Erid watched the mayhem he had caused spread through the lower districts of Arbistrad. He had broken a gas line and then arranged a little bit of pyrotechnics, setting off all the alarms as he went to clear out any stragglers. It wasn’t too dangerous, the people above it wouldn’t suffocate or be caught up in the size of the explosion. He’d been a part of some sabotage that hadn’t worked out so smoothly, and the sight of people suffocating on the fumes of toxic flammable materials, even if they were ‘the enemy’ was not something he ever wanted to repeat: particularly if it wasn’t ‘the enemy’ but instead those other people, swept up in the machinations of powers that they had no defense or recourse against. The resultant blast was something! He was impressed. He watched as the explosion took care of itself, leaving a mess in its wake, and the council moved in to put out the spot fires and stop any other damage. He hoped that it had been enough to let Kaleb and Essan get away.

Erid spent the rest of the cycle idly waiting for someone to find him, but nobody did. There wouldn’t be any more excitement, it seemed, and either the arson had been discovered but not investigated thoroughly, or hadn’t been discovered as such at all. He speculated that the council had enough on its plate, and he supposed that Arleigne’s leftovers were stretched thin and without her abilities, they didn’t have a hope in hell of tracking anyone. The true reason for the curious absence of retribution soon became apparent, however, when he left his hole to go and get on one of the mistships – those ships didn’t brook any delays in their schedules after all, and a small fire and rumors of arson wouldn’t be enough to delay any of them. He stepped out of his space and into the walkways, and he first noticed the change in the atmosphere of the place. It reminded him of those bells and cycles immediately after Arleigne’s death. It wasn’t because of his fire, either. Such events usually lead to a community and collective experience, he found. People gather at small fires, and at big fires and disasters they practically forge the heart of their shared bonds, whether it be through misfortune or mutual aid. Yet there was no communality and tired workers in evidence here. Instead, there was a fractious and dangerous edge to the rushing figures he did encounter, and there was few enough of them as it was. Rather, the reason for the odd lack of activity in town after such an attack was the presence of another force. They were on the walkways, and watching on corners. They were not the town’s, nor were they Arleigne’s former comrades. They were in uniforms too clean and nice to belong out here, and on every face was a mask with a single off-centre eye in an otherwise featureless curved form. He knew those formless faces. Within him rose a feeling that hadn’t emerged since that moment, all those cycles ago, when he had lost everything important to him… he quickly shut it down. But it remained there, locked behind whatever doors he could erect. AG Industries was prowling the town.

They must have rode in after the explosion. They couldn’t have been waiting for something like this, could they? Perhaps they saw a moment of confusion that they could exploit. Perhaps they had started moving when Arleigne died? That seemed likely. Maybe it was worse than he’d thought. Perhaps – even though she was a right piece of work – perhaps she was keeping AG in check, somehow. He joined the hurrying stragglers, kept his head down and did his best to stay out of the way of the patrols. They weren’t common nor numerous, but with a reputation like AG’s, you didn’t need to send anything else. He was sure that the team they’d sent would have been enough to wipe Arbistrad off the map anyway. It could even be one of their rare specialist teams capable of taking him out – nearly as easily as he might deal with Arleigne’s thugs. Erid’s departure would have to wait. He needed to see more of what was happening in this town first.

The only problem was that there didn’t seem to be much by way of information. AG had come, and no one seemed to know why. They weren’t taking control of the town, the mayor was ‘hosting’ AG, they hadn’t taken any action to put down Arleigne’s thugs, who had wisely decided to turn invisible. A possible answer – of the worst kind – appeared when he returned to Essan’s bar. As he approached, he noticed the thickening of AG’s presence, their careful looks. He avoided them all, and kept to roofs and byways and the shadows. He suppressed his field, disappearing from all but the most advanced of sensory fields, thinking as he did that he would have to teach Kaleb that trick too. As he got nearer, a pit of dread opened up in his stomach, and he barely glimpsed, from his hiding spot, that the place had been ransacked. The door hung off its hinges, crushed by a mighty blow of a field. From what he could see, everything was being pored over with forensic curiosity. The appearance of AG now made sense. They were hunting – hunting for brethren. Perhaps they were even hunting specifically for him. Erid gulped, and felt cold sweat erupt on his brow. He didn’t know what resources were being brought to bear against him. He knew that they’d at least dealt a blow to the corporation, with their last, ill-fated campaign, but this seemed far too delayed for retaliatory activity. If they knew where they’d been, why not strike when they were there? This was a puzzling turn of events. It was something new and different, and whenever the corporations like AG did something new and different he was inclined to tread carefully. He faded back into the shadows and then ran to other less prominent bolt holes. He would have to make his own way out of Arbistrad, no mistship would be safe for him if AG was on the prowl, and then he would have to get in touch with Essan and Kaleb and alert them of the danger. But first, he should really find out the scope of the danger itself. It was time for a bit more reconnaissance.

“And so what do you have to report?” Saillien was up near the head of HR, and his soldiers moved with the fluidity of serious command. Haws could tell that this man meant business. That he would go far in AG. It wasn’t a very comforting thought. He’d rather not be involved with them at all.

“She’s not to be trusted. She was the one who killed Arleigne, not the brethren. I’m not sure how she coordinated with them, but it must have been arranged.”

“But has she made contact with them.”

“... it’s difficult to tell. She keeps her distance”

“And watches them?”

“Yes”

“Any discrepancies in her reports”

“None except for the way those slimy buggers disappear without a trace, not even she can do anything about that. I’d give a man my right hand if they could tell me how they do that. If we didn’t know all their locations courtesy of our friend, we’d be truly out in the cold.”

“Yes, but that isn’t our concern… There are other divisions working on that. And making surprising progress. The edge that the brethren have on us… soon, Hawth, I think we’ll see a new golden age of capacitance, and AG will lead that age, and not even the brethren will be able to stand against us.”

“Why don’t you just up and squash ‘em, if you’re so sure?”

“We’re not there yet. I mean we could, I suppose, but not without a lot of collateral. We don’t yet have an overwhelming advantage, and I don’t think you want to be a sacrifice to an over-eager command structure, do you?”

Hawth sullenly shook his head.

“But we’re going to test something soon, Hawth, preparations are being made, and we need all the pieces to come together how we imagine they will. We’re going with the plan to use her. We’re 78% sure that she’s the mole in AG. You know your orders. Stay hidden. Keep watch. I’ll be in touch.”

“Of course.”

Yolanda watched as AG moved into Arbistrad. She’d lost track of Erid at some point. He disappeared sometimes. She didn’t know how he did it, but it was a neat trick. She’d called them, AG that is, after she’d killed Arleigne. She hadn’t told them that bit, just that Arleigne was dead. She’d called them again for a regular check-in, and they’d informed her that they would be moving. She had acknowledged it. She had been prepared… she supposed… to let those two… or rather, those three know. But she did not have to, in the end, they’d decided to leave right on time. Instead she’d found herself with that blade in her hand, saving that stupid kid, the eponymous number three. How that had worked out she just didn’t understand. What did they see in taking on such a liability now? He was weak, he could hardly defend himself… though, she thought, if all it takes to knock out a spiked thug is a week of training with the brethren… maybe he won’t be such a liability in another few. But that blade. The blade she’d been given, the blade she’d used… She looked at it now, resting in her hand, flawless and dark as the deepest shadows. It was a beautiful, extraordinary thing. The thug’s field hadn’t even put up a resistance to it, it had slid right through his body, his flesh and his bones as if they were so much butter. She thought back to that right hand, the right hand the blade had emerged from, and the man whose hand it was. Nobody gave away a power they couldn’t overcome – what strength was contained in that malformed imitation of a hand?

She shook her head and watched the movements of the troops. They hadn’t tried to make contact with her, and her mission remained the same. She was to follow the brethren and report on their location. She supposed that she should get on with it and follow the mistship, even though Erid was not yet following them, she assumed that he would. She wondered, for the upteenth time, if she should just give up and throw in completely with them. She was beginning to feel the precarity of her situation. She stood up from her hiding place and then set off into the mists. She would wait for a thick cloud to roll in and then she’d make her move, hopefully there’d be a few others thinking the same thing. They could keep AG entertained while she made her getaway.

The end of that cycle found her outside Arbistrad, asleep against a hollow in a pillar in the endless field. She dreamed again of two girls sitting on an outcrop on a pillar, of the colourful shrubs and twiggy brush around them.

“Do you love me?”

She was asked for another iteration of this endless cycle, and just like every time before, she was sincere as she nodded.

“If you love me, why won’t you come back?... If you love me, help me… If you love me, why don’t you kill me”

She woke up shaking, the black knife gripped tightly in her hands.