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Something hard impacted against the front of his chassis, making him take a step back.
 
High velocity.
 
A man down the end of the line had recovered his feet.
 
Harry’s optics painted him with the Metatech crossed saber logo,
MT9
over his head.
 
Harry’s overlay showed a Metatech-manufactured coilgun on his shoulder.

That’s the way it’s gonna be, is it?
 
Before the man could finish cycling the weapon for a second shot, Harry marked and fired his own coilgun.
 
The sharp hammer of sound was almost as much a force as the launch energy, and he took a step back through the debris of the van underneath him.

The man’s torso exploded into mist, his legs staggering before falling over.

Silence fell for a heartbeat of time.
 
Reed men looked at each other, then at Harry.
 
Metatech men looked at their fallen comrade, then at Harry.
 
Then everyone was moving at once.

Harry stepped from the wreckage of the van, metal feet clawing up chunks of tarmac as he stepped into the street.
 
The cleats on his feet fired, driving pitons into the street, and he swiveled his torso around to face the Reed contingent.

The weapon mounted on his other shoulder hummed, the plasma cannon coming online.
 
The reactor on his back lit up, the Apsel falcon bright against the night.
 
The wings stretched blurred fingers of shadow against the buildings at his back.

Harry keyed a targeting solution, and he fired the cannon, bolts of plasma spitting and roaring across the street.
 
Night was thrown back as cars shattered and melted, Reed operatives turning into human torches, stumbling before falling forward.

There’s some weird shit right there
, thought Harry.
 
None of them screamed.
 
Still.
 
Not my circus.
 
Not my monkeys.

The coilgun on his other arm swiveled back over his shoulder and began to fire rounds down the street, the noise like a jackhammer as the rounds traced white lines through the air.
 
They tore through machines and bodies alike, superheating metal and destroying flesh.

Another coilgun round hit the side of his plasma cannon, shearing it off from the harness, and he stumbled as one of his cleated feet tore loose from the tarmac.
 
He let his torso swivel with the impact, his own coilgun spinning back over his shoulder and towards the Metatech line.
 
It fired against the man who’d hit him, the stream of shells shearing the vehicle the man was taking cover behind in half, turning the man’s body into mist.

Harry laughed, unlinking his feet from the ground and walking down the street.
 
The coilgun barked against the dark as small arms fire shattered against his chassis.
 
He stepped through a burning vehicle, snatching a Reed man from the ground.
 
The man was shouting something at him, but Harry slapped his hands together, crushing the man in an instant.

The coilgun ran dry, and Harry blew the bolts on the harness.
 
The metal frame spun away into the night, taking the rocket with it.
 
He held one of his arms out in front of him, the fingers articulating back, exposing the fusion cannon inside.
 
The reactor on his back flared like the sun, and a stream of white energy flashed out down the street, carving a molten track through the tarmac, cutting across vehicles and men too slow to get out of the way.

He wondered how Mason was doing, and looked at the door to
The Hole
.
 

No news was good news, right?

Sadie looked over at Aldo.
 
“That’s your problem.
 
You’re basically an asshole.”

“Hey, screw you.”
 
He stood up from the couch, pacing across the room.
 
“I haven’t done anything—”

“Yeah,” she said.
 
“You have.”

“Like what?
 
Name one thing.”
 
Aldo’s voice was starting to rise, and he pointed a finger at Sadie.
 
“Come on, Sadie.
 
Tell me.
 
What have I done that’s so bad?”

She looked at his finger, stabbing in the air, then turned away towards the mirror.
 
Her fingers found the lipstick by themselves, and she pursed her lips in the reflection.
 
“There’s always Janice.
 
That’ll do for a start.”

“Jan—
 
What?”
 
She could see his mouth hanging open in the mirror.

“Janice.
 
You know her.”
 
Sadie turned back to face him, lipstick held in one hand.
 
The other hand came out to just over her own shoulder height.
 
“She’s about this tall.
 
Blonde hair.
 
Pretty, if you like that kind of thing.
 
Oh, shit.
 
That’s right.
 
She plays bass guitar in our band, too.
 
That’s where you may have seen her.”

“What?” said Aldo.

“Janice.
 
And you.”
 
Sadie threw the lipstick back onto the dressing table.
 
“You’ve been fucking her.”

“I—”

“I don’t even care, you know.”
 
She picked up a different color, a darker shade, the red almost black.
 
“Because I was pretty sure I didn’t love you anymore.”

“Who told you I was…
 
That Janice and I were…”
 
Aldo’s voice had gone quiet and still, anger leeching it dry and bare.
 
“I’ll kill them.”

Sadie shrugged.
 
“Janice.”

“Janice told you?”

“She didn’t mean to, of course.”
 
Sadie picked up a brush, teasing at her hair.
 
“Or, she did.”

“She did or she didn’t, Sadie.”
 
Aldo swallowed again.
 
“Look, stop screwing around, and just play a straight song.
 
We can talk this out—”

“She asked how our breakup was.
 
How I was feeling,” said Sadie.
 
“You know, trying to make sure there was no hard feelings.”

“Janice…
 
She wouldn’t…”

“That’s what I thought,” said Sadie.
 
She shrugged, then turned back to face him.
 
“You’re a user and a taker, Aldo Vast.
 
I loved you once, but then you stopped the music.”

Aldo’s hands clenched in the air in front of him.
 
“This is bullshit.
 
You’ve got it all wrong, Sadie.
 
Janice, she’s trying to get between us—”

“Why would she do that, Aldo?
 
You’re already fucking her!”
 
Sadie’s voice rose at the end towards a scream, then she got a hold on it.
 
“Just get the fuck out.”

“We’re…
 
We’re playing tonight.”

“I can play without a drummer.”
 
Sadie waved her hand at the door, turning away from Aldo.
 
“I don’t need a drummer.
 
Go screw Janice some more, whatever.”

She saw him come up behind her in the mirror, and he touched her arm.
 
She shook it off, and his lips twisted into something ugly and angry.
 
His hand grabbed her arm and spun her around.

“Now you listen, Freeman,” he said, pulling her close against him.
 
Sadie could see the glint in his eyes.
 
“You and me, we’re not done.”

She tried to push him away, and he grabbed her with his other hand.
 
They stumbled, rocking back against the dresser, and one of her wrists slipped free, her elbow clipping him against the jaw.

It wasn’t much of a hit.
 
She hadn’t even meant to hit him.
 
But there was no mistaking it when his eyes went flat and dead, inches from her face.
 
He pulled back the hand she’d slipped free of and brought it down against her face with a crack.
 
Her head snapped back and smashed into the mirror.
 
She could taste something in her mouth, and spat red in his face.

“You bitch!”
 
He was yelling now, anger burning wild and free.
 
His hand clenched into a fist, and he brought it down into her face again, pain blooming in one of her eyes.
 
The force knocked her loose from his grip, and she fell to the floor.
 
Sadie couldn’t see right, something was wrong with the eye where she’d been hit.
 
She fumbled along the ground for her bag, managing to slip a hand through the strap just as Aldo’s hand closed into a fist in her hair.

She screamed as he pulled her back upright, twisting her head back and driving a fist into her stomach.
 
He was raving at her.
 
She couldn’t make sense of the words coming from him, her head still ringing from the hit.

Or hits.
 
Sadie couldn’t remember.
 
Had she been hit?
 
Her good eye fell down to the bag in her hand, and she saw it.
 
Black, small, her pale fingers closed around the grip and pulled it out.
 
Aldo twisted her around again, and she fired the taser at him.

His eyes bulged, and he bit down on his own tongue, his throat locking tight.
 
He didn’t make a sound, falling to the ground with a thump.

Sadie spat blood out again, spatters hitting the floor, and turned her head around.
 
Her jaw clicked.
 
She looked at the bag she held, and the taser in her other hand.
 
The crossed sabers of the Metatech logo were above the charging lights, the red ticking up to green again.
 
Sadie moved slowly back to the mirror, to see what —

She looked away.
 
Maybe she wouldn’t play tonight after all.
 
Her good eye caught Aldo on the ground.
 
He groaned, his movements stiff.

That’s when she heard it.
 
From outside the room, towards the front of
The Hole
, it sounded like a…
 
We’ve been struck by lightning.
 
And then, shattering glass, and the ground shook with something.

She stumbled against the dresser, her hand reaching out, and she cut herself against the broken mirror.
 
Sadie looked at her hand, then at Aldo, then at the door.

Fuckit
.
 
She wasn’t playing tonight anyway.
 
No sense staying in the dressing room.
 
Her hand found the doorknob on automatic, and she started to shuffle towards the front of the bar.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

The wall was cool against her face.
 
Sadie leaned against it, her eyes closed.
 
One of them was swollen shut, the other closed.

She tried to push herself away, but her body felt heavy.
 
She couldn’t think straight.
 
Where am I?
 
Why am I out here?

Open your eyes
.

It seemed so hard.
 
Sadie breathed out, feeling something loose in her jaw.
 
She swallowed blood, then pushed her one good eye open.
 
The wall in front of her was ordinary, just plain blood and graffiti —

Blood?
 
Whose blood is that?

Her hand came up to her face, and she winced.
 
Her good eye looked at her hand, sticky and red.

Why can’t I open my other eye?

A door slammed open to her right, and she turned her head sideways to look.
 
A man —

Aldo
.

— crashed out into the corridor.
 
He had a fragment of something shiny, something sharp —

A broken mirror.
 
My mirror.
 
He broke my mirror.

— held in his hand.
 
He looked away from her first, then spun, seeing her.
 
Something nasty worked its way from his eyes to his lips, a smile twisting them.

“You
bitch
.
 
You fucking bitch.”
 
He moved towards her, listing to his left, knocking against the wall.

Sadie drew a breath.
 
She couldn’t remember —

Run.
 
You’ve got to run.

She turned away from Aldo and ran down the corridor.

Overtime
.

The room trickled and slowed, the light bleached out around the edges.
 
Mason fell towards the floor, the subs in his hands flaring as he dropped.
 
Glass shimmered and spun around him as he fell, the moment held in overtime like a dewdrop about to tip from a leaf.

Metatech
.
 
One man stood near where he was going to land, a hand already reaching into his jacket.
 
Mason’s overlay tracked the motion,
MT
marked above the man’s head.
 
His optics fed a line of text next to the man,
UNKNOWN
stenciled next to the weapon he was pulling from his jacket.

Reed
.
 
Another man stood by the bar, sunglasses turning up towards him as he fell.
 
Mason saw the man’s head turn up before he’d finished punching through the skylight,
RI
stenciled above.
 
He’d started to pull a sidearm from under his jacket.
 
The overlay marked it as
LOW THREAT
, and Mason turned his attention back to —