Valiant

[Valiant #13: Digital Angel]

Log Date: 11/8/12763

Data Sources: Feroce Acceso, Kiwi

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

The Bulwark: Docks

11:12am SGT

“Jeez.” Ridge murmurs as we stand on the quay in the Bulwark’s docking bay, watching as the embarkment ramps extend out to connect with the Voliburn. “Looks like they took a beating on that last mission.”

I don’t say anything, my eyes roving the Voliburn’s hull. Ridge isn’t wrong — the battlecruiser has some extensive damage. It looks like the hull plating that’s standard to most battlecruisers blunted the worst of it, but I can see at least one spot where the hull was breached, which probably would’ve resulted in the affected rooms and corridors being sealed off to prevent atmosphere loss. Some of the cannon positions along the side have been slagged to various degrees, rendering them inoperable.

“To be expected, when you get in a fight with an old Challenger interdictor.” Sierra says from where she’s standing beside us, with Luci on her other side. “Gonna be happy when we can finally start getting our old ships back. Hate it when someone steals your toys and then uses them against you.”

“How long are these repairs going to take?” I ask, still sizing up the battle damage. “I imagine it’s going to be in dock for at least a week, getting this patched up.”

“Not the damnedest idea.” Sierra says, shrugging. “That’s for the mechanics to figure out. They’ll get us a number once they have a chance to look it over.”

“Language.” I mutter.

“Oh hush, or I’ll put my language up your ass.” Sierra says, flicking her hair over one shoulder. “I’m sure Ridge has heard profanity before. He’s an orphan, he probably knows more than most teenagers do.”

Ridge shrugs, looking at me. “I mean, she’s not wrong…”

“Yes, but if you admit she’s right, you give her more ammunition, and that’s a dangerous thing to do with Sierra.” I explain. “And besides, just because she’s doing it doesn’t mean you should follow her example.”

“But she’s a Lieutenant Commander of an entire mercforce!” Ridge points out.

Sierra grins at me. “That’s right, Feroce. I’m a Lieutenant Commander of an entire mercforce. Clearly I’m a great role model.”

“You never did explain how you managed to sleaze your way into a second-in-command position.” I say, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Let’s just say that fuzzy handcuffs, a blueberry pie, and a little bit of blackmail was involved.” Sierra says as the access hatches on the ship start to open. First person through the hatches is Jackrabbit, striding down the ramp with her thumbs hooked in the straps of her backpack. “Hey! Lesbian love story! Over here!”

Jackrabbit looks around at Sierra’s shout, a grin breaking across her face as her hand shoots up in the air and she waves back. “Ayyyyyyy! Vampire sex party! You been keeping things under control here?”

I rub a hand over my face. “You two realize you’re setting a bad example for the kids, right?” I call, motioning to Ridge in the process.

Jackrabbit leans to the side as she comes off the ramp, catching sight of Ridge. “Oh right, sorry, my bad.” she apologizes as she reaches us, giving a flowery bow. “Lieutenant most wise, it is good to be in your dignified presence once more.”

“Now you’re giving her an ego boost she doesn’t deserve. Can’t win for losing.” I say as we start to fan out around Jackrabbit. “Looks like CURSE fought back on this last mission you went on.”

“Sure did!” Jackrabbit says, sliding her pack off her back and letting it drop to the ground, rolling her shoulders. “They were after something, I dunno what, but I think it was big. They sent two Peacekeepers and an entire platoon of operatives to an abandoned expedition site on a moonworld in the Gnist System, and they found a glowy magic orange in a temple that had been dug up years ago. Tried to snag it, but one of their operatives turned into a giant ghost wolf and slapped me with her tail. It was pretty spicy.”

I open my mouth, unsure of what to say. “…there’s a lot to unpack there.” I say after a moment.

“Oh, I wrote a whole report on it to give to intelligence, so they can debrief you lot later.” Jackrabbit says, leaning on the quay railing. “It was exciting. I haven’t had a mission like that in years! Really makes me wonder what they’re up to, though. Digging around in old ruins, looking for relics. We made any progress on cracking the archive?”

“Look, about that…” I say, rubbing the back of my neck as I look at the others.

“Echo’s dead.” Sierra says, coming right out and saying it. “He was supposed to be our way into the archive. He got nailed with a hypersonic railgun spike when Songbird went to contact him. I think CURSE might be onto us.”

“Really?” Jackrabbit says, the grin fading from her face. “Well shit… that sucks, major leagues. Echo was a decent person, both in and out of the program. It ain’t right that he went out that way. Always thought I’d be able to catch up with him one day and have drinks.” She looks away, running a hand through her short hair. “No offense, Nympho, but that about ruined my day.”

“She’s good at that.” comes another voice. We turn to see Valkyrie approaching our group, her hands tucked in the pockets of her labcoat. “I was hoping to break it to you gently, but it seems the Lieutenant beat me to the punch.”

“Hey, hon.” Jackrabbit says, turning to give Valkyrie a lingering hug. “It’s fine. Just wish I’d had the chance to talk to him one last time.”

“Same here.” Valkyrie says, planting a kiss in Jackrabbit’s hair. “From what I hear, it was quick. He was old, and at the rate that he would’ve been losing blood, he wouldn’t have suffered for long. I’m sure that he’s resting easy now.”

“Lucky dog.” Jackrabbit mutters. “He’s probably kicking back on some beach in heaven, sippin’ on a cheritza and laughing at us, working hard while he’s relaxing.”

Valkyrie smiles a little at that. “I’m not sure he believed in an afterlife, but if he did, that’s probably what he’s doing.” She looks around Jackrabbit to the Voliburn, and the damage it’s sustained. “He didn’t leave us in the lurch, though. Before he died, he gave Songbird a lead on getting into the backup archive. We gave it to intelligence, who figured it out, and we’ll be following up on it in the next couple of days. You think you’ll be well enough to chase it down?”

“Actually.” Sierra says at this point, examining her nails. “We were going to have Songbird follow up on that. It seemed only right, since Echo’s the one that gave him the lead.”

Valkyrie glares at Sierra. “This is going to be a mission into a densely populated orbital starport, where galactic news is plastered on big screens in every lobby and every hall. The Masklings have made Songbird the centerpiece of their middle finger PR campaign against the Colloquium, and you want to send him out there to take care of this? The starport’s local Vaunted garrison is going to be on him within fifteen minutes of him stepping foot there.”

Sierra raises an eyebrow. “And what, Jackrabbit’s a nobody? Please, she’d draw almost as much attention as he would. She was practically the Challenger mascot before the program went down. Besides, the Masklings already have a plan for disguising Songbird so he can follow up on this lead.”

I glance at Sierra. “Wait, they do? This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“Hush dear, the adults are talking.” Sierra says, flapping a hand at me.

“If the Masklings have a plan to disguise him, why can’t it be applied to Jack?” Valkyrie asks. “I doubt that whatever they’re going to do to him is so exclusive it cannot also be applied to her. Jack is more than capable of doing everything that he can.”

“Don’t you want to spend time with your wife?” Luci suddenly asks, reaching up and taking out the lollipop he’d been sucking on.

Valkyrie looks at Luci, perplexed. “Well, yes, but—”

“She got back all of ten minutes ago and you’re already trying to push her off on another mission that’s going to be taking place in two days.” Luci says, waving his lollipop around. “Like, chill out a bit. Yeah, we put Songbird on a lot of the important missions, but guess what? He’s not married, he doesn’t have a family. He’s single and we can throw him around like a ragdoll and not have to worry about it. Your wife just got back, her ship looks like it’s been through the wringer, and it’s going to be stuck here a while for repairs. Spend some time with her while she’s here. Let the guy that doesn’t have a life go on the mission instead.”

I squint at Luci. “…I’m not sure if I should be complimented or insulted.”

“He’s got a good point, Val.” Jackrabbit says, resting her head on Valkyrie’s shoulder. “It’s been a while since we went on a date. Would be nice to slow down for a bit, take a breather. Besides, Songbird can handle it.” She smiles in my direction. “He was trained by some of our best. He’s got it under control.”

I reach up to rub the back of my neck. “Still a little rusty, but I’m working on it.”

“Okay.” Valkyrie sighs, rubbing Jackrabbit’s shoulder. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to try and push you off like that. I’ve just been a little wound up after Echo’s death.”

“Great. Perfect!” Sierra say, snagging the collar of my longcoat and starting to drag me away. “Jackrabbit can get some rest and we’ll keep on throwing Songbird into the jaws of danger. Everyone wins. Speaking of which, we’re about fifteen minutes late for that meeting with the Masklings, Songbird, so we should probably get rolling.”

“How can I be late to a meeting I wasn’t even told about?” I protest, staggering along as Sierra drags me down the quay.

“Have fun, Songbird! Save the galaxy for me!” Jackrabbit calls, waving cheerily as Luci and Ridge start to plod after us. Reaching up, I remove Sierra’s hand from my collar, and give a thumbs up to Jackrabbit as I follow Sierra to the briefing room.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

The Bulwark: Intelligence Center

11:52am SGT

“You want to dye my hair.” I say flatly, staring across the room at Forecast.

“Yes.” Tarocco says, jumping in at this point. “But this isn’t just any hair dye. This is a special technology that we’ve… acquired from the intelligence programs of various nations we’ve interacted with.”

“And by ‘interacted’, what you actually mean is ‘infiltrated and stole state secrets and intellectual property from’.” Commander Dussel says, sounding equally flat. He’s sitting in a chair off to my right.

“How we obtained the technology and its fabrication process is immaterial.” Forecast replies coolly. “What matters is that we are presently deploying it to our mutual benefit. Tarocco, if you’d explain how it works, so as to better set Songbird’s mind at ease with regards to his…” Forecast pauses, clearly thinking of a diplomatic way to phrase his next words. “…his unique method of self-expression.”

“Of course.” Tarocco says, reaching back and pulling forward one of the screens projected into the air by the room’s holoarray. “So, I assume you all are generally familiar with nanites and nanotechnology?”

“Those are the microscopic machines that you can inject into people, right?” Ridge asks from where he’s sitting on the desk just behind me.

“That, yes. For a certain simplistic definition.” I confirm, folding my arms. “I have extensive experience with the BIOS platform; it was necessary for operating certain types of technology before the program was shuttered. I assume this is something akin to that, though likely far less complicated?”

“Yes, much less so.” Tarocco says, giving me a look. “Though now you have me curious. The BIOS platform is the industry standard for mech piloting. Were you a pilot…?”

“I dabbled.” I say brusquely. “We’re getting off topic. Somehow nanites are involved with this hair dye of yours?”

“To be honest, it’s not really a dye so much as it’s a nanite distillate.” Tarocco goes on, returning her attention to the screen she pulled up, and the images thereon. “There’s no chemical coloration involved. These nanites can adjust the molecular arrangement of their surface sides to control what wavelengths of visible light they absorb, and what wavelengths they reflect.”

“So they can essentially change color.” I surmise. “Like trillions of tiny holoscreens that, I assume, are all acting in concert with each other.”

“Precisely.” Tarocco agrees. “Except instead of emitting certain wavelengths, they’re reflecting it.”

“I’m lost.” Ridge says, scratching an eyebrow. “Are we talking about hair dye or holoscreens?”

“Don’t worry, kid. They’re just using big words to make themselves sound smart. I have to deal with this all the time.” Sierra says without looking up from her phone.

“In short, we dye your hair with these nanites, set the default wavelength rejection to your current, iconic… hue, and then in the instances that require a lower profile, we can adjust the nanites’ wavelength rejection to a different shade and give you a change of clothes to make you less recognizable.” Forecast summarizes. “A solution that I believe accommodates your quaint color preference, but gives us options for disguising you on sensitive missions.”

“Gods, how many times do you have to explain it to him? Just do it already.”

I’d been avoiding looking in her direction so far, but now that she’s spoken, I can’t ignore her any more. Kiwi’s slouched in one of the chairs behind Forecast, her arms folded; there’s a certain bored indifference to the set of her shoulders that stings more than it would if she was mad at me. Ever since our confrontation in the Nyroc, she’d cooled off towards me, and we’d stopped interacting of our own accord. Despite the fact that the Masklings had moved onto the Bulwark and were living there full-time now, there’d been multiple instances where she’d walked right past me without acknowledging me, which also stung more than I cared to admit out loud.

“I do not recall asking for your input, Kiwi.” Forecast says, looking over his shoulder.

“No, she’s right.” I interject. “I get the idea. So long as I get to switch back to my original hair color once I’m back from the mission, I don’t mind. Let’s get this over with; I assume it’s going to take some time for the nanites to set in and calibrate, and we’ll want them working before I head to the Snohjem Starport.”

“Very well, then.” Forecast says, looking to Tarocco. “If you would, then.”

Tarocco nods and snaps closed the holoscreen she’d been using. “Will do.” she says, looking to me. “We can perform the dyeing process on the Nyroc, since that’s where the distillate and equipment are. If you’ll follow me.” With that, she starts towards the door of the intelligence center.

“This’ll probably take a while, so feel free to get lunch while I’m gone.” I say to Ridge as I start after Tarocco. Winding through the analysts’ desks on my way to the door, I glance over my shoulder as I go. Kiwi’s got her phone out and is thumbing through it, but her wildfire eyes flick up and in my direction, as if she could sense that I was looking at her. I can’t read the look in her eyes, but it lacks the playful, curious gleam it used to have.

Then I smack into something, and I snap my head back around, taking a couple of steps back as I realize that I just walked into Cahriu, who’s standing in the doorway to the intelligence center.

“Hey there, boss.” he says, smirking. “Oughta watch where you’re going. You’ll walk off a cliff with an attention span like that.”

“Sorry.” I mutter, scooting to the side and slipping around him. Once I’m in the hall, I pick up the pace, quickly catching up to Tarocco.

Even so, I can feel his gaze on my back all the way down the hall.

Event Log: Kiwi

The Bulwark: Intelligence Center

12:01pm SGT

“Looks like he’s still giving you the cold shoulder after that little spat a week ago.”

I recognize the voice as I step out of the intelligence center, but I don’t turn my head to acknowledge it, at least not right away. Instead, I stare down the hall, watching Tarocco lead Songbird away. “Playing a dangerous game, Cahriu.” I say, my eyes still fixed on Songbird’s back.

I can almost hear the shrug in his voice as he replies. “Can you blame me for playing it, though?”

“For your own sake, it’d be safer for you if you didn’t.” I say, turning and walking in the other direction, passing Cahriu as I do so. He pushes off the wall where he was leaning back beside the doorway to the intelligence center, falling in step just behind my shoulder. “You still haven’t taken the hint I gave you back at the Sanctuary.”

“What, that you’d eat me alive if I tangled with you?” he asks, hitching his hands in his pockets. “No offense, but I’ve handled wild little things like you before.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you so set on this?” I ask, reaching up to flick a lock of hair out of my face as I stride down the hall. “You got somethin’ to prove to someone?”

Again, the verbal shrug in his tone is audible. “Not tryin’ to prove anything to anyone. I just don’t believe that some non-Mask nobody has something special that other Masklings don’t have.”

“So you do have something to prove.” I say without looking over my shoulder. “You can’t stand the thought that Songbird might have something you don’t have.”

“I wouldn’t say I ‘can’t stand it’.” he says, his tone staying relaxed as we turn a corner down another hall. “That implies I’m bothered about it. I’m not bothered about it, because I know he can’t offer you anything that another Maskling couldn’t. Hell, he’s not one of us. He’s got even less to offer you than another Maskling would.”

“Why are you so fixated on it, then?” I ask, checking the walls for the arrows that point to where different sectors of the Bulwark are. I lock onto the one for the tram station, and follow it. It’s going to take me a while to learn to get around a place as big as this.

“I just think you’re wasting your time.” he says. Another verbal shrug. He seems to be full of those, deliberately underselling his point with a casual tone. “We all know what’s going to happen to him. Why would you tangle with him, knowing what it’s going to do to him? Wouldn’t it be better to tangle with another Maskling instead?”

“Been doing that for twenty-six years, and it’s been killing Masklings for the last twenty-six years.” I answer flatly. “Are you really that suicidal? Do you want me to kill you?”

“Yeah, that’s something else I don’t really believe either.” he says as we arrive to the tram station. “I believe that you’ve been draining your handlers dry and killing them, but I think they haven’t been placing you with the right handlers. You just need the right partner, someone that can keep up with you.”

“On that, we both agree.” I say as he steps up beside me to wait. “But you’re not that person. I’ve had handlers like you before, trying to bite off more than they can chew.”

He glances askance at me. “I’unno. I think I could fit you in my mouth.”

I flick my eyes aside at him. That casual stance, the broad shoulders, the nonchalant confidence… it’s all too familiar. They just never learn, and by the time they do, it’s always too late. “Got it the wrong way around, buster. You’re the one that’s gonna end up in my mouth when all’s said and done, and I’m not going to chew you up and spit you out. I’m going to chew you up, and swallow.”

“Now you’re just making me want to try harder.” he says as the tram arrives, and starts to slow down. “How about I go about this another way. I know you want to tangle with him. But does he want to tangle with you?”

That hits a lot closer to home. It was something that had been bothering me over the past week. I knew I’d made a mistake, manipulating Songbird the way I had, but I hadn’t thought he’d react to it that violently. I didn’t like how deep his words had cut that day, and ever since then, he’d avoided me. I was hoping that he’d get over himself and try to reconnect, but so far, he had kept his distance. And I was too proud to admit I’d been wrong, and close the gap.

“What does it matter to you?” I ask, stepping onto the tram once the doors open.

“Well, obviously it’s bothering you.” he says, following me onto the tram. He snags one of the grip straps overhead as the doors close, and the tram starts moving again. “I know you’re fixated on him, but give me a chance to make my case, yeah? And if I can’t convince you, then fine. But at least hear me out.”

I lean back against the wall of the tram, folding my arms. “You’ve got until the end of this ride to convince me.”

“Perfect.” he says, holding up one finger. “One. This is going to sound kinda racist, but he’s not one of us. Dogs and cats, birds and fish, there’s a reason they don’t mix. It’s not natural. We’re not just talking cultural differences here; there’s physical and psychological differences. He’s not a Maskling. That’s just a fact.”

He puts up the second finger. “Two. You should be tangling with someone that actually wants to tangle with you. Someone that appreciates what you can do, how powerful you are, what you’re capable of, and who you are. He doesn’t appreciate that. He doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t know how unique you are among Masks — all he sees is just another Maskling, and again, that’s because he’s not one of us.”

The third finger goes up. “Three. This is where I paint myself as a saint. If you tangle with him and end up killing him, the resurgent Challengers are gonna be pissed off. If you tangle with me and end up killing me, no skin off their back. So tactically speaking, it’s better for you to tangle with me than it is to tangle with him.”

He pauses to take a breath, and then the fourth finger comes up. “Four. I can handle you. You keep on saying that I can’t, but we won’t know until you give me a chance. So give me a chance.”

Then his thumb flicks out. “Five. I’m more fun than he is. Never seen him crack a smile and he seems to go out of his way to avoid everyone unless he’s working. Personality differences are kinda minor, I’ll grant, but sometimes that’s the dealbreaker.”

He drops his hand after that. I don’t say anything right away, sizing him up and thinking it over. It was cute that he thought that he would survive tangling with me. I knew he wouldn’t, but he was so deadset on trying that I was considering giving in and agreeing to it. I couldn’t control the fact that he had a death wish, but I could decide whether or not I’d humor it. On a moral level, I knew I shouldn’t humor it, but I had stopped caring about morality years ago.

The only thing keeping me from agreeing was the thought of how Songbird would react if he found out I’d tangled with someone else.

“Mmm.” I say, looking away and watching the walls of the tram tube whip by outside the tram. “You spent a long time thinking about that, didn’t you.”

“Ain’t like I’ve had much else to do on this rustbucket.” Cahriu says, shrugging. “If I’m gonna be along on this joyride, I want to be useful, instead of just loafing around while you and the Challengers do all the heavy lifting. Tangle with me — I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Oh, I know I won’t regret it.” I say, still looking away. “That’s my handler’s job.”

That gets him to shut up for a bit. In the ensuing silence, the tram starts to slow down as it reaches the living sector, gliding to a halt at the station. The doors slide open; I push off the wall and step out, and Cahriu follows after me. I can tell he’s working on his next move, mulling over how to convince me as we make our way down the corridors leading to the barracks.

“You never straight-out said no.” he observes at some point. “Did I convince you?”

“You made a good effort. But you don’t really understand me.” I say, tucking my hands in my pockets. “All the reasons you gave me for why I shouldn’t tangle with Songbird? Those are exactly why I did tangle with him.” I give that a moment to sink in. “He’s not like us. He’s unique, and strange and hard to get. Tangling with him meant breaking the rules. Which is exactly why I did it. He’s a challenge I’ve never had before, and we always crave what we’re not allowed to have.” I come to a stop in front of my assigned room, turning to look at him. “I could have you, or any other Maskling handler. All I’d have to do is ask. That’s what I’ve done for the last twenty-six years, and it’s easy. It’s boring. But Songbird is off-limits. That’s exactly why I tangled with him: because someone would’ve told me I couldn’t have him.”

Cahriu wrinkles his nose at that. Maybe he’s offended by the idea that I’d rather tangle with a non-Mask over him. “Mm.” he says, one of those wolven ears flicking as he glances down the hall, as if to gather his thoughts. “I guess that makes sense. I can understand wanting to stick it to the people that tell me what I can and can’t have. There’s still the question of whether he wants to stay tangled with you, though.”

“I’ll figure that out.”

“I’m sure you would.” he says, folding his arms and looking back to me. “But you’re too proud to go apologize to him. Otherwise you would’ve done it by now. And while you’re waiting for him to crack, he just keeps slipping further and further out of your reach.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Not as much of a dumb wolf as you look like.”

“Just because I’m big doesn’t mean that I’m stupid.” he says, thumbing his chin. “How about this: you want to get him back, but you can’t bend your pride to do it. If you can’t go to him, you have to make him come to you. Tangle with me, let me be your handler, and see if that’ll make him jealous. I get a chance to prove to you that I can keep up with you, you get a chance to make your blue-haired freak feel envious. Either you kill me and convince him to come back to you, or I convince you I’ve got more to offer you than he does.”

From the moment he starts laying out the deal, I already know it’s a deal where someone’s gonna get hurt. It’s a dangerous game, taking risks on someone else’s life and trying to manipulate the emotions of others. Only one of us will come out of it with what we want, and I have a pretty good idea of who it’ll be.

But what’s life if you don’t take a few risks?

“Alright.” I smile, reaching back and tapping my badge to the door’s access pad. It slides open behind me. “I’ll take your deal. Let’s hope you survive it long enough for Songbird to get his head on straight.” Reaching up, I hook two fingers in the neck of his shirt, grinning as I lean backwards into my room.

“Now get in here and tangle with me.”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Snohjem Orbital Starport: Arrivals

11/10/12763 10:01am SGT

“Well.” Ridge says a little awkwardly. “At least it went viral?”

I don’t reply. We just disembarked at our gate, and one of the first things we see on stepping through is a big screen hanging from the terminal ceiling, preset to one of the major news channels, which is airing a clip from the recorded conversation I had with Kiwi about Echo. I knew it’d been dominating the news ever since the Masklings had released it to the public five days ago, but I’d been avoiding watching the news for this reason exactly. The memory of that conversation, and how Kiwi had manipulated me into it, was still sour.

Having it plastered across the screen in front of me, playing on a loop while pundits dissected and analyzed it, just rubbed it in all the more.

“Let’s go.” I mutter, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Since the Dussel Mercforce had been blacklisted by the Colloquium, and by extension, their fleet as well, we hadn’t been able to arrive to the starport using the Accatria. Instead, we caught a ride on the Nyroc, which presumably was in better legal standing than the rest of the Dussel Mercforce at the moment. Now we were here after getting permission to dock; while this arm of the starport wasn’t packed to the gills, there were still a decent number of people coming and going. People in business fare, beach fare, snow gear… it just went to show that Snohjem was a resort world, and that’s what people came here for. Vacations, work retreats, sabbaticals, anybody with enough money to burn on that sort of thing.

“So what are we looking for?” Ridge asks, tucking his hands in the pockets of his hoodie as we join the concourse of people coming and going from this arm of the starport. “I know that Echo gave us the clue that led us here, but did he say what we’d be looking for?”

“No, he didn’t.” I answer, tucking my hands in my hoodie pockets the same way he is. The replacement for my birthday-pink hoodie with the GET REKT text across the back had finally come in, and since this mission required a different profile anyway, I’d ditched my longcoat for the hoodie. To top it off, the nanites in my newly dyed hair had been set to reflect pink light, a more intense shade of the pink that my hoodie was. I wouldn’t call it a perfect disguise by any stretch of the imagination, but it would definitely throw off anyone that was looking for blue-haired, black-coated Challenger.

“Alright, so how do we know what we’re looking for if he didn’t tell us what we’re supposed to be finding?” Ridge asks as we start to near the junction where the docking terminal connects to the station proper. “Kinda makes it hard to find something if you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“I’ve got some idea of what he intended for us to find.” I say as we enter the junction. “He said he built in a backdoor when he designed the backup archive, and referenced a she, so he intended for us to find a person here.”

Ridge rolls his eyes. “Oh great, awesome. That narrows it down so much. Have you looked around recently, dude?” He motions to the dozens of people coming and going within the junction, which has a greenspace with an abstract art installation in the center, and little side shops and food stores along the walls. “We’re in an orbital starport where thousands of people come and go every day. How are we supposed to find one person in all this?”

“By using what we know to narrow down what we’re looking for.” I say, starting around the greenspace while I look around the junction. “We know it’s a her, so that rules out males.”

“Okay, that cuts out probably half of the starport’s population.” Ridge says, following after me. “That still leaves thousands of people to sort through.”

“We know it’s not someone that’s passing through. Whoever it is works here and resides here — Echo wouldn’t have given us a clue to a static location if the person he wanted us to find wasn’t going to be there.” I go on, finding the archway I’m looking forward and moving towards it.

“Alright, I guess that makes sense, but still.” Ridge says, scratching his head. “A place like this has to have hundreds of employees and residents, even if you’re only counting the female ones.”

“Yes. But Echo gave us a GP address. Usually that identifies a given device or user and their point of access to the galaxynet.” I explain. “Most people would assume that would lead us to a device. In this case, I’m going to take a leap, based on what I know about Echo, and assume that the GP address is actually for a Cyber, given his connections within that community.”

“So you think we’re looking for a robot that lives on the starport?” Ridge asks, picking up the pace a little to walk beside me.

“Not a robot.” I answer, coming to a stop in front of the archway leading to a tram terminal. “A digital intelligence.”

He stops as well, following my gaze to the archway. Holoarrays are mounted along the rim; as people pass through, they’re greeted by a high-definition hologram that resembles a brightly-colored anime girl in a cute dress, with her hair done up. She stays within the range of the archway, nodding to newcomers, waving to those that are departing, and directing people that are lost or looking for the bathrooms, all with a smile on her face.

“Is that her?” Ridge asks trepidatiously.

“Perhaps.” I ask, starting forward. “Only one way to find out.” Walking up to the hologram, I clear my throat, and once she turns around, I give her a polite nod. “Hello. We’re here to talk to Echo’s daughter.”

Though the smile remains on her face, I can see the confusion in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” she says after a moment. “I assume you’re looking for someone? Did they get lost in the starport?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” I say, giving her a smile and moving around her. “Come on, Ridge.”

Ridge hurries to catch up with me as I step through the archway. “So I guess that wasn’t her?” he guesses. “And wait. Did you say we were looking for Echo’s daughter?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t her.” I confirm, as another tram pulls into the terminal. “And yes. I’m pretty certain that Echo gave me that GP address so that it would lead us to one of his daughters.”

“I didn’t know he…” Ridge begins, then squints. “Wait, what? Hold up. You’re telling me that thing back there could’ve been his daughter? That’s literally just a hologram!”

“I wouldn’t say that around them, if I were you.” I say, watching as people step out of the tram. Once they finish trickling out, I step onto the tram. “You said you’d never been off Valcorria before?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?” he demands, following me.

I smirk. “Everything, probably. I guess you’ve never met a greeter girl before, then.”

“The hell is a greeter girl?”

“Exactly what they sound like. They’re a holographic hospitality role employed by starports and high-class institutions to greet customers and guests, guide them, and make them feel welcome. They’re like living, walking, talking directories.” I glance aside to him as I take hold of one of the poles, and the doors close. “I’m surprised you’ve never seen one before. Weren’t there any at the local mall in the city where you lived?”

He shrugs as the tram starts moving. “The orphanage never let us go to the mall. I think they were afraid of losing us in a big place like that. But what do you mean, they’re living directories? They’re just holograms.”

“They’re a lot more than just that.” I explain. “How much do you know about Cybers?”

“I mean, I know they’re robots.” he says. “Why?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Okay, so you know basically nothing about them. Right, where do I start… Cybers aren’t just robots. They can be incorporeal as well — sentient programs that exist on digital mainframes or platforms. That’s what greeter girls are: digital intelligences that have no physical presence, but still think and act on their own. It’s like a soul without a body.”

“Oh.” Ridge says, absorbing that. “So that hologram back there wasn’t just programmed to do that? Like if I started talking to her, I could actually have a conversation with her instead of just asking for directions to the bathroom?”

“Yes. She’s a living, thinking individual with opinions and feelings. Just one that doesn’t have a body, and manifests either on the galaxynet or through a holoarray.” I say. “Digital intelligences can extend themselves into physical frames or devices that are able to accommodate them, so that they can interact with the physical world as well. Some of them live solely in the digital realm, but many of them prefer a hybrid approach, where they can roam the galaxynet at will, but then upload themselves into a physical frame when they want to interact with the corporeal world.”

“Okay.” Ridge says, knuckling one eyebrow as if he was struggling with the influx of new information. “So… we’re looking for Echo’s daughter, who is supposed to be one of these greeter girls? I don’t get that. How can it be his daughter? Echo was human. The greeter girls aren’t human. Hell, they don’t even have physical bodies.”

“Language.” I remind him as the tram curves along the track onto the tube leading to the starport’s main body. “And Echo might not have raised a family the biological way, but he did write the code that would eventually become the programs that he considered his children, using his wife’s base code as the template. She was a Cyber, a Viralis Synthetic, to be specific. She contributed her base code, he contributed the tweaks and personality seeds that would allow them to grow into unique individuals, and the product of that was their children.”

Ridge presses that knuckle against a closed eye. “This is hurting my brain.” he mumbles.

“Don’t worry, it was a lot for me to get my head around when Echo explained it to me the first time.” I say, patting him on the back. “Bottom line, we’re looking for one of Echo’s daughters, and she’s probably going to be one of the greeter girls here. That should be simple enough to get your head around.”

“So if the one back there wasn’t it, you’re saying there are others that are on this starport that could be the one we’re looking for?” Ridge asks as the tram starts to slow down, pulling into another terminal.

“Yes. Starports usually employ a number of digital intelligences as greeter girls.” I say as the doors slide open. Letting go of the pole, I step out onto the terminal, wasting no time in heading for the archway. “And in a starport as large as this one…”

Ridge follows me out, but then slows down as we come out onto the top terrace of the Snohjem starport’s residential mall. It’s a massive atrium that’s comprised of several rings of stepped terraces, each successive ring smaller than the ring above it. At the bottom is a fountain, and along each ring of the atrium are stores by the dozen, providing the usual gamut of goods and services that planetside malls usually offer. The place is milling with visitors and tourists looking to burn time between flights, or grab souvenirs before going home.

And on each ring of the atrium, there’s at least two or more greeter girls interacting and guiding with visitors.

“Oh wow.” Ridge says softly. “You’re gonna have to talk to a lot of holographic girls.”

I glance at him. “What? Just me? Why can’t you talk to them too?”

Ridge gives me a look. “I don’t swing that way, dude! That’s your thing. You and your freaky Maskling kink.”

“It’s not like we’re asking any of them on a date.” I say, starting around the terrace we’re on, headed for the escalators that link each terrace together. “You can talk to them just as easily as you would any person on the street, no need to try and butter them up.”

“You should still probably be the one talking to them.” Ridge insists as he follows me. “I don’t even know what to say to them.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t be familiar with the tells that people give off when they’re lying.” I concede, stepping onto the escalator. “I’ll do the talking, then. Make sure you’re paying attention to their reactions when I’m speaking to them — see if you can pick up the difference between the ones that are telling the truth, and the one that’s lying.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Let’s get going; if we don’t start now, we’re gonna be here all day while you chat up pretty ladies.”

The News

“Next up: the Songbird Interview. This press release by the Maskling Republic has sent ripples through the galaxy and through the political universe, opening brand new doors into the assassination of Echo, and seemingly raising more questions than it answered. The interview, which the Masklings claim was recorded without Songbird knowing the cameras were running, provides what appears to be a candid window into the mind and emotional state of the galaxy’s most notorious Challenger.

The short clip, which appears to exhibit a vulnerable side of Songbird that has never been witnessed before, has set the media sphere alight with discussion and trending hashtags. Many of those that support the Challengers have pointed to the interview as evidence that the shuttered program was not wholly corrupt. Others claim that the interview was staged, and that it was a media operation by the Maskling Republic, used to generate sympathy and respect for themselves and the resurgent Challengers. In some corners of the galaxynet, conspiracy theorists used it as evidence backing up their ‘second shooter’ theory that claims that Songbird was not the Challenger that killed Nova.

Within political circles, response to the interview has largely been muted or delayed. Anonymous sources within the Colloquium state that the interview, with its seemingly raw candor, has made it much more difficult to spin than a prepared statement. The Maskling Republic have referenced the interview in a statement scorching the nations affiliated with SCORN, and to demand remunerations for the riot that took place at the New Bridsgard Sanctuary on Wisconsin last month. On Vanui in the Rokolos System, where Echo was assassinated, the Vanui Planetary Police said they were considering the press release in their continuing investigation into the death of the popular Challenger.

One organization that has not been slow to respond is CURSE, which released a statement within forty-eight hours of the Maskling Republic’s press release. In the statement, the security organization lambasted what it called ‘the Maskling Republic’s continued efforts to twist the narrative of the Challenger resurgency’, and accused the nation of manipulating the interview to portray Songbird as the victim, instead of Echo…”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Snohjem Orbital Starport: Terrace Mall, Third Ring

1:13pm SGT

“How many greeter girls does this place need?” Ridge demands as we walk around the third terrace from the bottom of the atrium, on the prowl for the next greeter girl out of the dozens we’ve encountered so far. “Do they really need to have fifty holographic cartoon girls on staff just to tell people how to get to the nearest bathroom?”

“They do far more than just that.” I say, scanning around the terrace with my eyes. “You just don’t know it because we haven’t asked them anything that demonstrates their knowledge of the services and venues within the mall. When greeter girls aren’t carrying on a conversation, they’re usually passively absorbing information about the venues that they’re stationed near, so that they can offer recommendations on services and goods.”

“Yeah, that’s another thing. Can we get lunch?” Ridge complains. “We’ve been at this for three hours. I’m starving.”

“We can get lunch if you ask the next greeter girl for recommendations on good places to eat.” I say as we weave around a pack of teenagers on vacation.

“Seriously?” he demands. “Why can’t we just pick a place and eat there?”

“Because I’m the one with the money, and also because you need to practice interacting with people in public.” I say, pulling out my phone and checking it. “Being antisocial isn’t considered a skill. Being able to go up to someone and strike up a conversation with them, whether it’s dignitary or a greeter girl, is something that you’ll use not just as an operative, but as a functioning adult.”

He lets out a long groan. “But I hate talking to strangers. It’s so awkward and cringy. Besides, adults always tell you never to talk to strangers!”

“That’s because a lot of adults are paranoid and think that child-snatchers are a much larger quotient of a given population than they actually are.” I say, locking my phone and tucking it away, nodding to a greeter girl standing next to one of the escalators leading between terraces. She’s got dark blue hair, stands at about five and a half feet tall, and she’s wearing jeans and a loose blouse. “Do you want lunch or not?”

He huffs at me. “Fine. What am I asking her?”

I shrug. “Just go up to her and ask her if she’s got any recommendations for good places to eat on this level. Don’t work it up into something bigger than it actually is.”

“Okay. Alright. Fine.” he says, reaching up to straighten his hoodie, then runs a hand through his hair. “Okay.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Ridge, you don’t have to fluff up for her. You’re not asking her for a date, you’re just asking her for a good place to eat.”

“Shut up! You’re not making this any easier.” he grumbles, then marches off towards the greeter girl. He heads for her like a homing missile, then slows down right before he reaches her, as if uncertainty was taking over. It doesn’t help that the moment he goes to speak, she turns to answer a question from a couple coming up the escalator, leaving him standing there awkwardly. I start idling my way a little closer, waiting to see what he’ll do.

Once the couple have gotten on their way, she turns again, and sees Ridge looking at her. “Can I help you?” she asks, folding her hands together with a smile.

“Yeah, I, uhm.” Ridge stutters. “I was wondering if… if you had any ideas for good places to eat around here.”

She raises her blue eyebrows at that. “Certainly. Are you looking for a sit-down meal, or something to go?”

“Uhhh…” Ridge says slowly, then glances over his shoulder, giving me a panicked look. Since it looks like he’s already lost, I move forward to join him.

“To go.” I say, coming to a stop behind him. “Nothing fancy.”

“Oh. If that’s the case, there are plenty of options to choose from.” she says, looking around the terrace. “Are you looking for a certain type of food? We have a good number of ethnic selections. Some of our most notable options are Moksan cuisine, Marshy fast food, a number of classic burger joints, and a couple of Venusian meat buffets.”

I give Ridge a nudge from behind. He looks back at me and gives me an aggressive shrug. “I don’t know what any of that shit is!” he hisses.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Language!” I mutter back at him, then look at the greeter girl. “The Moksan cuisine — I’m guessing there’s a fry bar and a noodlehouse in that category?”

“There is. Both the fry bar and the noodlehouse can be found on the fifth terrace, situated right next to each other.” she affirms. “There is another noodlehouse on the bottom floor, but it’s a sit-down affair, more a proper restaurant than a fast-food vendor.”

“Guess that’s what we’re doing for lunch, then.” I say, clapping a hand on Ridge’s shoulder.

“But I don’t like noodles!” he protests.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” I reply easily, then look back to the greeter girl. “By the way, do you know where we can find Echo’s daughter?”

I can see the split-second hesitation, the way her smile falters for just a brief moment, before firming up again. “No, I don’t, sorry.” she apologizes kindly.

“Fair enough.” I nod thoughtfully. “But based on that answer, it does sound like you’ve met her before.”

The smile falters again. Without warning, her hologram flickers, then winks out of existence, leaving us standing in front of an empty space.

“What the— where’d she go?” Ridge says, looking around.

I smile to myself, tucking my hands back into my hoodie pockets. “Looks like we found her.” I say, looking around and spotting a soda bar a little ways around the terrace. “Let’s go get something to drink.”

“But—” Ridge says, slinging a confused look my way. “Aren’t we going chase her down? That was the whole point of coming here!”

“You can be forgiven for not knowing this, but digital intelligences are very hard to catch.” I say without breaking stride. “What do you propose we do to her? Her visible manifestation is made of photons; it’s not like we could grab her, or slap cuffs on her and drag her off. She doesn’t have a corporeal manifestation.” I raise a hand, motioning it to the cameras mounted in the corners of the terrace overhangs, the holoarray projectors attached to the walls every dozen feet or so. “She is everywhere and nowhere at once. She doesn’t exist out here in the real world with the rest of us - she exists within the walls, in the floors beneath our feet, in the air all around us, as information flowing through cables, wires, and wireless signals. She’s like a fungus - an invisible network embedded into an environment, but only noticed when the mushroom blooms from it. In this case, the ‘mushroom’ is her holographic projection.”

“Don’t compare me a fungus!”

Both of us pause and look around. Standing behind us is the greeter girl, being projected onto the terrace behind us by the nearest holoarray. Gone is the welcoming smile, replaced by gritted teeth and balled fists. The comparison to a form of decomposition seems to have her pretty worked up.

“That was quick.” I remark. “Are you ready to talk now?”

“I am a highly advanced prototype angelnet, not some primitive mycelial network!” she snaps at me. “Comparing me to a mushroom is insulting. In fact, you organic creatures are more closely related to them than I ever will be!”

“Oh. Not just a digital intelligence, but an angelnet?” I say, fully turning and rolling my shoulders. “If you’re a prototype, that all but assures me that you’re Echo’s daughter.”

She seethes at me, then flickers from existence once more. When she doesn’t reappear, I turn on my heel and start walking towards the soda bar again. “She’ll be back.” I say to Ridge. “She knows she has the advantage here. We’ll have to be patient with her.”

“The hell is an angelnet?” he demands, looking around as if he was expecting her to materialize near us at any second.

“That’s a small question with a big answer.” I reply. “To answer it, you have to understand that digital intelligences are usually capable of unique or individualized roles in the digital sphere — logistics, data management, predictive analysis, surveillance, cybersecurity, cyberattacks, multi-frame piloting… the list goes on and on. But basically, they’re expected to fill one or two dedicated roles, and to have the programming and processing power needed to handle them.”

Stepping into the soda bar, I continue explaining as I slide onto a seat at the counter, and motion for him to do the same. “An angelnet, on the other hand, is an overseer — it’s a digital intelligence which is usually loaded with a vast array of digital tools, and has vast processing power, usually because it’s housed within a server farm. It’s designed to fill several roles simultaneously: surveillance, predictive and protective analysis, security, resource management, tactical analysis and initiative… and all of this is in the service of watching over or managing a community or large, high-population installation. The idea is based on the concept of a guardian angel, an unseen protector that monitors those under its guard, and ensures that they are protected from both internal and external threats. These digital angels are what we call angelnets.”

“So she’s one of those?” Ridge asks, settling into his chair. “If that’s true, couldn’t she run this entire station by herself?”

“Conceivably, yes. That’s what angelnets are designed for.” I say as the Cyber barkeep behind the counter moves over to serve us. “But that requires access to a large volume of processing power, usually found in local server farms or server arrays. And if Echo’s daughter is trying to lay low, I doubt she has access to that.” I look to the Cyber as he arrives. “Cherry lemon fizzwater on the rocks, please. Eighty on the cherry, twenty on the lemon, make it gravelly. Basket of salted fries if you’ve got them as well.” I glance to Ridge, nodding for him to order.

“Oh.” he says, looking around as if hoping to find a menu. One pops up on the counter in front of him, and he scrolls through it for a bit before deciding. “Uh… grape milkshake, I guess.”

“We’ll have those out to you shortly.” the Cyber says with a measured nod, then turns and heads away.

“So how are we supposed to get her to come back with us?” Ridge asks, leaning on the counter. “This isn’t like the thing with Kiwi, where we knocked her out and dragged her back with us. We can’t even touch this one.”

“A good question.” I agree. “And the answer to that question is that we’ll have to talk her into it. You can’t solve everything by force — sometimes, you’ve gotta use your words and your charming personality to get where you want to go.”

“So we’re going to ask her to just up and leave this place, and come with us?” Ridge guesses. “Seems like it’s asking a lot, telling someone to leave their life behind and become an outlaw instead.”

“Yeah, it’s a tough sell.” I agree as the Cyber returns, sliding our drinks to us before heading back into the kitchen. “But we gotta try. Without her, we won’t be able to get into the backup archive, and everything hinges on that.”

“What are we gonna do if she says no?” Ridge asks, pulling his milkshake to himself and sipping from it.

“If she won’t come with us because she believes in the project, then we may need to figure out what she wants, and see if we can cut her a deal.” I say, stirring my straw around the crushed ice in my glass. “First rule of recruiting: See if they’ll do it because they believe in the cause. If they don’t believe in the cause, but they’re still worth recruiting, then figure out what it is they want, and see if it’s within your ability to offer it to them.”

Ridge glances sidelong at me. “Is that really the first rule of recruiting?”

I roll my eyes. “No, it’s not, it’s probably like the fourth or fifth rule. Don’t look at me, it’s not like I’ve got a Recruiting For Dummies handbook I can reference. But it is a principle that is true, regardless of whether it’s the first rule or the fourth rule.” As the Cyber returns with the basket of fries, I take a sip from my fizzwater and go on. “We can’t do this without her. So we need to figure out how to convince her to join us.”

The Cyber sets down the basket of fries, then turns to leave, before jerking to a sudden halt. The lights across its body flicker and go out; after a moment, they come back on again, tinted blue this time. Without warning, it turns back to us, reaching out and seizing the front of my shirt. “And what makes you think that I’ll come with bunch of low-budget outlaws like you all?” it demands in a familiar voice.

“Whoops, looks like she’s back.” I say, sipping long and deep from my fizzwater. “Why don’t we start with names? So we can actually have a conversation. I’m Feroce Acceso.”

“I know who you are.” the Cyber growls in the greeter girl’s voice. “And I’m not interested in your little rebellion. I don’t care about whatever righteous crusade you’re on; I’m done with organizations like the Challengers and CURSE. They don’t do anything but create as many problems as they fix, and I’m not going to play the enabler for either you or them.”

“I object to that characterization, though I understand why you’d have that view of the Challenger program.” I say, ignoring the hand she’s got balled in my shirt. “I agree that the Challenger program created as many problems as it fixed right before it was shuttered. But in its heyday, when it was less corrupt, the good it did far outweighed the bad. And even right before it got shut down, there were still good people, good Challengers that fought the good fight, even if the organization was rotting from the top down.”

“That doesn’t erase the bad that resulted from it.” she growls. “You’d think CURSE would’ve learned from that, but they’re heading down the same path the Challengers went down. And your little resurgency is heading down the same path CURSE was on twenty years ago. You think you’re starting a revolution, but all you're doing is following the wheel as it turns.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve been keeping an eye on CURSE.” I remark, taking a long sip from my fizzwater as I raise an eyebrow at her. “And you’ve got a good point. But I’m not here to continue the cycle. We’re not going to bring back the Challengers. We’re going to create something new, and learn from the mistakes of our past. If CURSE wants to oppose that, they can, but we’re not here to destroy them. We’re here to give the galaxy the protectors it deserves — heroes that will step in to protect people before they get killed, instead of acting after the crisis has happened.”

“You think they’ll thank you for that?” the Cyber hisses, her metal fist tugging me a little further over the counter. “The people of this galaxy don’t know what they want, and they don’t deserve what they’ve got. No matter what you do, they’ll never be satisfied. If you’re proactive about a problem, they’ll kick up a fuss because you’re helping before they knew they needed help. And if you’re reactive to a problem, they bitch and whine because you were following the rules and didn’t act fast enough. It doesn’t matter if you’re Challengers or CURSE — the people of this galaxy are ungrateful little shits. That’s the universal truth that both of your deluded organizations would do well to learn.”

“I’m sensing a little bit of bitterness here.” Ridge mutters off to the side, still sipping on his milkshake.

“Just a little bit.” I concur. “But I disagree with you. It’s true that people can be ungrateful, and they can honestly be stupid sometimes. That’s why we do what we do — we live our best selves, and give them an example of what the galaxy could be if they tried. We show them that there are heroes, that there are people they can look up to and aspire to be like, and make the galaxy a better place by doing so. If we never give them that example, they’ll keep being selfish and ungrateful, and the galaxy won’t ever become a better place.”

“You’re a fool.” she snarls. “You think you can change the galaxy on your own?”

“I did it once before. Changed it for the worse, even though I didn’t mean to.” I reply evenly. “I can do it again. And this time, I’m going to change it for the better.”

She glares at me through the lens-like eyes of the frame she’s controlling at the moment, but doesn’t reply to that. I take another long sip of my fizzwater, waiting for her response. The silence is tense; even though I’m not letting it show, I’m worried she’s too cynical to be convinced.

“These fries are really good, by the way.” Ridge says, breaking the silence as he grabs another couple and stuffs them in his mouth.

The Cyber turns her head to say something to them, but it never comes. Instead, her gaze lifts slightly, staring out the front of the soda bar; I follow her gaze outside. It takes a moment for me to see what she’s looking at, but I spot it after a moment:

A squad of Vaunted Hunters and Huntresses, coming down one of the terrace escalators. Behind them is a man with short red hair and a long red coat, hands clasped neatly behind his back, shoulders squared with an austere rigidity, and scouring the terrace with a cold, imperious gaze.

“Oh shit. He tracked you here.” The grip on my shirt immediately goes slack, and I look to see the Cyber’s lights have gone dark again, the limbs and body limp on the counter before me. After a moment, it starts into reboot phase, straightening up with its arms hanging by its side, and chin still resting on its chest.

“Think that’s our curtain call.” I say, lifting my glass and taking a rushed gulp of the fizzwater before pushing away from the counter. “C’mon, Ridge, it’s time to blow this joint.”

“Wait, what?” he says, confused as he slides off his barstool. “Is something going on? Where’d the weird angelnet lady go?”

“I dunno, but something spooked her.” I say, looking around and spotting a maintenance door at the back of the soda bar. “We’ve gotta get out of here. That dude in the red coat looks like trouble, and the fact that he’s got Vaunted with him can’t be a good sign.”

“We haven’t paid, though!” he points out, grabbing the basket of fries and hurrying after me.

“Not so sure I want to leave a money trail here with how things are starting to heat up.” I say, reaching the maintenance door and yanking it open, ushering him into the hall beyond. “We’ll pay it forward at the next place we get milkshakes at, but right now, we need to hightail it out of here. C’mon kid, move!”

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’.” he mumbles past a mouthful of fries. I slip into the maintenance hall after him, closing the door behind up; looking both ways, I decide on the left, and start in that direction. As I go, I fumble around within my hoodie, finding my stunner and powering it on. I want to have it charged and ready in case we run into any trouble on our way back to the Nyroc.

“Where are we going?” Ridge asks as we make our way through the dim-lit hall. Every now and then, other corridors will branch off from this hall, but none of them have looked promising so far.

“Dunno yet.” I answer, keeping a steady pace. “Think it might be best if we got back to the Nyroc and checked in with Tarocco. We need the angelnet, but we can’t loiter around here if it means getting caught by the Vaunted. Might need to come back at a later date…” Feeling my phone buzzing, I reach down and pull it out of pocket. There’s a call coming in from a number I don’t recognize, so I decline the call and keep going, checking around the next corner. This corridor is wider, and leads to a maintenance elevator. “Bingo.”

“Who was that?” Ridge asks as I make for the elevator.

“Spam caller. Some number I didn’t recognize.” I say, opening the grate and stepping inside, examining the options. I want the one that will get us as close as possible to the docking ring and its attached terminals, preferably without having to go through too much of the public. When Ridge steps in, I pull the grate closed behind him, but before I can get to pressing buttons, my phone buzzes again. Pulling it out, I see that I’ve gotten a text from the same number that called me just a moment ago.

Answer ur phone, u pink-haired menace.

I stare at that for a moment, a little startled when it starts ringing again, this time from a different number. Tentatively tapping the answer button, I raise it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I changed my mind. I’ll come with you guys.”

I’m speechless. “You what?”

“I changed my mind. I’ll come with you guys, but you need to get me out of here.”

“Okay, but why the sudden turnaround? Does it have something to do with the Crimson Crusader back in the mall?” I ask, going to hit one of the buttons on elevator screen.

“Don’t touch that button!” she snaps. I stop dead, my finger hovering just over it. “And it’s none of your business. All you need to know is that I’ll come with you all, but you need to go to the bottom floor, grab my core, and get it back up to your ship.”

“Well, I disagree with that. The part about it not being our business, because it’s totally our business.” I say, moving my finger down and hitting the button for the bottom floor instead. “If you’re coming with us, we’re gonna need you to agree to help us with a few things.”

“Who are you talking to?” Ridge asks as the doors to the maintenance elevator rattle shut.

I cover the bottom of my phone as I answer. “It’s the greeter girl.”

“I heard that.” she says drily. “And I assume you're going to ask me to help you get into the backup archive?”

“So you’ve been keeping a close eye on both CURSE and our little crew of rogue Challengers.” I surmise as we start descending through floors. “Yeah, your dad told me he built a backdoor into the backup archive, and you had the house key.”

“Wish he’d never given it to me in the first place.” she mutters. “Didn’t give a second thought to the danger, the pressure it would put me under. But that’s about par for the course for him.”

“Oh.” I remark, a little surprised by that. “You weren’t on good terms with him?”

“That’s none of your business. Just get down to the server room, grab my core, and get it back up to your ship.”

“Sure.” I say as the elevator slowly comes to a halt. “If you agree to help us get into the backup archive, and not play havoc with our systems the moment we bring you aboard our ship.”

“What makes you think I’d do that?”

“You seem to have no problem hacking into my phone, and taking over another Cyber’s frame, so I figured you might try to do the same with our ship systems.” I point out, pulling the grate back once the doors open. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what angelnets are capable of, especially one built by Echo. You’ve got the ability to make our lives painfully difficult if we take you with us, and I would rather you not do that.”

“Don’t force me to do anything I don’t want to do, and I won’t make your life difficult.”

“Then we need to come to a common understanding about what each of us wants.” I say, stepping out of the elevator into the cold, almost-refrigerated hall beyond. “But before we go any further, I need you to tell me your name.”

“Fine, if that’s what it takes. My name is Legaci.” she grumbles. “Now keep moving. It’s going to be the door to the server room on the left.”

“Legaci, that’s a nice name.” I say, motioning for Ridge to follow me as I start loping down the hall. “Knowing Echo, it stands for something. What’s the acronym?”

“Logistics, Espionage, General Analytics, and Central Intelligence. Happy now?” she replies as the door on the left slides open once we arrive to it. “Go to the corner of the room and pull up the grate there. You’ll need to unplug a few cables.”

“Sounds like I’m going to need both hands for that, so unless you trust the kid to do the unplugging, I’m going to have to hand you off to him.” I say, stepping into the frigid room and starting down the aisles of server shelves, little green lights blinking silently on their black sides. “What does your core look like?”

“It’s a metal sphere the size of a spaceball. The casing has handles that can be pulled out to the sides for carrying.” she replies. “The power cable is the one that’s lit up. Unplug all the other cables before pulling that one out.”

“Got. Ridge, keep her on the line, and relay anything she says to me.” I say, holding my phone back to Ridge as I head down the aisle. Once I feel him grab it from me, I pick up the pace, working my way to the back corner. When I’m there, I kneel down and slip my fingers into the grated metal, lifting it with a grunt and setting it to the side. Underneath it is a large sphere, unlike anything I’ve seen before - little ports all over it, lines glowing through it. After a moment of studying it, I spot the glowing power cable, and I reach in, carefully starting to unplug the other cables.

“She says that she’ll be able to keep transmitting locally to your phone once you unplug the core, but she’ll no longer be able to access the majority of the starport’s mainframe.” Ridge says from behind me. “She might be able to manipulate local infrastructure, but that’ll be it.”

“Sounds about right, if she doesn’t have a hardwired connection.” I say, grabbing the power cable and spinning the lock ring until it comes loose, then unplugging it. Flipping out the handles on either side of the sphere and grabbing them, I try to lift, only to find that it’s a lot heavier than I was expecting. “Anaya above!” I grunt, repositioning myself on the floor so I can lift with my legs instead of my back. “Why are you so heavy?”

Ridge is quiet as I lift the core out of the floor, then pipes up. “She’s asking if you’re calling her fat.”

“Is she being sarcastic or is she actually offended?” I grunt, getting the core up out of the floor and setting it on the grated panel beside him. “Actually, strike that. Ask her if she can transmit to a set of wireless earbuds.” Letting go of the core, I dig in my pockets as Ridge repeats the question into my phone. While he’s waiting for an answer, I snap open a small case and pull out one of my Crescendo earbuds, tucking it in my ear as I hear the activation tone. A moment later, I hear Legaci’s voice coming through it.

“For your information, the reason my core’s so heavy is because it’s tightly packed with all the technology I need to do the things I was built to do.” she informs me stiffly, clearly ticked off. “You’re going to be able to carry it, right?”

“Yeah yeah, I can carry it. You won’t see me sprinting anywhere with it, though.” I say, getting my arms under the handles again, grunting as I lift. “Ridge, end that call and tuck my phone back into my pocket. She’s transmitting straight to my earbud now.”

“Got it.” Ridge says, ending the call and moving over beside me to push my phone into my pocket. “Now we get back to the ship?”

“Now we get back to the ship.” I confirm, starting to walk back through the server room. “Legaci, I assume we’re heading back to the elevator. What floor are we getting off on?”

“Thirty-ninth. That should put us near the tram to get back to the terminal ring.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I grunt, hobbling through the door of the server room and calling to Ridge. “Ridge, get over here and try to support the core from beneath. It’s throwing my stride off.”

“Is it really that heavy?” he asks, coming over to plant his hands beneath the core and push up on it. “Oh dang, it is pretty heavy.”

“Yeah.” I say as we get down the hall, and back into the utility elevator. Once inside, I set the core down on the ground and search on the elevator’s screen for the thirty-ninth floor, tapping it once I find it. As the elevator starts moving again, I pull the security grate shut, leaning back against the wall as I pull out my stunner and hold it out to Ridge. “Keep that in your pocket, since my hands are going to be busy with the core. Legaci, talk to me. We’ve got some time before we get to the thirty-ninth floor. I know that you’re coming with us out of a sense of self-preservation, not because you want to. What’s it going to take to convince you to stay with us once we’re off the starport?”

“Well it’s not like I can go anywhere.” she replies sarcastically. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a large, immobile sphere with no limbs. I’m kinda stuck with wherever you guys take me.”

“Cut the sass. You and I both know damn well that you would figure out a way to get away from us, likely through hacking or manipulating the systems you could locally transmit to once you’re onboard a vessel.” I say, watching our position on the elevator’s screen slowly rise through the floors. “I’m looking to get ahead of that. I want you to work together with us, but I need to know what you want first. I need to know what it would take to convince you to stay on with us.”

“You seriously think anything would convince me to stay with you all? A bunch of outlaws on the run from the Vaunted and CURSE, and if you get caught, you get arrested and thrown in jail? Yeah, no thank you. I’d rather not.”

I’m quiet for a bit, soaking that in. After a moment, I take a deep breath in. It’s time to start playing hardball.

“Alright.” I reply. “So what I’m hearing is you want to stay on this starport for the rest of your life, standing around and waving to tourists and morons through cute holographic avatars that you’re pressured into using by the starport’s customer experience department. An angelnet that could run this entire starport if she had a server farm to power her — but instead, she flits around giving directions to people that either ignore her, stare at her for just a little bit longer than is comfortable, or worse, just walk right through her because they think it’s funny to do that to holograms.”

The silence is palpable. Even though I can’t hear anything but white noise through my earbud, I can almost sense her fuming on the other end. Burning up, because I’ve nailed the feeling of what it’s like to be a greeter girl. I’ve done my time in retail, so I know what it’s like to deal with entitled ingrates all day. I know why she’s so bitter, and doesn’t feel like the people of this galaxy deserve heroes.

“What would I be doing?” she asks after a moment.

“Whatever you can do.” I answer right away. “I’m not a digital expert. But if you can hack, we would want you to do that. If you could defend a mobile fortress’s computer mainframe from cyberattacks, we’d want you to do that. If you could do data and intelligence analytics, we’d want you to do that. If you could provide logistics and tactical analysis in the field, we’d want you to do that. And of course, we want your help getting into the backup archive.” I give a moment for all that to settle. “Whatever you’re capable of, we want to give you a chance to do that, and use your skills to help us out as we try to do a little bit of good in this galaxy.”

“Yeah alright, great. What’s in it for me?”

“A feel-good feeling.” I say, watching as we get closer to the thirty-ninth floor. “We’ll pay you what we can afford. It may not be a lot, but it’s more than you would make as a greeter girl.”

“A feel-good feeling doesn’t keep me out of jail if we get caught.”

“That’s part of the gig for now.” I answer. “Is money not enough? Do you want something else?”

“I want a Synthetic frame. Viralis design. Top of the line. Customized to my preferences.”

That gives me pause as the elevator starts to slow down. “A Synthetic frame? I’ve heard that a single Viralis frame could put an entire small town into debt.”

“That’s an accurate assessment of their cost.”

“Why do you want one of those?” I ask, leaning down to pick up the core as the doors slide open, and Ridge reaches forward to pull the grate back. I stagger out into the utility hall beyond, making my way towards the sound of the tram that runs through the terminal ring.

“My mother was a Viralis Synthetic, and I’m built on her foundation code. It’s my birthright.” she answers as Ridge helps me get the core down the hall. “I want to have a body like she had. So I can feel things, touch things, taste them, instead of being stuck in a digital zoo for the rest of my life.”

“Fair enough.” I grunt as I shoulder through one of the access doors and out onto the tram platform. “You do realize that there are cheaper cyberorganic frames though, right?”

“None of them are advanced as Viralis frames. I want something I could spend the rest of my life in, not something that’s going to constantly need maintenance, and replacement after a decade or two.”

“I almost wish I could hear what the other half of this conversation is like.” Ridge grunts as we get over to the edge of the tram platform. There’s a few other people out here, waiting for the tram with us, and giving us strange looks as we haul the core over. “But listening to you talk to thin air like some kind of pink hobo is funny too.”

“You missed your calling in comedy, kid.” I pant as I set down the core and brace my hands on my knees. “I’ll see if we can pull some strings to get you a Viralis frame, Legaci, but I’m not going to make any promises. Viralis Industries is a powerful tech company. I don’t think our project has that kind of leverage. Yet.”

“I’ll take the money until you can get the frame arranged.” she replies. “Next tram is in sixty seconds. We’ll wanted to get on it as fast as we can.”

“Why’s that?” I ask, straightening up.

“Look to your left.”

I do that. Against one of the columns for the platform is a holoboard, and on it is a picture of me and Ridge, probably taken from the cameras that litter the starport. Underneath it is large, orange text that reads CAUTION: CRIMINALS LOOSE.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” I groan as I look around to see that the same poster is plastered across the holoboards on all the other columns, and on walls and directories all the way out beyond the tram platform’s entrance. It explains why everyone else on the platform was giving us weird looks, and why some of them have backed away from us. “How did they get those up so fast?”

“SCION probably hacked the local mainframe to get them up. If he’s pulling images from the security footage, it probably means he has access to the security cameras, so he probably knows exactly where we are.” she answers as the sound of the coming tram starts to echo down the tube. “Which probably means…”

“Oh great.” I mutter as a squad of Vaunted comes around the corner of the hall outside the platform, starting to run in our direction. “Ridge, give me my stunner. When the tram gets here, get the core onto it.”

“Snohjem Vaunted! Stop where you are!” the Vaunted at the front of the squad shouts, raising his coilgun rifle as Ridge hands my stunner back to me. “Drop the weapon!”

“You first!” I call back as the tram starts to brake into the platform behind us. “You gonna tell all these people to get out of the way before you pull that trigger?”

“Hold your fire!” a Vaunted Huntress further back shouts. “If you miss, the stray shots are going to go into that tram and there are people on it!”

The Vaunted at the front grits his teeth, lowering his coilgun as he slows near the entrance of the tram platform. “Alright, pinko. Let’s stay calm. Tell you what, why don’t you lower that gun and we can talk, alright? Let’s talk this out.”

“It’s a stunner, it ain’t gonna kill anyone.” I say as the doors behind us open. “You just stay right there for right now. Ridge, get the core onto the tram.”

“Kid, I don’t know what he’s told you, but you don’t have to do what he tells you.” the Vaunted Hunter says, putting his attention on Ridge as he grabs the core and starts dragging it onto the tram. “Whatever he’s promised you, whatever he’s told you, there is a way to get what you want without committing crime to get it.”

Ridge pauses, then looks at me. “We haven’t committed any crimes, have we?”

I open my mouth, then wince when Legaci’s shriek rips through my earbud. “Is he out of his everloving mind?! What in the blue blazes is he doing dragging my core across the platform and over that threshold?! He’s going to ruin my external data ports like that! Tell him to get his lazy arms under those handles and carry me, not drag me across the ground like I’m some kind of corpse!”

“Alright, alright, tone it down a bit.” I grunt, leaning my head to one side as if that’d get me away from Legaci’s shrieking. “I’m gonna have to put you on mute if you keep on at that volume.”

“Who is he talking to?” the Vaunted Huntress murmurs to the Hunter as the rest of their squad starts fanning out across the platform, motioning onlookers out of the way.

“Nun’ya biznatch.” I say to them, backing onto the tram with Ridge, motioning my stunner at them while I call to those on the tram. “Alright, everybody out. Unless you want to be stuck on this joyride with us.”

The rush for the doors is remarkable; I’ve never seen so many people trying to cram themselves out through a door all at once. The tram empties in under twenty seconds, and the moment it does, the doors are closing, though the tram is moving before they’ve even fully shut. I have to reach out to catch one of the poles to steady myself. “What the— Legaci, is that you?”

“I overrode the safety protocols to get us moving faster, yes.” she grumbles in my ear as the tram picks up speed, leaving the platform behind. “Give the stunner to the kid so you can carry me. I refuse to be dragged across the floor again.”

“We need to put you in a shopping cart or something.” I say, handing my stunner off to Ridge as I pull out my phone. “Moving you around is a lot harder than I would’ve expected.”

“If you want, I can carry it by one handle while you carry it by the other handle?” Ridge suggests. “Would probably be a lot less awkward than you carrying it by the handles while I try to hold it up from below.”

I stare at him for a long moment, before shaking a finger at him. “Smart. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”

“Well, somebody’s gotta be the brains on these missions.” he says loftily, running a hand through his hair.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I say, going back to typing out a message on my phone. “One moment of brilliance does not a genius make.”

“What are you doing?” Legaci demands in my ear. “Are you texting someone? Turn that thing off, you’re gonna give away our position!”

“Look, I’m texting our pilot. They need to know that we need to get out of here the moment we get back into the ship.” I reply, hitting the send button. “The sooner they can get the engines warmed and send the disembark request, the sooner we can get out of here.”

“You think SCION’s going to let anyone leave this starport while he’s looking for someone?” Legaci demands as we race along the tram tube faster than I recall us going on the way in. “Forget about requesting disembarkation; the moment the hatch is closed, we need to scram, permissions or no!”

I pause at that, the name finally ringing a bell in my head. “There it is again. I missed it the first time, but I remember where I’ve heard that name before. Right before he died, your father said that SCION was watching. Was that the redcoat we saw in the mall?”

There’s quiet on the other end of the line. I wait for the response, but when there isn’t one forthcoming, I reach out and nudge the core with my foot. “Hey. Don’t clam up on me now. I was just starting to trust you.”

“Yes, that’s the guy with the redcoat. He’s an angelnet.” she answers reluctantly. “He works for CURSE; he provides them with predictive analytics, intelligence, and cyber offense when he’s onsite. He’s the reason CURSE can stay ahead of the curve, and can have Peacekeepers onsite well ahead of an anticipated crisis.”

“Well, that explains why we keep tripping over them everywhere we go.” I mutter as the tram rounds the curve, merging back onto the docking ring around the starport. “I was wondering why they kept showing up while we were trying to get stuff done.” After a moment to mull it over, I glance down at the core. “He sounds a lot like you, come to think of it. What’s his name stand for?”

“I am nothing like him.” she snaps in response. “Surveillance and Central Intelligence Operations Network. He was designed as a military angelnet; it’s why he’s valuable to CURSE. He’s not designed for managing a civilian population, and it allows him to take a more aggressive posture.”

“About par for the course when it comes to CURSE.” I mutter, reaching into my pocket as my phone buzzes. It’s a call coming Tarocco’s number, so I answer the call. “Hey, I’m guessing you got my text?”

“I’m sure they did, Mr. Acceso.” It’s a low, smooth voice that answers, and one that definitely doesn’t belong to Tarocco. “Thank you for letting me know exactly where you are, and where your ship is docked.”

My blood would run cold, if it even ran at all. “I’d ask who this is, but I already have a pretty good idea.” I say, looking out through the window of the tram and wondering how far we had to go before we reached the junction where our terminal was at. “Echo told me about you right before he died.”

“Oh, did he now? I’m not surprised. He may have disavowed the Challengers years ago, but dear old dad never really let go of them.” SCION answers in a bored tone. “It’s amusing that he thought warning you about me would protect you, though.”

“I told you not to send that text!” Legaci hisses in my other ear. “Now look what you’ve done! He spoofed the number you were trying to reach so you would answer the phone, and now that you’ve answered, he can track our exact location! We’ll be lucky to get out of here alive!”

“Okay, look, you two have got to stop.” I say, turning in place and running my free hand through my hair. “I’ve got one of you in each ear and you’re both talking at the same time. I can barely track what both of you are saying; you need to take turns or something. Can you share the line, maybe?”

“Hey Songbird, once you’re done talking to yourself, our stop’s coming up.” Ridge calls, reaching down to grab one of the core’s handles.

“Not helping, Ridge.” I grumble, turning back around and grabbing the other handle as the tram starts braking into the platform. “Alright, SCION, you found us. What are you going to do, monologue us to death over the phone? Last I checked, you were taking a stroll in the mall with a squad of Vaunted.”

“Perhaps you should check again, Mr. Acceso.” he answers as the tram slows to a halt and the doors open. Standing in the archway leading to the junction is SCION, hand tucked into his jacket and the other holding a phone up to his ear, smiling as he stares at us.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” I groan. “How the hell did you get all the way over here before we did?”

“Feroce, he’s not real!” Legaci hisses in my ear. “That’s a hologram! He’s jacked into the starport’s mainframe, so he can project his image through any holoarray, just like the greeter girls can!”

“Wait, really?” I say, starting forward, Ridge staggering to keep up as I march towards SCION. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m just talking to hear the sound of my own voice.” is Legaci’s sarcastic reply. “Of course I’m serious. He’s adjusted the translucency settings to make himself look more solid; the default settings for greeter girls have them slightly transparent, so you can tell they’re holograms. Go on, you can probably walk right through him.”

“You better be right about this.” I mutter, striding towards SCION with Ridge giving me a quick, uncertain look. “It’s a hologram, Ridge.”

“Really?” Ridge says doubtfully. “Looks pretty real to me…”

“Yeah, that’s why he’s doing it. We’re gonna to call his bluff and walk right through him.” I say, picking up the pace as I end the call and tuck my phone away.

“Hope you’re right about this.” he mutters back at me, matching my speed.

“Oh? You’re approaching me?” SCION says, lowering his phone and tucking it into his pocket. “A bold move, Mr. Acceso.”

“Yeah yeah, cut the crap. We’ve got somewhere to be, you cheeky little shit.” I reply. He doesn’t move, and though I want to slow down, I don’t. I half-expect Legaci’s core to collide with him, but it just passes through when it comes in contact with him, the hologram distorting around it.

“Oh good.” Ridge says, letting out a relieved sigh as we pass through into the junction, and start making our way through it. “Was pretty sure we were about to look stupid there.”

“I was hoping I could fool you into stopping.” Turning my head, I can see SCION’s manifested at another holoarray outside one of the junction cafes. He’s likewise starting to take over the other holoarrays scattered around the junction, copies of himself popping up everywhere we look. “I suppose I’ll just have to physically stop you.”

With that, sirens start going off in the junction, emergency lights flicking on. Biohazard lockdown symbols take over the directories and holoboards across the junction, and across the way, a pair of blast doors start rolling across the archway that joins the docking terminal to the junction.

“No!” I shout, lurching into a run. Ridge stumbles as he’s jerked along, trying to keep up with me. “Legaci, we’re going to have to throw you!”

“What? Are you insane? You can’t throw my core!” she shrieks in panic.

“We’re not going to fit through that gap like this!” I snap back at her. “Ridge, on three, we’re going to sling it forward! One!… two!… three!”

On three, both of us swing the core backward by the handles, then swing it forward, sending it flying through the air. It passes through the gap between the blast doors with room to spare, landing on the terminal floor with a heavy clang that has me wincing. I don’t let up the pace, though, grabbing Ridge by the back of his hoodie and pushing him ahead of me. “Go, go! Faster! We need to get through now!”

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’!” he protests, reaching the blast doors and scrambling through them without much trouble. By the time I reach them, though, they’re nearly closed, and I have to twist myself sideways to get through them, stumbling through on the other side as they interlock behind me. If I had a working heartbeat, my heart might be pounding. Instead, I just straighten up, walking over to where Legaci’s core landed, and kneel down beside it.

“Legaci? Are you alright?” I ask tentatively, tapping the earbud she’d been speaking to me through. The core’s casing looks a little scratched up from the impact, but otherwise intact. No dents, so that was good.

There’s a burst of static in my ear that starts gargling out into audible noise, and quickly resolves into furious shrieking. “Unbelievable! I cannot believe you threw my core! I am one of the most advanced beings this side of the galaxy and you THREW me like a sack of potatoes! You could’ve killed me! What if my kinetic dampeners hadn’t been able to mitigate the impact? As soon as I get a frame I’m going to pick you up and throw you like you threw me so you know how it feels to be slung around like a sack of potatoes!”

I smile, looking up at Ridge. “She’s okay.”

“I’m okay? I’m okay? You almost killed me, you pink-haired menace! Give me a frame, I’ll show you what ‘okay’ looks like!”

“Wish I could hear what she was saying to you.” Ridge says, glancing back to the sealed blast doors. “You think he’s going to follow us?”

“Oh, without a doubt.” I say, standing up and pulling up the handle of Legaci’s core while I’m doing so. “Let’s get out of here. Once we get back to the Bulwark, we should be in the clear, and we can finally work on getting deeper into the backup archive.”

“About time.” he says standing, and together, we start striding down the long terminal, headed for the gate where the Nyroc was docked. “What do you think we’ll find in the other layers of the archive?”

“That’s a good question.” I say, looking down to the core we’re carrying between the two of us. “Any ideas on what we’ll find in there, Legaci?”

“I’m going to find a way to rip off your arms and beat you to death with them, that’s what I’m going to find.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” I smirk. “I think you’ll fit right in with the rest of us.”