Carrion stepped cautiously; weighing and testing each footfall. She had waited a long while for a night like this; moonless and fog-shrouded. The cliff was not vertical, but it was steep. The few hardy pine trees that were her target were hanging on, branches clutching rocky soil, like a bleeding man clutching at her metal legs.

Jump-jets were the obvious solution; except that they would be obvious to every heat-scanner too. So she jumped and climbed; her mech was designed for jumping. She had to be careful, though, that she didn't dislodge any rocks. A rockfall, as well as being dangerous, might flag something in an AI system.

Her fellow operatives would be starting the assault soon. She had told them opposition would be light to medium. She had told them that she would snipe dangerous targets for them. These were both lies.

⁂

“More lies,” said Marco, lazily punching Serafina in the stomach. It knocked out her breath; she gasped and gulped the stale air. Her wrists twisted uselessly in the ropes. The chair wobbled on the uneven cobbles of the cellar. It could be worse, she thought. She had lost her breath, but not her breakfast. Marco wasn’t punching hard enough to hospitalise her, which meant either he was very unsure, or someone had ordered him to be gentle. 

“Please,” she said, loading her voice with pleading. “I’m just a saleswoman. Artisanal meats. Pancetta, prosciutto, mortadella...”

Her voice echoed off the empty wine barrels. She tried not to notice the saws and pliers and secateurs scattered on a rustic table. 

“Yes,” said Agostina’s voice, as she entered the cellar. “Your job kept you darting across the continent, as well as at the edges of the circles of your betters.”

Her floral scent displaced the dead air. Marco stood to attention. Another man entered behind Agostina; he looked nervous. 

“You fooled me,” Agostina said, striding forward and stroking her cheek. “A runner in the Resistance. A thief for them too. Arms. Money. A little here and there. The loose change from big deals.”

She slapped Serafina across the face, hard. “Like a vulture, eating the scraps of lions. And assuming they would never find you. But this lioness has.”

Agostina straightened up. “In fact,” she said. “I wouldn’t have spotted you. But Nico here noticed some accounting irregularities.”

She gestured at the small man, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. He was staring at the black between the cobbles. Blood wasn’t easy to get out.

“He’s purely a bookkeeper,” Agostina said. “But since he’s earned himself a promotion, I’ve invited him to watch us torture you to death.”

⁂

Carrion stretched her mech, lying it against the thickest pine. There was gunfire, cannon fire, in the distance. Her fellow operators were asking for help in increasingly desperate tones. Carrion ignored them; they would distract the enemy, that was the important bit. In position, she got out her sniper rifle, and sighted up.

It was too foggy to see much; the grey silhouette of the Manor, the glow of searchlights, the silent fireworks of gunfire. 

Now she just needed to wait. She turned down the screams of her compatriots. 

⁂

Agostina took out a gun from her elegant jacket. “Just point twenty-two. A tiny calibre,” she said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Marco, but if I shoot her in each kneecap she won’t die too fast?”

“Um, no, ma’am,” said Marco. “But shoot from the side, less chance of hitting the artery.”

“Thank you, old friend,” said Agostina, softly, and shot Marco through the mouth.

Nico shrieked. “Here,” said Agostina, and tossed him the gun. He had trouble catching it, juggling it like a hot potato. Agostina bent over Marco’s body, and took the large pistol out of his shoulder holster. She shot Nico in the chest.

Agostina dropped the gun and straightened her jacket. She grabbed a hank of Serafina’s hair. “I’m very cross with you,” she said.

“I didn’t—” began Serafina, seizing her chance. 

“Shut up,” said Agostina. She jerked the hair back, and kissed Serafina on the mouth, harshly and quickly. “I know what you are, and what you’ve been doing. But the Resistance is more of a problem to my enemies than to me, so I didn’t mind losing scraps.” She kissed Serafina again, for longer this time. “But you got caught, and I had to make a choice. I can’t look weak, and letting an occasional fuck-girl rob you looks weak.” She slipped a hand between Serafina’s knees, and up under her skirt. “Fortunately, you are a very good fuck. I’ll miss Marco though. Shame my bookkeeper was trying to misdirect blame onto you. And he had a surprise gun when challenged. The life of a bodyguard is hard.”

⁂

She followed, through the rifle’s scope, the bodyguards as they patrolled the manor. Mostly in twos. Either a complex rota, or some randomisation. It didn’t matter.

There were three types of guard. The least worrying; Moretti’s personal bodyguards—some augments, but they were just people. Loyal and brave, for what little that was worth. Next were the contractors; all black combat gear and sleek rifles. They manned the gate, the javelin missile banks, and the technicals that patrolled the area. They wore no badges, but Carrion reckoned Sharkfin or Grayfire were the most likely. And last, and most dangerous, were the mechs; four of them. They were Silvershore; mid-tier but up and coming. Good team cohesion. Good discipline. She had expected her teammates to take out at least one of them. A heavy mech in the courtyard. Two medium mechs patrolling. It took her a while to find the fourth one. The helipad was not, obviously, an original part of the manor. It was affixed to the roof; a messy arrangement of scaffolds and buttresses. In a gap under the stairs to the pad, there were crates and barrels. And a crouched scout/sniper mech. It had a good view of the gate and the missile banks. The mech could, in theory, see her, but she would not give it to reason to look in this direction. The guards were still on high alert.

Carrion checked the windows again; Moretti was in the lounge. She would sit at the desk, attend to her laptop, or sprawl on a chaise longue. Sometimes she would fuss with a vase; the blooms were drooping. The windows were plentiful, but they were all bulletproof, missile proof, in fact, and had kevlar shutters that could close in an instant.

⁂

Agostina put the last rose in the vase, and swept the clippings into her bin. Then she closed the shutters; lights came on automatically. 

“I was enjoying the sun,” complained Serafina. 

Agostina left her desk, and locked the door.

“It occurs to me that you’ll be going soon,” Agostina said.

“Yes,” Serafina said.

“To play politics,” said Agostina, sitting on the chaise longue next to Serafina. “To see what scraps of victory you can sneak from the kills of bigger beasts.”

“To kill those beasts, piece by piece,” said Serafina.

“Fool. Fanatic,” said Agostina.

“Warlord. Oppressor,” said Serafina, shaking her head, refusing to believe she was doing this. They kissed, hard.

Serafina pushed Agostina down. “We will crush you,” said Serafina, grinding against Agostina. “Your bones will break under our feet. Your skulls will moulder in your ruined palaces.” She kissed Agostina again, biting her lower lip.

Agostina laughed, and awkwardly worked her way out from underneath Serafina, climbing on top. “No,” she said. “We will crush you, and we will not even notice. Homes flattened, buildings destroyed, parks paved over, and it will all be numbers on a spreadsheet to us.” She pinned Serafina’s hands above her head, holding her in position, and kissed her again.

⁂

Another night, another day. Carrion’s body ached from staying in position. The guards were loosening up though; quiet smoke breaks, casual patrols, a couple of them fucking in an outbuilding.

Her body was, objectively, better than when she had been pulled from a ruined mech. When her fucking hander had excised most of the old her, to make a weapon. She was stronger, a thing without mercy, an eater of death. 

Her legs were terrifying mechanical things; sharp claws and shiny metal. Ports and interfaces supplied her with combat drugs and vital data.

A heightened alert never lasts for long, even if you mean it to. People adapt; danger becomes commonplace. Carrion watched the manor relax. In a way, what she was doing was the most human activity of all: endurance hunting. Cavemen took down saber-tooths, by making sure they could never rest safely.

A staff gardener attended the rose beds; unaffected by the guns and missiles around him. Hands in the dirt. Carrion wasn’t sure whether it was contempt or envy she felt for him. Incomprehension, maybe. They were different species now.

Carrion knew her augments didn’t make her less human; her memories did that. Lack of memories. She didn’t mind; they had been scrubbed, thoroughly, leaving less than nothing. Noise. And the most human thing of all: blinding anger.

⁂

“What the fuck are you doing, Agostina?” said Serafina, storming out into the rose garden. She looked at Maria, a new bodyguard, who just shrugged and looked apologetic. 

“Relax, Fin,” said Agostina, clipping a rose and putting it into a basket. Click, went the secateurs; definite, precise. A sudden decapitation, like snapping her fingers. “The intelligence reports show no-one is trying to kill me.”

“And if they’re wrong?”

Agostina shrugged, secateurs clipping two more blooms; click, click. “I sleep next to a sworn enemy,” she said. “I think I can handle the high-risk world of rose picking.”

“Other enemies might be better than me,” said Serafina. 

“Oh, I doubt that very much,” said Agostina. She handed her a bloom. It had pink ruffles fading to white. Serafina thought it smelled of sugared tea.

“Rosa Seraphim,” said Agostina. “I thought I’d make you a bouquet.”

Serafina raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

Agostina signalled to Maria to give them privacy; she rolled her eyes and backed off.

“It seemed appropriate,” said Agostina. “Since I’m going to ask you to stay. As my lover. As my wife, if you like.”

“Do they do marriage for hatefucks?” asked Serafina, joking while she thought.

“You should talk to my uncles,” said Agostina. “Apparently, they only do marriage for hatefucks.”

“Agostina, it’s not that I’m not tempted,” Serafina said. “But the Resistance is more important.”

“But I can get you out of that,” said Agostina. “Your mechs are… unreliable. As are your people. Easy to pay for someone to arrange a ‘fatal accident’. My agents could swoop in and whisk you away to the plastic surgeons.”

“I don’t want to get out,” said Serafina. “It’s not your stupid underworld corporation you can only leave in a coffin.”

“No,” said Agostina, raising her voice. “It’s a stupid organisation where people build their own coffins, and hope that businesses hurt their shins by tripping over them.”

Serafina bristled. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “To pilot my rubbish mech.”

“I don’t want you in a coffin, Fin,” said Agostina. “But that’s the way I see you going.”

Serafina walked away. “Scavengers always escape, Agostina.” She dropped the bloom onto the gravel.

⁂

On the third day, Agostina Moretti emerged. Carrion bided her time. It would be easy to take the shot too early; she would get one shot, two if she was lucky. At this sort of range, no point risking it while Moretti was moving. She followed with the scope. 

She crossed to the rose garden, bracketed by a pair of bodyguards. Older, thought Carrion. Older than what? Older than the pictures her fucking handler had shown her? That must be it.

Moretti clipped roses, and put them in the basket. Carrion pictured blood pooling on cobbles, for some reason. Stale air. Carrion lined up the sights.

Moretti stopped before a pink-white rose, lost in thought. Carrion could smell sweetened tea. Soft pink. Agostina shook herself, and reached out with the secateurs.

Click.