Velvet clutched her pistol tight as blaster turrets chipped away at the corner she hid behind. Supercompressed bytecode was hard stuff, but corpo uplinks came equipped with the best: Ramp architectures and Black ICE. Within the Hypernet, they'd manifest as tremendous stepped pyramids of neon and black, crowned by a beam of solid, shimmering light.

No backdoors. None Velvet could find, anyways. She'd have to fight her way up to the top.

Suddenly, she felt a tremble in the code beneath her feet. A scytheblade swung out from 'round the corner, hit the spot right where her head just was. As she slid down the sloped datastream, sliding on her rear, she sent three blaster bolts into the silvery Mechanoid targeting her, watched it disintegrate to glowing bytecode.

Velvet caught her breath behind another block of compressed code. Only now, did she realize the shaking of her hands.

She told herself this wouldn't be the end. Again and again, till she'd grown sick of it. As she peered off across the endless lattice, she heard herself pray upon a shooting star. Just as her father once did.

A spark packet racing across the lattice, zigzagging between security sniffers and sentry daemons. Velvet watched as the spark leapt off the grid, descibed a low arc right at her. She scrambled, aiming for a block down the ramp just before impact.

When the pain in her head cleared, she found herself in a mist of microcode, offered a hand aglow with geometric tattoos. Velvet staggered back, grabbing for her blaster, before the stranger grabbed her upright.

"You've found yourself the bind, haven't you?" teased the stranger, sharing a suggestive leer under her witch's hat. "I'll save you, dear. But only because you're my type."

The arms-dealer's shop stood on the verge of the Undercity, in run-down strip mall nestled beneath the onramp. As usual, Amber inspected the present company, the sightlines, the microexpressions on passerby, before flicking on her motorcycle's anti-theft. Concessions to chance never ended well.

The hyena bouncer stepped aside, admitted them to a sprawling shop bathed in red neon. Clusters of shelves offered shrinkwrapped ammo and dusty used guns, some dating back to over a century. Amber fancied the heft of one "Desert Eagle", twirled it in her hand while Dutch talked business, till some hyena clapped her on the shoulder.

"Didn't your momma tell ya not to play with guns?" he teased, hot breath against his ear.

Amber elbowed him and spat, "Mama wasn't around. Nobody was."

"No one to love ya? I could change that."

Amber flipped the Deagle in her hand and smacked him across the jaw. Seemed to get the point across.

This was taking too long. She nudged Dutch on the shoulder, asked about the sitch. Turns out their "guest" wasn't being entirely straight with them.

"C- Come on, Samira..." Don begged, waving his hands, "We both knew the narcos play dirty."

Their contact studied him through curved compound optics. Antennae-like sensors twigged to his fear, brought a smile to her bony face. "Is that what you told your clients down in El Paso?"

"Ahh, well. That was there, now is now. You know there ain't nobody who knows the cartels like me."

"Yet they still want to kill you."

"Was how it always is. Everyone's lookin' to make a quick buck, even if it means icing your best friend."

"And do you know how much you've made me? *Precisely zero.*"

Don fell back a pace. Samira moved fast. Within moments she'd vaulted the glass display case, had a pistol pressed against Don's head. She continued,

"How about we settle this thing for good? Much as I'd love to put a bullet through your brain, I know someone who'd pay *damn* good money for your rotten hide. Heard she's an old friend."

Amber rubbed her head, broke off to tour the shelves. Thankfully, Dutch stepped in,

"If the deal's off, that's fine. Just gimme a piece and we're solid."

"Not so fast, *Commander Hopkins*."

Dutch froze solid. Riley dashed out from behind a rack, sighted his laser rifle on Samira.

"What do you know about the Commander?!"

"Pffheh! So it was real. I thought it was too good to be true," Samira snickered, leaning back against the counter. "I don't know a damn thing, shorty. All's I know is you're my golden ticket out of this hellhole."

"Citizenship? Is that what this is about?"

"Maybe."

Riley knew where this was going. He drew a bead on Samira's head, only for a hyena to send him flying into the shelves behind him. Amber barely dodged the heavy racks as they dominoed across the shop. Meanwhile Dutch drew his gun, and Don ran sweaty fingers over the toothpicks in his boot.

"Five against four, we've got the edge," Samira snapped.

"Y'know what happens to cornered prey?" Dutch said.

"Did I say five? I meant seven."

Two more hyenas staggered in from the back, drawing knives and surrounding the three men. Amber was already starting for the door, knocking ammo boxes off of shelves.

"This place is gettin' hot. I'm outta here, Dutch."

Dutch swore at her. She didn't care. All that mattered were the hyenas blocking the door.

"Outta my fuckin' way."

The grabby one took her arm. His partner held her wrist, pinned her to the shelf beside the door.

Amber seethed through a sharp grin, "Feelin' fiesty, eh? Synth-vag and joyboys don't do it for ya?"

"We like a challenge," snickered grabby-hands, drawing callused fingers down her tank-top's neckline. "You look like you got some fight in ya."

"And you look like ya got some balls," she'd retort, feeling the sweat bead on her forehead. "Mind if I get comfortable, then?"

Her arms released, Amber started shedding her heavy trenchcoat. She shimmied out of her sleeves, broadened her shoulders to slow its descent. Eyes turned, weapons rested, and grabby-hands got horny as fuck. He never saw it coming when she shot him in the balls.

The room watched stunned as he keeled over. As clouds of smoke burst between the aisles, two fifty-cal shots chased another damp thud onto the floorplate. She roared behind her, "Y'all wanna die? Come on!"

By time Samira leapt over the counter, all she found were muddy shoeprints, and gunshots in the fog.