Rat glared at the walls of the ‘waiting room.’ Stewing in her anger. Every once in a while she’d get up and kick at the door until her foot hurt and she had to sit down again. Nothing she did seemed to matter. She got screwed regardless of what she did or who she was working for.      She checked her phone one more time. No signal, no way of getting in touch with the...

     “You know, I’m really sick of AIs,” said Gina. “Get us the Hell out of here, Major.”      Lunging for the hatch, Hawthorn shoved his rifle in the gap before it could close. The motors whined and, grinding against the obstruction, died a fiery death. Smoke poured from the maintenance panel as bits blew out one by one. Hawthorn wrenched the rifle out again...

     An unmarked helicopter delivered Rat back to the surface of Laputa. She looked but didn’t find a single trace of bugs, listening devices or any kind of duplicity on Hideo’s part. Nothing to enforce her loyalty. No physical evidence of the meeting. Just his words ringing in her ears.      Under ordinary circumstances, she’d be furious. No way would she have given in to...

     Gina watched from around the corner, not sure what to do. He just sat there like a broken puppet staring into space. That by itself wasn’t unusual for Bomber, but this time, nothing she tried could bring him out of it. Wherever he’d gone, it was somewhere she couldn’t reach him.      The memory made her shiver. Their link had collapsed like a heap of sand. It was as if...

     The same thoughts rolled through Rat’s mind over and over as she rode the underground tram and wrestled with rusty, immovable doors. She kept going back to that spot at the office door. The awful impulse to squeeze taking her over, the harmless little tick that followed.      She’d never failed so spectacularly at anything. It wasn’t even the kind of failure she could...

     What little Gina had in the way of belongings fit into a single rucksack, slung over one shoulder while she waited for the dinghy to hit the beach. Its little engine buzzed like an angry wasp. A sea bird rasped out a few calls in the distance, then gave up on everything like the rest of the local wildlife.      Dirty white sand, the same colour as the leaden sky, sucked at her shoes...