Whe back to the lifts I found a small kiosk selling French Fried Nutribar, which was signifitly more expehan a regur nutribar, but cut into strips then fried in grease to make the outside chy. We bought tws, then found a retively isoted spot he railing not too far away.

  “So, how bad were these riots? I’m guessing they did more than bash in the heads of a couple corporate security guards,” I asked, stuffing my face with the tasteless fried sticks.

  Helen wrinkled her nose in disgust at my eating habits, as she slowly chewed through hers o a time. “No, they did not. They ripped apart, and torched, a few different facilities,” she shot a file across to my augs, which I opened up. “In each of the three riots a couple of the agitators were arrested, and ‘interrogated’ but it seems they were all paid handsomely to cause havoc, but had no idea who it was that hired them. Surprisingly, ead every one of them cimed they ried to burn down any facilities, those fires were started spontaneously by the mob.”

  “And you believe them?” I asked, turning the sleeve upside down aying the st of my snato my mouth.

  “I didn’t before,” she admitted, “but we had no idea someone was skulking around in a full stealth suit at that time.”

  I crumpled the envelope, and threw it into a nearby pile of trash, then nodded. “It wouldn’t be hard to sneak in and burn a pce down if no one see you,” I agreed. “So which pces were burned down?”

  I opehe file Hele me and flicked through the properties. The damage was more extehan I expected, in one case parts of the higher floors colpsed onto a lower level, spreading the fire far more extehan I expected. Dozens of properties were damaged, mostly ore processing areas. I snorted when I noticed that a couple fes mao burn down in the chaos, but I doubted they were the real targets, so I trated on the most unique facilities.

  “What the fuck? Suspected uranium mill? Are they really shipping uranium into the city, and processing it here? Even I know that’s fug insane,” I hissed.

  “Rex, it’s only suspected, and it wasn’t even active yet. It art of blocks that were being renovated, or repurposed, due to obsolesce. The rioters cimed that they were protesting the sudden yoffs, and reassigs. Apparently the corps didn’t provide any notice ahead of time, but that’s actually standard operating procedure for a lot of them,” Helen expined.

  “Okay… new question,” I said, as I leaned back against the railing. The ehing shuddered, even under my light weight, so I quickly stepped away. “Why the fuck would someone build something like that iy?”

  Helen popped another fried bar into her mouth, and cocked her head to the side, thinking. “Because Global-Rare earth used to run all the processing facilities until they shut down,” she replied with a shrug, “and these corps wao make a quick buck. Although I expect that corp is probably in deep shit now. No one wants a radioactive disaster in their basement.”

  “That’s reasonable,” I muttered. “I half expected you to tell me it was an authorized operation.”

  “The corps are greedy, not fug stupid. Processing that shit iy would be too much of a long-term risk,” Helen assured me.

  “So…” I started cheg the list once more. “What resources did Global Rare-Earth have a stranglehold of before, but other corps would be moving in on now?”

  Helen rubbed her greasy fingers orousers, “Now that’s a good question. A lot of ore extra, and processing, as I uand it. Gimme a sec.” Her eyes went gssy for a moment, and I could see her throat moving, even though she wasn’t saying anything. After about a minute she focused again. “Apparently the worst bottlenecks right nold, and titanium,” she reported.

  “Okay, titanium I get, but why gold?” I asked. “Corpos running out of fancy jewelry to wear to their meetings?”

  “Gold is used in processors,” Helen replied, shaking her head slightly, “and it has been for decades. No gold, ronics.”

  “So the shes are bad?” I asked, recheg the list. Sure enough there were a couple industrial gold processing pnts on the list.

  “Crippling,” Helen firmed with a nod.

  “Well, we don’t have anything else to go ht now, maybe we trate our focus there, until we hear back from Zetta,” I suggested. “Nyx, are there any old processors either active, or being structed right now?” I asked.

  There are three. Two are only in the initial stages of stru, one is scheduled to be pleted in the week or so.

  “Wonderful. That makes things easier. How far is this processor from us now?” I asked quietly.

  Marking it on your map now.

  I shot a copy of the coordinates over to Helen, before heading towards the lift.

  “You should really learn to subvocalize, in order to prevent people from listening in to your versation. It also makes you look like a crazy person, when you talk to yourself like that,” she whispered.

  “Yeah yeah, so I’ve been told,” I muttered.

  The pnned processing facility was ba ground level, in the sector over. I hadn’t really expected anything from our iigation, we just didn’t have much to go ht now, so I was more than a little surprised to find the streets around the area crowded with people. Many of them were yelling angrily at the corporate guards around the area.

  “This could be a ce, right?” I asked Helen quietly as we pushed through the crowd.

  “Two, maybe. Three, unlikely. Four?” she whispered back, “Is a fug targetted attack. I don’t knoould be from crippling something like the gold supply, but I have a feeling if we get there fast enough, we might find out.”

  “Nyx, let whatever pany is in charge of security know that we’re on our way, and if they don’t want to lose the pce, they better let us in,” I muttered.

  Helen shot me a look, but didn’t say anything. As soon as we pushed up to the front gates, the guards, who were struggling to push the aggravated mob back, split a us through without a word. I guess Nyx probably let them kly where we were.

  “What now?” I asked as we stumbled through the gate. “Do we just split up and scour this pce?”

  Helen didn’t immediately answer my question, instead she asked, “If someone wao cause the maximum amount of damage, where would they go?” A moment ter a couple pings showed up in my augs.

  “What happeo not looking crazy?” I asked.

  “Later! Find the fug murderer first,” she growled. “You take the left side, I’ll take the right. If you find them, tell me immediately!”

  “Right, because t and killing someo of revenge always turns out just like you want it,” I muttered.

  “Less sarcasm, more searg!” Helen said as she ran off.

  I decided to hold any more of my ebacks, and slipped into the building. The pce was, thankfully, abandoned. I couldn’t see a corp w enough about a bunch of general bourers to evacuate the building, so it was more likely they were still waiting for some deliveries before the final instaltion could occur.

  I stepped between the piles of stru debris and made my way towards the point on my augs. As I made my way deeper into the plex I strained my ears, listening for any sound of movement from within, which was difficult over the chorus of voices outside.

  It took me about a mio make my way to the heart of the facility, and the location of the future secure ste area, where I stopped. The area looked clear, but something didn’t feel right. I slowly crept into the room, iing every possible er for anomalies, listening for movement.

  There were no signs, but I could tell someone was there. It was like some sort of instinct, honed from my time fighting Twenty-Ones. “Nyx…” I started, and that was all that it took to aggravate my invisible foe. A shape separated from the wall, moving impossibly fast, and grabbed me by the head before driving me head-first into the wall. It was enough to make me see double, for a moment.

  That blow would have killed any unaugmented human. The fucker was definitely pag crade cyberics.

  The figure dropped me, probably figuring I was dead, and I tracked the silhouette back towards the middle of the room. “What is with you underworld freaks and your obsession with those fug animal hoodies?,” I heard the figure mutter, though their voice was heavily digitized.

  I rose, slowly, making sure I never lost tray target. “Oh… that answers a couple questions,” I chuckled. The blur pivoted in surprise. “You’re not from around here, are you?”