She walked over to Neil. "What happened?"

"Boulder," he said. "Bastard rolled over me." She guessed he'd been given an infusion, his mouth had the slack look, face grey with pain.

"Use your rip gun?" she asked.

"Sure, help yourself."

It was lying next to his bent armour suit. She picked it up.

Weapons Integration: Konica Neutral Beam Rifle.

The key on her left shoulder began to interface with the rip gun's 'ware. Red target graphics appeared. She was whole again, size and strength no longer a disadvantage, equal to the rest of the world.

It was time for the last deal with Leol fucking Reiger.

Melvyn was handing out assignments, sending the active crash team members down into the caves and cracks, scouting for tekmercs.

Suzi pulled the guidance package out of her suit 'ware, and used it to place the five troughs. There was no sign of them, not even when she went over to check, boots splashing the thin layer of water. All she found was flat rock. She stood where the third one had been, amid the contortions of dying fish, and looked back to the broken lake cave, trying to work out the angle the wave had hit the troughs. If she carried the line on, Reiger would have been swept against the wall thirty metres away. There were two possible caves there, 6B, and 7B. According to her suit 'ware they joined up in a big cavern fifty metres back, another wide cave leading off from the junction.

"Melvyn, I'll check 6B, OK?" She got it in before he could assign her one.

"Roger, Suzi. Do you want anyone with you?" Something in his tone suggested he'd guessed the reason.

"Nah," she said. "I'll solo."

6B was a pinched oval passage, just under two metres high, five wide, laced with veins of tarnished copper. Her helmet scraped the roof as she walked towards the junction. The rock was slick with water, a steady rain of large drops pattered down from the roof. Light from the village cave illuminated the entrance, but the passage curved, and after ten metres she had to switch to infrared. The water level crept up her legs; she could see fish racing away ahead of her.

She called up the map package, and bled in her suit's inertial guidance read-out. When she was fifteen metres short of the junction, she killed the infrared beams, using the photon amp as a passive sensor. The image showed her pitchblack passage walls and faint neon-blue water, even the fish were blue blobs. No hot spots, but her field of view was very limited, if Reiger was in the junction cavern, the shit would make sure he couldn't be detected from the passage.

She took an airbuster grenade from the retainer loop on her waist, a seamless metallic cylinder fifteen centimetres long, six wide, with a locking ridge running along its length. It slotted into the latch rail on her left forearm with a solid click.

Expedite Grenade Launch Program.

The red targeting circles turned white. She brought her left arm up until the circles interlocked over the junction cavern entrance. Grey droplets were still falling from the roof, hazing the photon-amp image.

Disengage Safety Lock. Set Fuse for Twenty Metres.

The targeting circles turned violet and started flashing.

Fire.

The airbuster grenade streaked into the cavern, exploding into a seething energy cloud a metre below the roof. Stark white light stabbed back down the passage. She saw lightning tendrils whipping violently backwards and forwards, clawing at the rock outcrops above the water.

The spent grenade canister was flipped off her forearm latch rail, spinning away. She moved into the cavern at a run, pushing her recalcitrant left leg hard.

There was nobody inside. Little columns of steam were rising into the air. Dead fish bobbed on the surface of the water.

"Not that easy, Suzi bitch," said Leol Reiger.

She jumped with shock. He was using a general broadcast frequency. Her electronic warfare gear couldn't locate the radio transmission source; rock did weird things with radio, bouncing it or absorbing it. But not much, he couldn't be far away. She checked passage 7B quickly. Empty. That meant the cave at the back of the junction cavern.

"I know it's you, Suzi bitch. Because you know I'm in here, that's why you let off the airbuster."

She clipped a fresh airbuster grenade on the rail.

According to the map, the rear cave twisted to the left after fifteen metres. There was no data after that. She primed the grenade for twelve metres, then fished around for a loose rock.

"Always hiding, Leol," she said. "But then, running scared is your scene. Right?"

She crouched down, and lobbed the rock high across the entrance of the. rear cave. Two rip gun bolts pulverized it in midair. But she was already diving underneath, twisting.

Fire.

She landed on her side, momentum rolling her, knocking the breath out of her lungs. Then she was up and racing for the cave, suit boots kicking up sheets of foam. The airbuster's energy cloud was flaring, fingers of vivid white light pouring out of the entrance. As it began to dim she fired the rip gun up the cave, hosing the bolts around at random until the magazine was drained.

Leol Reiger didn't shoot back. She smacked a fresh power magazine into the rip gun, and walked forward. The cave walls were covered in bright infrared scars where the rip gun bolts had struck. Runnels of lava dripped into the water, sizzling loudly. Long twisters of steam rose up all around her, licking at the roof.

There were two ways she could do it; rip gun firing the whole time, chewing up the cave walls and triggering any anti-personnel mines he'd scattered; or the quiet way. But he knew she'd be coming, that gave him an advantage.

"Did Julia Evans get the nuclear force generator data, Suzi? Or is it still up for grabs?"

"Don't tell me," she said. "You and I can deal, snatch it for ourselves. Right?"

The cave ended ten metres in front of her, a narrow jagged opening into another cavern. All the photon-amp image gave her was blackness, as if the universe ended beyond the opening. Reiger was in there, waiting; and he knew she had airbusters. She tried analysing it from his position. Hide under the water? It was almost up to her knees, and getting deeper. A side cave that gave him a line of fire on the opening she'd come out of?

"You see anything wrong with that, Suzi? It's worth billions. And you and I, we haven't got a quarrel, not really. We just got hired by different people, that's all. Did what we got paid for, shot the shit out of each other. We don't have to do that no more, we can buy them with atomic structuring. Evans and Jepson, we can own them, Suzi."

The roof? Was he clinging to the roof? A muscle-armour suit could hold him up there effortlessly.

Arm Loral Missiles. Target Image: Muscle-Armour Suit.

She smiled. The Lorals could just give her the edge; he'd be expecting another airbuster.

"Who said I was getting paid?" she asked.

"What? You do this for free? Like crap you do, Suzi."

She fed a flight path into the Lorals' 'ware: into the cavern, then a loiter manoeuvre while the smart seeker heads performed their target acquisition, scanning with microwave radar and infrared. Once they locked on, Reiger would have to shoot them, revealing his position. If he didn't, he'd be dead. Either way, she'd nail the shit.

"Fuck no, not free, Leol. Something you don't know."

"Oh yeah, like what?"

"Friendship."

"Load of bullshit, Suzi. All tekmercs have is deals. You a real tekmerc, Suzi? You want to deal over atomic structuring? Or do you want to die?"

"Bollocks to you, Reiger."

Launch Two Missiles.

A blast of compressed air pushed the missiles out of their tubes, small triangle fins unfolded, then the solid fuel motors ignited. Her infrared image was momentarily overwhelmed by the twin exhaust plumes.