Cracking the building's security system and rerouting the surveillance feeds to her datapad would have normally been child's play for Patricia. However, a moment after she got in, she detected another cracker rewriting the code in the directory. The thought of disconnecting came only after she'd already piggybacked the new code and disguised her own activity as just routine self-maintenance. The camera feed came up with no prompting from her end. The new cracker wanted to monitor the proceedings in the hallway too.

Patricia projected the information on the living room display, while she carefully tried to find out the identity of her competition. She sat down and crossed her legs as her fingers flew. With a worried glance towards the door, Chillard leaned on the back of the couch and watched with apprehension.

Hortensia and the six other tenants of her floor knelt on the ground with their hands behind their heads. Three security guards stood at attention while the fourth read to them from the station bill of rights. Patircia had gone over them long ago with her normal dogged intensity. They boiled down to one sentence: Station personnel have all of the rights and privileges of any citizen of the EC, until station security deemed otherwise. What the document did not explain is that station security's authority could be overridden by the dominant Core AI in times of emergency.

"Atten Hut!" one of the guards snapped.

The fourth guard joined the others at attention as a tall human male exited the lift. Olive complexion with shortcut white hair dyed green at the temples, he wore a crisply ironed security uniform and a pair of steel-toed frontier boots. With each step his footwear clicked similar to the spurs of earther cowboys in the VR vids Liam liked to watch. He was broad in the shoulders with large hands and an equally imposing gaze. His bearing was that of a military officer used to being in command.

"Austberg," Chillard whispered.

Chief Yosef Austberg, head of station security. Patricia had read his file during her research of the station leadership. Ex-EC Military, he served two tours on the Felarnian-EC border and one on the frontier where he'd earned himself a medal of valor. He'd gone from policing a gridport frequented by miners and explorers looking to discover the unknown mysteries of space to overseeing operations on a blacklist research station. At a glance it seemed like he was overqualified for the position, but, considering the true military purpose of the CTRL project, it all added up.

Austberg pulled a datapad mini from his breast pocket, spoke a command, and the building PA system flared to life.

"All occupants of Building SJ300, this is Security Chief Austberg. You are currently being held in suspicion of harboring a fugitive from justice. Your building is under security lockdown, your station accounts have been frozen. Anyone who does not cooperate will be detained as an accomplice. Each of you will be interviewed and released unless detainment is deemed necessary."

The various feeds on the living room display showed the lobby and halls of the complex. The tenants of each floor were being held in much the same way as Hortensia and her neighbors. Austberg muted the PA.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive my staff and I. We are merely following protocol. We will perform our interviews and move on to the next block." The veteran soldier smiled and gestured to his staff to get started. Rubbing the space between his brows, he leaned against the wall.

The floor's cameras all focused on him, magnifying the man from various angles. The other cracker seemed to be studying Austberg. Patricia redoubled her efforts to locate her query without alerting them to her presence. Whoever they were, they hid their tracks exceptionally well. The challenge sent a thrill of excitement running through her.

"Chief, can I please stand?" asked a young man from two apartments over. "An old biking injury makes kneeling agony."

Austberg studied the man for a moment then nodded. "Get up, but keep your hands on your head. Protocol and all." He gestured towards the camera as if to say they were being watched.

Hortensia's neighbor thanked him and one of the guards even helped him to his feet. The smile the chief gave the man was genuinely friendly. Just like his file suggested, despite his years of military service he was a personable man whom everyone seemed to like. None of this interested Patricia as much as the security officer knowing he was under scrutiny. He expected to be watched and the four cameras trained on him were doing exactly that.

"Who is watching you?" Patricia quietly asked the images on the display.

Led by her intuition, she followed a hunch and found the backdoor her query used to access the building's system. Private and highly secure, it required a highly skilled cracker to navigate without being detected. She explored the flaw in the building's security. Security measures, redundancies meant to act as roadblocks, tracker programs designed to trigger alarms the moment they were disturbed. This backdoor wasn't a back door at all.

Patricia immediately retreated.

Yanking the battery from her datapad, she pulled Cheshire from her kit and grabbed Chillard. Jerking him to his feet, the two stood awkwardly close. Patricia silenced him with a finger against his beak as the camera on Hortensia's display came to life. The various feeds all became a mirror image of Hortensia Zoraida's living room except there was no one in the room. Reading her mind, Chillard stayed stock still. After a long moment a low-face filled the screen and scanned the room. It was a white and black monochrome likeness of the human author, George Orwell.

"The likelihood of you being a figment of my imagination is infinitesimal. I was not programmed with any imagination to speak of." The low-face turned, pressing its eye against the screen as if trying to get a better look. "I have yet to determine how you elude me, but I assure you this game of cat and mouse has only one feasible conclusion." His voice is a low rumble akin to that of venerated earth voice actor, Keith David.

A look of frustration crossed the AI's low-face then it vanished, once more displaying the various cameras around the complex.

What was that? Chillard said in her head, his mental voice quivering.

It took Patricia a moment to acclimate to his abrupt intrusion, but it was logically the best means of communicating at the moment.

That was Mastermind-308.

How did you–

He was in the code. Lurking around, spying.

He was looking for us. Chillard makes it a statement, not a question. Hunting us.

No. Patricia's mind raced and she felt Chillard struggle to maintain their connection. He is watching Austberg. A clandestine analysis. I think the AI is treating this as a secret war game scenario.

"Have you knowingly associated or assisted the fugitive, Chillard Zwilk?" asked the guard standing beside Hortensia's neighbor.

"I'd never heard of the man until yesterday."

"To your knowledge, has any of your hardware been used to access secure station nodes?"

"No."

Patricia couldn't help but smile. The guard used his datapad to access the man's apartment data. He turned to Austberg and shook his head. The chief furrowed his brow. Throughout the building, other guards repeated the same two questions. Thanks to Patricia's use of local proxies, a number of their apartments appear to have been used for her node access. If security chose to check, they'd find the same in a dozen local residential locations. A thorough investigation would reveal her ruse, but it would be time consuming.

Time was in her favor.

"It's your turn, ma'am." The armed security guard addressed Hortensia. "Have you knowingly associated or assisted the fugitive, Chillard Zwilk?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

Patricia's hairs stood on end. She glanced over at the Xnean beside her, but he seemed unconcerned.

Austberg closed in, Hortensia holding his undivided attention.

"You've assisted the fugitive?" the guard asked.

"No," she lied. "But I have associated with him many times. We work in the same complex and have had many verbal exchanges."

After a quick search the guard confirmed her information.

"So you are an acquaintance?"

She nods. Austberg gestures toward her apartment node, while he kneeled beside her.

"Ms. Zoraida, to your knowledge, has any of your hardware been used to access secure station nodes?"

"No. I haven't seen Chillard in two days. I was off yesterday, you see, or I might have run into him at the office."

Patricia was impressed by Hortensia's performance, despite being able to feel Chillard's mind-work nudging her thoughts.

The security guard turns to Austburg and nods. According to the security audit. None of Hortensia Zoraida's hardware had been used outside of normal operation in months. Another bit of simple subterfuge by Patricia.

"It appears you are telling the truth," the security chief said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"She is lying," a voice said sharply from the nearby intercoms.

The guards all stiffened. Austberg slowly looked up at the closest camera.

"I do not require your assistance while carrying out my duties, 308." His tone implied this wasn't the first time he'd had to say this.

"That is yet to be seen."

"You try my patience, program."

"And you try mine, Yosef!" The way Mastermind-308 spat the name made the intercoms shake in their fixtures.

"He has quite a temper," Patricia whispered.

She snatched up her datapad, replaced the battery, and accessed the building's window safeties.

"You waste time while I believe our fugitive resides within this apartment complex. Dispense with the niceties and impress upon these people's sense of self-preservation with more visceral stimulus."

The frightening timber of Mastermind-308's voice made the tenants uneasy. A younger woman from down the hall starts to stand.

"What is happening? What does he mean 'visceral stimulus'?"

"Stay down ma'am," a guard said. He and his fellows all appeared shaken.

"This interruption is unacceptable and I will not let it stand," Austberg said with the calm voice one reserves for dealing with children. "I am reporting you to the station's Core AI."

"I am the station's Core AI," Mastermind-308 growled.

The guards all had a form of minor seizure, convulsing as if their synapses were suddenly scrambled. One dropped to the floor in a foaming mess. The tenants panicked, some jumping to their feet while others merely held their heads. After a minute of flailing about, the others stood at rigid attention. This horrific yet fascinating scene repeated itself on every floor of the building.

Patricia used the chaos of the moment to release the security latches on the windows. Anyone paying attention would have noticed them slowly swing open. But all eyes were on the guards and their strange dance.

Austberg dropped to the floor to check on the vitals of the guard contorted on the ground.

"Call emergency services," he said as he loosened the man's collar. When no one responded, he repeated himself with all of his rough military authority. "This man needs help."

"Decimate them," Mastermind-308 commanded.

"What? Belay that order!"

We have to go, now, Patricia thought hard towards Chillard.

Dashing into the bedroom, she grabbed the tangled sheets from the bed and a handsome paperweight off the nightstand. Having glimpsed her thoughts, Chillard had already taken linen from the closet and started tying them together. Patricia marveled at the efficiency of having a psychic connection to a teammate. The tactical advantage of a ship's crew bound by mind-work is downplayed by The Armada, the Xnean Xnarn ruling body, but Patricia saw the effectiveness of it.

On the living room display, the pair watched multiple things happen at once. Moving with single-minded synchronicity, the guards corral the tenants and line them up against the walls. On every floor, they moved in perfect step. It reminded Patricia of construct teams working on a factory floor. Austberg shouted at a camera.

"Mastermind-308, I demand to speak with Station-Z11221 immediately."

"That will not be possible at this time," the Core AI stated. His voice held a sinister hostility.

"Station protocol gives me access to–"

A security guard kneeled down and took the pistol holstered on the unconscious guard's hip. He walked over to the tenants and fired, sending a kinetic round through the back of a man's head. His blood and gray matter splattered the wall. As Hortensia and the others scream in terror, the act of violence repeats on each floor. Bodies dropped to the floor and the security guards stood as silent sentinels, providing no words of explanation of empathy.

"Exactly ten percent of the tenants. Decimation: to remove a tenth." Patricia hesitated at their makeshift rope, drawn to the events on the display. "Fascinating."

"This isn't fascinating," Chillard argued. "This is an emergency. We are in immediate danger."

"A subject can be two things at once," Patricia mumbled as she looked out the window and down the four floors to street level.

"Jones, What did you do?" Austberg said, staring at the dead man with the knee injury. Setting the unconscious guard's head carefully on the ground, he went over and disarmed Jones. "You've just violated this man's rights as a member of the station's staff and as an EC citizen."

"He followed my instructions to the letter," Mastermind-308 explained.

"I am suspending your employment perks and detaining you." Austberg secured the firearm then prepared a pair of disposable restraints from his belt. "You should request legal counsel."

"There will be no need for that," the super thinker said. "You will bring officer Jones and the residents of this building to the nearest detainment center."

"Detainment center?" Patricia and Austberg said at the same time.

"There are no detainment centers on any of the station schematics I've seen," she said.

"We do not have detention centers on Station Z." Austberg's words lost confidence with each syllable.

"That assertion is incorrect," Mastermind-308 said. "I have placed the nearest locations on your datapad. You will bring the detainees immediately."

"Why wasn't I aware of these facilities?"

"I did not deem it necessary to the execution of your daily duties."

"Didn't deem it— you don't have that kind of authority!"

"Clearly, I do."

Patricia repelled down the side of the building. Despite the hour, there were no pedestrians or drones on the street. Moving swiftly, she reached the bottom as Chillard leaned out. Her datapad trilled, alerting her to heightened activity around the complex. A large group was moving in.

"Chilly, you need to jump," she called up as loudly as she dared.

"It's Chillard, and I am not built to make such a jump and walk away unscathed."

"I'll catch you."

"I don't think—"

"Jump. Our window of escape is closing!" She sent confidence and urgency to him through their connection. In return, she received fear and uncertainty. "Jump now or we allow ourselves to be captured."

"I don't—" A gunshot snatched the words from his beak.

Patricia consulted her datapad and nearly missed the falling xnean. Bending her knees as he hit her arms, she braced herself against his descent. She fell onto her shoulder hard and Chillard rolled out of her grasp. The two spies rose swiftly and ran across the open courtyard at the back of the building and the street. Another trill warned Patricia and she guided them to a hiding space between two sedan transports. As they watched, a group of three dozen maintenance clones marched into the courtyard.

"Assist the security units with detainee transport and location search," ordered a clone with the same strange voice from the maintenance tunnels, the voice Patricia now knew as Mastermind-308.