“Should be fine if you stay behind me,” Martin said. He clapped her on the shoulder and lumbered off to the exit. His physique was powerful, reassuring, a vast back augmented in so many implants it refused to bend from the weight of danger.

  Mal gave one last look to the unloved cephalopod and followed. The corridors were empty, silent, all the false animals left abandoned, and she kept her eye to the ground in front of her. She counted the tiles, avoided the cracks. It wasn’t long before they heard a gunshot, three, ten, a couple dozen. They found the first bodies near the lobby; a kid was sprawled out, clutching a stuffed beaver, his chest a wreckage of cloth scraps and the drainage of life—the mother, frozen, forever reaching for what was gone. Mal swallowed and stepped over, her boots leaving a trail of imprints in their blood. What a senseless waste, and for what? If it was necessary to kill, then kill the oppressors, the defenders of the system. But a child who loved the sea so much they forced their mother to take them on a workday afternoon to see a bland approximation? That was a profound level of savagery. The three of them paused at a support beam and peered around the corner at one of the perpetrators. Mal knew the look: black, insignialess military gear, faces hidden under digital visors. A long rifle, slung over a shoulder, with enough extra ammo to blast anything to paste. A corporate hit squad.

  It wasn’t a stretch to figure out they were there for her—Mal hadn’t left the headquarters since the ZenTech job, stuck healing and pestering the Doc, and there was no way they were going to spend the resources to come for her there so early in the war. It was easier to wait until she resurfaced in public, and there they were. Rabid dogs let off their chains, bystanders be damned. She knew there were articles written that pinned the whole incident on the Black hands, just waiting for the confirmation of her death to be blasted to every corner of the net. The churn of a relentless propaganda machine brought to bear. She reached out and tapped Martin’s shoulder. When he met her gaze, he nodded. Mal wondered how she looked in his eyes—still the kid that roped them into jobs they had no business doing, a broken little thing beyond hope, or something more? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t save them even if he saw her as a deity descended to the earth. They made their way back to the VIP lounge and posted up on either side of the entrance. It took a few minutes before any of them worked up the courage to speak.

  “It’s always something exciting when you’re involved,” Spencer said. There was no sarcasm there, and he gave them a toothy grin. “Think we can take one out?”

  “At least a few, easy,” Martin said. He flexed his new biceps to try and lighten the mood. It almost worked. He bent down to lower his center of gravity.

  “I’m sorry,” Mal said. They were caught up in something that had nothing to do with them, and were ready to pay the price anyway. She glanced back to the employee access door, then forced herself to focus.

  “I’m just happy you still think of us at all,” Spencer said.

  “Subject last detected in the immediate vicinity. Secure the area.” The voice was cold and distorted.

  The three waited until several squad members came through the entrance before they moved. When they let loose, it was with a desperate, focused ferocity—cornered rats, lashing out. Martin’s massive mechanical fist smashed through the visor of one, and he was onto the next before the goon hit the ground. His life since their separation had been an onslaught of surgical dismemberment, and it showed. Joints, jugulars, the gaps in protective armor seized without pause. Spencer, meanwhile, darted up to the rigging on one of the soldiers and pulled the pins on the grenades nestled inside. He was back behind the fancy bench before any of them opened fire. Malory went with the only thing she’d accomplished in a real fight; she went for the knees. Her boot connected, the whole thing gave way, and unlike last time, the bastard fell on top of her. She used his bulk as a shield when the grenades detonated. The explosion shredded through the well-trained unit and shattered the glass displays around them. A flood of water covered the carnage and mangled limbs. When the shaking stopped, Malory slammed her elbow into the helmet of the soldier over and over, just to be sure, and made for his gun.

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  When she lifted it and aimed, she could see Martin down on one knee; there were several corpses at his feet, and he was clutching his stomach. All that expensive chrome didn’t make him invincible. Nearby, Spencer was caught going back to sabotage another bundle of grenades in the aftermath, and he wasn’t moving. She pulled the trigger, felt the recoil jerk her aim toward the ceiling, and corrected until she mowed down anyone that was on their feet. They dropped, and she kept firing until the magazine clicked its last. She discarded the empty rifle and headed for Spencer first. He was face down in the water, and a vacant accusation stared at her when she rolled him over—a bullet had entered just above his collarbone and burrowed until it met spine. There was nothing to say. No apology that could bring him back. It was a debt, paid by a friend who didn’t owe. Mal stood and bit her lip until the skin gave way. She steeled herself and went toward Martin. He was still kneeling, and made no effort to rise at her approach. A couple slugs had torn into the soft just under the ribs, and he had trouble drawing in enough air.

  “How bad is it?” she asked. There wasn’t much she could do. He was far too heavy to lean on her shoulder, let alone carry.

  “Not great,” he said. He moved his hand away to let her see the wound, and blood flowed free. He laughed then, dry and pained. “I hadn’t bothered replacing any of the internal bits, yet.”

  “I’m not just gonna leave you here,” she said. She headed for one of the bodies and lifted a new rifle. Her boots sloshed in the wet.

  “You don’t have much of a choice,” he said. They both knew another squad was on the way. Corporate vengeance wasn’t something dealt with on a whim. He held out a red palm. “Hand that over and get out of here.”

  “You’re a real bastard,” Mal said. She gave him the gun, but hesitated to leave.

  “I am. But I want to thank you, anyway,” he said. He checked it over, made sure it could fire after being submerged. “I mean it. Thank you for ever giving a shit. Haven’t seen a whole lot of that in this life, and that means something. Now go.”

  “Kill as many as you can,” Mal said. She pulled him into the hug she resisted in the beginning and savored the warmth. Behind them, the octopus crawled free from its enclosure.

  She pushed through the access door and slammed it behind her. There wasn’t anything to block it with, and she was torn between witnessing Martin’s final moments and never looking back. The place was surrounded, but there was a ticking clock before the NDPD were forced to respond and maintain their last shred of reputation. If she hid, she could thread the needle between their arrival and the crew’s retreat. Mal bent down and yanked her boots free to avoid leaving tracks and dashed through the halls until she found a supply closet. Once inside, she buried herself in a pile of filthy rags that smelled of visitor grime and eucalyptus. She drew in short, ragged gasps and tried to stay as quiet as possible. The screams, the retort of shots expended, of lives that met their ends with brutality, leaked under the door. She pictured their ghosts finding a home within the walls, all the animal automatons, a fresh haunting. Powerlessness ground her in its mandibles, and the need to fight to the end clashed with a will to carry her friend’s memories into a better future they’d never see. When footsteps approached outside the door, she clasped her hand over her mouth.

  Her pulse pounded, but no one entered. Malory waited in the all-encompassing quiet for a while before she stood drenched in a mix of sweat, blood, and saltwater. She cracked the door and peeked out into the dark. When she was certain there was no one lurking, she made her way to the back exit. She threw her boots back on as she processed the alleyway around her; she had forgotten it was still daylight, and it stung at her eye. The wall across from her was tagged with a variety of names and symbols she didn’t recognize, and the dumpster overflowed. Mal took a few uncertain steps—she expected another squad to spring from the shadows in front of her and gun her down, and then she heard approaching sirens. When she made to run, a loud screech made the world spin. Electricity surged through her mind, and with it, a thousand images too fast for her to process, interspersed with lines of code. She tasted iron in the back of her throat and put a hand on the wall to stay steady. There was a sunset, the glow of street lamps, a reaching hand. She shook her head until it all receded. When she started walking again, the screech exploded and she fell to her knees.

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