Pain snatched her attention, and the cause of it slipped out of her countergrab.

Raleigh stumbled, feeling as battered as if she’d fought a mech without backup, and the surrounding bright lights and sounds struck her as if they were weapons of their own.

“Close your network connection!” Worry threaded through Third’s sharp command.

“What?” Raleigh’s voice came out slurred, but she found and activated a macro to bypass involuntary processing, to forcibly reduce intake of aural and ocular input. Light and sound lowered to tolerable levels, letting her process the market that sprawled around them, with the shoppers and stallkeepers huddled in fear.

She froze. What was she doing in Sunshine?

“Raleigh!” Third said, sounding as if she’d been repeating herself. “Your network connection! Shut it off and delete the packet!”

Packet?

She stared at Third, feeling sluggish and disoriented. When had they left the apartment?

The girl was disheveled, herself, with scrapes and cuts and blossoming bruises. Nothing serious, but more than enough to warrant concern. Raleigh’s chipset started adjusting for combat, so she could help.

“No!” Frustration flashed across Third’s face. “I will splinter you!”

Splinter?

Third met her gaze, brow furrowed. The yellowish light web that her brother sometimes displayed crawled out of her skin, and her breathing, pulse, and pupils said how much pain that brought her. “Shut off your network and delete the packet of connection software.”

Raleigh trusted Third enough to do so, though she couldn’t imagine why—

The deactivation and deletion finished, and clarity washed through her.

The surrounding stallkeepers and shoppers were cowering in fear of her.

“What have I done?” she whispered, recognizing the disarray and destruction and aura of disquiet surrounding them as evidence of a fight. Pieces of engineered plastic ranged from broken to pulverized, and even some stronger materials like ceramic and fabricated brick were cracked. How was the girl not more hurt?

“Not much.” A grimace stayed on Third’s face as the mysterious energy web crawled back into hiding. “Got in your way.”

Raleigh scanned the girl for injuries and reconsidered her own condition in light of the fact that it had been inflicted by Third. The results of both scans were reassuring evidence that, even if she did go insane, at least one of her roommates could stop her—even while she feared that the blackouts meant her enhancements were self-destructing. How could she have missed such a massive flaw in her own software?

Third was physically and psychologically capable of killing her. That didn’t mean Raleigh wanted her to have to. “I attacked you?”

The webbing was no longer visible, but Third was still breathing hard. “With warning.”

Nameless were required to be taciturn, insofar as Raleigh could tell. Third gave the information she could, when she was willing to, and pressing for elaboration wouldn’t accomplish anything except frustration.

“You’re hurt,” Raleigh pointed out, instead. Enough to warrant a regen patch at the very least.

Third gave a shrug.

Considering Raleigh was the worse off of the two of them, she had a point.