Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

16 - We've All Got Problems

Kirk didn't think he'd ever actually been this close to the centre of Hadrian. They weren't really that close in the grand scheme of things, but the light that normally seemed so distant and aloof was beating down on him like an extra sun.

The wraith didn't seem to care though. Its progress continued, inexorable as a guided missile. Still sticking to the shadows too, somehow; finding the cracks and crevices where the dark still held sway over Hadrian. They skulked along behind it, taking excruciating care not to draw its attention.

"This is so weird," Arden whispered as they slunk along in the looming shadow of one of Hadrian's sprawling scrapyards.

"You don't say," he murmured in reply.

She shot him a withering glance. "I mean more than the fact we're following a damned codewraith through the city. This thing seems to know exactly what it's doing. I didn't think wraiths could... well... think."

Kirk nodded grimly. "They shouldn't be able to. Not anymore."

"Do you know about what happened? You know, before the split?"

He considered that for a moment as they crept along. Did he know? He liked to think so, but history was such a corporate smokescreen it was hard to sift out the facts from the face-saving spin that Hadrian's overlords had stamped on everything. They were desperate to bodyswerve the fact that they'd almost destroyed everything in the pursuit of a god damned profit margin.

"I know some," he replied.

"C'mon, Piper says you're like a walking textbook."

"She does?" He looked at her aghast.

Arden cleared her throat, her cheeks reddening. "I mean, in a good way though."

"Oh, well that's alright then." He looked ahead again, watching the wraith slice a neat hole in the chain fence that ringed the scrapyard. "Well, yeah I mean I read up on everything – everything I could find that didn't come from an academy-approved list."

"And what did you find?"

"Well, official story is that the AIs developed a malware problem and went insane. Corps had to shut off their central processing mainframe to stop them overrunning all of Hadrian."

"Ah, the corporate saviours," Arden sneered. "What about the unofficial story?"

"Well, you know, a lot of people say that the AIs just got a bit too smart." He shrugged. "And the corps didn't want to share anymore so they just pulled the plug."

"Sounds a lot more like the corps I know."

"Yeah." Kirk poked his head through the hole in the fence, glancing left and right before stepping over. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" her voice was incredulous as she stepped through after him.

"I don't know, Just seems a little too simple. Corps would have wanted to just shut it down and keep all of Hadrian in one piece don't you think? Instead we've got a bloody wasteland across the water."

"Maybe they just totally fucking miscalculated?"

"Well, I suppose there's that." He smirked. "But whatever the true story is, you're right, wraiths don't think. At least that's what everybody says, corporate spin or not."

Arden's face crumpled with unease. "So what's gotten into this one?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure I want to know."

They sank into silence then, following the wraith as it skirted the perimeter of the scrapyard and sliced another hole in the fence on the far side, coiling itself out onto a quiet back street. Glittering corporate apartment blocks rose up before them, and Kirk could hear the pulse of music from the streets beyond. Life was creeping closer to them.