Every memory of hearing Mela talk about her brother rushed through my mind at once. Every fond mention. Every complaint about his absence. Even a few of the happier stories, where she shared tiny, significant moments from their lives.

Vaguely, of course. She was very reluctant to talk about him, but she did seem fond of the man. Properly fond, not like someone talking about a sibling they barely tolerated. She was just… oddly withdrawn on the subject.

Why was this man, who would perfectly fit the role of Mela's brother, getting Patch's best attempt at a recruitment pitch?

"Hmm? Mela? I don't think that's his name," Amelia mumbled.

I froze. "You know that guy?"

"Um, yeah." Her face a picture of sheepish regret. "My father sometimes hires him. He's, uh, the one who, you know… brought you in? He's some kind of problem fixer for my daddy dearest. From the slums."

The world tilted on its axis. I gripped the runner chair next to me to keep from falling over.

From the slums. A problem fixer. The one who'd brought me in.

I swallowed thickly. My eyes drifted over to the stranger being led towards the front entrance. He was practically wearing Mela's face.

"Slight change of plans. We need him among the survivors, too. Please? I just — I'll explain later," I hurriedly got out.

Amelia looked confused, but she nodded. I answered with a wavering smile as my mind continued to screech in indignation.

Mela. The last time I'd seen her, she was practically at death's door. I'd had to patch her up before the asshole android assaulting the Kittens' HQ knocked me out and delivered me to Amelia's loving father.

At least, I had assumed it was the android that did it. If the clanker worked for Mela's brother, that… complicated things.

It also made me rather murderously inclined, because that fucker had killed a whole lot of people whom Mela considered friends. He had murdered Mela also, as far as I knew, but… did he?

Was Mela still alive?

"I can't let him get away. I know we said we'd stay here, and let any of the mercs that somehow managed to get away do so —"

"And we can hunt them down later," she broke in. "Because we have the excuse of an internal coup."

"I know. But…" I stared at her. "I can't let him get away."

Amelia gave me a look of fond exasperation, but she eventually shook her head and sighed. "Fine. But if things get really bad, I'm going to turn the defenses on full auto and let them mow down everything other than you. I'm not risking your life for this more than we absolutely have to. Here, take this. It's the antidote to the stuff we'll be using. And a gas mask, so you don't get your dumb ass knocked out, too."

I gave her a quick peck on the lips, mumbled some vague thanks, and bolted out of the room. Keeping my eyes on the cameras all the while, I struggled to fit the gas mask onto my face. The thing made it much harder to breathe, but I kept it on nonetheless.

My feet pounded as I took the stairs four or five at a time, relying on Grace from my Stalker package to keep myself upright. It was honestly an amazing thrill. I resolved to do some parkour or something after the mercs were dealt with.

That resolve only strengthened as I executed a particularly hasty maneuver and a notification pinged at me.

Grace + 1 exp

Grace 2 has levelled up!

Installing the information packet.

No more requests for me to okay the installation. No delays. I was a big boy now, and my mind stats could take it.

The muscle memory and actual memories guiding me how to use the skill filled my mind and body. My wild dash down the stairs became less 'unstable free-fall' and more purposeful striding.

Even as I engaged in that, however, I kept watching the camera feed.

Patch seemed fully in his element, though I'd never seen that ass-kissing expression on his ugly mug before. He was whispering at Mela's brother, who still wore a sour look, as the whole band of miscreants moved towards the front doors like a tidal wave.

The wave briefly bottlenecked by the front doors, everyone struggling to squeeze through without giving way to each other. But, eventually, all of them were inside.

That was the moment Amelia chose to spring our trap.

The doors swung shut with a bang. The lights guttered out. With ominous cybernetic noises, the turrets unfurled from their hiding places on the floor and ceiling.

The mercs had just enough time to shout questions and a few obscenities before the turrets opened fire.

Now, we didn't want them all dead. Obviously. In fact, we wanted most of them alive and our side. The turrets were already loaded with software that distinguished allies from enemies, so we had reconfigured them to leave our drones alone.

We'd also set the 'enemies' mode to maim rather than kill. That basically meant the turrets aimed for limbs, rather than center mass. Still, in a dense crowd like that? Bullets had no eyes, and I wasn't going to lose sleep over casualties.

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Patch, however, was marked as a priority protection target. I assumed Amelia had added Mela's brother to that list after out little chat. None of the turrets would so much as ping in their direction.

A few seconds later, the mercs' day got worse.

The sprinkler system activated, dousing absolutely everything in the lovely concoction Amelia had ordered and handled with a concerning amount of dread. On paper, the thing was just a tranquilizer and anesthetic. Its potency was stunning for its low price.

Ironically, it was that potency that kept it cheap and unpopular.

The substance had probably been cooked up in a secret lab for dubiously legal use in warfare, before being coopted by some corpo for medical use. Except, no attempts to weaken it had worked. Any subjects who received it were far more likely to take a permanent nap than a temporary one, if not treated quickly.

Still, Amelia was fairly certain she could clean it up and deal with any medical consequences later. Besides, like me, she wouldn't lose sleep over it if some of the mercs actually died. Including our drones.

I watched through the camera feed as the solution doused the room. Then, slowly, it rose into the air in the form of a thin mist. Any merc that inhaled it tottered about a bit before faceplanting.

Did I mention the thing contained a neurotoxin? Because it contained a neurotoxin. It wasn't as deadly as many other compounds on the market, but it would induce complete paralysis within forty minutes of inhalation, which is why the stupid thing was so dangerous to begin with. I wouldn't have been brave enough to actually venture down there without my mask and antidote.

I owed Amelia big time.

Between the turrets and the rapidly spreading gas, most of the mercs were down by the time I finally hit the stair landing just above the ground floor. Those who were still up looked pretty terrible. There were about twenty of them, half of which were stumbling all over the place now that Amelia had turned off the turrets. Patch and Mela's brother were among the more collected of the bunch.

Instantly, I realized what set those twenty apart: they had much more chrome than the people who were on the floor already. That, admittedly, made me hesitate.

Then my eyes made a camera zero in on the face that reminded me so much of Mela, and a fresh wave of anger surged through me.

I flexed my Stalker arms. Then I tapped into the broadcast system for the HQ, making my voice echo out from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"Lay down your weapons! All of you!"

Patch started cursing.

"Like fuck are we gonna lay down our weapons you little shit! How fucking old are you to threaten me?! I can tell from your voice that you're —"

I tuned him out. Leaning into both my rage and my Stalker-granted Stealth, I wisped down the stairs and into the mist that still coated the room. Then I smirked as I lifted my gun in Patch's direction. I wanted him alive, yes, but no one said I couldn't put a few bullets in his ass first.

Literally.

Then Clairvoyance was dancing through my brain. My eyes widened as I desperately threw myself back behind the wall I'd just passed, hearing the ping of bullets go off as I did so.

How…?

"He's here." I twitched upon hearing that voice. So much colder, so much more dispassionate, but still undeniably reminiscent of Mela's. "Saw him for a moment. There's something odd going on with him. Be on your guard."

"Where?!" Patch screamed, whirling around. "I'm going to fucking gut that little piece of shit and anyone else who's in on this!"

"Calm down, it was over by the —"

I was tired of letting them coordinate. Pushing my Clairvoyance as hard as I could, I dashed out of hiding, relying on both the cameras and my skills to guide my gun towards Patch.

I fired, already having the benefit of seeing the bullet hit the merc captain in the future. Then that same future warned me of a shot impacting straight into my chest, and I refocused on trying to fix that little problem.

Clairvoyance exploded into multiple potential futures, each branching into its own set of outcomes. I pushed my brain to offer me a solution where I walked away from the firefight with no new holes in my clothing. But Clairvoyance well and truly failed me.

No, it wasn't Clairvoyance. It was my body that was lacking. No matter how I tried to dodge and weave, at least a few of the bullets always found their mark.

I zeroed in on the culprit and had to fight hard not to curse.

Mela's brother was a blur, even within my Clairvoyance vision. He moved so quickly that I could barely respond to the results of his actions. Even my Shadow Runner eyes only managed to resolve his form into a blurry outline.

I bit my teeth and made my decision, paying for the shot I landed on Patch with two bullets in my left leg. Then I was behind my wall cover again, shuddering from the pain.

"Adrian? Adrian, are you okay?! I just saw that! Retreat. NOW. I'm deploying the turrets on his ass."

"No! I —"

Amelia didn't give a shit. The turrets whirred to life again. Some of the leftover mercs had rushed to their bleeding boss, who was clutching his ass, but they immediately ran away to get under cover. Only one particularly loyal idiot took the time to drag Patch along.

A hail of bullets erupted out of the defenses, all zeroing in on Mela's unfortunate sibling. At least, I thought he was unfortunate, before he blurred again in the camera lenses. Suddenly, two guns as large and as fancy as Mela preferred were spitting bullets at a prodigious rate.

Even as I clutched at the large holes in my leg and tried to steady my breathing, I had to admit that I found him impressive. Doubly so because his bullets were actually having an effect, gradually wearing down one turret after another.

I realized then and there that I'd have to do something myself if I wanted to get my hands on the asshole. With a groan and a quiet curse at my own stupidity, I threw myself back out there, relying on Clairvoyance just as heavily as before.

I'd already discarded every notion of getting out of the exchange unscathed. So long as I could guarantee my survival, I was content. I knew Amelia could handle things from there… though I also knew not even Clairvoyance would keep me safe from her after the stunt I was about to pull.

I got one free shot off. One. Shot.

That's all his preoccupation with the turrets got me. Still, with Clairvoyance unspooling before me, and my Stalker arms working at full tilt, I made it count.

My gun — which I had chosen only because it was something Mela would have approved of — barked. The asshole whirled around and to the side, like he was somehow managing to catch the sound before the bullet caught him. For all I knew, with his fancy cybernetics, that was exactly what he did.

Still, my bullet dug into his shoulder. Just as my Clairvoyance had told me would happen, it hit something vital and made his left arm go limp. His right still blurred almost as quickly as my own arms could go, spitting far too many bullets from what must have been at least a semi-auto gun.

In a move I definitely couldn't have pulled off without Clairvoyance guiding and correcting my every action, my bullets pinged off of his, neutralizing a fair number of shots. There were plenty of leftovers, though. They bit into my right thigh, left upper arm, and left shoulder.

With Focus also running at full tilt, I didn't so much as flinch.

Instead, I got the satisfaction of watching his eyes widen as two of my bullets caught up to him. One dug straight through his hand, shattering the cybernetic into pieces, while the other tore clean through the side of his throat.

He collapsed to the side, trying desperately to stem the blood with the bits of his hand that he had left. His other arm lay limp and useless, somehow still clutching onto his other gun.

I raised my own gun and shot five more times.

Twice at two different mercs who were getting ideas. Thrice at the man struggling on the floor in front of me, just to make sure his legs were properly disabled. I considered shooting at Patch a couple times, but… my gun didn't have infinite bullets.

Resolving to carry at least two guns in the future, like Mela's asshole brother, I strolled behind the wall that had protected me before and practically faceplanted onto the stairs.

Those bullet wounds were really doing a number on me. At least Shadow tar ensured I bled out a lot slower than a human would. I was already smiling at all the curses Amelia was throwing my way as she ran down the stairs, ready to help.

"Love you too, menace."

"When I get my hands on you, I'm going to remove all your limbs and chain you to a bed until you develop proper sense!" she screeched in reply.

I just laughed, feeling oddly giddy.

Sure, I was losing tar. I was in a ton of pain. But it was more than worth it.

We had won.

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