If this is your first encounter with Delilah, you should introduce yourself from the beginning. A year. A little longer than Oliver. But not long enough to explain the syndicates’ war with Sampson. “You’ve been a player for a lot longer than that.” “No human deserves to live at another’s feet.” The chair whined as it turned Sampson to follow her movements, the room’s sound system speaking for him. Delilah wondered what his real voice had been like. Whether it had been this melodious. Whether he’d been a dancer, or a fighter, or just a walker, trying to get by, before his body was taken from him. “They hammered me into this chair because they preyed on my pride, Delilah. I was bearding the lion in its den long before Reed’s current interest. They’re just the latest to take it personally. Read More …

If Delilah is new to you, start at the beginning. “Maybe you’re crazy,” she said, not disagreeing. “My cheese is you, Delilah Griffiths. Have you heard of Omo’s Island Adventure?” The fuck. Delilah found a gap in the wall of servers, stepping between them. More servers, rows and rows. Her overlay started building a map. Her optics were having trouble piercing the surrounding racks, too much EM interference, so she’d need to do this the old fashioned way: one step at a time. “No,” she said. “Is it how you got to Ollie?” There was a pause, and she used the time to jog down one wall made of servers. Sampson’s voice was muted when he spoke. “Oliver came to me, Delilah.” “Bullshit. You hacked his link and left him a cripple. He can’t even piss by himself!” She shouted at Read More …

If you haven’t seen Delilah yet, start at the beginning. Delilah crushed that line of thinking, tossing it out of her mind and over the bridge of thought to drown like an unwanted sack of puppies in the dark of her subconscious. Her brother Oliver — her Ollie — was one of these … cripples. The thought wouldn’t go away, now she was seeing so many at once. A hundred or more people, racked and stacked like organic wares at a chop shop, wheelchairs and exosuits in equal numbers. They all shared the same jerky movements, tainted meat everywhere Delilah looked. A hundred fucking cripples at a mad king’s birthday party. The people he’d mutilated, celebrating with him. Sampson was sick, and he would die tonight. Hell with the bonus. The car hissed to a halt, the door clunking open with confidence. Delilah put a Read More …

If you haven’t seen Delilah yet, start at the beginning. The first task was to find Sampson. The man was an enigma. A ghost. A shadow. No one even knew if he was a man; he could have been male or female, young or old, God/gods-fearing or atheist. Delilah had been hired to find Sampson, destroy his tech, and bring him in. If she couldn’t, leaving his body cooling in a dumpster would be a good second option. His code was the real prize: Sampson had released a virus into the link network, turning ordinary people into husks, their bodies crippled, minds shattered. The syndicates didn’t agree on much, but they agreed that Sampson needed to go down. Reed Interactive was just the latest one willing to put good cash on the table to see it done. Their angle was curious though; Reed’s tower was Read More …