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The puddle jumper approached touchdown slowly—too slow, for Vig’s taste. A-COM contracts on A-COM worlds were bad enough. But landing at an Anim-Aug facility? That was practically suicide, or something worse. Of all the corporate enterprises in all the systems under the jurisdiction of the Amage-Moon Mineral and Expansion Compact, the corpos’ trumped up slavers were the most reliably unpredictable and aggressive with human acquisitions. Every second spent in their airspace was inviting disaster.“So stuck in the past,” Vig sighed into the shuttle window.“Who is?”Kam, Vig’s bodyguard of choice for the handoff, was two heads taller than them and much better dressed for the weather. Her high-collared leather jacket and the peaked cap perched far back on her tied, curly hair—all of it newer and nicer than what she typically wore, buttoned primly up the length of her long, dark body — would keep the rain off. Not like Vig’s skirted suit. Their blood red ensemble would be better armor against the guards, however. A-COM thugs were practically bred to follow corporate power dynamics. You could deflect most of the rank and file with the right clothes and a sour voice that promised sweetness. Of course, the gun-toting peons in their shiny helmets and skintight combat suits milling about the landing pad weren’t the real threat—that would be any other suits that exited from the facility. In which case a bit of cleavage could still be a surprisingly effective advantage.“You’re awake,” said Vig, glaring at their bodyguard from the corner of their eye.Kam’s eyes were closed in the seat next to their employer—had been for some time. Nobody could fall asleep at the drop of a hat like Kamelia. “You know, muttering to yourself isn’t very attractive.”“Neither is eavesdropping.”“Neither is changing the subject and hoping I won’t notice. Who were you talking about?”“All of them,” Vig said, turning back to watch the spot of dry tarmac grow beneath the windburn of their shuttle turbines. “You’d think they were still living in the old empire. All they did was trade one deity for another, aestheticism for brutalism—or just plain brutality.”“You sound like one of those anarchists,” Kam mused. Vig could see in the window’s reflection that she had opened her eyes and taken over the shuttle’s controls from autopilot as they approached the ground.“How do you know I’m not?”“You bought me,” Kam said. “I don’t think dewy-eyed revolutionaries condone trading custom human operators like fancy pots. And what am I, if not a work of art? Yours, now, I suppose.”Vig gave a crooked smile, revealing one canine. “The difference is you’re one of a kind. I may have paid for you, but no one really owns something like you.”“Except legally,” Kam countered. “And you’re not one to complain about a little brutality. You brought me along for a reason.”Vig’s pointed ears twitched over their orange hair, then swiveled suddenly to listen behind themself and Kam. Their cargo had swayed ever-so-slightly in the tight, nylon webbing that held it upright. The shuttle's inertial dampeners would never allow the figure to shift in transit, meaning the package had stirred itself. Each strap still looked secure—pulled taut from the vertical contours of the cargo fabric to the steel floor beneath it—so any amount of movement was still quite impressive.“You said it yourself.” Vig stretched and undid an extra button under their already open jacket. “You’re a work of art. I need an appropriate accessory to look the part tonight. An old friend got us permission to bring in the cargo ourselves, but we need to make an impression if we want A-COM to keep taking us seriously.”“Wheels down,” Kam interjected. Her voice went cold so quickly it surprised even Vig. That was Kam for you. Her mood, demeanor, even her face seemed to change just slightly faster than a natural human could match. No more teasing; the time for threat assessment had begun.Sure enough, the shuttle came to a smooth stop perching on the tarmac like a model on a shelf. A-COM spared no expense lending its toys the appearance of perfect, fragile showpieces, right up until they stung you. That went for the shuttle the corp had sent, the walking combat cages that were their signature, the terraforming arcologies they sold the galactic powers that be, and Kam.Though whether or not A-COM even knew Kam was one of their own inventions was a complicated matter—one Vig needed as far from their mind as possible in the meeting to follow.The shuttle door hissed open. Vig could suddenly hear the downpour that had been beating at the soundproof hull of their ship since they breached the cloud level. As they disembarked, the rain instantly doused Vig’s furred, feline ears and dripped down the porcelain portions of their skin, drawing lines between their freshly exposed breasts. The occasional splotch of slate gray flesh, like the circle over their left eye and cheek, drank the light where the rest of it reflected almost garishly back at the bright lights shone upon them and Kam. With the engines powering down, water rushed to fill the evaporated perimeter around them until wavering reflections of floodlights in the shadows splashed Vig’s high-heeled boots.The fur of their tail was just as orange as their ears, but it was hard to see with the way it reflexively flicked the water away behind them, but that wouldn’t raise any eyes in an A-COM facility. Nor would their strangest feature: a pair of dark horns sprouting from the top of their forehead, arching back towards their pointed ears. The one on the right appeared mostly natural, melting from its dark green tip to the same pale white as Vig’s skin. The one on Vig’s left, however, had clearly been severed or snapped close to the base. In its place was a stubby prosthetic. Why Vig had elected for such an off-model replacement, rather than restorative gene therapy to replace the original, was anyone’s guess.Genetically modified inter-humans like them were no rare occurrence in the galaxy these days. Not even out here. In fact, they were exceptionally common among Anim-Aug assets, though the company treated them as personal property. Very personal, depending on the agent and their opinion on personal freedom.“Thought they were sending a merc,” said the frontmost figure of the welcoming party. This one carried a baton at her hip rather than the assault rifles the other three members of their cadre wore over their waists. She was also cloaked in a pure, white latex rather than the black-with-red-strips that encased the lower-ranking members. “What’s your designation, slut?” It’s going to be one of those , Vig thought. Glad I wore the red tonight. “That would be Vigil Vimor,” Vig said aloud. “You can call me Vig, but you might want to check your manifest. I’m not one of your slu- operators, soldier. I’m just here for a drop-off. After which you’ll allow me to get back to more important business as quickly as possible.”“Is that right?”The soldier moved closer to Vig. Kam didn’t visibly tense, but their employer had learned to sense when their escort was about to react. They raised a sharp-nailed hand to wave them off and let the sergeant (at least Vig assumed she was a sergeant) approach.Her white mask retracted from her face in every direction at once, revealing slicked back blonde hair and eye black so thin it looked like makeup. Her lip curled up in a sneer. Towering over the much smaller mercenary, sneering down as she noticed Vig’s shirt was almost completely transparent in the wet, exposing the lace edges of black lingerie beneath.“I heard you mutts were breeding out in the wild now,” the sergeant sniffed. “Surprised the higher-ups can work with you without laughing, thinking about how many times they’ve railed the rest of your litter in their boardrooms. Unless maybe they do you, too.”Vig simply smiled back up at the guard, making no attempt to cover themself or stop her ogling. Even as she unholstered her baton and brought it snugly between their legs. Even as she reached down and slid her free, gloved hand to Vig’s ass, giving it a greedy squeeze and bringing them into a possessive embrace.“Is that part of your payment, kitten? Maybe I should hire you.”Vig slid their fingers up the slick material of the soldier’s arm, tracing the muscles beneath to the bicep. The guard looked surprised, but not enough to pull away. Rather, Vig curled their tail around the tip of the baton and pulled it even snugly between their thighs, sawing the weapon gently against their groin and drawing the guard even closer.Vig continued to slide one claw gently up the sergeant’s body, first to the bottom of her ear, then to her throat. They brought it beneath her rubber-clad chin, beckoning her not possessively, as the sergeant had done, but capriciously, leaving it entirely within the woman’s power to follow and beg along after it — lest she lose that gentle prick of pressure. She followed the touch instinctively, without a word, clearly well-trained by the inter-humans she was used to obeying her every intimation. She grinned and bent down at the waist as Vig lowered their claw ever-closer to their lips. “Maybe you should, soldier,” Vig cooed to the taller woman. “But I’m working on company time. Which means it’s your bosses’ money you’d be spending on me. Tell me: what do they do to big, strong girls like you who go into debt?”Vig’s tail slid back suddenly, taking the baton and the sergeant’s balance with it. The woman stumbled to her knee, unexpectedly meeting Vig’s gaze directly. She wasn’t grinning now. Now it was impossible to tell if it was rain or sweat rolling down the woman’s muscled outline.Impossible to anyone but Vig. They could always smell the difference.Leaning in closer, so that their lips just brushed the woman’s ear, Vig whispered “I promise I’d make it worth it."Without looking, Vig’s tail brought the baton around to their waiting hand before lobbing it sidelong over the sergeant’s shoulder. It clattered to the wet tarmac and rolled through a puddle between the watching circle of the sergeant’s subordinates. Their hidden faces made it impossible to tell if they looked up on their commanding officer with disgust, embarrassment, or envy. Vig liked to think it was all three.“Fetch, puppy,” Vig commanded, standing imperious over their self-styled superior.The sergeant scrabbled backwards, a little slower to rise to her feet than she likely intended, and made her way back to her weapon. It was impossible not to look pathetic doing exactly as Vig had ordered, but she was otherwise unarmed without her little stick. This time, Vig swore they heard a snicker from one of the other guards as the sergeant bent back down to retrieve her baton.That would at least buy them some time. It wouldn’t be long before the goons remembered they didn’t respect Vig. Anim-Aug, among all the A-COM nation-subsidiaries, had a fun little quirk of dehumanizing its augmented operators with added animal traits. Not that they needed it. Each pilot who went through the program underwent thorough mental conditioning that left them totally competent, compliant, and bereft of any memories they had ever lived otherwise. The physical dehumanization was for their fellow soldiers. It marked the enslaved cage pilots as willing prey for their frustrations — and served as a visible reminder of what happened to those who crossed the company.“Kamelia,” Vig said. “Be a dear and bring out our pilot.”The sergeant looked up at the black-clad woman, as if noticing her for the first time. Kam, for her part, didn’t even spare the sergeant a piteous glance as she turned on her heel and reentered the shuttle. This didn’t sit well with the sergeant, who glared a hole into the back of Kam’s long coat. She soothed the ignominy of being ignored by approaching a slender subordinate who held a glowing data slate in one hand, snatching it and reading quickly. “There are only two passengers on this manifest,” the sergeant said. “Seems to me like you’re up to something. Maybe the sort of something we ought to detain you for and sort things out from there.”“Look again,” Vig instructed. “I said we had a pilot, not a passenger. The kind that flies freight.” Kam returned with the pilot in question at the end of a long strap — one of the ones that had previously tied the cargo to the floor of the shuttle. The rest of the restraints dangled lazily off the almost mummified body that trailed at the behest of Kam’s makeshift leash. The woman — the pilot — was wrapped in the same tight, slick material as the guards, only this bodysuit covered her from head to toe, leaving no visible opening for the face or a mask. There was only what looked like a small filter at the base of her hooded face to let her breathe.Two boots were visible at the bottom, as the tight container formed a vague “dress” with the ankles bound so closely together that the pilot had to hobble and hop behind Kam whenever she tugged. Her sleeves only allowed the elbows free before connecting back to the rest of the suit at the small of the figure’s back, binding the forearms together behind her.The only other identifying marks were a series of stickers placed all over the bound form, vibrant yellow framing white text: “DANGER”, AUGMENTED OPERATOR, “DO NOT APPROACH.” One such warning sign, stuck at a jaunty angle over the slight swell of the figure’s lower belly, read “NOT A PERSON.”This actually got a smile out of the sergeant. “I’ll be damned. You really found 636! Thought we’d lost the old girl to the Pwyll.”“You did,” Kam explained. “They were just three hours shy of the jump gate that would have taken her home for deprogramming. We happened to approach their convoy on a different contract. The Pwyll’s location scrambler was disabled in the fight and your company was able to locate her via long-distance ping. They found us instead.”Even Kam’s slight jab at her competence couldn’t deter the sergeant’s joy. Her embarrassment temporarily forgotten, the soldier stepped towards 636. Kam pulled the leash hard, dragging the pilot forward with a clumsy wobble. The sergeant then pulled along an almost invisible zipper on the center of the figure’s hood, revealing the sweat-drenched and bedraggled face of a slightly older woman.Her swept back hair had turned to gray at the sides. Though it was hard to tell, as someone had shaved it short from the temples to her ears, where several small marks implied old piercings had closed long ago. Her green eyes, however, remained just barely open — staring up with glassy indifference at their new observer. There were soft lines beneath them, speaking to a life lived smiling or shouting or both. Ignoring her exhaustion and body bindings, Vig’s impression of 636 was that of a once hard and lively woman who had survived beyond her wildest days, a common sort among Pwyll citizens old enough to have fought in the rebellion.That was except for her lips. The top of the hood had been peeled back, but the “filter” that allowed her to breathe remained. Now it was obvious that this part of her cocoon was attached to some sort of plug that appeared to fill her mouth. 636’s lips stretched around the bulky mass in a perfect, obscene “O” shape.“There’s my favorite little combat computer,” the sergeant said. “You were a very naughty girl, getting yourself rescued like that.”She pinched the filter between two fingers and gently pulled — revealing just how deep the plug had been nestled down the pilot’s throat. 636 hardly seemed to notice. She didn’t gag or sputter. The rain made it hard to see, but Vig noticed the lights were bright enough to glitter on a long line of drool from the woman’s tongue to the thin tip of the plug when it was finally removed.Without turning, Vig looked to Kam for a reaction. It would be a disaster if she lost her cool and started a fight out of some misplaced sense of kinship with the cage pilot. If Kam had any opinions on this brazen display, however, they weren’t obvious. Her eyes remained fixed on the various soldiers for any sign that they had decided to cut this transaction short. She didn’t even run her eyes back to the sergeant as a meaningful threat.“I’m not… supposed to be here,” 636 managed, with an unnatural softness that Vig knew only came with being broken and rebuilt one too many times. “Where is the d-doctor?”While 636 still had her human ears, her mouth did display a set of pristine, white fangs. Dissuading any question about whether she had gotten these herself, or if Anim-Aug had arranged for them, her right canine included a tiny barcode arrayed vertically down the length of the tooth.“Wrong planet, 636,” the sergeant answered. “Dr. Caul’s been gone for weeks. But don’t worry…”The guard reached into a satchel at her waist, holding another tiny object between her rain-slick fingers. This one was a tiny, oblong pill: pink on one side and white on the other.“I’ve got your medicine right here.”“N-No…” 636’s eyes finally went wide. She shook her head, never taking her eyes off the pill. “Only the doctor is supposed to… No, I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not… 636. My… My name is Hera Gladios. I’m a cage lance c-captain of the Pwyl Abscission. M-My name is Hera Gladios! Hera!”“That’s right, 636. That’s what makes you such a wonderful tactical asset. Which is why you want to take your medicine.”“No. I don’t. I won’t! I want… I want to take my medicine. N-No!”“Of course you do,” the sergeant sneered. She wafted the tiny pill back and forth before the former captain’s eyes, taking great joy in the way her head moved this way and that, hair dripping with each sway in the rain, to follow the object of her obsession. “You love to take your medicine.”“I… I love… to take my medicine,” Hera agreed. Her tongue couldn’t quite seem to return to her head after she spoke this time, lolling loose to drool further and refill itself with raindrops.The sergeant just kept on taunting Hera, waving her hand back and forth before the bound woman’s unblinking eyes. “And what was your name again?”“I am… Animated Coprocessor 636,” the pilot concluded. “AC-636.”The sergeant finally showed mercy and held the pill still just inches away from the pilot’s face. “Say ‘aah,’” the sergeant ordered. Hera acquiesced, her childish response totally incongruous with her weathered face. Her head was able to list forward just enough to lap the pill from the sergeant’s white glove—at which point the larger woman closed her hand around the pilot’s chin and cheeks, squishing her face almost comically, and forcing her head back to ensure she swallowed. Not that it was least bit necessary, of course.Vig felt a thread of guilt wrap tightly around a much deeper pit of anger. The sergeant was doing this to recoup some of the dignity she had lost to the lowly mercenary — a wild mutt, no less. She knew Vig knew it, too, for when she stuffed two fingers down 636’s throat, choking her with rubber to make a ludicrous show of forcing the drug into her system, it was Vig she flashed with another wicked sneer.This display did spark a reaction from Kam. Though whether the sergeant’s taunt, the pilot’s treatment, or Vig’s own rising hackles drew it out was unclear. Vig still noticed the smallest bend to Kam’s knees as the bodyguard focused with sudden intensity on the captive Abscissionist war hero.Grateful for the distraction, Vig spared a sliver of attention to wonder what they sensed from Kamelia. This didn’t feel like anger at all. It had the rather more piquant gravity of attraction. Vig stifled a profane gasp as they recognized this sensation: Kam felt envy .For just a moment, 636 and the guard evaporated in lieu of this silent, more interesting performance. I knew I was going to like you, Vig thought. You are going to be so very, very entertaining. But Vig's body betrayed their mental detachment, and with some effort they swallowed and wrested themself back under complete control, keeping their breath even and their expression as marble for the both of them. “Our business is concluded. We’ll take our payment now.”The sergeant seemed to ignore the mercenaries and as she inspected 636, yet she snapped the two fingers she had slid down the pilot’s throat. It was apparently a signal to the guard with the data slate to begin processing something. Vig glanced at Kam again, craning their neck for a better look this time, and saw her escort had quelled her own desires. She slid her wrists behind her back and held them stiffly together as the pair of mercenaries waited.“Who are you?” the sergeant asked the pilot.“I am AC-636,” she murmured.“What do you remember?”“I serve the Compact.”“For how long?“I have… always… served the Compact.”“Very good,” said the sergeant. “We’ll get you dried off and into something more comfortable, but first we’ll let the Pwyll know you made it home safely.”“Yes,” agreed 636.Behind the guard, the doors to the A-COM facility flowed open, letting shine a square beam of even more intense light. The hallway inside was stark white and spotless, but the technician who strode out was not. In contrast to the uniform latex body stockings the guards wore, this woman seemed almost haggard: chin-length black hair bouncing ragged in the rain, thin prosthetic legs kicking up heavy splashes, with weathered sleeves rolled up to expose her synthetic hands and mostly synthetic arms. Her left eye had been lost and replaced—old-style prosthetics, with several lenses overlapping side-by-side on the exterior of her skull. What little flesh she still had left was home to more scars than skin.What stood out the most to Vig, however, were the stubby feline ears and her long, fur-covered tail twisting in the wind.The tech reached 636 just as the sergeant was zipping her back up. The plug slid snugly home last, ensuring the pilot would not be able to bite herself or anyone else if she ever regained any semblance of her old self again.“Take her to the broadcast room,” the sergeant snapped at the tech. “Make sure she doesn’t pass out yet. We need her talking.”“Yes, ma’am.” The tech placed a hand on 636’s back and urged her forward. It was slow going with the pilot’s legs still bound, but the tech didn’t seem to mind. Vig watched as she gave her charge a gentle squeeze of encouragement on the exposed part of her arm.Vig’s wandering attention snapped right back to the sergeant when she wheeled, swatting the baton flat across the small of the ramshackle tech’s back. The woman gasped and crumpled, her metal knees hitting the pavement hard. The sergeant followed up by grabbing the tech’s hair, yanking her bodily off the ground before she could refind her footing. The technician half-stood, half-kneeled at a painful angle, suspended by the grip, as the sergeant spoke.“If she disappears again, I’ll declare you faulty equipment. You got that, mutt?”This, too, was done for Vig’s “benefit.” There was no way this tech had been selected by chance, with her features so closely matching her fellow. Anger squeezed tighter against its restraints, twisted guilt burrowing deeper and deeper into Vig’s heart until the seeping rage threatened to spill and swallow it whole. Unseen by anyone in the moment, fangs slipped over Vig’s bottom lip; claws punctured their palms and added blood to the downpour.Kam, by contrast, made neither a sound nor a move, just keeping her hands locked over their wrists. Whatever they had seen their own A-COM captors do once upon a time, this didn’t even register a response. Not even when the tech gave a muddled “yes, ma’am” and received a kick to her ribs — still muscle and bone by the sound of the impact — for her trouble.The thread of guilt snapped, sending a violin twang of tension reverberating through Vig’s spine. Their jaw pulled back in a silent hiss, and their horns ached under the pressure of rising blood in their face.“Kamelia,” Vig said. “I’ve changed my mind. These folks look a bit dry, don’t you think?”Kam glanced at her employer, eyes just a bit wider than their usual neutrality. “You think so, boss?” She wasn’t usually one to ask questions, but she knew better than almost anyone the potential rewards of working with A-COM. Just as she knew the cost of provoking them. “I only packed one umbrella."“What the hell are you two moaning back there?” the sergeant snapped. “You’ll get your money when I say you-”“That’s okay,” said Vig. “I don’t mind getting splashed.”Kam released the trigger on the remote switch she had hidden up her sleeve on the shuttle. The shuttle immediately activated its own floodlights, sweeping LED beams rated for warp gate lanes directly into the guards’ eyeline. The sergeant was the least prepared of the bunch, having never reactivated her mask. She yowled like a wounded animal and fell over completely backwards this time. She clutched her eyes in pain and rolled across the water. The rest of her group would only take a second to realize what was happening and recover.Kam didn’t give it to them. Her pistol had already placed three precise shots in the farthest two guards: the first taking two in the chest, with Kam letting the recoil raise her wrist to take the second squarely in their faceplate.The guard closest to Vig reacted faster, having been positioned just to the side of the shuttle’s beams. They drew their rifle on the bodyguard… just in time for Vig to slam its length up and across their mask, sending a hail of fire into the invisible clouds.The faceplate did its work, cracking but not shattering under the blow, and sent the guard reeling back out of range. A set of blood-dipped claws swiped empty air where their throat had been an instant before. This particular soldier seemed prepared to fight rather than just coerce. They dropped into a crouch, making an inconvenient target for Kam’s next two shots, and pulled a knife from their boot.They lunged forward, making sure their silhouette was slimmest when facing Kam, and landed a glancing slash across Vig’s sleeve. Yet more blood twirled loose from the mercenary’s forearm as Vig danced around their combatant. It took a moment too long to realize that the soldier had been working to put Vig between themself and Kam, cutting her gun out of their melee for the time being and putting the glare of light in Vig’s direction.This was exactly the sort of fight for which Vig wasn’t dressed. Hopefully the soldier wouldn’t have time to realize it. The merc’s high heels clacked clumsily against the tarmac as they stepped away from one smooth slash after another — slower than they usually would. One such hit took them across an already-ragged palm, drawing out a hiss of pain. Another just barely touched their cheek. Too close.The guard pressed the advantage harder than seemed safe, but Vig noticed a patch of darkness in the shimmering light of the water and suddenly understood the soldier’s goal: the rifle. It was only a meter outside their reach now. Kam was already stalking a loop around the fight, attempting to get a better angle, but the guard was turning it into a losing race. They could never retrieve their weapon and deal with Kam before she dealt with them, but that would hardly matter. They would shoot straight through Vig in the attempt.Another stab, another step closer. Vig had to regain ground — had to buy time for Kam. They swung their claws down, taking a cut over one shoulder, but rent red lines just above the guard’s knee in exchange. The dance shifted back another step.Unfortunately, this was precisely what the A-COM grunt had wanted. They held their ground, anticipating Vig’s forward momentum, and used it to drive the knife low towards their belly. Vig was forced to dodge, leaving the soldier free to pivot and reach for their weapon with one hand while dropping their knife and wrapping their newly free arm around Vig’s waist. Vig was smaller and lighter by far — easy to lift back into position as their human shield.Vig pulled away, but the gun was already up and pointed at Kam. Vig flapped blindly backwards with their claws as their body weight tilted forward, looking to tear into the soldier’s arm, but they simply didn’t have the reach.At least not with their arms.With all the momentum pooling in their toes, rather than their precarious heels, Vig was finally able to put their full weight on one foot while sending the other into a backwards kick. The second boot thrust into the cracked surface of their opponent’s mask. Hard. There was little resistance as the heel found purchase deep into the meat below. Just the same, Kam didn’t take any chances. They fired another three rounds into the guard’s chest, sending them crumpling backwards with Vig’s boot still stuck in tow. That left Vig standing awkwardly, half-barefoot, one digitigrade leg and its stocking now uncomfortably soaked.Time passed as they scanned for new threats. An alarm, perhaps, or reinforcements from the facility. None came.“I fucking hate the rain,” Vig said. “I can’t wait to be off this godforsaken planet.”Kam grunted noncommittally as she reloaded her pistol. It wasn’t until they saw her begin to level the gun at the still-caterwauling sergeant and her terrified technician that Vig lurched forward, shouting something like “wait,” and pushed the weapon to point back at the pooling ground.“The tech’s not to blame,” they said. “We’ll take her off-world at least.”“I wasn’t going to shoot that one,” said Kam.“The other two have much worse waiting for them than a bullet.”“I know,” Kam explained. “I was going to shoot the pilot.”“S’at right?”It was the technician. Now that the action had passed, she was seated on the tarmac, attempting to light a cigarette as she leaned lazily back against 636’s legs. The pilot didn’t react, standing stiffly at attention in her own sensory deprived heaven, even as the tech let the tension flow out of what few muscles she had and pulled a cigarette from somewhere untraceable. She tried in vain to light it. Vig had never seen anyone but Kam switch so effortlessly between threat assessments. No dying just yet; time for a smoke.The tech took out her frustration with her damp cigarette by placing a hard, synthetic kick into the sergeant’s side. The wailing downgraded to whimpering as the officer rolled onto her side — which all in attendance agreed was at least an improvement. Heaven help me , Vig thought. I like this one, too.“You wanna take me, that’s fine, but I ain’t going nowhere without Hera.”“Who is she to you?” Kam asked.“Nobody,” replied the technician. “I only got charged with cleaning up after her two weeks ago, when the doc behind her program cleared out. Looking for new folk to break. All I know is she ain’t like the usual pilots. They plug her into a sim-cage and use her to predict Pwyll battle tactics. She wrote about half of them back during the rebellion, y’know. Least that’s what they say.”“And who are you?” It was Vig’s turn to ask a question.“Calypso.”There was a brief pause as Vig and Kam waited for a more detailed answer. When one didn’t reveal itself, Vig added: “She’s too easy to track. It was hard enough bypassing the shuttle’s security. She’s jammed with tracking tech down to her cells.”“Then I’ll stay here with her,” Calypso said.“They’ll kill you,” Kam answered. “No one is getting out of this without punishment, and you’re much too attrited for A-COM to bother salvaging into a pilot or a domestic servant. You’ll simply be classified as breakage and discarded.”“Yep.”Calypso didn’t look worried, but it was a familiar form of resolve to Vig: the courage of a woman with nothing left to lose anymore. Admirable, desirable even, but not new . Kam had ticked through the entire exchange without a single hint of concern. She was simply stating the facts as written, assessing a situation and providing the appropriate response just like any good cage pilot to come out of A-COM’s mass produced mindfuckery should. Yet she wasn’t with A-COM anymore; she was with Vig. She had quite literally been discarded herself, once, and survived. Did she even realize how similar their situations were?Were it not for her leak of envy earlier, Vig would have questioned how much “Kam” really existed at all and how much was just pre-programmed responses to stimuli — responses written by people like those who had bent Hera into 636.Riding high on adrenaline and finally free of masking for the sergeant’s sake, Vig shivered almost imperceptibly with excitement and giddy terror. Their old friend, Dr. Anaste Caul, wouldn’t be pleased when she heard what Vig had done with her favor. Their small lips parted in the slightest of grins.The future was going to be very exciting indeed.“Fine,” they finally replied. “We’ll sell the good captain back to her anarchist friends as soon as we can. Not like anybody else is going to pay for her after this. You, on the other hand, work for me now.”“Fine,” agreed Calypso. “I ain’t worth much as slaves go, but-”“Slave? Oh, heavens. How long have you been living with these freaks? I’m going to pay you, fool. Though I’ll need to launder a new company license first.”“The rest of the group won’t be happy,” Kam said. “You almost had a mutiny last time.”Vig swiveled on their remaining boot, putting their hands impishly behind their waist and kicking their bare foot into the air as they looked up to Kam. “Did they? That doesn’t sound right. I’m always so charming!”“Sorry,” Calypso interjected. Her inert cigarette fought valiantly to stay positioned between her lips through a look of bewilderment. “My turn for a question. Who are you?”“I don’t know,” Vig said. “We’ll need a new name for the review board. I’ll think of something on the shuttle.”Calypso wasn’t done. “Okay, then where exactly are we going?”“Somewhere big enough to hide out until her friends get bored of looking,” Vig said, motioning to the sergeant. “I’m thinking someplace quiet, like Heidegrad, or maybe Spear. Unless you object to leaving her behind.”Calypso looked back to the sergeant. She was sobbing softly now. If there was any silver lining for her, it was that A-COM would certainly provide her with new eyes. Though she wouldn’t like the rest of the changes they made.“Nah. Even I got my limits.”“That reminds me… Kam, be a dear and collect my boot.”Kam walked over to the body that had claimed the deadly footwear. She pressed her own boot against the guard’s chest and stepped down, tugging on the lost item to pry it loose from gristle and glass.“Spear, huh,” Calypso said. “Not a great place for mercenary work.”“Oh, I don’t know. I always find some way to get us into trouble. Plus there’s nothing out there for A-COM to pillage and plunder.”“They always find something,” Calypso said, but raised a hand for Vig to take. Her new employer pulled her up just as Kam claimed her the prize from the corpse.“We’d better get moving,” Calypso insisted. “Guard changes in eight minutes.”“Good,” said Vig. “I’ve seen enough of this place. It’s about time for some change.”Six minutes later, the shuttle was back over the cloud line without a trace of rain in sight.