If I'd thought that New Anchorage was crowded before, I hadn't seen nothing yet. For a moment, I felt deja vu, as if I'd wandered aboard one of the hundreds of UNHCR ships dispensing aid to the places around the globe that somehow still needed it.

There was barely any room to walk, or float, for the matter, since there was no spin gravity to speak of. The total volume of the asteroid and space station combined was smaller than an apartment complex, it was designed as a transitional zone, half port and half airport lounge, with no facilities to handle people staying for the few hours they might have to wait for the next ride down the elevator.

In this small space was crammed thousands of people, families, stranded passengers, businessmen and bureaucrats. The odd soldier, unable to link up with a larger force, floating about and clutching their service weapon like it would make a difference. Unsecured luggage got in the way, tempers were high and there had been enough crying to dampen the atmosphere. Let's speak less about the vomit, the municipal bots could hardly push through the crush.

A tall Indian man, holding his son to his chest, called out to me hopefully after noticing I was a co-ethnic. He stopped after noticing my UN AR tag, his crestfallen expression suggesting that he'd already tried to wrangle assistance from them with little benefit. I didn't think the Indian Mangal Vikas Mantralaya was in a better position to help them, but far be it for me to dash his hopes.

The worst part was that unlike refugees who had an opportunity to grab enough to feed them for a few days at least, most of these people had been packing light, waiting for the space elevator, and some had even been aboard at the time of the war. The elevator lifts had their own minimal thrusters and emergency life support, so in a true emergency, they could detach themselves and float to safety. Some sections could even blow themselves free with safety charges, to minimize the amount of material that came crashing down from orbit or was flung off into space.

I was grateful they'd worked, even if that meant that thousands of people were on the station, and on official channels, I could see panicked discussions about the life support crumbling under the strain.

Not a new experience for me, but while the station was muggy and hot, it didn't seem like it would boil over. I could see desperate engineering work, with some of the larger ships being hooked up to the systems, contributing their own life support to help take off the load. The toilets couldn't be helped, at this point they were just throwing waste into space instead of recycling it. I doubt it really mattered, what with the whole Kessler syndrome deal.

It was loud, like a bazaar I remember from when my parents had taken me to India to visit their hometowns. Even if the majority were glum or dazed, there certainly seemed no end of those who sought to kill time or their terror with feverish discussion about what was going on.

I heard whispered rumors of alien invasion, claims that a Centauri Dreadnought had shown up around Mars and was responsible for the carnage. Others blamed a Fourth World War, dismissing the three minute old transmissions from Earth that showed an uneasy peace as deepfaked fabrications meant to keep them calm even after the homeworld had been destroyed.

Some mistook the Kill Star for alien technology, which surprised me for a bit, but then I remembered I'd taken having some degree of UN clearance for granted for almost 7 or 8 years now. Yes, while you only needed ORANGE classification to see video footage of them in action, that was more than most here had.

Deimos, now that was a hot topic. While the station didn't move relative to Mars, the bulk of the action had been on the side opposite it, so I could forgive the confusion when, as far as they were concerned, a whole Martian moon with thousands of crew just disappeared all of a sudden. I refrained from drawing their attention to what I suspected was a piece, far below us now.

It hadn't been so long that societal order had broken down, I had to remind myself that the recent events had largely been restricted to USMA holdings, and the rest of Mars had only gotten an idea of what was going on behind the media blackout when starships started raining down on the planet, even the initial orbital bombardment was easy to miss. Planets are big.

I did spot a Grey Man, with his helmet off for once. He seemed relatively normal, the kind of guy I wouldn't look at twice if we were drinking side by side in a bar. Unfortunately, the secret police in an authoritarian state aren't kind enough to stamp barcodes on their faces, or be blond and blue eyed either, this guy was black.

I caught his eye when he saw me with the Texans, meandering through the crowd, and he initially seemed dismissive after noticing the UN voidsuit. Then he blinked, some automated facial recognition system in his lace must have marked me out as a terrorist or something. He poked his buddy, and they turned to face me nervously, unsure how to proceed when they were outnumbered a thousand to one.

I showed them my teeth in a feral grin. Try me you slimy fucks. Just because I haven't killed any USMA or USSF so far doesn't mean you can't be the first. Luckily for everyone else, they reconsidered, and resumed their floating at a semblance of attention, and I turned my back on them and dragged myself along behind Graham and co.

Hmm, they didn't seem to consider him a threat, beyond their general wariness of the military of one of the seceded states. I suppose he really had been working in deep cover, or at least not showing up to public meetings.

It took a while to make it to the section of the ship reserved for government activities, not that it was significantly less crowded. I recognized the expressions of UN officials who had been late for their suborbital flights and had a long night to look forward to in the terminal, even if this lot had a little more terror on their face than I was used to.

We found a compartment earmarked for Texas, and I sighed in relief now that I could actually stretch my limbs for a bit.

That relief evaporated fast when I saw members of BULWARK standing before me, though they seemed to find my alarm hilarious.

Fuck, I hadn't taken their promise to potentially meet me up in orbit the least bit seriously, as far as I was concerned, my job was done when I crawled my way to debrief before an official who would take pity on me and then send my ass back home to Earth, fast or slow I couldn't care less.

"Dr. Sen, showered recently?" Machina asked me archly, perched comfortably on a stool stuck to the floor. Florette waved coquettishly, her hair done up, I wondered where she'd stashed the snake.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"In blood, and some shock fluid. What the hell are you doing here? This is a public station, if someone figures out who you are, you're toast." I dragged my finger across my neck in a slicing motion to emphasize my point.

"Relax. You keep forgetting I'm a Technomancer off the leash, they won't ID me without my say so." He replied calmly, tossing me a bagel. It smelled heavenly, and I chomped into it with relish, heedless of the usual orbital etiquette of not having flaky food in public.

Fair 'nuff, people these days had become a little complacent about having panopticon surveillance and facial recognition built into their heads (the kinds not hardwired into the human brain of course). Hell, you might be Osama Bin Laden, resurrected from the dead, beard and all, and the TSA wouldn't sniff unless you tripped their detectors.

"What about Frost and Beacon? Where are they?" I asked. Sure, they could hide in an environment suit, black out the visor, but Beacon's had been hideously bulky to deal with the heat he gave off.

"Preoccupied. Hey, did you piss off USMA? Beyond blabbing about their nefarious deeds? I ask only because I took a look at the Grey's lace, and you're almost as high a priority a target as I am." He asked deadpan, the circlet now off his neck and spun like a toy on his long, slim fingers.

"I'm hoping it's some fucking mistake, or maybe they're using that as a pretext for bagging me without admitting the real reason." I told him.

Dear reader, forgive me for not immediately realizing the connection to Midas. It had been months since I'd seen him, and believe it or not, I'm a busy man, with hundreds of supes to massage on the regular. He couldn't have been the further from my mind, especially when I'd completely forgotten Grim even existed. Is a man to blame for thinking problems from another world hadn't followed him to the next? I'd learn the details soon enough. Now, if someone had specifically said a few hundred trillion USDC had shown up in my bank account before vanishing into the ether, I'd have wisened up faster.

"Not that close, or else the Greys would have started blasting when they saw me." Yes, that baguette was already being converted to body and battery fat, my stores had been running low.

I let some of the strain out, gulping actually cold water from a bulb, preparing myself to take my leave as soon as I could. I'm not so low ranking I couldn't requisition a UN shuttle, especially when the bosses knew I'd brought the news.

"Say, I'm sure you're snooping on military comms. Did you hear that Prometheus was detected, likely by Turing?" I asked him absentmindedly, looking for the fastest ship I could steal.

"Certainly. I would imagine it's why they stood down from their little tussle."

"I haven't seen any signs of it myself, you'd think if they knew where it was, they wouldn't be shy about using that Kill Star again." There. Shuttle 16, on secondment from the sole British colony. It would do just fine for making it to Gupta, unless he actually used his drive at 0.1% its capacity.

"A bit late for that, not that they won't try." He told me languidly, observing as I feverishly scrolled through the lengthy crew manifests and confirmed that there was nobody who could override my decision.

"Really? Has it contacted you again? Do you know where Prometheus is?" I ignored the immediate protests from some British poof complaining loudly on the UN network about being kicked off from the seat he'd managed to get after hours of fighting.

Sometimes, I wish I had latent telepathy, even something so mild it would rank as a Class 0 on the McKinsey-Wanton scale. Or trust my instincts more, noticing that just about any time I'd come out of my emotional bomb shelter hoping that the worst of the fallout had settled, there would be another Tsar Bomba parachuting down, bigger than the last.

I'd started ignoring my body, the lace usually capable of filtering out extraneous sensations like discomfort, hunger, or thirst. Even dread. No, it was the backup in my back, I'd already accepted it as a part of me, it might send the odd emotion up the pipe too, but what bleeding-edge cybernetic/greesmithed part didn't have teething pains? It was alarmed, practically screaming, but I clamped down, having figured out some of the controls that the manuals had been vague on. Stress, nerves shaken from fighting for my life half the time I'd been awake this week, sleep deprivation and a mild case of brain damage.

Fuck off, I told it, mentally injecting something to take the edge off the upwelling of panic.

"One good question, and one bad one. I have a very good idea of what's going on with Prometheus, and I know where it is."

I perked up, but didn't turn away just yet. The dumb AI on the shuttle was throwing a fit, bombarded by multiple demands on its time, as high priority as anyone could claim. I didn't have a chance to signal for higher access codes just yet.

"Really? Where? And I hope you haven't gotten too attached, because it's not long for this world if Turing knows about it." I told him, turning slowly, achingly glacial, confused as to why my backup had told me to fuck off too, activating my reflex boosters despite me not remembering to give it access. Why would I? I could do so with a thought myself, and it was fast enough not to need them.

"I can't help being attached." He chuckled, the first time I'd heard him laugh. "As for where Prometheus is, you're looking right at him."

I'd never been mind controlled, it's a capital crime without affirmative consent. Hacked, yes, struck by Parrots, more often than I'd like. The world was moving slow, each word from his mouth battering down doors I'd erected in my mind, the last syllables droning on for eternity.

The bagel barely turned into fuel erupted in my guts, every system I had control over ramping up so hard it fried the normal nerves they linked with, even the hypermyelinated ones screaming with agony from the strain.

Each beat of my heart, now racing five times as fast as it ought to, my internal ECG warning of fibrillation, was the gap between commands I sent to my systems.

Neurotoxins. Flush. Burn my pores if needed. I hadn't restocked the more fun drugs, but I wouldn't be caught slacking when it came to stocking those up.

Blade, extend, I don't care if you're telling me you're going to chop off the middle finger in the way, if you don't, I'm raising it at you.

Hypercaps were ready, aching tingling telling me that they were poised to fry whatever they touched.

Sweat glistened on Graham's brow, threatening to shake itself loose as he turned his head to face us. A ladybug had squeezed itself loose and was finding its feet in microgravity, I could track every beat of its gossamer wings.

Machina's bracelet was gently turning on his index, smooth, inert metal that made my guts clench at the sight.

Machina himself had a smile on his face, another first, the worry lines gone from his young face.

Smile all you like, you smarmy bastard, it's the first and will be the last, you're in my range.

At this point, about a hundred milliseconds since his answer had departed from my expectations, two beats of my raging heart, I could tell something was wrong.

I expected the blade to have begun snicking out of its sheath between the radius and ulna in my forearm, sliding inexorably towards his nose. I expected my sweat to turn just slightly purple, potent poisons promising a painful death to everyone in the room.

All I received, instead, were signals telling me everything was fine, that my titanic burst of energy would manifest itself any moment now. Another heartbeat, and all I did was slowly turn in place, my limbs no longer my own.

The backup screamed, attempting to seize control of my nerves, and found itself locked out just as hard as the man upstairs.

"Impressive, if they ever cure Metahuman Rejection Syndrome, I think I'll get myself those Boston Ultralights after all."

I turned to face him helplessly, not even my facial muscles reflecting my desire to lunge and tear out his throat.

I suspected the cheeky bastard was lying about not having a sense of humor, but for all I knew, some AI in the circlet was feeding him the lines.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.