It wasn't long before the street was completely taken over around Ashe. A dozen men or perhaps more formed a structured perimeter that occupied the entire width of the road, pressing the remaining bystanders back against walls and storefronts.
They wore long dark coats, hoods drawn or partially drawn, with thick cloth masks covering the lower half of the face. Several had sections of armored paneling fixed at the shoulder or along one forearm, the details varying from one to another, but still distinct enough to mark them as part of the same faction. The one thing they all had in common though was the rifles they carried. They looked heavy, with a blue current running through exposed channels along their frames. And twelve of them were pointed directly at Ashe.
"Stand still," one of them said, from somewhere ahead. "And put your hands where we can see them."
But Ashe couldn't comply right away. She was still feeling the aftermath of the shockwave that had come from her, feeling as though she was floating within it. While her hands were indeed beginning to return to what might be considered a normal state, an unusual vibration still lingered beneath the skin. After a few seconds though, she raised her hands slowly, her eyes scanning the formation in front of her.
Behind her, the four gang men who had initiated the entire incident were already moving away from the scene, taking advantage of the marshals' attention fixed on Ashe. But she caught them out of the corner of her eye as they fled, then turned toward Connor, as if confirming it without words. He was still on his feet, pressed against the wall, adjusting to this new turning of events.
"Don't make this harder than it needs to be," the man at the front of the perimeter added. He had moved slightly forward from the formation, positioning himself as its visible spokesperson without fully separating from it. "You need to slowly move away from the wall and follow our lead."
Ashe kept her hands up and said nothing. But then, from somewhere behind the formation, a voice broke the scene entirely. It was a calm voice that reached everybody with complete clarity.
"So this is what our Connor is doing in his spare time. Interesting choice of hobby, wouldn't you agree?"
The men then moved aside without taking their eyes off Ashe, pulling slightly to either side of the street in order to create a corridor through its center. Through that corridor, a woman walked forward. She looked to be somewhere in her forties, carrying herself with a commanding strength. A long, pale coat fell over dark trousers and worn boots, while her blonde hair was pulled back into a braid that rested over one shoulder, keeping out of her way.
Ashe watched her approach and studied her closely. There was something distinctive in the woman's presence, something that marked her as someone who could move things around this place with ease.
A few steps behind the woman something else moved through the formation. It walked on two legs and its frame was large, built from dark plating that easily reflected the blue neon currents from the rifles. Its joints were heavily articulated so the sounds it made as it walked were barely heard at all. The head was shaped like a skull, with two embedded lenses where the eyes should have been. It walked two steps behind the woman at all times and it stopped when she did, like a silent guardian of sorts.
The woman reached the edge of the cleared space and stopped there, looking at Connor first.
"Moira," Connor said.
Ashe's attention moved to him the instant she heard the name, then back to the woman.
Moira held Connor's gaze for a moment, as if something she had suspected had just been confirmed. Then she turned toward Ashe and studied her from head to toe with a steady, unflinching look. Ashe held that gaze with what little strength she had left, all the while keeping her hands where they were.
"This is not what it looks like," Connor said.
Moira didn't bother to look at him. "You were going to say that, weren't you," she replied.
She took one more step, closing the remaining distance between herself and Ashe, and studied her more closely, assessing who this new arrival was and how she might affect things. The automaton behind her didn't approach this time, remaining where it had stopped with its red lenses tracking the scene in silence. A faint trace of a smile then moved across Moira's face, but she didn't have time to voice the thoughts behind it, because Connor stepped forward from the wall and broke the silence again.
"She doesn't have anything to do with any of it."
Moira turned to look at him only this time there was something cold in her eyes that shot directly toward Connor, without mercy.
"Don't worry," she said, turning back to Ashe so the words landed on both of them at once. "You'll get to see your girlfriend." Her voice then dropped slightly. "As soon as she comes with us and tells us a couple of things too."
She held Ashe's gaze for a few more moments, then turned and walked back through the corridor the men had formed behind her. She didn't look back. The automaton turned as well and followed her like a silent witness to the scene.
"And then," Moira added as she was leaving, in a voice that clearly targeted Connor, "you and I are going to have a very nice little chat."
Connor said nothing and Ashe could see him turning to his thoughts as he probably had realized by then there was no avoiding the complications up ahead.
The men then closed in, making it clear where Ashe was expected to step. They fanned out around her, keeping the formation intact as it moved, with two of the men walking slightly ahead while the rest were placed to either side and behind.
Ashe's thoughts kept racing between Connor and this woman, Moira, whom she knew nothing about, and yet had been hearing about since the moment she arrived in Railen. But at the back of her mind, the most pressing thought was the vibration that still hadn't fully left her body, how it had caused the shockwave to erupt out of nowhere and blast everything within meters of her. She kept thinking how the further she went, the less she seemed to understand about any of it.