The Versk team nervously watches a ‘cast of the Cauldron, hands sweaty, as two Suits engage in a running firefight directly above Lanis’ hidden position in the subway station. Then one Suit clatters down the station stairs, its foe in quick pursuit, and the tension grows as thick as cold hydraulic fluid.

  The feed switches to a first-person view of the pursuing Suit, its pilot gleeful as it tears through its quarry among the bones of the station, but then falling back in confusion as the Lanis’ Versk Suit lunges out of the darkness. It’s like a matte-metal nightmare, its rifle illuminating the dim station in blinding, burst-fire flashes. The feed glitches for a split second—a camera likely disintegrated by a kinetic shell—and the viewpoint switches to Lanis’ own.

  Popcorn flies, chairs overturn, and a mad cheer erupts as the Versk team is afforded a first-person view of Lanis cleaving through the opposing mech. Heinrich, operating on only two hours of sleep, simply slumps forward and holds his head in his hands, while Sander hefts up his chair and wildly flings it against the bay door, mostly in celebration, but also as a delayed release of his pent-up rage toward the malfunction of Hex’s burrowing mechanism.

  Mirem pumps her fist along with the others as the mech facing Lanis crumples in a smoking wreck. Now that’s a fucking start! Mirem thinks, grinning madly as Hex reaches down and removes the pale shield array from the defeated Suit, attaching it to its own rifle-arm. Back in the hangar, a Suit tech leads Heinrich to the bunk room to try to get some rest, and Sander profusely apologizes to a team member whose head he narrowly missed with his chair.

  “That hit shouldn’t slow her down much,” observes a tech sitting next to Mirem, peering intently at one of the internal feeds of Hex’s systems that only the Versk team has access to—not that they can do anything about it. Indeed, the damage is fairly minor, the kinetic shells of the enemy having hit one of the most heavily armored areas of the Suit. Still, the front right leg now moves a bit awkwardly, and a debate ensues amongst the Verk armorers over whether it would be better for Lanis to simply tuck the leg up entirely until it’s needed for a quick maneuver instead of risking further damage.

  The talking heads on the Cauldron’s feed certainly seem to be enjoying themselves. Mirem shifts, suddenly uncomfortable, as the announcers bring up a rotating portrait of Lanis and her Suit and delve into Lanis’ pilot background, or lack thereof. It’s a bit surreal to see Lanis’ portrait, the softly smiling one that Versk supplied to the Cauldron’s board, now blown up on a holo-cast for potentially a few hundred million viewers to observe.

  Mirem’s eyes are suddenly dragged downward by a breaking news banner that glides along the bottom of the feed.

  “Wait—Sammy, change our feed to a news-cast. Yes, I’m serious, just do it!”

  A look of disbelief washes over the Suit tech’s face, but he makes a gesture, and the holo-cast feed switches to a somber-looking newscaster. A shout of anger erupts among the members around Mirem’s ‘cast, but their protestations are silenced once the headline becomes clear:

  “—to announce the passing of Michael Renalis, CEO of Kaisho-Renalis Industries. We are told that the company board has just voted in confirmation that he will be succeeded by his son, Alain Renalis,” a newscaster says, bowing his head in somber observance.

  The death of a Kaisho-Renalis CEO is akin to the passing of a planetary prime minister, or an emperor of antiquity, and is treated as such. A picture of Alain Renalis, the newly christened CEO, appears briefly on the holo-cast alongside a portrait of his dead father. Alain is a handsome, middle-aged man who looks properly grim, yet resolute. There’s no hint of anything off about him.

  “Bastard was only ninety-six,” the Suit tech next to Mirem says under his breath, referring to Alain’s father.

  A premature death, at least for a megacorp CEO, who has access to Fleet-equivalent healthcare and bionics.

  There isn’t a flicker of doubt in Mirem’s mind: Alain Renalis, or whatever he has become, has somehow murdered his father.

  “Ok. Turn it back,” Mirem says, standing, her voice straining.

  The public feed of the Cauldron resumes. It’s only been a minute, but another Suit has been eliminated. A tall, blue suit with the corporate name Howett engraved on its body leans over its vanquished foe and casually rips off one of its arms in a shocking display of contempt. The feed lingers on on the pilot’s face, the young man’s thin lips curled in triumph, as he replaces his suit’s rifle with the defeated mech’s upgraded weapon.

  “Shit, is that a Lance Rifle?” Mirem overhears a tech mutter.

  Mirem glances to the Versk internal feed. Lanis has finished scavenging what she can from the two Suits, and is now continuing down the subway tunnel, her current ambush site thoroughly unmasked.

  “Ash. Ash!” Mirem says, spying the AI technician conferring with one of her team members. Ash looks up, confused, and with a tugged arm Mirem pulls the frowning woman to the edge of the Versk bay.

  “Is there any way to find out if Kaisho has any holdings in the companies competing here?” Mirem quickly asks, almost tripping over the words.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Ash tears her lingering eyes away from the internal feed across the room, her look of confusion replaced by a brooding scowl. “What? Wait, is this because of Renalis’ death? Even if they have that much influence over a team here, it’s not like he could make any changes. Not now,” Ash replies, shaking her head.

  “No, I know. But we have no idea how long he’s actually been dead,” Mirem answers, her voice a fierce whisper.

  “What? You think Kaisho would hide his death? The scandal would be insane. And why? I mean, the stock is probably going to take a bit of a beating, no matter the timing...”

  “No, this isn’t about the stock.” Mirem lets slip a slight groan of frustration. “Just—could we find out if they have a holding in a team here?”

  “Well, I guess we could request a forensic analysis…” Ash says, hesitant. “But that usually takes days. You’d need to talk to Renfol to expedite it. Then he might need to talk to his boss if you wanted the Versk forensic team to probe confidential nets.” Ash narrows her eyes, curious and concerned. “But what’s this about? You know that we can’t communicate with her anymore,” Ash says, jerking her head to the feeds of Lanis.

  Mirem swallows, her throat dry with the twisting of her gut, and ignores Ash’s questions. Only Renfol knows about her uncle’s warning, but he doesn’t have any inkling of Alain and the Anomaly. Even when she omitted the more unbelievable parts of her story, he seemed doubtful. It seemed prudent at the time, but maybe keeping Lanis’ story to themselves was a mistake, not only from Renfol, but from the team. She eyes Booker and his team casually loitering at different points in the Suit bay.

  God, I hope you all snuck in guns somehow, she thinks.

  “Right. Ok. I’m going to call Renfol,” Mirem says, clasping a confused Ash on the shoulder. She leaves the young woman before she can offer any new protest, and retreats to the now-abandoned dining area to make her call.

  The idea that somehow one of the competition’s contestants has been… what? Influenced? Corrupted? By Alain, and whatever’s infected him? For a moment it seems insane… but then Mirem thinks of the look on her uncle’s face just over two weeks ago. Uncle Seto, never flustered, always in perfect control, puppet-master of some of Kaisho’s most notorious operations against friend and foe alike.

  She had seen nothing less than terror flash in his eyes when he described Alain Renalis.

  A part of her detests her uncle, but he’s still family, and she can’t help but hope that he’s ok. Peter can take care of himself, she thinks. It’s not him you should be concerned about.

  She pings the Versk suit complex, and waits for the call to be transferred.

  If something in fact is truly, horribly wrong… she thinks of Fleet, and Murkata-Heisen, trying to take some comfort in the fact that entities far more powerful than Versk have at least a passing interest in their survival. Even if we can’t contact Lanis, maybe someone else can.

  Lanis keeps moving. The shield array is yet another stroke of good fortune, even if it’s somewhat damaged, though Lanis carries a niggling thought that their run of luck can’t possibly last much longer.

  The shield is primarily a hard counter to the A.R.M. blade’s energy-enhanced cutting power, Ether observes, holding the array up and casually swatting aside a floating A.R.M. blade in her mind’s eye. But it can also help deflect a few shells. As we’ve just seen.

  Lanis nods to herself, and downs an electrolyte packet as the Versk Suit creeps down the dark tunnel. Moisture drips from the battered concrete ceiling, tapping out irregular rhythms across Hex’s outer hull in the blackness. Lanis has the fleeting sensation of being in an old horror movie, though whether she’s the monster or the victim is as yet unclear.

  There was a brief debate as to whether to leave the suppression drone behind as a kind of trip-wire, since it can’t be folded back into its module form for ease of transport. However, it was simply too valuable to leave behind, even depleted of forty percent of its ammo. Instead, Hex now holds it in front of its body like some kind of awkward fly-swatter, waiting for an opportune deployment site.

  We look stupid, don’t we? Ether asks.

  “We look smart. And functional,” Lanis replies.

  Right, everything except that leg.

  “That could be worse. A lot worse.”

  Lanis hopes that they’ll stumble across some sort of repair module, but even if they do, the best they can probably hope for is some kind of armor patching. As it is, her front right leg reminds her of a human appendage with the skin partially peeled back, revealing glimpses of tendon and white, grating bone. Lanis reminds herself to thank Renfol for the extra legs.

  The hiss of the pod’s communication module interrupts Lanis’ reverie.

  “Attention pilots! New exclusion zones have been formed. Move out of these zones, or risk remote shutdown,” the voice of Cauldron Oversight states.

  Lanis brings up a map of the city. Blobs of red now overlay sections of the map, as well as an area at the edge of the arena, a circle drawing slowly inward. Lanis purses her lips, discarding the empty electrolyte packet behind her.

  “Shit.”

  Not only is their current position in the exclusion zone, but the bend in the tunnel has just revealed a train, its back car awkwardly derailed and blocking the tunnel. Hex awkwardly shuffles to one side, trying to peer around the back car, but the train is long and the bend in the tunnel obstructs them from seeing what caused the wreck.

  No, don’t even think about us trying to push that, Ether states.

  “Double shit,” Lanis says, shaking her head. They could try to burrow upward… a glance at the map shows that they’re theoretically under a fifty-story high-rise.

  There are better options back the way we came, but do we want to risk exploding up into someone’s rifle sights? Ether muses.

  There’s only one real option.

  Hex awkwardly turns around, like a tarantula that’s run up against aquarium glass.

  Back to the station it is.