Horizon stood up straight and concentrated on her enhanced senses, her augmented brain took in sounds, smells, vibrations, and magnetic signatures and compiled them into a three-dimensional map updated continually in real time. She couldn’t perceive any sign of more SWAT mechs anywhere near the warehouse, there were plenty of people walking about outside, heading back to work after the end of the long night. But they were alone in the warehouse, not one thing breathed in the entire building save for Horizon and Shawn.

Once the vole had healed enough to walk he staggered over to the container full of computers that Qali had shown them. “Oh good, it’s intact,” Shawn bent down to inspect the gold quantum core, right where Horizon had left it. The other machines had not fared so well, shards of plastic and silicon littered the floor and evaporating coolant billowed out of bullet holes.

Horizon fought back the urge to punch Shawn and smash the core, Jenny was gone thanks to this little venture, was that little ball and the data inside really worth everything that had just happened? But there wouldn’t be any point to smashing their prize after all they’d done to get it. She sighed and addressed Shawn, “let’s just go find the power lifters and get that thing out of here.”

“There are two security exo-suits lying unused just a few aisles down,” Samantha whispered to Horizon.

There’s corpses in them, Horizon thought back at her, a faint scowl crossing her features.

“Easily removed,” the AI replied. “And you won’t be bothered as much if disguised as a SWAT officer.”

Horizon tried to remember how much damage she’d inflicted on the armor, will we be able to repair them before reinforcements arrive?

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Sam added.

Shawn cleared his throat, “uh, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Horizon insisted. “Would a SWAT suit be able to lift the core?”

“I guess so,” Shawn thought out loud. “Wait, do you have one on hand?”

“I… took care of the other two SWAT agents,” Horizon said uneasily. She led Shawn over to where she’d left the exo-suits she’d cracked open, along with their occupants.

The vole looked visibly sickened at the sight of blood flowing out of the suits. When he actually knelt down to examine the hole she’d made in the suit the color faded from his ears and nose. “Oh, my archons,” he gasped. “What did you do to them?”

“I was in survival mode,” Horizon explained with a deep tone of regret. “I’m actually not sure what I did.”

Shawn gulped loudly as he peeled back the loose panel the cyborg had torn open. “Ugh, it looks like you ripped out a chunk of his back somehow. Are those his ribs? How strong are you?”

Horizon flexed her metal-tipped fingers, the fur covering them now substantially redder than usual. “Not strong enough to lift that core by myself. Is that armor usable or not?”

Shawn tried to focus on the edges of the loose panel, “I think so, yeah, it looks like you tore open an access panel rather than anything structurally important.” He stopped and tried to flick off some gore that had collected on his fingers in extreme disgust.

“Would you like me to remove the bodies for you?” Horizon offered. She didn’t want to touch the bloody corpses much either, but she felt responsible for them and that she could handle it better than him.

“No, I think I can handle this.” He found a release switch and popped the shoulder joints, causing the torso to open at the scapulas and release the helmet’s collar. Carefully he slipped the helmet off, revealing a white-furred canine face bearing a vacant expression with one eye still half-open, dead as a doornail. “Okay, that’s kind of freaky,” Shawn admitted. He shifted his hands under the corpse’s armpits and started to lift upwards.

As Shawn slowly lifted the body out of the exo-suit he started to make short sniffing sounds. “What’s that smell?” he inquired just before the odor hit her own nostrils.

She recognized the stench from a time on board the Dustbin when the waste recycling systems had broken down. “I don’t think you want to know,” she informed him.

The vole finished yanking the corpse out of the exo-suit, leaving a brownish-red streak on the floor as he dragged it away. “Are you sure you want to wear this thing?” Shawn asked.

Horizon imagined sticky biological substances sliding against her body, caking her fur, she quickly checked her jumpsuit’s integrity. When she saw that the last few tears the agents’ weapons had opened were all but sealed again she breathed a sigh of relief.

Samantha’s avatar appeared standing over the corpse. “You know, your immune system could handle any infections you might pick up.” She glanced down at the trail of biological matter leading from the exo-suit. “Though, admittedly, if we weren’t pressed for time I would advise dousing the thing in bleach.”

Horizon glowered at the illusion, “this here is why I don’t like you taking over!”

“Technically speaking,” the AI countered. “That was his job.” She pointed to the half-open jaw at the end of her tail.

“You’re attached!” Horizon retorted. “I wouldn’t have to deal with you if not for him!”

“Uh,” Shawn spoke up and the raccoon turned around swiftly to address him. “Who are you talking to?”

Horizon considered whether to tell him about her AI. She was fully aware that she might sound insane, but he had the microbots in his system too. Is he going to develop an AI like you? She subvocalized.

“It will take a while without a dedicated augmentation platform to assist,” Samantha informed her. “The brain-computer interface should develop in a month or two, but it’ll be the better part of a Jord year before there’s enough computronium in his CNS to support an AI shadow.”

Horizon grumbled, deciding that he needed to know. “My FedTech implants contain intelligent algorithms that initially formed a sort of artificial subconscious. A couple weeks ago me and Jenny managed to give it an avatar.” She watched as Shawn’s eyes slowly widened in dawning comprehension. “You should be fine for some months yet, I was submerged in a tube full of microbots while you just have the few that leaked into your wounds.”

Shawn stared back, mouth wide open in shock. “Are you serious? Is there a way to remove them?” He stared at the blood stains on the ground. “Wait, what are we trying to hack with the quantum core? Is it your microbots?”

“I don’t know exactly what it is,” Horizon explained reluctantly. “There is a data module full of Federation data that I strongly suspect was gathered by one of my crew mates.” She sighed, whiskers drooping. “As is it’s our best chance of fixing this.”

The vole started to say something, then stopped. He tried to object again but apparently couldn’t think of anything to say in response. On his third attempt he just said “okay, let’s just get that thing up and running and get out of here.”

Horizon lifted the exo-suit up and started finagling her way into it, she slipped one leg in and then another, trying to ignore the sticky feeling of body fluids covering her legs. The unpowered suit was incredibly stiff and heavy, she doubted she could manage this without her augmented strength. She presumed that there was some kind of scaffolding to help wearers get into their exo-suits back at the base. As she slid her right arm into the suit’s arm she finagled her fingers into the glove and tried to flex them, only to feel resistance from the material.

What’s going on? She inquired of Samantha.

“The synthetic muscles aren’t powered up,” the AI responded. “You’ll have to seal it up before activating the suit.”

Horizon tried to bend the arm back, fighting the stiffness all the way. But even with her strength she couldn’t reach back to buckle the shoulders shut. “Shawn,” she called out, “I’m going to need your help with this.”

Shawn slowly approached her from behind, trying to avoid the blood puddles. He took hold of the panel on the back with both hands and grunted, lifting the heavy panel up. “I’m certainly not as strong as you yet,” he grumbled as he fastened the shoulder clasps.

“With luck you won’t need to be,” Horizon commented as she flexed her left arm in the sleeve. “Now do the helmet.”

The exo-suit’s helmet dropped down over Horizon’s head, a blood splatter covered the lower left corner of the tinted corundum visor. As the neck ring sealed the raccoon tried to turn her head to the right, only to encounter the same resistance as when she tried flexing the fingers. Samantha? How do I turn this thing on?

“Let’s see...” Samantha trailed off. “It looks like the original wearers used a short-range wireless BCI to operate this suit. I should be able to brute force it in…”

Horizon waited for three minutes, standing stiffly in place. Well?

“This is military-grade encryption,” the AI retorted. “It’s still just Tiere-system junk but… ah there it is!”

The visor lit up with a half-dozen readouts and gauges: Power supply, suit integrity, power usage, weapon ammunition… Horizon curled her hand into a fist, the powered synth-muscle responded as smoothly as her own digits. She lifted one foot and began to turn around, heading back to pick up the core.

She found Shawn trying to push the core across the concrete floor, not finding much purchase on the rough-textured surface. He looked up as she approached, “Horizon?”

“Yes, it’s me,” Horizon replied. She reached down and lifted the quantum core with one hand. It still felt quite heavy, but manageable.

“You were still for a while,” the vole continued. “Are you okay?”

“It took a while for my AI to hack into the suit,” she shifted the core so she could carry it in both hands. “Honestly, I’m a little astonished that it was able to hack it that quickly.”

The two of them exited the warehouse carrying the core. As Tiere’s sun peeked around Surt the various people dashing to early morning jobs or leaving long night shifts largely ignored the figure in the armored exo-suit and her companion. They’d learned long ago that paying no mind to the work of the Company’s security forces was in their best interests.

Horizon and Shawn were less than a third of the way back to the van they’d borrowed from the Friendly Society when Sam got Horizon’s attention. “Problem,” she said. “It seems that Company dispatch has noticed us.”

What are they saying? Horizon inquired, worry showing in her mental voice.

“For the moment it sounds like they think we’re the officer who was wearing this suit,” Sam answered. “I’ve disabled the bio-monitors so they won’t report back your physiological “abnormalities.” If you want I could try passing as the officer and blame the unresponsive bio-monitors on battlefield damage causing a false report of his death.”

Horizon gave it a moment’s thought. Well, I don’t exactly have any better ideas. Maybe claim to have been knocked unconscious and the suspects fled before “I” woke up?

“That could work,” Samantha paused for a few moments. Horizon continued walking towards the van until the AI finally spoke again. “Uh, apparently the surviving officer reported, and this is a direct quote, “that ghul ripped out his heart and ate it!”

Horizon stopped in her tracks at that. Did I?

“Well, you didn’t eat it,” Sam’s attempt at reassurance was only half-successful. “Should I suggest that the survivor exaggerated?”

These suits have video recorders right? Horizon asked. Actually, she revised, it might buy us some time if you insist they review the video. She resumed walking, at an accelerated pace.

“Done,” Sam replied. She didn’t bother the raccoon for another half a minute before speaking up again. “We might have another problem now.”

What?

Samantha caused a bright red box to appear around the power gauge of the exo-suit. “At the rate you’re using power, there’s a good chance that it’ll be depleted before you reach the van.” Right after she said that the battery dropped from 14% power, to 13%.

Horizon did some quick mental calculations and slowed her pace slightly. This is just great, can you disable the tracker in this suit?

“It’s isolated from the suit’s main systems,” Sam replied. “I can try to find the component emitting the signal and block it or remove it.”

Slowing down her movement seemed to slow down the power drain, but it was still worryingly low as she passed the block halfway to the van. Horizon attempted to look up and around her, but the helmet restricted her view. She heard a familiar whine coming in from the distance and wrenched her neck in the direction of the source. Is that what I think it is? She asked.

“Heavy VTOL,” Sam confirmed. “I don’t think it’s one of ours.”

Can’t afford to save power then, Horizon started practically running, even as her suit’s power reserve dropped to 11%, then 10%.

“You’re not going to make it,” Sam cautioned.

Horizon kept on stomping along. How long before the VTOL arrives?

Samantha paused for several seconds before answering. “Based on the acoustics of this atmosphere, thirty seconds.”

And if we’re out in the open then we’re dead, Horizon retorted. They can blast us from the air, would we be able to regenerate from that?

“Fair point,” Sam admitted. “Okay, I found the source of the tracking signal, I’m about to short it out. This is going to burn a little.”

Horizon felt a searing pain in her right breast, but she ignored it and kept on moving. The core was starting to feel heavy again, whether from her exhaustion or the suit losing power she did not know. The VTOL roared above her, but did not stop and kept on moving.

The power indicator flashed 1%, but Horizon finally saw their van sitting around the corner. Shawn ran out ahead and opened the back up, Horizon dashed for that last three meters…

And the helmet went dark. The armor laid heavily on her shoulders and the quantum core threatened to rip her fingers off of her hands. But it was just a few more steps to go, she lifted one foot, and then the other, and slowly moved forwards over the protestations of her burning muscles. An eternity later she was only two meters away, 1.5… and the core slipped out of her hands.

The heavy computer landed on her armored foot, it didn’t cause any damage but slid onto the snow-covered ground. She stiffly tried to bend over to pick it back up, but couldn’t quite manage it. As she was trying to pick it up again the roaring of the VTOL returned.

Shawn dashed back to her and grabbed hold of the core’s handles. “Come on!” he shouted, just barely managing to drag the heavy device through the snow.

Horizon lurched forward, pushing the core with her armored foot. The VTOL grew louder as it approached, the cyborg pulled up her last reserves of strength…

Releasing all her strength in one last burst Horizon wrenched the quantum core off the ground and into the back of the van, then collapsed onto the fender. Shawn got behind her and shoved her forcefully into the van, then slammed the doors shut just as the VTOL screamed overhead. Horizon lay there, motionless, while Shawn drove them back home.