Outsider, Part 3

It takes a moment for my nerves to calm and my heart to slow. It's not the physical activity that has it pounding, it's the murder. Not me beating Shane's skull into fragments and crushing his brain with my claw, no, that doesn't kill him, and if it did I don't think I'd feel too bad. Casually shooting Vanko is what gets to me. I'm not even sure why he did it!

There are two bodies in the room with me. One is Vanko, who... isn't dead? He gives a shuddering breath, which is pretty impressive for someone with three slugs in his chest, alien physiology aside. I could stabilize him, wring enough magic out of his lifeblood to keep his brain oxygenated until an ambulance shows up. I'm not sure I want to do that, given what he's just seen and what he just tried to do to me. Shit, he's probably seen most of the inside of my head too. My head isn't a secret— "Askaians" are designed to have an armored shell implanted around their "brains" at birth —but the fact that I ripped a glassy cube out from where someone's brain should have been is something that needs to not get shared.

Fuck it. I'm not killing someone for the first time, not when I'm not actively fighting for my life. I'll deal with the consequences later. I dip my claw in his blood, drawing a crimson diagram on the sheets that flares with shimmering magic the second I complete it. His eyelids waver at me briefly before he loses consciousness.

The other body is Shane's, who has left most of a dragon behind, with the minor problem of there are chunks of broken spinglass on the carpet. Oh gods. I need to get rid of the spinglass first, that cannot be found by some coroner. Grabbing the chunks and hiding them on a different body is a simple shifter's trick that any transhuman learns as a child, but it doesn't do much to hide the body with the obvious socket in its ruined skull.

A solution comes to mind, but it's going to be a messy one. He spit an oxyacetylene bolt at me, which means that body's still got the pressurized hydrocarbon bladder in its chest somewhere. Piercing it will break the magic that keeps pressurized acetylene from detonating, which should turn most of the corpse's neck and head into unrecognizable chunks. It'll come with a cost to my body... but I can afford to pay that. I spear my tail-blade through the body's chest towards where the hydrocarbon bladder should be, and it detonates with enough force to obliterate a meter of my tail and hurl me across the room.

One of the fun little details of a spinglass mind is that unlike an organic one, impacts either kill you or have no effect, with nothing in between. No seeing stars, no temporary blackout, none of that. My brain is a cube of atomic computer, it doesn't really care how much it gets jostled around, as long as it doesn't break. So when the explosion pulps my ribcage and my skull cracks against a supporting beam after my body punches through the drywall, I barely even notice, shifting the damage away without a thought.

Alright. Emergency solved. Spinglass hidden away, Shane's head obliterated, Vanko... not dying, I guess. Me, covered in blood and viscera. Now I can panic.

And yet, no panic attack seems to be forthcoming. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I expected one. I haven't had panic attacks since I stopped being human, but the fear of one tends to show up when I'm doing something that seems like it should make me have a panic attack. Instead, I use the brief moment of calm to take stock of the wounds I've suffered. Three headshots, a shot to the hip from a few days ago, about one body's worth of shattered armor, a half-dozen other bullet holes, and plenty of blast damage. Five fully uninjured forms, one lightly scuffed, one missing most of a face, and one mostly pulped. Five outta eight ain't bad, and I can live with that for the moment. Of somewhat greater concern are the two synthetic voiceboxes that I've lost, since I can't just magic those back together like I can with my flesh, but that's a problem for tomorrow Artemis.

Today Artemis, on the other hand, needs to deal with Shane. The location my direction-finder pulled isn't exactly a single set of coordinates, though. My in-skull radio kit would probably cost tens of thousands of hepts to reproduce locally, but it's simply not big enough to do extremely accurate direction-finding. Instead, it gives me a stretched ovoid, a three-dimensional volume that it's pretty sure has the transmitter in it somewhere. The particular region it's given me covers the better part of three city blocks. Better than nothing, but not exactly a door I can knock on. I'm pretty sure Shane didn't get his backup out before I gave him a friendly little hardstop, which means he won't have any memories since his last one... so hopefully it'll take him a bit to figure out that I know what he is.

Incoming call: Ka'aska Fre'ika

I accept it as I double check myself for blood. "What's up?"

"Are you okay? Was that explosion—"

"Yeah, that was me. I'm fine."

"What happened?"

"The shooter correctly realized that I was going to interfere with his plans, but failed to bring a big enough gun to stop me. Also someone is definitely trying to kill you. Other union organizers too, probably."

"Did you... kill him?"

"He'll need regen, but he'll live. And he'll probably do that living in prison, since he has a hefty bounty on him."

I'm not sure what a P'tassk panic attack sounds like, but if I had to guess, Ka'aska is probably having one.

"Ka'aska. Listen. We're in a little over our heads, but I'm going to run this down, okay? I'm... probably pretty well-equipped to deal with it."

His response is breathy, but not panicky. "You're in over your head?"

"Yeah, look, I didn't expect to get shot a half dozen times today."

"Are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm tough."

"Uh. Thank you?"

"Least I can do. I'll call when I know more." I'm dialing the local emergency number as soon as the call terminates.

"Opus City Emergency," a voice answers in an unfamiliar accent.

"Hi. I'm in the uh... Crescent Inn? Fifth floor, I don't know the suite. There's a guy in here who tried to shoot up a protest."

I can almost hear their double-take over the connection. "Um."

"No, it's fine, he didn't manage to kill anyone. But he did get shot a couple times and needs medical attention. There's also a quadruped here? Their head kind of exploded. I dunno what to do, but I figure an ambulance is a good start." Technically true is the second-best kind of true.

The operator regains their composure, "Right. Ambulance is on the way. What's your name?"

I hang up, and head out.

I realize, as I approach the invisible ovoid my direction-finder has marked, that I can't exactly go knocking door to door looking the way I do. And presumably Shane's backup server will only respond to a specific ping, so I can't just broadcast a request for sync and get a response. I could give it a shot, perhaps. That assumption is based on what I'd do, and Shane is so obviously not like me. If I was an evil upload, where would I hide...

I'd need a bioprinter, something to rebuild my body if it got destroyed. I don't need one, I can just reform my damaged body with the same shapeshifting magic that created it, but I also have rather extreme physical measures that prevent me from getting hardstopped by massive cranial trauma. Shane's obviously comfortable with baseline forms and a violent occupation, so he'd need a printer. And those aren't small, they need plasma conduits for power, and he wouldn't want someone walking in on it... warehouse, machine shop? A quick check on the local internet shows that there aren't any of those in the search area, or even immediately outside of it. Really, everything in there is just office buildings and hotels. Hotel penthouse, maybe, or one of the utility levels any high-rise has. Neither of those is easily searchable for me, especially during the daytime.

But I don't have to be the one doing the searching. Time to put the parasocial relationships to work.

sharptraveller: I have a puzzle for you all. If you wanted to hide a power-hungry industrial device in these three city blocks [attachment:IMG], where would you put it? First to answer correctly gets a favor of their choice. Also, I'll be passing on gym time today. Some things came up, as you might guess.

0xFish: Sure, I'll swim that current. How big and power-hungry is this device of yours, exactly?

sharptraveller: Fits in the back of a box truck, doesn't fit in normal rooms. Might have to be assembled in pieces; power demand requires a plasma hookup.

0xFish: I assume you can't or won't tell us what the device does.

sharptraveller: I can tell you that it's not dangerous aside from the power draw, and it's a manufacturing device of sorts. It should be operating right now, if you have a way to check power usage.

0xFish: Some sort of gravity-field printer? But no, I do not have a way to check the power usage of random buildings, alas. Though I would be intrigued to know what in the depths you've gotten yourself into this time.

tok_kro_4: I will submit the Na'ak building. Last I saw they had a few double-height floors for rent. Not a lot else with sizeable vertical space inside in that volume.

sharptraveller: I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

A suggestion is better than nothing. My brisk walk over is brief and uneventful. People stare, of course, but they've been doing that the whole time I've been here, and honestly they did that back in the Union too. Not that I dislike it. I wouldn't wear this body all the time if I didn't want people to see it, after all. I guess that probably doesn't really jive for everyone else— when you can pick your form, it becomes a type of self-expression, just like tattoos or clothing. The common verb for using a particular body in the Union is "wearing", if that gives any indication.

The office building itself is somewhere around fifteen stories tall, which is slightly taller than average here, but not exciting. There's not much to see from outside, just one-way glass and concrete. You'd think that aliens would have crazy architecture, but from what I've seen here on Opus it's been sort of bland, the same things you'd see on New Earth, or maybe the real Earth a few hundred years ago. Concrete, steel and glass are easy enough to put together, and I guess the physics and economics of construction are the same no matter where you're from.

The question is, how am I going to get in? It's broad daylight, I can't just climb up the wall and break a window. But I can't wait for night either, it's not going to take Shane long to figure out what happened, and if I can find his backup before he relocates...

...am I going to kill him? He's probably on a do-not-reboot timer of at least a few decades, maybe even a permanent one if he's decided to live outside the Union forever. If I destroy his backup here, and he's on a permanent DNR, he's gone for good. I've never killed anyone before. I mean, fuck, how would I have? Sure, I might be built for it, but not back in the Union. I have no idea if I even can kill someone on purpose. I mean, I think Shane probably deserves it, but I've only talked to him for three or four sentences. Admittedly, they were some pretty bad sentences, but, again, not exactly comfy with murder.

Well, a problem for another time. Maybe that other time will be five minutes from now, but my problem now is finding the bastard. Perhaps the receptionist can help me, some sort of amorphous feathered creature behind the desk in the lobby. They look like they're asleep, but I have no clue, I don't recognize their species, they might not even sleep at all.

"Hello," I say, as warmly as I can despite the fact that I loom over the desk. They startle, then settle, then startle again as they look up at me. They look like a feathery blob, and I can't make out where the feathers end and the body begins. More confusing is their apparent lack of sensory organs.

"Um," they get out, followed by a "...hello?"

"Yes. Hello. I noticed your advertisement for double-height floors. I'm trying to find someone with a particular fondness for high ceilings, and wanted to know if you had a directory of your tenants."

"...I think our tenant list is private."

"You think it's private?" I will not yell at a customer service person today.

"I... um, l- look, I don't know—" They visibly squirm under the question.

"Alright. Can you tell me which floor uses the most power?"

"I, I don't know? Please, ex, you need to—"

Time for an easier route. I take a step back to not loom quite as hard, and try my best to use a friendlier tone of voice. "Alright. Look, I'm in a bit of a rush. How about five hundred hepts?"

That gets a reaction. The air of confusion about the feathered shape vanishes, and they drop the stutter. "Bounty hunter?"

"Yeah."

"A thousand. The guy you're after is bad news."

I'd raise an eyebrow if I had one. "A thousand better get me the security logs scrubbed, too."

They bob in what I assume is an affirmative. "Deal."

I hold out the chip in my hand and send the transaction through. It's rather fortuitous that Vanko was happy to pay out, though I assume he won't be happy about getting screwed over twice in one day.

"Seventh floor. Code is 12072234." The Council apparently tried to use a base-7 number system in its infancy, but switched to base-8 when they started realizing that number systems with prime-number bases are insane. I'm just glad that my spinglass can convert the numbers for me if I need it. But this looks like a birthdate. 12-07-2234. I wonder if it's Shane's.

"A pleasure."

The elevator prompts me for a PIN to enter the seventh floor, and I obligingly provide it one. There's a soft chime when it arrives at its destination, and I can feel my claws instinctively digging into the tile floor, ready to leap out of the enclosed space as soon as I can, but I arrive to no fanfare whatsoever. The room is empty, save for a hastily-prepared living space, some computing equipment, and a towering bioprinter. I recognize the model, an Athabasca Biogenetics P9900, probably the most common individually-owned printer in the Union. It's running, a soft hum audible as it slowly layers flash-cloned cells into a new body somewhere inside of its monolithic stainless steel exterior.

There's the twitch of a moving camera lens visible in a ceiling corner. To someone else, probably invisible. But I have a visual system designed to be hyper-responsive to movement, cross-shaped pupils allowing light through onto a retina far beyond anything that ever evolved on Earth. I see the cameras, their motorized lenses slowly following me.

My first act is to calmly stroll over to each one in sequence and crush it in my claws.

<You just signed a fucking death warrant, you bitch.>

I don't react. Why bother? Instead of responding, I start poking around at the assorted equipment strewn haphazardly across the floor. It's all so very... low effort? I expected a lot more, really. It's just a high-power transceiver, a little simbox, the bioprinter, and a power setup. I could yank the power pretty trivially, though that wouldn't immediately cut the power to Shane's mind. Spinglass is active storage; individual bits have to be refreshed a few thousand times a second. Without power, the data will corrupt in milliseconds, so any spinglass has built-in batteries to keep it running for a few months off-grid.

The only dangerous thing here is the power hookup for the bioprinter, since that's raw plasma. I might have a dragon's thermal insulation, but even that magic has limits, and those limits include million-degree reactor plasma. I pop open the bioprinter's physical interface, and check the system's status. He's printing a transhuman body, according to the readout, with about a day until it's done. Some further investigation shows that he's adding on shift forms too, as expected. Two copies of a combat dragon, a Vikoan, a P'tassk... and that's it? Only five forms for a shapeshifter in this day and age is a little strange, especially for one with such a risky line of work. There's no real reason to not max out with seven or eight forms in case you get shot up or something. Unless you don't like shapeshifting. Hm. I wonder if there's some sort of ideology underpinning what he's got going on in his head.

Well, I know an easy way to start a productive discussion. I grab his simbox, hook my claws under the metal casing, and start peeling it back. I'm certainly strong enough— it's only a few millimeters thick, and I can bend a two-centimeter-thick steel bar with my bare hands without a lot of effort. The array of alerts he's probably getting right now convinces him to offer his services to me.

<Fucking, stop, I'll— look, I'll do whatever, please!>

<Great. So, here's how this is gonna work. You're gonna answer my questions, truthfully, and in exchange I won't toss you out the window and see how many times you bounce. Deal?>

He doesn't respond for a moment, then delivers a glum, <...sure.>

<Alright. First question: are you the source of Union alcohol in this system?>

<What? Are you seriously here about—?> In lieu of an answer, I put a claw next to a particularly important-looking cable on his transceiver.

<Fuck, okay, okay! Yes, Jesus, it's just fucking alcohol, enough to get some seed money. Nobody will miss a few dozen pallets. Shit, some of it even got stolen from me. Caught a fucking bullet in all that.> Well, that explains why that Ylinne woman said the person she stole the alcohol from was dead. And given how difficult that would be to explain to the Thorns, it makes sense for him to have just cut his losses.

Of course, he's right that nobody in the Union cares about the theft of small quantities of luxury goods. The issue is more that Union packaging doesn't really tend to hide the fact that everyone's an upload. Oh, and also the whole "criminal empire" shit. <Second question: who were you planning to kill today?>

He doesn't answer. I hook a claw into a gap in the simbox's case and pull. It's almost like peeling an orange. It's funny, really, back home a simbox is just a portable sim and a place to put a backup. Here, it's a literally priceless treasure.

<Are you fucking crazy?! Put me down!>

<I'm actually very well-adjusted.> I shake the simbox for effect. A lot of spinglass setups have accelerometers in them; I hope he feels appropriately jostled. <This is real fucking amateur hours, huh? How many people have you put in danger just from your little slipups so far?>

<Nobody knows! Jesus, what the hell are you, SCFI?> He pronounces the acronym for Space Corps Fleet Intelligence like "skiffy", which is an affectation I've only heard in exactly one place: shitty New Earth action movies. That explains a lot about what he's doing here, unfortunately.

<I'm a private citizen, just like you. And just like you, I don't have to play by their rules. Especially for people trying to use our gifts to exploit others.> I send him a brief flash of sensory recording, the exact moment I shattered his skull and got my claws on his spinglass. <See, the thing is, when I try to kill someone, I don't mess it up. So. Tell me about your business.>

<Fuck, fuck! Fine! I work for the Thorns! They want the dock union fucking gone! I wasn't after anyone in particular, just enough to scare them stupid! Happy?> And there's the nasty side of the interstellar gang. Can't have anyone taking a little bite out of those profit margins.

<Honestly? No, not really. What do they know about you?>

<They don't know I'm an upload, Christ, relax. Just that I'm from the Union and a shapeshifter. If you're a dumb enough bitch to wanna go after them, I'll happily give you an address, just leave me out of it.> Ignoring the invective, his choice of wording is interesting. Using "Christ" and "Jesus" as swears indicates that he was probably raised particularly Christian rather than the sort of choose-your-own-gods thing that most Unioners do. And he seems clumsy about uploading and shapeshifting... I get the feeling he might be a recent upload. Most Christians are perfectly nice postbiological beings like me, but some sects never accepted even the smallest bit of post-scarcity, much less shapeshifting and uploading. Like, for example, the one I was born into. It would at least explain why he's doing this instead of just enjoying life. Maybe if I could just send him back somehow— oh. Duh. I can.

<Cool. Here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna mail you to Agkett with a note for Fleet Intel. They can figure out what to do with your sorry ass.>

<Just fucking kill me at that rate.>

<Did you put in a permanent DNR?> A do-not-reboot order is what keeps the network from assuming your mind's been lost somehow and spinning you up from your last backup. Mine's set for fifteen years, so as long as I go visit somewhere with Union infrastructure once a decade or so, I don't have to worry about a duplicate running around. Not that it would be the end of the world if I did— we have systems that can stitch our mismatched memories back into a single person —but it's taboo, and the merger itself is reportedly excruciating.

<Fifty years.>

<Hm. Well, you can always self-term, but you don't seem like the type. Maybe some punishment will build some character. That's what you people always say, isn't it? Hardship makes you stronger?> Self-termination is simply turning off your mind and throwing yourself into the arms of the backup system. It's not really suicide, not when you'll just get spun up again after your reboot delay, but most people are a little squicked out by the idea. Understandably, I think.

<I think I'd rather just call some friends over.>

So he's probably been screaming for help the entire time. Fuck. I haven't caught it, but I'm not great at using my radio gear for that sort of thing. Not like it's ever been relevant in my life until now. <Hard to believe someone like you has friends.>

<Associates would be a better term.> Of course it would.

<I bet. I have a counteroffer,> I reply, flicking my tail-blade through his transceiver mast. Irreplaceable electronics smash to pieces, and I ignore his cursing to begin disconnecting his equipment. Unfortunately, I can't disable the radio transmitters in his spinglass without breaking the rest of it, which is uncomfortably close to killing him. A fifty-year DNR is a long time. If I have to, though, I'll smash him. I just hope I don't have to.

<Next time, I suggest pretending to be a decent person until after you have control of the situation.> There's no response, thankfully. Rather than arguing, I disconnect the sim box that contains Shane's mind and squish the bent cover back into shape. The bioprinter, on the other hand, is a pretty obvious piece of Union machinery, and it's far too large for me to just smash. Though... I could just leave it. It's not so advanced that the Council or Confeds couldn't make one, it's just more that they don't have any reason to make one. If only it had an easy way to self-destruct. Maybe a bioprinter furnished by SCFI would, but this is just a plain model, and its designers presumably never considered adding a function to flood its interior with reactor plasma. For the moment, unplugging it and breaking the spare spinglass cubes in its storage will have to do.

While I work, I pull up my little forum thread again.

sharptraveller: tok_kro_4 wins the favor, and I have another question for you all. I need a bag or box that blocks radio signals, and the easiest place to get a package shipped to a different star system.

not_plant: what the fuck are you doing

tok_kro_4: Go to Els's Couriers, there's a few locations. My favor is that I want to know what's going on.

sharptraveller: I promise to tell you when I can.

And as soon as I can make up a sufficiently plausible story, I add mentally. I don't exactly enjoy lying like this, but I'm not gonna be the one to let that particular cat out of the bag. With the bioprinter turned off and some half-built human legs rotting inside of it, I take my prize and leave, calling the elevator back up. To my surprise, it does not arrive empty.

The Mahknan inside freezes the second they see me, the gun on their hip untouched. They look a little familiar... oh! We did a round when I was at the gym.

"Hey. Didn't we spar yesterday? I don't think I caught your name." They look at me incredulously for a few moments before getting their bearings.

"Sirol. And yeah, we did." I wonder if Mahknan names are unisex. I haven't been able to pick out a pattern, and I think I've interacted with more Mahknans than any other species here. Gee, I wonder why I gravitate towards the large, muscular species with an evolutionary need for recreational fighting, real big mystery there. This one's wearing some sort of ballistic armor, like the old tactical vests you see in history films, a beige color that blends in with her skin.

"I'm Artemis. I guess you probably knew that, though."

"...yeah. I, uh..."

"Did an angry guy call you and tell you to get up here and protect his stuff?"

"Sure did."

"You gonna try and do that?" I'm not positioning myself aggressively, giving her room to leave the elevator with my tail relaxed behind me, but I'm sure that I still radiate danger. She looks me over. Most of the fights I had yesterday blur together, and I don't particularly remember our bout of sparring. That said, I didn't lose any of them, so I'm sure Sirol knows what she's up against, particularly now that my sharp bits are no longer wrapped in foam.

"...I think I have to, contract and everything." She sounds apologetic. Or perhaps more resigned. Fuck, she thinks I'm going to kill her.

I carefully set my quarry's box down at my side, slowly lowering myself to all fours. "I won't do anything permanent if you don't."

She places her hand on her gun, twin thumbs popping the latch off the holster and grasping the grip, and four of her eyes track me as she slowly draws it. "I'll just put this off to the side, then."

"You can use it, if you want. It won't do anything permanent to me." Even if it penetrates my scales, it'll run out of ammo before I run out of flesh, and something that small doesn't have enough juice to punch through the armor protecting my mind.

Sirol drops the seriousness in a split second, "Fuck off, for real?"

I shrug, realizing belatedly that she might not understand the body language. "I regenerate and my scales are ballistic armor." Amalgam shifting looks like some sort of magical regeneration, which is easier to explain than "I'm a shapeshifter but all of my bodies are the same so I can use shapeshifting as fake regeneration."

She scoffs, putting the gun back in the holster. "Yeah, okay, fuck that, no pay is cheaper than regen. No wonder you wiped the floor with us sparring."

I shrug. "Sorry."

"Not your fault, I guess. Client did not say to come loaded for... well, you." There's a beeping noise as her phone rings. "Ah, shit, that's probably him now."

<You're going to threaten her, aren't you?>

<I'm going to ruin her fucking life. And I'll be spending every single cent I have putting hits on everyone you ever talk to.>

I make a decision. It's not as hard as I expected it to be, in retrospect. "Sirol? Don't answer that for a moment."

She looks at me, confused. I pick up the simbox, and hurl it against the concrete wall with all of my strength. Spinglass might be tough compared to a biological brain, and I might not have the best throwing arm in the world, but it's just a rock, and I can bend steel. Shane gives the briefest exclamation of <NO—>, punctuated by the blink of a terminated connection as his spinglass shatters. Sirol's cell stops ringing.

"What was that?"

"Important. He won't be calling again." Another lie with a kernel of truth in it.

"...what were you doing here, anyway?"

"He tried to kill me, twice. It didn't take, so I'm ruining his life." Or, already have ruined, but that sort of requires explaining that Shane was an upload, which I will not be doing.

She produces the Mahknan equivalent of a laugh, which sounds like a big cat chuffing. "Reasonable. What now?"

"Well, personally, I'm going to go home and hope whatever assassins this shitass sent after me don't cause too much collateral damage when I kill them. After that, probably headed off to Sandelekon once I can get a ticket."

She blinks out of sync at "shitass", which I'm suddenly realizing I translated literally and is not a normal swear in either Interlang or Standard. "That's a new one. Guess you got it all figured out, then."

I mirror her chuffing laugh, one of the few true vocalizations I can perform besides roaring, hissing, and growling. "Not at all. I've spent less than a month outside of my homeworld, if you don't count travel time. No, I just have a bit of wanderlust. Out and about, seeing how the galaxy works, that sort of thing. Most of my species don't get out much."

"Homebodies?"

"Sort of. More of a... I don't know, paranoia that we'll be used for violence? Or that others will hate us for what we are."

"What do you mean, what you are?"

"We're an engineered species. Our creators designed us to be soldiers, then died in a plague of their own creation. They were big on bioweapons, I guess."

"Stars. Explains the... everything."

"Yeah, I don't think anything evolves like this." I motion towards the elevator, "Shall we?"

"As long as you promise not to do an elevator scene on me."

We laugh, together this time. "You all do those too? Small galaxy. But no, no hard feelings. I mean, shit, here, take my number, if you get any fallout from this, gimme a call. Or if you wanna hang, I dunno."

"Sure." We exchange numbers— it's cute, my first alien friend. Well, not really, I guess, I know some alien uploads, but they're eight thousand lightyears away right now.

The receptionist bobs inquisitively when I exit the elevator. "Made a friend, ex?"

I wave. "Sure did. Might be a good day for you to leave early."

The feathered blob wiggles a reply as I leave. I hope that means something good.

Sirol whispers to me as we leave, "You bullied your way past them?"

"No, bribed. Why?"

"They're a Huuto." She says that like it means something.

"Okay? There's like a hundred sapient species, I don't know—"

"Right, you probably wouldn't. Huutos are shapeshifters, probably the one species here you couldn't take in close quarters."

"The... feathery blob?"

"Yup."

"How?"

"They're shapeshifting amoeboids. No muscles, no differentiated tissue at all, so they don't care about physical harm unless it's enough to literally blow them apart. They move by shapeshifting parts of themselves around. And around prey, like a big amoeba."

That's actually fucking terrifying. "Note to self, do not fuck with Huutos."

"They won't eat a person any more than you or I would, but yeah, they can choke you out real easy."

I neglect to mention that I don't actually need to breathe. My brain doesn't need oxygen, and I can draw on the slow trickle of normalization that my other bodies experience when not in use to keep my tissues alive if I'm not breathing, literally shifting oxygen in and CO2 out of my tissues. Instead of getting into the finer details of my own biology, I say my farewells and hail a cab.

I'm crammed into the back seat of a slightly-too-small taxi when the bit of software that lives in my head and pretends to be an alien cellphone rings. I pick up despite the lack of caller ID. Given the timing, I think it's safe to assume it's important.

"Artemis here."

"Hello, Artemis. This is Kolot. I believe we've met." His tone is clipped, unlike the last time we spoke to each other, and my heart speeds up a smidgen.

"Indeed we have, ex." I toss the honorific in there for good measure. Never hurts to be polite to the local gang boss. "What can I do for you?"

"You've caused me a few problems today, you know."

"One of your guys tried to kill me twice. Nothing personal, but I don't tend to appreciate that."

"Understandably so. Our mutual acquaintance has been an acceptable contractor, in the past." Kolot says "mutual acquaintance" like it's a dish that he's just tried and found unpleasant, and he puts the barest hint of emphasis on "in the past". I sense a but coming.

"But?"

"But ex Shane has also caused me a few problems today." Huh. He knows his actual name.

"I see. What do you know about him?"

"Hm. He's a Unioner, and a shapeshifter with some ability to self-modify. Quite useful, but he has assumed a level of leeway and mutual respect that is not actually present in our relationship."

I wonder where that line was crossed. The sniper? Trying to kill the sniper to cover up his identity? Or assuming the Thorns would help when I came after him? "So, hypothetically, if he were to give you a call and say he was being kidnapped..."

"Then I would hypothetically remind him that such things are known hazards of the job. Particularly for one who has repeatedly shown an inadvisable preference for such aggressive negotiation tactics." Huh. Hired to negotiate with the union, and was too aggressive for an interstellar criminal syndicate? I wonder what's up with that.

"I was under the impression he had been instructed to shoot up a picket line."

"No. He was instructed," Kolot says, and I can hear the irritation in his voice, even with the language and species barrier, "to get the port open as fast as possible. Offering generous terms was my suggested course of action. You can imagine my surprise." I'm feeling increasingly out of my depth here. A pro-union criminal syndicate?

"I suppose so."

"I have no knowledge of your quarrel with our mutual friend, but as long as you have no desire to go to the local authorities, I would consider the matter resolved if he were to be released to my custody."

"Ah. That could be a problem. He's dead."

"Your doing, I assume?"

"He didn't leave me a lot of options."

There's a pause on the other end of the line. "You've put me in a bit of a bind, Artemis."

"How so?"

"I can overlook a kidnapping, but I'm obliged to retaliate for the killing of one of our allies. Nothing personal, but I have political considerations for my position in the Thorns."

Well, that's not ideal. "I assume you're telling me this for some reason besides professional courtesy?"

"Yes. I do have a path forwards, but it would require some work."

"You need me to kill some people?" Am I being threatened into being a hitwoman? Or was that the plan all along? He had that answer ready to go the second I asked.

"Not necessarily, but it wouldn't hurt. A little bit of cleaning house, if you will. Some of my more ambitious associates have been engaging in ventures outside of our remit. Were those ventures to encounter abrupt ends, I would be in a position to overlook your interference."

"Their stuff gets ruined by a third party, yours doesn't, you get to climb the ladder?"

"You understand the vision."

"Sure. You're threatening me into doing work for you."

"Is it working?" He's not smug about it, at least, but that doesn't make me feel better.

"I'm considering it, but I wouldn't call myself a willing employee."

"I'm willing to offer a reasonable rate for your services, and a share of the bounties you pick up in the process. Does that help?" I'm honestly tempted to try my luck with the assassins, just out of spite. What are they going to do, a drive-by with a tank? But in the interest of not getting involved in a one-woman gang war... probably better to go along.

"I'm considering it very strongly. What's the job?"

"My associates are engaging in the flesh trade. This is both against our code, and stupid. If either of our neighbors' navies found out, the consequences would be drastic. And on a lesser note, it is objectionable to me personally. I would like their operations to be ruined, embarrassingly and messily."

"By flesh trade, you mean...?"

"Trading in people."

Oh. I suddenly have a lot less of a problem with this whole thing. "Kolot, dear. You could have just led with that instead of this whole convoluted thing. I would have done it for free."

"To be clear, Artemis, my threat is very real. You're already a danger. You can be an asset, too, but I won't protect you if you're only the former." Ah. Not a whole convoluted scheme, then.

"Give me an address and an hour to get ready, I'll make it messy. And I will still be taking that offer of payment." I need the hour to do a reset ritual. My body is fine, but my bodies are not, and I'm not about to walk into what could be an actual fight at anything less that full strength. Fortunately, the magic that created me in the first place can be repurposed to repair me, and it can do so at a price far cheaper than regeneration. The trick is simple: I sacrifice my damaged bodies as fuel to recreate my original self, undamaged. It's not fast, not without a specialized casting chamber, but it's free.

"That's acceptable. The driver will meet you at your building in an hour. A pleasure, ex Artemis." The call disconnects. I can't say it's been a pleasure, but... well, not yet it hasn't.

Arcs of magical lightning sting my scales and the scent of ozone fills the air as the laser-burnt ritual circle shimmers silver with power. I kneel in the exact middle of the circle, my positioning controlled perfectly by the computer that is my brain rather than my own control. The precision is important, and the only way that this can be done safely without a casting chamber. I relax, feeling my self ebb out of my physical form and into the runes around me, building and refracting. My mind, so carefully protected by computerized safeguards and cryptographic locks, exists free for a brief, infinitesimal moment that stretches on for no time at all.

And then there's a snap. I'm back together, scales tingling as I feel my form disintegrate and blend and assemble all at once. I'm me again, hearty and whole. Even better, I have ten minutes to spare before Kolot's driver shows up. That's enough time to get a smoothie for the ride over.

One brief walk later, and I am slurping on my super-sized smoothie as a slick black agrav pulls up. This one's clearly aerodynamic, not just a ground-hoverer like Osuong's truck was. The side door opens upwards to reveal Kolot, in the flesh. Or fur, perhaps, since I have no clue what color a Vikoan's flesh is under their fur. He beckons, and I join him, smoothie in hand. In claw? It's always a little difficult to decide which word to use to describe myself. The vehicle takes flight as soon as the door closes, the weight imbalance discarded by the thrusters.

I take a large slurp from the straw before speaking. "Can't say I expected to see you here."

Kolot flicks an ear. I'm starting to think it might actually mean irritation. "Some things need a personal touch. The ride should only take a minute. Any questions before you go?" I maintain eye contact and take another sip.

"A few days ago, with that deal at the warehouse. Osuong mentioned a 'fur incident'. What was that about?" I wonder if it's disorienting to others that I can talk with my mouth full.

"We went to school together. At one point I was... shaved." He says that as if it explains everything. It in fact explains nothing, but I decide not to press.

"When your species flicks an ear, what's that mean? I'm kind of new here."

"This?" He flicks the ear again. "Just that I've heard you and am thinking of a response. Anything else? Perhaps related to your task?"

"Um. General layout? Location? How's the local cuisine?"

"Do you always joke like this?"

"Yes," I answer without hesitation. I do always joke like this. It's an important part of being the villain, even if I'm not quite playing that role any more.

"...warehouse and half-built highrise. Former is storage. Latter is... service. They will be armed."

"I sure hope so. I might feel bad if they're not. How long will it take emergency services to respond?"

"Out here on the outskirts? Ten minutes, five if you call them."

The rest of the ride passes in silence. Kolot is clearly trying not to stare, and I wonder if he's tagged along for more than professional reasons. I mean, I know I'm attractive, at least to the right kind of person, but I have no idea if Vikoans get the same sort of attraction that we do. Seddu and Ivu'alek don't, not really, they're basically asexual as far as that goes. Cacren think most bipeds are ugly as sin, though they do occasionally go for folks with full-mech or dragon bodies. Really, the only aliens I know of who are consistently down to clown in an interspecies manner are Rakketch and Mahknans.

My speculation on Kolot's sex life is interrupted when the agrav comes to a halt. The door swings open, and I take a look at what is to be my arena. It's not much to look at: a beat-up warehouse and an equally dilapidated compact highrise that both look like the builder ran out of money halfway through. There's not much in the way of guards outside, just a sleepy-looking Vikoan with a handgun.

I turn to Kolot one last time before stepping out. "Wait one minute, then call for the ambulance." He flicks an ear, and the agrav pulls away as soon as the doors are closed. I get the feeling it would have been burning rubber if it had any.

Well, time to get to work. My first order of business is to make sure Kolot hasn't lied to me about what's going on here. Perhaps a real militarized form would be able to tell from scents and hearing alone, but I don't have a sensory system designed for detection like that. Mine is built purely for reaction speed and motion tracking; my hearing and olfactory senses are just normal. Instead, I just walk up to the guard, who is now eyeing me cautiously.

"Hey bud. I heard you've got some flesh for sale."

"Why, you buying, ex?" It's neat that aliens have sarcasm. I mean, every Earth culture did too, but it's good to see.

"Yes." I open my mouth just enough to show my teeth, razor-sharp rows of knives designed to shred subdermal aramids and engineered muscle. "I'm hungry."

"I ...lemme call the boss, then." He seems a little taken aback, but I basically said openly that I'm going to purchase and eat another sophont. The normal reaction to that is something a bit more serious, so I suppose his lack of reaction is quite damning. I wait patiently for a few moments while he presumably has a conversation over a comm implant.

"Boss says she isn't selling to someone she doesn't know." Nice to know that women can be evil here too, I guess.

"Oh, that's fine, I was lying about buying." I give him about half a second for the realization to hit, then slam him to the ground with a palm as I sweep his legs out from under him. "My people kind of have a whole thing about slavery," I say in my sweetest, most apologetic tone,"you might want to sound the alarm now."

"Wha—" The confusion turns into a shout of pain when I dig my claws into his chest and slash downwards. Vikoan fur is wiry and tough, evolved to protect them from the knifeleaf ferns that cover their homeworld, but it doesn't do a lot to protect against sharpened ceramic. Someone is probably seriously regretting not wearing a ballistic vest today. He goes for the gun on his hip— remarkable, given that I've just torn most of his chest muscles —and I let him, for a moment, before gently taking it from his shaking hand.

"Ah, don't bother with that, it won't help. Tell you what, you stay here. I'll be right back."

The first person to respond comes running out of the highrise, a P'tassk with some sort of submachine gun. He sees me, and manages to get the gun up before I close the distance. A dozen shots bounce off my scales, but he wisely doesn't let up on the trigger. You see that in old horror movies and sci-fi stuff, sometimes. There's some sort of monster, and they only shoot it once or twice before giving up, which I've always found a little bit disappointing as a monster myself. No, this guy has seen the movies, he knows that he might as well empty the mag. It's an admirable trait. Unfortunately, whatever he's got doesn't even have enough velocity to break my scales, so the most it's going to do to me is give me a bruise. I hurl the gun I've taken from the first guard at him and spin, taking advantage of the space I have outside to whip my tail around in a circle, accelerating the blade on the end with every muscle in my lower body. Normally I'd save this sort of thing for a finishing move, a final flourish to end a match against a defeated opponent. But here... well, it's not like I have to strip their defenses first. A split second after he dodges the thrown firearm, my tail-blade slices through his arm right below the shoulder, bone shattering with the sheer momentum of the strike, before continuing on through his chest.

It doesn't quite bisect him. P'tassks are too dense and bony for that, but the strike puts him on the ground instantly. I pull my blade out with a squelching sound, just in time for another friend to arrive. This one's another Vikoan, with a matching SMG. They take one look at me and the two people I've already downed, and I can see the panic enter their eyes as they turn to run. It's delicious. They get into the lobby as I lope after them, and I give them the briefest moment of fumbling with the door to the stairwell before pouncing.

"Hi. I have some questions." I punctuate my statement with a growl from my actual vocal cords and the pressure of claws on their neck. The response is gibberish and panic, not an actual language. Perhaps I'm coming on a little too strong.

"Alright, look, I'm not going to kill you if you stop making noise and listen." Blessedly, that works.

"Okay. Hi. I'm Artemis. You are?"

"...I'm Tionak," she manages to get out. I'm surprised she's a she. I guess being born into a patriarchal culture colors your perception a bit, even if it's uncommon anywhere else.

"Hi, Tionak. I need you to tell me where your boss is." She hesitates. "If you tell me, you can go stabilize your friends outside. They've lost a lot of blood." I slide my tail-blade into her field of vision, dripping crimson red. Honestly, I think it's a little disappointing that iron-based blood is so common. Where's my vivid green and purple alien blood?

"...fifth floor."

"Don't run too far or I'll hunt you down." I release her, and she scrabbles away. Hopefully she actually knows how to stabilize someone. It's part of any standard education that I know of, even on New Earth, and I assume it is out here with how common regenerative medicine is. If not... well, I appear to have come around somewhat on the whole "not killing people" thing this afternoon. Rather than bother with the stairwell, I prowl back outside and climb up the exterior, grateful that someone has once again left an exterior of unfinished concrete that's rough enough for my claws to find purchase. There are windows, apparently hastily attached rather than built in as they should be. Not exactly soundproof, which means I can catch bits of shouting from inside... and bits of sobbing. Oh gods. There are people in here.

I can hear the shouting more clearly from under the bolted-on windows on the fifth floor.

"What do you fucking mean, there's a monster!? You have a gun! Fucking shoot it!" There's a brief pause, presumably while some suboordinate provides a cringing reply. "Then shoot it more! Fuck! Do I have to do everything myself!?"

I peer over the window ledge into the floor, hoping that whoever's inside isn't looking my way, and immediately flinch back down when I catch a glimpse of two suits of power armor. The first is one that I know from idle curiosity: a Council Ranger suit, not a current model. More akin to a bipedal mecha for an eel than a suit, this model's occupant is a Luouong, floating in an internal tank with a bridging implant to drive the machine. The second I know because they're the baddies in half the war movies made in the last decade: Confederate Navy Marine armor. The user isn't visible, but they only make those suits for one species, Mahknans.

"I'll jump down, you take the stairs. Catch whatever the fuck it is in the middle." Shit. The suit's footfalls are heavy, and it only takes five before the ranger suit comes sailing out the makeshift window. I leap after it the second it enters my vision. The only hope I have in this fight is staying close enough to force a melee. If either of those suits has actual weaponry that they can bring to bear—

That question is answered for me immediately when the suit raises a short, square-barreled gun towards me while we're both midair. I can see the distinctive grid pattern of a macron gun's barrels for a brief second before it flashes, thaumaturgy opening a tube of vacuum between the barrel and my chest. There's no sound, not with the artificial vacuum that allows it to fire in atmosphere. Something hits me, and I know intellectually that it's a torrent of micrometer-sized hypervelocity beads, but physically it feels like a million tiny knives burrowing into my flesh. My armor holds for a fraction of a second, fragments pinging off my arms and legs, and then the beam tunnels through me, my own meat spalling and frying under the barrage. The recoil and subsequent impact on me forces the two of us away, ruining my airborne pounce, and I tumble to the ground, barely managing to land on all fours as my blood vessels seal themselves off around the hole.

I'm already moving when I land, hoping to take advantage of my opponent's surprise when my flesh melts back together, untouched bioceramic plating unfolding out of nothingness as fresh organs and muscle refill the gaping hole in my torso. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work, and they get another long burst off, attempting to drill through my head this time. Whatever targeting system they have in that suit isn't quite good enough, and I manage to juke enough that the impacts are spread out over my armor rather than penetrating fully.

And then I'm onto them. Ranger armor isn't made for hand-to-hand, it's made for speed, meant to allow boarding teams to rush through their target before any meaningful opposition is possible. It's certainly stronger than almost any organic, but I'm not almost any organic, and whoever's inside hasn't realized that they need to keep me at range yet. I give them a flying tackle, not caring about how I land as long as I have them restrained and their sandgun isn't pointing at me.

The first mistake I make is thinking that this biped armor will move like a human. It doesn't. The wrist and elbow bend backwards as I try to restrain it with a full-body grapple, gun pivoting upside-down to press directly into my hip. There's a click, and suddenly every nerve in my body fries instantaneously. My vision whites out; every physical sense I have simply dies. The only way I can tell that there's some flesh left is that strange sixth sense that any amalgam has about their own body, and there's really not much left. Everything is burn channels from what appears to be a titanic electric discharge, and I am suddenly immensely grateful that my spinglass has high-grade insulation.

It takes me a few moments to realize what happened. A macron gun is an electrostatic accelerator. With the barrels in physical contact with me, it shorted the shot's energy directly into my body, and I have no defense against that much voltage. By the time I repair my optical nerves, the suit is standing over me with the sandblaster pointed at my head.

"Congrats, you tri—" I don't give them time to speak, shifting new flesh into place and sweeping their legs as I spin myself to my feet. The gun goes off, ruining one of my eyes and half my skull, but it's pointing elsewhere soon enough as its wielder clumsily flops on the ground. This time, I wrap my tail around the gun immediately, engineered muscles fighting with servos as I scrabble to find a weak point. No power armor is completely protected: it's designed for flexibility, not being a tank, which means there's always a spot that an enterprising assailant can start peeling apart the steel onion.

I find my weak spot at the shoulder, some sort of aramid fabric concealing the cabling that runs into the joint. My claws tear into it, severing cables and coolant and—

There's another white flash as the suit presses a palm against me, and I feel myself get thrown into the air as smoking hulk of burnt flesh. I fucking hate electricity. Why the fuck is every goddamn piece of Council tech designed to push eleventy billion volts through my flesh? I shift midair yet again, a ruined body swapped out with a fresh one. The pressure is catching up to me. I'm down two entire bodies, serious chunks of a third, and I haven't even disabled the first of the two suits.

At least this time they have to make a dash for the sandgun while I close in on them, rather than being able to shoot me the whole time. I'm helped by the fact that their left arm is hanging limply at their side. Presumably I managed to cut something important. I reach them as they grab at the gun, kicking it out of their reach with a slide, then pivoting on top of them. This time, I sever the connections for the other arm quickly, and while they try to fry me again, this time the current only roasts half my torso and a leg before I break whatever conduit was carrying the power. The operator continues to fight, but with only their legs working, I'm cleared for the killshot. I grab an arm and pull, broken metal and wires coming out as I apply every bit of force that I have.

With the fresh gap in the torso's armor, I slam the pointed tip of my tail-blade into the hole where the arm was, and am rewarded with the thunk of boron nitride blade sinking into the reinforced acrylic chamber that holds the pilot. There is flesh in there, and I will cut it. Another trio of strikes and the water is leaking out, and I shove the suit away from me before it can complete a circuit between the suit's battery and me. Not a second too soon, either, because a quarter-second after I get it off of me, there's a pop, and the entire back of the armor blows out in a plasma-blue explosion as the superconducting battery quenches.

One down, one to go. The blast has riddled this body with shrapnel, but not so badly that the entire thing is unusable. A little bit of swapping bits and pieces brings me back to perfect health with a thought, though I can't say I'm comfortable with the fact that I've lost basically half the biomass I started with, and in barely a minute of actual fighting.

The second suit of armor poses a different issue. Confed marines have the most durable power armor in the known galaxy. Presumably, this quality makes it particularly desirable on the black market, because it's not like the weapons that can penetrate it grow on tr— wait. Ohohoho. Thank you, Mr. Power Armor Guy, for dropping your gun.

I scoop up the macron gun and duck next to the highrise's exterior wall. The other suit must be seconds away from getting down the stairs, and my claws are too big to comfortably work the weapon. It at least appears to be designed for interspecies use, and I can awkwardly hold it, but all my muscle memory for holding a gun is fucked. Shit, I barely even use tools, that wasn't what that body was for. A memory bubbles to the surface, and I'm back in the body I was born with, struggling to even move where I want to. The memory passes, but not before I can hear the heavy footfalls of the power armor in the lobby.

Fuck it. I swivel out into the doorway, point the gun, and pull the trigger. The only thing that happens is an orange light on the top of the receiver starts blinking at me. Shit. I duck back behind the wall before they can raise their gun, frantically trying to figure out if there's a safety or something I missed, but there's no secondary lever, just the trigger. I bet it's locked to the suit, so there's no easy way to fix that... but, there is an easy way to extract what I need.

I slam the gun into the concrete, shattering the housing and revealing the delicious wires and circuitry inside. I tear through the mess, desperately hoping that the Council designs their batteries the same way the Union does, and I'm rewarded with a little disk-shaped piece, no larger than my palm. The bluish-gray component is covered in warnings— it's a superconducting battery, holding enough internal energy to turn a mid-sized sedan into shrapnel. At least I hope it is, I don't know how much got discharged in the process of blasting out every nerve in my body a minute ago.

Whoever is in the suit doesn't hesitate in pursuing me, trusting their armor to keep them safe. I lunge towards them the second the suit's in my field of vision, and their gun is already leveled at me after my second step. It flashes a split second before I make contact, and a quartet of shaped-charge buckshot pellets slam into me, copper lances spearing into my chest and gut. The sheer force of the impacts— repeated impacts, because the shotcannon they're wielding fires in full auto —grounds me, even if the individual holes aren't ruining as much flesh as the sandblaster did. But the damage adds up fast, and my new opponent is smarter than my first one, backpedaling as they hose me down with explosives. Warnings flash through my spinglass as pellets hit my skull and detonate, the molten jets of copper coming dangerously close to punching through the armor composite around my mind.

It doesn't matter, in the end. They empty the mag before I run out of flesh, and then I'm up and moving. I slam the sandblaster's battery pack into their head with enough force to dent the casing, and I suffer a tiny moment of panic that my plan hasn't worked before my senses white out again.

Have I mentioned that I hate electricity?

Fixing myself is as trivial as usual, though I can feel how much of myself that I've lost. Three bodies completely wasted from shocks and internal burns, another trio mostly unusable between the macron blast I took and the full mag of shotcannon shells that got dumped into me... two left, plus some spare limbs. I might have lost enough flesh that a reset ritual won't be able to recover me to back to my original eight whole bodies, actually, though I won't know until I try. Magic's rules on conservation of matter and energy are loose, to put it lightly, but not totally ignorant of reality. Of more concern is the fact that I've lost yet more digital voiceboxes. There's four intact that I can feel, and I don't particularly wish to be mute.

A car peels out from the warehouse while I try to take stock of the situation. One with actual wheels, too. Neat. I run it down, leaping onto the back and sinking my claws into the thin metal siding. The driver tries to slam on the brakes, which only helps me flip over on top of the windshield, digging gouges out of the roof as I do so. The driver's another Vikoan, and they're perhaps mildly smarter than their compatriots, because they've got a gun pointed at a terrified-looking Illia in the passenger seat instead of me.

Unfortunately for them, I have an easy solution, and given their occupation, I'm not too concerned about the results. I punch my tail-blade through the windshield and into their wrist, fifty centimeters of bone-white bioceramic severing their tendons before they can contract to pull the trigger. The passenger understandably screams, but she's alive, and the car isn't moving. Two punches opens up enough of the windshield for me to grab the driver and pull them out, and I make sure to get my open jaws very close to their neck before I growl out a question.

"How many others?"

They don't get a coherent response out for a few moments. Perhaps I'm laying it on a bit thick. Or maybe it's the way I'm covered in blood, and most of it's mine. Eventually, though, they do manage a response.

"J— just six of us!"

I toss him on the side of the road like a sack of potatoes, and hand the Illia (who is no longer screaming, thankfully) the blood-covered pistol.

"Here. Use this."

Okay. Two dead, three in various stages of dismemberment or seriously wounded, one intact— there's a gunshot behind me, but not at me. A glance reveals that the Illia has shot the driver in the head.

Good for them.

"Satisfied with my work, ex?"

Kolot surveys the street, covered in ambulances and police vans like swarming flies. Apparently slavery is a good way to get the authorities to actually turn up out here. I'm grateful, at least, because I have no idea how to handle getting food and shelter for the forty or so sophonts that this gang was holding here. Kolot has brought his two goons with him this time, the two Luouongs in what I think is light power armor. They're trying to stay out of arm's reach without making it look like they're trying to do that, which I think is a wonderful compliment.

"Do you mind if I'm a little blunt with you, ex Artemis?"

"Go ahead."

"I was hoping you'd get yourself killed." I'm not surprised by that.

"I hope you're not planning to try and take care of that retroactively." Not surprised about it, yes. Happy about it, no. The implicit threat I'm making to Kolot doesn't need to be stated. He's seen what I can do; he knows that I could literally rip him limb from limb before anyone could stop me.

"I'm not, no. I'm not entirely sure I could get someone to try, after today. Or if it would even be possible."

He doesn't know how close I was there. Amalgams have an air of invincibility to those who don't know how we work. Damage to my body can be whisked away almost instantly, and an observer doesn't know how fast I have to burn my spare flesh to keep myself intact. Even other amalgams can struggle. It's one of the little skills that doesn't get talked about much in razorclub fights— if you can keep track of your opponents' wounds as good as you can track your own, it's a significant advantage.

"It's possible, but the specifics are a... trade secret, let's say."

"Indeed. Regardless, yes, I find myself quite happy with your work. Did you leave that many alive on purpose?" Ah. He wants to know if I'm a sadist, or lazy. Honestly, I might be a sadist? I like hurting people in the context of a razorclub ring, but everyone there has pain dampers or is some sort of freak that likes the pain. Causing others actual pain for no real reason, no, definitely not.

"I don't like killing people. I think that works out for you here, yeah? A few witnesses to spread the story?"

"It worked out nicely. Ringleaders dead, subordinates cowed. Though I wouldn't want to hang out in the area, if I were you. Grudges can be held in situations like this."

"No problem there. I'm headed out-system as soon as I have money for a ticket and tie up some loose ends here."

"Tie up some... interesting turn of phrase. Regardless, yes, your compensation. Do you have a chip?"

I hold out my palm by way of a response, and Kolot transfers the money. It's good that my face isn't particularly expressive, because wow that's a lot. Thirty-two thousand hepts, enough for a ticket to Sandelekon and then some.

"A pleasure, ex. I'll see you around."

"I hope you will not, ex Artemis. Good travels."