“Go, you Kingsdamn blindie! Ain’t no one comin! C’mon!” The whole van rocked as Walker stabbed the brakes yet again. Sitting in the Zamok, I barely noticed.

“Bard’s blood, Walker, we’re in K!” Bodine called from the bench opposite. “Can’t just run lights here, they got po-lice!” The small, wiry medic laughed at how ridiculous that was.

Walker mumbled some undoubtedly profane reply, but at least he stopped honking. Bodine shook his head. “Still don’t know why we let him drive.”

I shrugged a little too fast, servos groaning to keep up. “He’s done okay so far. Just gotta tune out the commentary.” Just then we accererated, smashing directly over a pothole so deep it probably had a Sun Age palace at the bottom. Agatha tried to tip away from me but I grabbed her barrel and got it situated back between my knees.

“Damn, Sharkie, is that a machine gun or are you just happy to see me?” Bodine snickered at his own joke, and it was so stupid I found myself joining in.

“Maybe it’s both, man, maybe it’s both.” And it was true. Against all logic, I found myself excited. It was four days since the meeting with that bastard the Montesquieu, four days mostly consisting of practice and training with all the new gear. As soon as Walker hinted that he’d found me a suit of power armor, my jaw had dropped.

“I’m saying this a lot today, but you have got to be kidding.”

The quarryman just smiled wider. “C’mon and give Vandermaas a hand.” Between me, Walker, and Tanje we wrestled the biggest remaining crate out of the van and onto the garage’s concrete floor. Walker plied a prybar with practiced ease, sending the molded plastic sides flopping to the ground. Within the box was…another box, this one made of dull gray composite. It stood upright, taller than me and wider than my shoulders. Scratched-up labels in Sovish runes were stenciled all over it.

I watched eagerly as Tanje undid the latches and flipped the front open. “I present the KT Bureau 113M-NS Zamok, a grade-3-assisted armored exoskeleton. In other words, power armor.”

“I…” I trailed off is what I did, too busy staring. Willy and Fidi made appreciative noises of their own. The suit was huge and bulky, eight feet from its cleated boots to the crown of its helmet. Its armor looked montrously thick and heavy, the beige-gray plates wedge-shaped like the prows of ancient water-ships. Even the helmet was a blank-faced prism, without any grilles or eyeports. Extra armor panels made a high collar at the neck joint and hung around its waist. It looked like something the bad guy would wear in a holo, the kind of implacable-man villain that never talked and could only be slowed down, not stopped.

“I fuckin’ love it,” I whispered, running a hand down the breastplate. The armor had a chalky feel, and though it was streaked with impact marks none were more than superficial.

Tanje’s smile had widened from professional to genuine. “It’s meant for explosive ordnance disposal. The armor is a carbon-ceramic-titanium nanocomposite, much thicker than a typical suit’s. Power comes from a nuclear-catalytic fuel cell with supercapacitor backup, control from double-redundant non-invasive cerebral pickups, and locomotion via polymer-fiber musculature aided by mechanical servos at the main joints. The fibers are last-generation, unfortunately, but they are very reliable.”

“Kingsdamn.” All that sounded very impressive. “You even got my size right,” I marveled, only half-joking.

“You’re somewhere north of a XXL on the size chart- just ‘cause of height, of course. Poor Vandy had to clobber a pair of wrecks together to make one suit big enough,” laughed Walker. “Not that you’d know it, lookin’ at that thing.”

“Yeah, Tanje. It looks great.”

“Yes, well…” He shifted back and forth, giving the floor a shy look. “Anyway. Shall we make sure it fits?” He opened a control panel on the Zamok’s forearm, and a moment later the whole suit folded open piece by piece like deadly origami.

A few minutes later it closed again with me inside, stripped down to shorts and a tank top. The inner lining was some kind of electro-active impact gel, meant for dissipating shock. It molded itself around me, feeling like a damp wrestling mat against my skin. I felt a brief spike of claustrophobic fear, almost like when I’d gotten my new eye, but clamped down on it and took a deep breath. The gel was pliable enough to let me breathe, which made me a lot less nervous.

“My, now that’s a terrifying sight.” Willy’s voice came to me through the helmet’s audio repeaters, the sight of his face through a grid of micro-cameras spread across its blank exterior like the compound eyes of an insect. Their view was shot into my flesh eye by a tiny laser projector, and into the SKH-Thayer through a hardwire interface like a hair-thin needle. Tanje’d explained all this to me already, but experiencing it in action was a trip.

“Whenever you’re ready, you can turn it on just as I told you.” Tanje’s calm voice soothed me even further, and after another breath I did as he asked. I thought hard about throwing a switch and turning the armor on, and just to be sure I clenched both fists inside their gauntlets. Both things would start up the motivator circuits, according to Tanje, and if they didn’t work there was a physical button on the control panel. They did, though. There was no rumble or hiss, just a slight vibration at my back as precious transuranic fuel flowed into the catalyst. I moved my arm, almost expecting it to not work.

“Whoa…” It did. Before starting it up, moving in the armor was like swimming through cold tar. Now its weight wasn’t even there. It moved as soon as the thought occured, the network of magnetic detectors and antennae in the helmet picking up the control impulses as they went down my nerves. I waggled my arms a little more, then took an experimental step and stumbled, falling face-first into the concrete with all the grace of a car accident.

“Careful, Sharkie!” said Walker and Tanje at once.

“I’m good, I’m good.” I really was. Between the armor and the gel liner, my spill wasn’t much more uncomfortable than falling onto a mattress. “You should see the other guy.”

Indeed, when I managed - with some very slow and careful movements- to get up, there were some chips taken out of the floor. The Zamok might’ve moved as soon as I thought, but its muscles didn’t quite act like a human’s. The languid movements it seemed to like reminded me a little wading through the water at Pengyi’s swimming hole. With that in mind I was able to walk back and forth and even reach a lumbering jog. I also had to get used to the unnatural vision system. The helmet couldn’t turn near as far as a person’s neck; rather if I wanted to look side to side I sort of nudged my head in that direction and the view panned like a camera on a gimbal. This wasn’t as disconcerting as I thought it would be; maybe the cybernetic eye helped. Finally I decided to see how strong the thing was. Stomping over to the van, I wrapped armored fingers under the bumper and lifted. Both front tires came off the ground with no more effort than lifting a forty-five pound plate took. I was so surpised it came out of my hand and bounced back to the ground.

“Kingsdamn and shit,” crowed Walker. “You’re gonna bring the hate and then some, little miss. Hop outta that thing for now, though. We only got enough fuel for a few days of hard practice and then the job, so we can’t go wasting it.”

“Right. Sure thing.” Reluctantly I shut her down and popped the seals. He was right, though. The transuranic fuel these things ran on was highly volatile, highly toxic, highly radioactive, and highly restricted. It was only made uptown and was harder to get your hands on than the armor itself. Who knew how Walker had scrounged up as much as he had. I asked him much the same.

“I didn’t do much,” he shrugged. “It was Rouenn and Miss Dezhda made most of those deals happen, with some help from the slicers. Trades, favors, blackmail…Those two are a formidable pair, I’ll tell you true.”

“Huh. I’ll have to say thanks later.” It was easy to forget, but Dezi’s work was as important to the Bones as mine was. Maybe more. She made things happen behind the scenes, hit Blue Division on an altogether different level. I just cracked skulls.

“You do that. Now then,” he clapped, “Let’s get the other one out.”

“I hope it is not for me,” muttered Fidi, shuddering. “Damn thing reminds me of a coffin.”

“Nope. It’s Willy’s. I’d be much obliged if you’d help get ‘er down, though.” We did.

The next few days where a whirlwind of condensed instruction and practice. I got good enough moving in the armor I hardly had to think about it, like my mind switched into a different gear whenever I got in. Just wish the fuel wasn’t so scarce, I found myself wishing more than once. Walker also gave me the rundown on the .50-cal: not just shooting it, but field-stripping it, cleaning it, checking the headspace and timing. That was a trip on its own. I was used to guns made of plastic or stamped sheet metal, but Agatha was all huge riveted plates and blocks of milled steel. No wonder she’d lasted so long.

About the only break I took was in the evening two days before the raid. Pengyi and I finally got to have that normal date we kept messing up. He visited me, this time. We got dinner from the ever-present food carts, walked around Ishimura and Boulevard of the Hyades for a while, and retired to my apartment to watch a holo or two. I’d thought that was just an excuse to lead into an altogether different sort of entertainment, but no: Pengyi rarely ever got to watch a 2D movie, let alone a full holographic, and treated the whole thing with almost religious significance. Just spending time close to him was good in its own way.

The only hiccup came at the end of the night. We’d just finished up a Jet Colter double feature, and when Pengyi stood he stretched in a way that did some very nice things to the lithe muscles running down his sides. I put my arms around him and he hugged me back, craning his neck to kiss me. There was a smile on his face when he pulled away.

“Must go home now, my light. Have bluevine rope curing and must keep my eyes on it.”

I nodded, smiling at the pet name. A tornagena thing, probably. “All good. I’m glad you came up, Pengyi. You know you can stay over any time, though. No need to ask.” There was a strand of deep red hair stuck to his cheek and I brushed it away without thinking.

He laughed that quiet laugh of his, shaking his head. “I appreciate. Truly, Sharkie. Thank you for having me, and please try for being safe.”

I very nearly told him about the job there and then. ‘Safe’ was one of the last words I’d use to describe it. But if I did, he might insist on coming along to help, and I didn’t want to put him in any more danger than I already had. Even if he didn’t come along, all it would do was make him worry and I didn’t want him wasting his time on that, eating himself up. And it wasn’t lying, just not spilling my guts. So instead I told him “I will,” gave him another, gentler kiss, and walked him to the door. A part of me said that had been the cowardly way, but another said it was the best for him.

I found myself thinking about that goodbye again as Walker’s van rumbled over K-block potholes, but put it out of my mind. I couldn’t let myself get distracted. We’d got into K through the Eighth Ward checkpoint, using a combination of spoofed vehicle registration, anti-scanner panels, and good old-fashioned bribes to get past. It was my first trip out of D, so I panned the Zamok’s view over to try and get a view through the windshield.

What I saw didn’t impress me. Everywhere had as many lifelights as there were in D’s brightest areas- so many the cars hardly needed headlights- and the buildings weren’t as ramshackle as in D-block, with far more made of modern conplas or newly quarried stone. Neither were the people I saw on the street, though everyone seemed to have a harried, haggard look to them. Rather than D’s manual laborers, underground tradesmen, and criminals, the population of K was mainly made up of office workers. As I understood it they spent their days holding down chairs in cubicles, or in meetings in which they planned more meetings. There were far more vics on the road too, though nearly all of them were cheap plastic fantastics. Despite it looking nicer on the face of things, I couldn’t help but think the place was lifeless next to D-block. No music on the corners, chain restaurants in place of food carts, a general lack of…I didn’t know how to put it. Spirit? Èlan? I was probably missing something. I’d been here for all of twenty minutes and what I didn’t know about it could probably fill half a Sun Age codex.

“How come everyone here’s got a shitty new car instead of a nice old one?” I muttered to myself. In D-block people hung onto things for as long as they could be repaired.

My helmet mic was on, broadcasting my ramblings over the Zamok’s external speakers, and Willy deigned to answer. “K-block RoadAuth won’t let you register anything over five years old,” he said. “You’ve got to buy a new car if you want to keep driving.” He sat across from me between Bodine and the dozing Ximena, wearing his own exosuit. His was mostly unarmored though, looking like one of those skinless anatomical diagrams but in black polymer rather than pink flesh. It was a Gyeoksung rig, the same kind some Praetor pilots wore- made him look like the world’s most shredded ninja.

“Why in the hell’d they make a rule like that?” Bodine asked, his narrow face screwed up in skepticism.

Willy crossed his arms. “It’s not just vics. They’ve got similar regs when it comes to renewing leases on apartments, getting paid in company credit, whatever. If you’re always in debt, can’t pay your bills, and have your savings knocked out on a regular basis, well, you’ve neither the means nor the willpower to ever leave your drudge job. You’re so focused on getting a paycheck and playing their game you never have time to think about how unfair the rules are.”

“Damn,” muttered Bodine. “Least in D they’re hands-off.” I was with him. The K-blockers were better off in some ways, but they were just as much under Administration’s thumb as we were.

“Hey, Sharkie.”

“Huh?” I glanced up at Willy. His armor’s faceplate was an insectile respirator mask with mirrored eye-lenses.

“Check this out.” I couldn’t see his face but I heard the mischief in his voice. He tapped a couple things on his forearm control pad, and when he spoke again it came out as an amplified electronic growl. “Stop and exit the vehicle immediately, citizen. You are hereby placed under arrest.”

I almost jumped out of my skin myself, but Walker’s reaction was more immediate. “Kingshit!” He jacked the brakes so hard the rear wheels almost left the pavement, waking poor Ximena so violently that Bodine almost took an elbow to the face. Willy cackled a scratchy electric laugh the whole time.

“Damn it, Wiremu, you do that again and I swear I’ll see you buried,” snapped Walker from up front. Willy kept going. “And I’ll dock your pay.”

He suddenly shut up. “But-“

“It’s in the fuckin’ contract, Willy. Read it again if’n you don’t believe me.”

“…Ah. Right.”

I shook my head, which both wasn’t visible to anyone else and sent my vision rocking all over the place. “How’d you do that, Willy?”

“Oh, don’t you start…” came a mutter from up front.

Willy leaned in to look at the control pad on my forearm. “On a KT model, hmm, check under external audio, and…there.”

I grinned inside my helmet, but didn’t activate it yet. “What runs but never walks?”

“A river?” said Ximena, though the smirk on her tanned face said she knew that wasn’t what I was looking for. I hit the voice changer.

“Walker’s mom to my bedroom.”

Ximena snorted, Willy shook his head, and Bodine cracked up. Seemed like me and him were sharing the same singular brain cell today.

“That ain’t even funny,” Walker groaned. “And you keep Penthesilea Walker’s name out of your mouth, Sawyer! She’s a lovely woman and she don’t deserve that kinda-fuck!” He stomped the brakes again, this time swinging towards the curb and bringing us to a complete stop. Someone honked behind us but he ignored it. “Well, ladies and gents, we’re here. Ximi and Bodine, plant the box. Willy and Sharkie, get ready ‘cause you’re on in about five minutes.” He tapped the dash clock, which showed 11:55 in the morning.

“Got it, boss.” The two unarmored gangsters got up, silliness replaced by cold professionalism. Both wore slightly rumpled office clothes over their weapons and armor, matching the K-blockers I’d spotted outside. Ximena grabbed a synth-leather legal bag as they jumped out and slid the door shut behind them. I got a brief glimpse of the Crockett Bank and Safe building across the street, a huge, stolid edifice whose reddish marble walls sparkled in the lifelight.

Walker pulled out a laptop as Willy checked the magazine on his coilgun and made sure the many grenades he carried were secure. I loaded a belt of heavy cartridges- half discarding sabot, half explosive multi-purpose- into Agatha, muttering the steps to myself as I went. It was a little more complicated than just smacking a fresh mag into your pistol. “Ammo box on, top cover open, first round past the pawl- no, wait, with the female link first, top cover closed, rack it twice-“ Shk-chak. Shk-chak. “And done.” I made sure the safety on the improvised grip was engaged and set the huge gun across my lap. At five feet long we took up most of the bench between us. Lastly I double-checked the reticle sync. Agatha had a holographic sight stuck to her side, but the easiest way to aim was with the laser-accelerometer box that synced up with the armor. It put a crosshair on my heads-up display like a video game. Easy as point and click.

“I wouldn’t want to do that under fire,” commented Willy, who’d been watching the whole time.

“Me neither, but one belt will definitely be enough, right? Right?” Eager to get moving,    I cracked up when he rolled his eyes. Not that I could see his face, but body language was more than enough on that one. I double-checked that the saw and Ultima were still clamped to my armor’s load-bearing rig and sat back.

“Nice. An’ there we are,” said Walker as he stared at the laptop. “They’re in.”

“Slicers got a connection?” I asked. That bag Ximena carried contained some kind of high-powered transmitter- something with enough juice it could push a signal through the insulated walls of the Crockett building and let Walker’s pet Net jockeys into the bank’s internal systems. GLASSEYE, whatever it was, was in the main vault. It was time-locked, and on a day like today, when the bank was supposed to be closed, it ought not to open at all. According to the Montesquieu, though, our targets had arranged for it to unlock from noon to 12:05. That would give them just long enough to make their deal happen with a minimum possibility of shenanigans. DD and Stripmine would let it open right on time- but as long as Willy and I did our part, it wasn’t going to close until we got what we came for.

“Yes, ma’am, they do,” he answered with relish. “You two good to go?”

Willy nodded and I said, “Yep. Is Fidi in place?”

“Has been for half an hour. He’s ready too.”

“Nice.” That meant he was up in some high-rise with his railgun, ready to take out any reinforcements and provide cover. The side door flew open just long enough for Ximena and Bodine to hop back in and start arming up for real. They weren’t coming into the bank with me and Willy, but along with Walker they’d pick us up when we were done and act as backup in case we needed it. If something was nasty enough to stop us I didn’t think two more kalashes would help, to be honest.

“Charge is ready, Walker.” Willy was all business now.

“Good…” He kept watching the clock. 11:59…12:00. “There. Here goes nothin.” Anticipation filled me as Walker pulled out and hooked a U-turn, distractions melting away. I was more in my element here than last time I’d gone into a fight, and with all this new gear…well, there was no lying to myself about it. Violence was coming and I couldn’t fucking wait.

The van stopped directly out front of the Crockett building’s polarized glass doors and I got to my feet. We’d practiced this move for half a day at least. Walker squinted into the mirrors, making sure the sidewalk was clear.

“Now!” he snapped. Bodine yanked the van’s door open just in time for Willy to toss a small wad of plastic explosive at the building, and for me to lumber out on its heels. The instant it touched the glass it exploded with a BANG louder than a rifle, blowing the doors to powder and raising dust from the sidewalk. Unarmored I would be on the ground, deafened, maybe unconscious or bleeding in my lungs. In the Zamok, though? It felt like a gentle shove. I jogged forward right through the blast wave, laser-focused on keeping up that deceptively languid pace.

Inside looked just like the pictures we’d gone over, a high-ceilinged stone lobby, dimly lit with a counter at one end and doors off to the side. More pertinent were the four Argent Fist mercenaries gathered around the teller stations, gaping at me like I was a Martyred King returned. One man didn’t seem to have noticed the bits of glass stuck in his cheek. Looked like I’d interrupted a game of dominoes.

“What the-“ one of them shouted before he was drowned out by the bark of his companions’ submachine guns. Inside the Zamok’s armor I didn’t feel the bullets, only heard their impact as faint clicks. A moment later I didn’t even hear that, because I heaved up Agatha and squeezed the trigger.

Foot-long streaks of purple-white flame spat from the .50’s barrel as it hammered, concussive and deafeningly loud even within the armor. The recoil was still substantial, and I let it push the muzzle across the Argent Fists like I was pressure-washing a car. What it did to them- oh, Kings, what a gun. The sabot rounds zipped through their aramid-composite vests like they were made of plastic wrap before raising puffs of white dust on the wall beyond. The HEMP’s, though, those cracked off in white starbursts bright enough to dim the Zamok’s vision systems like a welding mask. The mercs’ chests exploded. Limbs blew off. A slug took the last man in the head and it simply disappeared into pink mist. As it turned out, Admin lackeys died just as easy as Blue Div street trash if you put enough lead through them. Shooting them was even easier. If things had turned out different I might have been on Blue Div’s side. These Argent Fist pukes? Never.

I let off the trigger, belt links and huge shell casings clanking around my armored feet. The smoking offal that had once been four men lay splayed across yards in front of me, utterly ruined, torn apart like hogs hit by a quarry half-track. I was breathing hard, I realized, grinning ear to ear inside my helmet. I’d always been strong, had always known it and taken pride in it even while I tried not to scare people and throw my weight around. Now, though? I felt fuckin’ invincible.

“Oh, my,” murmured Willy over the integrated radio as he joined me inside, his boots crunching on glass dust. “That’s one way to make an entrance.”

I heard screaming outside, along with other sounds of confusion. That was funny. When people in D-block heard shooting, they didn’t waste time yelling- they either found cover or ran. “Walker was right,” I finally said. “It does clear rooms.”