Outside, the lower city's hot, dry, and gritty air echoed with the remnants of the confrontation as Adi paused to catch her breath. Her augmented heart pounded, still reeling from the clash that had just occurred. She turned her gaze to Rat, eyes blazing with intensity and challenge.

Adi's senses extended beyond her immediate surroundings as they emerged into the warm twilight. Her keen intuition prompted her to glance back toward the bar's entrance, where the two prostitutes who had been present earlier had vanished. Adi hadn't seen the women leave. Suspicion made her uneasy, and she couldn't dismiss it.

Unbeknownst to Adi, those women were far more than casual passersby or opportunistic figures from the shadows of the under and lower city. Their sudden disappearance was no random act but the first ripple in a meticulously orchestrated scheme. They were scouts, placed with precision, their arrival and exit timed to perfection.

Their assignment was straightforward: monitor Rat and confirm when he delivered the package to Adi. Wealthy and powerful interests, hidden deep behind layers of deniable operatives and shell organizations, had been pulling the strings from afar. Those women were one cog in a much larger and more intricate machine, serving a purpose that Adi had yet to uncover.

Their presence at the bar had been no coincidence. They had calculated every glance and every subtle movement. Even their appearance—far too polished and alluring for the gritty industrial district—was part of the plan, designed to blend enough to avoid suspicion while still standing out in a way that drew attention away from their true purpose. They had been watching for confirmation, their eyes on Rat and Adi herself. The moment Rat passed the key to her, their mission was complete, and they slipped away into the labyrinthine city streets to report to those who had hired them.

Adi didn’t yet realize that the package Rat and Kane are entrusting to her wasn’t just a piece of contraband or a trivial delivery—it was a key fragment in a dangerous and tangled web of conspiracy, corporate espionage, deceit, and crime syndicates. The interests orchestrating the opposition spanned star systems, and by accepting Rat’s task, Adi had unknowingly become a player in their high-stakes game. These shadowy powers now had their sights firmly set on her, and every step she took brought her closer to the storm.

The cost of hiring those women was a glaring sign of the more profound stakes involved. Adi's intuition sensed that this ordeal reached far beyond her and Rat, weaving through layers of corruption and power plays in which she had inadvertently become entangled. A sense of foreboding settled over her—the more she uncovered, the more she realized this path was fraught with danger.

Her parents' powerful influence lingered in her moral compass. Adi's practice of yoga—a fusion of Ashtanga and Kundalini—instilled discipline and clarity of mind that she drew upon. Her adoption of the mindset of her distant Gurkha ancestors from her mother's side added a layer of resilience and determination. These qualities served her well in navigating the treacherous path she was on.

Despite his weak protests, Adi dragged Rat through The Gut's dimly lit elevated streets; shadows danced around them, mirroring the uncertainties and revelations ahead. With each step, she went further into a world where people tested loyalties, formed and shattered alliances, and blurred the boundaries between right and wrong beneath layers of intrigue.

At the top, the Dickensian heart of the lower city lay before them, a grim tableau of dilapidated buildings and winding trash-littered alleys that swallowed the light. Adi's grip on Rat's coat lapels was unyielding as she hauled him up four flights of dimly lit, heavily graffiti-tagged, cracked concrete stairs, his feet barely touching the ground, each step an ascent through layers of urban decay.

Adi notices that some enterprising soul broke into one of the cement pillars, looking for the metal reinforcements they could sell to a recycler. Adi looks at the exposed metal with a critical eye. Chendiuria is so dry that rust is not an issue.

The scene was reminiscent of an ancient dystopian movie, the dry, hot air heavy with the acrid scent of desperation and survival. Litter fluttered around Adi's boots as she dragged a protesting Rat. Upon reaching the upper level, Rat's eyes widened, his posture shifting from defiance to resignation. The stench of his body odor mingled with the rank surroundings, an olfactory assault on Adi's senses. 

"Rat, you owe me some fucking serious answers," Adi demanded, her voice low and unyielding. The tension in the air was palpable as she demanded answers from him, her voice a low growl that carried the weight of her frustrations. The shadows seemed to deepen around them, mirroring the secrets unveiled and the dangers ahead.

Just as Rat's mouth formed words, the world shattered violently. A hypervelocity bullet passes Adi's cheek close enough for her to feel the hot air it displaced and smell the harsh chemical smell of its rocket propellant.

Adi's Threat Assesment program tosses an alert into her HUD: Hyper-velocity hypergolic driven penetrator. Approximately 912 meters. Northwest sector. Upper maintenance spine. Insufficient weapons available. Adi doesn’t need the HUD marker. She’s already swiveling toward the skeletal tower above the autobus terminal spine.

The bullet hits Rat at the top of his razor blade straight nose right between the eyes. Rat's head exploded in a gruesome shower of gore, a grotesque fireworks display painting the narrow walkway in macabre hues of bright red blood, chunky white bone fragments, and flecked pink and gray splattered smears. The acrid smell of fresh blood mixed with the trash littering the walkway, along with the stench of urine and feces, assaulted Adi's sensitive nose.

The sound of the telltale shot, followed by the crack and the intense smell of a hypergolic hypervelocity shot, cut through the air, a deafening echo reverberating off the decaying walls. The sniper is far enough away that even Adi's heat-sensitive vision cannot accurately pinpoint the sniper's position. Adi isn't surprised the sniper doesn't use a suppressed weapon. There is an exceptionally slight chance the Blues will bother investigating the all too common sound of gunfire in this neighborhood.

Adi's enhanced reflexes kicked in, her combat-trained mind springing into action. Dropping Rat's nearly headless corpse, she moved with instinctual speed, dropping prone on the walkway. Her speed is sufficient for her to beat Rat's corpse to the ground. The sound of a falling dead body hitting the ground is unlike any other sound.

She presses Rat's body flat, not because it’ll help—he’s already dead. She can feel the body heat bleeding out of him onto her leg.

“You complete and total fucking bastard,” she mutters, her voice caught between fury and control.

Rat’s mostly headless body tilts awkwardly, limbs slack. He always had a shitty smile, yellowed teeth and too many vulgar jokes. He doesn’t have one now.

Her HUD blinks a useless clock in the corner of her vision. She shuts it off. There’s no cover story to tell herself—no heroic last words. The warm breeze whistled a gritty song against the cold cement and metal walkway. It carried the faint, sharp tang of copper, the thin metallic smell of Rat’s blood.

Another round clangs off the guardrail inches from her head. Not aimed at her center mass. Testing her.

The sniper’s smart enough not to blow the walkway itself. Whoever hired this crew wants her dead, not the whole terminal in pieces.

Adi slips her hand beneath Rat’s jacket, fingers closing around the battered Kubera and the Justifier ballistic knife he went nowhere without. She takes them—not out of sentiment, but for survival. Her own pistol's range is too short for what comes next. But the Kubera? That thing howls like a meth-fueled storm. She needs to close the distance between her and the sniper.

Her pulse slams in her ears. She checks her weapon load-out—pistol, knives, no long gun. The sniper’s perched too far away, too well positioned. Standing and trading fire would be suicide. Staying put would just mean dying slower.

Her neural net feeds her wind vectors, angle-of-incidence, thermal blooms from the distant sniper nest. The merc is good—fast—but so is she.

Six more hypervelocity shots shattered the evening air, some rounds screaming into the shadows as some ricocheted off the cement walkway. Adi is painfully aware of her ballistic vulnerability, as her opponent has a weapon with a longer range than anything Adi has immediate access to. Even with a microdrone's help, the sniper is far outside of her effective range.

Adi is uncertain of the weapon the sniper is using, but from the size, sound, smell of its propellant and depth of the divots in the cement, Adi believes it is probably an older rifle model. With her TA program, she speculates the sniper is using one of several commonly available models of 20mm sniper rifles. On the black market, you can purchase an old 20mm sniper rifle with its hypergolic ammunition cheaply. Because of the danger of a round breaking and exposing the rocket fuel to air, they don't use hypergolic ammunition that frequently anymore.

Catastrophic explosions caused the military to cease issuing hypergolic weapons. Years ago, before she joined the Corps, after the various militaries stopped issuing hypergolic weapons, cheap weapons flooded the used weapons market. Adi guesses the sniper will abandon his weapon rather than attempt to carry a heavy and awkward rifle with them. In truth, her Shadowfury weighs more, but lacks the sniper rifle's two-meter barrel.

The sniper, guessing where Adi was, directed several rounds, arching over the solid waist-high wall and impacting the concrete just a few meters from her. Sharp flakes of concrete and bullet fragments shower Adi with some of it, landing on Rat's corpse.

The nanites and very basic AI controlling the flight of the bullets cannot turn so sharply at the speeds they are traveling. Even if the sniper had a lock on Adi, they could not defeat the laws of physics. The concrete that Adi rests against is too thick for the sniper to shoot through, although they do put several rounds in the concrete.

Adi couldn't completely see the telltale hypergolic smoke and heat plume, which would have located the sniper. Her TA program gave her a rough distance and direction.

From her war belt, Adi sets up a protective micro drone swarm around her. The micro-drones might not deflect a close-range hypervelocity sniper round. Still, the drones might deflect the round enough for a near miss or at least reduce the bullet's impact, hopefully in a non-vital area.

During times like these, I often reflect on my very first rifle squad sergeant, Sergeant Inmaculada. I was a fresh-faced Marine, just out of training, when I first met her. Along with Corporal Adoración, my first fire team leader, they taught me what it meant to be a Colonial Fleet Marine. Both women stated that people who think dying in combat is glorious are often misguided, probably because nobody has ever shot at them.

Adi uses the drone swarm to expand her senses by enabling her Multi-Sensory Integration program. The sniper is well-shielded and hidden. With the drones, Adi might pinpoint the sniper's position if they continue shooting. Her MSI program is a handy but resource-hungry tool that Adi rarely can afford to use. She notices the calories gobbled by her MSI program are pushing her metabolism tracker close to the red.

The shadows provided fleeting shelter as she summoned her second true love—a symphony of metal and power, her Ozymandias 6000 superbike. The roar of her motorcycle's nuclear fusion turbine engines filled the air, a mechanical beast unleashed in the night's heat. Adi's neural net, now linked to her bike through her MSI program, provided her with a symphony of data—the bike's speed, trajectory, and the sense of imminent danger that permeated the atmosphere.

Adi's heart pounded as her motorcycle roared toward her, and her enhanced senses heightened in the face of an unknown threat. She positioned her body with the precision of a combat veteran marine, using every bit of cover available to shield herself. The sniper's shot had struck with deadly accuracy, a reminder that Adi was not alone in the darkness.

The sniper may still be in their original position, or might reposition to get a clear shot at Adi. Snipers are very patient, and just because they have not shot in the last few minutes doesn't mean they have left. A sniper that good doesn’t need to chase. Whoever pulled that trigger has likely already vanished into the lattice of steel above.

The bike drew nearer, roaring out of a dark alley, its mechanical song a melody of freedom and escape. Adi fervently prays that the sniper will not shoot her motorcycle or shoot at her again. With her body tense and poised, Adi seized the moment. Rolling off the walkway on the opposite side of where the shots came from, she plummeted into the abyss, a descent that blurred time and space. Her micro-drone-shielded body fell slightly over forty meters; the world was a chaotic swirl of sensation and motion.

Somewhere above, hidden in the bones of the station, a patient rifleman settles into silence again—job done.

Adi's heavy body landed on her motorcycle, the impact absorbed by the bike's advanced shock-absorbing technology. The sensation was a fusion of exhilaration and relief, with the roar of the bike's twin nuclear turbine engines beneath her and the wind whipping against her skin. Riding in complete darkness, except for small patches of yellowish light cast by the few working street lamps, doesn't bother Adi as her enhanced vision is more than capable of piercing the dark Chendiurian night.

She twisted the throttle, the superbike's power surging to life lifting the front tire from the ground and propelling her away from the scene of death and chaos. Adi was relieved that the sniper did not shoot at her. The dark, trash-littered streets became her maze, the shadows her refuge. With every twist and turn, the city's pulse seemed to synchronize with her own—a heartbeat of resilience, survival, and pursuing answers.

In the distance, the city's skyline loomed, broken only by the glittering, brightly lit New Delhi arcology, a landscape of towering structures that whispered promises of secrets and revelations. Adi's grip on the handlebars was unyielding, her path set by a convergence of fate and determination.

The city blurred around Adi as she tore through its semi-deserted streets, a kinetic symphony of chaos and determination. The Ozymandias 6000 was her steed of choice—a relentless beast of black and chrome that surged beneath her with a ferocity that matched her own. Like a madwoman on a mission, she cranked the throttle, hurtling forward at nearly 250 kmh, the wind's furious embrace a testament to her velocity.

Adi's senses melded with the city's rhythm in this realm of asphalt and shadows. Every nerve ending, every bionic augmentation, was attuned to the symphony of danger and survival. Her reflexes danced on the edge of control, steering her motorcycle through the labyrinthine streets with a blend of intuition and practiced skill.

Pedestrians became mere blurs of motion as she threaded the needle, the roar of her engine mingling with the hurried footsteps and startled cries marking her passage. With LiDAR and RADAR sensors on her Ozzy and her neural net linked with the bike's systems, Adi was a reckless orchestra conductor weaving a symphony of calculated chaos.

The city's decaying architecture whizzed past, a collage of towering buildings and neon lights painting the night in a kaleidoscope of colors. Adi knew the intricacies of the alleyways, shortcuts, and hidden passages intimately, the city's underbelly etched into her mind like a survival map.

Adi's Ozzy exuded an aura of power and defiance, a mechanical extension of Adi's will. She leaned into each turn, the motorcycle responding like a loyal partner, the fusion of woman and machine blending into one being.

The rush of wind in her ears, the rhythmic pounding of her heart, and the city's nocturnal whispers merged into a hypnotic tempo, carrying her forward. Adi was no stranger to the edge, her life a dance with danger, a recklessness fueled by survival instincts and an indomitable will. Adi loved illegal street racing, as it is the greatest adrenaline high she can get. To her, only jumping out of suborbital troop carriers in an armored assault beat the adrenaline high from night time street racing.

In this frenetic ballet of speed and shadows, Adi embraced the night, her midnight dark motorcycle carving a path through the city's veins. The world became a blur, an impressionistic canvas of sensation and motion. Adi was its brushstroke—a woman on a mission, racing against the darkness to uncover the truth that lurked in the city's depths.

The metallic cacophony of screeching brakes and the shower of sparks and gravel marked Adi's dramatic stop. Her Ozymandias 6000's omnidirectional metallic mesh tires left a defiant several-meter-long scar on the street. Without her helmet on, Adi is thankful that Chenduria does not have any native insects that could have hurt her at the speeds she was traveling. On Old Earth in the field at Parris Island, no-see-ums, mosquitoes, and other biting and stinging bugs assaulted Adi's unaccustomed body. Adi is also grateful that rain is exceptionally rare. If it ever truly rained, the city would lose its fucking mind.

The older model superbike concealed its true potential—illegal modifications had transformed it into a formidable force. Adi stepped off the bike, the sensation of solid ground beneath her momentarily jarring after the whirlwind ride.

Her heart raced, and the remnants of the adrenaline-soaked escape still coursed through her veins. A moment of respite had arrived, and Adi seized it. While rummaging through her bike's food locker, she surprisingly found several Sean Cawley bars and filtered drinking water bulbs she didn't remember packing.

Adi takes a quick look around this unfamiliar city block, noting the garish, sexually suggestive bright LED lit signs. "Figures I would stop near a sex shop," she mutters to herself. Adi is not a prude, but she doubts she ever would have walked into a sex shop if Nyomi hadn't dragged her into one. The city has many sex shops catering to a wide assortment of sexual practices. Public sex acts are not as prevalent on Chendiuria as in places such as Eros, but they happen.

Adi needs to eat more frequently to meet her heightened nutritional needs. Smaller, more frequent meals help Adi maintain a stable energy level and support her body's enhancements when she can afford it. Adi chops up a Sean Cawley bar using one of her utility knives. Her breath runs ragged as she crams pieces of a super-concentrated high-protein ration bar into her mouth. After some deliberation, Adi saves the better-quality protein bars and shakes that Rat gave her. Adi wants to save the Turkish Delight that Rat gave her for Nyomi.

The teeth-dulling, rough, dry texture and chemical taste of the supposedly chocolate-flavored Sean Cawley ration bar left much to be desired. Adi couldn't help but curse at the shameful historical figure who had given their name to the infamous and universally despised ration bar. 

Because Sean Cawley ration bars frequently cause constipation in non-augmented humans, they are commonly referred to as "butt plug bars" by regular military members. Adi would prefer to eat the infamous Five Dicks of Death MRE, which contains five questionable beef-flavored soy substitute franks and beans in a runny brown liquid masquerading as BBQ sauce, rather than a Sean Cawley bar. However, she makes do with what she has.

Her parched throat begged for relief, the craving for liquid intensified by the dry, dusty taste of the ration bar. A glance around revealed a well-armored and armed vending machine, its contents likely as grim as the surroundings. 

Digging into her pockets, she produced some loose credits, her fingers fumbling as they extracted the data wafers. Amid her actions, her fingers brushed against an unexpected intrusion—a memcube pulsing with the unmistakable signal of a waiting message. It was a shocking discovery, an enigma revealed in a moment of relief. The memcube remained untouched, its secrets locked away as Adi focused on her immediate needs.

As Adi nears the heavily gang-tagged and graffiti-covered vending machine, it issues a warning: "This machine is armed and will defend itself. Any tampering will trigger defense measures, and the authorities will be notified." Adi snorts in disdain, as if the Robo Blues would even bother coming to this neighborhood merely for a vandalized piece of shit vending machine. Adi has no desire to test the vending machine's defenses.

Adi perused the vending machine's offerings, noticing it was out of everything except a few chilled filtered drinking water bottles. Her increased metabolic activity causes a higher water requirement. She leaves the drinking water stashed in her bike's food locker, deciding to get water out of this vending machine.

She figures that someone rarely services this vending machine, so she is surprised it contains anything at all. Checking her pockets, she is surprised to discover she has the correct coins. Adi deposits the correct amount of credits in coins. While waiting on the machine, Adi reflects on how humans have frequently tried and failed to eliminate physical money, including coins and paper bills, over the past several centuries.

The disappearance of paper money nearly preceded the forced exodus of humans from Old Earth. Although some colonies still mint metallic coins of various denominations, her mineral-poor planet does not. Before the colony's founding, Mars printed and minted most of the physical money circulating on Chendiuria. There is some currency in circulation from colonies other than Mars, but those monies are rarer. Terrible exchange rates make most foreign currency worthless.

The slow vending machine yielded a pair of icy, teeth-jarring, cold, transparent bottles of filtered drinking water, their cool touch a balm to her thirst. Ripping the cap off the first bottle, the water cascaded down her throat in a much-needed rush. The liquid was life itself, a reminder of necessities easily taken for granted.

After emptying the first bottle, Adi tossed it into a malfunctioning, nearly overflowing recycling bin, a slight gesture of her respect for the environment. Adi tries to be a good citizen and tries not to litter. After a few swift kicks, the recyc bin finally accepts the bottle. Sitting on her bike, Adi guzzled half the second bottle of teeth-jarring cold water.