangles of rusting pipes and grime-sheathed conduits, mutant somethings slithering eyeless and half-seen along the floor…I stared straight ahead and didn’t look at things too hard.

Walker was on his slab the whole time nattering about who knew what to who knew who. I was in and out at this point, the cincture of agony around my arm the only thing keeping me awake. We passed the border from K-block back into D through a blast door that was supposed to be closed- smugglers probably forced it ages ago. The cab reached the surface near the Guethon Canal and flooded Beloselo. It was easy to tell from the stink- and if I’d forgotten we were back in D-block, the near-darkness would have reminded me fast. From there we shot over to the garage under Walker’s office where a whole bunch of stuff and people waited.

A lot of things happened fast. I got out of the car and was immediately accosted by a businesslike older woman called Padma, who had me sat down on a gurney with a bag of blood running into my arm before she finished introducing herself. “I’m going to have to knock you out to get that off,” she said, indicating the crushed remnant of the Zamok’s bracer.

“Can you leave me awake?” I asked, watching a couple of tough guys bind up the Winnower more thoroughly and carry her away somewhere. I noticed Doc Laggard was here too, though he was busy looking over Bodine. A good-looking man watched over his shoulder, his bodybuilder’s physique contrasting with the distraught look on his face. “There’s a lot going on right now.”

She rolled her eyes, probably having heard it before. “We’ll try it with a local, but it’s your funeral.” She shot me up with something that felt like it did nothing at all for the pain and got to work. When she loosened the tourniquet she took one look at all the blood welling up and cinched it back down with enough force to bring tears to me eyes. From then on I wished I really was dead as she peeled all the little bits and pieces of broken armor off. I took a glance at what was under all of it and regretted it. It looked like I’d stuck it in an industrial can opener. I was suprised nothing fell off. She drained that whole bag and most of another into me before she was done.

“Since you’re apparently so busy, I’ll do a quick patch job instead of real stitches.” Padma got out a big jar of something and started brushing it onto my arm like paint. Clear, gooey, and full of little strands, it reminded me of fiberglass auto-body filler, or maybe the gluey carstoppers the K-block cops launched at us.

“The strings in there will tend to find the cuts and pull them closed. Not quite as good as sutures, but it’ll hold things together. The media is antiseptic, too. Bend your arm and hold it away from your body, please.” I did, and she shone a blacklight all over it. I felt the coating thicken into a rubbery gel. It pulled a little tighter too, keeping pressure on everything. She took the tourniquet off again, and we both watched to see what would happen- but the shell held. Finally she glued and bandaged a few other small cuts I hadn’t even noticed until then. That done she set her tools down and gave me a serious look, her dark eyes boring into mine. “Now, Sawyer, I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m not sure if you can keep that arm.”

I winced. Even given my healing abilities, I was worried about that myself. “I’ll have a real fix-up done as soon as I can.”

“Even so.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what did that to you, but…”

“I got filleted, I know.”

“Even real nano might not be able to salvage the muscle.” We both glanced down at it. The fibers were already doing their job, matting up around the lacerations. “We’ll hope for the best, of course, but once gangrene sets in there’s nothing we can do.”

I nodded, knowing I was too shellshocked to really comprehend the loss of a limb. All I could think was that they’d need something with a little more sauce than an electric bonesaw to take it off. “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” I finally said.

“So long as you’re thinking about it.” She put her hand on my shoulder for a moment, then got up. “I’d better go look at your boss before he forgets he’s hurt.”

I carefully rose to my feet as she hurried off. Keeping my arm tight to my chest, I looked around and noticed Ximena leaning up against a pillar with one arm in a splint and sling. She held her neck stiff and straight, only looking around with her eyes, but she was upright and awake.

“How bad did you get it, Ximi?” I said by way of greeting.

“Feels like I was in a car wreck.” She raised an eyebrow and I snorted. “Broke my humerus, but that’s the worst of it. I mean, this’ll scar, probably-“ she pointed at the glued-up cut on her cheek “-and my neck feels like someone tried to twist it off, but I’ll be fine. All this on my head’s Bodine’s.” I looked and saw her short hair was matted with blood. A good amount of it, in fact.

I winced. “How is he?” Laggard was still over there shining a penlight in Bodine’s eyes. The other man- brother, friend, boyfriend?- watched, looking even more upset.

“Alive, but he’s not waking up,” she said, voice morose.

“Shit. I hope Lag can do something for him.”

“Walker takes care of his people.” That reassured me. I knew it was true. “He’ll get whatever he needs.”

“Right,” I sighed.

Ximena glanced over at me as best her neck would allow. “Don’t sweat it too bad. We got bushwhacked. And it sounds like you’re why we even got out of there.” She nodded down at my arm.

“I got lucky. We all did.” What would have happened if it was anyone else there in my spot? Someone normal?

She breathed out long and slow. “Sometimes that’s what it takes. You got a smoke?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Damn it, Sawyer, you’re supposed to be on top of things.” It wasn’t funny, but I laughed anyway. Sometimes it’s the thought that counts.

Walker came over then, finally done with his slab. Without being asked he gave Ximi a burner and got it lit for her.

“Thanks, boss.”

“You got it. Sorry this ended up bein’ such a kingsdamn horrorshow.”

“Occupational hazard.” Ximi and I said it at the same time. Walker shook his head and continued.

“We got the Winnower locked down somewhere safe. Wasn’t leavin’ her here in case she’s chipped. Who wants to come and have a word with her?”

“I’ll go,” I told him. In for a chit, in for a whole card.

“With all due respect, Walker, I’m going to smoke this thing down to the butt, and then I’m going to go to bed.” Couldn’t blame her for that. I was ready to sleep too.

“You flag one of my people down here, Ximena, and they’ll give you a ride wherever you got to go,” Walker told her. “Ready, Sharkie?”

I nodded and waved a goodbye to Ximi, then let Walker take me to his car. We headed northeast, not far from where we’d met the Montesquieu. “You good, Sharkie?” he asked quietly once we were underway.

“Enough. Padma got me topped up.” The painkillers built into the cast were finally starting to work too. It was almost tolerable now.

“Good, good.” He hesitated. “I really am sorry about that mess. Never would have thought in a million years they’d have the Winnower on deck.”

“I figured that one out already. You looked ready to shit when she showed up.”

“And who wouldn’t? I thought we were dead.” Now he gave me a one of those cagey looks. “I’m guessin’ your little…skeletal issue helped you win?”

“Yeah. I’d have no arm instead of a fucked-up one, otherwise.” It wasn’t just that. There was that weird coldness, too, that chill from within. I’d felt it fighting the Winnower, fighting Ravelay, once even- now that I thought about it- fighting my supposed sister Arcadia. It had helped me push through the electricity from Ravelay’s knives and stopped Arcadia doing who knew what to me with a touch. Something else going on here for sure.

Walker stopped the car outside a derelict apartment building on the outskirts of Six Lords Town. A couple other Bones vics were already there, but otherwise the area was dark and dead. The nearest lifelights had to be almost a mile behind us. The Pall was thin overhead, dull red light crackling through like meat under char. I hopped out and followed Walker inside, nodding at the hard-faced soldiers waiting just inside the door. We went through a dry-rotted door and down a flight of stairs into the basement. Waiting there in a room with a dirt floor and walls of crumbling brick was the Winnower, tied to a heavy steel chair beneath a lamp. It being bolted to the floor told me this place was purpose-built. Here was another side of the business I had an easier time not thinking about. Her ankles were shackled to the chair’s legs, her left wrist behind the back. Her right arm, still attached by a few blackish strings like electrical wires, was tied to a steel pillar with what looked like a mile of aramid cord. Someone had pulled off her mask, too.

“So you’re still alive. I’m glad.” Her eyes lit on me immediately, a small smile crossing her face. She didn’t look evil, if such a thing was possible. She was a bit older than I would have thought, with a scattering of freckles across her cheeks and dark brown hair clipped short. Despite being an infamous menschenjaeger she looked like anyone you’d meet on the street. She was even good-looking, in a scary-teacher sort of way. None of that made it any harder for me to hate her. Her eyes were green, almost luminous. Or maybe more than almost, because my own cybernetic eye could pick up the Yakkorp logos etched around the irises.

I glared into them but she just seemed bored. “I must say, this is a strange reversal. Usually you insects are on the other end of things, if I’m dealing with you at all.”

Walker wasn’t inclined to bandy words. “Just confirm some things for me. Who hired you and why?”

She smirked. “Please. After this debacle my reputation will be in shambles. I won’t add breaking client confidentiality on top of that.”

I would have crossed my arms if I could. Walker just frowned deeper. “Your rep oughta be the least of your worries. You aren’t gettin’ out of here alive, let’s be clear. All that’s left to decide is the, say, manner of your passing. You got enough chrome to make conventional methods difficult, granted. But in some ways that makes it easier. Bionic interfaces’re hooked straight into the nervous system, right? I know some people who can take advantage of that. Plug a computer in, run the right programs...hell. You’ll wish you were just gettin’ skinned.”

The Winnower was completely unfazed, which I grudgingly found impressive. I was fazed and I wasn’t even the one tied up. I didn’t mention the fact that torture was supposed to be worthless when it came to getting answers- good ones, at least. It was probably a psych-out on Walker’s part.

But the Winnower just shook her head, as if at an unruly kid. “There’s no need for all this hostility. I’m contracted by the hour, you know? As of, hm, twenty-three minutes ago I have no quarrel with you at all. Unfortunate about your friends, of course, but that’s just business. I’m sure you understand.”

My first instinct was to freak out. Just business? I knew Willy and she’d murdered him. How many Blue Division could say the same about you? came the though from some smug part of my mind. A vestigial conscience, maybe. It had a point- but then again, she was tied to the chair and I wasn’t. That was just business too.

My face must have shown some of this, because the Winnower’s sharp Yakkorp eyes fixed on me. “And you. I don’t know who you are, but now I feel I really ought to. How did you keep my PIN from tearing you up? You certainly aren’t augmented, not to that degree.”

“Your pin?” I asked on reflex. Walker gave me a look but said nothing.

“I’m asking the questions here,” the Winnower said with maddening confidence. “Now how did you do it? You tell, then I will.”

“This is gettin’ nowhere,” sighed Walker. “Guess I’m callin’ in the racktechs. Creepy fuckers,” he finished in a mutter.

“I’m telling you, there’s no need for such-ah.” The Winnower interrupted herself. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“Why?” I asked, wondering if I was falling into some kind of trap.

She grinned, flashing perfect artifical teeth. “My ride is here. Let’s continue this chat under better circumstances.”

“What are you-“ The roar of engines cut Walker off. Not cars or trucks or even Karakal armored personnel carriers. This hurricane of noise came from straight above. A VTOL. “Shit. Stay low, boys,” he spat into a throat mic. “Nothin’ you can do against that thing.”

“That’s right,” the Winnower said smugly. “I think you’d better untie me.”

“Oh, f-“ He didn’t get to finish, because another noise interrupted him. A growl like an angle grinder with a dying battery came from the middle of the room, right over the Winnower. We all froze. By the look on her face she wasn’t expecting it either. It rose in tone, higher and higher and higher until it reached inaudibility- then there was a dull blue flash and a noise like a slamming door. Walker and I stared dully. Up above, the aircraft purred away. But the Winnower…

I didn’t even know how to describe this one. She’d been split in half from the head down almost to the waist, but it wasn’t a clean cut. It was like something had…I don’t know, burned or dissolved her away in a V-shape, with the wide end at her mostly-gone head. The edges of the affected area were crusted with a dull gray powder, and past that frost crackled on her skin. She was very dead, that was for sure. Walker slowly turned to face me, and I shook my head. No clue, buddy.

Then we jumped as her arm moved. Not the one still attached, but the one Fidi mostly shot off, the one with her string in it. It twitched again and I saw the string itself, pushing out from under her fingernail. Just a short length of it, maybe six inches. Almost impossible to look at, like a crease in the world. It fell slowly to the floor, formed itself into a complex spiral shape, then tipped up on edge and rolled straight for the stairs.

“Sweet fuckin’ Sia!” Walker jumped about to the ceiling, shocked back into motion. I lunged for the thing, forgetting until too late about my arm. My good hand missed it. My other hit the floor with an agonizing jolt, trapping the spiral string under it. It wiggled around under my palm, weirdly frictionless- then speared right through the cast and into my cut.