CHAPTER ONE—IRREGULARITY

Georin Flyne—Styne… whatever—top executive officer of the science division at Strogaus Industries had—only moments before—been sliced and diced by the Landfill Lich, his own monstrous creation and experiment that had resulted in the deaths of multiple victims in the poorer parts of Life City.

As John flew their fancy yellow-striped Corvo Onatta from the scene of their crime, the Stynes—including the diabolical Mrs. Styne—were now nice and crispy, both in this life, and definitely in the next.

Max—or Kyle outside of his Anarcho alias—grinned.

A nice bit of irony for two sociopaths.

Kyle’s wristlet pinged. “Oh,” he said. “It’s May.” He opened the line. “Yes yes—it’s ‘secure’ as always.”

“Um…” a man’s voice said on the other end. There was some frantic rattling, like things were being pushed about atop a desk. “I—uh, don’t know what to say here.”

For the first time ever, the person on the other end was not May.

What the fuck?

John glanced at Kyle from the driver’s seat and frowned. “What the hells?! Who are you?”

The man chuckled nervously. “Well, I’m—I’m not May! That’s for sure.”

“No shit!” Kyle said.

The two Anarchos, Max and Staxx, glanced at one another in completely shock and confusion.

“Shit,” Kyle muttered. Then he turned back to his wristlet. “What’s wrong?”

“Well—um... It’s May.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “We kinda figured that much by the fact that it’s you on the line right now—whoever you are.”

“I know this is irregular,” the man said. “Listen—this isn’t my job. I’m calling you because I have no one else to turn to. My name is Miles—er, I mean, Jack.”

“Yeah, whatever, Miles,” Kyle said. “Just tell us what happened to May, will you?”

“I don’t know how they did it, but somehow they got into our network. They found out May was in on your Styne operation.”

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Kyle looked at John, alarm bells going off in his head.

“Don’t worry. I was able to push them out of our network. I’m not sure how much they know, but they still managed to locate and shoot down May’s transport.”

“Are you serious?” Kyle asked. “And who are ‘they’?”

“Strogaus!” Miles said. “They had a lot riding on that mutant you were after.”

“Sounds like we did good by burning that thing,” John said.

“Agreed,” Miles said. “I don’t think you boys understand how much May and… and our people, were riding on that.”

John turned the wheel, taking them in a new direction away from their trajectory back to the Hitomo Luxury Suites in Life City.

“Surely they have more test tub freaks?” Kyle said.

“We’re not sure, but Strogaus seems pretty upset about the one you burned just now. Listen! I don’t have a lot of time. My location is compromised. I called you so you could go help May. They’re after her.”

“Coordinates!” Kyle barked. “Give them to us.”

“Okay okay! Sending them now.”

Kyle’s wristlet pinged a moment later and he saw the information on his holo-display.

“That’s in the badlands,” Lexa said from the back seat.

“Listen,” Miles said, then there was a pause as something loud on the other end neared. It sounded like close-flying shuttle. “I have to go! Oh my gods! I have to go! Be careful! They shot her shuttle down. There’s no telling what—“

Mile’s screamed and the audio cut off.

“Hey!” Kyle called. “Hey are you there?!”

“Did he just…?”

“Sounds like it,” Kyle said.

“Shit.”

“A highly apt metaphor, John,” Lexa said. “It sounded like he got killed.”

“Yeah, Lexa,” Kyle said. “We’re aware.”

Glancing out the windows as if a hidden fighter was on their tail, Kyle moved about in his seat as the rain continued smacking into the windshield, the beads of water running up and over the opaque surface.

“Calm down,” John said.

“I am calm.”

“You’re as nervous as Xulian butter hopper.”

“Huh?’

John Took one hand off the wheel and glanced at his wristlet. “Lexa’s right, the coordinates for May’s position is in the badlands.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

John pushed some buttons on the tactile screen between them. “Charting now. Looks like—“

“Forty-three minutes,” Kyle said as he read the stats on the screen. “Man-oh-man—she could be dead by then. “ He breathed out heavily.

John was already flooring the Corvo and they were currently cruising at six-hundred kilometers an hour.

“We’ll do our best,” John said. “At least we’re well armed.”

“Not as well as you could be,” Lexa said.

Then they stopped talking.

“Damn,” Kyle muttered after a while. “I wanted to meet May, but…”

“Not like this?”

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

“One way to find out.”

“Listen, if this has something to do with Strogaus and that science mage we fed to his own monster, we’re puttin’ these guys in the ground, John.”

“Then let’s lock and load.”

“It’s too bad you haven’t outfitted me with an anatomical body,” Lexa said. “I quite like the Shendari model by ProssTech.”

Kyle glanced back at Lexa in the back seat. She was still wearing her dark blue body huger with the white stripe going down the middle.

“That might not be a bad idea,” Kyle said. “But I bet those are expensive. Think you can shoot a gun?”

“With a few of the proper codecs, I have no doubt,” she said cheerfully.

“Then you got yourself a deal, Cruise Bot.”

“I’m not sure I like being called a ‘bot,’ Kyle.”

“Too bad.”

“Welcome to the team, Lexa,” John said.