She sighed. "What are we fighting for, Major?"

"We're fighting for the control of the planet. The winner will get to keep Uley, of course."

"Have you looked outside, Major? I mean real y looked? Keeping Uley isn't a victory; it's a punishment."

Courtney leaned on the table. "I've been doing this a long time, Captain. You are not the first to crack - you won't be the last. Not everyone has the resolve to keep up the fight. But you can be sure that when your time comes, you won't simply be decommissioned. If I were you, I'd keep it together as long as possible, because I am always watching and when you stumble, I will be there."

She had gone too far to care about a threat. "I was taken from my mother when I was fourteen years old," she told him. "She was sick when I left. I wasn't all owed to look after her. The Building Association had to take care of her."

"That's what the Building Associations are for,"

Courtney said. "They're there to shoulder the responsibility for the residents of the building, so people like us can fight.

Everyone must do their part."

"My mother died when I was twenty-two. In those eight years I was permitted to see her three times. There is a child sitting at the psycher table now, Major. She was taken away from the family when she was twelve. It's getting worse. When will it end?"

"When Melko surrenders." He slid a datacard across the table. "Your mission for today, Captain. Penetrate the secure block of the Melko bionet, burn the data, and get out with your minds intact. Brodwyn expended too many resources on your training to lose you."

*** *** ***

Claire Shannon dashed through the woods. Tal trees thrust to the distant skies on both sides of her. Their dark limbs scratched at each other, their jagged branches thrusting out like talons ready for the kil . Behind her, the team sprinted, single-file. Lean, furry, they surged through the woods on all fours, their clawed paws digging into the forest floor as they ran. She saw them as beasts with glowing eyes. No doubt they saw themselves as something else.

Many years ago the need for faster data processing forced larger corporations and governments to implement biological computer systems that seamlessly integrated with the inorganic computers. It was discovered that only psychers could connect directly to the bionet and that the connection overwhelmed their minds. The human brain couldn't cope with the tremendous influx of information, and it deluded itself by turning code and synthetic neurosignals into a dream, interpreting the streaming data as a familiar environment, knitted from the individual psycher's memories and imagination.

Every psycher perceived the bionet differently. For Nicholas it was hel with molten lava and fire-belching dragons; for Liz it was a mountain pass strewn with snow, where avalanches and snow creatures waited on every turn.

Claire saw a forest. Code became trees, secure data turned into fortified castles, and enemy psychers turned into monsters. If it looked scary, it was a threat.

A hint of movement made her spin in mid-step. A large red-eyed bird with wicked dinosaur jaws instead of a beak raised its wings, preparing to dive at her from a tree branch.

Claire leaped.

The bird swooped down, talons out, teeth-studded jaws opened wide. Claire turned her head, throwing her body right. The jaws missed her by a fraction of an inch.

Her silvery fangs closed on the bird's long neck, piercing flesh. The pressure of her jaws crushed the vertebrae, the synthetic neurosignals conjuring the taste of blood in her mouth. They dropped to the ground, the bird flailing under her.

The rest of the team dashed past them.

Claire planted a clawed paw on the bird's head and ripped, tearing the neck in two.

The bird stopped moving.

Threat neutralized. An enemy psycher was dead.

Claire sprinted after the line of beasts, caught up, and sped by them, resuming her place at the head of the pack.

She always took the point. She was the strongest psycher and it was her duty as an officer to protect the rest of her team.

The bird's dimming eyes lingered in her memory. She had terminated a human mind. She would have to kil others before the mission ended. She would do it today to keep Liz and the rest alive, but eventual y the Intel igence would send her on a solo mission, and she wasn't sure what the outcome of it would be.

Claire scanned her environment. The woods before them were clear. Deserted. Anxiety pul ed at her mind.

Where were the enemy psychers? She had just kil ed one -

usual y that meant a concentrated assault. The branches should be teeming with them.

She twisted to glance back. Only one beast fol owed her - Nicholas, his coat a pale grey. He took another step and exploded into a hundred tiny dark ribbons, melting into nothing.

The shock punched her.

Claire shot out of the bionet and out of her chair, her vision stil a blur. A blink and she saw the room: gun-grey wal s, a long console, five chairs by it, one empty - hers, and four others supporting prone bodies, her teammates, her soldiers, each with a gaping hole in the back of the head. In the split second she saw it all : the jagged edges of the head wounds, the red blood dripping on the floor from Liz's blond hair, and Major Courtney Rome, a smoking gun in his fingers, his pale grey Intel igence uniform splattered with crimson spray and brain matter. Courtney's face was slack. His mouth drooped down. His eyes stared at her, hol ow.

She grasped his mind in a steel fist, ripping through the feeble protection of the psych blocker like it was tissue paper. He cried out and dropped the gun. She forced his brain to haul him upright, every muscle painful y rigid, his body barely balanced on his toes.

They were dead. This morning all of them had eaten a spare breakfast in the commissary. They shared coffee. Liz hid her new nails. Now they were dead. She had protected them for so long and he'd put a gun to their heads and murdered them one by one.

"Why?" she snarled.

"The war is over," Courtney whispered. "We lost."

"What?"

"We lost," he repeated, his voice a hoarse squeak.

"The Headquarters sent out an emergency bul etin five minutes ago. Melko is occupying our continent. The surrender security protocol was initiated. I have to terminate you. You know too much."

She seared his mind. Death was instant. He didn't have the time to scream.

As his lifeless body dropped to floor, Claire turned and pushed the dimmer switch on the console. The room turned dark. Her fingers flew over the keypad.

The opaque window in the wal before her faded, revealing the interior of the Intel igence compound below.

People dashed back and forth across the floor.

She pushed a key, letting the audio feed filter into the room. Gunfire punched the silence. Massive shredders whined, crunching electronics and slicing pseudopaper into atomic dust. Chaos reigned.

The war was over.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Her pulse pounded through her head, too loud in her ears. Claire stared at the four corpses in their chairs. She wanted to hug Liz and cry.

She couldn't give in to panic and shock. She had to think.

She was a Type A Psycher. An imminent threat. If Melko Corporation found her, she would be kil ed immediately. When you lost a war, you didn't get to keep your guns. She was infinitely more dangerous than a loaded gun.

Claire shut off the audio feed and dimmed the windows. She checked the door. Courtney had engaged the electronic lock. Not enough. A heavy life support unit sat in the corner, for the times when psychers suffered an attack but held on to life. She put her shoulder into it, pushed it across the doorway, barring the door from the inside, and walked past four heads dripping blood back to her seat.

She had to log into the bionet for the last time to erase herself from Brodwyn data systems.

*** *** ***

"Step onto the platform," a Melko soldier ordered.

Claire obeyed, stepping onto the raised circle in the middle of the room. Six high-caliber gun turrets swiveled on their mounts, locking onto her. To the right and left, two Melko soldiers took aim at her head. Across the room an older woman behind a crescent metal console studied the digital screen.

Three weeks ago she had escaped the Intel igence building and returned to her mother's apartment. It was vacant, like many others, and during her last foray into the Brodwyn bionet, Claire had assigned it to herself. She had resurrected her mother's data and took on her identity, keeping only her name and her date of birth intact. Only her neighbors could have betrayed her. This morning she was arrested with the rest of the residents of the building and marched down to this depot. Nobody spoke out against her.

The older woman peered at her.

"Name?"

"Claire Shannon."

"Occupation?"

"Secretary."

"Do you have any implants, modification, or kinsmen abilities to declare?"

"No."

Claire's mind was hidden behind four layers of solid mental shields, enclosed in a hard outer shel , accreted over the period of the last four weeks as a result of constant mental strain. Her surface thoughts coated this shel , as if it were a mirror. Her defenses would withstand a concentrated probe from an adept. To the outside world, her mind appeared very much alive, but completely inert psychical y. Precisely the way she liked it.

"Place your hands on the rail in front of you."

Claire locked her fingers on the metal rail.

Pale green light slid over her. Two dozen scanners recorded her temperature, pulse, and chemical emissions, assessed the composition of the sweat and oil on her fingertips, and probed her body for combat implants.

A cold male voice announced with robotic precision.

"Implant scan, class A through E, negative. Biological modification negative."

"Initiating psycher pressure probe," the woman said.

Beneath her mental core, fear washed over Claire.

Pressure Probe, PPP, meant pain to a psychic mind. The stronger the psycher, the worse the agony. She had to bear it. Her pulse couldn't speed up. She couldn't wince.

It began as a soft buzz in the back of her skul . The buzz built, ratcheting up to deafening intensity, louder, louder, LOUDER. Pain pierced her mind, as if a dril had carved through the bone, grinding, widening the hole with each rotation, turning her neurons into mess of human meat. The world dissolved in agony.