The immediate reward for her breakthrough was a more intricate variety of punishment.

  Eventually, the building rumbled. A deep groan that vibrated through the floor. A sound like a contained explosion followed, and distant screams filtered through the walls. The rumbling intensified.

  Ren lowered his guard, his head tilting. "This place is built to take a hit. It shouldn't shake."

  He moved toward the exit to investigate.

  “That’s big players scrambling,” Kelly said, pushing herself up. Her body ached in several new and educational ways. "They're raising the dome over the east-grid. All the overpowered idiots, heavy hitters and their corporate armies are inside it by now, fighting for the cube." She dusted off her pants. "It's going to blow up soon. Someone always pokes it wrong trying to turn it off and call it theirs. Makes a real mess."

  Ren stopped at the door. He stood still for a moment. "Oh," he said, the single word dense with recognition. "That's what that is."

  He turned and walked back toward her, his pace purposeful. "We're going."

  "Where?" Kelly asked.

  "Outside."

  Ren walked, studying a hologram and a message that depicted a picture.

  Kelly immediately recognized the picture of a man, and another much larger, fat man—Jackhammer’s rival—that before the loops, she had only seen once before, years ago. Another remnant of her past she’d rather forget. The first man had a face that looked like it had been assembled from spare parts, and thick reinforced plating on his jaw and scalp. The fat man had a wide, placid smile that didn’t reach his cold, calculating eyes. One eye was excessively large and filled with expensive tech—it glowed a persistent, unhealthy green, and his hands were even larger—enough to palm a human skull.

  Ren noticed Kelly’s curiosity. “Bulkhead. Genecorp’s lesser spy. And his partner and superior, Vector, Codename: Anvil.”

  “I recognize Bulkhead by that creepy metal dome, I think I saw him in the east-grid,” Kelly replied, approaching to get a better look at the photos in the hologram. “And the fat one by those dinner-plate hands. Looks like he hasn't missed many meals.”

  “They stole valuable tech from us last week,” Ren mumbled, his voice rising with a low, simmering frustration. “Though I suppose for you, that was years ago. We hit their sub-base in the outskirts. There was nothing. He’s somewhere in the city, but nobody knows his exact location. Too much signal interference from the portals, counter-surveillance tech, no electronic trail, and barely any visual. They only make hits, then head off-planet. The only people who might know are his colleagues on Obsidian’s side of the city’s fringes. The newest members, like… Wraith, Silo, and Pinpoint.”

  Once she had taken care of her top priorities, Kelly decided to make the overpowered agent one of her main side-missions for future loops. These Overclocked madmen were far too organized and well-behaved, as if they weren't overclocked at all, but puppets pretending to still be human. That was unlikely. They probably just had competent management and a very large paycheck—and access to plenty of spare parts. She had heard that just a few years ago, Vector could barely tie his shoes without a violent, crazy outburst and detachment from reality, and never without a healthy dose of family-unfriendly violence, but a decade ago? She knew he’d been twisted even before he lost his mind.

  “He’s really let himself go. Vector, I mean,” the battle-hardened scientist mused, examining the floating image closely. “Put on a few hundred pounds since I saw him last. Business must be good.”

  According to the Haider organization’s information network, the Obsidian gang had four hundred members. Eighty percent of them were Overclocked, with movements and decision-making exceeding human possibilities—even with augments, since humans can’t match the cognition and actions of multiple AIs operating in perfect concert—at least not without weaponry and tools. They had grown from eight members to four hundred in two months. An impossibility, unless something foul was at play.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Probably the echelon. Probably Gideon.

  Or the Wards. Or Han. Or Crystal Nanotech. Hiring volatile, barely-human murderers for a front. Kelly wouldn’t put it past any of the corpos.

  That caught Ren’s interest. “You met the man before?”

  “Yeah, yesterday, I think. And about eleven years ago,” Kelly replied. “Back then it was just—what did you call it, the Anvil squad? Anvil?—yeah, them. Black ops I think. Or just regular mercs. And a small pack of enhanced hanger-ons with decent guns. They had orders to take out ‘Massacre Caliph’. They were too scared to run. Didn’t look much different from any other corporate cleanup crew. Except they really, really liked making it hurt. They thought ultraviolence was French for ‘professional discretion’.”

  The old man looked thoughtful. “Anything you can tell me about either of them?” He suddenly asked, his focus sharpening. “Their tactics. Anything they said. New or old implants. Weaknesses.”

  “If you want the full story, my unfairly overpowered friend, I’ve never fought him. Just his less impressive subordinate, as one of the many I take out in the dome. And a decade ago, when I saw him, Vector hadn’t officially lost his mind back then. Or at least it was so early he could still pretend like he wasn't in the beginning of a battle with the things inside his body.” Kelly’s tone was matter-of-fact, laying out the facts like tools on a bench. “His armed hit-squad tried to kill Caliph and capture anyone associated with him after Caliph’s crew took the governor’s niece hostage. Instead of just breaking her out and freeing her, which was the official job according to the news at the time. It didn’t go well. It ended in a bloodbath. She didn’t make it. A lot of people didn’t. The news said Caliph killed her, which he did, but it was the fat man’s fault.”

  She leaned back, the memory cold and clear. “Typical Overclocked.” They could be rational and human one moment, then cold, unfeeling psychopaths the next. They killed humans any chance they could get away with, even if the main host didn’t want to. A momentary slip was all it took. In some ways they were perfect. Just not for hostage rescues. Or anything that required basic human empathy and value of life.

  She paused, adding the final, relevant piece of information she’d heard. “Oh, and there’s rumors Vector is a sadistic mutant bastard who can mess with your mind if you let your guard down.”

  The rumors about his mutation were specific. It was originally supposed to make him a subtle empath, just someone who felt others' emotions—a useful tool for a spook. The common theory was that his Overclocked hive-mind had twisted it. Instead of feeling emotions, he projected them. Instead of reading a room, he could set a mental mood, stoking fear or doubt into a bonfire. The constant psychic noise and the hive’s cold logic had partially broken him, turning a potential intelligence asset into a partially mad, Overclocked mutant hit-squad member with a taste for mental sadism.

  She wasn’t sure how strong his mutation was. It was all just rumors, after all. But years ago, Kelly had seen first-hand his nature, identical to the people she hated. He had came in guns blazing, hardly caring about saving the little girl he’d been hired to—purely out for blood. Based on the rumors of his present sadism, he seemed like a real piece of privately funded work. When she was strong enough, Kelly might seek out the fat man and erase him on principle.

  “Thank you,” Ren commented, scribbling the information onto the message. His voice was dry, analytical. “I already knew that. I was hoping you would know more, but that was… enlightening. That sheds some light on some of the missing years in your file.”

  “Yep. But talking about the Fatman’s abilities helps deflect from a sensitive subject.” A deliberate pivot away from her childhood. The unpleasant years. The years of her childhood adoption by the criminal Caliph the Butcher. The high EQ madman, stricken with his own grief, had a penchant for kidnapping children after massacres, all of whom did not survive his parentage long. Plus, taking advantage of the conversation was a nice break from the endless beating. “So, my grey-bearded sadistic friend and mentor, are you planning to hunt the Fatman and his men? The ones whose minds have been completely taken over but pretend they’re still human?”

  “I wish,” he grumbled, his eyes wandering back to the video feed. “I suspect he will be involved in the dome, but we must wait for confirmation. You should join me. We cannot let such brazen, shameless acts from a new group go unpunished. The plan was to act the moment his location was confirmed.”

  “Since when do you need confirmation to start trouble?” Kelly asked, a mirthful edge in her voice. “What’s the point of being an independent organization if you can’t use corporate legality to enact over-indulgent, violent retribution?”

  It seemed to amuse him. A faint, weathered smirk touched his face before it vanished into professionalism.

  “Let’s train you for fifteen more minutes,” he said, his body settling into readiness. “You’ll need to master your ability to slow down time. We have a while. You said the dome explodes in just over an hour, no? We will head to the east-grid after the next round.” He took a step into striking range.

  “Wait, hold up, time out!” Kelly protested, hastily equipping Fortress of Flame, her most explosion-proof title. She was still thinking of the best way to wipe the serene look from his face—

  Before she could react, he attacked with overwhelming force.