November 12th 11:23 PM

Diana "What do you mean, 'no'?" I looked at Dryder incredulously.

"Curing Anabelle won't make her into who she used to be." Dryder looked down an empty bottle as he leaned against a balcony railing. "I don't know what the police did to her… but they 'fixed' her. Made her something not quite Soul Killer, but not quite… her. She's got the amplification of some Titanium in her, which makes her valuable. They've screwed with her memories, forced a symbiosis with the bit of Soul Killer inside of her, but she still doesn't remember me. Never will. I'm fine with that."

He tossed the bottle down into a passing garbage truck. "Getting rid of the Soul Killer in her would… break that symbiotic cohesion keeping her together. Maybe something would return, but it's been more than a decade, that something would be unstable. It's been a decade where her own father was using his voice fuckery to stabilize her, where they used whatever fucking machines and pills they have to keep her memories meshed, even a damn memory Mutation was pulled into by her Soul Killer to erase the boundary between them. She might be the one person who… I don't want to see cured."

The admittance hit my heart, I could feel the despair from Dryder like... a smoke clogging the air around him and me. "It's worth fighting for. You… her."

"It's only worth forgetting." Dryder pulled a second bottle to his lips. "When I'm done with the bastard… I'll just find some random MAL in the Swarm to die to. Maybe save a few lives while I'm at it, maybe… be the shadow of the person I used to be. A lonely Soul Killer with no Nexi attached to it, it won't be able to do shit."

"Dryder…" I tightened my lips. "Derrick."

"Don't call me that." He said harshly, pulling his mouth from the bottle. "Don't drag me back down."

"De- alright, Dryder." I put my hand on his shoulder, looking at the rest of the bottles beneath him. And kicked them down into the next passing garbage truck. He guffawed at me, but I let my eyes stay stern as I looked deeper into who he was. "What'll we do next, then?"

"You got your task force handed to your ass… realistically could hire me. Jacob's dead anyhow." He licked every last drop from the bottle he had in his hands. "If your pals can stomach me — that's the case. Otherwise, Crimson Souls. The Heart's a Kaisel Clone, that I didn't know… makes sense now, how they're so powerful and why Crimson Souls're named what they are. Might need to rekindle my link to them, determine if she's enemy or ally."

"She's working with Skeleton." I pursed my lips at that thought.

"Correction: Skeleton and her happen to have opposing goals that require a moment of teamwork. She supposedly has some drawbacks from being separated from the hivemind, but she's still Soul Killer inside. She figures out how to deal with the side-effects; Skeleton aims his sights on her next — she's a threat. Besides, I ain't thinking about allyin' with the Heart."

"The Queen, then?" I didn't know much about the two leaders of Crimson Souls. The Heart was mysterious and wrapped in mystery, while the Queen was fierce. Both Gold and puppeteers of the District.

"Aye." He kept the empty bottle on the railing. No garbage truck for now. "Queen's a storm of fury, Shard Adapter with the highest body count in the city — probably in both counts you're thinkin' of. Been a menace since the earthquake. Either she's a hostage to the Heart, in which case we break her out; in alliance with her, meaning she wants Soul Killer defeated, or in control of her somehow. Our best option."

With a nudge from his elbow, the last bottle dropped down into a passing truck. "I'll head to Little Requiem for a bit, see how deep I can dig. You figure out how to best leverage the police in this while Moira and your spider-friend cook up a cure, we'll take Soul Killer down from two angles."

"Won't be taken down until we head East, to wherever the Titanium Host is hiding out in the MALterritory." I frowned.

"That'll come when it needs to." Dryder looked ahead. "For now, Westbrook's gonna burn with their blood."

"No." I put my hand on his shoulder. "We're going to wash the blood all away."

———

November 9th

Who would have thought being a public figure would be so draining? I had coaches and marketing specialists talking me through a list of points to make clear.

'The police has everything under control.'

'Yuzhou has been a great support to our city's cause.'

'Dreadwire, although having aided me against those MALs, was still a dangerous mercenary.'

Yuzhou representatives came to me directly, wanting to label him a terrorist who must be stopped.

SynTec, on the other hand, was much more neutral. Maybe even favorable towards Ripley despite the fact that he'd killed several of their guards at the meat lab. For them, it was the fact that the assassin who'd chased him down was now confirmed to be a Yuzhou operative.

The assassin's body was strung up on one of Yuhzou's buildings, blood smeared to paint out: 'They'd have me dead at the cost of your lives'.

Net response was varied, Dreadwire had initially been something of an excitement and terror alike. Gold, brazen, dramatic. His frequent public appearances garnered attention, some calling him a damn 'psychopath out for fame' while others labeled him as a 'freedom fighter'.

Freedom fighter... no, Ripley wasn't that. Not exactly. But I could see the stirrings of what people wanted to see him as. Public discourse had some dig deep into Dreadwire's history to a fanatical degree... and the pattern was that he didn't care if it was against criminal or corporate — he'd do what was necessary.

To many, he was a man owned by Shardyne. But some twisted that into the idea that he was above both crime and law... as paradoxical as it might have been. And yet, somehow, I was in agreement with that.

Ultimately, I rose up on stage with my Silvereye suit, my hair flowing in the artificial wind as I stated my case.

"Dreadwire, like many other mercenaries, is an unknown individual with unknown motives. For his criminal actions, he deserves to receive a proper sentencing — and if the man behind the mask were wise and willing to fight for this city, he'd plead guilty and carry out his sentence on the front lines against the MALswarm. I have faith in him, as in many others, that we can yet unite against the grave threat approaching us."

It was a good middle ground. All Ripley had to do was keep his karmic balance ticking to one side.

———

Dreadwire

"Who's next?" I cleaned the blood off my Arachnodyne by striking it against another. Little Requiem was eager for my worth. My bounty. Without the threat of Missy or The Iron Devil behind me, all 65 Million Shardyne was up for taking.

And so Elsa organized a cage fight. Anyone may enter, but only a corpse can leave. It was rigged, a manufactured bloodbath. Tens of exclusively invited criminal minds had been handpicked by Elsa to watch and send their underlings to kill me. We provided refreshments to the eager watchers of the bloodsport.

And little did they know, these alcohol-thirsty criminal minds were letting nanites in with every gulp of a drink they took. Those who entered the cage were already under The Dogwhistler's commands as my Goliath pivoted entry into their Shardware for her to seize and manipulate.

Every blow, every shot, every blade reaching for me was set off-course. The Shadow Tendency let my nanites sneak past even Silvers, but to activate them required Threads of precise control. It wasn't as subtle, and they could feasibly resist me… but they couldn't resist her.

The eighteenth challenger, an Esper whose flame boiled her skin away to make her into a grotesque burning creature of bare screaming muscle was swiftly dealt with. I had her head torn from her shoulders by my Arachnodyne. I issued the kill order as my mind began to fog under Warp Burns. Tens of bodies dropped within the minute, blood pooling in their eyes as aneurysms clogged them and cerebral arteries were chewed through.

Those who didn't die from the nanites met their end through a different method. A military drone descended from the ceiling, the same one I'd stolen from the Oni killed by their allies, and the intense machine gun riddled holes through the survivors.

The only ones who we didn't kill were those in on the scheme. A Crimson Eye, a Black Dragon, the Los Diablos Devil, and a Metal Heavens Bishop. Indeed, all the men they'd sent here today were those they wanted eliminated. Pruning the bad apples, as Elsa had said.

This job earned me 300,000 Shardyne in their patronage, and another 500,000 through the rigged odds in our betting.

———

November 13th

Ripley

When I wasn't out as Dreadwire, I was Ripley at Anderson's gym — an honestly mind-numbing job now, except for the rare weaponry tweaking — or The Ripper at Maiden's shelter. However, my time of servitude to her had just ended today, from now on… I was free to visit only in case of an emergency.

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The Ripper's permanent stay at the former Toxin Club, now named Retrofit Operators, was to go ahead. I didn't know the first thing about being a business owner, or managing finances… but Elsa was a network of minds. She solved the issues of everything corporate. I was technically even working under Stokry's Shardware Operator firm. Even a few bogus Operators would work here to do standard maintenance for the civilian folk while I hid in the bottom.

Where my true lab was.

As for the facilities, remarkably, most of them were legitimate. While not as expansive as the gym's capabilities, I had a fabricator for Warp Materials up to the Silver Grade and a steady supply of Iron-to-Bronze Grade parts flowing in. I even had not one, but two spare Arachnes to use for my Shard Op'ing needs. The cost of everything… nearly put me and Elsa into the red.

Shardware was expensive.

Today was when I introduced Starlight to the project. I claimed it was the reason why I was so busy and that it was a surprise. She took the news… with complications, confused on how I had the funds to open and outfit the Shardware Operations was clear but Elsa labeled it as a… gift from her.

Starlight called me a sugarbaby as a response.

Elsa took it as a sign of pride.

The other reason why I took so long to call Starlight back was because… Elsa had been safeguarding my mind to keep our secrets. It had to be untraceable and drew from my Shadow Tendency, and Starlight didn't seem to notice. She did, however, notice the new Tendency and had her… queries about it.

I claimed that it came from Dreadwire being so broody, and although she didn't find any direct memory of it… she accepted it. As I let her experiment and customize herself with Retrofit Operators, I turned my mind to the news.

Diana had made a headline today.

———

November 13th

Diana

Another week, another drug smuggling ring closed. It was heavy work, Starlight pointed in the right directions, but it was I who had to do the heavy lifting. Making public appearances on Netcasts was a regular thing now, and it helped I had a particular… affinity for drawing attention.

The truth is that I was trying to dig more into the Dreamframes cases, but they were bone dry. That was a pun because I expected Mr. Skeleton to have a hand in hiding it all away. Whatever he was planning was bad… but the police were excusing it on the merit of his… value to the city.

A part of me almost felt guilty for what I was planning to do tonight: host a dinner. Belle, Sabrina, the Corporal, her husband Rick, and Trixie were invited…

I hadn't visited my apartment in a long time ever since I tore it apart at Ripley's suggestion. My nights were spent at the Precinct building or, ironically, in one of the random seedy hotels Dryder stayed in — and his hidden eavesdropping device was the very reason I wrecked my home. Returning, I was surprised to see it had been cleaned and all the tech had been restored. Everything worked as normal.

The dinner was a stressful idea for me, being a host wasn't a familiar responsibility to me. Cooking was never my strong suit, but Sabrina joined in early to help me. She had inherited her mother's skill, and was the lifesaver unless everyone wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. Belle brought wine, not that he had it himself.

Corporal Alex was her more relaxed self, and her husband Rick was often the butt of her jokes intertwined with a few moments where I could feel the love between them while Trixie was busy looking around my apartment's appliances and critiquing my taste. Soul Resonance was… stronger since I absorbed the Nexus' Mutation. It attuned me to the hearts of others. Every word held deeper layers of hidden meaning in the speed of their speech, the depth of their pitch, and their body language… all resonating with me.

Was this a burden or a responsibility? I didn't know yet, but I was willing to try to harness it. Everyone was unsure, from Sabrina's cheerful stories betraying something painful within her; Belle's fond memories of home were tainted with how it had been the stageground of a small scheme intertwined in a conflict threatening to collapse the city; the Corporal and her husband, in their admittance of wanting to raise a child but the time wasn't right yet with the Swarm so close; and Trixie's nonchalant snark hid behind the knowing that she would soon be needed to craft weapons of war against an alien invasion.

This was the city where you meant nothing, but where everyone wanted to be something.

Everyone just wanted to find purpose. But not every method led down the right path. When the future promised violence, why not get a head start in the present? Give in to the bloodlust, iterate cycles of violence until everyone you know wants to kill someone.

Others couldn't bear the overstimulation and numbed themselves with chemicals. Many sought power, believing it would give them the right to live freely without consequence. And some just wanted to find peace and to protect the small slice of sanctuary they knew in this hellscape.

For that, they would be monsters to all who threatened their way of life.

As the dinner calmed, and a moment of quiet passed through the flowing conversation, my eyes unfocused as I took in this collective slice of sanctuary.

"My father's a bastard, you guys know that?" My words came unexpectedly, but heartfelt. Their gazes shifted to me, confused and curious.

"What's funny—" a chuckle erupted from my core "—is that I'm the actual bastard in the family. Cradleborn with a Titanium's bloodline. Silver hair, silver eyes, a peak physique… they sought perfection. I don't think I've ever been sick, never blemished my skin, no scars to tell my stories. But perfection… I've come to see it as this hollow thing. A falsehood. This city, with all its flaws and scars, carries more truth in a single alleyway than I ever could on my skin."

My heartbeat extended past myself as something ethereal hardened in my voice. "But the thing about scars… is that they only come after healing. Otherwise, it's an open wound, an infection waiting to happen. Sure, you can ignore the symptoms, let others rot in your stead; protect and cure those immediate to you. But an infection… only spreads. It takes from the bottom, uncaring, unyielding, unfearing. Desecrating the foundation upon which we stand, twisting up blood and steel bones alike until we see it as the norm. I've ignored it. I'm a hypocrite. You all are too. My dad. The police. The city. We only ever notice the infection when it's taken root inside of us, and from then… we become the new normal."

"And yet, normalcy… might be the one thing I've craved more than anything else." I closed my eyes, feeling the resonance between all forms of myself. "Maybe that's why I joined the police, not to cure, or help. But to… immerse myself, to give myself a scar. And I got my wound for it — now, I get to feel as ugly as the rest of everyone. I get to lie, cheat, hurt, and inflame… all the wounds. Just like the rest, I've let my blood drip and been exposed to the stagnant and polluted air we breathe, and now I'm… sick. Rotting away, becoming one with this city… it's dour, isn't it?"

"Diana?" Sabrina raised her hand towards my arm, concern easily opening in her eyes.

I held her hand. "The infection is spreading. Right underneath our noses. Our eyes avert from it, afraid to acknowledge it… but now, I think for the first time in my life. I know what I need to do. I said it before, but now I want to mean it. I will open my silver eyes. And I will reflect that pain, that corruption, the infected masses… to those who will look at me for what they want to see. It doesn't mean I want them to rise up and fight, but I can't… I've realized that I do love this city. Love the people. Love… how strong we can be."

I took a deep breath. "I've never been one for rallying, I think you can tell. I'm not ready to tell people to go to war, to purge the infection… to fight and put down their lives and make sacrifices, but I'm ready to accept those who do. In one thousand days, we'll be swarmed by a second infection, and I don't think we'll survive that. But… I'm willing to try."

Breath tangled into a knot in my throat as my eyes met Sabrina's. "I'm willing to try and heal with this city... one step at a time."

Then my eyes met everyone else's. Belle's inner solidity, the Corporal's fear and her husband's shame, Trixie's confusion… it wasn't the surge of motivation I was hoping to get. Yet, I felt content with what I'd said.

Because it spoke to me.

"Diana…" Sabrina's hand tightened around mine. Under her skin, I could feel her blood pulsing with wavering guilt. "You're certainly dreaming big, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am." A thin smile nodded in her direction.

"I…" her eyelids fluttered, before a dishonest sigh left her mouth. She was lying to herself and to me, but she chose to agree with me and flashed a smile. "Fuck it. A thousand days, right? That's a lot of days."

"Not as many as you'd think." Trixie said, some hesitation in her.

I nodded. "Trixie's right, what I ask… what I want to do is almost impossible."

"But it could change things for the better," Belle smirked. "It could change things for the best."

The Corporal sighed, her gaze, which had seemed less tired today suddenly took a burden. "Figured there was a reason you didn't invite Staff Sergeant Morgan… you trying to form a club?"

"The club's already formed," I said with a hint of allusion. "It's up to me now to take responsibility for it, I don't have a lot of people I trust. But… my father is a bastard. He's put me into contact with good people in this squad, I'm no idiot. I've done my research. You all are… worth reaching out to."

Rick held his wife's shoulder, but his voice reached me. "What would you want for this city."

"For starters—" I looked at him with a solemn respect "—to not make it so miserable to grow up in. To create a place where you don't fear… raising a child in. Where they won't grow up to be so desperate they'll be exploited."

"So you're going into politics?" Trixie eyed me.

"I don't know, not yet." I admitted. "But I think… I'll take this damn opportunity given to me by my dad and his conspirants. I'll make it so that every damn word I say is heard by millions, that I'll garner hope, attention and motivation. Brian Ulrich has a lot of power, sway over our military, our finances… I'll bleed him dry to feed this city if I have to. Even if it means, yeah, mutual parasitism."

"Mutual parasitism." Trxie sighed. "So you'll be needing a Shard Op' for your endeavors, I bet. What's the benefits of working in your club?"

Smiling, I sent a contract over to Trixie regarding the ASK Task Force. Her eyes opened wide as she took in the payment offer. Puckering her lips, she nodded quietly.

"Shit." The Corporal muttered, biting her thumb as she looked to her husband. "Which of them is it?"

"Soul Killer." Belle answered for me, Sabrina's eyes squinted in confusion.

I continued. "Signed off by Captain Krishav."

"Krishav…" Rick seethed. "Oh fuckin' hell, if it's real then…"

"Rick." The corporal warned, her hand caressing the lines of his weathered face. "You have a SIM, you're vulnerable. So are you, Belle, Sabrina…"

"What are we vulnerable to?" Sabrina turned to me.

"To your souls being taken over." I said flatly. "To… a lot worse. But, I have a… we've found… a vaccine."

"A vaccine?" Corporal Alex still clutched her husband.

"It isn't made yet." I admitted. "But it's worked. It needs to be redeveloped, refined… perfected. I have good people working on it."

"You really dug yourself into a deep mess." Alex ground her teeth. "Who is 'we'?"

"A geneticist who rehabilitates children forcefully Implanted with SIMs. A former Investigator with a… complicated history to the police and Soul Killer. And…"

My eyes met Sabrina, praying she wouldn't strike me.

My next words slid out, hesitant. "Dreadwire and his… allies."

Collectively, they all stared blankly, Sabrina's breath gasping as the air chilled around me. "Oh, you lying bitch-"

"You're not dating him, right?" Alex sliced her words in, her eyes glowing a vivid white.

I shook my head. "No. No… its just… we both are deep in this mess with The Uncaged. He might… commit a few petty-"

Alex put her hand up. "First off, his crimes aren't petty. Second of… he's far from the worst criminal the SIO has worked with in the past. Just know you're responsible for apprehending him should he prove false in his allegiances. I just didn't want any… personal complications in this endeavour."

Alex relaxed as Rick slid his hand around her wrist, while he tapped the table in thought. "Who's backing this up?"

"My father, SynTec, Yuzhou, Captain Krishav and…" I sighed, "…Skeleton."

Alex groaned into her hands. "Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me."

I raised my voice, my words resonating with the hesitation and anger in her heart. "Hey, I'm serious by the way… about clearing the infection. I won't be a pawn of his, if I'm in this — I'm getting all three of them."

Alex's metallic nails scraped wood off my table, and she sighed in resignation. "Looks like the Skeleton part of our job didn't change then."

"No." I looked over at Trixie. "If anything, I've got a lot to tell you. I know how Skeleton controls his drones."

The excitement in our Shard Operator's eyes was palpable. "Oh?"

The stage had been set. Now was the time to bring it all together.

To counter-attack The Uncaged.

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