"Still no sign of 239?"

"We've scanned the entire continent around his drop pod. Full Orbital sweep, supported by drone scans from the Carpathia. Nothing."

"Spartan or no Spartan, this is unacceptable. I want him found."

"Yes Sir."

"I want full surveillance on all known associates. Surviving members of Chimera, that doctor woman they brought with them. Anyone and everyone who's even spoken to the man. If they so much as take a piss, I want to know what colour it was and why."

"Yes Sir, understood Sir. There is one other possibility, however."

"And that is?"

"That this isn't a lone operative. Maybe he's not working alone."

- Intercepted audio transcript, source-data unknown.

Some days later, Rebecca stepped out onto the street, the door to her apartment buzz-locking shut behind her. Rebecca unconsciously touched the Assailant Spray she carried in her handbag, reminding herself that she no longer lived in the cosmopolitan safety of an Inner Colony.

This was not snobbish paranoia on her part. Argjend had become a more dangerous place in the months following the fall of New Cadiz.

The bulging refugee camps had burst their banks at the height of the Surge, flooding the city. Rioting, looting; civil disturbance on a massive scale. Martial law had been declared, and for two restless months every street corner became home to a new checkpoint. Concertina wire and sandbags decorated streets once defined by plush suits and stately cars. The crunch of glass beneath military boots marked the regular passing of patrols. Warthogs presided over major junctions; their rotary cannons not quite pointing at the idling traffic - but not aiming away from them either.

Time passed, order returned. Military uniforms, once an exciting rarity on the entertainment channels, or frenzied shakicam footage on the history channels and twenty four hour news net, became a dreary everyday reality. Commuters working within the city core became used to the checkpoints, to the slow and ponderous process of handing over identification on demand. Their eyes adjusted to the probing glow of a flashlight into the driver's seat at night, or the panning of a sweeper broom beneath their cars. Eventually, the Argjend Police Department took over where the Marines left off; all but unrecognisable beneath the weight of recoloured military surplus inherited from the UNSC's disastrous New Cadiz expedition. A militarised Silver City became the new normal.

With the planet's gradual recovery, things improved, however slightly. The patrols receded into the grey brickwork around them. Now they were largely confined to key installations throughout the city, with only a token presence established around the worst elements of the refugee slums, or guarding key installations within the Administrative Sector. Yet still the tension lingered, simmering away beneath the surface; bubbling ever higher with each inflammatory speech or insensitive comment.

Rebecca kept her head down as she passed a large mural of a jackboot grinding an insurrectionist's head against the pavement. The stark colouration and harsh charcoal tones left little doubt as to where the artwork's sympathies lay. Clean up crews from the city council would have it white-washed by the end of the daily cycle. More paper over the cracks.

The UNSC had provided her with an apartment on the western edge of town, close to where the large walls separated the temporary housing from the comparative civilisation of the city proper. Her new home wasn't much – certainly nothing compared to her old apartment in New Francisco: an old, one bed shoebox in a two story rowhouse, entirely dwarfed by the larger community 'scrapers that crowded up above it, blotting out the sun but for the narrowest slivers of light here and there. These additions to the neighbourhood were new; rivets and solder marks freshly visible from where the auto-manufactories had machine-stamped the building's component pieces together.

The noise of expansion was constant. Not a minute went by when the air wasn't disturbed by the whining keen of an industrial driller, or the stamping rattling echo of a pile-driver from a few blocks over. The entire street reeked of wet paint and burnt wiring. The walls of these new neighbourhoods had a raw cleanliness to them, like pink skin freshly scrubbed, but Rebecca knew it wouldn't be long before they too were tattooed with graffiti. She pulled her coat tighter around her, casting a look over her shoulder as she did so. This close to the Zone, tagging was the least of your concerns.

Rebecca quickened her pace, crossing beneath the chequered shadow of the Western Line. A mag-rail hummed overhead, her skin prickling and necklace tugging as it passed. She ignored the lingering stares of a gang of idle youths on the far side of the street. Not too far from the market now.

Isolated from the wider galaxy, Argjend balanced on a knife's edge. It had been a city designed for a population of twenty million people. In the years that had followed The Great War, this number had swollen to twice that size. The destruction of New Cadiz had been yet another tipping point in a series of trying events. As the only other major city with direct access to an Orbital Tether, the entirety of the planet's extra-terrestrial imports now depended on a single population centre. This dictated rapid expansion, at a pace that even the 26th century's sophisticated auto-manufactories struggled to cope with. In six months, the city footprint had doubled in size; with most of that being raw-boned construction – skeletal and utilitarian, utterly at contrast with the gleaming core of the original city.

With little to distract themselves from the wider nets, the local net had thrived, supplanting the Waypoint community entirely. Information starved, the focus shifted to terrestrial news coverage; local issues, local crimes. The electorate became energised, politicised in a manner it had never been before. Many began to question why it was that Granica V, and in particular its capital of Argjend – itself a major trade hub in this part of the galactic rim - had been left to fend for itself at the edge of the galaxy.

Encased in this echo chamber, the dialogue became angrier, more intimate. Local issues became magnified. Similarly magnified was the discontent. Some took to lurid extremes, public expression as a form of theatre. Graffiti delivered biting social commentary on both sides of the political spectrum; a tit for tat conversation conducted on the walls of rail stations and vacant lots. One particularly troubled man even set himself alight in Victory Square, triggering a riot amongst those with separatist leanings.

Marches and demonstrations gave movement to the marginalised. Protest after counter-protest. The once-beige politics of the Silver City became a vibrant, unsettled kaleidoscope of a city-state at war with itself. More than once the APD's riot squad had been deployed; pumping rounds of tear gas to dispel the howling mob, riot shields thundering as the rioters slammed in from either side. Even now Rebecca passed a street littered with discarded placards. She didn't bother to read what they said, or which cause they proclaimed allegiance to. Doubtless Rashid would fill her in later. Better to keep moving.

Part of the prevailing unease was the continued influx of refugees, pushing the city's infrastructure and emergency services even further beyond their limits. Those who had fled the Human Covenant War had settled and become part of an established demographic since the early 2550's. Marginalised as they had been once, they had settled, eventually forming a middle class. The refugees from the Granican War – freshly exiled, newly introduced – now occupied their place further down the totem pole. Shunted into low-tier housing and high stack ghettos, they were glad to be free of the war, but now found themselves confronted with an entirely new kind of misery. Even in the relative enlightenment of the 26th century, there was a limit to the resources a single colony could provide to meet the needs of an over-spilling refugee sector, many of whom still had no jobs or primary source of income, permanent or otherwise. Desperation rose in tandem with criminality.

The worst was the 'Zone. There were many Sectors within Argjend, many districts – financial, residential, industrial, logistical: every street had a name, every neighbourhood a reputation. But there was only one Zone. As a percentage of the overall city, it was barely a tenth of the footprint. It made up for its size with its notoriety. The 'Zone had originally been ear-marked for temporary set-down refugees fresh from the Human Covenant War, dubbed Habitation Zone 42-AE3-T (Temporary) - only it wasn't. The 'Zone was where the least fortunate had established themselves in the weeks after the New Cadiz conflict broke out. In the months that followed, their haphazard ghetto had sunk its roots deep. Here, the very worst elements of Granica V's underbelly – once spread out over the entirety of the massive capital – found a place to centralise. They thrived.

The APD had ceded control to the various gangs that formed their own law within the 'Zone's tight confines, a nest of favelas hemmed in by the perimeter walls. The Zone was an irritable blister on the fringe of an otherwise compliant city. Like the wider refugee blocks around it, it was walled off from Argjend proper. Originally this had been a temporary measure, erected in order to process the many refugees flooding in from New Cadiz. Over time, the wall spread, became permanent. Ghettoisation was the inevitable result. Now patrols went in with militarised support on standby, or not at all. It was where every riot started, and every dissident whisper began.

And yet there was a glamour to it. The goods were cheap, and the food fresh. Free of the constraints of modern regulations and import tariffs, the place became a haven for those of a bohemian persuasion. There was something to be said about produce naturally grown on a roof-top garden, rather than mass 'factured in a UEG approved facility. The black economy was notorious, certainly; but in time a thriving tourism scene would spring up around this raw and uncut version of society. It was this very appeal that drew Rebecca herself to the markets. That, and her UNSC paycheque had been decidedly clipped following Chimera's formal deactivation.

Rebecca didn't mind. She had survived The Great War, where so many others had not. She had lived rough before. She would survive this.

Whether Granican Society would was an entirely separate matter. Ghettoisation and fringe urban decay were one thing – a new civil war was quite another. The gang violence and the city's increased militarisation wasn't as important as the polarising effect it had on the wider body politic. The pace was glacial, but you could see the change if you knew where to look. Those loyal to the UNSC became isolated from their new, harder-living neighbours; flocking to gated communities and sky-rises within the more affluent centre. Right wing blogs and vid-casters became prevalent across the local net, hiding behind aliases and blaming the city's recent travails exclusively on the refugees and anti-establishment hackers, irrespective of context and bereft of nuance.

The fringe ghettos grew; their roots spreading, interlacing with the more genteel city around them. Areas that were once respectable became less so; a bawdier and roguish version of their former selves. Many became hotbeds of creative counter-culture and chemical fuelled ambivalence to the wider city state; a wide belt of newly constructed, garishly decorated high-rises that served as an uneasy DMZ between the lawless 'Zone and civilised Argjend.

Two cities had formed within what once been a single compliant colony; a contrasting divide between the haves and have-nots. Sitting on top of one another like oil on water.

Above it all, the UNSC Carpathia loomed in geo-synchronous orbit. A faint smudge in the early morning sky, it was the only UNSC vessel that had stayed behind in the aftermath of Orbital Two's collapse. It hung there, a silent reminder to those who would seek to repeat the fate of New Cadiz that the UNSC was here, that they would stay, and that similar uprisings would not be tolerated. It alone kept the city from eating itself alive.

Rebecca saw the market ahead, stopped to let a bus trundle by. The markets changed location daily – partly to rotate and maximise profits along the belt of land insulating the Zone from the wider city, but more to avoid the close scrutiny of APD patrols and contraband inspections. The markets had the freshest produce, at affordable produce, but the black market was rife. Half the fun was finding its location in the first place, but Rebecca had been here a few months now. She knew the schedule, as loose as it was.

Had she not been in such a hurry, she would have noticed the man following her.

The conversation over the com was brief. When the first voice spoke, the tones were hushed; murmured over the bleating of the early morning traffic. The very same traffic that Rebecca herself had just passed through.

"She's moving."

"Position?"

"Western Market. Just arrived."

"Good. Any sign of our friends?"

"Spotted an official tail. Local APD intelligence. Probably repurposed local police. Got caught in a traffic jam on the corner of 15th and Longview. Sloppy."

"And Becker's men?"

"Nothing so far. And knowing a spook like that, we won't until they make a move."

"Copy. Stay with her. Her safety is paramount."

"Relax, Spartan. Not my first rodeo."

Market Day. A sea of tents beneath the looming arches of the Western Line. Limp bunting and fairy lights had been strung between the skeletal support columns, lending the atmosphere an excitable, festive air. A canopy of fireflies hung overhead, swaying and jostling whenever one of the trains thrummed overhead. They chimed like lanyards, rattling over the chaotic churn of the crowd below.

The crowds seethed; a feeding frenzy of commerce. You could buy anything you wanted here. Tomatoes from the Western Grasslands, ice boxes of fresh gene-salmon from the ice-waters of northern Tana. Vanity mirrors and all manner of trinkets; old toy soldiers and a cut-price movie chips; a thousand vids on a single chip – all yours for the lowly price of a thousand credits.

Rebecca took her time, picking her way through the din. She had a list of things to get, buried as it was within her bag, but she also had five hours to kill before she was due for her next appointment with Rashid. Market Day was the highlight of her otherwise quiet week – she intended to savour it.

And there was so much to savour. Here, a van steamed with braised meats and bubbling pits of fish and chips; the air alive with cooking meat and salty vinegar.

Not to mention the sheer entertainment of it all. It was the peddlers she loved most of all. They stood out in the wider avenues of the market, their voices and accents as strange and eclectic as their dress sense. All cultures mashed together in a riot of colour and sound.

"Want to buy a necklace, Madame?" A gap-toothed tradesman boomed toothily, holding up a jangling necklace of white gold strips, "Silver Strips for a Silver Lady?"

"Box o' straw'bries; five for five hundred!" a broad-shouldered Irish woman brayed, "Five for five hundred!"

"Sunglasses! Goggle-visors! Augmented reality for realistic prices!" another man called, holding up a pair, his own eyes hidden behind a bulky set of goggles. The scar tissue around his eyes suggested they were a crude necessity for his part. Another struggling vet trying to find his way in the post-war.

And on it went. Rebecca drifted from stall to stall, occasionally taking the time to haggle, but committing to little in the way of actual purchases.

She was looking for something for Chidi and Rashid, as was her custom. Anything to take their minds off of recent events. The two Spartans teased her about it, of course; named her Auntie 'Becca or Mother Christmas or any number of variations on the theme. But still Rebecca insisted. She had few friends on this planet, and was anxious to keep them. Besides, it was her and Eric that had gotten them green-flagged for combat duty. She was the reason they had found themselves on Granica in the first place. She owed them.

For Chidinma it would be flowers. Any would do, though petunias were her favourite. The Spartan billet was every bit as sparse and utilitarian as the people it housed. Chidinma delighted in colourful things; that the rich purple colour was the same as her armour did not strike Rebecca as coincidence.

Rashid was more challenging. He was notoriously difficult to buy for; being content with a working Waypoint connection and a quiet hour to spare. Any books she could think of he had already read, and any other form of entertainment he could access online, through legal or less legal means.

Rebecca had made a point of buying him a Rubix cube once, only for him to smile gratefully, solve it in a matter of seconds, and place it on the shelf of similarly solved puzzles cluttering the sill of his hospital window.

So puzzles and books were out. Gadgets were the only avenue left to her. Old tech, broken tech; discarded equipment and forgotten gewgaws. An ancient VHS player had given him particular delight. He spent the entire day dismantling it with an appropriated UNSC Marine ComTech kit, exposing its guts and inner workings. She had left him there, his bed strewn with all manner of screws and delicate components. When she returned the next day, the machine had been entirely cannibalised; many of the pieces grafted to his computer for stylistic effect.

The tech stalls were on the opposite side of the Market to the food, buried at the very back. She left the rich smell of sizzling bacon and salted meats behind, stepping across the wide avenue that formed the central spine of the market plaza. The crowds thinned slightly here, but still Rebecca had to mince her way through the crowd, rather than shuffle along with its natural flow.

She gasped as a shoulder slammed out of the crowd, spinning her about

Rebecca reached out a hand, instinctively apologising. A firm hand clamped her wrist; pulled her close enough that she could taste the sweat of his skin. She couldn't see his face; shrouded as it was in a heavy hood that obscured him from view. He kept his head bowed, as he whispered in her ear with frenzied rasp:

"There's an item in your bag, a gift for a mutual friend. Don't check it 'til you get home. Don't let them see. Go now, quickly. They're watching."

And just like that, the hand released her. The man was gone, swallowed by the churning crowd.

Rebecca blinked, sweating in panic. She had her Assailant Spray in one hand as she searched for the crowd, looking for a sign of the man, but there was nothing but giddy whoops and excited chattering from the horde of faceless shoppers around her. Noticing the odd looks she was drawing from those close enough to notice, she turned and resumed walking in the direction she'd been going, stuffing the spray back in her bag. As she did so, her knuckles brushed something hard and metal, which had not been there before.

Her heart would not stop hammering. The whole bag felt heavier now. She wanted desperately to open it and check, to see what it was, but she felt that prickling sensation that she hadn't felt since her time in the Laconia Academy. There were eyes on her, eyes skilled enough to stay with her as she navigated the throng.

One detail stayed with her as she pushed her way through the market. A small one, but one that lingered.

The man's inner forearm had a tattoo, black ink over pale white skin. The artwork was superbly rendered; all menacing limbs and predatory white fangs.

A black spider.