I hadn't bothered setting an alarm, but my slab woke me up when it rang. I blearily checked the clock as I picked it up. I'd almost slept in 'til noon.

I had already answered the call by the time I realized it was the burner slab Walker gave me, not my own.

"Yeah?" I suppressed a yawn.

"Sharkie? S'Walker. You busy?" Man sounded as awake as ever.

I looked down at myself, sitting up on my mattress. "No. What's up?"

"Good. Got some urgent work for you if you're up for-FUCKIN' GO! IT'S GREEN, NUMBNUTS!" A car horn blared in the background. "Finally. Sorry 'bout that, I'm drivin'."

"I, uh, I figured."

"What I was tryin' to say is that I need some work done and fast." He coughed a little, and I could imagine the smell of his awful bac. "I might even do it myself, 'cept we got a meeting with the Blues in a couple hours and I'm runnin' myself shit-ragged gettin' things ready. Plus I'm completely fuckin' beat already. So. You down? Or up? Or fuckin' sideways or whatever you say?"

I wondered what was going on. Dude sounded pretty neurotic. "I'm guessing it's something like last night?"

"Yeah, yeah. Easier, in fact."

"Alright, sounds good." Money was money, and I even after yesterday I was feeling well-rested. The cut on my arm wasn't even giving me trouble. "Should I meet you somehwere, or-?”

"Nah, I'll come to you. Give you a ride." I heard an engine wheezing its hardest on his end of the call. "You said you're in the boxes on Kyiv, right?"

"Yep." Kinda weird that he knew where I lived, but I guess I had told him.

"Phew. Couldn't remember if you said Kyiv or Kolmas. I'll be there in ten or thereabouts."

"I'll meet you out front, then."

"Good. Cool." Tires squealed. "And bring your saw." The line went dead. That was that.

I hopped out of bed and started sifting around on the floor for something to wear. Should have done laundry a couple days ago. Eventually I got together a sports bra and shorts that passed the sniff test, a Sawada's SSS tank top and a miraculously clean set of coveralls that had been forgotten in one of my lockers. The saw went back in its improvised harness (I wondered where I could get a couple scabbards made), my knife in one pocket, the Slukh in another.

I noticed the Pall was a lot thinner today as I stepped out onto the catwalk. The sun was like a red ember left barely-smoldering in the bottom of a grill. This was all the light someone like Northmarch would ever see coming from above. I shuddered. No wonder burnouts-the tornagena, I mean-were often not quite right.

Hermy was in his usual spot. I had to wonder if he lived in that four-foot box. I didn't even rate a glance, so we were back to business as usual. I watched traffic go by, glanced up as a VTOL did an earsplitting flyover on full burners-what a lightshow!- and fended off curious roaches until a beat-up sedan rolled up, the exhaust smelling like a grease fire.

It might have been black, or gray, or dark blue at some point, but could now be most accurately described as "unpainted filler, primer, and scratch." I couldn't even figure out the make; it looked like one of those genericars in the background of a video game. It had four tires and got here under its own power, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

A fug of electro-western music and smoke rolled out at me as the window lowered. "You waitin' for me to get out and open it for you?" Walker yelled. A big pair of mirrored specs covered his eyes. "'Cause you can bet I ain't no chauffeur."

Well then. I got in shotgun and he was moving before I had the door shut, headed south. "How's Sharkie this mornin?"

"I'm doing good, man. You?"

He turned toward me and I winced. "I'm doin' about how I look." How he looked was pretty far from good, with huge bags under his eyes and stubble all over his cheeks. I wondered when last he'd slept.

I slid the seat back so my knees were only a little jammed against the dash and looked around the car a little bit. It was pretty ratty in there, to be honest, and it smelled like an arson at a cigarette factory. A couple crushed coffee cans and food wrappers rattled around by my boots.

Walker must have noticed my...ambivalence toward his vic. "What? Were you expectin' a Vintner Thirty? A Marquez or somethin?"

"Well..." The gangsters in movies did always drive something like that.

"Wellll, sorry your free ride is such a disappointment, but believe it or not I've got better things to spend my money on! And this old girl is less conspicuous anyways."

Someone sure puffed on the wrong end of the burner this morning. "Listen, I appreciate the-Shit, Walker, it's red, it's RED!"

He shot straight through the intersection without slowing, swerving around the bumper of a bulk hauler and leaving a chorus of horn-blasts and curses in our wake.

"What the fuck, man?" I exclaimed. "You alright?"

He made that familiar 'pshaw' gesture. "It's still early. No one on the roads anyway."

"Walker, it's almost fuckin' noon!"

"Well pardon the hell outta me for not having the time to look at a clock." He was glaring at me and I was sincerely wishing he'd watch the road. "Sheeit. If I'd known you were gonna bitch this much I woulda let you walk. Women and backseat driving, man-"

Alright. No way. This was too much. "I dunno who took a dump on your doorstep today, partner," I spat over at him, "but it sure as shit wasn't me. You're being a Kingsdamned dick."

His face twisted into a snarl, but at least he kept his eyes forward. "Man, oh man, this is-" He cut himself off, paused, sighed deeply as his face relaxed. "Know what? You're right, pard. I'm sorry. This ain't your fault and I shouldn't be givin' you shit for it just 'cause I aint slept in three days. Uncalled for."

Wow. And I'd been ready to flip the fuck out on him. "Uh...don't worry about it. No harm done. Just...please watch the road?"

"Sure. Sure. And bein' the old man that I am"-He didn't look much over forty to me, but I guess that was old by some standards-"you know I gotta add a moral to this story, which is: don't be afraid to just let shit drop. Sometimes there's more important things at stake than talking shit."

"Like you not driving us into a bridge?"

He had the courtesy to look a little sheepish. "Like that."

"So what's going on, anyway?" I asked, eager now to get past any awkwardness. He was taking us south and east, skirting Port Town and nearing Quarryside. I'd only been this way a couple times, helping Sawada load stuff up and once when I got a pity invite to go drinking on Silvio K's birthday.

He rubbed his face with one hand. "Blues hit the Ragged Axle last night. One of our bigger bars, lotta Bones hang out there. They sent a whole team, shot the place up pretty good. Some cyborgs, some 'paths, an' all armed to the teeth. We would've been skee-rewed if old Raido hadn't been there. Most of 'em got smoked through the fuckin' wall, ha." He brought his hand up to his face, glanced at it in mild surprise when he found no cigarette in it. "No one we're worried about got killed, but damn if it wasn't close."

Man, I felt kind of bad now. Being in a gunfight probably wasn't good for the nerves even on a good night's sleep. "Raido's some kind of ninja?"

"One of our heavies, yeah. Fights like a pit dancer."

"Is that a compliment?"

We hit a red light and thankfully, Walker stopped this time. He immediately started fumbling a cig out of his jacket. "Pit dancer's like a...an archetype, I guess. From quarry songs, plays, that kinda thing. Always a hero, or think they are. And they always fight with a big ol' pistol and a bigger ol' knife. That's what Raido does, 'cept he's also eighty percent Thayer chrome by weight." He got the thing lit and took a few puffs as the light changed. "Blues quite literally didn't know what hit 'em."

I could see where this was going. "I'm guessing he didn't get enough of them, though."

"You're guessin' right. Four or five got away, and our net jockeys found their squat. So it is a real simple job, this time. You bust in there and fuckin' kill 'em. 'Nuff said."

Sure. Real simple. "You're sure nobody else is in there?"

Walker took a left turn, taking us into a rather dim and empty area, the lifelights very sparse. "As we can be. Place they're in used to be some kinda store, but it's been empty years. Bad lighting. They proabably had it set up as a safe house beforehand, but they didn't know how good our slicers are. Dizzy Diamonds, well, she had the ID's ripped off their slabs and in a tracker script afore I could even ask." He glanced at me and winked. "Gotta love a henchman with her head on straight, right?"

"Don't call me a henchman!" I protested. "Makes it sound like I'm gonna get killed!"

"Employee? Subordinate? I dunno, minion?"

"Minion's even worse!" I replied, shaking my head vigorously. "Say 'asset' or 'contractor' or just be like, 'Ah know a guy.' Sounds way cooler."

"Please don't ever mimic my accent again," said Walker, enunciating very clearly.

"Shucks, it ain't lahk it were that bad-"

"Cut it! Cut it out!" He shuddered. "That's more than enough of that. Now then, Miss Guy-I-Know, we're almost there." He pulled into a gravel lot between two burned-out town homes. "Place is four blocks north, on a corner. Crusty red brick, faded-out sign on the front. Four or five of 'em inside. Go wild."

"Wild?"

He frowned. "Uh, don't burn the place down or anything. But do what you gotta do."

I set my jaw and got out. "Right. Right. I'll get moving. But Walker?"

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"Hm?"

"If I need to leave fast and I find you sleeping, I'm cutting my way in." I tapped the door frame with my saw.

He sighed. "Would that I was so lucky. I'll be on the slab the whole time, probably, gettin' this meeting hammered out." He twitched, like he'd just thought of something. "Hey, you want to borrow a heater? I ought to have a few spares around here somewhere..."

I considered it, but shook my head. "Not one I haven't used before. Thanks, though."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Not like I'm payin' for the funeral."

"Thanks also for the vote of confidence. See you in a bit, I guess."

"Luck. An' be careful." He gave me a wave, his slab already ringing.

I set off slowly, my cap pulled low. It was very, very dark around here; no wonder most of the buildings were empty and derelict. If something wasn't done about the lights this would be a dark zone very soon.

The sidewalks were crumbling, the roads empty. Broken windows gaped like eye sockets. The sagging bay doors on warehouses reminded me of loose skin on a corpse. I hadn't turned on a flashlight-I wanted to keep a low profile-so I proceeded carefully, letting my night vision adapt. The only sound was the wind, which carried the smells of moist stone and rotting garbage.

I turned off early. I wanted to make my approach roundabout, in case anyone had seen Walker drive up. After half an hour of walking and counting the blocks, I'd seen no people, no cars. Writing was on the wall for this hood. I stopped beneath the tattered awning of an abandoned grocer's on the end of a street. Kitty-corner across the intersection was my target.

It was indeed of crumbling brick, with an acid-faded sign above the door. Maybe it was a restaurant, once? The lifelight just over it was out, but I could barely see a bit of light through the dusty window. Right on.

No way I was just busting in the front door. I retreated a ways and went around the grocer's, crossing the street north of the target. I scuttled beneath an active lifelight (seven-foot piles of muscle aren't known for scuttling, but I did my best) and stopped in the dark, waiting beside the alley that ran next to the restaurant. I stuck my head around-

And immediately pulled back, for I saw the coal of a cigarette not twenty feet away. I waited, stock still and barely breathing, but nothing happened.

I stuck my head back around, slower this time. The smoker stood next to a propped-open side door, which cast a section of dim yellow light into the alley. As I watched, they leaned against the wall opposite the door and took a drag. In the light from the doorway I saw it was a man, young, hair shaved or bald. The Blue Div tats on his cheek were dark pockmarks in the poor light. He wore shorts and a hoodie, and the grip of a handgun glinted in his waistband. He sighed out smoke and rubbed his head.

I decided to wait until he went back inside. He might be isolated now, but the risk he'd see me was too great. My patience was soon rewarded.

"Tosh? What the fuck are you doing?" There was a whisper. Female, I thought. The woman soon emerged from the doorway, short but broad and dressed similarly in baggy shorts and a Steel Fist Mastery jacket. A bucket dangled from one hand.

"Getting a smoke. And getting away from those bastards. I'm sick of playing cards." Tosh was nonchalant, but it sounded forced.

"Damn it, man, you know we're supposed to be locked down!" the woman hissed. "You probably show up on thermal like a fuckin' lightpost!"

"Who's gonna be watching this shit on a scope?"

The woman's free hand went to her hip. "Oh, I don't know, Tosh. The Bones, maybe? Or whoever chopped up Deke's boys on Hyades last night?"

Tosh froze for a moment, then stubbed out the burner and flipped up his hood. "They really dump them in front of Mikey's house?"

"Piled up like oracle sticks." the woman replied. "They couldn't tell which arms went where."

Oh, my. I'd earned some fans. What a weird feeling.

With a shudder, Tosh went toward the door. "Alright. I'm done, then."

"No, you aren't." The woman didn't move aside for him. "Take this and dump it down there." She held out the bucket.

"Why?"

"'Cause if you do I won't tell Stieg you were outside."

"Thought we were friends, Yona!" groaned Tosh. "Harsh!" He still took the bucket, though.

"Blame the weirdos who said we had to piss inside too, not me." Yona shook her head. I watched her watch Tosh for a moment as he clicked on a minilight and set off down the alley away from me. After a moment she went in and closed the door behind her.

I'd thought I would wait until he went in, but this was too perfect. I drew the Slukh and followed quietly as I could.

Turned out the alley had a dead end maybe fifteen yards from the door, which I hadn't been able to see in the dim light. I very nearly shot him right then. But I had an idea. Walker talked about psychological warfare, and it sounded like these guys were already scared of me. So what if I grew that reputation?

I dropped the pistol back into my pocket and crept up close behind him. His boots crunched on the alley's cracked concrete and his light danced patterns on the walls. He got to the end of the alley and dumped the bucket-it did indeed smell like piss. He stumbled backwards, almost into me, as it ran towards his sneakers.

"Kings damn it!" he muttered. "New fucking shoes and I already-" My arm clamped around his neck and my other hand went over his mouth. When Sawada taught me Sistema-4 martial arts, he'd also taught me how to choke someone out. With arms big as mine it was easy; I didn't even have to squeeze that hard.

When he went limp I held him a few seconds longer, to make sure he wasn't faking. I made sure to drag him free of the puddle before setting him down-he didn’t deserve that, and I sure didn't want to touch it.

Working fast now, I pulled the belt out of my coveralls and tied him up ankles to wrists. I knotted it tight as I could. Not perfect, but I didn't need it to hold him too long. I sliced a strip off his hoodie and gagged him with it for good measure. His gun I dropped into a thigh pocket. I'd need this guy later. For now, though, he could chill here while I went inside.

I went back to the door and pulled out the saw. Here we go again. Slowly, slowly, I pushed it open. Hopefully no one was immediately past it, and I could get my bearings-

"Enjoy yourself, Tosh?" said Yona. She was leaned up against a counter in what seemed to be a half-disassembled kitchen, eating a sandwich and messing with her slab. She looked up as I moved though the door. "I know you like-" Her eye's went big, I saw her choke as she tried to inhale, and then my lunge carried my across the room to put my saw right across her eyeline.

I managed to catch the body, but her slab fell to the floor with a clatter. I waited, frozen, holding up a dead woman like she was my drunk buddy. I smelled something bitter, and it took me a moment to realize it was superheated bone dust still floating in the air.

"You guys better not be getting nasty in there!" called a man's voice from the next room. It was past one of those restaurant-style doors that swings both ways. "I'm hungry!"

"Yeah," called another man, "we got any of those Borisburgers left? An' tell Tosh to get back here so we can take more of his money!" I heard laughter amidst chairs scraping back from a table.

They were coming. Shit! I lowered Yona's body to the ground fast as I could. This was bad, this was bad-or maybe not. Maybe letting them come to me was better? Didn't matter. This is what I had to deal with.

No time to get behind the door, or anything else sneaky. It would have to be a straight ambush. I raised my saw as the door was pushed open.

It was a chubby guy, mohawk dyed blue, gold-mirror specs-and any other detail was missed as I swung the saw straight through his neck, a perfect decapitation. Blood spray hit my face, my lips. His body took another step on momentum alone before collapsing, boneless. I barged past, shoved it aside.

The next guy, short, skinny, bionic arms and a ratlike face, his mouth in an O as he watched his friend die. My saw arm was still across my body, and now I whipped it around in a vicous backhand, the tip blurring through the doorframe with a puff of gypsum dust before it bit into his shoulder and stitched across to his heart and jammed, hooked in his ribs, the blade snapping with a noise like a busted guitar string.

I remembered Walker's advice and looked around, dropping the saw. The next room was fillled by a table, steel-topped and heavy, probably a workbench from an auto shop. Cards and beer cans and a camp lantern were scattered across its far end, and at the head of the table was a final man, terror on his face and a gun in his hand.

I only had fractions of a second. Guy was already taking aim. Time seemed to slow, just as it had with the blade jockey at Nino's. Just as his gun came up I lashed out with my foot like I was trying to kick open the gates to Kings' Mountain. I hit the table so hard it hopped, sliding across the tile floor and slamming into the guy just as he pulled the trigger.

There was a flash, a deafening bang, followed by the tinny rattle of beer cans and plastic bottles jolted onto the floor. I felt a hot line along the right side of my chest. I reached down and found wetness. There was a bloody gouge below my armpit. Worse than a graze, but not a full hit. It felt hot, like rubbing your hands together but far more intense, but somehow I didn't feel any real pain. What I did feel was pissed.

This guy had shot me! All's fair, of course. I would have done the same. But that didn't mean taking a bullet made me happy. Far fucking from it, in fact. My face pulled into a grim frown.

Not that the shooter was doing too hot himself. The steel table had smashed him into the far wall, crushing him across the waist. I'd read in one of my trashy books that broken hips were one of the most painful injuries, and maybe it was right. The guy was currently making a noise I wouldn't have thought a human throat capable of producing.

You know, people had made jokes about me breaking pelvises before, but I don't think this was what they'd meant. Kings but I was mad. I hopped up on the table, the thud of my steeltoes shocking him sensible. I walked toward him nice and slow, ignoring the blood soaking my coveralls.

"Wait. Wait, please! I can-I can-" He choked off, moaning in pain. I didn't much care what he could do.

"Pay you. I can pay you, tell you whatever you want." Even as he begged, he was reaching for his pistol, fallen on the table just out of his reach. "Please! I'll give-give you-agh! Whatever. Whatever. Please!"

I got close to him. Very deliberately, I slid his gun off the table with the toe of my boot. It clacked to the floor like a stopping clock. I gazed down at him, silent. I noticed now he had a bionic ocular implanted over one eye, flickering with projected red light. Probably telling him "You fucked up, stupid." He had skin like teakwood, sweaty with pain. Neck desperately craned to meet my eyes. Buzzed blond hair shaved into a grid. A gold ring through one nostril. Just a guy, someone you'd see on the street and forget. I drew back my foot.

"No! Don't, please! N-" I kicked his face in, my boot going almost heel-deep with a satisfying thok. The ocular shattered to dust with a tinny crunch. That was that. No drawn-out revenge plans here.

I yanked my foot out of his cratered skull and hopped down. What a mess. I waited maybe thirty seconds, seeing if someone would come investigate, but I guess that was all five. I went over to the first corspe and pulled off his jacket. As I wiped off my boot, I wondered.

Could a normal person really just crush a man's skull like that? Could a normal person do it and not worry too much, afterward? I was strong, sure, but it seemed kind of ridiculous. To be honest, though, I wasn't too surprised. I'd always had suspicions about my origins. Most people didn't get big as I did on a D-block diet.

There were all kinds of mutants and genemod castoffs rattling around here. Tanje, for example. I wouldn't be shocked to find out I was one of them, but I wasn't too worried about it. No matter where I came from, what mattered is that I was here now. Cleaning some gangster's brains off my shoe. Oops.

I ripped the guy's shirt off too, then slid off the top half of my coveralls and used it to wrap my side as best I could. I'd have to get that looked at later. For now, there was still one more thing to take care of.

Out in the alley Tosh had actually woken up, at least a little. He was breathing hard, struggling with his bonds and rocking back and forth. "What the fuck," he huffed out over and over. "What the fuck, what the fuck..."

I wrinkled my nose when I got to him. He'd managed to wriggle into the stinking puddle at the end of the alley. Damn it. He was so focused on freeing himself that he didn't notice me until my arm curled around his neck once more. I grimaced at the moisture, but kept the hold until he collapsed again. Probably not good for him, but it was far healthier than a bullet.

I picked him up, the burden awkward considering his tied-up limbs, and took him inside. Finally I set him on the table facing his crushed buddy, like the ludicrous, urine-soaked centerpiece of the world’s worst feast. A quick pat-down yielded me the slab from his pocket. I placed it a ways down the table from him, just outside the splash radius of his friend's skull. His gun I left there too, after wiping it off as best I could. He'd wake up in a few minutes, have what was likely the shock of his life, then escape or call for help in half an hour or so. It was, on reflection, pretty cruel. But it was better than killing him, and besides: the scarier the Bones seemed, the less the Blues would want to fight and the quicker this war could end.

I looked around, wondering if I'd forgotten anything. Should I loot the bodies? After a moment I decided not to. Maybe their slabs would have useful info on them, but they might also have tracking chips or viruses or who knew what else. I just didn't know enough about that kind of thing so I left it alone. No way I was grabbing their cash either. Taking their money made us look desperate or opportunistic, muddled the message. Leaving it was a power move: We don't need your pocket change. We came just to punish you.

Wait. Were the Holy Bones 'us' now? I shook my head. Better to leave the murder scene before worrying about that. I retrieved my saw and even managed to yank the snapped-off blade out of Ratface's chest with out cutting myself, though it was still one of the least pleasant things I'd ever done. I slung the saw and got out of there.