Tory Lane: Rikki Six

And in the center of that crater, fused to a piece of carbon-fiber arm, was a single, unburned data-slate. On its screen, a new message blinked:

"The whole block. There’s an old plasma main beneath the intersection. If I overload it, the explosion will take out everything within a hundred meters. Vex’s shredders are physical. They’ll melt." rikki six tory lane

"I woke up three years ago with two sets of memories. A dead girl’s and a ghost’s. I've been running ever since. Arlo Vex was the corpo assassin who was supposed to terminate the original project. He went rogue. He wants my mother’s code so he can sell it to the highest bidder. He’s not a man anymore. He’s a swarm. A plague." And in the center of that crater, fused

The world went white. The sound was not an explosion but a scream—the planet’s own cry as the plasma main ruptured. The shockwave threw the girl into a drainage culvert, knocking the breath from her lungs. When she crawled out, ears ringing, Tory Lane was gone. In its place was a crater of molten glass and twisted rebar, glowing cherry red in the perpetual night. If I overload it, the explosion will take

The girl held up a data-slate. It was cracked, but the glow on its screen painted her face in ghostly blue. On it, a file was open. A single photograph: Rikki, age ten, standing next to a man in a fusion-core jumpsuit. Her father. And behind him, a street sign warped by heat: TORY LANE.

Rikki knew that sound. Arlo Vex had stopped using human goons. He used shredders —autonomous drone swarms that dissolved flesh and left bone.

"But you didn't," Rikki said.