Cass was standing in the street, Madigan’s warehouse at her back, the glow of the Grid the only highlight on the horizon that stretched out in front of her. Raindrops streaked down her face and body, tingling as they leapt off her fingertips.

He’d shown her the target. Her target. The figure who appeared at the crash site, the one who took Quarters away from her, who turned her into this. What was ‘this’ anyway? What was she? A machine, a hunter. A tool. She looked down at the curved blade dangling from her hip, glistening in the rain. It had turned her, twisted her, used her. The hunger was all she had left.

But it wasn’t just hunger, it was power. Power to alter the world around her, power to take down those that threatened her. She was capable of feats she’d never even imagined, things that shouldn’t be possible out here. Did it matter where the power came from? Cass smiled as she felt the now familiar surge of adrenaline pump into her shoulders and spine.

It was hers now.

Cass turned and sprinted for the closest wall. Solid brick, it stretched three storeys high without a break. She wasn’t sure what she would do, but knew that was no longer important. She was a creature of instinct.

Even its creator, even Madigan had feared her. She had seen it in his eyes. She was more than just a tool. She was her own weapon. This was her playground.

As her feet left the ground and hit the wall she kept moving, pumping her legs, running vertically up the wall, splashing the water than ran down the outside of the building back up into her grim face. Just keep up the speed until the ledge appears.

The overflowing gutter swam into reach and she grabbed it with both hands, pushing her legs with a final surge out from the wall, allowing her momentum to flip herself over and around. As she passed vertical she let go, pulling into a crouch and bringing her feet back in underneath her. Her soles slapped down on the slate tiles of the roof and she crouched there perfectly still, scanning the land around her.

Now she just had to find her prey. Find the one who took everything away.

Nothing. Anyone who’d just seen her run up a three storey building would know better than to make themselves visible, but it was more than that. There was no-one here, she could feel it.

Even that sense, the one she’d always had, the ability to sense life and meaning, it too was heightened now. She could feel the scan as a physical reach out around her, searching out all the dark corners for life. Nothing escaped it.

Cass slowly stood up and began to walk. There was only one place to go.

The bar, where she’d run into the clone, where she’d felt that strange presence of power. It was east from here, directly towards the Grid. And after that? She could keep on going, up to the walls of the Grid itself. Use her new powers to tear them down, let the users inside taste what it meant to be free.

Madigan had told her that was her goal. That was what her blade was for. She’d seen it behind his eyes, if not in his words. The blade was made for the Grid. It was only for her to wield it.

She was a weapon, a virus that needed to feed. And when another predator wanders into your grounds you have to take it out.

It and anything else that gets in your way.