When we got back to the lifts I found a small kiosk selling French Fried Nutribar, which was significantly more expensive than a regular nutribar, but cut into strips then fried in grease to make the outside crunchy. We bought two servings, then found a relatively isolated spot near the railing not too far away.

“So, how bad were these riots? I’m guessing they did more than bash in the heads of a couple corporate security guards,” I asked, stuffing my face with the tasteless fried sticks.

Helen wrinkled her nose in disgust at my eating habits, as she slowly chewed through hers one at a time. “No, they did not. They ripped apart, and torched, a few different facilities,” she shot a file across to my augs, which I opened up. “In each of the three riots a couple of the agitators were arrested, and ‘interrogated’ but it seems they were all paid handsomely to cause havoc, but had no idea who it was that hired them. Surprisingly, each and every one of them claimed they never tried to burn down any facilities, those fires were started spontaneously by the mob.”

“And you believe them?” I asked, turning the sleeve upside down and emptying the last of my snack into my mouth.

“I didn’t before,” she admitted, “but we had no idea someone was skulking around in a full stealth suit at that time.”

I crumpled the envelope, and threw it into a nearby pile of trash, then nodded. “It wouldn’t be hard to sneak in and burn a place down if no one can see you,” I agreed. “So which places were burned down?”

I opened the file Helen sent me and flicked through the properties. The damage was more extensive than I expected, in one case parts of the higher floors collapsed onto a lower level, spreading the fire far more extensively than I expected. Dozens of properties were damaged, mostly ore processing areas. I snorted when I noticed that a couple forges managed to burn down in the chaos, but I doubted they were the real targets, so I concentrated on the most unique facilities.

“What the fuck? Suspected uranium mill? Are they really shipping uranium into the city, and processing it here? Even I know that’s fucking insane,” I hissed.

“Relax, it’s only suspected, and it wasn’t even active yet. It was part of blocks that were being renovated, or repurposed, due to obsolescence. The rioters claimed that they were protesting the sudden layoffs, and reassignments. Apparently the corps didn’t provide any notice ahead of time, but that’s actually standard operating procedure for a lot of them,” Helen explained.

“Okay… new question,” I said, as I leaned back against the railing. The entire thing shuddered, even under my light weight, so I quickly stepped away. “Why the fuck would someone build something like that in the city?”

Helen popped another fried bar into her mouth, and cocked her head to the side, thinking. “Because Global-Rare earth used to run all the processing facilities until they shut down,” she replied with a shrug, “and these corps wanted to make a quick buck. Although I expect that corp is probably in deep shit now. No one wants a radioactive disaster in their basement.”

“That’s reasonable,” I muttered. “I half expected you to tell me it was an authorized operation.”

“The corps are greedy, not fucking stupid. Processing that shit in the city would be too much of a long-term risk,” Helen assured me.

“So…” I started checking the list once more. “What resources did Global Rare-Earth have a stranglehold of before, but other corps would be moving in on now?”

Helen rubbed her greasy fingers on her trousers, “Now that’s a good question. A lot of ore extraction, and processing, as I understand it. Gimme a sec.” Her eyes went glassy for a moment, and I could see her throat moving, even though she wasn’t saying anything. After about a minute she focused again. “Apparently the worst bottlenecks right now are gold, and titanium,” she reported.

“Okay, titanium I get, but why gold?” I asked. “Corpos running out of fancy jewelry to wear to their meetings?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Gold is used in processors,” Helen replied, shaking her head slightly, “and it has been for decades. No gold, no electronics.”

“So the shortages are bad?” I asked, rechecking the list. Sure enough there were a couple industrial gold processing plants on the list.

“Crippling,” Helen confirmed with a nod.

“Well, we don’t have anything else to go on right now, maybe we can concentrate our focus there, until we hear back from Zetta,” I suggested. “Nyx, are there any other gold processors either active, or being constructed right now?” I asked.

There are three. Two are only in the initial stages of construction, one is scheduled to be completed in the next week or so.

“Wonderful. That makes things easier. How far is this newest processor from us now?” I asked quietly.

Marking it on your map now.

I shot a copy of the coordinates over to Helen, before heading towards the nearest lift.

“You should really learn to subvocalize, in order to prevent people from listening in to your conversation. It also makes you look like a crazy person, when you talk to yourself like that,” she whispered.

“Yeah yeah, so I’ve been told,” I muttered.

The planned processing facility was back on ground level, in the next sector over. I hadn’t really expected anything from our investigation, we just didn’t have much to go on right now, so I was more than a little surprised to find the streets around the area crowded with people. Many of them were yelling angrily at the corporate guards around the area.

“This could be a coincidence, right?” I asked Helen quietly as we pushed through the crowd.

“Two, maybe. Three, unlikely. Four?” she whispered back, “Is a fucking targetted attack. I don’t know who would benefit from crippling something like the gold supply, but I have a feeling if we get there fast enough, we might find out.”

“Nyx, let whatever company is in charge of security know that we’re on our way, and if they don’t want to lose the place, they better let us in,” I muttered.

Helen shot me a look, but didn’t say anything. As soon as we pushed up to the front gates, the guards, who were struggling to push the aggravated mob back, split and let us through without a word. I guess Nyx probably let them know exactly where we were.

“What now?” I asked as we stumbled through the gate. “Do we just split up and scour this place?”

Helen didn’t immediately answer my question, instead she asked, “If someone wanted to cause the maximum amount of damage, where would they go?” A moment later a couple pings showed up in my augs.

“What happened to not looking crazy?” I asked.

“Later! Find the fucking murderer first,” she growled. “You take the left side, I’ll take the right. If you find them, tell me immediately!”

“Right, because torturing and killing someone out of revenge always turns out just like you want it,” I muttered.

“Less sarcasm, more searching!” Helen said as she ran off.

I decided to hold any more of my comebacks, and slipped into the building. The place was, thankfully, abandoned. I couldn’t see a corp worrying enough about a bunch of general labourers to evacuate the building, so it was more likely they were still waiting for some deliveries before the final installation could occur.

I stepped between the piles of construction debris and made my way towards the point on my augs. As I made my way deeper into the complex I strained my ears, listening for any sound of movement from within, which was difficult over the chorus of voices outside.

It took me about a minute to make my way to the heart of the facility, and the location of the future secure storage area, where I stopped. The area looked clear, but something didn’t feel right. I slowly crept into the room, inspecting every possible corner for anomalies, listening for movement.

There were no signs, but I could tell someone was there. It was like some sort of instinct, honed from my time fighting Twenty-Ones. “Nyx…” I started, and that was all that it took to aggravate my invisible foe. A shape separated from the wall, moving impossibly fast, and grabbed me by the head before driving me head-first into the wall. It was enough to make me see double, for a moment.

That blow would have killed any unaugmented human. The fucker was definitely packing corpo-grade cybernetics.

The figure dropped me, probably figuring I was dead, and I tracked the silhouette back towards the middle of the room. “What is with you underworld freaks and your obsession with those fucking animal hoodies?,” I heard the figure mutter, though their voice was heavily digitized.

I rose, slowly, making sure I never lost track of my target. “Oh… that answers a couple questions,” I chuckled. The blur pivoted in surprise. “You’re not from around here, are you?”