In a Lonely Place
Over the following nights I deal with the threats that emerge from Techrider’s absence largely on my own, I even patrol the city. In doing so I discover that this city has its fair share of vigilantes spread across the grid split from fractured factions. One aided my return to normal size after I was shrunken by one of their nemeses. Another transformed by the moon’s light, and yet another still tracked down a petty thief who used holographic hard-light cubes to disguise their exploits. One night I am standing solitary in the penthouse office in the center of the downtown core plotting a path to transverse the city. I watch the rain run up the window in random patterns. Manual repairs upon my craft are complete, all the pieces are assembled in the correct order, but still weeks remain upon the countdown. Only other options besides waiting it out is to fully disassemble and try again. At least it is still counting down. So, here I wait, so that I may optimally kill. It is so pointless to expend my energy on these benign beings in my current state. They will all die with time.
One of them enters the room. They begin talking about a string of murders and disappearances. A monster still on the loose. They ask me to get off of the ceiling and to allow the rain to flow normally, as it is disconcerting to them. I oblige. They continued that there was a hope and plan that either the Techrider would be on the trail of the murderer, or that The Angel could have taken care of this, but since both are not able, the request falls to me. The last time the City Security Forces encountered whatever this is, their vehicle was torn in half, and what they found of their bodies did not fare much better.
We take the elevator down to the sublab to observe the camera feeds and discuss a plan. There are more diagnostic screens of my craft, but with nothing to diagnose, they’re now showing additional city monitoring. I study the shadows of the city while I am informed of the ongoing patterns.
Leaving the tower, my route covers the main locations where bodies have been found, plus last known locations, all combined with security’s reports on their own losses. I stand on a wall near the ground and observe. Six or six hundred stories makes little difference when I see them going about their lives, it is all so infinitesimal, so pointless. Dominoes pushed by fate, conscious only to experience the fall, and believe they are the driving force of it. In their deaths, only a fraction of an avalanche of consequence set forth at the beginning of time. Time that will end. It always ends.
A scream emanating from a darkened alley sets my course in action, running along the wall I see some creature, captive in tow, dart down an open manhole. Not wasting a second, I leap in after it. The familiar feel of bones breaking beneath my heel cushions my landing. I cannot quite make out what it is under a foot of water as the rain from above splashed in a circle around me. Luckily, I do not need to ponder long, as I am immediately besieged by two other ones, offering up a much better look at their rodent-like appearance as they bite and slash at me. But I have already uncovered one of their weaknesses.
I grab them by their throats, and compress them against the steel side of the storm overflow tunnel. As the spines shatter, I hear the scream again. Turning towards the source, I see the figure turn off into a side tunnel. Dropping the limp corpses, I give chase.
GuNNhead 
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