Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

06 - Lost in the Data Stream

Kirk had dealt with pain before, but he'd never expected to be run over by a killer robot.

The ribs on his right side ached all over, and he suspected more than one of them had been broken, but it wasn't like he had the crypts to cover the treatments anyway. So he swallowed half a dozen cheap-cut painkillers to get himself moving again, and limped his way through the dock slums.

At first he circled back to where the thing had first accosted them, only to find the police had gotten there first, with a pair of baffled looking officers creating a small cordon to keep back the group of gawking civilians.

He could just see Barson's broken body beyond the cordon, one cop kneeling beside him with a scanner chirping in one hand. Kirk allowed himself a fleeting smile at that. Small mercies – at least that loud-mouthed piece of shit wouldn't be throwing his weight around on the docks anymore.

The smile faded, however, when he spotted a battered hunk of metal just beyond the police line. It took him a moment to recognise the violin case, now sporting a massive dent where it had struck the codewraith.

Kirk swallowed hard, weighing up his options. Right now they didn't seem to have noticed the violin, it having bounced so violently off the codewraith that it had been thrown clear of the cordoned area. They'd get to it though, he had no doubt of that. The first responding officers were still frantically babbling into radios, trying to make sense of what they'd found, but it wouldn't last.

He wanted his violin back, but probably more importantly, the last thing he needed right now was to be connected to a dead gangland heir. If the cops picked up the violin and started asking around, it wouldn't take long before someone pointed the finger at him.

So he slithered closer, taking painstaking care not to be seen. Right now the two cops present were a lot more concerned with the dead bodies than the surrounding debris, so he edged past the onlookers. Nobody paid any attention to a scruffy kid from the docks – he might as well have been ash on the wind for all they cared.

The case had landed between a trash pile and a small stack of abandoned crates. Kirk made a show of leaning on the crates for a moment, as though observing the police like everyone else, before stooping down, feeling blindly for the handle of the violin case.

Pain seared up his ribs as he bent over, but he strangled down a growl of pain and closed his fingers around the handle. Straightening, jaw clenched tight, he lingered for a moment longer like any innocent bystander might have, before shuffling off down a side alley.

Once he was sure he was out of sight, Kirk sank to his knees and opened the clasps of the battered case with shaking hands. Prayers from long dead religions passed his lips as he opened it.

The grief hit him before he could process it.

Nestled within its padding, the violin lay, its neck cracked in half and clinging together by a few stray splinters. He stared at it, not believing. Refusing to believe. Tears cut rivulets through the grime on his cheeks. Gulping down the lump in his throat he eased it gently out of the case like wounded bird.

Looking closer just made it worse.

"You fuckers!" Kirk screamed, and he almost hurled the violin away in his rage. He caught himself just in time, squeezing his eyes shut to keep the rest of the tears inside. There weren't a lot of things in Hadrian that he was sentimental about, but the violin was certainly one of them.

It was the only thing he was good at; the only thing he had to offer to Piper to cobble together crypts. Dockside nights flashed in his mind, memories of Piper dancing to his music, her smile lighting up his night. He would have worked himself straight into a grave for her.