“Oh, there you are, my pets.”

Syntechie leaned over a datapad hooked into one of the servers. Her neon outfit had reignited, casting cold blue light across the ghastly scene.

A grizzly mess of human parts, mixed with cubicle debris, littered the perimeter of the blast site, like human sacrifices to a corporate god. Blood still trickled down the wall in places and spread from the corpses in pools on the carpet. Glitch picked out the shape of Jones’ gun – now a twisted, useless length of metal – lying to one side, and Wingz’ body, mostly intact, but missing a huge chunk of his head.

Her biology took the hit from the horror that rolled through her. Glitch had seen corpses before – she’d made two of them in her time as a Runner – but nothing like this. Stomach bile rose up into the back of her throat. Her heart battered her rib cage and her throat closed up to hold down the scream building up inside her.

Glitch closed her eyes. Forced herself to exhale. When she opened her eyes again, she kept them focused on the far corner of the server room, instead of letting herself stare at the broken bodies of her team. Their deaths didn’t make sense to her and she didn’t want them to. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to feel this.

Glitch looked around for a jack-in port to escape into, but Nine was still holding on to her arm. Was it her imagination, or had he tightened his grip? She realized her hands were knotted into white knuckle fists.

Glitch shook Nine off. To her relief, he released her without comment and took a sudden, intense interest in the collapsed cubicle wall to his right. A small kindness.

Someone was saying something. Glitch’s head came up. Syntechie had closed the gap between them. She had an expectant look on her face, like she was waiting for Glitch’s reply.

“What?” Glitch asked. The sound of her own voice brought her back to the present. Pride refused to let her crumble in front of Syntechie and she clung to it stubbornly.

Syntechie’s forehead creased.

“Thanks for jumping in with the drones,” Syntechie said, instead of repeating whatever it was she’d just asked. Her glowing lips parted in a smug smile. “And welcome to the ever-growing club of people who enjoy watching my back while I work. I’m told I have quite a following.”

“Don’t mention it,” Glitch mumbled, and then added, “Ever.”

“Aw, don’t be shy,” Syntechie teased. She tipped her head down deeply to one side so she could peer past the lip of Glitch’s hood. “We’re on the same team now.”

“Then you should keep your distance,” Glitch said. She backed up a half-step, turning to put a hunched shoulder between herself and Syntechie. The blood-soaked carpet made a soft, wet, squelching sound under her feet. “Being on my team hasn’t worked out so well lately.”

Glitch started to turn away, but Syntechie caught her by the forearm. Glitch’s head whipped back around. The muscles in her arm bunched to strike.

“Hey,” the directness in Syntechie’s voice surprised Glitch enough to make her pause. “It’s not your fault they’re gone,” Syntechie said. “Everyone had jobs to do. We did ours better. That’s all.”

Glitch wished cyber eyes on herself. Her eyes darted all over Syntechie’s face, trying to divine a hidden game, or a setup.

“Here,” Syntechie pressed something into Glitch’s hand. She released Glitch’s and took a step back. “It stings now, but believe me, someday, you’ll wish you’d kept something to remember them by.”

Glitch looked down and opened her hand. It was Wingz’ watch. Blood, mixed with grit, stuck to her hands. She rubbed her fingertips together, and it came off in little rolls. Glitch turned the watch over one more time in her hands, and then dropped it in her hoodie pocket. If the cyber eyes were still looking for data, they were getting it – she could feel her heart hammering double time inside her chest.

Glitch checked Nine’s reaction. He didn’t turn away quite quickly enough to hide the smirk on his lips. Glitch stiffened.

“Are you feeling alright?” Syntechie asked. Her lips shaped into a sympathetic little pout.

Glitch’s head swung back around. She looked directly into Syntechie’s gaze and saw little readouts flashing across the interface. Syntechie’s eyes darted across Glitch’s face, gathering data. A particularly large readout opened up across both eyes a split second later. Syntechie’s head recoiled.

“Tell your cyber eyes they can go fuck themselves,” Glitch replied.

Syntechie’s slender fingers curled against the datapad.

“Did I seduce a boyfriend of yours that I’m forgetting about?” Syntechie demanded. “In the first place, you really can’t blame him, and in the second-.”

“You killed my crew.” Glitch’s voice came out in a low snarl.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nine turn to look at them.

“Ooh,” Syntechie made a little cooing noise of sympathy. “I killed your boyfriend. Literally. Well, lesson learned, you really shouldn’t mix business and pleasure.”

“Boyfrie…” Glitch felt the heat of anger rising up inside her again. She welcomed its return. “This may shock and offend your delicate sensibilities, but I wasn’t sleeping with any of them. Drek, most of us had barely met before this job.”

Syntechie’s elegant eyebrows arched gracefully across her forehead. “I was joking before, but… is this your maiden run?”

“My eleventh,” Glitch growled. Technically true, though she’d mostly been a digital lookout on the first three. If you could survive upwards of four runs and come out on top in at least one of them you were considered a veteran.

Syntechie uttered a short, high laugh. In a less confident woman, it might have sounded like the prologue to a nervous breakdown. “How have you survived this long?”

“Probably my charming personality,” Glitch muttered.

“Data,” Nine interrupted the exchange.

He snapped his fingers twice at Syntechie. Glitch wasn’t sure if the interruption was on her behalf, or if Nine was just restless, but she welcomed intrusion. Syntechie drummed her glossy nails along the top of the server.

“Another two minutes, handsome,” she said tightly.

Nine spun on his heels and walked away with a clipped, deliberate gait.

Syntechie straightened sharply. “Where are you going?”

“Anti-air emplacement,” he said without looking back.

He drew his wakizashi and trailed it beside him, letting the tip slice through the fabric covering of the cubicle walls as he passed them.

Syntechie took a step forward, as though she were going to call him back, and then seemed to think better of it. She hesitated in the hallway. One hand rose absently and started twirling the ends of her hair. It seemed an oddly vulnerable gesture to Glitch. The glint of neon against metal caught her eye – her gun was still tucked in the back of Syntechie’s outfit.

Another explosion broke the silence – it sounded like it was only a floor below them now. Syntechie’s head whipped around, and in that moment, Glitch struck. She lunged forward for the berretta. Syntechie whipped around, drawing the weapon as she turned. Glitch brought her arm down hard on Syntechie’s gun hand, knocking it out line of with her body. Syntechie fired. The bullet bit into the wall of the server room. Glitch brought her knee up into Syntechie’s stomach. Lights flared across Syntechie’s outfit. She doubled over, clutching her stomach. Glitch seized the gun by the muzzle and tore it out of the other woman’s hand. She backed up, fumbled the gun, almost dropped it. Syntechie leapt forward and Glitch scrambled out of reach. She finally got the beretta pointed in the right direction and brought it up into Syntechie’s face.

“Stop,” Glitch snarled.

Like magic, Syntechie froze. That was the power of a gun. The world bowed before it, and it felt good.

They stood in silence for a moment, struggling for air, watching each other. Glitch imagined the millions of scenarios the cyber eyes had to be running through at that moment.

“What’s the matter, pet?” Syntechie purred. “Are you scared? Always had someone there to pull the trigger for you?”

“Listen to me,” she said between unsteady breaths. “Stop playing around and fucking listen to me. I don’t kill Runners. Not if I can help it. If I planned to kill you, I’d do it right now. All I want is to get out of here.”

She paused. Gave the cyber eyes time to assess her biosignatures. “Check your readouts. Do your eyes think I’m lying?”

Syntechie’s lips pressed together in a thin line. She smiled tightly.

“You’re a Hacker,” she said. “You know better than most that technology is imperfect.”

Glitch took a deep breath and willed every strained nerve in her body to be patient. “Meat-side security will be here soon,” she said in as calm a voice as she could muster. “I’m going to go find a jack-in point and shut security down. All I need is time. Buy me some.”

She reached forward and took Syntechie’s wrist. The muscles in Syntechie’s arm twitched. Glitch pressed the gun into Syntechie’s palm, with the barrel facing outwards, towards Glitch’s chest. She looked up into Syntechie’s face, wishing she could see the readouts playing across the cyber eyes.

“You don’t have to trust me. Just trust that I’ll do my job. Then we all walk out of here alive,” Glitch said quietly.

She let go of Syntechie’s wrist. Syntechie didn’t fire. Glitch flipped back her hood, shook out her ponytail. Her jack-in cable came willingly to her fingers. Glitch walked away deliberately until she found a cubicle untouched by the explosion and the debris .

Glitch breathed out. Dropped to her knees in front of the jack. Paid attention. Her hammering heart. The rustle of her leather hoodie. The worn carpet. The stale air of an office building.

Then she jacked in.