For the second time in as many hours Keri found herself struggling to keep her hands from trembling as she prepared for the opening of a door that was all that stood between herself and the Butcher. Both Andreas and Cassandra had come down with her, standing a short distance back down the corridor away from the heavy, round steel door. Andreas carried his ancient pistol in his hand, refusing to leave it behind despite the protests of the others. It was better than nothing, he insisted.

Ok, thought Keri, taking a deep breath.

She raised her eyes towards the ceiling, giving a nod towards the general area she thought the camera graft must be. One of the few developments in technology since the Body Butcher era, the millimetres-thin patches were invisible at any distance, yet reproduced imagery as fine as any high resolution lens. They remained a rarity even today.

“Open it,” she said.

Nothing happened for several seconds. Abruptly the door gave a sudden jerk, some unseen mechanism within the walls shifting into gear, and began slowly rolling up and to the right. As it retracted into a long, narrow slot in the wall the room beyond came into view, the whole space wider than had been apparent from the camera footage. Directly ahead was the giant cylindrical generator, a pillar from floor to ceiling that radiated power even when inactive, and lying unmoving and face down in front of that was the Butcher

She swallowed hard over the lump that was suddenly in her throat, lifting legs that felt as if they were actively resisting her efforts to step over the boundary between corridor and room. It was all she could do not to close her eyes in fear.

She stepped in, letting out a startled cry when the door behind began to close.

Calm down, she told herself over the thundering drum of her heartbeat. That was always the plan.

She stood, muscles locked with tension, until the door closed with a thud. Even after all movement had ceased and the room was filled with nothing but a heavy silence it was hard to relax enough to raise her arms. She activated her corps.

The pale blue lines of light flickered on in front of her, the numerous tiny screen-in-screen objects that would normally signal incoming messages or news blank, a ‘no signal’ message blinking in and out of existence in their place. Menus pulled up as usual as she flexed her muscles, though many were greyed out and inoperable, but she ignored these and quickly snapped through to NC messaging.

She almost smiled. Near Contact messaging was a direct corps-to-corps service you used in childhood, the corps newly implanted, when the simple ability to message nearby friends was exciting and fresh. No one used the function after that; there was simply no reason to use NC messaging when the more familiar, Terminal-routed messaging service was equally as fast, and could carry far more contextual data.

The corps responded to the tiny movements of her fingers, registering the slightest twitch of even individual flexor tendons. Such fine control of these infinitesimal gestures would seem impossible to someone who had not grown up with the corps, yet came naturally to anyone who had. Keri did not have to think about the movements she made.

The message she sent contained no information; it was a data ping, nothing more. It would register on another nearby corps and identify who had pinged it, but was otherwise empty. Of course the Butcher would have no corps, but it had somehow communicated with her via NC before.

The prostrate Butcher did not move. Keri forced herself to breathe, each inhalation a slow struggle to overcome a fear that was almost paralysing.

A barely perceptible vibration in her corps. She had been pinged back.

Alive? she typed.

She sent the message invisibly back towards the still motionless figure.

Another ping.

Yes.

She stared, first at the words on the display in front of her, then at the sprawled form ahead of her.

Can't you move? she sent.

There was pause for a few second, then a reply.

If I move, those watching are likely to activate the field generator in their panic. That would not be good.

Keri let out a deep breath. She had just learnt two things: one, that the Butcher could communicate on NC without any physical movement, and two, that it could see more than just the room it was inside. How..?

“The stickscreen feeds,” she said in realisation. “You’re using the stickscreen feeds to see what's happening.”

Yes, came the reply. I can see your friends, and they look extremely nervous.

“They should be,” Keri said, speaking now. “That would be the correct response when dealing with something like you.”

Keri looked upwards to where she believed the camera graft to be, slowly raising a hand.

“Don't activate the generator yet,” she did firmly, making sure her lips moved slowly and visibly.

She hoped the others were paying attention, and that they were willing to go along with her. There was no way to know what they were thinking back there.

“Get up,” she said, turning back to the Butcher.

She wondered if she had done the right thing as the Butcher slowly began to rise. As in Triton, it rose from the ground in a way no human could, using its arms only to correct its angle enough that its entire upper torso could be lifted by the lower half of its body, bending and folding in ways that would require an entirely redesigned skeleton for a human. By the time it had fully righted itself, the Butcher stood at least two heads taller than Keri.

But as in Triton, that wasn't what most grabbed Keri. It was the eyes.

How anything so utterly monstrous could have eyes like that she didn't know. They were soft, brown, and tinged with an immeasurable sadness that stood in complete contrast to the hard metallic enhancements that wound over its youthful features. There was something about those eyes… Though she had seen how fast the aug could move, she didn't feel threatened. The anger, the defiance it had radiated in their previous encounters was gone.

“I only wanted the sphere,” it said. Its voice was smooth, as youthful as the features that produced it. “I was meant to have it.”

“Well, it’s been wiped now,” said Keri, glancing over at where it lay nearby on the floor. “The fields it was exposed to will have destroyed anything that was stored on it.”

The eyes of the Butcher hardened for a second as it met her gaze.

“Do not try to deceive me,” it said, before its voice became once more resigned. “I knew it could not be the original before I entered the room. You have spent far too long protecting it to destroy it so casually, but even the slightest probability that I was wrong meant I had to take the chance.”

Something in her posture had made the lie obvious, Keri thought. She saw no reason to continue with the deception.

“No, it wasn't. That sphere was just a similar model, filled with noncoding data. Junk. The real sphere is enclosed in an MFC where you cannot detect it.”

“Only you just told me how to find it,” said the Butcher.

Keri swore inside at her mistake. All it would have to do was identify those areas its scanners could not penetrate, and it would know the sphere’s location. But the Butcher made no move.

“Do not worry,” he continued.[1] “As long as your companion keeps his hand above the button that activates this generator, I have no choice but to remain extremely still.”

As he spoke the Butcher looked up to the ceiling, towards a completely different patch to where Keri had looked. Keri knew without a doubt that this was where the camera graft was.

She really hoped the Programmer kept his hand above the button.

“I am not sure how much more of that I could take. Perhaps only a little more…” A hint of silver framed his eyes, and he seemed to smile. “…perhaps a lot.”

“Why are you doing all this?” she asked.

The Butcher stared at her, silent.

“Where have you been all this time? Why did you attack the Terminal?”

The final question drew a reaction.

“Why?” The Butcher said, and Keri thought she heard anger in his voice. “Why? Because you don't deserve it! I will not allow it!”

The skin of his face between and beneath the metal flushed red. The Butcher took one step forward, his eyes glossing over with a silver that seemed to emerge from beneath the cornea, not around it, before he suddenly stopped, stepping back.

“Ah… I apologise,” he said, looking first at her and then the place the camera graft must be.

Keri, beneath the thunderous drumming of her heartbeat and cold sweat of terror, found herself conflicted. She was relieved that the generator had not been activated, yet part of her was furious for the same reason. How much of a chance were they going to give the Butcher?

“We don’t deserve it?” she said, managing to keep the fear from her voice.

“No,” said the Butcher, calmer, silver draining from its eyes. “I have watched for so long, watched as this stagnant world was built upon the bones of people far better than any of you. Upon the bones of my friends. As you go further down the same road you forbid to us, further than we ever did! No…” He looked down. “You do not deserve it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. You don’t want to understand. None of you do.”

“I do,” said Keri forcefully. “I want to, ok? I need to.”

The Butcher slowly lowered itself to the floor so that it sat, cross-legged and still.

“You do not need me to tell you,” he said. "All you need is to face the reality you wilfully ignore. Find the truth for yourself, not from me. That is all we ever wanted.”

The Butcher’s eyes were completely brown again, turned down to the floor.

“I will be waiting.”

[1] and, in the recesses of Keri’s mind, it had already become ‘he.’