Cire.

  “Okay, so run this by me again…” Beckie muttered, the taller girl standing at Cire's side while they both stared out across the mist-slicked street.

  It wasn't an impressive sight... But, the AI supposed that was just par for the course when it came to Port Pride.

  A thin film of grime coated the opposite building's facade, the grit of industrial soot abs the neon glow of the city that had bloomed as the light of day faded to evening.

  her woman had yet moved from their shadowed alcove sihey’d arrived, the modest chill seeping into their somewhat damp clothes as the enviroal system mimed a rainy night.

  Oher side of the road, barely visible through a dingy, dura-pstidow, five figures were ughing and inhaling burners like their lungs were masochistic gimps.

  Loud, discordant music, a blend of aggressive teo and garbled, unintelligible vocals, bsted through the derelict building's walls, spilling out into the street only to be downed by the cmor of the te-night city noise.

  Cire g the rger womaing her momentary look as she shrugged, ying out her pn for, perhaps, the fourth time...

  “Yoing to point out which ‘dudes’ and or dudettes are the ones from the other syndicate, assuming they aren't all are, and I’m going to shut their neural-augments down.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So, we're killing them?”

  “Yuh-huh.”

  “And you're just—chill with that?”

  Cire bli Rebecotig how the girl was giving her a hard stare… “Are you—not okay with it?” She asked, unsure where the issue exactly was.

  After all, they both needed money and right over there was a veritable small fortune ihat they could ‘salvage’ for the greater good. Which was, of course, to say, 'salvage' for Cire's direct moary be.

  Rebecca was quiet for a short span, tongue whetting her lips before she shook her head, letting out a small huff of indignation. “Yeah… I’m just not really buying it… I know you hacked me and threatened my life and all, but I really didn't think you had the balls to gh with it…”

  “Wanna see em?”

  “See what?”

  “My balls.” Cire chuckled, giving her hips a good thrust just for the fun of it.

  “Ha! You don't have balls.”

  “Totally do! I’ve got both sets of equipment! What? You haven't rented a Doll before?”

  “I… have not! And, Seriously? You've got both?”

  “Yeah, it's weird whehing is out, but also super fun.”

  Beckie just that, chewing her lip for a moment before snapping from the odd divergend ing full circle to her prior question. “Still, it feels—I don't know—strahat you’d be so willing to just kill people? I mean, listen, I’m not saying it's a bad idea it's just, you know, I didn't think you people really had any experieting your hands dirty…”

  “I’ve got a few murders under my belt…” Cire admitted, her tone dropping its previously jovial air. “I don't like killing, just for the sake of it, but if it's them or us, I’m choosing us. And! Before you say anything, that includes our paratively horrible financial situations.”

  “Amen, sister. Preach it…” Beckie muttered, though her voice cked her normal enthusiasm…

  “Okay, seriously though, who's getting the hammer?”

  “Alright ugh… See the dickhead in the spiky jacket with the e jaw?”

  “Yup.”

  “And those two chicks wearing pink and blue tights? Fug awful bitches, both of them… Always stole my freaking shoes at the gym when we were younger.”

  “Okay…”

  “And, that guy in the beanie, he’s a fug dickhead as well! Dude gave me the cp, I had to spend aire week w off the debt for medication! Oh! A Paul too! That guy's just bad news. Broke into my apartment a few weeks back, I caught the guy and fug id him out, but it's not the first time he’s do. I’ve had shit going missing for months before I figured out what he was doing.”

  Cire—paused, gng back up at the now somewhat eager beaver beside her, and all with a sembnild uainty. Ign that she’d just fingered each of them…

  “Hey, Beckie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is this—actually a rival gang—or…”

  “No, they're for sure a bad crew!”

  “Not really what I asked…”

  Beckie was silent for a few moments, Cire seeing how her lips opened and closed before the rge woman just shrugged. “Okay, maybe they’re part of the same syndicate, but what’s it matter? We’ve got dozens of little cliques within the anization, and these assholes are always trying to throw their weight around like they own this pce!”

  Cire looked around, noting all the various buildings that were very muot ‘Beckies’ either. Moreover, they were actually several blocks away from her apartment at this point, or even from the first location they’d met!

  The more Cire thought about it, the more this felt to be someersonal… Again, she looked at Beckie who was staring at her right babsp;

  Well, whatever!

  Who really cared?

  Cire closed her eyes, a faint chill of familiar calm running through her as she extended her sciousness into the webwork of interected eleieural impnts, body modifications, 'e' augmentations all of which tie the gap between man and mae.

  All of it held a e to the Sub-verse for one reason or another, if they were worth a damn. Sure, some of the older tech could be a little too barbaric for su intrusion, but nobody wao plug their cyberi, every time there date.

  Which, of course, allowed for a ve back door that she erfectly willing to abuse.

  It wasn't a , surgical strike; not like the sort one might expect from a knife where a quick 'snap' suddenly saw them all fall over. It was more like a tendril of corrupted data, a virus creeping its way into the delicate architecture of their augmented minds.

  She visualized the kill switch, her delightful little worm of code, a dormant subroutine she buried deep within the firmware that spread like a silent tagion as it burrowed quietly through their brains.

  Then, with a mental flick, she activated it.

  The effect wasn't instantaneous, not for Cire at least. Though in parative 'humabeats it might seem as such. Her and rippled through their systems like a shockwave, a cascade of sudden failures and purging of information causing a savage scrambling of their minds.

  One moment they were ughing, the heir faces torted in the briefest flickers of fusion, then nothingness.

  Their bodies simply slumped to the dusty floor in a discerting, almost ical, domino effect.

  One man, his e jaw gleaming uhe flickering neon sign, dropped his burner mid-ihe acrid smoke curling upwards like the final whisper of his departing soul...

  A woman with mirrored shades and a shaved head didn't even twitch, her augmented eyes merely rolling bato her skull before she smmed to the ground, limp as a wilted flower.

  The rhythmic thump of the musitio pound out its heavy decibels, utterly ignorant to the reaper's scythe as it moved through the room, g lives without anyone even notig a thing.

  Cire took in a simuted breath, her intrusion leaving her with but a faint echo of their final thoughts. Data, information, memories, all things she’d briefly graced while iheir heads, now little more than faint memories… small shards of departed spirits to join her own mind.

  "Five targets, fiiiiive kills," Cire announced cheerfully, a small, almost predatory smile pying on her lips, not for the deaths, but for the brutal efficy of it. Of which, she could definitely appreciate it.

  Brain augments truly were terrifying things to possess!

  She uood the reason behind their popurity, but good lord! This was just basic hag.

  With the right uanding, and a will to do bad things, the ied nature of such barbaric cyberics was—hmph! Well, dangerous for their squishy and fragile brains.

  “Holy fuck… are you serious?”

  “What?”

  “Are they—are they dead?”

  “irely?” Cire mused, her head bobbing from side to side. “I mean, they’re breathing, but pretty much just vegetables at this point…"

  “Fug Christ!"

  "Calm down; it's not that big a deal!"

  "Fuck you, it is, and by the way, you are one—really scary fug bitch…”

  “What did you think was going to happen?

  “Not that!” Beckie whispered, her eyes bugging out and hands waving frantically! “They just fell over! Like, together! There weren't aricity or-ns…”

  “Signs?”

  “You know, like in video games? Fuck! Usually when you haeohey go all glitchy and shiver and fug look like their gettirocuted!”

  “I mean… I could have do that way…” Cire sighed, shaking her head as she sauntered across the street, hearing Rebecca stomp-running after her like the giant tyrannosaurus rex she was.

  “Fuck!”

  “Okay, Beckie, stop swearing!”

  “Make me! Wait!” She blurted a moment ter, holding up her hands as though Cire was about to bite her—”Don't make me, just—ignore me, okay? Sorry, I’m sort of freaking the fuck out…”

  “Over killing people that you wanted me to kill?”

  “I didn't think it was going to be that fug easy!” Beckie screamed-whispered, nearly wanting to screech! “That was the most freaking terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. And I’m really only now ing to terms with the fact that you were actually going to do the same thing to me!”

  “Did you think I was joking?”

  “I didn't think you were a goddamn space wizard that could kill people with her mind! What the fuck? It took you like four seds!”

  “Paradise sex-bots are repurposed Mil-droids.” Cire replied, easily stepping over the first body to go after the one she wanted.

  Reag down, she pulled off a shiny pair of rimmed boots from one of the girls, smiling to herself as she firmed it indeed was a model that could resize. The things would look a little bulky on her, but Cire just supposed she’d be entering a ‘goth phase’ for a bit.

  “What?” She demanded, pulling on the left boot as it molded to fit around her slender leg, the damhing nearly reag her knee given the height differences.

  “You’re just—really feeling less and less like somebody from Ptinum Mile… I’m thinking more military or—fuck, I don't know, but I also really don't want you to kill me so—”

  “Rex! I’m not going to murder you… I need a human to py gopher for me!”

  Beckie just swallowed, uo really parse if Cire was being serious, or if she was joking.

  Admittedly, Cire was messing with her a little bit, purposefully throwing a bit of sadistic ‘crazy’ into her wide grin as she watched the irl without ever blinking…

  “Hah… R-really hope you're trying to be funny right now…”

  “You don't think it was funny?”

  “Oh thank god!”

  “Freaking rex kid! Seriously! Yood! Now, start dragging bodies to the big ass bihere after I finish stripping the corpses. Don't worry, cameras are out, nobody will know this was us.”

  Rebecca just chuckled nervously, nodding her head but doing what was asked of her all the same.

  It was—gruesome work… Without the proper tools, Cire was doing a lot of carving… The knife she’d taken from one of their victims was well ruined by the time she was fihe errant bits of striped meat and tendon scattered about the floor and making the room look like some kind of sughterhouse...

  And, though she'd been trying in earo keep as much blood as she could off of herself, Cire was still coated in it up to her arms…

  All the same, when Beckie tossed the st desecrated body irash, both girls had a rather sizable colle of very suspicious-looking parts…

  “Sooo… not to sound like a buzzkill…” Beckie whispered, almost like she thought the peacekeepers were right around the er. “These aren't going to sell for a whole lot as they are…”

  “ you carry it all?”

  “Most of it I guess… Why, you want to try and it at the apartment?”

  “No point.” Cire waved, pig up the various smaller and delicate pos that her ‘igor’ would doubtless fumble. “, we're heading over to Gunther’s. If he’s got an eveely det setup, I’ll turn this shit into some kickass gear, just wait and see!”

  Rebecbsp;

  Beckie followed along in silence, her arms full of dripping and gore-coated cyber-ware. Thankfully, the majority of people actually paying attention to them knew better than to stare—or front them for that matter, so they pretty much just walked right down the road without anyone giving a shit.

  Nobody, not even Beckie, was she ho with herself, wao be involved in whatever it was the crazy robot chick to.

  Yet her emotions and thoughts were stantly at odds with her pragmatism and desperation.

  On one hand, she was absolutely certain this girl was a fug psychopath!

  Sure, Beckie had known they were going to try and kill her old—well, ‘gang’ sort of fit… And yeah, she’d known what ‘killing them’ entailed. Heck, she’d led the irl to their usual hangout, a, Beckie still couldn't quite parse just how ruthless and quick it had been.

  She hadn't really known what she was supposed to expect wheher girl had made the suggestion she help Beckie reap a few mods. But, to be ho, she’d really assumed the irl would cause a panic as she had before, maybe make them hit each other like she’d done before, while she (the muscle) would get stu and smash some heads!

  What she hadn't expected was the sheer chilliy of the other woman’s ‘talents.’

  “Strait out of a fug movie…” She whispered to herself, ihe fines of her own mind, of course. Though, at this point, Beckie wasn't even sure if her private thoughts were actually safe!

  For all she khe fug android could somehow read her damned mind and know what she was thinking!

  “I 't read your mind.”

  “Whew—fug—don't you dare fug start with that!” Beckie seethed, her eyes shooting wide as saucers as the tiny woman actually cackled, ughing at her with sheer delight!

  “I’m not actually doing it, by the way, that retty much just a guess.”

  “A freaking terrifying guess!”

  “I’m a scary dy!” Cire twittered, utterly pleased with herself and grinning from ear to ear.

  “Okay, but for realsies, you—'t actually—”

  “Haha! I totally !”

  “Fug—dick!” Beckie growled, hip-cheg the crazy bitch before she even realized what she’d done!

  Horribly, the irl abruptly paused, halting midstep to whirl ohough instead of death and misery aernal virtual suffering, the girl merely stared at her, almost—dare she hope, surprised?

  “Please don't kill me!” Was all that ran through Becky's head, even as she tried to put on a brave fad pretend that everything was normal!

  Happy pce Beckie, happy pce…