Charon was eventually shown to the bank manager’s office on the third floor, he held out his hand in greeting as she walked through the door, she took it with very little enthusiasm and put her briefcase right on top of the desk between them.

“I apologise in advance but I have little time or energy for small talk so I’d rather get straight into it. I want Kizmats name taken off every account I hold here at the bank with you. Also, I want the money moving to the following offshore bank accounts, arrangements have already been made by my lawyers.”

He nodded. Charon unclipped the briefcase and handed him a large sheaf of papers; he took them and riffled quickly through them. As he did that Charon’s eyes wandered over the small office and settled on the security CCTV. She watched it with little interest until her eye was drawn to a customer who looked out of place, she watched him for a couple more minutes before she cleared her throat and turned further in her chair to watch the camera’s.

“Have you had any weird customers in the bank recently?”

The manager looked up and frowned at her.

“How do you mean?”

She pointed to the cameras and then explained what she meant.

“That bloke there, I think you should have your security pull him to one side.”

His eyebrows knitted together in a puzzled way.

“Just because he looks a bit ‘unusual’?”

Charon stared at the monitors and realised why he looked so out of place.

“Hit the silent alarm…NOW.”

The manager looked at her as though she was some sort of weird alien being.

“What on Earth for?”

Charon stood up; her chair fell backward to the floor.

“He’s going to hold up the bank, look at him, everyone else has shorts, sandals and light shirts on, he’s wearing a long overcoat and sunglasses indoors.”

Almost as though her words were the trigger, the man pulled his coat to one side and pulled out a pump action shotgun and screamed at the top of his voice. As he did the whole bank went into shutdown as though his words were the cue to shut the security down. Charon dived over the desk and hit the silent alarm seconds before the electricity was cut. He was obviously receiving instruction from somewhere else because he then stopped and seemed to listen before he looked towards the stairs. Charon realised he knew the alarm had been set off before the power was cut.

She watched as he began to sprint up the stairs, she grabbed the manager and shoved him into a small coat closet, she pulled all her paperwork off the desk and into the briefcase, clipped it shut and shoved it into the closet with the manager. She looked at him before closing the door.

“Whatever happens, keep quiet, I’ll come and get you when its safe, understand?”

He nodded mutely. Charon pulled a pair of glasses from her back pocket and shoved them on and sat in the chair the manager had just vacated. She sat casually facing the door waiting; the door smashed open and the man stood framed in the doorway. Charon clocked the faint limelight glow from the eyes, seconds later she felt a jolt as her own nanobots began to stream binary into her minds eye. The man had the gun pointed right in the centre of her chest; Charon simply sat there and stared right back at him. He yelled at her.

“DOWNSTAIRS NOW! ONE WRONG MOVE AND I’LL BLOW YOU SKY HIGH!”

Charon pushed the chair back and as she did she realised all her cybernetics had been re-booted, she didn’t have time to worry or wonder, why after all this time the things had become active again. As she walked past him, she grabbed the barrel of the gun and shoulder barged him sideways. The two of them destroyed the wall as they went through it. She’d already bent the gun so it was now unusable but she managed to get it off him and swung it right into his face like a baseball bat swung by a pro ball player. The force created by the cybernetic implants caused the man to become airborne, he landed halfway down the second flight of stairs and rolled downwards and crashed out through the guard rails and down into the main part of the bank. He crashed through and destroyed a marble counter. Charon stalked down the stairs with one eye on the bank customers and employee’s who’d been tied up and one eye on the cybernetic individual who was intent on robbing the bank she’d used for many years.

As she came round the end of the last stair he shook himself and got to his feet. He ran at her grabbing her round the waist and smashing both of them through a wall into another office at the rear of the bank. Charon broke her fall with a back breakfall and then planted her foot into his stomach as his momentum carried him up and over. He went headfirst through the back wall of the office. Charon rolled backwards and righted herself before tearing the rest of the wall out to get at the cybernetic moron. He was already waiting for her with a chair, he smashed it over her head, which simply forced her feet several inches into the floor, and she looked at him. He seemed to realise trying to smash her head in wasn’t going to work and then promptly swung another chair like a bat. She caught it right in the head, her head snapped back and she was forced backwards and landed on the desk, crushing it into firewood as she landed hard. He was on her before she could pull herself up from the debris; again she brought her foot up and drove it right up under his chin. He seemed to leave the floor by several inches and his jaw seemed to skew off to the side as she heard a loud crack.

She realised she’d broken his jaw, the nanobots surmised that the man was a basic cybernetic upgrade. Only his limbs and main body had been upgraded, so Charon should have the upper hand since he seemed to have no self-healing ability. She pulled herself up and went straight after him; she grabbed a letter opener as she stalked after him. He was now trying to get away from her, maybe he’d realised that he was outgunned, Charon found the whole thing odd. Why would the Scientists resort to stealing from banks? The man stumbled across the floor towards the rear of the bank, his jaw at a weird angle. Charon ran at him and executed her own waist block, the two of them crashed through another counter and this time Charon bought the letter opener down and thrust it into the top of his head. Something rolled out of his hand and Charon realised it was a trigger. She swore, she looked over at the people who were tied up at the front of the bank, she could hear the sirens outside and as she turned back to finish the cyborg off, he disappeared.

“Bollocks!”

She sprinted to the front of the bank and tore the ropes off some of the people and instructed them to untie the rest. She sprinted to the front doors and ripped the security screens off and threw a heavy marble bust of the banks founders through the glass. She yelled at the top of her voice.

“Get everyone out through the glass doors as soon as possible, there’s a bomb in the bank somewhere! MOVE!! NOW!!”

She sprinted back up the stairs, yanked the closet door off and grabbed the manager, she picked him up like he weighed no more than a couple of pounds and sprinted off down the back stairs. She ripped a security door off and shoved him out with her briefcase and a loud instruction of ‘Run like hell and stop for nothing!’ He needed no further instruction and ran like an Olympic sprinter pursued by a pack of cheetahs. Charon then sprinted back through the bank to make sure everyone was out, she watched as the last couple of people climbed out through the shattered glass and in the silence she could hear the almost silent tick of a digital timer.

It was the intake of air that preceded the explosion that she felt first, then as she began to run, her ears popped as the air pressure changed and began to push outwards as the explosion triggered. As she reached the doors, the roar of the explosion caught up with her and picked her up and almost seemed to spit her out as she flew out ahead of the fire. Her arms and legs wind milling as she tried to stay in as upright a position as she could manage. She could see emergency service staff ducked down behind cars and vehicles as she flew over them, eventually she impacted on the roof of a police car and slid down the back windscreen. She flopped down onto the concrete and lay there for a couple of minutes. As she blinked everything seemed to happen in slow motion as the nanobots cycled through repair procedures, emergency personnel rushed over, many convinced she couldn’t have survived and then she took a deep breath and sat up. Paramedics grabbed her and tried to stop her from getting up, she pushed them away and straightened up.

“I’m fine. Did everyone get out in time?”

Someone assured her that everyone was safe, another police officer was examining the huge dent in the top of the police car she’d landed on. There was a lot of noise, flashes as camera’s went off and eventually someone covered her in a blanket and managed to get her to the privacy of an emergency vehicle. Her mind was now working overtime. Something had triggered the nanobots and the cybernetics that had lain dormant in her body for some time, the scientists were using basic cyborg upgrades to steal from banks and she needed to find a way into Neo-Earth to get Crimson back. She was about to walk back to her car when Darkspade seemed to materialise from nowhere and block her exit.

“I think now would be a good time to talk don’t you think?”

She stared at him.

“About what?”