Changeling

It had been a shit idea. The right thing to do would have been to follow the wounded ganger on the spot instead of letting her escape. What if she got into a vehicle?

No, vehicles were controlled very tightly in Fifteen. Gangers just couldn’t be seen above ground or they would have a fleet of drones on their asses in less time it took to say “Police state”.

Nestra should have still taken the risk and followed, even if that meant losing access to evidence. She would have had the support of Kim, maybe even the gleams though… ah whatever. It was done.

The trail of blood was still relatively fresh but Nestra wasn’t. Her arm ached, a sore feeling that persisted long past what she was used to in a society with ready access to painkillers. Although the wound was almost closed now, it was exhausting. The pain weighed on her overtaxed mind like the constant clang of a bell, stealing her attention away. She grit her teeth and took a deep breath. The tunnel here smelled stale with the coppery scent of the wounded aug’s lifeforce still potent after more than half a day. She followed it. She could see it as well, like a fading arrow. The rust-colored track led deeper into the bowels of District Fifteen past the lit track tunnels and into mazes of maintenance and storage rooms. The tracks didn’t seem to follow any strict direction either. Once, they made a small detour through a pump system hangar. The blood flow also fell into a trickle there, but there was a large, crimson shoulder print against a manual control panel. Nestra’s quarry had made a stop to staunch the bleeding here. Perhaps also to make sure she wasn’t pursued. She was weakening.

Nestra shook her head then winced. The trail was old. This was not a hunt. She had to calm down. Maybe lie down for a second and… no. No. She had to finish this.

The wounded aug left the maze almost a kilometer down the line, close to Threshold’s kaiju wall. The purge had hit the place the hardest here where one of the gangs had made its stronghold. Nestra had to push through debris and collapsed rooms to find the surface. Bloody handprints made the task easy. She ended up near a half-destroyed building at the edge of a large crater. The smell of fire still haunted the place, with molten plastic and twisted steel beams hanging over the precipice in a forest of rotting limbs. She would have missed the steel door were it not for yet another bloody spot on the wall nearby. Nestra’s quarry had leaned there, perhaps waiting for someone to open the gate.

This was it. Her destination.

Her black box beeped to warn her about cameras. Better to take a small detour. She moved around the devastated street to avoid being seen. She would not be recognized, of course, but glitchy cameras and guards on alert mixed poorly, especially since the open ground would make her visible for entire seconds. Her path led her around and to the heart of the dead battlefield.

This part of the city was an absolute wreck. Perhaps it had been a hive of villainy before the purge, but now it was an empty grave. Scorched husks of tents and stalls lined the ravaged streets. Not a single wall stood that didn’t bear bullet impacts and half-erased graffiti, all that remained of a defiant faction’s struggle against Threshold’s all-encompassing authority. Casings still littered the asphalt for all the good it had done the gangers. Nestra shook her head. Fucking idiots. Fucking dead idiots now.

Well, whatever.

A small search revealed a water tower ravaged by machine gun spray. Nestra climbed it, then made a short jump to her target’s roof.

It could have been an administrative building. Or a company office. The roof was empty except for inactive AC units. A door led downstairs, though it was locked and probably secured. Not that Nestra needed a door. A breath, and she slipped through the fabric of the world and through the floor under her feet.

One moment, she was standing outside, the next, she was falling down a derelict office, her naked feet landing smoothly on a ratty carpet.

It was dark here and it smelled terrible, musty and rotten with a burnt undertone. Cubicles stood, yellow surfaces eaten by mold. They were gutted and empty with cables snaking out of the desks and leading nowhere. The gangers hadn’t used this specific room at least. Riel, maybe no one had since Threshold completed the wall. Nestra carefully moved to the only door leading further inside and listened.

It was mostly silent, probably because the hour was late. Rather than opening the door, she slid through the wall and into a trash-strewn corridor. Here, the stench was more aggressive but Nestra’s sensory defenses left her unaffected. She carefully made her way through forsaken trash bags, wishing for the day when the skin could cover her feet as well. The symbiotic garment felt her anguish. A few tendrils of darkness creeped down her calves until she stopped it with a thought. There was little point in covering her soles after walking through a kilometer of dusty corridors. Better to focus on the matter at hand.

She was getting distracted. Nestra massaged her eyes to try and wake up. She was so close to something useful that she couldn’t afford to lose if she wanted to find out the truth.

It was a matter of minutes to find the stairs down, by which time she realized with some surprise that most of the doors leading to empty offices were trapped with old-fashioned claymore mines. They even used wires. Aggressive. At least, she was in the right spot.

Carefully, she climbed down while keeping an eye out for cameras. One of them pointed at the stairway and couldn’t be avoided so Nestra slipped down once again, landing into a crouch on the floor below. Probably the third floor. She should have checked before getting in. Amateurish.

A quick check revealed that the second room was used for storage. There were crates in the empty offices with the marking of emergency rations, probably pillaged from the shelters under Fifteen. The food in there could last for centuries so long as the seals held so they made a great prize for people on the run. She also spotted cases of ammunition, a few rifles, and clothes. Lockers presumably held personal effects. She approached the staircase and saw colors for the first time since getting in. There was light, and sounds. Footsteps. Someone was still here.

Nestra creeped by the corner. The stairs down led to a large open space lit by powerful lamps. From that angle, she could see isolating fabric lining the walls and some workstations including a weaponsmith. In one of the corners, monitors displayed camera footage and surveillance data watched by a bored aug. A couple more slept in bags along the wall. She couldn’t see more from where she was but there were a lot of crates, most of them packed. Were they on the way out? They could be rotating between safe houses.

There was probably a place she could drop in. Just had to make sure she wouldn’t be—

“Hey!” a voice rang from behind.

Nestra turned, feeling both shocked and very, very stupid. An aug stood behind her, at the end of the corridor. He was holding a half open bottle of something. Dirty clothes. Matted hair. A machine pistol on a holster.

“Mo— MONST—”

Fuck.

Nestra used momentum to close the distance, grabbed his machine pistol and emptied half a magazine in his unprotected head. A rush of power marked his death. Screams and gasps of alarm rang after the deafening booms. Five of them. Nestra didn’t wait. She dropped through the ceiling on a pair of augs thrashing their way out of sleeping bags. Both had eye implants judging from how they didn’t seem to know exactly where she was. Two men. She shot the lightly auged one and grabbed his knife, a monoblade. A horizontal strike guided by precision decapitated the heavier one. She picked his gun and charged forward.

“User not recognized,” a synthetic voice said.

“Fuck.”

Nestra used momentum to close in with the aug in charge of the cameras even now brandishing a room sweeper with a confused look. He was just as lost as the others, eye implants searching but finding only glitches. Nevertheless, wide choke shotgun bad. She dove low and struck up, gutting him and grabbing the gun. Bullets buzzed past her head. There was a shorter man with curly hair pointing a rifle near a small printer in the distance. He didn’t have eye augs.

Nestra used the dying, gutted aug as a human shield. He screamed and convulsed under the onslaught while Nestra remained untouched. Smelled bad though. The shooting aug slowed down to adjust his sight. He was surprisingly calm, Nestra thought, as she watched him breathe, nervous sweat pearling on his brow. As he did so, she sprinted then used momentum again to appear behind him. He swiveled his gun around but it was too late. The shotgun blast took him in the neck. Even dermal plating couldn’t stop a shell at this range.

There was a crash of glass upstairs. Window. Nestra grabbed her latest victim’s rifle then slipped through the nearest wall. A man, running away to safety, or so he thought.

She lined the rifle and switched to burst fire. There should be at least half a magazine left. More than she needed. The weapon felt so small in her hands. It was more like a toy than a tool of destruction. It didn’t buck under her fingers when she pulled the trigger thanks to her superior strength. The fleeing shape shuddered and stumbled on the uneven ground. Little puffs of blood bloomed where the bullets pierced through whatever defenses he had. One two three. One two three. One two three. The last volley caught him in the neck.

He fell and stopped moving.

Nestra remembered to breathe.

Breathe, that’s right.

Breathe and curse.

“Riel fucking dammit.”

Stupid. Stupid and sloppy. Amateurish. She hated amateurish with a burning passion, and yet here she was, forgetting to sweep rooms clear because she saw something shiny and let curiosity take over her higher brain functions. She could have lost her lead, or even her life acting like a fool. Fuck! At least she remembered to use their own weapons instead of her sword.

Nestra clicked her tongue as she moved to retrieve the body. A quick check showed she could slip back into the den with it so at least she had that going for her. This time, she made sure to quickly sweep the second floor just in case. There was no one there.

Only one person remained in the ground floor’s makeshift infirmary. It was the aug she had wounded this morning. She was dying.

Nestra watched the woman’s heavily bandaged chest move up and down. The aug was younger than she thought, with light alterations that focused on speed and reflexes. It had not helped against a bullet traveling through a damn wall. Her companions did try to do their best, with synth blood transfusion and other drugs but… there was a rattle in her chest, lungs slowly filling with liquids. Her heart beat too fast and her skin was too pale. Organ damage, most likely. Not something that could be fixed here.

There was still a rush of power when Nestra slit her throat. Mind speed, this time. She could recognize the taste. Humans seemed to grant random advantages, and though they were not significant, they were not weakening either. Nestra had diminishing returns with monster deaths but with her peers, either she had not noticed it yet, or there was… no limit to how strong she could grow by killing humans.

She considered this as she gathered the bodies in a pile, thankful that she didn’t have fingerprints in demon form. Was this how it would end? With human undesirables acting as fodder for her growth? A disturbing sensation of kinship filled her mind. Those augs fought her and died without standing a chance because she was simply superior and there were no measures they could have taken, no training they could have followed, that could have saved them from her. They were doomed from the moment Nestra decided to kill them.

She was the gleam now.

It felt… a little sickening. Winning like that didn’t feel good. It felt like cheating. She didn’t mean to summarily execute those people. She only wanted to find a way to lead her side of the human conflict here, so maybe they could be interrogated. They were not dead because she planned on executing them. They were dead because she’d fucked up and left herself with no choice.

Nestra shook her head. She already knew the cause of her torment: overestimating herself and her energy reserves. It was just so unfair! A month ago, she could run all nighters and be functional well into the afternoon, but now? Now she needed over four thousand calories and ten hours of sleep a day or she would forget how to tie her own fucking shoelaces. Gleams were renowned for their amazing stamina! Where was hers hiding? This was bullshit. Utter bullshit.

And also an excuse for her failure. She knew she needed sleep and still thought she could get away with it.

Her fault.

Nestra let herself whine until the bodies were gathered, then she realized there was no real reason to gather them to begin with. Instead, she went to the monitor to see if she could at least erase the surveillance footage. Luckily, the videos were stored on a local hard drive she recovered for her own perusal. The cameras didn’t show reinforcements rushing in so she took some more time looking around the computer. It really was a bare bone setting with no internet access, only security logs that didn’t say much. She only learned the local gangers had been here for a week, that they had a rival gang and a boss called Cleaver which was, in Nestra’s opinion, really fucking tacky. The latest log named the wounded aug as Mai. Her group’s massacre spooked the gangers who were ready to move at dawn.

She found the answer to one of her questions among the available programs. It seemed this safe house was linked to a couple of others, including the one she’d cleared the day before. There was a way to ping the safe house for a status update via the shelter under the hab block.

Nestra knew with absolute certainty that Flash was plugged into that system. He had access to its cameras. She started the program and set it on repeat. Flash wouldn’t fail to notice it.

Hopefully this would be enough to have human Nestra access this place.

After one last look around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she left.

***

Nestra was still tired, but at least she would have a respite this morning in the form of an approved medical visit. It was time to meet Mazingwe again.

This time the appointment was at his private practice which happened to be closer to the center of the town. Her car delivered her there without issue, and she used the transit time to check the surveillance footage she’d copied to her visor. After ten minutes of fast forwarding, the prize appeared.

Someone had come to visit, someone familiar. She tried to place him and failed, at first. Heavy augments on his eyes, chest, legs under a tattered waistcoat made an imposing figure. He was tall and bulky with short brown hair. He also no longer had enough flesh to even identify an ethnicity. She stopped the feed when it caught his face at a good angle. There was something about the shape of his implants…

A roof over District Fifteen on the night of the purge. Nestra had shot at a charging tide of stimmed augs and… a heavy weight almost crushed her. This was the one who had jumped on the roof. She’d pushed him back over the edge after paralyzing him with her sword. He was a ganger lieutenant and he’d come a swipe away from killing her.

Huh.

So he did make it after all. And now he was… doing whatever. She kept watching the feed which was now running at normal speed. He wore a heavy blade on his hip, this one too heavy to be really wieldy. It looked like it had been torn apart from a combat walker.

Cleaver. That was Cleaver.

Nestra pushed herself back from her seat, eyes widened as the one of the cameras showed Cleaver opening a wall safe and placing something in it. Demon Nestra had missed it but demon Nestra just wanted to go home at the time. Maybe it was still there. Cleaver left shortly after.

She searched for more visitors but found nothing, only gangers vacating to their occupations with a surprising modicum of discipline.

“You have arrived.”

Nestra blinked. Her car was parked in a nice spot next to a flower pot. In front of her, a glass building rose high. Right. Her health check. She easily found the main entrance, a tastefully decorated affair.

“Can I help you, miss?” a security agent asked, seeing as she was in the uniform she usually wore under her armor.

“Just here for an appointment.”

“Of course.”

Nestra followed the directions to the third floor where she was welcomed by an old lady in an immaculate suit exuding polite competence. Mazingwe still employed a secretary and greeter where most doctors had automated the process, or operated out of a hospital. He was old fashioned like that. She sat down in the waiting room and checked her visor for messages. There was one, from Shinoda, giving her a new address to meet at when she was ready.

It looked like Flash did the right thing. Good guy. She wondered—

***

“Miss Palladian.”

Nestra woke up with a jolt.

“MUOH!”

Golden eyes illuminating a very dark, kind face. Lean muscles. Mana bled out of his frame in both a gentle light and the promise of fire should she stray. There was so much power in this lithe frame, it almost gave her a headache.

He was also holding a cup of coffee and a donut.

“No, Miss Palladian. You may not have my snack.”

“Dr Mazingwe! It has been too long. How are you?”

“A worthy effort at pleasantries, however you still may not have my donut. Is this the moment you will assure me you were not asleep?”

“Why would I? I’m not at the office so you can’t exactly discipline me.”

She shrugged.

“No rules against sleeping in the waiting room.”

In her peripheral vision, Nestra saw a gleam look at her with utter shock. No affinities so not a raider. Maybe a researcher or something. He was leaving.

“I took the liberty of letting you sleep longer, seeing as you were exhausted. It is now ten AM.”

“Shit I need to get back to work.”

“None of that now. I did you a favor.”

Nestra considered it. Maybe he had. It would take the techs hours to comb over the area anyway, and she needed the sleep. She eyed the donut and thought longingly about the bag of croissants in her bag. They were not the freshest but they had a mana-rich almond fillings. Some leftover from a gleam function.

Maybe with some coffee.

“Thanks, by the way,” she finally said.

“Think nothing of it, and now, if you will follow me. I need to ascertain that you are in good health.”

Mazingwe’s office was clean and well-lit by large windows. Several lights would provide a sunny feeling even in winter though the high gleam himself could probably do it just as well by releasing his control. There were several testing machines in the room that tried to look harmless despite the restraint-like bands and other torture chair similarities.

Maybe Nestra was a little biased.

“You look much better than when we last met. Have you perhaps found a workaround for your mana cravings?”

“I have, in fact. Food.”

“Mana-rich food?”

“Yes.”

He leaned against his designer chair.

“And do you also sleep more or was today just a coincidence?”

“I sleep more, yes.”

“Hmmm.”

Mazingwe flexed his long fingers. With his distraction came a rush of barely contained might, the power of the sun just peeking from behind a mountain.

“Your case being unique, perhaps this solution will work in the long run. I am relieved that you seem to be doing so well, though I have concerns about the amount of food you would need to maintain a balance. We will be conducting in-depth tests. It should not take more than twenty minutes.”

It might have been short but it was invasive. Mazingwe took a blood sample then ran various examinations. Blood pressure, visual acuity, X-rays. Everything was done besides a pee sample for which Nestra was quite grateful.

“Interesting. You are in… remarkable health. Better than before when you were exhibiting signs of exhaustion. In fact, some of the results would almost place you in the lowest bracket of users. Have you, perhaps, shown any signs of having quirks? Multiple ones?”

“Nope,” Nestra replied.

Mazingwe stared. He could do that very well.

“No, really! Why would I hide it?” she replied with conviction. “I just feel better and maybe I move a little faster but I don’t have any special tricks or anything.”

At least not in human form, which was all that mattered.

“I see. Hmmm, perhaps they might manifest later. I have equipment to measure the performance of freshly awoken users in the next room. I would like you to take those tests as well.”

“Oh, the machines that tell gleams what they’re worth right after they awoke? Nice,” Nestra replied before she could stop herself.

“Your sarcasm is misplaced, Miss Palladian. Everyone wants to know which way their natural abilities lean so that they may follow an appropriate training path, especially raider candidates. I merely point them in the right direction.”

“What if they have no talent?” she asked, perhaps a little sweetly.

Just enough of the high gleam’s aura pierced through to send her back to her seat with just a hint of vertigo.

“You should know better than most that everyone has their skills, Miss Palladian.”

“Okay, okay.”

“There is also a psychological evaluation.”

“Oh spare me.”

“But considering your career choice and your attitude, I would say they would come considerably too late.”

“Hey!”

“Just one question then. Are you aware that your biting attitude and the way you lash out against perceived figures of authority stems from a deeply ingrained feeling of inadequacy compounded by a desire for recognition of your own merits and the deleterious effect of Threshold’s vertiginous social ladder?”

“Mazingwe, what the fuck are you on about? I’m a simple girl that likes swinging her sword. If I were a gleam I’d be swinging it too and if I couldn’t swing I’d just end it. It’s that simple. I don’t give a shit about politics, respect or hierarchy beyond the basics because it won’t give me what I want, which is, as I said before, swinging my damn sword. Don’t try to overcomplicate me. I know what I am.”

“You may have surprising depths to your character.”

“Nah. I’ll never be a genius and I’ll never be a leader. I accepted that long ago and gleam powers wouldn’t have changed my brain anyway.”

“Hmmm. You seem to be in a good place. I see no cause to push you right now.”

“Thanks.”

“Would a donut convince you to go ahead with my tests?”

“Bribery? Sign me up.”

And so Nestra did the damn tests.

The donut was freaking amazing but Mazingwe refused to say where he got it. There was some very basic weight lifting but most were reflex tests, and once she turned when Mazingwe flashed his aura and he later made a note.

“Well, I have confirmed that you have… slightly superhuman capabilities,” he finished.

Nestra nodded. She knew that already. While demon Nestra’s progress was massive, human Nestra only benefitted from a fraction of her true strength but a fraction of a shit ton of strength was still quite respectable.

“As expected, you knew this but elected not to share this piece of information with me, just as you elected not to tell me you were doing much better. Even though I am your practitioner.”

Nestra frowned as they sat back at the man’s office. He didn’t offer another donut.

“Dr Mazingwe, no one sends messages to their doctor telling them they’re doing fine.”

“And yet I recall asking you to keep in touch last time.”

“I mean sure, but…”

“Specifically.”

He seemed a little annoyed.

“You are angry. Is that why you didn’t shake my hand and ate the first donut in front of me without offering any?”

“I cannot express my annoyance in a clearer manner without overstepping the bonds of courtesy.”

“That was petty. Buuuuut you have always been good and… I suppose you’re right. I should have told you. Sorry.”

“I accept your apologies, and acknowledge that the wounded beast only sees its own pain.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You are a bitch when you’re hurting.”

“OOF! What happened to the bonds of courtesy?”

“I ran out of patience and allowed myself a little folly. Since there are no witnesses.”

“You are a dangerous man, doctor.”

“Oh,” the high gleam said, “you have no idea.”

On the way out, Nestra asked the secretary where that accursed doctor got his donuts.

“Oh he makes them himself. I understand he doesn’t even use a machine for that.”

“Riel! Really?”

“Certainly.”

Talk about VIP treatment.

***

Nestra parked right next to the building she’d infiltrated the night before. The light of the day gave it and its surroundings no quarter. Where night had left some doubt this place could be redeemed, now it appeared as the dead husk it was. Most structures were either collapsed or on their way to be, and those that still stood had been gutted by fire, bullets, or both. This entire place was a lost cause. By contrast, the tech hover van and the few cruisers present were beacons of order and cleanliness.

Nestra found Shinoda by the main gate, drinking miso soup from a thermos. The wind carried hints of umami to her nostrils. She appreciated the nice change from the stench of voided bowels and old blood. It bothered her much more when she was in human form.

“Detective Shinoda. I have a gift for you.”

“You do?”

“Also, miso soup? I figured you for an instant noodle kind of guy.”

The detective cast a shameful glance towards the nearest trash bin set up for the day. Probably where he had disposed of the evidence.

“Ah, very astute of you, Palladian-san. I fear I never learned to cook.”

“There is still time. Anyway, the gift?”

“Douzo. Lead the way.”

Nestra opened the trunk of her car which caused Shinoda to whistle. She had her own rifle there in a black box along with a few other goodies she kept there for the big game. Shinoda hesitated to pick his weapon when she presented it to him.

“Rush order. Got it in time.”

“Is this… legal?”

“You have been deputized. Kim cleared it this morning, or so she said by mail. This is very much above ground. Hell, I even got a grant for it.”

What Nestra didn’t say was that Kim’s budget barely covered the gun, and it didn’t cover the ammo. That was fine for now but she sure as hell hoped she would keep the loot from her next raids.

“Palladian-san. This is a sawn-off shotgun.”

“Tut tut tut this is a ‘Last Ditch’ monster-killer gun. It was designed to look like this. Note the compact frame. You can unfortunately only chamber and shoot one flechette at a time. Got you five mana-charged ones in case we meet some really large hindrance.”

“This might even stop a D-class beast!”

“It can.”

“You are joking.”

“If you land the shot, it can. I also got you ordinary bullets for augs. Should stop most of them in their tracks.”

“What are they made of? Titanium?”

“Depleted uranium.”

“Palladian-san, chotto, you are joking too much.”

Nestra frowned. The old man was pissing her off.

“Look, detective, I never joke about weapons and survival. This is the realm of gleams and heavily augmented gangers. Feel free to stick to your peashooter and maybe next time, I’m not here and a wired goon will gore you while laughing because you can’t pierce through their defenses. Or you can shut up and accept my gift so maybe you stay alive a little longer. This wasn’t exactly easy to find, wakatta ka?”

“Ah, you are correct. I receive this weapon with gratitude, Palladian-san. Perhaps my previous work has made me too unused to the violence of this place.”

He sighed then touched his chest.

“The most dangerous encounter I had in the past five years was being threatened with a kitchen knife by a scared widow.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Not to worry Palladian-san. To be fair, she had previously killed her husband, so I was indeed in danger. In any case, let me show you the inside. You have seen the file I sent, yes?”

“I did. And there was something I noticed…”

“What?”

“Come on, let’s get in first.”

The steel door demon Nestra had ignored because doors were for scrubs stood wide open. A few techs milled about next to body bags, having finished their own part of the work. A few more officers stood at the corners of the building with weapons out while uncontrolled, fizzling mana betrayed the presence of at least one low gleam. Kim wasn’t taking any chances.

Despite some fresh air flow, Nestra was almost overwhelmed by how much the place stank. It wasn’t just the fading scent of dead bodies. An acrid aroma of unwashed bodies permeated the air, clinging to the yellow isolating tarps on the walls. A team of techs devoted their attention to one of the weapons workshops though Nestra wasn’t sure what they expected to find. Maybe they would get lucky and find proof Gidung had provided the equipment but she wouldn’t be holding her breath. In any case, people were mostly done here.

“Palladian-san?”

Nestra had been wondering how she would find the drive without appearing too lucky, until she remembered the gangers never really built anything.

“I looked at the picture of the crime scene and then I remembered something. This is a standard class 3 administrative building from the time humanity moved on the Threshold continent. They are all copy-pasted templates designed for convenience so I knew something was missing, and I found it.”

“What was it?”

Nestra sent Shinoda the blueprint. The wall safe Cleaver had used to hide his storage drive came with the building but it had been camouflaged. Shinoda quickly inspected the plan and came to the right conclusion.

“Interesting. Very astute, Palladian-san. Great job.”

He walked to the hidden spot and knocked. The telltale sound of a hidden compartment answered him.

Nestra leaned against a pillar for what followed, which was an interesting mix of excitement and reprimands.

“We were going to finish with this,” a tech assured Kim on his visor.

“Finish? FINISH! What if the gangers hid an explosive in there? From now on, every inspection will begin with a wall check immediately after the area has been confirmed clear of hostiles, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Kim-Nim.”

“You are lucky to be alive. You are operating in a warzone. Do not forget that and change your protocols if you have to. I do not want to attend any more burials.”

“Yes, Kim-Nim. We understand.”

“See that you understand AND remember.”

While the tech in charge got chewed up, another pair finished excitedly dismounting the entire safe door, revealing the soft, juicy secret inside. Nestra got a first good look at the drive. It was… a drive. A widely-available commercial one for people who didn’t want to store stuff on the cloud. Workers who went outside of the walls sometimes carried them to quickly transfer files. It even had a decorative little rabbit painted on the surface which gave Nestra a bit of a mental whiplash. She didn’t know what sort of horror was on there.

“We need to transfer this to a specialist,” one of the techs said with bitter annoyance.

“What?”

“They’re all busy. We have already found an enormous amount of data. I just don’t know when we will get the results.”

“Hold on,” Nestra said.

“Do you perhaps know someone, Palladian-san?”

“I know a girl, yeah. Let me just clear this up with Kim first.”

***

“Got to say, I never expected to work for the rat squad,” Stib said on the call.

“Yeah me neither. At least they let me keep my weapons.”

“But not your honor. Hss! Hss!”

“Stib, I have no honor.”

“That’s just such a weird thing to say for a fencer. Anyway, I checked the data. It’s heavily encrypted.”

“Damn.”

“Buuuut you know me, I still got something for you! So, ok, the encryption? It’s a weird, really high level type that needs two data sets before you can access the decrypted stuff. It’s called a symbolon and it’s really, really high level shit, like top secret corpo projects or the military.”

Nestra’s heart skipped a beat. She knew exactly what it meant. This wasn’t ganger property.

They had taken something from Gidung.

As to why they hadn’t used it yet, she wasn’t sure. Maybe they had to find the other half.

“So yeah, you’ll never get anything complete unless you find the other half. Not even sure the city’s quantum computers could learn anything. Buuuuut there is a catch. It was never meant to be stored on a commercial drive. Someone opened it about… three weeks ago, with the other half, and the drive saved a page in the cache. I managed to recover it. Just, it doesn’t make sense to me. Here, sending it now.”

Nestra shared the document with Shinoda.

Her hopes that it would be a picture of the person responsible for the entire debacle holding a sign that said: ‘I did it! It was me all along nyeeeehehehehehehe!’ were promptly dashed. What Stib had sent her was a very dense table of numbers.

“Those are automated measurements. The column on the left is the date. The next one is the location,” Nestra said.

“You sure?”

“Simplified longitude and latitude markings,” Shinoda explained. “They refer to locations in District Fifteen.”

Nestra blushed a little. District Fifteen’s markers were part of the information packet Kim had sent her but… Nestra hadn’t been very diligent in learning them. It was just a pile of numbers and she’d had limited time.

“What matters is the last line. I recognize the rest. Temperature, pressure, but what are… thetas?”

“An abbreviation for thaums,” Nestra explained. This was her area of expertise after all. As a failed gleam.

“It’s a measure of ambient mana. Not a very good one because it doesn’t work well with aspected mana, but still a good indicator nonetheless. The name is based on some twentieth century writer. Still a rather, ah, not widely accepted unit of measure.”

“So…. someone was measuring ambient mana?” Stib asked.

“And the gangers think it’s significant enough to be kept, possibly for blackmail.”

Nestra pondered the discovery for a few moments.

“I don’t think Gidung is here just to make factories,” she finally said.

But the question remained.

What did they find here?

***