I hunched forward and popped off another shot, sending bullets drilling down the side of a man in a ski mask. He screamed, image flickering in a haze of blue as he collapsed against the side of a doorframe. A second passed. I moved up the corridor of desolate apartments, one half of the building sliced in half by some terrible explosion. All around me were collapsed skyscrapers and blown out streets.

In the distance were shining neon lights, in stark contrast to the wasteland around them. Safety built out of the bones of civilisation. Even the most prosperous of city-states and nations devoted a portion of their efforts to reclaim lost glories. Of course, with ruins and treasure came the scavengers, squatters, and worse.

A half-naked man with a half-metallic torso rushed out of the door at the end of the corridor, screaming bloody murder as he waved a hatchet welded out of old piping and scrap. Thankfully, I didn’t have to get an eyeful below his waistline. Even murderous killers wore pants.

My bullet cored out his eye. His body flickered and collapsed as I calmly reloaded. My cyberoptics were meant for general corporate communications and information gathering. Not combat. But just because I wasn’t a combat cyborg with access to heat vision didn’t mean I was blind to the trail of blood that led into this room.

I stacked up at the doorway and prepared to breach.

“Times up, Cass. Your grandfather is requesting your presence in his office.”

“Seriously?”

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. The environment faded out, hardlight walls replaced by a sterile metal chamber. My opponents suddenly stood up, battered metal training robots whirring as they made their way to the charging bays. The bullets I’d fired were blanks. Good enough for training.

“How far did you progress in the simulation?” said the voice behind me. I turned around and saw Eunoia, my assistant and an occasional getaway vehicle driver. She had the appearance of a young silver-haired woman in a blazer, red tie, and pencil skirt. Her features would be entirely indistinguishable from a human if it weren’t for the fine joints and seams that connected her body. If you didn’t know where to look, there probably wasn’t a difference.

“I was on the last floor of the latest combat data uploaded by one of our troopers,” I said with a slight smile. “I’m impressed at how well he handled it.”

“Oh?” Eunoia glanced at me through hooded golden eyes, passing over a towel as I wiped my forehead. It was a bit of a shame to get a business shirt messy, but I was trying to get used to fighting whilst in corporate wear. Last night taught me that I didn’t always know when I was about to get into a firefight.

“He gunned his way through half a dozen raiders whilst missing an arm. All to retrieve a data drive about some pre-Collapse vehicle.”

“Some form of armoured personnel carrier or tank?”

“It was a four-seater family sedan,” I said with a deadpan expression. “Looked nice, I guess.”

She paused for a second before leading me out of the chamber. “I’ve processed the report. The drive was the last known intact schematic of an armoured vehicle for middle-class families. Whilst the vehicle was ultimately deemed too impractical to adopt by our science department, certain parts of its design will increase the efficacy of our civilian model.”

“Not sure if it was worth half a squad of dead troopers, but I can see why we might go after it.”

Eunoia nodded politely. “Indeed. It’s projected to increase life expectancy by at point-five percent. Many citizens worry about the threat of gang violence.”

"Sally Citizen gets to bring her kids to VR soccer practice in a bulletproof car, I guess."

The two of us silently slipped through the bustling glass corridors and elevators of Marstech Boston. I wasn’t the type to attract a posse of groupies like some of my family members. Social interaction was something I preferred to avoid, which probably said something about the company I kept. I mused over the meaning of my life as we neared the office of my grandfather. I was twenty-two, no significant other, no confidantes.

“Do I have any friends, Eunoia?”

“You have this one,” said the android, hands clasped in front of her and eyes half-closed.

“What’s that say about me?”

“That you have good taste.”

I smiled. She gracefully remained one step behind me, slightly overreaching the socially acceptable distance for corporate flunkies. Which she wasn't, of course. Eunoia and I had more history together than most of my relatives. Which made it a little sad when you considered that she was an employee of the company. Androids that weren’t part of some sort of human-led organisation were something of a unicorn in terms of rarity. Or a bogeyman for anyone who wanted to head deeper into the wastelands.

“We’re here,” my assistant chimed in. I blinked as I was ushered in past two armoured guards and into an office made out of reinforced concrete. In one of the basement floors. A little paranoid, but you could only trust reactive armour so much when the average gang could probably get their hands on at least one rocket launcher.

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Two figures waited within, with the most obvious threat being the man behind the plasteel desk. My grandfather, Victor Mars, was a steely-eyed man in a black silk suit. His right hand and eye were entirely made out of cyberware. Even my own eyes were just augmented with wires and lenses rather than being replaced entirely.

The other was my brother.

“Sister,” he said with a grin. “So good to see you and that… thing, over there.”

“Domenic. Looking better than usual.”

He kept his smile, only to frown as he thought over the remark. My brother glanced over his slightly unbuttoned shirt and frosted blond tips for even the barest hint of a difference. Good.

“Settle down, grandchildren,” Victor said with a snort. “I didn’t call the both of you here for some sibling rivalry. Goodness knows that your aunts and uncles show enough of it at family conferences.”

I nodded, sitting down at a more distant leather chair, Eunoia at my side. Domenic was sitting just slightly off from Victor, a clear sign of his greater station. Whilst we were both junior executives at Marstech and effectively modern-day nobility, I was an operations agent. He was a marketing consultant and only a step below making manager.

“Your father is dead,” Victor said bluntly.

I exhaled, blanking out briefly before regaining my senses long enough for a quip. “Could have worked me up to it.”

He gave me a look of something approaching compassion, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “You’re a corporate, Cassandra. You either bear the weight of your obligations or get crushed by them. In this instance, I was in something of a quandary before your brother proposed a solution.”

“How did he die?” I said, throat tight. There was a sinking feeling deep in my chest, though I buried it as much as I could. As much as I hated to say it, I hadn’t known my father well, even before he’d been sent off to a new company branch for the past decade. He lived and breathed his work, always toiling away for days before coming home with a nod and then collapsing onto his bed. I still remembered him as the man who once took us out to a picnic in the public gardens.

“Raiders struck his convoy as it returned from an expedition to the wasteland,” he said. “Our drone scouts found no signs of life.”

“Which is ridiculous,” Domenic said with a scowl. “I can’t see a horde of cyber barbarians taking down a company of troopers. Hurt them, perhaps, but he should have had at least a squadron of exosuits. Far better power armour than whatever they could cobble together. Father was either incompetent or betrayed.”

“Regardless of the circumstances, I need someone to take over management of the Marstech branch in the city of Elysia.” Victor crossed his arms. “The principal goal is to maintain control of its northernmost district and holdings, allowing us to continue selling our products to its citizens whilst also sending expeditions to the wastes for materials or technology.”

“What about investigating my father’s death?” I asked.

“A secondary objective. Marius’ death was unfortunate, but there is no proof.”

I bit my tongue and clamped down on my indignation. “Surely if there’s some sort of conspiracy or alliance between our enemies-”

“Elysia is a frontier settlement,” Victor said. “The only authority higher than the megacorps and gangs are the mayor and his incompetent police force. I would be careful about what sort of accusations you make once you arrive there.”

A pause. I widened my eyes.

“Me? But Domenic’s the oldest.”

"I have a different purpose in mind for him," Victor said, gaze passing over to my brother.

Domenic grinned. “We’re not a bunch of medieval lords, Cassie. Primogeniture's for chumps. You should get with the times. I recommended you for the job, especially since I’ll be off to manage our holdings in Montreal. We could hand it off to some other eager executive, but Marstech is a family-run business. We just have more guns than most.”

I thought over it. Montreal was, well, some of it was still a crater. But it was one of the better examples of recovery after the war. He was doing well for himself.

“I'm surprised no one protested me jumping the ladder. None of the other Mars families wanted in?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged, holding his hands outwards. “A few protests, but you're the most suitable for being the face of a violent frontier operation, no offence. I think I can afford to help you get a small branch in a worthless city like Elysia. Call it charity.” There was a little smirk on his lips.

Domenic and I had never been particularly friendly with each other, except maybe a brief time as small children. Then again, I was still wondering what it might feel like if I throttled him for a bit. Even if he apparently helped in getting me a promotion.

Our grandfather cleared his throat. “You know what you need to do. You’ll be the manager of Marstech Elysia for the foreseeable future. Take a squad of troopers as a security detail and get on it. Oh, and good job with the vaccine retrieval. Your manager sent me the report. Dismissed.”

And that was all I got for my little debriefing. Eunoia and I withdrew to my little office on the twelfth floor. It had a nice little set of windows that overlooked towering skyscrapers and hovercrafts. Flying vehicles weren’t particularly common for your average citizen, but they were a great way to get in and out of an operation. I placed my hands on the desk and sighed.

“I’ve never been to the border of civilisation,” I said. Which sounded weird, when I thought about it. I could use the Net to communicate with someone living in Europe so long as they were hooked up to it. We could even meet using weekly international flights. But there were just swathes of land on our continents that nobody had properly explored or wanted to visit.

“It’s not particularly enjoyable unless one enjoys illicit activities and unsanctioned scavenging,” she said. “I myself was found in a bunker near the Capital a decade ago.”

“Oh. By my father, right,” I said. Eunoia and I had known each other for about eight years now. “Was he kind?”

“I spoke to him only once,” my assistant admitted, eyes closed. “But he asked me to help protect someone close to him. The alternative was to be allowed to roam free.”

“And you didn’t want to get stripped for parts by scavs or something.”

She nodded. “He offered to simply drop me off in the city, but I suspected that I would be pressganged by one group or another. Even the most basic androids are prized for their inability to suffer from cyberpathy. Better to have the surety of a salary and purpose.”

“He was a good man.”

“Indeed.”

I closed my eyes and felt something well up inside of me.

“Just a moment. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Of course.”

One way or another, I’d find out who killed my father.

But first, I had to take his place.