Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

02 - Bad Day, Worse Luck

"What the shit?" Kirk babbled as they pelted through the dock streets. "Was that what I think it was?!"

"Codewraith," Piper panted, stumbling as she went skidding around a corner. "Has to be."

"How did it get here?"

"How should I know? Let's just get out of here!"

They kept running, and she pulled out in front without thinking, pure terror lending her speed. Heavy metal steps echoed like someone striking a gong as the wraith gave chase, blurting out random scraps of binary codescreams. Piper felt her bones jangle every time the noise caught up to her, like the thing's animal howls were cutting right through her skin.

She hurtled around a narrow bend, skidding through the detritus of old food wrappers and bottles as she went. Another tight alley stretched off ahead of her, and she set off. But she only made it a few steps before she heard a curse and a clatter from behind her.

Twisting to a halt, she looked back to see that Kirk had lost his footing coming around the corner, sliding into a heap on the alley floor. He scrambled upright; glanced back the way they'd come.

Then the codewraith exploded into view.

It towered over him easily seven feet in height, and Piper couldn't contain a scream as it swung one of its lethal appendages at him. In her mind he was already dead, pounded into a bloody pulp before her eyes.

She should have given him more credit.

Kirk's reflexes saved his life as he ducked, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have torn his head off. But the wraith barrelled on. Its heavy bulk cannoned into him, with enough force to lift him clean off his feet and hurl him into the flimsy wall of one of the pre-fab dwellings.

He smashed straight through it and vanished from sight. A howl of pain cut through the resulting crash of falling metal, a cloud of dust and sparks exploding all around the man-sized hole in the side of the building.

"KIRK!" Piper shrieked, taking half a step forward.

The codewraith examined the ruined wall for an instant before what passed for its head snapped towards her like a snake. Then it started walking, metal clawed toes pulverising the ruined sheeting of the wall as it moved, gathering speed with every step. Another scream of code dug its way into her brain and she felt the boiling cauldron of rage that coursed through the machine's processors.

That was when she truly knew it only wanted her.

Meaning that right now, if Kirk was alive, he was safer than she was. Piper strangled down a sob of fear, spun around and started running. Her worst fears were confirmed when a blurt of codescream echoed down the alley after her, followed by a crescendo of heavy footfalls.

This couldn't be happening. It was all too insane. It shouldn't have been here; shouldn't have been chasing some no-name street girl through a god forsaken slum.

But maybe that was just Hadrian for you – bad luck piled on calamity, piled on catastrophe.

Piper could feel her lungs screaming as she pelted through the tight-packed, ramshackle housing block, mind racing as she tried to think of an escape. Small mercies; the wraith didn't seem to be quicker than her, clanking along on rust-atrophied limbs, misfiring circuits making its movements jerky as it gave chase. With any luck, she knew the streets better than this creature that had walked out of Hadrian's sordid history books.

She twisted left, racing up an incline for a half a block before flinging herself into a tiny crevice of an alley on the right. Her slight frame ricocheted off the walls which shuddered dangerously, but luck kept the whole row of houses from crashing down around her. The smash and clang of the codewraith's steps didn't seem so close now, and she risked a glance back.