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acquire the asset.   To use your word, this is powerful ‘stuff.’”
    Mason chewed the inside of his lip for a moment, looking around at the bodies.   Some were still burning.   “They looked dead.   They were attacking.”
    “Wait.   I’ll show you.”   Carter spun back the tactical overlay to the time that Mason opened fire.   “See?”
    “Ah, Christ,” said Mason.   “I just shot a bunch of homeless guys, didn’t I?”
    “Yeah,” said Carter.   “But that’s not the interesting bit.”
    Mason walked amongst the remains of the bodies.   “What did Specialist Smith get kicked out of the Marines for?”
    “Discharged.”
    “What?”
    “They call it ‘discharged,’ Mason.”
    Mason sighed.   “Ok, Carter.   Discharged.”
    “He was attacked.”
    “It’s the Marines.   Gonna happen.”   Mason gestured around him.   “He just got attacked again, after attacking me.”
    “You should read the file.”
    “Pretend I don’t have time for that.”   Mason heard something out in the darkness, turning to point the Tenko-Senshin at it.   There was nothing there.
    Carter flicked the file through, the discharge papers dropping into Mason’s optics.   “He was trying to performance manage someone, and got hit in the head with a chair.   He couldn’t walk properly after.”
    “So I just killed a cripple?   Way to make me feel better, Carter.”
    “The point is, Mason,” she said, sounding exasperated, “that before, we thought the rain made you see things.”
    “It does.”
    “Right.   But it also makes you see different things.   Things that are actually there can appear different.   That’s assuming,” she said, “that you believe you saw dead people attacking you.”
    “You’re not supposed to read my psych reports.”
    “I get bored at night.”
    “Most people sleep.”
    “Most people aren’t quite as high-functioning as I am.”   She sounded just a little too smug for Mason’s liking.   “So.   Which is it?   Did you just gun down a bunch of homeless guys in cold blood, or did the rain make you think a bunch of homeless guys were actually dead guys?”
    “I need a drink.”
    “Later.”   Carter coughed again, then her voice turned more formal.   “You should finish your sweep.”
    Mason nodded to himself, then kept walking through the darkness, towards the centre of — what?   The beam of light from the Tenko-Senshin picked out bits of detritus on the ground, a lump of fallen concrete here, a mouldering box there.   He passed another charred support column, this one cracked and broken in the middle, rebar showing through the breaks.
    The light played over a smudge on the ground, nothing more than a smear of carbon.   “I’m pretty sure that used to be a person.”
    “A person?”
    “An illegal.”
    “It’s not illegal, Mason—”
    “You know what I mean.   There’s no implants.”
    “Or the fire was very hot.”   She paused.   “I think you must be close now.   Be careful.”
    Mason’s light picked up something in the darkness, another support beam, blasted and twisted, concrete chunks missing in the darkness.   Beyond that, the floor sank into a smooth depression, the curve looking like the bottom half of a sphere.   The concrete had been pushed down and cracked, as if something round and tremendously heavy had sat there.   The ceiling was broken in a loose ring.
    “There’s no debris.”   Mason played the light up to the roof, noting where the top of the object must have punched through to the floor above.   Water trickled in over the edge.
    “I see what you mean.   Where did the roof go?”
    “I’m guessing this is the centre of the blast.   Whatever it was.”   Mason played his light around the edge, picking up the remains of some scorched cables.   He followed them back to the remains of a re-enforced case, the charred and twisted top about waist height.   An Apsel logo was still faintly visible on the leeward