“What the hell are they doing? It looks like they’re setting up firing lines, but there’s nothing there!” I hissed as the Kodiak shook slightly, taking off towards the cil tank n.

  We had to split into two groups, since Bob and Sharron’s tentacles would have taken up a Kodiak betweewo of them. So Hel, my bears, and I took one, and Nora, Sharron, and Angeliook a sed. I also rounded up half a dozen other Kodiaks full of bears for intimidation purposes.

  Hel shook her head. “My AI Gyrm ’t pee the cil’s puter systems. It looks like they’ve ied heavily in samurai-grade security. It’s at least css I, maybe even css II. I’d need better catalogs to break in.”

  “Fuck. I only have a Css I work Intrusion Catalog, so Nyx probably won’t be able to help either. Should we call Zetta?”

  Hel bit her lip for a moment, then nodded. Her eyes unfocused as she made the call. She’d only been on the call for about thirty seds when her face went white, and she whispered, “They wouldn’t…”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, raising my voice to get her attention, even though she was still on the call.

  “The cil has triggered dession protocols,” Hel reported. “He’s trying to stop them, but most of that system is hardwired and isoted from the outside works. We have to stop them! I’ll call the others ahem know.”

  I watched her blink, eyes fog for just a moment before defog again as she made another call.

  “Nyx…” I stage whispered towards Dusty. “Is this one of those things that is on knowledge to most people, but I have no idea about?”

  “It’s not,” my AI replied. “At least, not all of it.”

  “Good, I thought I was missing something for a minute… So what is it? Why is this so bad?”

  “It’s plex, but… you know how the upper city sits on a several meter thick metal and crete pte?” Nyx started.

  “You mean the roof I’ve had over my head most of my life? Why yes, I’m aware there’s a ceiling on this pce,” I grumbled. “What about it?”

  “What you may not know is that it's not a siructure. It’s made up of thousands of interlog hexagonal ptes, each around two hundred meters across.”

  “Okay… I don’t know why that matters,” I admitted.

  “Because the system was inally desigo allow each of those ptes to be separated and dropped into the area below,” Nyx expined.

  “What? That’s insane! Why?” I shouted, earning me a quice from Hel before she returo her versation.

  “Prote, in case the area got overrun. People quickly realized it was a stupid idea, but by the time they did, the system had already been implemented as the basis of most megacities. You could t the number of times the system has been used around the world on one hand,” my AI expined. “Unfortunately, it’s built into the very foundation of the city and almost impossible to pletely disable.”

  “And the cil wants ter it? Why?” I paused for a sed as my brain processed, then narrowed my eyes. “They’re using it as a on,” I hissed, answering my owion. “They’re so hard up they’re pnning to lure Denver’s forces to a single location, then drop them into the uy, sacrifig almost everyoh above and below the pte. Fuck!”

  I turowards Nyx’s avatar. “How do we stop it?”

  “From what I’ve been able to find, each pte is locked to all its neighbors by titanis. The dession protocols cause those pins to retract, but that’s not enough to drop the pte. They also o destroy the supp pilrs. inally they were wired to blow, but over the years most of these explosives were discovered and… reappropriated.”

  I snorted. “You just say they were stolen. I guess we thank my sticky-fingered uy brethren fiving us time to stop this madness.”

  I quickly pulled up the live feed and directed the squirrel towards the support pilr. Sure enough, now that I knew what I was looking for, I found a group of military engineers setting up demolition charges. The massive pilr was over twenty meters in diameter, so it was going to take them time to set up enough explosives to actually bring it down.

  Diseg from the feed, I turned back towards Hel and waited for her to finish her versation. “They’re still mining the support pilr,” I told her.

  “Good, that meaill have time to prevent…”

  The Kodiak rocked so violently that I would have been thrown into the wall if Bob hadn’t reached out and grabbed me. Sparks erupted from the eleics, and I could hear the eruggling.

  Then it rocked again, and again. Something in the driver’s exploded.

  “What the fuck is happening?” I screamed as the Kodiak started going down.

  “The superheavy has opened fire upon the formation. Since you’re in the lead vehicle, you took the brunt of the damage, but it’s still firing!” Nyx reported calmly as Dusty flew around the .

  I reflexively sent a and to the other vehicles, began evasive maneuvers, a out of the line of fire. While I was doing that, I alsed over to the seat and strapped myself in.

  Across from me, Hel gritted her teeth. She already had her belts done up, and her hands cmped around the supports. “How does this thing handle crashing?” she yelled over the whining engines and rushing wind.

  “No idea. This is the first time one of them has been shot down,” I yelled back.

  Hel grimaced and gripped the supports tighter.

  “Impa three… two… one…” Nyx calmly ted down.

  I closed my eyes and tensed, waiting for the sudden, violent nding. It never came. Instead I felt a slight bump, followed by a little bit of rog. I cracked one eye and gnced around the . The bears were pig themselves up, retrieving their ons, but other than that, nothing. “What the hell happened?” I asked hoasely. “I’m pretty sure the Kodiak was falling from the sky a few seds ago. Why didn’t we crash?”

  “You did crash,” Nyx expined. “But thanks to your etric friend Magpie, the has iial and impact dampeners. As long as the hull remains intact, the passengers and crew have an excellent ce of surviving a crash.”

  “Thank you, Maggie!” I whispered quietly before ripping off my belt and rushing to the exit. It didn’t budge, so I silently signalled Bob to open it.

  “You didn’t know this thing had iial dampers?” Hel asked quietly as she rose from her seat, a little shaky but otherwise fine.

  “I had plete access to all of Magpie’s catalogs wheing the blueprints. Would you want to gh the millions of options she opened up?” I snapped as Bob casually pushed the door open. “I admit, I should have reviewed a plete list of features earlier, but it didn’t seem that important until now.”

  Hel huffed but didn’t argue. While she checked over her gear, I stuck my head out the bad looked around. We’d crashed on a side street, well out of line of sight of both the superheavy and its escorts, so I popped out to check the damage.

  Even though we didn’t feel muside, the crash had been quite violent. The Kodiak was a write-off; parts had been ripped off after smashing into the ground and sliding for several dozehe was in one piece, but the engines were a plete mess, and both the front armor and the turret were severely damaged.

  The armor had mostly held, but each had taken dozens of explosive hits. The armor itted, but not peed, as far as I could tell. It probably would have still beeional if the engines hadn’t been hit.

  “The cil shot at us,” Hel hissed as she finally stepped out of the back of the vehicle.

  “I am aware,” I muttered.

  “They knowingly shot at samurai in order to buy time to kill thousands of civilians in a desperate st-ditch attempt to hold onto their power,” Hel growled. I blihen slowly turned back towards her. I knew she was mad, but until I saw the vein popping out of her forehead and the murder in her eyes, I didn’t know how furious she was.

  “So, what are you going to do about it?” I asked carefully.

  “First, I’m going to have Zetta annouhe cil’s iions to the city, let them kly what the city’s leaders are capable of. Then I’m going to slowly, and painfully, disassemble their entire force down here,” Hel announced.

  “You’re not going to ask the Family to take a?” I asked, slightly surprised.

  “The Family, as an anization, is a ral party. It doesn’t support any political or corporate entity. That’s why the higher-ups were upset at Mirage for using the Family’s resources to try and discover who was behind the attacks earlier on,” Hel ranted, before calming down slightly before shooting me a slightly sinister smile. “Our members, however, are free to support or oppose whatever anization they want, and I personally pn to start ripping the cil apart.”