He went in at first light.
Not because the light helped inside a hollow, where the concept of daylight was more of a philosophical position than a physical condition, but because first light was when the Ouyang hollow's upper geometry was at its most stable according to the Carrot data.
He had read the briefing notes the Fixer transmitted at midnight twice, then a third time with a pen in his hand and a habit he had developed of writing down the things that didn't fit beside the things that did.
By the time he slept the pen had accumulated more work on the left side of the margin than the right.
He slept anyway. You worked better rested. This was another thing four years had taught him that he had not known going in, back when he had operated on adrenaline and the anxious energy of someone who could not afford to fail. The adrenaline was still there when he needed it. It was no longer the engine.
"I guess I'm Courier number nine…"
The maintenance hatch he had identified during his surface walk the previous afternoon was unsealed, which was interesting. Not pried open, not forced. Unsealed, as if someone with legitimate access had simply left it that way. He noted it, didn't draw a conclusion yet, and went through.
The Ouyang hollow was different from the one he had run yesterday. Every hollow was, which was the thing that made the work interesting and lethal in roughly equal measure.
Yesterday's had been a stable accumulation hollow, old and settled, its Ethereal matter crystallised into structures that behaved almost predictably. This one was younger, formed around the ghost of existing infrastructure, and it had the particular quality of hollows that hadn't finished deciding what they were going to be yet.
The upper geometry matched the Carrot data within acceptable tolerances, which meant the HIA's mapping window had held. He moved through the first sector's reconstructed freight corridor with the navigation unit's amber overlay guiding him around the instability zones marked in red.
The Ethereal matter here had done something interesting with the old conveyor infrastructure: it had preserved the functional logic of it, the directional flow, the loading sequence, while translating the physical form into something that ran on different rules. Conveyor belts that moved nothing. Loading bays opening onto walls.
The ghost of an industrial process, running faithfully in a space that had forgotten what industry was.
The Fixer's notes said the previous contractor used this corridor as a transit route for the engine. That means someone knew this hollow well enough to navigate it loaded, moving something with mass and value through geometry that was already shifting.
Either they'd run it before, or someone told them exactly how.
He filed that and kept moving.
The first Ethereal construct found him at the sector boundary, which was where the Carrot data said constructs accumulated in this hollow's current cycle.
It was mid-sized, roughly humanoid in the way that hollow constructs sometimes were when they formed in spaces where humans had spent significant time, as if the Ethereal matter absorbed some residual impression of its environment and tried, imperfectly, to echo it.
This one had the vague silhouette of a freight worker: broad-shouldered, thick-armed, and possessed of the specific blankness that all Ethereal constructs had when they hadn't been provoked yet.
He gave it room. You gave constructs room when you could. Engagement cost time and ammunition and the sound of a gunshot in a hollow with unstable geometry was a variable he preferred to keep off the table.
It turned toward him anyway. Some of them tracked heat; some tracked the bio-signature that living things carried into hollow space; some tracked sound or light.
This one was keying off something else.
It moved first. Fast for its apparent mass, with the lurching, asymmetric acceleration that hollow constructs sometimes had when the Ethereal matter hadn't fully committed to a centre of gravity.
He stepped left, let it pass close enough that the displaced air moved his coat, and redirected it into the wall with one hand at its shoulder and the other at its momentum. It hit the crystallised Ethereal matter of the corridor wall and spent several seconds recalibrating.
By the time it had finished recalibrating he was fourteen metres further along and the sector boundary was behind him.
The rule now is: sneak first, guns last. In that order and not out of it unless the situation specifically requires otherwise.
He moved into the second sector.
***
The second sector was where the freight corridor's sub-structure became visible. The Ouyang hollow had formed around basements that ran deep under what had been one of the outer ring's main cargo distribution hubs, and the Ethereal matter hadn't erased them so much as reinterpreted them.
Sub-levels opened off the main geometry at angles that didn't correspond to the original blueprints, leading down into spaces that the Carrot data's amber lines sketched with decreasing confidence the further they extended.
Second sector, the data was still reliable. Past the second sector boundary, the amber lines became dotted. Past that, they stopped.
The W-engine was in the third sector.
He was working toward the transition point, moving along the eastern edge of the second sector where the geometry was most stable, when he heard the sound.
It was not a hollow sound. Hollow sounds were the particular ambient register of the space: the low, almost subsonic hum of Ethereal matter in flux, the occasional crack of crystallised structures shifting, the white-noise quality of a place that wasn't silent but wasn't producing noise in any way a living space did. This was something different. Something that moved with intention.
He stopped. Put his back to the wall. Listened.
Footsteps, moving fast and quiet, from somewhere above and to his left. The sub-level access above him. Someone on the same geometry he'd been on thirty seconds ago, coming down at an angle he hadn't used, taking a different route through the same space.
Not a construct. Constructs don't move like that. Constructs move like what they are: matter that has decided to have direction. This is someone who's done this before.
He stayed where he was and waited.
Someone came down the access slope at a pace that was somewhere between controlled urgency and outright running, which told him they was working on a timeline and trusted their footing more than most people trusted their footing in hollow space. The person was masked, the full-face kind that outer ring contractors wore when they didn't want their biometrics logged. A metal looking masked with some pricey gears and upgrades, much better looking that his ones.
Dark orange gear, worn and practical, with the particular layering pattern of someone who had built their kit through use rather than bought it assembled. At the person's back, two swords in a crossed carry, the grips worn smooth with handling and the blade lengths right for someone who fought in tight spaces where reach had to be managed rather than extended.
They hadn't seen him yet.
He let them get three metres past him, because three metres told him their reaction time and their carry, and then he said, quietly:
"Morning."
The masked person turned fast. Not panicked fast, not startled fast, but the fast of someone whose threat response had been drilled past the point where surprise registered before movement did.
One sword was in their hand before they'd fully completed the turn, the draw smooth and low, and they was already adjusting their stance to account for the space's ceiling height while they found him with their eyes.
The masked raider found him. Took him in. Held the ready position for one beat, two, reading what the raider was looking at the way he read things.
"You're not Kettlemen," the person said with a deep muffled voice.
"No."
"Sable Column?"
"No."
A short silence. The raider didn't lower the sword.
"Then what are you doing in this hollow?"
"I don't know... wondering, sometimes raiding, but mainly… Bounty hunting—"
That was the wrong thing to say, it turned out.
The raider came in fast and low, the sword angled for control rather than damage on the first pass, which told him that they was testing before committing.
He stepped back and to the right, letting the blade's line pass close, and when the masked raider followed the step with a pivot he was already moving in the opposite direction the raider expected, dropping his shoulder and going under their elbow rather than away from it. Close quarters, where the length of a sword became a liability rather than an asset.
The masked raider recovered quick. The masked raider didn't take the half-second. They transitioned out of the extended line immediately, brought the sword's pommel around as a short-range strike that was going to catch him in the jaw if he didn't respect it, and he did, pulling his head back and feeling the air displace past his chin.
Cael caught the raider's sword arm at the wrist on the recovery, locked the angle, used the momentum to walk them both into the wall so the raider had a surface behind them and couldn't extend, and put his free hand at the space where his elbow would go if he chose to use it. Which he didn't. He held the position.
The raider went very still. Not frozen, not defeated, but the specific stillness of someone calculating whether the current position was recoverable and how long that calculation was going to take.
Their other hand was moving toward their second sword.
Cael tried to intercept their hand but the raider moved like water. The raider twisted out of the wrist lock with a flexibility that implied both training and a body that trusted itself, and the second sword came out of its sheath in a reverse grip, the blade angled up along their forearm.
The fight changed character in that instant.
Two swords, one in each hand, and the space was tight enough that they couldn't swing them properly but the raider didn't need to. The raider could use them as extensions of their arms, pushing and controlling, creating zones of immediate danger around their entire upper body that he had to respect.
The raider was good. Not just in the way that people who'd survived a few hollow runs were good. Their footwork was economical, their balance was centered, and their eyes were tracking him through the mask, reading intention before he had fully formed it.
He didn't have a blade. He had hands, and the knowledge that most people who fought with two blades overcommitted to the threat of the blades themselves and forgot that the hands holding them were just hands.
He let the raider press him back, let them use the reach and the threat zones, let him them drive him two steps, three steps toward the crystallised wall of the corridor.
"Is that all you got, bounty hunter?" The masked raider's muffled, deep, gruff taunt came between breaths.
Cael didn't answer, he only focused on how to get out of the corner he was being forced into. Eventually, Cael spotted a low opening and targeted the legs of the raider, dropping into a sweep that forced the raider to jump.
That created the opening he needed. Cael move in and grabbed the raider and brought them to the ground. Cael was in initially on top but the raider twisted their legs and used the force of her momentum to swing Cael off and to the ground.
The raider was now on top of Cael. The raider then took their sword to Cael's neck. "Now… tell me. Who sent you?" The raider's muffled, deep, gruff taunt turned into a cold, feminine tone.
"That should be my question," he said, keeping his own voice level, the point of her sword a cold, precise pressure against the skin of his throat.
The blade didn't move. He could feel the raider's weight distributed perfectly, their knees pinning his shoulders, their center of gravity low and stable.
"You're running out of time," The raider said, the muffled feminine voice carrying no hint of emotion, just fact.
"I'm not here for you," he agreed. "Who are you?"
The sword pressed a fraction deeper.
Cael took his knees in between the raider's legs and thrust his hips up which unbalanced the raider. The raider's sword arm buckled as he twisted, her body forced to compensate for the sudden disruption of their center of gravity. He rolled, using the momentum to bring them both over, reversing their positions on the crystallised floor.
Now he was on top, one hand hold the swords from the right hand from being used whiles the other was—
Squeeze
"Ek!…." A light, high pitched yelp escaped from the raider's masked lips as Cael's other hand found a vulnerable point in the raider's left shoulder.
"Huh????" Cael was taken aback by the sudden shift in tone. He then looked at his hands and see it was on the raider's chest, it was soft, extremely soft. "Y-you're a girl?" He squeezed a bit harder.
"Get your hands off me. Y-y-you PERVERT!" she snarled, the deep, gruff muffled facade cracking completely. She bucked and twisted beneath him, her movements no longer the calculated economy of a seasoned fighter but something more desperate, more personal.
"W-Wait! I'm not—" Cael stammered, instinctively releasing the pressure point and fumbling to maintain control. The surprise had thrown him. He had been fighting a presence, a collection of skills and tactical decisions. He hadn't been fighting a girl. The distinction, in that split second, mattered.
She used the lapse. She didn't go for the swords. She drove the heel of her boot straight into his inner thigh, a sharp, debilitating blow that made his leg seize up. As he grunted, she writhed, twisting her torso with a supple strength that belied her frame, and slammed the side of her head into the bridge of his nose.
Stars exploded behind his eyes. The coppery tang of blood filled his mouth. He recoiled, and she used that space to shove him off, scrambling backward and retrieving her fallen blades in the same fluid motion.
They faced each other again, panting, a few metres of shimmering hollow floor between them. The mask was still on, but the illusion was shattered. He could hear the ragged breath, the high-pitched gasps she was trying to suppress, the anger vibrating in the air around her.
"You're the one who started this," he managed, wiping a trickle of blood from his nose with the back of his glove, drawing his revolver finally.
"Your grubby hands started this," she shot back, her voice a tense whisper that barely carried. She held the swords ready, but her posture had changed. She was less a fluid combatant and more a cornered animal. "Who are you working for? Owari? The Yama? One of the Sonozoka clans?"
The names bounced around the hollow space, each one a piece of a puzzle he didn't have the box for. Owari was a Faction he knew, heavy hitters, corporate security with delusions of grandeur. The Yamas were smaller, more chaotic, known for snatch-and-grabs. The Sonozokas... a whispered name, associated with the Old World and things that shouldn't have survived it.
"I'm a solo contractor," Cael said, testing the words. "I was given this job by the Fixer. A client needed something retrieved from here."
"The Fixer? From here?"
"Well the next sector technically."
The masked girl went utterly still. The only movement was the slight rise and fall of her shoulders. "The third sector," she stated, not asked.
"That's right."
"So you're not a bounty hunter?"
"Not at the moment I'm not."
Her breathing slowed slightly.
"Then what are you here for?"
"W-engine retrieval. Third sector. You?"
The stillness she was holding shifted quality.
"That's my commission," she said.
"…W-what? It's no… It's mine."
"That's not possible. The job was exclusive."
"Look let's calm down, I'm going to put away my gun, and you're going to not immediately try to take my head off, and then we're going to talk about this, because I think we might have a mutual problem."
A beat of silence.
"Let go first."
"That's fair."
He holstered the revolver and stepped back, giving her room. She straightened, rolled the shoulder once, returned the sword to its back carry with the smooth, practiced ease of someone who had done it enough times that it was reflex rather than motion. She didn't take her eyes off him.
He didn't take his eyes off her either.
"You have a Fixer," he said. "So do I. Same commission objective."
"Impossible. My Fixer said the job was exclusive to her network."
"Mine said the same thing."
She stared at him. Or he assumed she stared; the mask made the precise nature of her expression a matter of inference, but the body language was staring.
"Are they the same person?"
"Did you go to Scraps N' Scraps?"
"How did you—"
"Mother Fu—. Yes! Of course you did."
"Then why did she send two people to the same hollow for the same object?"
"I don't know yet," he said. "But I have a working theory."
"I'm listening."
He kept his voice level and his hands visible, because they were still in a hollow with unstable geometry and a conversation that had started as a fight and could return to one without much provocation.
"Eight people have already gone into the third sector of this hollow and not come back. She told you a version of the job. She told me a version of the job. My version included that number. Did yours?"
Silence. Long enough that he didn't need her to answer.
"She didn't tell you," he said.
"She told me it was high risk. She told me the rate was high because the job was hard."
"She told me the job had claimed seven contractors before me."
The mask gave him nothing. But she had gone very still in the way that people go still when they are doing arithmetic they don't like the results of.
"Eight people?"
"Eight people. Before either of us."
"And she sent both of us in."
"Yes."
The hollow hummed around them, low and patient and indifferent to the conversation happening inside it. From somewhere further down, below the second sector boundary, a faint structural shift moved through the crystallised walls like a slow breath.