"It's not a 'taser'," Xu says stubbornly.

"You hold it in your hand, you push a button, it zaps you with electricity. Taser," I respond, unruffled.

"Tasers electrocute you. Neural disrupters are configured to directly tap into the awareness centers of the brain. It's surgical. Conflating them is like... well, conflating a toaster with a hairdryer. Or a heat gun. Or, uh-"

"Uh-huh. Not your best examples, doc." Still calling it a taser. Sorry. I put mine away, now. "You picked a hell of a time to start with this again. Not getting nervous, are you?"

"Of course not," Xu says snappishly, but he looks away.

I grin back at him, but it's fleeting, and if I'm honest there isn't really any humour to it, either. He's going into this one unarmed, more or less, keeping his pockets free for the stuff we plan to carry out. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't make me nervous.

I'm support, so if he gets in trouble-

Well, you know the drill.

"Weapons check complete," Valdes speaks into her comms, sounding both fond and exasperated, and puts away her neural dart gun.

"Copy that. Start equipment check," comes the response from command. I don't quite recognise the voice. One of the new Operator trainees, learning the ropes of the basic stuff until Central takes over. It's a new corp, so she wanted to do this one herself. Never did learn to delegate.

I check my cloaking rig for any defects. Xu is looking over his favourite shock trap, and Valdes is examining the seal on the medgel she carries. Here's hoping we won't need it.

There's a limit to how much any of us can carry without losing efficiency. Even an extra quarter-second spent rifling through your stuff for the thing you actually need can mean the difference between life and death, so we only carry the necessities.

We go through a couple more checks - comms, Incognita uplink - and then there's the final one. Tactical overlay.

We've all got augmented reality optical chips built in, which means anything I see at a given moment is a mix of what's actually there and various bits of overlay info painted on top - armour level, firewall level, countdowns, enemy vision zones, helpful little arrows to signify patrol routes, and flashing neon lights if the Operator is feeling particularly unsubtle about it or thinks I'm not taking the hint. And if I focus my eyes just right - which works fine as long as I avoid thinking about it even a little - I can switch to a tactical view of the floor, constructed entirely of projections of every bit of info the Operator is getting from each of us, synthesised in realtime with the help of the planet's single most advanced quantum AI. There's also a top-down view I can access through my tablet, but who's got time for that?

Used right, it's a little like being able to see through walls. A little crazy, if I'm honest. The building around me would turn half-transparent and blueprinty, another agent bright and clear in the room next door, the red suggestion of approaching guards based on nothing but projections from footsteps. It's amazing tech, I won't deny that, and without it we would probably not still be alive.

I could go without by-the-second reminders that not even my eyeballs are homegrown and vanilla, though.

Well, I guess it's not my eyeballs. They don't put the chip directly in there, it's more like it splices into the optical nerve and-

You know what? Not that important right now.

My eyes water just a bit when it comes on, as they always do, as I force myself to look around. A second ago, I could see the inside of the jet and two other people, and now it's overlaid with the jet's floor plan in half-transparent lines, technical details about it, and the current status of the mission and the rest of the team. I turn to look at Valdes and the overlay brings up her vitals - heartbeat quickened in anticipation, but steady. No injuries. (Not yet. And not anytime soon, so help me God.) And of course, we've got our own in-house model of this, so no ads. Thank God for that, every single day.

"All good here," I mutter. The overlay fades a bit, but stays there. Xu and Valdes echo me.

"Alright, team, you're nearly in position." It's Central's voice now. I'm guessing she felt a personal pep talk was of value here. "Remember: Recon only. No unnecessary risks. It gets too hot, and you're out."

"Metaphorically speaking," Xu mouths to himself. Not softly enough.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, ma'am." His spine practically cracks as it straightens, and I smother a snort.

"In that case, you're good to go. Decker, Internationale, Dr. Xu - let us give Neptune Corp a warm welcome to the industry, shall we?"

We step into the telepad at the AI's prompt, and I brace myself. Never did like this part much.

Three people. She's sending a team of three.

Enough that we're faster, stronger, in better position to come to save each other's skin if things go sideways. But not so many that she risks losing an entire full team on an unknown. Just in case.

It's a cheery thought to hold onto moments before you're disintegrated by a teleportation beam, but hey, they've never exactly called me an optimist.

We're in, and everything around me slows down. Routine takes over. There's the usual bit of chitchat from Central, from the others. The exchange is so habitual that I'm barely aware of it.

A squarish room, some internal walls, two doors. By silent agreement, Xu and I take one, and Valdes approaches the other. We'll probably have to split up. Common approach, and the truth is, her wireless scouting is easily worth the two of us put together.

We've only reintegrated from thin air all of three seconds ago, and already we've secured the doors. Not bad. But I've seen too many shitty jobs start out smooth to get overconfident.

Nobody's coming. Not just yet. I can stop to breathe and think a little.

We don't have the floor plan for this. Can't risk hitting the same spot twice, even if all that got in before was a spy drone. So it's old school scouting only. If you can call us old-school, with a woman an ocean away and a quantum AI chatting away in our ears.

The air is cool, but not as bad as you'd think. Coat's doing its job for now. I put it out of my mind.

"Guard exit," Valdes says, and falls silent again. On the opposite side, Xu and I slip into the next room. Some cover in the middle of the room, a wall alcove with a safe, and three doors. I advance far enough to take cover, make sure there's nobody here, and Xu moves into the alcove - a bit of petty theft from the corps never hurt anybody. He wastes no time getting the safe, makes a jabbing motion with his augmented arm and the safe goes dark. It's a handy trick, I won't lie, even if I still don't get how it works, or who in corporate had the bright idea to manufacture safes that snap open when their circuits are fried. Either way, means we don't need to waste PWR on hacking the damn thing. He empties the safe briskly and shrinks back by its side.

We catch our breath, and we wait for movement.

No patrols in here. We're clear to move. Better hope the guards aren't celebrating a birthday party somewhere, and if they are, that it's well out of our way.

Xu checks out one of the doors. There's a big, long, empty room behind it, another guard exit, a camera database - Incognita can hack that remotely, now that we've got its location, - a couple of consoles (not worth the trip), and... a safe, hiding at the far end, just behind the guard exit. Xu stares at it longingly, but I'm guessing it's a no go, because he mutters softly, "Copy that," and turns away. I just finished scouting out the corridor behind one of the other doors, and it's clear.

The early infiltration blurs together for you. You're moving room to room, covering each other, constantly getting new intel, mapping the place out in your mind. There's no time to think. Hell, I'm not even looking at the place, not really. You do this job long enough, you don't even see the rooms anymore. You just see walls, open spaces, sightblock, cover.

Friend, enemy, asset.

We move on.

"Dead end on my side," Valdes says. "I'll catch up with you." Good. That's good. Three heads is better than... well, two.

"Most of their consoles are locked away," she adds. "I've found at least two rooms so far. Security door, two consoles inside, sometimes a camera."

"We knew this might happen, it matches the spydrone data," Xu nods. "You can still siphon the PWR, yes?"

"So far, yes. Just something to keep in mind."

Well, with any luck, that won't become terribly important at any point. With her remote hacking chops, what could we possibly need with a console, up close?

Might be for the best, really, those things being locked away. I once had to pull Xu away from one of these before a patrol swept the room. I'm not even sure what he was doing. Kid in a candy store - or middle-schooler with a TV set, maybe. I swear sometimes I don't even know how he passed the field work assessment. Stimmed out of his mind, probably.

I catch myself - pot, kettle, black. My own focus isn't the best right now. I can always grumble to myself about my teammates later. Not like I've got any healthier hobbies.

I narrow my mind down to what's there. The door in front of me. And behind it, the first sign of life we've seen so far. Patrolling guard through the next room - narrow, the end of it disappearing at the end of an L-shape, an infrared laser grid in the way. We'll have to go around.

The guard doesn't look like anything special. Standard-issue gun, standard patrol. I make a note of his uniform. Sleek black thermal wear, purple logo, gloves, protective goggles. Some basic armour. My disrupter won't take him, but Xu's shock trap might. If it comes to that.

We wait for him to start the other leg of his patrol and slip past him, towards the door. Xu's fallen behind - as per the usual - so I go ahead and peek in, I've got time.

Taser. Damn it, my taser. I refuse to buy into that pseudo-intellectualist nonsense.

Focus. The room.

Spacious, more mid-room cover, a nanofab - one of those low-grade shitty ones that lets you print a battery and a band-aid, if you're lucky, and costs you an arm and a leg. The opposite wall is straight and featureless - like me in my early corporate days - with two doors in each corner.

We wait long enough to make sure the room is clear - a bit of decorative wall is keeping us out of the patrolling guard's sights, by the saving grace of whatever interior designer was having a midlife crisis when drawing up this floor. Nothing happens in the room, so Xu and I slip through, maneuver around the cover, and take places by each of the two doors. I spot a camera through mine and am about to open it...

"There's an odd bit of EM static here," Xu mutters. "Like the field is warped." He might have spoken up before. I hadn't really noticed, because for the first time, he's saying something that's not routine.

I glance back at him, over by the other door. He's frowning and seems to be listening to something. "How can you tell?" I ask. "Thought you'd left your headphones back at the-"

I don't get to finish. A deep, biting chill goes through me and through the coat like it's nothing, shoulder blade to chest, and I stifle a gasp at the shock of it in my lungs. Like a cold spot in a horror movie- and it's gone, leaving an ache in my joints that takes me a moment to shake free. I shiver and rub my arms.

"The fuck?" I mouth, looking around bewildered. I glance at Xu again. From the look of him, he felt that too.

"Int-teresting," he grinds out, teeth chattering, and looks at the wall like he could possibly see through it. But he can't - not just yet. Not until we've got eyes over there, or a camera, or Valdes's scanning. Something more specific than 'the EM field is warped', thank you very much.

"To hell with that," I mutter at no one in particular. I grab him by the arm and steer both of us away from the wall, back the way we came from and behind that mid-room cover (a couple of tables, pushed together). We've already lost precious seconds as it is, and the doors aren't secured yet. We need to regroup.

"Some kind of cold pulse," Xu whispers breathlessly. "Which is fascinating, because you'd think a radius of persistent cold would be easier to maintain than a-"

"Red, we need your 'eyes' through this wall before we go any further," I interrupt before he can go off on a spiral. Not the time.

"On my way," she replies briskly.

Nothing from Central, which means she doesn't know any more than we do and is choosing not to distract us with rampant speculation. Well, of course she doesn't. If she did, we wouldn't be here, trying to find out.

Seconds pass, and another wave hits us. I grit my teeth against it - it's still bad, still makes my bones ache, but I can just about feel it disperse right around where we're sitting.

Feels colder now. My overlay tells me the temp is just barely below where we started out, but it sure as hell doesn't feel that way. Means I've lost enough body heat to notice. For the first time, I actually wish I'd brought a fur coat. Somehow, I'm not sure even that would help.

I also wish I'd brought my flask. But that definitely wouldn't help.

Valdes isn't far off, so we wait for the next pulse to pass - the intervals are regular, at least, and my tactical overlay is already giving me a heads up each time, the Operator earning their keep back at HQ - Central, presumably, and whatever trainee she's got assisting us with little details like these. Incognita hijacks the nanofab next to us and Xu moves in to check it out. He makes a disappointed noise. Nothing good, then. Called it.

We're wasting time. Alarm level's ticking up, and we've only just now found something of interest. No exit yet, either.

Valdes catches up to us and takes position midway along the wall. Xu and I move back in again, too - we scout through the opposite doors while she 'listens'. She bears the cold wave without complaint, doesn't bitch and whine like I did.

There's a hallway and a stationary guard on my end, but he's not looking at the door. I glance at my tablet, where Incognita has already updated the tactical view with everything through Xu's door. Squarish room, no hostiles, two doors, and very little cover.

"I have it," Valdes says. "It's just barely in range. Some kind of emitter. Four firewalls and a daemon, two cameras in the room with it."

Damn. We've got PWR, sure. But not enough to take down both the device and the cameras guarding it without waiting longer than either of us would like. I may not be in charge of the remote hacking - the Operator is - but even I can see that much.

"I'll take care of it," Xu says, tapping his arm. "I can reach it sooner than we can hack it, and avoid triggering the daemon. Just get me the cameras."

"Do it," the Operator says. It's not Central. I'm guessing she's stepped away for some tea, or maybe finally decided to delegate until something interesting happens. The three of us getting our butts frozen off by some experimental defensive cryotech doesn't qualify, apparently.

Xu nods and slips through the door on his side. Valdes follows him to scout in the other direction. I take the hallway on my side. I can just about see a way to let the stationary guard catch a glimpse of me, lure him off, and get myself an opening.

Another pulse. I think they're actually getting worse now, but that might just be the hypothermia setting in. My fingers ache, I try to breathe some life back into them, get ready to make my move-

"Hey! What was that?" Aaaand that wasn't one of mine. The voice came from the other side, where Xu and Valdes have gone off to. A guard in the room with the cooling pulse device. Crap, Xu must have been slowed down by the pulse. I tense and stay where I am - if Xu needs me to cover him, I'll only be boxing myself in if I distract my guard now. With effort, I focus on my augmented feed only and turn my head, and the walls blend away into transparency and crisscrossing lines and blueprints, and Xu's bright yellow shape is pressed into a corner, right next to the device as a guard investigates the door Xu just came in through. Not as bad as I thought. Nobody's getting shot just yet, so I move on.

Or at least I will in a sec, because the countdown to the cold pulse just appeared in the corner of my vision again and I brace myself and-

And there's nothing.

"I have it," Xu mouths through the comms, out of breath. His teeth are chattering again. "I've removed the power source. Securing the tech momentarily."

"Internationale, you're closest," the Operator cuts in. "Distraction, now."

"On it," she says, and I watch her dart into the guard's peripheral vision - the one who nearly spotted Xu - to lure him further off still before he can return to his post. Give Xu the time and solitude he needs to dismantle the device, or whatever it is he's planning on doing with it.

I finally return to the stationary guard I've been meaning to work my way around all this time. I've got my own shit to deal with. Just because I'm support doesn't mean I'm not expected to make my own progress.

Alright then. So far, so good. One room at a time.