“Still nothing from Bers or Ayna,” Jaquan said into their joint channel.

“I still say it is too early to be too worried about those two,” Kiris told him. “They are both very good survivors.”

“They are, but this is a bad mess,” he said back.

“We just picked up the guns,” Herdis interjected. “Jaquan is taking us around, back into the suburbs.”

“I’ll be going as fast as I dare,” he said. “We don’t want to be picked up by the corp cops with all this firepower on board. We don’t need the delay.”

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” Herdis said.

“I’ll speed up as soon as we are out of the core itself,” he added. “As fast as I dare without risking a collision. We don’t need THAT delay either.”

“You don’t usually talk this much,” she commented.

“I am worried about my friend, Kiris. I don’t love him the same way you do, but I love him all the same.”

“I know, Jaquan.”

“I know you know. What neither of us knows is what is going on with him right now, and I know that neither of us likes it.”

“If Gaylen is not dead, captured or crippled, then he is making his way to that old friend of his,” Kiris told him. “Dodging every possible off-ramp on his way, perhaps even subconsciously. It’s that decency he denies so hard.”

“You’re spooky, you know that, Goldie?” Herdis said, in a weak attempt at lightening the mood.

“Yes. My perception sees people’s reaction to my perception.”

“We are halfway out of the core,” Jaquan said.

“I will have a location for you soon,” Kiris replied.

She gave the tracker pad another quick look.

“I almost have him.”

“I still feel you should wait for us,” Herdis said. “Three on one is the ideal way to fight.”

“I don’t intend to fight,” Kiris told her. “And I don’t intend to delay any longer than necessary. Now be quiet and let me focus. I will sound off soon.”

Her target was clearly unaware of her pursuit. His meandering had seemed a little suspect at first, as if he were trying to shake it off. But it became clear that he was indeed simply meandering. He had backtracked twice now, which had shortened the time it had taken her to narrow the distance between them. Overall, he simply seemed lost. Presumably, he didn’t know this area, and if all his electronics had been fried in whatever had struck that building, then he was left to wander blindly in search of something familiar.

The distance was now less than a hundred metres, but straight lines on a screen didn’t account for buildings or clumps of trees. She didn’t know the area either, but a set of night vision goggles were at least giving her an edge. And unlike him she had a constant direction to head into.

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The deciding moment came when, after a brief stop in the middle of nowhere, he backtracked a third and final time.

The greyish world of the goggles showed her a line of trees between her and him, and beyond those a line of abandoned-looking buildings. She moved into the trees on quick, quiet feet, flicked the safety of her pistol off, and then primed herself to wait just a few seconds.

The added complication arrived in the form of a shouted voice. She risked peeking out through the leaves, and saw two men arrive on the scene from the row of grotty-looking buildings. One of them wore one of those distinctive green jackets. The other didn’t, but both shouted to the tagged man with clear familiarity, and he in turn was relieved to see them.

Her target deviated from course towards Kiris, and met the duo halfway, in the middle of the street. She didn’t understand the language they used, but it was spoken in a high, tense tone; indicative of a confused, ongoing disaster. One of the new arrivals, the Green Jacket, held up a little palm device. She couldn’t see the screen, but it presumably showed either a map or a message of some kind. Regardless, her target joined the duo, and they walked back in the direction of the houses.

Kiris slipped out of her shoes. They were soft, but her sock-clad feet were softer still. She strode directly after them. They were moving at a normal walking pace, and so she simply had to speed-walk to catch up with them. With no goggles of their own, and almost no street lighting, there was no risk of them seeing her coming. The only concern was their ears, and while she was no Dwyyk she was a trained dancer, with genetically gifted bodily grace.

They remained oblivious to the raised gun barrel that was speeding their way. She didn’t catch up with them before they made it into the narrow space between two houses, and the loud crunching of old leaves beneath their feet gave her pause. Then they turned to the left, and so she simply did the same. The next space was less strewn with refuse, and the goggles let her step around what little there was.

They were walking along the building’s rear side, and she reached the corner before they did. They were still talking, giving her movements just a bit more cover, and giving her a perfect bead on their location. As they were about four metres away, she stepped around the corner.

She fired a low-strength shot into her target’s thigh, immediately worked the setting dial with her thumb, and fired a regular bolt into the other Green Jacket’s chest. Her target flopped to the ground like a dropped toy, his comrade keeled backwards with a big, smoking hole in his torso, and the last man yelped and ran.

Kiris trailed him with the gun for a second, lined her shot up, and blasted him in the back.

Next she took a little glowstick out of a pocket on her big, roomy coat, activated the chemicals with a tap on one end, and threw it on the ground next to her target before she pushed the goggles up on her forehead.

“That is so you can see me,” she said, and began a slow walk over to the groaning man. “So that you can look me in the eyes as I speak.”

“You…!” the man groaned, as he stared into the barrel of the gun. “You…!”

She fired into the ground near his head, close enough to scorch him a little. It silenced him, after one quick little yelp. She stopped, just out of his reach, close enough that he could see every line of her face as she dropped the hood. She could smell the vicious burn on his leg, and in his companion’s chest.

“Torture is ineffective,” she told him, flatly, calmly. “Despite its popularity. A person will say anything to make agony stop, but there is nothing at all stopping them from lying. There is also the issue of sheer spite, and hatred, and their empowering effect.”

She shifted the gun a little, drawing his gaze fully to her face.

“But I am built differently. I am a result of ancient genetic engineering, and centuries of fine-tuned training methods, to read people's emotions. I can never describe it fully to a non-Chanei, but I can almost say that I hear what a person is feeling. Or taste it, perhaps. The point is to make me a more delightful companion to wealthy, idle aristocrats. Most of them forget about other potential applications for enhanced cognitive empathy.”

She held his eyes, in a long, cold look, taking in, analysing… menacing.

“My point is, that I can torture you, and know when you are lying. I know exactly how afraid you are right now.”

She raised the gun again.

“And the longer this goes on, the more I will know about exactly what frightens you the most.”

Kiris let the barrel sway around a bit, targeting different parts of his body, triggering tiny little twitches and flinches.

“I have a knife too,” she added. “And doing terrible things to you simply will not bother me in the slightest. Few things do. My heart is rocky ground, where very little grows. But what does, I treasure. Now one of those very few things is at risk. I tell you all this, little man, to save time. You will talk, and it is best for both of us that you do so right away.”

She fired another shot into the ground near his head. The suddenness of it drew out a scream, and a violent twitch, which caused a burst of agony in his leg, which drew out a long throaty groan.

“Now…” Kiris said. “I am going to start asking questions.”