The wind from the carrier-drone tore holes in the foliage, sending branches swinging wildly and whipping leaves and dust into Keri’s eyes as she watched it glide over the tree line and pause to hover above them, twin propellers spinning faster than the eye could see. The first drone was soon followed by another, then another, each making room for the next so that they all hung in the air above the clearing between the Terminal and the trees. Where such automated aerial people carriers would normally fly smoothly, these ones moved jerkily as the inexperienced human pilots wrestled with the controls, forced to fly manually due to the total shut down of GPS systems in the region.[1]

Long lines of nano-carbon rope dropped from each side of the drones, thread coming to an end just above ground level as door-wings slowly raised,[2] giving the machines the appearance of a kind of gliding mechanoid terror-bird.

Human forms in heavy black-splashed-with-white body armour began rappelling down every rope, sliding down so fast that were it not for the impact compressors in their armour they would have surely broken their legs on landing. The instant they landed the helmeted figures spread out, forming a wide circle around the landing area out of which they pointed the same long-barrelled weapons as Pearce had held, back in the inc-man station.

Andreas looked in bemusement at Keri.

“They could have just landed,” he said.

Keri had managed a fitful sleep of a few hours the night before, a black sleep of exhaustion that had effect only physically. Mentally she was still drained, and Andreas and Anisa appeared similarly exhausted. Only the Programmer looked relatively composed despite having stayed up all night working on the stickscreen network. Cassandra was nowhere to be seen: still sitting with Eu’s body, according to the others.

It took a few minutes for the ink-men to fully form up, and as soon as the last of them had leapt from the drones the vehicles took off in a sweeping search pattern above the forest. Keri could just about make out the ovoid scanners spinning slowly below the machines, undoubtedly sending pulse after pulse of invisible energy into the trees in the hope of uncovering the Butcher through reflected waves. Her eyes fell from the drones to the large inc-man who strode out from the rest and over to them.

Keri felt a jolt of surprise as the man removed his helmet. It was the corporal from the Incident Management station, the one she had pushed down the stairs. A large purple bruise still covered half of his temple.

“Where is it?” he asked without preamble, directly at her.

Anisa took a step to stand in front of Keri, speaking before Keri had a chance to react.

“We don't know. The stickscreen network is up and running again, and it's nowhere to be seen. We think it may have left the Terminal.”

The corporal raised one eyebrow as Anisa spoke, looking from her to Keri and back. With a shrug he turned to address the woman who had spoken.

“We've brought a couple of engineers to look over the network and ensure it’s no longer in the system. They’ll go now.”

Without waiting for a reply he gave a nod and two of the indistinguishable armoured figures went jogging off towards the open Terminal entrance, the Programmer running off to join them. They disappeared into the darkness in a flurry of questions.

“Any idea where it would go?” continued the Corporal.

Keri saw his eyes glance towards her as he asked. Anisa did not miss this.

“No idea,” said Anisa firmly. “It moves fast, too. You'll need to sweep a wide area to have any hope of…”

“It won't go far,” said Keri.

The other two turned to look at her, Anisa’s eyes flashing with anger.

“It… it has the sphere, but it hasn't destroyed it. If it had, we’d have found the remains. It wouldn't have taken the sphere wherever it was going. No, it hasn't truly decided yet.”

Keri couldn't explain how she knew this; it just felt right. The knowledge had been creeping up on her since they'd found Eu’s body.

“It's not sure what it wants to do, so it won't go far from the Terminal.”

“It murdered one of our friends,” Anisa growled, and it wasn't clear if she was saying this for the inc-man or for Keri.

“And he will answer for that.”

The corporal stared at the women for a moment.

“We are going to find it,” he said. “We’re going to find it, and this time we’ll be ready.”

“And us? What do we do?” Keri asked.

He stared at her hard before replying.

“Well, technically you've done nothing wrong. Except perhaps throwing me down some stairs, and I can't say I blame you.”

To Keri’s surprise, he gave a rueful grin as he rubbed at his bruised head.

“Pearce is… a bit of a fanatic. He went too far with you guys, and I apologise. Believe me, he got some serious doxxing[3] from the higher-ups when they heard what happened. Last I heard, they were trying to assign him to the one of the ruined zones. It’s only the influence of the other damned Purists that has stopped it happening before now. He’ll be going somewhere far away - once he gets out of the hospital, of course.”

His face became serious again.

“But whatever issues you may have with Inc-Man, or with me, they can wait. From now until we get the Butcher, you do not interfere. Got me?”

Keri saw no point in arguing, and it seemed Anisa had come to the same conclusion. They nodded, and at that the corporal span around and began shouting at his men.

The black and white suited figures began to spread out, several darting into the Terminal complex while others jogged off into the trees. Corps displays flickered into being as they moved, and she could see they were using NC messaging to communicate.

Like children playing at soldiers, she thought.

She wandered back into the Terminal, the others close behind.

The observation room was crowded by the time they got there, the Programmer and engineers pouring over data on multiple displays as other ink-men replayed the saved footage of the Butcher’s capture and subsequent conversations. It felt strange for Keri to see herself sat face-to-face with the machine-man, like seeing herself teleported into a low-budget holo-vid.

The ink-men had already set up a room nearby as a base of operations, the corporal requisitioning a wide table through the time-honoured method of pushing everything that was on it onto the floor. A long flexiscreen three times the size of an standard one had been unfurled on the table and glowed with power, but the screen itself was blank.

“Get me a satellite feed now!” the corporal barked at the closest man, whose brow furrowed with the worry of a person who really didn't like what he had to say.

“Sir, we have been trying to, but the feed won’t activate.”

“We have the correct security clearance, yes?” said the corporal.

“We do, sir, but for some reason it's not being recognised by the system. We can only surmise that somewhere along the line the codes have been incorrectly recoded. Our men are getting to the bottom of it now.”

The corporal’s face turned thoughtful.

“Very convenient for the Butcher, that,” he said.

“Sir?” said the uncertain subordinate.

“Tell me, is there anyway someone could disrupt our access to the satellites? Revoke our permissions?”

“Sir, no sir. Impossible. The encryption level is magnitudes too large too…”

“So no, then,” the corporal said. His gaze settled on Keri for a second before returning to the matter at hand. “It shouldn't be possible. In the same way hacking the city security feeds shouldn't be possible. Or our incarceration cells.”

The second inc-man looked hesitant, unsure what the corporal was trying to say.

“Get me that feed,” the corporal said abruptly, dismissing the man.

He knows something’s not right, Keri thought. He's trying to figure out what.

The image of a smiling, augmented face flashed across her mind’s eye, and it was not the face of the Butcher they were chasing now. She didn't know whose face it was.

“Sir, we’re receiving a call on short-wave transmission,” said one of the ink-men.

“Put it through.”

Keri was sure of one thing, though. The ink-men were never going to catch the Butcher. It was faster than them. Smarter. Better.

A speaker on the desk in front of them squawked into life. The voice on the other end sounded frantic.

Voices turned to screams.

She would have to do it herself.

[1] Automatic proximity sensors and safety algorithms would of course prevent any chance of a crash. Drones were nearly fully computer controlled even when being ‘piloted’ by a human. A small child could have flown one. Oh, and demands by angry language pedants that the term ‘drone’ was incorrect and that they be termed ‘automated twin-rotor aerial vehicles’ had never got anywhere.

[2] The designers seemed to have seen a Delorean at some point and simply thought: “yes.”

[3] A more archaic term would be ‘caught a lot of flak.’