My Roughrider cut through the air, smoothly sliding above the city streets. Behind me, Mira flew close on her own hover bike. The two of us cut a sleek profile across the city. My new chrome eye burned slightly in my skull, but I’d been assured that’d go away before too long. If it didn’t… Well, I knew where to find my medek.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I called lightly into the Packheart Rings and adjusted my course. “I was a bit out of it back then.”

”’Course. Can’t exactly let my bestie roam around the Scath Heights by herself.” Mira sped up so she was in front of me. “It’s down there. Probably best we go on foot, though. The FSA still has this place blocked off.”

”Chek.” We changed course to the area she indicated. The hyper-zoom feature of my eye narrowed in on a particular building, and scanned across its surface. It was a bit stomach churning to have one eye so zoomed in, and the other not. I simply closed my remaining flesh eye and focused on the chrome.

”You think you’ll find something this time around?” Mira asked.

”I hope so.” I glanced back toward my passenger—Vox. The silver fox cutely tilted her head to meet my eyes. She had a full suite of detection tools, so not bringing her would be a slag move. I’d been waiting for her to be ready, anyway.

We flew to the building I picked out and parked on it. Mira landed next to me a few moments later. Vox jumped off to stretch her legs while I moved to the roof’s door and ensured it was locked.

“How’s that eye treating you?” Mira approached me from behind and exaggeratedly crouched down to get a better look at me. “You didn’t show it off much earlier.”

”Burns a bit,” I admitted, and blinked at her. “I’m not that short….”

“Sure feels like it.” My mikata snickered, and jumped back to her full height. “It looks good. Stands out a hell of a lot less than the pink one.”

“Seriously.” I’d designed it with my flesh-one in mind. It looked exactly like it, down to the slightly feral glow and diamond shaped pupils from Panther’s Sight. Now, if I could just get rid of the bright silver streaks of hair… “Last time I go for clone flesh.”

”The upper tiers of clone flesh probably aren’t that bad?” Mira offered. “Just saying. Their business would implode otherwise.”

“Maybe.” She had a point, though that didn’t mean I wanted to go for it. I was better off just snagging chrome instead. Or going the biomod route, but that had it’s own host of issues. ‘Sides, I could make my own chrome. I couldn’t make my own clone flesh. Not yet, anyway. “You ready?”

”Yeah… are you sure leaving these out here is a good idea?” Mira hiked her thumb to a set of garment bags on the back of her Roughrider. Tonight was the night, and she’d swung by to grab the dresses from Master Tailor Telos just before meeting up with me

“They’re water proof, aren’t they?” I eyed the bags. They looked water proof enough to me, anyway.

“I mean… yeah? But do you really want to risk that? And what if someone comes up here and steals them?”

”We can leave a Dragonfly as a guard,” I offered. She didn’t seem too impressed with that idea, so I swapped tracks. “Or we can toss them in my bunker.”

”Yeah, let’s do that.” She pulled her LMG out of the saddlebags, and started to kit up for a voyage into a danger zone… maybe I should’ve given her the power armor before coming out here. It was too late now. The set was still stashed away in my workshop.

I sighed lightly, and pulled out my Transporter. The little drone got to work, and I likewise sat back to wait for it. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through clothing brands. I was thinking—I should add a kimono to my stealth suit. It’d fit the katana vibe, and make it a little more distinct. Not to mention I could pad the fabric to give me a little more protection from the elements like my poncho.

I didn’t like them much. I found the loose fabric to get in my way too much, just like why I didn’t like dresses and skirts. Nightshade was supposed to be as different from me as possible, though. Not to mention it’d play well into the backstory I’d started to plan out just in case a client ever asked questions.

After about ten minutes of scrolling through photos and brands, the portal finally opened up. I grabbed the garment bags and slipped into the Aether. Mira followed right behind me. “You ever get creeped out being here?”

”Here? No.” I put the bags down on a couch. “Err, there was one time. Something knocked on my door and kept asking to be let in.”

Mira eyed the heavy door unto the bunker. It was still slightly dented in from where claws had dragged against the metal. I had yet to go out and check for damage just in case it still lurked around here. ”… and you still use this place? I’d hightail it outta here.”

“What, it’s convenient? ‘Sides, that was a one time deal.” I seriously hoped it was a one time deal, anyway. When I finally got around to expanding my operations in the Aether, I needed to add some serious defenses so I could deal with the horrors that lurked here. It wasn’t just the eidolons and cute sprites that called this place home.

We slipped back out of the Aether, and I gathered my Transporter. Both of us had Drop Chutes, so it was easy to get down. We simply jumped off the side of the building and let gravity do what it would.

Near the edge of the Scath Heights, a military checkpoint had been set up. A quarantine wall surrounded the entire sub-district, forcing all traffic to move in through the checkpoint. A fairly long line led into the quarantine zone, with most of the gathered people being mercs or Troubleshooters of some kind. The heavy gear, and obvious disregard for subtlety gave them away instantly.

“Good thing we don’t have to go through that.” She jacked her thumb in a different direction. “The exit should be over there somewhere.”

”Are they still cleaning up the muties?” I eyed the lines of mercs.

The halo atop of her head flashed with a dim light while she loaded up and adjusted the straps of her plate carrier. “You didn’t hear? The outbreak got way worse about a week after we left. It’s almost as dangerous as the AEZ now.”

”Nova.” Hopefully the tunnels below were mostly safe… and still in one piece. I was a little worried ASCorp might’ve blown the underground roads after clearing out their warehouse. If they did, then that’d throw a massive wrench into my plans. They probably didn’t, though. That kind of thing would cause some serious tremors, and likely wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Mira patted my shoulder, and moved off toward an absolutely filthy alley. Trash floated in pools of water, and it looked like nobody had cleaned it out in decades. “C’mon, I think it's somewhere over there. That dumpster looks familiar."

“They all look the same to me.” I shook my head and followed after her. Too bad there wasn’t a map, or this would be a whole lot easier to find.

It took thirty minutes for us to find the hidden access shaft back into the underground tunnels. It was not, in fact, next to the familiar dumpster. It was three blocks away, actually. The only reason we even found it was because Mira remembered the gang signs painted onto the alley walls.

The path down was a bit tricky. It was a ladder, which wasn’t too bad. What was bad was Vox dangling from my shoulders like an unruly scarf. It took way more effort than I expected to keep her on me while shuffling down a ladder. ’Course, we could’ve taken the express route down. The Drop Chutes needed a certain amount of space to properly work, though, so I didn’t want to risk it. Going splat was not in today’s agenda.

Mira led the way down into the subterranean road with a flashlight flickering across the place. Two pinpricks of light joined her as Vox also lit up the space. I thought giving her flashlights would be a mostly useless addition given both of us could see in the dark. Turns out my over preparation wasn’t totally worthless.

We stopped at an intersection with three of the routes closed off by heavy duty security shutters. Mira’s light panned across the black and yellow hazard stripes. “Well, that complicates things.”

”Not necessarily." I eyed the panels. It looked like they decided to just seal off the Scath Heights temporarily instead of blowing the tunnels. “We could blow through."

Mira shook her head. ”No chance the military doesn’t notice. It’s standard operating procedure to set up a full array of recon sensors in the operating area.”

I should’ve made some kind of laser mining tool… actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. I already basically had the tech ready. If I could just shrink it down, I’d undoubtedly find it useful. Especially for breaking into places I wouldn’t care if I left a trail at.

“Probably for the best, anyway.” I pressed a hand against the heavy shutters. “Unsealing it could let the muties spread out through the city.”

“Here, gimme me one of your bird things.” Mira stuck out a hand to me.

“Chek.” Why did she—? Whatever. I created a Spectral Flock bird and passed it over to her.

”Give me a sec.” Mira snatched the bird from my hands, and walked up to the shudders—and then through them. Right, I forgot she could do that… “Okay.”

I grabbed Vox and tugged on the connection to my Spectral Flock bird. In an instant, I was teleported to the other side of the door. I wonder… Could I do something similar with Flash Step? I turned into lighting, didn’t I? Electricity could totally pass through this. I’d have to test that at some point.

”Take a look at this.” Mira’s light flashed across the heights’ side of the heavy duty security shutters. She brushed her hand against deep grooves along the reinforced shutters. “Something wasn’t happy about being blocked in.”

”Let’s hope we don’t run into it.” I checked my rifle, and we moved down the path toward the vehicle garage where Kaynis was last seen.

The underground road was in a much greater state of disrepair then the last time we were down here. We ran across several barricades, and burned out camps with corpses stinking up the place. It looked like some of the people from above tried to take shelter down here after the sub-district was quarantined, but they were eventually run down by the mutants above.

“Fuck.” Mira sighed as we passed a camp about a week old. A family had been eviscerated by something. A boy, even in death, still clutched at a ratty stuffed animal.

I took a breath and looked away from the carnage. Stuff like this—it never got easier to see. Or maybe it did? I likely would’ve puked not too long ago… “We can’t do anything for them now.”

”We couldn’t have done anything to begin with.” Mira’s halo pulsed faintly, shedding a dim light across the dead. “It just… Maybe we should’ve done more back then? Killed a few more muties?”

“We killed that flesh abomination.” I patted her shoulder. She had a point though. “Imagine how much havoc that would’ve caused if it broke out.”

”Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Can’t go blaming ourselves for everything.” A sad laugh broke out of her, and she turned her flashlight away. “I think it was this way.”

I followed closely behind her. We only took care of what, 14% of the mutants? It wasn’t our job. Logically, I knew that. If I was just a bit better armed back then, though, maybe we could’ve done a little more… Honestly, it was probably for the best that I never told her the exact numbers. Seeing it broken down by percentages put a different spin on things.

Thankfully, we didn’t cross any more child corpses. They were out there—I was sure of it. In a world like this, they were bound to be far more. Knowing that was one thing. Not having to see it made it a little easier on my mind, though.

We found the garage shortly after. It looked like traffic had been through here, but not a lot. I pulled Vox off my shoulders and dropped her onto the ground. “Start scanning the area. Analyze traces of chemical, too.”

Vox was built as a recon and scouting platform first, cute robot second. She had the full suite of sensors that the jaeger had and more. I hadn’t skimped out on the tech I threw into her small body in the slightest.

“Yip!” Her ears perked up, and her paw popped up to her head in a mock salute. The flashlights cut off, and she moved around the room with her nose lowered.

“What are you thinking?” Mira flicked her flashlight back the way we came, and set up a firing position just in case something heard us snooping around.

”I’m thinking… I might have to go with plan B.” It’d been a while since I dropped by Ligh. If nothing turned up here, hopefully there’d be something with him. If not, then the trail really was cold. I had no idea where to go from there.

Really, I should’ve done this a while ago. I’d been planning something like Vox for a while, so I pushed it off until I had some better tracking equipment. It was one of the reasons I wanted to get a jaeger from Ligh when I offered up the Revolver of Random Rounds.

“Was it the group that put the bounty on Polar Moon?”

“No. Luna already moved that angle. That was an Agrican response for hitting one of their labs.” And another reminder not to fuck with that company.

Mira shook her head, and the halo dimmed abruptly. “I got nothing, then.”

“Yip yip! Yip yip!” Vox alerted to something, and the lights abruptly flicked back onto a spot near the entrance of the parking garage. They were UV lights, though.

A bolt of anticipation went through me. Coming here after so long, I figured there wouldn’t be anything. This was a perfunctory look around more than anything. If we actually managed to find something that could crack the case open, though, then that was all the better.

I shuffled over to Vox, and immediately spotted what she’d been looking at. Under the bright UV light, it was glaring. It was a blood stain, one of several likely caused by Kaynis. He hadn’t gone down without a fight. They’d cleaned it up, but blood was a difficult substance to remove in haste.

I crouched down, and jacked into Vox to check her logs. The sample was heavily degraded by some kind of cleaning agent. Probably a corp’s dedicated ‘we weren’t here’ spray. I doubted we’d be able to pull a DNA match off of it, but there might still be hope. It was cold down here, and away from direct sunlight. There was a chance it was still viable.

First things first, I needed to grab a sample. I didn’t have the equipment to do a full dive into more than a cursory analysis, but I did know who did. He’d probably be happy to help me, too. Nael always was a gem. I pulled my Transporter out, and let it activate. “Don’t move from there.”

”Sure… worried I’ll contaminate something?”

“Chek.” I unplugged from Vox, and patted the robotic fox’s head lightly. “Think you can find more of this stuff for me?”

“Yip yip!” She pressed into my hand for a moment, and then set off with her tail low to the ground. The UV lights sticking out of her head lit up the path as she carefully moved from one spot to the next while scanning.

Ten minutes later, we had several hits spread out across the parking garage. A few of them were safe to ignore. Other people had been injured down here after we left. The chemicals the strike squad used to clean up actually helped us in this case, because it told us which stains to look for exactly.

I delved into my bunker, and pulled out a bunch of stuff to take samples. I returned shortly after with a bottle full of Homodration, several cotton swabs, and sealable vials to keep the samples safe. It was all stuff stolen from the Crusade, naturally.

Woah, I really am quite the kleptomaniac. Why did I even steal this stuff back then? I sprayed down the stains with Homodration, a compound specifically designed to help lift dried blood stains, and swabbed them. I took several samples, and then moved onto the next spot to collect more. Hopefully, Nael would be able to turn up something between all of them.

Once I’d been to the last spot, Vox stopped alerting onto anything else in the garage. “I think that’s it.”

”Should we tell Luna?” Mira pulled her LMG off where she’d been mounted and shuffled over to me.

The sealed vials in my bag felt like a brand as I thought about it. “No… just in case this doesn’t turn up anything. ‘Sides, we should get results soon enough.”

“Fair.” I thought Mira would argue and say something like ‘she deserves to know’, but that assumption turned out to be entirely off track. Or maybe it was just my guilty conscience… right, well, I wasn’t hiding it forever. If it did turn up something, I’d naturally tell her. If it didn’t… I’d still tell her. She wouldn’t have to anguish while waiting, though.

“So that’s it?” Mira nodded toward the underground road. “Or is there somewhere else you want to stop while we’re here?”

I blinked, and my new eye narrowed in on her. ”Uh, no… I’ve gotta swing by Absolom Clinic and the Crusade, though. Want to come with?”

”Pass. The Blue Crusade isn’t my speed. Give Nael my regards, though.” Mira sighed lightly. “I’m going to see Pa before tonight.”

”Chek.” Right, that was also happening tonight… okay, everything was set and ready for her fancy dinner. Hopefully, I’d make this the best birthday she’d ever had. After seeing the Nael and Light, I’d have to go pick up Luna, too.

”This is going to be a blast.” Mira grinned and nudged my shoulder playfully.

“I sure hope so.” I whistled to Vox, and the metallic fox bounced up onto my shoulder. She quickly made herself comfortable. I gave one last look at the garage, and started to head back the way we came. “Then let’s ghost.”

— — —

AN: This one’s been a long time coming. Meaty chapter today at just over 3000.

Also, I don’t remember if I said anything, but I’ve been working on a new book. Snow Fox Supremacy. The MC’s a riot, and a ton of fun to write. I’ve got 30 chaps written for it, and I want to bring it over here when there’s ~40. Sometime next month, maybe?