The last of the thugs was slumped, groaning, in the alleyway behind, the neon dragons making their writhing dance along the storefront behind bathing him in painfully cornflower blue. Even here, under the creaking awning of tin, Helle could hear the rain spattering down, drizzling in fat, contaminated droplets down through the cracks in the metal and streaking her hair into her eyes.

Not that it mattered, really; she could see him from the cameras on the back of her fists, every inch of his heat-laced skin shining white against the cold dark of thermal gray. He'd made his way in, just like the others; a baton to the back of the head, a well-aimed round tearing through the polymer and gold of the turrets studding the terrace. Expert. Efficient. The sort of timing and precision that paired with the black-and-tan standard-issue jack peeking out from the back of his skull, when he turned to scan the dark interior behind her.

Helle spat. Another bounty hunter, then, spat out from the back of the government machine and smoothly slotted in to its apparatus of outsourced order. Scum with a veneer of pride, writ larger than life, soaked and stark against the ads for some new distraction. Any moment now, he'd make a hollow offer to bring her in, let her be vivisected in the labs of the gleaming cor-

"I'm going," his voice purred from the glitching neon gutter, "to take you out."

Ah, yes. Hopefully the eye roll was visible from here; this was the third one to mention some variant of that before raising his gun. Helle's third arm swung lazily from her shoulder, idly aiming at him, the words already forming in her throat.

"That got a reaction."

The man stepped forward, his pistol disappearing into the recesses of his jacket. "Helle Seven. They offered me an awful lot to find you, and now that you're in my sights... Well."

Something slithered against the circuits in her head, a note of warning. The aim was off; damn it.

"Bad servo? You've got no idea what it'll feel like when I fix the fuck out of that."

She could practically taste the whiskey and burnt circuits on him when his boots splashed toward her.

"There's a fuzzy goddamn bathrobe in the shop; four arms, special made. Stitched, printed, and hand-sewn. Calibration shouldn't take too long, and there's some genuine, non-extruded hot cocoa while you wait, if you're up for some diagnostics, even."

His eyes bored into hers, brown and steel. "There's a great place a couple blocks from here that serves noodles. No one's saying there needs to be hand-holding, but everything's still on the table."

His fingers gently wrapped around hers before she could even feel it, alarms ringing behind her conscious mind even as the man grinned.

"Everything."

A wink.

"Is it a date, then?"