"Registering weapons fire in Market Sector L-43."
"Gang related?"
"More than likely."
"Noted. Have we any market exposure in the region?"
"Uh, No Sir. It's a Low-Tier Sector. Minimal tithes."
"Log it for the record. Keep me posted if it escalates beyond acceptable thresholds."
- City Watch Communique, Prospect 141
Aboard the Severance Package, the techs assembled around the silent golem, quietly marvelling. They were scrappers by trade, simple engine-smiths and recovery experts. Humble men of a humble trade, though not lacking in skill. They worked all manner of machines, long forgotten and broken on the blasted Venusian wastes. They were pragmatic, used to the unfamiliar. Grineer scout ships, shot down by automated Corpus pickets; civilian haulers, felled by Void Surges or mysteriously abandoned from eons past. They had seen it all.
Right now none of them had any idea what they were looking at.
It lay on the table, imperiously elegant; rendered in a deep ebony and spotless navy. Sharp antennae jutted out from its head, and swooping pauldrons rose up from its shoulders, accentuating its sleek curvature. White detailing decorated the darkest segments of the armoured carapace. A blue cloak spilled down from its shoulders, edged in white. The golem was entirely lifeless, laid out on the scanning slab like some ancient fallen warrior, awaiting a funeral pyre that never came.
"Well?" Kahrl Bravic asked. He towered over most of the people in the room; especially the young girl.
"You ask me how much it is worth." Isolde replied. "And I repeat myself: it means a great deal to some. A great deal more to others."
"No riddles, child." Bravic warned, his mechanical arm whirring as banged a fist against the guardrail. "Trade! How much can we expect?"
Isolde looked at Vern. Vern, stood a respectful distance away, nodding solemn encouragement. Isolde sighed, pointing out some of the finer points of detail on the ebony chassis.
"Consider the engravings on the outer chassis. The stencil work, just below the antenna. Even the curvature of the helmet itself. It is custom made. Master-crafted, rendered by ancient artificers. A reward, in exchange for great service."
"You're saying it's valuable?" Bravic asked.
"I am saying it is Orokin." Isolde fixed him with a bald stare, each syllable precise. "It is priceless."
"But if we were to charge." Bravic prompted again, gesturing expansively. "Hypothetically."
Isolde stared at him coldly. "Careful, Captain Bravic. Your greed is showing."
Bravic's expansive smile was all gold, studded with platinum. "Indulge me."
Isolde heaved a sigh.
"Speaking… hypothetically. Without an operator, a Warframe is just that; a frame. A tool, without mind or purpose. A puppet without strings. Extremely valuable, certainly, but as a decoration or research subject. Nothing more."
"And with this… operator?" Bravic pressed.
Isolde looked at Vern. Vern nodded in approval.
"If you were to present this prize to Anyo Corp, fully assembled and functional, your prize is an instrument of war not seen since The Great Collapse. You have journeyed the Rail, Captain Bravic. You know the Tenno have been a bane to Nef Anyo, indeed the Board as a whole. Its value will not measure in credits alone."
"Can you pilot it?" Vern asked, quietly. Isolde shook her head adamantly.
"Impossible. The frame's systems are slaved to the will of its original operator. His neural pathways, his connection to the Void. Without him, the link remains closed; the frame… bereft of function. Once imprinted, Transference from another operator becomes impossible."
Bravic nodded. He was a greedy man, but not without wits. He looked at Vern, eyes glinting with malice.
"Bring me this operator, Vern. Alive."
The trolley was a grandiose term for the cart they bundled Kelpo into. It was a battered hover-crate, unwieldy and huffing on tired grav-skids. Its usual cargo was cheap beer, illegally brewed. Now it carried a hastily piled jumble of blankets, cushions and throws. Lumped on top of this mess was a stocky scavenger by the name of Kelpo Marr who awoke, bewildered, to a scene of abject chaos.
Merchants leapt out of the way as Telin snarled, driving the cart forward with a desperation tinged with equal parts rage and panic. He spotted Kelpo reaching up to remove the breathing mask.
"Leave it on buddy!" Telin shook his head. "We're getting you out of here!"
Rattling about Kelpo in the cart was a box of shotgun cartridges. He blinked and picked the box up, turning it over in his hands; thoroughly disorientated. There were no less than three forms of painkiller coursing through his system. That didn't matter. The pain was gone. He took in the market serenely, blinking and smiling serenely at the unfolding havoc.
Neera navigated at the front of the cart; antique shotgun held close, barrel toward the ground. She knew the terrain best. The traders saw her, knew her troubled history, and hastily made room as they hurried down the street.
The boy kept one hand on the side of the cart, another on the chunky revolver appropriated from inside the Mangled Moa. He had salvaged every weapon that could be conceivably carried, and they rattled noisily as he struggled to keep up with the cart. He flashed Kelpo a thumbs up as soon as they made eye contact. Kelpo beamed.
Neera directed. She knew the direction she wanted to go: a service stairwell long disused at the far end of the market. It had been an escape route for Solaris United dissidents over the years, though the brutal crackdowns had ensured it was long since forgotten. It was their best chance.
It was also almost fully a kilometer away.
The One Forty Ones lacked many things. They lacked education, impulse control; common sense, more often than not. They made up for each of these myriad shortcomings with brute force, crude firepower and superior numbers. If a city market presented a dozen potential escape routes, the best solution was to simply block every single one with as many bodies as possible.
Their strategy lacked subtlety, true. There was no doubting its effectiveness.
The first bullet caught the cart in the front grav-skid; exploding it and sending Telin and Kelpo hurtling through the air; landing messily in a shower of spilled cushions and tinkering shotgun cartridges. Neera and the boy dove in opposite directions. Bullets sliced through the air, sparking off duct work and sending the crowds scattering in shrieking panic.
The gang's accuracy was lamentable. Hapless traders screamed and went down. Some lay still, others rocked back and forth clutching wounds. Advertising signs burst in showers of sparks and descending glass.
Telin grabbed Kelpo and dragged him behind the upturned cart. Shots stapled across the bodywork of the sorry cart. Neera found herself laying in the remains of what had once been a market stall. It now resembled a shredded tent held up by ever-splintering wooden stilts.
The boy was the first to return fire. There was no elaborate leaps or Void trickery. Just a low crouch and a determined response. The revolver roared; each barking shot dropping its intended target.
Now it was their pursuers turn to dive for cover. Neera watched gangers slide behind crates and overturn steel tables. She spied one brute, fixated on the boy out in the open. She braced the shotgun and squeezed the trigger. By the time the kick settled, her target had flopped backward, mercifully out of sight.
It wasn't enough. Nowhere nearly enough. The boy cast the spent revolver aside, pumping out shell after shell with his shotgun. Rounds snapped closer and closer. He was completely exposed in the open.
"Alive!" a hoarse voice barked. "We need him alive!"
One goon evidently took the advice on board. There was a hollow cough and something round and fast and hard punched the boy in the stomach. The beanbag round folded the boy sharply. He collapsed, blinking back tears and choking through his respirator; winded. The shotgun tumbled from his hands.
"Drop your guns!" one of the gangers roared, voice piqued with adrenaline. "Drop your guns or we drop you!"
The boy rolled onto his back, gasping for air. Neera hesitated, then flung her shotgun out into the open. She stuck her hands out over the remains of the stall, before hesitantly rising into view.
Mercenaries closed in from all directions; weapons raised. They barked an unintelligible cacophony of conflicting orders. Telin rose into view behind the cart; hands raised, expression stricken.
He was the first to notice the sign board. He knew the markets well; did most of his salvage trading here.
A large billboard depicting Nef Anyo drifted through the air. This was not unusual: independent status or not, Prospect 141 was an unspoken vassal of his corporation. Anyo Iconography came with the usual territory.
Less usual was that the billboard was now staring directly at him.
Then it winked.
At the same moment, every rolling ticker screen and LCD screen flushed a riot of neon yellow. Smiley faces rotated on each and every surface. Even Nef Anyo's typical ceremonial hat blinked out of distance, replaced with a cartoonish depiction of a jester's.
GET DOWN, rolled the text on the ticker screen, over and over.
Telin looked at Neera. Neera looked at him.
The smiley faces flushed an angry, impatient red. The ticker screens updated:
NOT KIDDING. MOVE IT OR LOSE IT.
The scavengers threw themselves flat.
With an ear-splitting hiss a ball of pure energy ripped through the market; spears of light keening as they stabbed out from its centre. Tents split, decking singed. Display screens erupted in sheets of sparking fire. Entire stalls collapsed as the energy ball coursed through, sowing destruction in its wake. Mercenaries screeched; clutching cauterised stumps or simply disintegrating in steaming chunks of meat as they fell apart.
Kelpo for his part stared at the ball of twisting light as it sped toward him, transfixed. Telin tackled him to the ground as an energy beam narrowly skimmed overhead, singing his environment suit. The ball surged into the far distance, sowing chaos and panic in its wake.
"Hell was that?!" Neera gaped. What little was left of her cover was a charred ruin. Similarly charred were the bodies of the mercenaries around them; rendered in gruesome vivisection across the smoking clearing.
"Nothing good!" Telin shouted, helping Kelpo to his feet. "Run!"
They fled, leaving behind the ruined market.
On the billboards, the smiley faces flushed a cheerful yellow once more.
A lone figure stepped out into the street.
A young girl, slight of frame. She picked up a discarded pistol, examining it with practiced curiosity. The ball of light had neatly snipped its barrel in half. She shrugged, nonplussed; discarding it and surveying the destruction as she padded through the ruined market.
The girl was pretty: bright-eyed, button nosed. A pair of battered goggles with scuffed lenses were pushed up on her forehead; lending some semblance of control to the mane of blonde hair that spilled loosely down her shoulders. She picked up another gun: the shotgun the boy had been using. It was still intact.
Her hands expertly dismantled it, scattering its component pieces across the ground. She patted her hands clean. Too crude a weapon for her.
A tide of mercs sprinted into the street, encroaching from all sides. A backup team. Of course there was a backup team, she thought.
The mercs slowed as they entered the ruined clearing, marvelling at the sheer carnage on display. A different gang this time: all respirators and weather-stained greatcoats.
The girl smiled brightly, offering a wave.
"Hello!" the girl beamed. "I'm Sara. You guys looking for somebody?"
The mercs slowed, unsure of themselves. One of them stepped forward. He had a welder's mask serving as a crude helmet. The faceguard had been retracted, revealing a puffy face and heavy stubble.
"Where'd they go?" the man sneered, starting forward.
Sara's expression never lost any of its perkiness as she shook her head.
"Couldn't possibly tell you. Well I possibly could, but then I'm stalling. Telling you would somewhat defeat the purpose."
The merc growled and started forward. An electrified truncheon sparked to life in his hand. She watched his approach with baffled surprise.
"This is your default solution? A Prova? That's your go-to here?"
She was still smiling when he went to grab at her.
The rest of the hired guns emitted a collective wincing hiss. The merc hit the floor, arm fundamentally broken in several unnatural places. The Prova still fizzled as she tossed it aside.
They drew in unison. A wall of clattering weaponry bristled from all angles. Shotguns, compact machine pistols and slug-throwers. Even a ramshackle flamethrower.
"A flamer?" Sara grinned. "Better."
They opened fire. The surviving market stalls collapsed; chopped into matchsticks or torched outright.
Sara moved quickly. A neat hand-spring carried her across the clearing. She dove behind a bullet-chipped packing crate. The crate itself melted under the hail of withering bullets. By the time the licking flames cleared, the crate had all but vanished; reduced to mouldering slag.
Sara too was gone.
The mercenaries approached, confused. Weapons hunted for targets.
The girl's disembodied voice rang out across the abandoned market; echoing off billboards and rebounding through the twisting, empty streets. Now it carried a mechanical echo to it.
"You missed."
The mercs spread out, weapons raised; turning in all directions. They looked about, nervously trying to place the source of the voice.
The girl's voice came from the shadows directly above. Hard-edged now.
"My turn."
It descended from the ceiling, yellow eyes blazing.
The streets had emptied, eager to be out of the way of the marauding gang and the ensuing carnage. Food riots and mass protests were not uncommon, this deep in the city. Tonight something was different. There was a malice in the air that the locals could sense. Something dangerous lurked the streets. Void trickery, black magic. Better to stay away and indoors, wait it out.
All around, they could hear men shouting. Dashing feet and clanking footsteps. Rattling gunfire rent the air. Screams too. The hush-purr of beam weapons. That keening starburst of energy. More screams. Twice they had to double back on themselves, as hired guns sprinted in the general direction of the Mangled Moa. They sounded more panicked and confused than Telin's motley crew.
They were almost clear of the Market Sector. The exit was right ahead.
Neera rounded the corner first, clutching a small boot knife as her sole form of protection. The boy followed. He moved slowly; still winded, but mobile, hands held low at his side.
They crept forward. The alleyway was dimly lit, foul smelling. Steam hissed and twisted in the air as environment containment systems ticked and hummed around them.
Neera looked at the boy. The boy nodded. Clear.
They started forward again, carefully.
A whisper-thin line of cord snagged Neera's ankle, fiendishly subtle. She was still moving forward before she noticed it pull taught.
The boy saw it far too late. He cried out a warning.
The flash was blinding. Smoke bombs blasted them with soot; choking them in oily dust.
Neera was still twisting about when something else cinched around her other ankle, yanking her off her feet and lifting her high into the air.
The boy groped about, trying to find her in the choking din. Something hard slammed into his side.
A net launcher. It ensnared him fully. The boy smelled old hide and waxed leather. He snarled and thrashed, hands pinned by his sides. He tried biting his way free; tasted a hint of copper metal on his tongue. An electrified current coursed through the net, dropping him in a tangled heap.
Telin saw none of this. One moment Neera and the boy were advancing; the next there was a cloudburst of soot. By the time it cleared the two were wriggling in their respective snares.
Telin backpedalled quickly, hauling Kelpo with him.
Something struck him in the back of his thigh, stunning him. The return whirl of the staff lashed against his chest, driving the wind from his lungs; before whirling about and tangling itself between his legs. Then Telin was on his back, staring up into the business end of a hand-carved staff.
Their assailant was leathery and bald-headed; studded with primitive piercings and painted with tribal markings. Small bone earrings jangled in the dark. He smiled brightly down at Telin, large gaps between missing teeth.
"Swazdo'lah Surah." Parson-Luk held the staff pressed against the underside of Telin's chin, cupping it towards him. "Your city is strange to me. But the hunt… the hunt remains the same."