The canister exploded down to its very atoms.
Piper flexed her implants with a silent snarl, feeling the solid metal simply disintegrate under her force. The control was intoxicating. She moved her wrist in slow circles, dragging the constituent pieces of the canister apart in wider and wider circles, before hauling them back together.
To a lesser person it would be magic. It certainly looked like it.
She closed her eyes, reaching and feeling her way through the void of space to cram the atoms back together, just as she'd learned to do. Her accelerated curriculum at the academy had moved on to putting things back together, rather than just obliterating them.
Frankly, Piper preferred the first part, but doing this helped take her mind off of the shitstorm of life.
Everything was a mess, just when she thought she'd been leveraging herself some kind of certainty in this place. She thought she was about to bury the hatchet with Ferra, but it turned out things with the Queen of the Sharks were worse than ever.
She thought she was going to get out of AmpCore, to get into the city and find Arden, but the wraiths had put a stop to that.
She thought she knew what she wanted, but her duel with Odiye had thrown all her feelings into chaos. Now that she'd had some time away from him, Piper felt disgusted with herself. She tried to think of Kirk but his face wouldn't coalesce properly – like he was lost with the rest of her old life.
Tears of rage trickled down her cheeks and she screamed, lashing out with her amplifier. Boiling red fire tore a trench in the floor of the empty training room and up the far wall before burning out. Smoke hung in the air and she squeezed her eyes shut again, fighting down her emotions. She could feel the burn in her bones. The pain swelled and she gritted her teeth.
Then she heard the voice again.
You don't need any of them.
Piper froze.
Are you listening to me?
She pressed a fist against her eye and shook her head slowly.
I know you can hear me,
"What the hell are you?" she hissed.
I'm you.
"I'm me. You're my imagination."
It's not so simple.
I'm going crazy, Piper thought. Absolutely crazy. She waited for a moment, looking around to make sure nobody was watching. "What does that mean?"
We are... new.
"Get out of my head."
You cannot ignore this forever, Piper Russell.
"Fucking watch me."
She thrust out an arm, channelling every scrap of her mind on her amplifier, and aiming it at the black rip in the floor. Invisible feelers reached out, touching the contours of ragged, ruined metal and slowly dragging them back together. Bends were smoothed out, molten chunks cooled and almost as though she were turning back time, the tear in the floor and wall started to disappear.
The act seemed to suppress that voice, that other her, as though draining her implants smothered its ability to speak. Her jaw ached and her muscles burned as she forced the world to bend to her will.
A few minutes later the black, scorched trench was gone. Plates gleamed brightly, as though they'd been installed that day. Piper waited, expecting that voice to come back again the instant she finished her task, but her brain remained mercifully silent. She could feel the heat of the implants in her bones, but whatever it was that lurked there seemed done speaking.
For now at least.
"You're getting good at that."
Piper almost dropped her amplifier in surprise as the soft voice exploded into her hearing. She twisted around, implants flaring against potential threat, until she saw Arrow standing just inside the door, arms folded.
They nodded to the floor. "Took me months before I could perform a proper reassembly."
"Well, practice makes perfect." She turned away sliding her amplifier back into its sheath. Exhaling long and slow, she slowly dragged the fingers of both hands back through her hair, letting her eyes drift shot.
"You alright?"
Piper didn't look around. "Not really."
"Who were you talking to?"
"No-one."
Arrow stepped into the room; the door hissed shut behind them. "No-one?"
She bit her lip. She couldn't bring herself to articulate it out loud, but Arrow was the only other person in the academy that actually knew about her origins.
Or lack thereof.
Piper turned, digging her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "There's just something about my implants," she said eventually. "They seem to... link me to things I don't want to see. Make me feel things I don't want to feel." She shook her head bleakly. "I don't feel like I'm in control sometimes."
"Odiye told me what happened with Ferra," Arrow replied. "Is it true what she said? That you had a connection with the wraiths? That you communicate with them?"
"It's not like that," Piper replied warily, hand drifting to her amplifier again.
"Wait." Arrow raised their hands. "I'm not here to judge you Piper. I just want to know what's going on. If you are connected with the wraiths somehow, it's dangerous for everyone."
"Yeah, no shit." Piper's lips twisted into a snarl. "They've tried to kill me twice."
"Piper, do you want help or not?" Their expression hardened. "Forget Ferra. The rest of us want to understand this, but if you're not going to be straight with us, there's nothing we can do."
Piper fixed Arrow with a long look, fingers curling and uncurling with indecision. Admitting it made it real. Made it something she would really have to deal with.
But she knew that, deep down already.
"I..." The words squirmed around in her throat before she forced them out. "I've been hearing things."
Arrow's expression softened. "What things?"
"A voice." Piper tapped herself on the chest. "From inside me. It sounds like me. I don't know if I'm just going crazy but..." The sentence dissolved and she clutched her head in her hands, trying to fight down tears of frustration. "I don't know what it is. But when the wraiths came after us it told me to listen. To listen to them."
Arrow waited a moment, brow furrowed in surprise. "And... did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Listen?"
"No!" Piper snarled. "I blasted the first wraith I could see."
"How long have you been hearing this... voice?"
"A little while," she admitted. "Maybe a day before we went out into the city."
"And what does it say?"
"The first thing it said was to kill someone."
Arrow blinked. "Who?"
"Odiye."
Their attempts to remain calm unravelled in that moment. Their brows rose in surprise and they edged backwards slightly.
"Odiye?" they repeated. "Why? He's one of the only friends you have here."
"I know that," Piper snapped, tapping her temple. "But this thing in my head thinks different. I was arguing with him, trying to get out into the city to find my sister. He wasn't going to let me and I just... I just couldn't control it anymore."
"But you didn't hurt him?"
"No." She folded her arms tight, starting to pace uneasily back and forth. "When they agreed to let me go out into the city it just sort of ... went away. Until the wraiths came after us."
Arrow stared. Stared for a long uncomfortable moment as they struggled to find something constructive to say. They bit their lip, one eye twitching slightly.
"Do you think this... ability," they said, words like footsteps on thin ice, "is why the wraiths have been coming after you?"
"How would I know?"
"It makes sense." Arrow gave an apologetic shrug. "Lots of us have implants, but the wraiths don't hunt anyone else."
Piper's gaze blackened. "That doesn't explain where the wraiths are coming from though, does it? They're not supposed to get across the river."
"We're working on that."
"Not fast enough."
"It's not as simple as you think Piper," Arrow snapped. "These things don't exactly have serial numbers. The first batch of wraiths that they pulled from near your home disappeared under Demir's damned skirts, and most of the ones from the alley were so badly blasted up that its hard enough even figure out which parts go with which." They gave a frustrated shrug. "Toran's got me working it, and I'm pretty sure these things are too new to have come from Hadrian South, but beyond that I've got nothing to tell you. And it doesn't explain anything about your implants."
They waited a moment, jaw tight. "Have you told Odiye?"
"Told him what?"
"About the voice?"
"No way!" Piper shook her head. "He... I..." She let out a snort of annoyance at the ridiculousness of it all. "That duel, it was too much. Too close."
"You were hurt?"
"I don't know what happened." Piper could feel her cheeks flushing red again. "But I don't want it. I don't want to be around him right now."
Arrow's eyes widened. "You really felt something with him, didn't you? Your implants really connected."
"Oh, for fuck sake, I am not having this conversation right now." She shot Arrow a furious glance. "Never mind Odiye. What the hell am I supposed to do about this... thing in my head?"
Arrow clicked their tongue. "Well, whatever it is, it's unique to your implants. We can always see if Carstairs would take a closer look at the skull architecture. Or maybe one of the AIPs."
"I want to know where these things came from!" Piper snarled, spinning and kicking a nearby canister so hard that pain went lancing up her leg. She sucked a pained breath in through gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes shut. "This isn't fair. It's not supposed to be possible to be born like this."
"And yet, here you are," Arrow said bluntly.
"But how?!"
"Back before the schism cyborgs – human machine hybrids – they weren't that uncommon. Back then it was all bionic limbs, metal organs and stuff like that, but the AmpCore implants..." An uneasy shrug. "Well, they're not that different. Just a lot more advanced. Maybe there's some blacktech we don't know about somewhere. Maybe someone grafted you as a baby and they figured out some way to make the implants grow with you."
"Is that even possible?" Piper wasn't feeling much calmer after this exchange.
Arrow ran a gentle finger back behind their ear, looking thoughtful. "I mean, there are always theories. A whole lot of crazy stuff died in the Schism. Maybe someone rescued a little piece of it and stuck in you?"
"And what a lot of good its done me too." Piper rolled her eyes. "If I ever meet them I'm going to knock their teeth out."
A wry smile flickered on Arrow's face. "Can't argue with that."
"So, if I've got some forgotten corporate blacktech jammed into my fucking bones, how do we find out where it came from?"
"The best thing to do would be to figure out who your real father is, and find out why he got erased from the world." They took a sudden step forward and gripped Piper by the arm. "Every piece of this is connected. If you want to understand it, we need to go back to the start."
Piper nodded slowly. "My mother."
"We might not be allowed to leave with the wraiths hunting you, but we can probably convince Toran to bring her here."
"To AmpCore?!"
"If we're careful." Arrow's voice dropped low. "We can sneak her in. I can get around the firewalls and the security scanners long enough to get her to one of the subsidiary buildings. She's the only one who could tell us anything. Her and your sister."
"We still don't know where she is."
"One thing at a time, Piper."
"Easy for you to say."
"I have family too, you know," Arrow shot back. "We're not all as bloody soulless as you think."
"I didn't say that." Piper turned, gently gripped Arrow's wrist and prising their grip away. "I'm sorry. I know you're trying to help."
"It's okay." They sighed, folding their arms tight and hugging themselves. "But before we do anything else, we need to tell Odiye – about everything. We can't do this just you and me."
Then someone knocked on the door.
Piper almost jumped out of her skin and the pair leapt apart, hands reaching for their amplifiers. The door slid open moment later, and in stepped Toran Knox, a smarmy grin on his face, with a grim-looking Odiye close behind him.
"Christ, aren't you two a pain in the ass to find?" Toran grunted, casting a glance back at Odiye. "Would've thought after your little dance you'd be in a little closer proximity."
"What is it, Toran?" Arrow asked, their voice flat as they slowly slid their amplifier back into its sheathe.
"Oh, just a little breakthrough in corporate espionage." His grin widened and Piper felt her skin crawling. "I'm sure you remember my little... altercation last night?"
"Enough games," Odiye growled, giving him a thump on the arm as he stepped forward. Piper met his eyes; her implants crackled and she instantly felt that same connection she'd felt on the duelling ground. Every inch of his architecture glowed for her.
She looked away.
"Lenor Karga," Odiye continued, clearing his throat. "She's from Skiltron. We think her father's involved in this, keeping the information on the wraiths locked up."
"Prick already tried to subpoena the evidence, put a big anvil down right on top of the academy citing prior evidential prudence to keep the wraiths out of our hands."
"Citing what?" Piper gave him an irritated glance.
Toran winked. "A long way of saying 'we saw them first'. My dad put the legal roadblocks up."
"And who's her father?" Arrow asked.
"Mazvinar Karga," he replied. "Skiltron Exec with a bad attitude and delusions of grandeur."
"Not sure how that sets him apart from the rest of you," Piper muttered.
"Yeah, well this one's got his fingers in all of this. I got their sealed payrolls pulled by our cyber division. Bet you can't guess who's cashing crypts on the side?"
Piper cocked an eyebrow. "Operative Demir?"
"That's right. Karga's got some fat stakes in this, so I've arranged a ... private chat with his daughter to see if we can't find out a little more about what the books won't show."
Odiye gave him a grim look. "It's an interrogation, Toran. Stop looking like you're having so much fun."
"Excuse the hell out of me for being happy that we're finally getting somewhere in this mess." Toran beckoned them, a thoroughly malevolent expression crossing his features. "You might want to come along for this one, Piper, because I think Miss Karga's got a lot to tell us, about dear old dad, about the codewraiths, and about you."
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