3423rd cycle after the Ascension.

Thirty-eight days after the imperial ambassador’s murder.

It was one of those mornings in the undersurface of Radaar, the ones that start of great, the ones that have you staring googly-eyed at their wares, like an undersurface merchant; and then they rip you off for all you’re worth – like an undersurface merchant. It was a real pity, too, because this day had started off really great. There had been no conflicts during the night. There was no mention of plots and schemes. The coffee had been left scalding-hot and not poisoned. It was perfection. And then the visage of Sun’s muscle-head hound greeted Macreen at her base’s gate and ruined everything.

“What do you want, Fix?” she asked. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner I won’t have to look at your disgusting face and pretend I care about the things you say.”

She was loath to exert any effort for the man, but his physique didn’t allow it. With him being two heads taller and standing just a few feet away, she had to crane her neck back to look at him. He might as well have been a gorilla. Her eyes pointedly traced his terrible scar, a rusty pink that clawed across his face.

He ignored her, remaining infuriatingly stoic. The void-born thug. He even dared to smirk while staring below her neckline, robbing her of the pleasure of making his morning just as bad as hers.

With a snap of his fingers, Fix called for two of his thugs, and they brought a tied man up front, shoving him as they walked. The man staggered, hooded by a black sack. They stopped several steps away from her. One of the thugs wrenched the sack off the captive’s head.

A tattoo on his neck drew Macreen’s eyes. A clenched fist framed by a circle. One of Night’s men. Nothing new so far. Nothing that couldn’t have waited until noon at least. The bruise-coloured sky was only just paling to light green and misty blue.

“Two more like him in the back,” Fix said. “Boss wants their minds’ defences cracked. Just cracked. Payment’s as usual. Half the creds now, half when the job’s done.”

“You know I don’t just take any requests, Fix,” Macreen said. “Even from Senten. What’s going on here?”

He frowned, crossing his arms. His chest bulged outwards, the veins on his neck becoming prominent. “You’ve got balls. Boss ain’t someone you can call as you want. Even refusing the request.” He always was the loyal dog. “Keep it up and soon you’ll rub Boss the wrong way. Then even Zyke won’t be able to wipe your ass anymore.”

“Zyke?” She chuckled. “That man wouldn’t bat an eye if I were to drop dead in front of him right now. Well… he might. He’d mourn his favourite table that’d be covered in my filthy blood.”

Fix stared at her quietly.

He has a point though. She would spurn his request in a heartbeat if she could, but she shared her turf with Sun. She had to get along with them. No gang tolerated rogue forces, and they wouldn’t care about her influence then.

“Tell me what I’m putting my hands in,” she said. “I’m not doing things on the blind.”

Fix grumbled something to himself, but grudgingly nodded a few seconds later. “Boss thinks Night’s planning something big. After some digging, we found these three had ties to the men who struck us at Rat’s Nest.” What? All the loose ends should have been cut off. She had made sure of that. “The wretches found a way past our defences after that. We wanna know how.”

“Not a big deal,” she said, straining to keep her voice level. If Sun found out about her involvement, they’d storm her base in a flash. “I can be done with them in half an hour. Just come back then.”

“Not how it’s gonna work.” Fix raised his hand and waved one of his men over, the one wearing a cowl. When he reached to remove it, Macreen got a glimpse of his left palm, where a Tether Stone was embedded. She bit back a curse.

“Boss says no taking chances,” Fix said. “Even if it’s you.”

“I hate being watched.”

Fix shrugged. “I follow what Boss says. You will too.”

Keeping her eyes strictly on Fix, Macreen did a count of Sun’s people. Ten, plus an adept. If they discovered her attempt to destroy the evidence, there would be a fight. An open space was more advantageous to her in that case. The surprise should allow her to take down their adept first, but she’d need to subdue them fast before injuries piled up. Memories were one thing, but she was no healer. Better if it doesn’t come to that at all though.

No doubt, they had some device on them that’d signal HQ if they lost consciousness or anything similar. You could never be too careful with an expert on mind manipulation.

“Fine.” She turned towards the warehouse. “We’ll do it there.”

The warehouse stood on the right side of the courtyard, a decrepit thing of rust and grime that all logic said should crumble but never did. Garn’s makeshift buttresses apparently deserved some praise. Or the man had cheated somehow. She’d win five credits if he had.

As the group approached the building, two of Macreen’s crew opened the doors for them, the corrugated metal sliding with a screech, scraping against the rough concrete. A rush of stale air greeted them, waning along with the echo which bounced about the empty space. The steel framework that rose into the shadows of the sloping roof dripped with heavy condensation, producing a clear sound as the droplets fell into puddles of tepid water. Two pools of light hung about the middle of the massive room, where LED panels had been fitted atop light stands. Several metal workbenches stood there as well, giving off a dull gleam, the marks of time and use apparent on them. Chairs had been placed about haphazardly from the previous day, the unfinished work obvious from the pieces of disassembled rifles littering the floor and the workbenches.

Macreen sat down, drumming impatiently on her knees. “I need silence for this part,” she said as Fix forced down the first of Night’s men on a chair in front of her. Two others tied him to it.

Bound hand and foot, the captive struggled defiantly against the ropes, the chair jerking with each of his movements. Receiving a glance from Fix, one of his thugs punched the man’s cheek so hard Macreen thought he’d pass out. He didn’t, but he stayed still after that.

“Again, I need silence,” she said. Fix raised a brow at her. “I won’t explain my craft to you. Comply; unless you want my work to unravel before you reach your base.”

The adept Fix had brought strode to her left, hands clasped behind his back, eyes boring into her skull. The Gift churned through him; she could tell from the subtle chill. The fact that she felt it at all attested to the man being an amateur – or worse, specialised in powers relating to the physical. In the case of the former: he was ignorant but too weak to make a problem. The latter: he was still ignorant, but believed he wasn’t and had enough power to make an absolute mess.

Fix turned towards the adept for a moment, then nodded at her. “Begin.”

She channelled. The flows of power swimming in her arm thinned down to filaments, weaving a construct that would connect her to the target. As the link formed, her perception shifted, her view split between the real world and the mind plane – a grey world of nothingness. Almost nothingness. A massive, black sphere stood before her – the mind veiled behind roiling, menacing shadows that formed the mental barrier.

Then the world shook.

Two silvery whips materialised from the grey emptiness surrounding the space and began to strike the barrier of shadows repeatedly. Such a crude method. The moment those whips were no longer impeded by the barrier, Sun’s adept would know she had broken through. As if she would let that happen.

Just keep hitting it mindlessly. With a pulse of the Gift, filaments of light emerged from her. She transformed them, the tips morphing into the same shadows that made up the barrier. Slotting them inside was easy; the shadows didn’t resist their own kind. Then she pushed past.

Her perspective shifted again. She was in.

The surreal structure that leaped into view was organic in design, a forest of leafless, sickly-white trees growing on twisting, membranous ground. Their boughs branched out unnaturally in various directions, growing into the boughs of other trees. Smaller branches wriggled like tentacles, their tips drying and crumbling into dust motes. All pumped red life blood through their veined insides. Memories through the boles and branches of trees, visible through the opaque bark. Emotions through the soft ground, which the memories feasted on. No concept of up or down. A horror show for anyone but Macreen. She thrived in this place.

Shaping her knowledge into energy, clustering the details of her involvement in the incident, she sent them out in a spreading wave through the forest. As the wave touched certain trees, they reacted, the memories stored within stirring from their slumber. They pulled at her, and she sent the smoky tendrils of her power in greeting. The bark shielding them shied away from her touch, and she was free to stitch fabricated fragments over her name.

Sweat beaded on her forehead. The other adept’s continuous assault caused plenty of disturbances in the barrier to account for. He was definitely the physical type. Not that it would stop her. She had worked under worse conditions.

Five minutes later, she retracted her power from the forest and sent it crawling up the tallest trees growing from the outer layer. The cut-off branches spewed a black fog, feeding the roiling shadows enclosing this space – the surface thoughts maintaining the barrier. She plugged those channels and watched as the haze dispersed.

A coy grin rose on her face. “Next.”

***

The second man passed without issue. Then the third one came.

Sifting through the last captive’s memories, one of the boughs caught Macreen’s eye. They were the pathways associations: the thicker, the more closely related the memories. This one could easily fit three of her abreast.

She traced the path to the other tree, then, using the previous memory as a key, made a crevice in the bark, enough to take a peek. She reached out her hand. Information filled her head.

The meeting of Night’s executives – war with Rising Sun – a crippling attack – pipes – Silver’s Ridge – bomb.

Her eyes widened in shock. Her power trembled, almost causing the mental barrier to shatter. Are they insane? Gas pipes ran below Silver’s Ridge, all the way to the crevasse wall and up. An explosion there would cause a cascade that… Her base would be buried by the ensuing landslide.

She looked back to the tree where the memory was stored. It was risky, almost too risky, but she couldn’t allow her crew and her base to fall. She had worked too hard and too long to see everything turn to ruin.

Gathering her power, she dug into the crevice and pulled. The tree shook, cracks branched out from the opening, then the shaking spread to the ground, then even further away. She rent the bark and grabbed the memory within. A groan almost escaped her. Extracting information was painful when done wrong – the way she had done now. With a thought, her power resealed the hole. That should fool them. Now, to get rid of my name.

“That’s enough,” Fix said, his voice distant to her. She didn’t stop. “I said that’s enough!”

“I know the adept you’ll send him to,” she said through the strain. “Sic’ll be lucky if he can scoop out anything from the surface layer.” She swivelled her head to face the man, ignoring the building exhaustion. The mind link would snap soon. “I’ll stop. But when Sic fails and this man dies because of poor handling, don’t come barking to me.”

Fix ground his teeth, then snapped his head towards the adept. “Is she doing anything else?”

“N-no,” the man stammered. “I-it’s just the reaction of his defences being broken.”

Ah, the charms of ignorance, Macreen thought, suppressing a rising grin.

Fix looked at her again, held her gaze for a moment, then stomped over to the prisoner. “No, I think we’re done here.” What? she thought, startled. “Break his barrier now. Leave arriving on time to me.”

The clusters of memory related to her still shone brightly, but there wasn’t enough time to alter them all. She bit her lip. There was a second way: doing it in the real. Crude, but she had nothing else.

“Alright, alright,” she said. “I’m already tired. Just have your adept hit it a few times after I weaken it. Like…so.”

She leaned back into her chair. I made it. Her gaze fell on the captive. The man was frothing at the mouth. No wonder Fix was so agitated.

She stood up and took one step towards him when Fix’ arm blocked her way. “No can do,” he said. “You ain’t getting within two metres of him. Keep your damned hands where I can see them.”

She glanced at Garn. Hopefully, he would get the message.

Giving the smallest nod in response, he approached the bound man. “I get that you’re loyal to Sun, Fix. But know that I, too, don’t like to hear someone else talking down on my boss.”

He flourished his knife and cut the bindings, then grabbed the captive’s arm and pulled him up. The man stumbled from the force, and Garn stepped back, still holding onto the arm. His other hand was thrust back just far enough for Macreen to briefly touch. She sent a surge of the Gift through Garn and into the other man, weakening the connections in his brain that held knowledge of her. The other adept noticed none of it.

“Whoa!” Garn said. “Void take me, are you even feeding these people? A man should weigh a little more.”

Fix snatched the captive’s arm away. “We’ll get going now.” He nodded at one of his subordinates. “Give ‘em the creds.”

***

Just as the gate closed behind Sun’s group, Macreen asked, “Are you alright?”

“You worry too much,” Garn said. “I may not be an adept, but I’m no weakling either. I’ve served as a conduit for you using the Gift before, haven’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean you should do it often, either. Have Pecker look you over. Full body scan.”

There was a pause. “You found something from that last guy?”

“Don’t push my buttons, Garn. You will get that check-up. I can’t worry about you as well on top of everything else. It’s all going to the void. Both Sun and Night, they can all jump in there and never come out,” she said. “Zyke, too!” she added for good measure.

Garn raised his hands in surrender. “Care to tell me what’s going on?” he asked carefully.

She sighed. “That push that Night’s been doing at Silver’s Ridge? They’re just trying to gather most of Sun’s forces there.”

“That makes no sense. An all-out war helps neither side. They’ll lose just as much if not more.”

“It’s the pipes. They’re gonna blow them up, Garn. One giant blaze that’ll wipe Sun and a good chunk of West Island off the map.”

He stared at her, mouth open in shock. “We need to get our people out. I’ll organise teams to carry supplies. We do this on the down low. Pretend we’re just running a special op.”

“It won’t work. Senten, that shrewd void-born, will order his men to watch this place for a while. I’ve worked with him for years. He wanted this kept on the hush – I broke that. We do anything suspicious, and you can be sure he’ll retaliate sooner or later.”

“What then! Wait to be buried alive?” Garn said in outrage.

“No, just – I don’t know. I need time to think.”

Garn placed his hand on the back of his neck. “How about asking Zyke for help?” She looked at him incredulously. “Work with me here,” he said. “You may curse him with every fibre of your being, but he’s a fixer. If someone can stir the forces of the undersurface in the right direction, it’s a fixer.”

“That man will slap a debt on us we can never repay.”

“Do we have another choice?” He waved his arm, indicating the base and the people inside it. “I know you. If you have to watch your men die, you’d want them to die guns blazing, not under some pile of rocks.”

“You’re right,” she said absently. The Hand’s arrival rattled me too much. After her plans had failed, she had been in a slump. No more of that. Plans could be adjusted. Zyke didn’t matter. If things worked out, whatever oaths she gave to the man would be irrelevant. I’ll make sure they do.

“So…?” Garn asked.

She scoffed. “Why even ask? I’ll go to that cyborg wretch-of-a-man, and I’ll make him help.”

He regarded her for a moment, then leaned in close. “Say, Macreen, does this… have anything to do with the passage we showed Night?”

Well, there’s no point beating around the bush. What happened, happened. “That’s right.” Hindsight wasn’t going to fix her issues; she’d just have to learn from her mistakes.

“I see,” Garn said. He grinned. “Would love to tease you about being wrong, but you’d probably have my head for it. I’ll get some of the boys to start readying stuff for the move in case things fall through with Zyke. Stuff we can pass off as doing inventory or needing repair.”

“That’ll do.”

“How would you live without me?” he asked, then bolted.

“With one less headache!” she shouted after him; and turned away. Maybe that ‘friendship’ thing wasn’t so bad after all. Her smile dropped. The end goal was still the same. “Everything for the rebellion,” she muttered.