The rain should have been rushing down the reinforced, bullet-proof, two inch thick window but it wasn't. It hadn't done for some time now. The rain hadn't stopped, it never did. There was a build up of debris, industrial and natural effluvia and random junk blocking it. The rain made the stuff soggy, the wind blew it up over the armoured dome section. The only windows that could be seen out of now were on the south-side of the building thanks to the ruin that sheltered it. Too bad for the occupants that they'd chosen to construct the holding pens on the south side of the building. Now all their charges got the delightful view of cannibal sector four that was denied to the authorised occupants. That left two options for the occupants of the modified DN01A dome cluster; take a walk outside and face the twenty four hour quarantine or use one of the Spi-Is. The gritty interface of the Spi-I was annoying and not especially good quality, and the sector itself was hardly inviting. Cabin fever still ran high among the five occupants.

 

It grabbed Katja more than the others.

 

The occupants of Upper Brand, named for the ruined gauss station it was built next to, were in the latter stages of a nine month tour in the Cannibal Sector acting as a supply point and research station. Of the five of them, three were scientists and one was a technician and soldier, and all rounder sent by the upper echelons of the shadowy organisation. Katja was the marksman. She alone had the suit of powered armour and a sniper rifle, though she had the key to the armoury, everyone else having to manage with pistols for the nerds and a shotgun for the company man. Due to his knowledge, and Katja's inexperience, the tech – Cagliostro – was in charge of the day to day running and defence of Upper Brand. This left Katja with basically fuck all to do.

 

Katja couldn't say she hadn't been warned. The agents had briefed her fully about what she was getting in for. Even with the extended dome cluster and increase in privacy, the tour would be longer than usual and still claustrophobic. They told her to bring as many comforts from home as she could manage without taking the piss (space was still at a premium) to try and make the place feel more like hers, and less of a prison. As she puzzled over what to bring while the DarkNight higher-ups left, the last one out stopped. It was the woman. Katja didn't know her name in the same way they didn't know hers, calling her only by her code name of “Squeak”. The woman smiled and had told her not to bring anything she valued. By the end of the tour, she'd be sick of it and consider everything in the damn dome to be unclean, tainted by the sector somehow. She'd not want it any more. Despite all this fore knowledge, Katja was loathing every minute.

 

The nerds... the nerds were in paradise. There were three of them. Rhyme and Reason were the two guys. They had come in together and knew each other personally. The girl, Celeste, had obviously got to know the guys personally during the course of this mission. She was quite a homely girl, if Katja was being nice, but she was the centre of female attention in the domes and whether she had quite the libido, needed a way to pass the time or was just happy having guys eating out of her hand for once, Katja didn't know, but the woman was putting it around. So, the guys were getting laid more than they ever did outside and all three of them had the fruits of the sector to pour over. Apparently, they'd discovered something big. They'd only told Katja the basics about it one day over beers, and as they were nerds they'd used big words she didn't understand and refused to dumb it down to explain in the layman's terms she asked for. She suspected they were still bitter about the fact she'd declined to be as promiscuous as Celeste had.

 

Celeste... that was actually a cool name, Katja had thought. Rhyme, Reason... kinda cheesy, obviously an in joke. Cagliostro too... it seemed like everyone else had got to pick their alias for themselves. They'd told her she'd be called 'Squeak'. Katja had heard Celeste make a jibe that it was probably the sound she'd made whilst fucking the DarkNight recruiter that had brought her in. She didn't think it'd be a good idea telling the nerds that it was because when she'd first fallen into DN's company, the overseer of the cell she became attached to had asked her how she wanted to be referred to and, in the middle of thinking up a kick ass name, she'd opened her mouth to talk and made a little high pitched noise as her vocal chords tripped up over her malingering thoughts. The man had said he didn't know how to spell it so he was going to call her Squeak, and that was that. She'd told Cagliostro and he'd laughed, but not in a mean way.

 

It was up to Katja to defend the dome while the nerds worked and Cagliostro ran things, deciphered broadcasts and sent out his own coded communications. Katja wasn't allowed to touch that either, just like the nerds' stuff. Unlike the nerds, Cagliostro had happily explained this was because anyone could be listening, and one screwed up transmission would bring a pack of Slops down on their head faster than Celeste would drop her clothing. Katja liked Cagliostro. The first couple of months had been real exciting in this respect. The dome, freshly installed, stilled smelled not of chemical toilets and human sweat, but like the inside of a new car. This was hear-say to Katja, who'd rarely been in a car, let alone a new one. It was a good smell, though. Outside the dome, the Cannibal Sector residents had been eager to inspect this new, odd looking development and see how much food it contained. A few carrien had still lingered in the area. Most had been killed by the set up crew who had chosen the site especially because of those long-faced bastards. CS4 was the cannibal's Cannibal Sector. The presence of carrien meant the absence of cannibals and for a long term haul like they'd be in for, carrien were the lesser of two evils. Carrien ate what they could get, but cannibals prized human flesh, and would be much more resourceful and much more persistent in getting it.

 

Katja had hunted carrien before. The first time she'd done it was when she was four. Her father firmly believed that little Katja should learn how to shoot. In fact, he quite insisted she should learn how to shoot “those mangy bastards right in the damned eye”. Katja's mother had been eaten by carrien when she was very young. A peril of living in lower downtown. Katja was too young to remember it so she only got her father's inherited hatred, driven by his resulting madness. Denied a person to strike back, an individual carrien to get revenge on, he'd applied it liberally to the creatures as a whole. Being of downtown stock and not a lazy good for nothing hanging on the dangled threads of piss soaked hand outs from the high and mighty Slay-boys (his words), Katja's father had spent plenty of time with the gangs and knew his way around weapons. Katja often wondered if the man had been a retired prop, but he never spoke of his past. Using only a CAF rifle, he would routinely find the carrien haunts in the abandoned lower levels and come home with one or two of the creatures' heads. Somewhat reluctantly, he had found an operative willing to cash in the bounty for him and used his vengeance to feed his slip of a daughter. It was these skills that he passed on to his daughter. How to hunt, how to avoid being ambushed, the lay of the wild areas and the habits of the creatures. When she had been older, he'd found her with the local gang insignia (the Lowdowns) and had gone ballistic. He said he remembered when he'd been around the gangs, how they'd treated women, and he'd not have his daughter having anything to do with it. He said the exact same things about the Shivers and SLA Industries. One day, frustrated by his refusal to let her do anything, she'd threatened to join the Monarchs. The old man had just laughed, and with her ridiculous bluff well and truly called, she'd laughed too.

 

Her father never found out she'd joined DarkNight. He must have figured something was up when she went out more and more, but no gang colours turned up, no Shiver pay cheques started arriving. Katja always managed to be back for his twice weekly daddy-daughter carrien hunt and she showed no signs of being pregnant, so he let his suspicions remain hidden. Then one day, perhaps inevitably and long overdue, a carrien hunt went wrong. He got stabbed on the way to the open, rubble-strewn waste-land they preferred and his CAF rifle was stolen. The guy didn't get away. Katja had shot him (double tap, then two more rounds for luck, don't be a sucker, just like when she was hunting the carrien). A general sense of loss pervaded her, but she was from downtown. This shit happened.

 

That's when she'd signed up for this damn job.

 

Shooting the carrien that pestered the domes had been a home from home, but then they'd gone and had been replaced by the cannibals. That man... the boy, actually... who'd shanked her dad had been the only person she'd killed and she'd done if for fair and just reasons. The cannibals were too much like people. It'd been hard to shoot them at first and when it became easy to kill them, a process that had been under a month, she hated herself for the loss of humanity that was the hallmark of the contract killers on the TV shows her father had constantly derided. A short time into the arrival of the near-human monsters, the type had changed. They weren't, in short, so fucking stupid any more with their rudimentary traps that the Spi-Is saw them constructing. They'd use decoys and set false traps, ambushes around the traps. The DarkNight agents never fell for it, the Spi-Is were too omnipresent, but they were at least making a better job of it. Additionally, they were really, really twisted mutants. Their mouths were far too wide, jaws elongated and their eyes were opaque, like they had really bad cataracts. This was when the nerds wanted her to take one alive to be kept in the fauna pens they had installed for just such an event. Cagliostro had argued that they were there to develop a new weapon to be used against the SLA dominion, be it terror or war world, and that pratting around with mutants was not on their agenda. Evidently, Rhyme, Reason and Celeste had argued him around with visions of a DarkNight version of Stormers, or perhaps a new problem like the carrien to unleash on SLA. Katja was all for breaking SLA's hold on things, but she felt adding to the woes of the downtown masses with a new monster was really, really shitty. She also found it hard to care. They were the brains, she was the gunner. Next outing, she'd knee-capped one of the things and Cagliostro had dragged it into the holding pen.

 

This had been the cue for months of excitement from the nerds, and more and more growing boredom from her. From what she could tell, the nerds figured out from their captive that the odd cannibals viewed the dome as a source of food and power, but also as a place of ultimate horror and danger. Old taboos and seeing their companions have their brains shot out on a regular basis had become confused, while hunger would have its way. What they figured out from its vivisection evidently was very, very awesome but beyond Katja's severely stunted education. After a couple more cannibals were dragged wounded and screaming back into the dome by the dark blue armoured tasty-men, they stopped bothering. Celeste had suggested putting the heads of the now-finished with specimens on spikes outside the dome until Cagliostro had patronisingly explained that shoving raw meat out in the cannibal sector would do everything but drive nasty things away. The carriens and cannibals gone, only the more bestial things lurked now. Katja had taken to going out in her powered armour and taking pot-shots at them with one of the pistols, but one day they'd found parasites had climbed on to the articulation cables at the joints and were draining the fluid from the pseudo-muscles. While they had plenty of spares to fix the armour plates, the finer tunings of the suit would require a fully qualified armourer to repair if they got too messy. A few patch jobs, a change of fluid, the suit was fine. Should the parasites get her again one perhaps two more times, and she had no idea how they got on there, then the suit would be nearly useless. Then Katja would have to use the unpowered armour, the one without an air-supply, the one that meant she'd have to stay in the small, white airlock with nothing to do, on her own, for twenty four straight hours each time with the stink of the chemical decontaminants making her sneeze.

 

Time had been passed trying to converse with everyone, but she was a shy girl really and found forced conversation awkward, and everyone else was much more knowledgeable than her on nearly everything. Katja knew her weapons though, and spent time making sure everyone's firearms and close combat weapons were in tip-top shape. The cleaning fluids were beginning to run a little low as a result. Quiet time alone in her room, filled with her collection of vintage SLA drug use posters (“Say no to Shatter; Stay SLA!” “Just because a Frother cuts doesn't mean you can too!”) was spent reading the DarkNight catalogue and weapons manuals. Occasionally Katja would wander into the common room (which was also the kitchen, the dining area, the spare storage area, the food storage area and the ventilation main control room) and watch the tiny TV they had. The channels were blocked because some wise guy up at DarkNight command had decided that allowing people locked in a tiny space to watch enemy broadcasts where people were hacking each other up may not be a good idea. All they got was Channel Resistance during its sporadic broadcasts. Thankfully, Cagliostro seemed clued in as to when these were going to broadcast, and let the others know with plenty of warning. Katja had always loved Channel Resistance. It seemed such a snub, such a 'fuck you' to SLA. Her father had called it a bunch of posers, wannabes, usurpers, not heroes. This was one thing on which Katja differed to her paternal opinion. Anyone who would fight the power, and not just live as much outside as they could like her father did was worthy of a lot of respect, and Lisa Foden had always seemed so stunning. Katja harboured the hope she could be the face of Channel Resistance one day, but knew this was nothing but a pipe dream. Better to have something though...

 

Thankfully, all of this... her boredom, being sneered at, pointless routine and such cloying claustrophobia (Katja swore every room smelt of sex by now. She imagined those damned nerds at it, everywhere!) was all about to be relieved. They were having a visitor.

 

The nerds had broadcast their findings to the DarkNight superiors, whoever they were, and they were sending a notable to come and have a look at their painstaking research and the applications therein.

 

Katja had been informed to take a landing beacon, put on her armour and go and signal the dropzone, and she wasted no time in doing it. An assault rifle, her least favourite but most appropriate weapon, slung under her arm, she fastened on the helmet that had “Squeak” written above the lenses. She didn't mind, Cagliostro had done it for her. Spent a week painting it on. Not only was he smart, skilled and witty, the guy was really good at art too. No mere scrawl, this was proper calligraphy! Taking a deep breath, Katja studied the large panel opposite. It contained a bomb. A large bomb, easily enough to take out three hundred yard radius around the base. Stencilled above it were the words “some things are worse than death”. Apparently, this was a regular issue, such as anything in DarkNight could be called regular, to the science teams. Take any advance with you, you don't want SLA taking the stuff you made and using it on you. Also, SLA had some very unpleasant methods of persuasion.

 

Even in her long stay, she'd still not thought of anything truly worse than death. Some things were really, really unpleasant, yeah, but death was IT. It was the last thing they could take. The only thing that was hers, really.

 

Engaging the lock, Katja stepped outside. The ruins crawled, rain looking like marching insects as it funnelled itself over the ruins, joined in places by actual insects or things that had evolved from them to change into something fit to exist in the toxic cannibal sector. Bigger things lurked in the darker places, imagined and real, but all had learned to associate the dark armoured shape with the snap of a rifle and sudden pain, or if possessed of a bit more intelligence then by the disappearance of their kin. The DarkNight compound was too much trouble to bother with, but too tantalising to give up on completely. Katja ignored them, but not totally. The landing field was a compacted area of debris that had been used by the set-up crew to unload materials, and was still in use with the very occasional supply run that dropped in and left packages for an insurgent team that would collect it later. Katja slammed the beacon at the edge, flood-light pointing at the flattened land and still off. It would remain off until the DarkNight vehicle came into range and pinged it with the appropriate, time-dependent code. It was over an hour until this happened, and in the mean time Katja stood in her armoured suit, constantly checking for those unusual parasites that had drank from her cables and keeping her guard up. When the light did come on, she doubled her guard. Even a shuttered light such as this would attract things, much more than the muted lights on her suit did. Fortune favoured her, and nothing sought it out. Then she saw the DarkNight dropper arriving. It was like a beetle, armoured casing, ungainly, landing struts like legs, flying low over the ruined buildings and industrial slag. It had an almost jet black colour, broken on the upper surfaces by the green and rusty orange triangles of cannibal sector nocturnal camouflage. The armoured flyer landed with a sludge-drenched splat on the landing field. Unlike a beetle, the wings didn't fold away for the thing become a sleek, armoured vessel. Sitting there, like that, it looked menacing and wrong. It wasted no time at all though, and a hatch opened and the passengers quickly hurried down the ladder it had vomited forth.

 

There were two of them. One was small and slender, wearing a suit of powered armour that reminded Katja of silverback, but altered and made with a much more DN-friendly aesthetic. It was plain, a very dark blue, and unremarkable beyond its uniqueness. What was different was the helmet the figure wore. It was a nest of lenses, sensors, lights and pick ups arranged in such a way as to obliterate any humanity. The other figure was no less bizarre. Dressed in obsidian black custom armour, the man wasn't tall or bulky beyond his accentuated frame, but dominated the landscape by having a mask that looked like a flower, yellow petals, brown face with an interminable smile painted on it, lenses worked into the design. It looked childish and silly. A second glance showed that the petals were all rigged with sensors too and the design had been made functional. Still, it was very silly.

 

Regardless, it was not her place to judge. She spent no time gawping and led the two into the airlock. Within the small white room, in their powered, enclosed suits, the high-pressure, caustic cleaning fluids were pumped in, evaporating any living agent on their persons before cooling, calming disinfectants made the room habitable again and were pumped back into recyc. The door opened, and the trio were readmitted into the dome proper.

 

“Many thanks for the escort, my dear Squeak!” the flower-man spoke, his voice rich and well enunciated. A little gravitas was lost from the synthesised voice, but the composure and refinement came through still. He removed his helmet and showed himself to be a middle aged man of distinguished, as opposed attractive, looks. A skull cap covered his hair, and he unfastened the buckle but left it on. The other figure remained fully armoured.

 

As the nerds and Cagliostro filtered into the main corridor, a room of no other use due to the proximity of the airlock, the flower-man continued. He rose on his feet and rocked a little as he spoke.

 

“A pleasure to meet you all. I hear you're doing fine work for our organisation, fine work indeed!” the voice was much richer without the helmet. Katja removed hers too. “You can call me Sunflower Smile. Your friend Cagliostro knows me already, we've worked together before, haven't we, Cagliostro?”

 

“Yes, boss.” Cagliostro nodded and smiled.

 

“As we all know, time is of the essence, can't have SLA finding our bug parked outside, can we? Might give me a ticket!” Sunflower Smile laughed. The others joined in, but not Katja. The blue eyes of Sunflower Smile found her and he tilted his head. “Now, Squeak, care to inform me why you're not laughing at my awful joke?”

 

Katja looked up, opened her mouth to talk and her vocal chords betrayed her again.

 

“I see you're aptly named. So, let me guess.” Sunflower Smile said slowly in a caring and understanding voice. “You want to know why I'm called Sunflower Smile?”

 

The nerds made a derisive laugh.

 

Sunflower Smile raised a hand to silence them and also admonish them.

 

“Now now, sometimes we miss things and other times things can pass us by.” He said calmly and turned back to Katja. “Well, Squeak, on the planet Gross – hell of a place, not fit for inhabitation, not enough resources to be fought over, occupied by SLA simply because SLA can afford such things – the mines there often get inhabited by a small plant the miners call Sunflowers. They grow only in the dark and produce bio-luminescence, that is, they glow. Sadly, these flowers, pretty as they are, have a very poisonous spore. The poison gets into the lungs and starts to choke the person slowly, passing into the blood-stream by viciously colonising the lungs and damaging the soft tissue there. Well, in the blood-stream it circulates around the body and begins to cause horrible muscle contractions, often breaking bones in the process. When the person finally does die, for there's no cure, they're a twisted, broken thing... terrible to see. The muscle spasms usually mean the corpse looks like its grinning, and of course they've coughed up a lot of blood. The look on the face of the dead man is called a “sunflower smile”. I got the name as I exported the stuff to be used on Dante.”

 

Katja just stared at this man. There was a twinkle in her eye.

 

“Introduction done,” Sunflower Smile said, refusing anyone the chance to complain that the bizarre companion with him had not been introduced. “let's see what you fantastic people have been doing to further our company.”

 

“You are not going to believe this, Mister Smile,” Celeste said, giving him her best sultry voice and the look that she gave the other nerds when she wanted something, usually sex. Katja fought the impulse to strike her. The company walked down the corridor to the lab-room except for Cagliostro and the strange figure who went to the comms room to watch for incoming messages and air traffic. While they walked, Celeste began to rattle off the same talk she'd given to Katja with Rhyme and Reason joining in. Macro-virus was mentioned, protein strings, DNA and other things that Katja almost understood, or had heard of, but the rest was mumbo jumbo.

 

Sunflower Smile shot Katja a sidelong glance. As she was only five foot two, even though he was barely five foot nine he still had to glance downward. He smirked.

 

“Did you understand any of that?” Sunflower Smile said. “I know I didn't.”

 

Katja stifled her giggle, knowing that Sunflower Smile understood a damn sight more than she had done, but she shook her head anyway.

 

“I'm sorry Miss Celeste, Misters Rhyme and Reason but that they have not sent you another scientist, they have sent you an idiot who keeps having good strokes of luck and the odd good idea, enough to keep me on the payroll.” Sunflower Smile humbled himself, though no one there thought he was sincere at all. “Try again.”

 

“We... that is Rhyme and I,” said Reason, stroking his chin and wondering how simple he should make it so as to get his point across but not insult this DarkNight bigwig. Dry flakes of skin fell from his beard, the man having quite a hard time in the filtered air of the domes. “we came here with the idea of using some local flora or fauna to attack the power cables in Mort City. We needed to find something that was feeding, or could be made to feed on the plastics and metals in the cables. We'd seen such things before on our last tour, but then we were just brewing shatter for the local pushers.”

 

“Sounds like a superb plan.” Sunflower Smile said without interruption.

 

“Well, that's when we spotted the Juanitas. That's what we called the cannibals that attacked us.” Rhyme smiled, bringing up a photo on the computer of one of the young female cannibals they had captured. Gaunt, pale, shark-like in her appearance but with all too much human familiarity. “Get it, Juanita?”

 

“I'm afraid it eludes me.” Sunflower smile shook his head.

 

“Juanita? Wan... eater?” Rhyme carried on. “Wan, cos they're really pale, eater because they... eat lots?”

 

Katja got angry. They'd not explained why they called the cannibals by that name to her, and now she knew she was kinda pissed about it. That sucked.

 

“Very droll, Mister Rhyme.” Sunflower Smile rolled his hand to indicate time was a factor.

 

“Well, the Juanita cannibal showed a remarkable adaptability. They seemed to have a cunning beyond normal cannibals while maintaining a much lower technological sophistication.” Celeste picked up the slack with a flirty smile. “We think they're a new, primitive tribe outside of the usual cannibal hierarchy. They showed a consistent mutation, marking them as a subspecies of humanity. The potential to train, and adapt these cannibals would be amazing. Considering they are using the fewer tools they do have in more varied and sophisticated ways than regular cannibals means that with the right education, they could serve as a shock trooper for DarkNight on war worlds and even in terror operations on Mort with little or no human agent support. Or so we thought.”

 

“The plot thickens!” Sunflower Smile nudged Katja and winked.

 

Celeste sneered down her nose in a half-hidden gesture at the smaller, younger woman.

 

“They're not mutants.” Reason took over. “Well, they are, but it's not genetic. Their bodies are hosts to a virus. It's a strange virus and no mistake.”

 

“Unnatural?” Sunflower Smile asked.

 

“Wrong question for the cannibal sector, Mister Smile, but I know what you mean. No I don't think it's engineered. It seems to have adapted itself to the sector. What happens is it mimics proteins by...”

 

A raised hand from Sunflower Smile.

 

“Don't waste time with things I won't understand.”

 

“It makes the body think it's a protein by hijacking them, so it lingers in the body of infected victims and gets passed on through the consumption of the captured proteins. When consumed along with the proteins, the body's defence mechanisms are practically useless against it. It starts to replicate and the replicated cells are made into a part of the creature. In humans this can lead to tumours, death from system failure or triggers mutation into the creatures you see here. The cannibals seem more acclimatised to it, but that seems to only be a three, four generational thing. One in ten would mutate in a neutral test subject.”

 

“And the rest would die?” Katja asked.

 

“That's the short of it, yeah.” Rhyme answered her snappishly. “The mutants are aggressive, violent and blood-thirsty, but seem to have an affinity for one another. We think that's hormonal. They'll kill and eat anything else that moves around them. This is why they're ostracised from the already brutal cannibal society, their crudeness a result of self-sufficiency. No fucker will have them around to bring them up or to teach.”

 

“So, why aren't they all dead?” Sunflower Smile frowned. “I don't think even cannibal infants would last long alone in this hell.”

 

“From what we can tell, the virus can lay dormant for a long time. The biggest trigger is puberty, that usually starts off the mutations. Some are born with it or contract it as a baby and they show greater mutation... bigger teeth, tougher eye-coverings, long tongues and claws. Those would probably be killed by their parents after the aggression comes through – too violent to control, ruling them out as shock troopers for us. Well... controlled shock troopers anyway. However, the change can happen at any time, we think. It's really quite random and there's so many factors affecting it.”

 

“That's not very helpful.” Sunflower Smile conceded. “If we were to breed these things, the losses and the time rate involved would be too high. Biological weapon?”

 

“Not airborne,” Celeste shook her head. “It needs to be cultured and its lifespan in the air would be too short. Nor water, there needs to be a high concentration of virus and proteins.”

 

“Well, ladies and gentlemen.” Sunflower Smile shook his head. “I am impressed. This has a lot of potential, but needs much more work. Keep it at it, and thank you for keeping me informed. I'll pass this on to the relevant people!”

 

The nerds looked crestfallen, but Sunflower Smile patted Rhyme and Reason on the shoulder being as they were closest to him and turned to walk out. The nerds remained behind, bolstered by the approval but annoyed that someone with more intellect and vision hadn't been sent to see the potential of what they had. They returned to their studies with a new vigour. They had been told they were on the right track!

 

Katja followed Sunflower Smile like a lost puppy. When he was gone, there'd be nothing but boredom again.

 

“Squeak.” He said after drawing a breath, as if he'd been considering something. “Cagliostro tells me good things about you. Hard working. Good shot. Head in the right place.”

 

Sunflower Smile retrieved his helmet from the rack. Cagliostro and the strange accomplice appeared in the corridor too.

 

Katja looked at Cagliostro. He had a bio-hazard suit on over his light armour. The man nodded at her.

 

“Sadly, one of my friends met a rather sticky end at the hands of some unpleasant slops.” Sunflower Smile pouted, indicating he was annoyed but such was life. “So I have a vacancy on my team. I was wondering if you'd like to join me? I have uses for skills such as yours. Plus, it'd be nice to have a pretty girl around, brighten the place up.”

 

Sunflower Smile looked hopeful, expectant. Katja disliked the flattery, even though it was true. She was a pretty girl, but make-up was foreign to her and her long dark hair was greasy and clung to her head and hid her actual beauty even from herself.

 

“er... yeah?” Katja agreed, tentative in case the offer was mere teasing.

 

“Excellent!” Sunflower Smile patted Katja on the shoulder. “Great to have you aboard, Squeak! Radio the ship, send in the replacements.”

 

“Already done, sir.” The oddly-helmeted one said in an electronically hidden voice emitted from speakers at the base of the neck.

 

“Suit up...” Sunflower Smile started, but then stopped and tried to snap his armoured fingers. He called down the corridor.

 

“Rhyme, Reason, Celeste! Couple of things. Firstly, we're taking Cagliostro and Squeak with us. We have replacement staff with us. Secondly, do you have any of that virus synthesised?”

 

Reason appeared in the doorway to the lab-room. He rubbed at his dry neck, as if annoyed that he was being dragged away from busy, important work.

 

“Two litres including suspension, why?”

 

“Could I have it?” Sunflower Smile seemed to plead, as a superior being a 'people person' and not just demanding.

 

“Both litres?” Reason raised an eyebrow. “You only need a few millilitres if you want someone to study it. With two litres, you could contaminate a lake!”

 

“Except water won't transmit it, will it?” Sunflower Smile responded, finger wagging, like he'd caught a trick question. “Both litres, if you please.”

 

With the replacements newly installed, Sunflower Smile and his team left the dome-complex with the two litres in a large container, carried between Cagliostro and Squeak. In the dropper, the team sat, still in their armour, waiting. There was nothing to do, and to most this was just another ride. To Squeak, it was the second time she'd been in a drop ship and the ride was far more exhilarating. It wasn't a ride out of downtown to get away from the shit, it was a ride to a future with a purpose. She didn't care one iota about all the stuff she was leaving behind, hadn't needed to stop and pack. It could all rot. She stared admiringly at Sunflower Smile, even in his goofy helmet as he spoke on the shipboard communicator.

 

“Hardset? This is Smile. Terribly well, since you ask. What about you? That's a shame. Now, I'd love this to be a social call but I need a favour. Do you still have that sleeper in Dairy Time Infant Supplies? You do? That's excellent. I am right in thinking that they are the ones that supply all those hospitals with that protein-enriched milk substitute for the maternity wards? Good, I didn't think I was wrong. We've been sitting on that one for some time. Well, I think I finally found something grand that we can do with it...”