Agapita automatically swung an arm over to rub the wetness out of her eyes, and then realised that she was awake.

Her pillow was damp again, but that was okay.

At first, this had really vexed her, and Piera had watched with some bemusement as Agapita had fussed and fretted over the unsightly teardrop-stains speckling her pillowcases, all the while railing against her treacherous body. She had gone to her handler Avise and asked him to see if some internal duct had been improperly fitted or a valve was leaking. She'd gotten quite... aggravated about it, so tightly wound up over the fear of having something imperfect or inadequate within her, rendering her defective, that she was clenching real tears out of herself – and that had only worsened matters, as the hateful mark of her fault scarred down her face where it couldn't be hidden – she'd been ramming the heels of her hands into her face, trying to press it shut, grind it out, to no avail.

Avise had been the one who saved her. The understatement of his baffled reaction, sitting half-slouched in his office chair with a pen in his hand, had made her think that it wasn't so serious, which his assurance that there was "nothing to worry about, all perfectly natural" helped to confirm. He'd brought her close, put his arm around her shoulders, wiped her face with a handkerchief and blown her nose. He'd grumbled "If you're a cybernetic supersoldier, how you come you've still got all the gloopy bits" as he wiped his hand down, which had made her laugh.

Since then, Agapita had approached it in a different light. Remembering that Piera seemed to have taken it as lightly as Avise did, Agapita chose not to make an issue of Piera's amused grins while her room-mate had been practically tearing her hair out, and instead asked her why she was so nonchalant about the morning tears. It turned out that it was a fairly common phenomenon amongst the cyborgs. That had reassured Agapita – a freakish fault suddenly became a deliberate design. She'd searched for a purpose for the feature, and inspiration seized her during one of her early-morning exercise sessions, when she'd been jogging through the damp grass of the Agency perimeter. The hint of wetness was a gift of the beauty of the world outside and of fresh, fertile promise for a day of opportunities. The cyborgs all had heightened interest in the thoughts of the new girl while she still was establishing herself, and so the idea of the "morning dew" spread widely through the dormitories, enthusiastically adopted for providing confidence and reassurance for what lay in the day ahead, when previously the tears had instilled only doubt and misgiving about what had filled the night preceding. As well as providing a small bit of solace in the cyborgs' troubled lives, the revelation took Agapita's name around the Agency and helped to settle her as one of the girls.

"Oh, uh, we, um, we always meant it like that." Dr. Bianchi had mumbled distractedly when Agapita had asked him about the 'morning dew' during a psych session.

Agapita welcomed it. couldn't think of any gem or jewel which was coloured grey – but for those few brief moments at the start of the day, like a ripple on the lake after a faint scent of wind, the moisture in her eyes was infused with the light streaming from the edges of the curtains, and her whole world shone with the captured brilliance of reflected diamonds.

Then the boundless white reached out into rainbow iridescence – yearning for more, it stretched, tapered, extenuated, and finally evaporated with the musical clef of a wisp – to reveal behind it a note on a sheet of paper, propped up against the crucifix on her bedside table. The writing was dense, small and square – speaking of a hand well-used to keeping comments within the confines of a set box – but, of course, Agapita had no trouble reading it. God help her.

"AGAPITA,

SORRY I CAN'T BE WITH YOU THIS MORNING, BUT YOU'RE A CAPABLE GIRL AND I KNOW YOU'LL DO FINE.

YOUR MORNING ORDERS ARE THE USUAL FOUR-MILE, FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER ROUND ANOTHER MILE AT THE COMBAT RATE. AFTER THAT, SET UP CIRCUIT EXERCISE PATTERN 'B' AND KEEP AT THAT UNTIL 0830. THE TRAYS AREN'T CLEARED UNTIL 0900 SO YOU SHOULD HAVE TIME TO WASH AND GET SOME BREAKFAST. IT'S EDUCATION UNTIL LUNCH, AND I SHOULD REJOIN YOU IN THE AFTERNOON.

REMEMBER TO STRETCH! 8)

AVISE"

What was that word that Avise had used when he'd skinned a knuckle a few days back? Goddamnit. That was it. Agapita. rolled it about her tongue thoughtfully. She could appreciate why he used the word – it was one with real strength. A deep guttural base for a pit of loathing, then lashing out at the target with the final aspirated syllable, the asp's sting of venom. You could really get some spite behind it.

Goddmanit.

Yeah, it was nice. Goddamnit. Goddamnit.

"Goddamnit!" Agapita shouted aloud.

"Nnnnneh?" Piera stirred in the other bed.

Agapita blanched in horror and clenched her jaw shut – but of course it was far too late.

Piera rolled in her bed until she was facing Agapita across the room. The two stared at each other from their pillows for a few seconds.

"Agapita."

"Yes, Piera?"

"The clock on my bedside table says that it is half past five in the morning."

"Yes, it does."

"I am awake."

"Yes, you are."

"Even though my alarm is set for eight o'clock, some two and half hours later."

"Yes, it is."

"Your handler has been getting you up at the crack of dawn every day for the past fortnight, and also waking me."

"Yes, he has."

"While that's going on, you usually end up waking Illiria and Kara next door as well as you clatter about assembling kit."

"Yes, I have."

"Your handler is off-site this morning? For the first time in a fortnight?"

"Yes, he is."

"So there is no early supervision, no early alarm, and no early intervention. And yet you still woke me. Early."

"Yes, I did."

A beat passed.

"I'm really sorry, Piera."

Piera rolled back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm sorry too, Agapita. I'm sorry too."

Jose automatically swung an arm over to rub the wetness out of his eyes, and then realised that he was awake.

He blinked to open the shutters of the new day, but nothing came. They were gummed shut.

Jose smiled lazily at that, his smile spreading out across his face with a broad, languid sweep. It had been ages since the little mucus film of sweep had settled across his eyes like that. It showed a deep sleep, much-needed and well-welcomed.

Something tugged at him. Go away, Sergeant Roe, soldiers don't work on weekends.

He squirmed in the bed, getting comfortable for another doze. The covers were wrapped tightly around him, shielding him from the cold outside. He was nice and warm, snug as a bug in a rug.

Another nip. Sod off, Jean, you can win Granddad's blinkin' race for all I care. Jose couldn't wait for the day their parents finally gave the brothers separate rooms.

Then his alarm clock began ringing, a single, constant tone. Eeeeeeeeeee...

Annoying little thing. Jose threw out his arm to put it back into snooze mode. God, he really was tired – just that simple an action felt like a laboured effort – his arm felt as though it was moving through something soft and mulchy.

Another sharp, insistent tug. Oh yeah, that was right – he was supposed to be taking Enrica out stargazing tonight. He supposed that he ought to get up.

He could not. He tugged, trying to worm around the folds, but he was stuck fast.

...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

There were traitors in the Agency! How else could they have strapped him down in his own bed? His whole department was riddled with subversives! He could trust no-one!

A light blinked on. He couldn't see the beam, but he could feel its heat on his cheeks. He was of sterner stuff than that. He wouldn't crumble under interrogation! Let them come!

Hands roughly manhandled Jose into a sitting position. Wow, this masseur really knew his stuff.

...EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Nonononono mister dentist please put away your drill I brush every day I promise—

The light became brighter, hotter, rims stinging underneath his eyelids. He tried to blink it away, and with that, his eyes opened.

"...Jose! Jose! Please, Jose! JOSE!" Henrietta was shrieking, all composure and deportment lost in frantic panic, and her grip at his shoulder was tightening from insistent shaking to a crushing vice.

"Aggggkk." Jose went, sound being squeezed out of him like a rubber duck in the bath, and tried to turn round in his seat. It was difficult – his neck hurt intensely, and it was like a rusty cog turning without ball-bearings. The most that could be said is that the exercise shifted something in his ears so that the ringing changed from an eeeeeeee to an oooooooo. Old Macdonald had a farm, eee aye eee aye oh.

Jose laughed at Henrietta, sitting on the backseat of the car with bloodspots on her face and a few pieces of glass caught in her cardigan. As Jose responded, she drew back, and sat very carefully against the back of the car seat.

That can't be comfortable, Jose thought, his brains still scrambled from the concussion. There's glass all over it.

Henrietta was quiet for a moment, and then her expression hardened. She didn't twist it into a knotted mask of incandescent rage, howling like a banshee's distended maw. She just pursed her lips, and furrowed her eyebrows, as though someone was being just a little light with her and making her ever so slightly annoyed.

Then she kicked the jammed rear door off of its hinges and vanished.

Dumbly Jose cranked his neck back to follow her across the street. Good of Adele to get out of the way and give him an uninterrupted view – he could see straight past the driver's seat and through the gaping hole torn out of the side of the car to get an uninterrupted view of proceedings.

A broad street lay outside, ending in a rough-faced stone wall leading above which was another street on a higher level. The street was crazy with cars which had veered in panic at the explosions, ramming into each other and the walls – one looked a particular mess, its engine block missing as though some passing dragon had taken a bite out of it. People were running pell-mell in every direction, a regular pandemonium worthy of any action movie – the and the special effects matched as one hapless civilian unlucky enough to get Henrietta under his feet had has knees sent sideways. Jose's eye drifted in the direction that his cyborg was travelling, and he saw a man dressed in roadworker's clothes atop the wall, bracing a grenade launcher against the black iron railings of the upper street, and pointing it straight at Jose.

That let Jose get a good look at the weapon and identify it as a M32. He was quite proud of his perspicacity.

Jose heard Henrietta's P90 firing, but the reports sounded distant, less a thundering call to war and more like someone blurting a slobbery raspberry. Jose couldn't help but laugh at that – Henrietta was always so polite and prim and proper, it was nice to know that she had a bit of kid in her too.

Girls beautified everything - the assailant was suddenly surrounded by a blizzard of glitter, bursting out around him as his high-visibility jacket was torn from bullet impacts. He fell back, and as he did so there was a burst of air from the muzzle of his weapon. Jose heard a dull bass thud somewhere above him and the roof of the car rattled as though someone had slung a shovel of gravel over it.

Although he had been riddled with bullets and cast down to the ground, their attacker immediately scrambled back up and dashed back out of sight – he must have been wearing an armoured vest, which was alert of him. Henrietta did not check her pace for a moment, leaping atop a car and using its roof to trampoline herself up onto the upper street, spinning above the railings like a . Jose was about to call out in praise, but the cyborg's inhuman acrobatics provoked yells of surprise and astonishment from those few civilians who had hit the deck instead of fleeing, and their sound suddenly slapped Jose awake. Jesus Christ, what the fuck was he still doing floundering around here like some beached trout? Henrietta looked as though she had just gone berserk! He needed to get after her!

Unfortunately, the return of clarity also brought back an awareness of pain. The instant he tried to move, a migraine exploded in his head like a tripped wire. He clenched his eyes shut in an attempt to beat back the concussion, his consciousness trying to compress the pain to the back of his head with appeals to need and urgency, and then creaked them open again, hoping that tentative care wouldn't provoke as much agony.

Not that there was much to see – the windscreen in front of him was crazed with cracks, and whatever panel remained visible was streak with long smears of ragged gore.

He tried to move, but it only caused a dozen daggers to twist in his arms.

Damnit, he needed help. This was what Henrietta was for!

Where was Adele?

His clothes were damp. His face felt sticky. He tried to reach down to take off his seatbelt, and felt a jabbing pain in his arm as something caught on the handbrake. There was a shard of shrapnel poking out of his sleeve, and the funny thing was that it looked just like that rib joint he'd had for dinner on Tuesday. His hand could still flex, so he knew it wasn't his own compound fracture.

Where the fuck was Adele?

Nico collapsed against the alley wall, panting heavily and letting the wet beads of pain bullet down his face. He was sure that he had finally shaken the bitch off and that it was safe to rest, but really it was only something he told himself to stop him feeling lost and panicking when his legs finally wouldn't take any more. He leant heavily against the wall, trying to calm his galloping breath and take in more fulfilling, deep gulps.

Jesus. Jesus fucking wept. He'd heard the rumours, of course – who hadn't? – but he'd never seriously entertained them. Even when he'd first seen the girl coming out of the wrecked car his brain had assumed that it was a dwarf assigned her position through some dumb minority-rights legislation – at least it was marginally less ridiculous than a preteen assassin. But it was true! All of it was true!

It had only struck him when he'd tried to shake her off by grabbing a pedestrian to use as a hostage, and she'd simply used the pause in his flight to open fire, raking the two of them without word of warning or shred of compunction. Nico had avoided a bullet to the head but only because the woman he'd hidden behind had been in the way. Nico felt some things sticking to his face and he really, really didn't want to look in a mirror right about now.

The most the episode had given Nico was an opportunity to go for his reserve pistol and shoot the weapon out of the evil thing's hands – he'd heard that these things were supposed to be armoured so he wasn't sure what a body shot would do. As it was, the girl had staggered back when her magazine had blown up in her face, allowing Nico to take to his heels again.

Nico felt his side gingerly and emitted a seething hiss as stinging pain lanced into him. His body had been bruised enough by the first fusillade – after that second barrage, even with the additional cushioning of a soft body, he was sure that he'd cracked some ribs. Fucking hell, what a mess. This was supposed to have been just a quick'n'easy side-job for a bit of holiday money, nice and quiet, because he knew that Dominici, his agent, really took a dim view of clients taking on external work outside of the Gladiator Games. Fuck, never mind that, there was supposed to be a big match in Sicily in ten days' time! How was he going to hide this?

"You're slow."

Nico blanched and looked to the source of the sound.

The girl – shit, the cyborg – was at the far end of the alley. Pleated skirt, knee-highs, black pumps, white shirt with a bow-tie, grey cardigan (scorched and tatty) – was that a school uniform? Her headband was missing, and strands of chestnut hair fell down in front of her face – as she brushed them back behind her ears, Nico was shocked to see that past the soot and scratches from the back-blast were running in lines down her face, streaked from moisture. She was crying.

"You hurt Jose," she snivelled snottily, "and you made me hurt someone, and that will make Jose unhappy. You're making me like... like you! I'm not like you!" She choked on a sob. "I'm not! I'm not! But you- you- you f... fuuuu..." – her eyes unfocused – "youyouyou flaaaaaa... you flipping-"

Part of Nico's mind thought that the cyborg must have assumed that he would have kept running and cut in front to intercept him as he emerged from the alley.

Another part of Nico's mind took advantage of his enemy while she was distracted and shot up his pistol arm to put a bullet straight in the middle of the girl's forehead.

Her head snapped back. Her chin bobbed at Nico for a moment. Her head snapped forward.

She blinked.

He blinked.

She charged.

Nico winced as he fired again, the recoil rippling into his ribcage. Still, his aim was as good as you'd expect in a gladiator with fully ten free-for-all victories – she had tried to jink to one side, but Nico had seen her favouring a leg and smashed another round into the side of her skull. The girl staggered, tripping over the alleyway's cobblestones to crash against a wall, but she immediately thrust off of it and came at him again. She was coming in low, and the damned contraption was small enough anyway – the angle was difficult, but Nico had once fired a killshot through two windows and a banister and so he still pounded her cranium with another round. The girl lost her footing and slipped forward, falling flat on her face – and then she transferred her skidding momentum into a forward roll, leapt up and snapped a hand around Nico's pistol. A second's pressure, and Nico felt his fingers crumpling.

It sounded just like you cracking your knuckles. Funny.

Having your feet swept out from underneath you and some government black-ops robot straddling your chest? Less so.

Nico tried to bat at her, but his hand was just one bright white light. He tried to breathe in the muster the energy to shake her off, but his ribs were screaming and his lungs were fire. The girl raised her first.

Cyborgs were supposed to have super-strength. At least it would be quick.

The fist jabbed down, cracking his cheekbone. Nico yelled in pain, but also in surprise. The second punch, neatly and precisely sending a hairline fracture across his other cheek, filled him with dread – and then as the girl reached down and with one deliberate twist of the wrist yanked his nose out of joint, it became despair.

The girl slammed the heel of her hand against the side of Nico's face, reducing some molars to powder, and then reversed her angle to do the same to the other side.

"Henrietta!" A ragged cry called out.

The girl didn't stop. She gripped Nico's jaw and with a determined wrench tore joints and ligaments free.

"Henrietta! I'm alright! Come out!" The voice sounded further away.

"In a minute, Jose." The girl whispered quietly, gnawing her lip until it bled.

In desperation Nico tried to batter the girl with his free arm. It was a flaccid, flailing movement, and he couldn't have clawed at anything with his ruined hand, but the girl simply grabbed the forearm into a two-handed grip and squeezed as though she was wringing out a damp cloth. Muscle was crushed, and bone splintered. Nico gurgled as his arm was turned into jerky.

Then the girl thrust her thumbs into Nico's mouth, working them into until they were well back. Then she started to stretch, drawing the slack, lolling jaw up into a tight rictus grin, pushing back his lips until he could feel the muscle pulling taut, still stretching, still straining, trying to peel his face apart. Blood beaded up under his nose as his lips began to split—

A man, his face a bloody mask of gore (and not looking 'alright' at all), appeared above the girl.

"Henrietta, please. It's – it's okay. You've done more than enough—"

"Don't interfere!" Henrietta shrieked. She whipped around, grabbing Jose's outreaching arm and yanking it away from her.

There was a second's resistance. Then a sense of strain, and then the soft, beguiling sound, almost like the wet slick of lips parting to receive a kiss, of Jose's ulna breaking cleanly.

"...Oh no." Henrietta croaked, and passed out.

Police found all three of them in a pile atop each other.

(Continued)