Except it wasn’t.

Larger pieces of trash lifted and fluttered through the air. Pebbles rolled on the ground. It was like a hurricane was gathering over the slums.

No hurricane.

Alarmed, Greyde grabbed the girl, viced her neck with one powerful arm, and raised the harn blade to deliver the kill-stab.

+Kuming Greyde. I know you. I know everything about you. I know the nine counts of murder that you are wanted for, and the fifty-seven other killings you have on your clammy soul. I know you killed your own father. I know you understand only hard cash and killing.+

‘What? What?’ the hunter wailed in terror as the tempest of wind engulfed him and his prey.

+I don’t carry cash. No pockets. I guess it’s going to be killing then.+

I turned on my chair’s stablights, so I became visible as I ploughed in through the tumult of dirt and dust. The hunter screamed, but the dust choked him. Gagging, he threw Patience aside, and drew his Etva c.II plasma cannon, a pistol-sized weapon more than capable of burning clean through my armoured chair.

Staggering, half-blinded, he aimed it at me.

With a simple tap of my mind, I fired my chair’s psycannon. The hunter’s corpse slammed back through the wall of the pumping station. Even before it had hit the wall, every bone in that body had been pulped by concussive force, every organ exploded.

The wind dropped. Grit pattered off the sealed body of my chair.

+Patience?+

She got up. I wasn’t using Kara Swole’s voice any more.

+Are you all right?+

She nodded. She was singularly beautiful, despite the dirt caking her and the tears in her clothing. Tall, slender, black-haired, her eyes a piercing green.

‘Are you Kara’s friend?’ she asked.

+Yes.+

‘Are you Gideon?’

+Yes.+

She stepped forward and placed her right hand flat on the warm canopy of my support chair. ‘Good. You don’t look anything like I imagined.’

XXI

‘So, we’re dead? Yeah, of course we are,’ Frauka said softly.

‘You’d be dead already,’ replied DaRolle. ‘I just wanted to find out which bastard was running you. Who is it? Finxster? Rotash? That’d be right. Rotash always wants a slice of the boss’ gameplay.’

‘Neither, actually,’ Frauka smiled.

‘Frauka…’ Carl began, terrified. He’d backed away as far as the gig’s scan-console would allow, and even then knew there was no hope. This killer had them both cold. Carl wondered where he’d left his weapon. The answer – ‘in the cabin lockers’ – did not cheer him up.

‘Who, then?’

‘You won’t know him. His name’s Ravenor.’

DaRolle sniffed.

‘Never heard of the frig.’

‘Untouchable?’ Frauka asked, casually indicating the limiter around DaRolle’s throat.

‘Uh huh. You too?’

Frauka smiled. ‘Made that way, so help me. Still, the pay’s decent. Always someone who needs a good blunter, right?’

‘I hear that,’ DaRolle grinned.