The two women hid in a narrow doorway in the alley between two retail structures. The sound of dozens of feet marching in precise timing seemed to come from every direction. Intermingled with the continuous steps were the sounds of panicked people being pulled from their homes or fleeing Mastermind-308's purge. Drones buzzed overhead, scanning and recording. With the street cameras, storefront surveillance, and even their own datapads, it would be almost impossible for anyone to flee the inquisition-like maneuver. It wouldn't be long before everyone was rounded up and taken to one of the detention centers.

It all reminded Patricia of the pogroms that always seemed to herald the full takeover of a fascist government. Human history always repeated itself. A cyclical revisiting of madness.

After a loud terrain-mapping drone passed over the area, Patricia hazarded a peek down the alley. She didn't see any of Mastermind's brainwashed security personnel or his modified maintenance clones, but their nonstop marching still filled her ears. She glanced back at the woman crouched down beside her. Her skin, slightly lighter than Liam's, had a permanent honey glow that seemed to make all lighting perfect for her. Her amber colored eyes were darker in-person than they appeared on the station's newsfeed, and her hair managed to look less surreal and yet all the more perfect for the simple flaws. Her brightly colored clothes stood out like a beacon.

"What's the plan, Ms... In our mad dash, I didn't get your name. I'm Onika Fwendi."

"Patricia." She turned her attention to the sky above their cluster of buildings as the buzzing sound of drones seemed to diminish. "You wouldn't happen to have a change of clothes in that shoulder bag."

"What? Not really, no." Onika stood. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing? It's the height of news anchor fashion."

"That's the problem. It makes it too easy to pick you out of a crowd."

"They're targeting everyone. Any crowds we see will be just as hunted as we are." Onika stuck her head out of the doorway for a moment, then ducked back in. Looking down at her garb, she frowned. "I guess the bright lime green might be a bit much."

She removed a wand shaped device and fiddled with a dial on the stout end. The device pipped and she pressed it to her lime green reading glasses. The glasses turn a non-distinct shade of gray. After a moment, her cap, jacket, skirt, stockings and boots did the same. Patricia raised an eyebrow in surprise. It was the same technology cosmetic companies used for their surgically permanent lip-coloring and eyeliner, but she'd never seen it used for high fashion.

"It's a prototype that a friend and I are working on. There are pricing issues and a problem with the transformation signal. A good static discharge and the cloth turns into an amorphous kaleidoscope." Onika explained as if reading Patricia's mind.

"I was being mostly sarcastic when I'd asked about your clothes."

"I could tell, but it was a valid point. It's a lot harder to hide when your outfit sticks out like a felarnian on a space station full of humans."

The two women met each other's gaze. After a moment, Patricia nodded and Onika did the same.

They waited a few more minutes then Patricia led them back the way they'd come. The pair doubled around a collection of residential buildings before taking shelter in the attached transport garage.

"Is it safe to wait here? They've focused their efforts on apartments and businesses."

"They've already cleared this place. It is very unlikely they'll do a fourth sweep so soon."

Onika nodded. "So you're monitoring their comms and you have some kind of countermeasures to elude video surveillance. Impressive."

Patricia kept her face impassive.

"You're wondering how I've come to my conclusion." Onika flashed the award nominated smile which had made her wide-net famous long before she'd come to Station-Z11221. "You whisper to yourself and make quick glances at your datapad before we enter an area monitored by a new observation node. Yet, you never hesitate in front of visual recording devices. Since you come across as neither schizophrenic nor reckless, I made a few assumptions."

When Patircia didn't respond, Fwendi winked, also one of her trademarks.

"Your reaction or lack of reaction, says I'm right or close enough to give you pause... though you seem like you'd be cool as an ice dancer in any situation."

Patricia reassessed the investigative journalist and found herself impressed.

"Now I've impressed you."

"Where'd you come up with that assumption?" Patricia said, checking the garage cameras through her datapad's link to the system.

"That one was wishful thinking." This time Onika's smile was more genuine though no less dazzling.

Patricia cracked a smile. "You're definitely impressive."

"Thank you." Onika ran her fingers through crimson and chocolate brown hair. "So what information are you looking for?"

"What–"

"No need to pretend. People don't rush into your apartment and secret you past the authorities, unless they have an attachment to you or need something. We've never met, so it has to be the latter." She pulled out her stylish datapad-mini and examined her face in the reflection. "You can only be after one thing: data."

"That's a fair assumption."

Onika Fwendi had been the third name on Patricia's list. She was the third one she'd tried to reach before Mastermind-308 and his minions could capture them. Onika was her first success. Just like Mr. Sal Munn, Don Sarda had been dragged out into the street and executed. Whatever information they held was seen as a threat by the Core AI and deemed worth killing to suppress. Fwendi was her first chance to figure out why.

Patricia opened her mouth to ask the questions that had been gnawing at her when she heard the faintest tapping noise. She focused her senses in the direction of the sound and tapped a few inquiries into her datapad. Nothing. Not even the static background noise that had been there a few minutes ago. She heard the noise more clearly.

Six taps in synchronicity.

"Hide," she whispered to the reporter.

Onika scrambled from her position on the hood of someone's sedan and searched for a place to conceal herself.

Renegade: I think I'm caught in a communications deadzone. Confirm.

She waited a few heartbeats for a response then scanned the space for her own hiding spot. Cheshire would protect her from any video equipment, but it would do nothing to protect her from organic detection. She squeezed in between a group of vertical heating pipes and crouched so that her head didn't clear the top of the nearby sedans. Ten seconds later a six-legged drone skittered down the parking ramp and into the parking level.

Arching its thorax, the rear opened to expose a thrumming sensor array of three small radio dishes.

Renegade: Chilly, do you copy?

The drone stopped its slow skitter and turned in her direction.

"I detected a distinct emptiness during our previous encounters," the drone said with Mastermind's voice. "We will see if I can't track the distortion."

Patricia recognized a smug assuredness in the superthinker's voice. He was enjoying the hunt and the opportunity to prove he could outsmart her. Competitiveness had been worked into his code, that much was painfully obvious. Thankfully he would need multiple points of reference to pinpoint Cheshire's minor distortion.

Four more ant-like drones arrived. More than enough to get an accurate reading.

Patricia studied the machines. No armor-plating. Two high voltage prods at the front. Mastermind-308 intended to incapacitate her. He wanted her alive. The machine designs were basic and hastily constructed. She knew she could destroy them, but that would be the same as confirming her whereabouts for the Core AI stalking her.

She stepped out of hiding with sure quiet steps, knowing the machine's video sensors were useless. A faint hiss caught her attention. Patricia and the machines all turned, but there was nothing to see. Onika was staying one step ahead. The machines snapped their attention back to Patricia's corner. Spreading out, each raised their sensor array and began to map the area.

Her fur prickled under the scrutiny of the scanners. She eased a small pistol from a rear pocket holster. Whether she allowed the machines to complete their survey or destroyed them, her location would soon be known.

Renegade: Chillard, I'm compromised.

The clank of metal on asphalt warned Patricia a moment before an EMP grenade took out the lights, the transports, and the five ant drones. The darkened parking level filled with smoke from the ruined electronics. Patricia and Onika found one another and stumbled out to the ramp leading up to ground level. Eyes watery from the smoke, Patricia was caught off guard by the xnean man waiting for her. Struggling to catch his breath, he mopped sweat from his brow. Thing 1 stood at the top of the ramp, heavy rifle in its frail hands.

"When we lost comms," Chillard started around gulps of air, "Thing 1 thought it... he, Thing 1 thought he detected increased network activity. The nodes weren't down which implied we were being jammed." He leaned forward, hands on his knees. "When we couldn't pinpoint the jammers, I wasn't sure what to do."

He'd clearly chosen to rush to her rescue and Patricia wouldn't forget that.

Onika coughed to clear her lungs.

"You're... You're Chillard Zwilk, the fugitive." She took a deep breath. "You nearly killed us in there."

"The ventilation for the building was cut off," Patricia said, the R.Nano2 in her blood allowing her to recover faster than the others. "We need to get out of here. That had been a trap by Mastermind-308 to find a way around Cheshire. Units are likely converging on this location even now."

She pointed up towards Thing 1 and ushered the others ahead. She hadn't expected the Core AI to bother hunting her down. She'd thought he'd be too focused on his turf war with Station-Z11221.

"Come on."

Back at Patricia's safehouse, the five of them took a moment to catch their breath and gather their wits. Thing 1 had been able to create a loud diversion while the others escaped the sector. Without him and Chillard, she and Onika would have never gotten away. It was sobering. Patricia had always been a genius, a tech-wiz among a people not known for their affinity for machines and programming. It made her feel special. Her time at school merely bolstered her belief in her own capabilities as she met challenge after challenge and proved herself the best. At an institute full of the greatest minds in the CGG, she'd met no equal.

She'd forgotten hers was an organic mind, and not of the same magnitude of a dedicated superthinker. Mastermind-308 made Singapore's data processing look like the mind of a child. He wasn't yet the kind of massive neural network that commanded the mecha armies during the wars that prompted the bans and restrictions on thinking machines, but, unchecked, he would one day reach that level.

Patricia stood in front of her collection of displays, monitoring the feed from a score of compromised security cameras across the station. The scene was always the same, maintenance clones and security personnel dragging more and more people to the detention facilities. Frustratingly, the security cameras in and around those locations had so far proven themselves impervious to her cracking. Chillard and Onika Fwendi sat at a table packing duffel bags and backpacks with any equipment that would fit. The safehouse was still safe, but no one believed it would stay that way for long.

"Thank you for saving me," Onika said, breaking the silence. "Both of you."

"I helped, helped, helped too," Thing 1 said.

Thing 2 nodded in agreement.

"You too," Onika chuckled. "As far as I understand it, you were integral to our rescue." She patted Thing 1 on the hand.

The identical low-faces grinned with satisfaction. Patricia glanced away from her displays, noting how Ms. Fwendi was personable with everyone she came in contact with whether they were organic or not.

"Patricia, you still haven't told me the price for my freedom." Onika's smile never faltered, but her eyes grew serious. "I'm not really in a position to haggle, but I'd like to know what payment I've agreed to."

Patricia activated a code designed to alert them to any changes in the patterns of the patrols and joined the others at the table. She brought up the list of Mastermind's fugitives on her datapad and placed it down in front of the reporter. Onika studied it for a moment then pointed at herself and Chillard.

"We're the only ones still alive... and you want to know why."

"No. I know why, because of luck and our fast thinking," Patricia said. "What I need to know is why does Mastermind-308 want you all dead?"

Onika pulled out her own datapad-mini. Patricia fought the urge to examine the device. She'd tried to crack it twice since they'd returned to the safehouse and both times she'd been thwarted. She was sure she could break the security protocols with a bit of effort, but it would not be subtle.

"I think Mr. Zwilk here is just collateral damage. The AI's real targets were always the five of us."

"Collateral damage?" Chillard said, more to himself than to anyone in the room.

"I was writing a story about the inconsistencies in station functionality, power distribution, and staffing. You see, on the surface Station-Z11221 has operated like any other deep space data collection outpost. We hit all of the important markers except one: the station has never once gathered any external data outside of those vital to keeping safe geosynchronous orbit."

Patricia's ears perked up. This was an avenue of knowledge that hadn't crossed her mind.

"I'd wanted to know why and as I dove deeper, I'd found even more inconsistencies, eventually coming across the station's second Core AI and the hidden data nodes necessary to bring it online. I didn't know what Mastermind-308 was, but I knew someone wanted to keep him a secret. At the time, I'd thought The Directorate was operating off the books. I was sure I'd stumbled upon the story of the decade, something as big as The Singapore Incident!"

Patricia's knee jerk reaction was to remain passive, but Fwendi had already demonstrated her deductive ability. Instead, she gasped in what she hoped was the appropriate level of surprise.

"Exactly!" Onika tapped the screen of Patricia's datapad. "I called in all of my big favors. An accountant, because you always follow the money. An engineer who could get me information from the inside. A data miner to comb through the terabytes of information. I even had a middle manager within The Directorate itself."

She pointed to the images as she listed out their roles in the conspiracy.

"How does this mark me as collateral damage?" Chillard was uneasy, though outwardly he appeared merely curious. His bond with Patricia still connected their emotions.

"We dug too deep. Someone must have triggered a safeguard somewhere. A file, a firewall, an off-limits data node. Something woke him up. Mastermind-308 came online. The information flowed freely then, and by the time we understood the nature of what we were dealing with it was too late."

Onika stared down at the faces, people she knew, people she'd likely cared about, all dead. One as recently as an hour prior, executed while they hid in a parking garage.

"This station was established to design and monitor an AI capable of usurping the sovereign access of an existing Core AI and replacing it. The AI would then, using modified nano-tech, be compelled to turn the existing civilian population into a compliant military force under AI command. I'm not sure why he picked you, but it was an excuse to pressure his handlers into freeing him from the confines of his virtual environment."

"Mastermind-308 used me to take over the station." Chillard looked away, attempting to keep his emotions in check. "This... was all just the whimsy of fate."

Patricia didn't need their psychic bond to see he was shaken.

"In all likelihood, something you did must have caught his attention. You would have been chosen deliberately. My research into the project suggests that his moves are calculated to provide the greatest chance of success. I imagine in practical application, the AI would be designed to act quickly, but with as little possible room for error as possible. On a hostile station or planet, he'd only have one chance to take over before his presence was detected."

Patricia processed it all with her exceptional mind and quickly came to some frightening conclusions.

"A shackled AI would be hindered by the safety protocols instituted by the Atkins Conventions. They would get in the way of Mastermind's mission objectives." Patricia spoke slowly, convinced she already knew what Onika had to say.

"Mastermind-308 was never shackled."

A chill ran down Patricia's spine. She was a staunch proponent of the unshackling of self-sentient inorganics, but, just like organic lifeforms, some AI were too dangerous to be allowed to go unchecked.

"The EC wouldn't allow this," Chillard said. "It ignores everything learned during the machine wars and the upheaval at the start of Earth Prime's 21st century"

"This is a highly classified operation on the outskirts of EC Space with the third fleet a proverbial stone's throw away. Someone is hoping to advance modern wartime use of AI and nano and they are not afraid to push the limits of the law." Onika opened a set of files on her own datapad. "Whoever is overseeing this Project: CTRL put this thing as far away from the interior as possible. I think it's to reduce the chance of discovery and limit the fallout if things get out of control."

"If?" Chillard was incredulous. "I think things have already gotten out of control."

"I disagree," Patircia cut in. "Mastermind-308 is operating within mission parameters. He's merely carrying out both of his primary objectives simultaneously. He's managed to takeover the station's clone population and the security staff. If I had to guess, I'd say he is using the detention facilities to indoctrinate the rest of the populus."

"This... this is insane," Chillard groaned. "This is the kind of thing you watch in a VR vid or read on one of those Wide-net fiction sites. This is... this is–"

"Evil," Onika finished "No matter how you frame it, this is evil, and we don't even know what the long term effects of the mind control will do. That's one of the things they're monitoring... at least those who are left."

"Who would okay something like this?"

Chillard's surface thoughts suggested he knew of people within his own government that would gladly do something like this, yet it still bothered him.

"The Pale Garden would."

Patricia took a calculated risk mentioning Belladonna's secret army, but she wanted to see how her fellow fugitives reacted. Chillard glanced at her. He'd gleaned the name from her thoughts earlier, but hearing her speak it out loud would awaken his curiosity. It was something she'd have to address later. Onika on the other hand looked like a hunter who'd just found signs of new prey.

"I've seen that name before. Not here, but on a different story a few years back." She checked her datapad-mini and swore. "I don't have it with me. Wide-net access is restricted on-station so I can't get to my data servers back home."

Patricia's heart quickened, Eagle X was always on the hunt for information on The Pale Garden. Someone with an information network like Onika Fwendi would likely find things they hadn't. Her servers might be a treasure trove of new data.

She was sure Chillard noticed her reaction. Yet another thing they would need to address later.

Secret agent, special diplomat, and investigative journalist stood in silence for a few minutes while Thing 1 and Thing 2 prattled on to one another. Finally Onika slammed her hands down on the table.

"The common sense plan should be to get off this station before we get turned into mindless automatons, no offense." She smiled at the two virtual AIs who both seemed unbothered. "But every ounce of me wants to shut this thing down. Can you imagine if the company gets a hold of this? What happens the next time a colony sues for divestment? What happens the next time a mining planet chooses to go on strike? They can just drop a Mastermind Core AI on-planet with a few data nodes and a connection to the planetary network, and BAM! No more opposition."

What could The Pale Garden do with such a weapon? Patricia made an effort to bury the thought somewhere where Chillard couldn't easily find it. This was why she was here. Eagle X hadn't been one hundred percent sure what Project: CTRL was for, but they knew Belladonna funded it through back channels and dummy corporations. That had been enough, but seeing the potential threat it posed made their intervention even more imperative.

"If I can gain access to Mastermind's core nexus, I can access his root coding and shut him down," Patricia said. Her mind raced over the various defenses the node might employ and the ways she might bypass them.

"I know where it is, but you won't get in, not without an army. I was coming back from a bit of surveillance when you and those clones found me. Have I thanked you for that?" Onika put her hands together and bowed, an old human custom used by many groups of earthers.

"You have," Patricia chuckled. Onika was one of those people who made friends wherever they went, which was probably how she'd made the connections that made her good at her job.

"Thank you again. I'd always thought someone would find me in a ditch somewhere, having stuck my nose where it didn't belong. When the time came, I wasn't ready."

"You're welcome."

Patricia meant it. Onika had given her the last piece of the puzzle. She turned back to the displays as her monitoring program whistled an alert. An explosion rocked a factory on one screen and people were running in panic on others. The crisis had reached critical mass.

"Tell me about the security around the core nexus. I need details, specifics."

"You don't understand. I've seen these things attempted before," Onika explained. "A hundred guards, with half as many drones, in a secured facility. You'd need an army just to get close to the place."

Patricia smiled and closed the duffel bags. "It's a good thing I have one on the way."