Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

29 - Field Work

 "What did I say?"

"Toran..."

"What was the last thing I said? The last thing I said, Tambo?!"

"You said not to do anything stupid while you were gone."

"So what the fuck happened?"

Despite Toran's obvious anger, Piper had to stifle a laugh at his outburst as the car glided out of the AmpCore tunnel. Alongside her in the back, Odiye slumped against the seat, rubbing his eyes with one hand. On the other side of him, Holly Lockley leaned against the window, arms folded and sporting a bitter expression.

"It's not a big deal, Toran," she said.

"Oh, sure." Toran threw up one hand irately, the other resting against the steering wheel. "I leave for a few days and when I get back, Demir's on my ass like a god-damn wasp, and I'm off chaperoning everyone's worst-kept-secret back out into the city, to hunt for some other fucking dock rat cast away-,"

"Toran," Ferra chuckled from the passenger seat. "I think you are being a little harsh. Odiye isn't the one who lost the girl."

He glanced moodily at her before clamping both hands back onto the wheel. He guided them on in sullen silence, leaving Piper to wonder what it meant to have the 'King and Queen' of AmpCore along for the ride. Holly was clearly a friend of Odiye, and had enough pull with her own corp to get herself assigned here to help him.

Toran's presence she assumed was a Skiltron intervention, so that she wouldn't be wandering around unsupervised.

But Ferra?

Maybe Ferra was just there because she was a killer. She might have been a violent little psycho, but that probably made her a good person to have at your back in Hadrian's streets.

"That 'cast away' is my sister, you prick," Piper growled, giving Toran's seat a light kick.

"Yeah, I can tell," he muttered. "Takes after you with the amount of trouble she's caused."

Ferra grinned. "I'd quite like to meet her. Takes some spine for someone to break out of an AmpCore safehouse." Looking around in her seat, she made no secret of examining Piper up and down. "Do you think she has implants too? Maybe little Piper's gifts run in the family."

"They don't," Piper snapped, quicker than she meant to.

"Pity." She stretched languidly as they wound their way upwards towards the city proper. "I have to admit, I'm surprise they're letting you out. Even if you are on a tight leash. How did you manage to swing that?"

"She made a convincing case," Odiye said quickly. "We'll have a better chance of bringing Arden back in with her help. It think it's safe to say she's not going to react well to one of us, seeing as she already took off once."

"I'm not here to be your fucking negotiator." She shot him a dark look. "I'm here to make sure Arden is safe. I'm not helping you shut her up in another corporate safe house if she doesn't want to go."

"Your mother is still in AmpCore custody," Ferra said.

"I know that."

"Well, you since you know us 'corps' so well, you should know the next step in the game." She made a show of examining her nails, as though she were talking about the most casual thing in the world. "If Arden refuses to come back in, they may threaten your mother to convince her."

"For god's sake, Ferra." Holly straightened in her seat with a scowl. "Do you have to be such a bitch all the time?"

Ferra shrugged nonchalantly. "You know I'm right."