I crept inside, moving as silently as possible. My heart raced in a way that it’d not in sodding years, and a smile tugged at the edges of my lips.

I’d joined the forces, aiming to be an APS operator, but they didn’t just say “Yeah, sure, kid” and boot you straight into the seat of a multi-million-cred machine of death and destruction.

They trained you first. They picked you up and they beat you down. They sent you on missions, both alone and as teams in training. They made us into animals, and they trained us to bite everyone but the hand that fed us, all the while ridding us of any reluctance to kill and sending us after those who did what we did, but without official permission.

Now, feeling more like my old self than I had in ages, I knew that the doubts that had assailed me on my release from the army were just that.

Doubts.

Meaningless and fucking unhelpful in the greater scheme of things, especially when I had a fuckload of people around who needed judging.

The locker room was reasonably narrow, made so by the changing booths, the toilets, the lockers, and the showers that stood in the very center of the hollow square shaped by the rest.

The floor, like the walls, was white and tiled, with a ceiling of dull nonreflective plastic, dotted here and there with lights. The walls, where they weren’t covered by lockers and cubicles, had narrow mirrors, clearly there to make sure the staff took the time to be properly presented for their corpo overlords.

Well, the entrance I’d used was at the top left of the square, and I crept down that side, moving as close behind the single slowly dressing figure as I could, waiting both for his lack of attention to reach the right point, and the other two to either get sick of him ogling them, or to fuck off somewhere else.

I laid each foot slowly, being as careful as possible to be silent, feeling the full body suit stretching as I reached out…

And the fucker twisted around and full-on faced the pair, calling out in a clear voice filled with frustration.

“Fuck’s sake, Amanda!” he snarled. “A week!”

“Oh, fuck off, Blythe!” the woman snarled back, clearly more than ready for the conversation.

“A fucking week!” he repeated even louder, striding forward.

I cursed and slipped into the cubicle next to me. The half-open door provided cover as I moved out of sight and turned the stealth suit off, the battery now at four percent. I waited, as the situation developed.

“We’re supposed to be on a break, and you waited a single goddamn week before fucking him!”

“You moved out. You’ve got no right to question me.” She stepped up and got in his face, as I watched on the camera.

“I’ve every fucking right! We were supposed to be getting married!”

“You left me!”

“You changed the fucking door codes!”

“Hey, look, man, no offense but—” The blatant third wheel in all of this started to interrupt, only to have them both turn on him.

“Fuck off!”

“Shut it, Steve!”

“Whoa, look, you’ve both got some serious fucking issues here. You need to—”

“Steve!” the woman hissed in warning. “You want to fuck me again? Shut it and go wait in the car!”

“I…I…”

“Get outta here, Steve, and if you hang around, I’ll smash your skull in!” My target—Blythe, apparently—shoved the smaller man.

Steve grabbed Blythe’s hand and twisted it back, punching the larger man in the stomach once, twice, then a third time…while Blythe just stared at him.

The camera angle wasn’t great, not for seeing his expression, but Steve clearly hadn’t been expecting that. And Blythe?

Well, there was an animalistic sound from him, followed by a single, damn hard punch to the smaller man’s face.

His head rebounded off the tiled wall behind him. The white tiles suddenly spattered with blood, and then Blythe was a blur. Punches flew, and so did more blood.

“Fuck, Blythe!” Amanda snarled. “You…he’s just…ah, fuck!”

“Motherfucker!” Blythe screamed, grabbing Steve by the throat and punching him again and again, smashing him barely conscious to the floor before kicking him in the gut, over and over.

“Blythe!” Amanda screamed, shoving at her larger, apparent ex, and screaming his name. “Fucking hell, man! Blythe!”

“WHAT!” he screamed into her face. The pair of them were centimeters from each other, chests heaving in rage and…and she fucking threw herself at him, kissing him with a frenzied passion.

He hesitated. Then her towel was torn off, thrown aside, and he was yanking at his uniform, even as she desperately tore at his trousers.

“Well, I didn’t expect that…This is better than a fucking docu-drama!”

Bowdoin’s voice made me jump, then curse as silently as I could, as the apparently reunited couple started fucking on a bench that was half covered in Steve’s blood. The loser dragged himself out of the way and crawled toward the exit.

“You guys are insane. Pass the popcorn!” Bowdoin chortled.

“Fuck’s sake,” I growled, shaking my head. “Warn Kal that the loser is coming out. He better hide.”

I paused a minute. Bowdoin was back in my vision, nodding, apparently eating something and presumably still watching the couple fucking. It was brutal, animalistic, and apparently exactly what they both needed, judging from the groans and cries.

“He’s hiding,” Bowdoin assured me, and I snorted.

“Fucking perfect. A guy who’s about the right goddamn size and his uniform’s fucking torn now,” I pointed out as Amanda ripped his shirt.

“Well, put it this way—would you have really interrupted this pair? I mean, she’d shank you, and then probably jump you if you beat him down…”

“Point,” I grumbled. “Well, they’re still in sight, but they’re sure as shit not paying attention. Can you pop his locker for me?”

“I probably couldn’t have. I’ve got the lowest level of security access to the cameras and so on right now, and to open locked doors remotely without a physical hack would be beyond me for now. But…” He drew the word out as he replayed Blythe storming away from his locker.

“It’s not locked, is it?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“Not as near as I can tell. The door’s closed, but not quite…”

“Fantastic. Watch those fuckers.”

“Oh no, whatever will I do? Oh wait, record this shit, that’s what.” Bowdoin snorted, apparently getting another handful of something and munching on it while I reactivated my suit.

I snuck out of the cubicle and headed over to the locker, opening it again—checking that the others weren’t watching—and quickly grabbed his spare uniform, even taking a gun belt and a rather nice little handgun out, then ducking into the next cubicle to change.

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I was as fast as I could be, figuring that, first of all, he was clearly late for work, and that was unlikely to go down well here. Secondly, judging from the sounds echoing around the locker area, they’d not be distracted for much longer.

I was right, buttoning up my shirt to the neck—and hating it…goddamn white shirts! Who the hell makes staff wear a tight white shirt?—and as I tucked the shirt into my trousers, the last cries died away. I finished dressing, making sure my holster was on straight and I was as tidy as I could make myself look.

Blythe was bigger than me, both in muscle and in physical size, which was a blessing, meaning that as long as I flattened my hood down the back of my neck as far as I could, I could wear his uniform over my own clothes.

I looked rumpled and scruffy, like my clothes didn’t fit well, and I was generally unkept, but better that than leave my gear behind.

The pair gathered up their clothes, several protestations of eternal love were exchanged, and then cursing rang out as Blythe realized his clothes and gun were missing.

“Fucking Steve!” he snarled. “The bastard must have nicked them!”

“Shit, you’ll get fired!” Amanda snapped. “You can’t get fired! We need to pay the rent!”

“We…there’s enough in the cred account, right?”

“No…Look, we can talk later. Let’s get your fucking uniform from Steve, all right?” She groaned. “I’ll explain later, just…come on!”

She dressed quickly in street clothes, then tore out of the bottom doors following Blythe, who was cursing Steve and swearing he’d kill the fucker.

I shrugged and strolled out of the room behind them, finding Kal hiding behind a support beam, and gestured for him to join me.

“What happened in there?” he asked, wide-eyed. “I thought I heard…?”

“Fucking?” I asked.

“Yeah!”

“It’s all part of the job,” I assured him. “Sometimes you need to do whatever you have to, to get the job done.”

“You…Wait, you mean…?” He pointed after the other two. “What the hell happened in there?”

“Best not to worry about it,” I said. “Right, maintenance office…”

“It’s down here. But why?”

“First, I need a spare fucking battery for the stealth suit, if possible. Secondly, even you have to realize that for the maintenance team to do their fucking job, they need access to the servers, right?”

“So?”

“Just…shut the fuck up and stay out of the way,” I growled, as Bowdoin spoke up in my ear.

“End of the corridor, take a left. The right leads to the stairs. You want the third door along. Only one technician in there, and he’s watching a couple of young corpos banging in the pool.”

“Great,” I muttered. “Another fucking pervert.”

“World’s full of them,” Bowdoin agreed happily. “Only difference is that some admit it, and some lie.”

“Whatever,” I growled.

“Look…I’m late, like really late now, and if I don’t get there soon…”

“You need to go?” I asked, and he nodded emphatically. “Okay, well, you got us this far. Don’t forget that my hacker is still riding your implants, so no fucking us over. But once we’re done? He’ll leave you be, all right?”

“Okay, just…um…?”

“Spit it out,” I ordered, marching along the corridor toward the lift and stairwell to the next floor.

“Can…I have a job?”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“What?”

“A job,” he repeated. “Seriously, you guys, the stuff you just did, and then fucking that security guard…I mean, the guy who dragged himself out all covered in blood, then you have like a threesome with Amanda—she’s only the hottest of all the security staff—and a few minutes later, you’re strolling around, armed and dressed like a security guard…”

I looked at him in confusion before Bowdoin saved me.

“I told him to hide himself because you’d kicked a guy’s ass and were having a threesome with his girlfriend, and he bought it.”

“Why…?” I hissed to Bowdoin, only for Kal to think it was meant for him.

“Look, I know, but you can trust me, right? You know who I am. You’ve seen my background and you know I hate the bastards, and—”

“All right,” I said, more to shut him up than anything.

“All right?” he squeaked. “Like, you mean yes? I can join you?”

“Yeah…sure,’” I lied with a straight face. “Let’s view this as a test. Go to your normal job, get on and make sure nobody suspects anything, okay? If the shit hits the fan, try to distract people. My hacker will be watching and evaluating, and when we’re done, he’ll leave you, but he’ll give me a report. You do well? We’ll be in touch.”

“Grab his fucking connection cable!” Bowdoin interrupted, and I grabbed it quick, nodding my thanks as I pocketed it.

“Thank you!” He practically hugged himself to death, squeezing that hard, before coughing and remembering what, and who, he was. He quickly let go of himself, straightened his clothes as best he could, and nodded to me, before tearing off in the opposite direction, calling something about “getting ready.”

“You really giving him a chance to join you?” Bowdoin asked, and I snorted.

“Fuck, no. He’s a corpo. Given half a chance, he’ll sell us out. No, I just don’t want him thinking about selling us out. This way, he’s going to cover for us instead.”

“Sneaky,” he replied, and I nodded.

“Anything I need to know, you know, before I reach the next level?” I jogged down the corridor.

“Not really…The new shift is mainly going out. Last shift is riding the lift down…There’s gonna be some questions raised about the blood in the changing rooms, I bet.”

“Yeah, so nothing on the floor above?” I asked.

“Corpo parking,” Bowdoin said. “Some nice rides, but that’s it. There’s also a security bay for their armed wagons, a damn nice Cryson high-speed interceptor in there at the minute, well-armed—got the passes for weapons deployment and everything. Nice option if you need to shoot your way out later.”

“If we get to that point, then we’re fucked either way.”

“True. Be a hell of a show for me, though, which brings me to the next bit of bad news.”

“Which is?” I went up the stairs to the next floor, and hesitated outside the door of the maintenance section as he looped the relevant camera for me.

“Fuck, I’m good!” Bowdoin grunted.

“And the bad news?” I prompted.

“Oh shit, yeah. Well, you just sent our remote access point away.”

“Uh-huh?”

“So…guess who gets to be my next ride?”

“Oh, fuck no,” I said. “Not a fucking chance.”

“You want me to hack this shit to get us to the security office?” he asked. “I can’t do that by a remote link. I need to be plugged into it, to bypass most of that shit. This is a corpo site, remember? They’ll have patrolling AIs and everything roaming their corpo Aug-World. The only chance we’ve got? Is if I’m able to hit hard and fast enough that when the AIs come looking, they believe that there’s nothing wrong.”

“And how the hell does that mean you need to ride me?” I growled.

“First off, that phrasing means I’m going to take a razor to my brain to cleanse it. Urgh. Second, I need you to literally plug me the fuck in as soon as you get there. If I’m just riding a relay link between here, there and you? Too much that can go wrong. Trust me, this is not going to end well if I don’t have that.”

“Fuck no.” I growled, “It’s not happening.”

“Add in that you need me to hack this guy’s augs when you reach him? I mean, you’re gonna need me to hack not just normal augs, but corpo and army level shit, remotely. Even with me having a direct connection, that’s a tall fucking order. Anything that slows down my link? We need it out of the way.”

“You better not be fucking me here, Bowdoin,” I swore under my breath, reaching out for the door handle.

“If I am? We lose the payday, right? No offense, Kabutt, but fucking with you, an APS operator, and both losing fifteen fucking thousand creds and then being a target for the rest of my life, not to mention having Richie fucking gunning for me?” He shook his head. “That Richie was insane. As much as yeah, I’d fuck you around for a laugh usually, I’m not that stupid, all right?”

“You better not be,” I whispered. My stomach dropped out as I offered him the top-level access to my system.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna cut it, mate. No chance.”

“You better not fuck me here, you little shit!” I snarled, hating it even as I was accepting the spate of access requests he made. “Seriously, fuck me over here and I’ll hunt you down and murder you and anyone you’ve even so much as looked at sideways.”

“Sure…sure…” he agreed. The video feed of him faded away and a replacement feed of the corridor on the other side of the door popped up.

“Two minutes. There, you’re good to go.”

I opened the door slowly, peering around the corner, and trying to spot any possible threat…before swearing under my breath and standing up, slipping into the room and closing the door softly behind me.

The maintenance tech in the room was clearly too busy to care about us being there, judging from the cable he had plugged in already and the frantically moving forearm.

I moved around him, trying not to be too much in the “line of fire” just in case, as I reached the server the filthy bastard was physically jacked into.

“Just plug me in there. Second spot, right above his cable…” Bowdoin whispered, and I shook my head at his instinctive whispering.

Ten seconds later, the pervert next to me finished with his business and sagged back, sighing, then pulled his jack free, only to blink the real world back into his vision…and find both a recording of him doing what he’d been doing, and what he’d been watching, in his public access, sent by Bowdoin, and my handgun an inch from his eyeball, as I slid a nice pair of pliers I’d spotted into a pocket for later.

“Uh…how can I help?” he asked, his voice full of panic. Even if I let him live, he knew his career and life was over, unless he was very, very lucky.

Minutes later, I was calmly walking up the stairs to the ground floor, my access as a network administrator in place, meaning that I had the authority to both insert and remove lower ranked system users at will.

Amusingly, that included the head of security and all his staff. Or it would, once I was approved by the current security network override, in the security office.

Bowdoin had taken the time to downgrade all the other maintenance and tech team by one level to ensure that should this guy develop a set of brass balls after I left?

He’d be able to do fuck all about the whole situation.

I took the last few steps and paused at the door. No need to be cocky about things, after all.

There were a handful of security officers about, some staff, and…yeah, they moved off as a group, heading to a second corridor that branched off the main one.

“Okay, go now. There’s two corpo types coming past, but that’s the quietest this section gets for a while,” Bowdoin said.

I moved, trusting that either he was on the level, or I was utterly fucked and I might as well get it over with.

I got out into the corridor and all of three feet, before one of the pair of passersby, a corporate scumbag and his wife, fresh on their way back from presumably a spa session, stepped in front of me, looking outraged.