Keri left the anonymised message where Andreas told her to, entering that half-trance state that allowed a user to send messages through the spheres even when not directly experiencing them themselves. The reply that came through a short while later was nothing more than a data ping, a notification that the message had been read containing a kernel of location information, only readable once before erasing itself completely. Keri nearly missed it.

The arranged meeting place was far from their starting point and the sun was setting, so Andreas was forced to give Keri a shot of something from the first aid kit that he assured her would perk her up for now but would, unfortunately, leave her feeling far worse later on.

It worked, flowing through her bloodstream like speed.

"Oh, because that's what it is," replied Andreas when she explained this. "Well, close enough. A stimulant, very pure as well. We keep long hours in the Kingdom sometimes, and a pick me up really helps to get you through."

Keri, eyes wide but, she realised, feeling pretty fine, shrugged it off. After all, it wasn't difficult to get your hands on licensed recreational highs out in the real world either. They weren't illegal or anything, though the paperwork and various blood-and-mucus tests you had to first submit yourself to kind of took the fun out of the whole idea. Still, she partook on occasion.

They met the modder on the road outside of town, amongst the abandoned scrub of an area long disused. He was... well, firstly, he was a she. Keri wondered why she had automatically assumed a modder would be male.

Old ideas die slowly, she guessed.

She was middle-aged, though that was only her features. How old she truly was was anybody's guess. It didn't take much to make yourself appear more youthful than your true age or, perhaps, older.

Tall, blonde, and with a hard-set jaw that brooked no nonsense, she jumped into the vehicle before it had even properly come to a halt. With six people now in the cab it began to feel very cramped indeed, despite that fact that modern cars were far wider and more spacious than traditional forms.

"Alright, so what can I do for you little data-points today?" she said, chewing on something as she spoke.

Anisa, looking back to her normal self, took the lead, explaining the situation with regards to her corps and the van without mentioning how this situation had come to be.

"Ok, let's take a look at your arm first," said the modder, using the headrests to swing herself over an angry-looking Cassandra.

"Woo-ee," The modder gave an impressed whistle as she ran some kind of scanner over Anisa's arm. "Something really did a number on you. Your corps... it's not wiped, but it's full of... garbage." She looked up at Anisa with a smile, still chewing. "Come on, tell me how this happened. I've never seen anything that could corrupt a corps like this."

"Can you fix it?" said Anisa firmly, deliberately ignoring the woman's questions.

"Fix it?" said the modder with raised eyebrows and a laugh. "Honey, I'd need my entire lab and a week just to know where to start."

"Damn," said Andreas, from behind them. "Then we need you to hack this van for us. Let it move whilst our standard friend here is sleeping." He nodded towards Keri.

"Oh, that's easy. I could do that for you in five minutes," said the woman, facing Andreas for a second. She turned back to Anisa. "But come on, hon. You've gotta tell me what did this. You look pretty bashed about; that got something to do with it? "

"Look, we've got the credits, so are you gonna do the van or not?" said Anisa, without giving an inch.

Something in the way Anisa spoke caught Keri’s attention. She didn’t know how, but she suddenly knew Anisa was lying. However much this modder would want, they didn’t have it.

The modder's eyes narrowed, but she waved her hands and said "Alright, alright, I'll get it done. Just let me get something, ok?"

And so saying, the woman was out of the cab in a flash.

"Nope, I don't like it," said Andreas. "She's up to something. I'm gonna check what it is."

And he was out the door as well.

The rest of the group sat in mystified silence for a while.

"Well, that was..." Cassandra started to say, before being interrupted.

"Alright alright, I'm back. Let's get to it, shall we?" said the modder, swinging herself up and in. She had a bag of tools slung under her arm.

She took the first one of these tools and used it to pry apart the slim dashboard at the front of the vehicle, revealing vertical rows of tiny chips. The vast majority of these were power-storage units, Keri knew, but a mass of cables and hardware near the centre was the processing unit that interfaced with the corps and ran the guidance software. It was this area the modder began working on.

"Still can't work out what would make your corps go crazy like that," said the woman as she worked. "But it's interesting. I just got a curious update on the spheres..."

Keri tensed, and saw the others do likewise.

"I've disabled the car," said the modder, voice strong and flat now, standing straight and turning to face them. She was taller than all of them, Keri realised, and intimidatingly well-built. She looked like she knew how to fight. "And I've got friends coming who are extremely interested in what you're carrying. So I suggest you step quietly outside, and we wait for them together. We don't need this to get..." and here the woman cracked her knuckles, before reaching into a pocket to reveal a vicious-looking blade that she began using to clean her nails. "...physical."

Somehow the knife was worse than a gun, Keri thought. The way it’s wickedly curved edge glinted in the artificial light of the cab made her skin tingle, as if she was already able to feel the metal plunging into her flesh. It was clearly a weapon, made for cutting people, not a utensil repurposed as such.

They filed out hesitantly, one by one, Eu placing a calming hand on Cassandra's bunched fist together with a look of caution. The modder was the last one out, smiling triumphantly.

"Good job, everybody. Now, all we have to do is remain calm and..."

Her words were cut off by a strange metallic click that, though ancient, everybody understood.

Keri spun around to see Andreas pressed up against the side of the van besides the door, where he had hidden from view, barrel of his pistol square against the side of the woman's skull.

"...all we have to do is remain calm whilst you fix the van and let us get on our way," he said.

"With that?" said the modder derisively, eyes twisting almost out of their sockets to see what was pressed against her head. "That's gotta be a hundred years old."

"A hundred and fifty, give or take," replied Andreas, and he cocked the weapon again. Despite herself, the woman flinched. "And a hole in the head is pretty timeless as well."

The modder sighed, and dropped the knife.

It only took the woman a few minutes to undo whatever it was she had done, and a few minutes more to lift the restrictions on the vehicle entirely. Now the auto-drive feature would work regardless of the state of the corps’ operator.

"Good," said Andreas. "Now, Keri, if you don't mind, let's get this thing going. Set it heading somewhere far from here, and don't let this bitch see."

Keri did as she was asked, whilst the modder asked what they were going to do with her.

"Kick you out once we're far enough away that your mates won't be able to pick you up easily. For now, shut up."

Andreas was furious, Keri thought, a sudden wave of heaviness passing over her. She was crashing, hard.

The last thing she heard before the darkness enveloped her was the modder being kicked out of the door at speed, a fountain of curses chasing after them as they sped off into the night.