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“Finding her is something I can do.
 
The farther away they are, the more I need to… focus.”
 
Prophet took a sip of wine, the red liquid pulling trails down the sides of glass as it settled.
 
“Are you sure this is what we need?”

“Yes, master,” said Julian.
 
“It is the only way we know of to find your world.”

“Very well,” said Prophet.
 
“Come back to me no later than this evening.
 
I will talk to you again then.”

Julian nodded, giving a small bow.
 
Prophet ignored him as he backed away.
 
Julian’s optics snagged on something, a pull in the air, a thing that tugged and moved.
 
Prophet tilted his head as if listening.

“Yes,” he said, but he wasn’t talking to Julian.
 
Julian watched as Prophet licked his lips.
 
“Yes, it’s time.
 
We’ll find them too.
 
Her especially.”

Harry looked down at the other man, holding the chassis still.
 
“He wasn’t there, sir.”
 
The hangar stood empty around them, some vehicles open for repair, reactor housings up for maintenance.
 
An engineer’s cigarette still smoldered in an ashtray next to an APC, the smoke drawing a lazy line to the roof high above before getting tugged aside by the aircon.

Gairovald had his hands on his hips.
 
Man, he looks
pissed.
 
“You’re telling me…”
 
Gairovald stopped talking, drew a deep breath in.
 
“Fuentes?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Here it comes,” said Lace.
 
Her voice was quiet over the link.

“Floyd wasn’t there.
 
The whole thing was a setup.”
 
Gairovald wasn’t asking.
 
Yep, he’s pissed
.

“There’s another theory,” said Lace.
 
“Don’t they read my memos?”

“Sir?
 
There’s another theory,” said Harry.
 
His optics tracked Gairovald’s bodyguards, and he flicked over to thermal for a quick scan.
 
Mostly cold and dark, a bright spark of fusion power in the core.
 
They’re more machine than I am
.

Gairovald turned from his pacing.
 
“I’m listening.”

“Our comms are compromised,” said Harry.
 
“There were three thousand people at that park.
 
They dropped in on us.
 
Attacked us.
 
There’s no way that…”
 
He caught himself before he used Mason’s first name.
 
Don’t be too familiar, Harry.
 
Gairovald’s possibly the smartest person you’ve ever met.
 
Maybe smartest guy on the planet
.
 
“Sir?
 
It’s just that there’s no way Floyd has the resources to do that.
 
It’s a syndicate-level play.”

“That’s my theory,” said Lace.
 
“Did you just steal my theory?”

“You think our links are being monitored?”
 
Gairovald turned to one of his bodyguards.
 
“Is it possible?”

“It’s as likely as rain on the moon, I guess,” said the man.
 
He looked at Harry, dead eyes cold and blue.
 
Harry’s overlay tried to map a name to the man, came up blank.
 
“Whatever.
 
It’s possible.”

“You think this is a serious possibility?” said Gairovald, looking back at Harry.

“I don’t have another working theory,” said Harry.
 
“Sir?
 
We got schooled, and we got schooled hard.
 
Someone set us up.
 
Whether Floyd is in on it isn’t the issue.
 
Our bigger problem is which other player wants into the party.”

“I told you,” said Lace.
 
“It’s Reed.
 
It’s their tech.
 
Hypno robot mind control bullshit?
 
That’s Reed.”

“If it’s true, it’s likely to be a Reed play,” said Gairovald.
 
“This smells like their brand of product.”

“I was just going to say that, sir,” said Harry.

“Like hell you were,” said Lace.
 
“My damn theory.”

Gairovald tilted his head to the ceiling.
 
“Carter?
 
You there?”

Her voice came out, loud and flat in the room.
 
“Always, sir.”

A small smile tugged at Gairovald’s mouth. “You’ve been listening.”

“It was that or surf the net for porn.”
 
She cleared her throat.
 
“I don’t get many personal emails.
 
That’s how Lace spends her time.”

“That bitch,” said Lace.

“Shush,” said Carter, the link quiet between the three of them.
 
“The grown-ups are talking.”

Gairovald laughed.
 
“Carter?
 
Has our communications network been compromised?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” said Carter.
 
“Pretty sure that’s not what happened.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Social hacks,” said Carter.
 
“They got to someone.”

“Makes sense,” said the nameless bodyguard, looking at Harry.
 
“More probable than rain on the moon, or our comms being compromised, which are both about as likely.”

“Hey—” said Harry.

“You have fun down the club last weekend, Zane?”
 
Carter sounded bored.
 
“You enjoy your entertainment?”

The dead eyes looked around the room.
 
“Well enough,” said Zane.
 
“You think I don’t know that you watch?
 
I think you
like
it.”

“No,” said Carter.
 
“That’s your problem.
 
You don’t think, Zane.
 
There’s only so much of your shit I can shovel.
 
This one was expensive.
 
Her face?
 
It’s more than a weekend in the chair to fix that.
 
You see—”

“That’s enough, Carter,” said Gairovald.

“Sir,” said Carter.

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you Carter?”
 
Gairovald’s smile was small but playful.

“I don’t know the meaning of the word, sir.”

Gairovald laughed.
 
“Oh, you are good, aren’t you?”

“I try,” said Carter.

“Yes, I think you do,” said Gairovald.
 
“Carter?”

“Yes, sir?”

Gairovald tugged at one of his shirt cuffs, the motion small.
 
“I find the idea of our communications network being compromised sublime in the extreme.”

“What the actual fuck,” said Lace, a fraction of a second before her link dropped.

Gairovald was still talking to Carter.
 
“It’d be a real clusterfuck if it was true.”

“What is it?” said Harry down the link.
 
“Lace?”
 
He tried to connect again, but she was gone, her side of the link flat and empty.

“Do you think you could, I don’t know, get someone at Reed on the horn?
 
Start a parlay.
 
Find out what they know.”
 
Gairovald paused.
 
“Carter?”

“No problem,” said Carter, her voice loud in the room.

“Oh, and Carter?”
 
Gairovald looked up at the roof.

“Sir?”

“Has our communications network been compromised?”

“No.”

“Do you know where Mason Floyd is?
 
Jenni Haraway?”

“Right now?
 
No.
 
They dropped out of link contact a couple of days ago,” said Carter.

“Fine,” said Gairovald.
 
“When you’re next in contact, I want you to report it to me straight away.”

“No problem,” said Carter.
 
“You’re the boss.”

Gairovald nodded, then walked towards one of the hangar doors.
 
A black car sat in the quiet of the night, waiting for him.

“Carter?” said Harry, hoping she was still on the link.

“Yeah.”

“What was all that about?”
 
Harry watched Gairovald get into the car, Zane in the back with him, and the other bodyguard in the front.

“Can’t say,” she said.

“Can’t say?”

“Literally.
 
Can’t say,” she said.

“What did you do with Lace’s link connection?”

There was quiet for a moment, then Carter sighed.
 
“I’m trying to save her life, Harry.
 
Can you trust me?”

“I’m not sure,” said Harry.
 
“How does cutting her off save her life?
 
How does cutting her off from me help her?”

“Can’t say.”

“Can’t?
 
Or won’t?”

“Harry?”

“Yes, Carter.”
 
Harry’s chassis fired into life and he walked it towards the hanger exit, feet clanking loud in the empty room.

“You shouldn’t trust me.
 
I need you to, but you shouldn’t.
 
You’re going to have to make a call.
 
I can’t help with this one.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“I wasn’t cutting her off from
you
.”
 
Then Carter dropped the link as well, leaving Harry alone in the hangar.

He stopped moving, and started thinking.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

Harry hadn’t moved.
 
His chassis stood, caught mid-stride on the way to the exit, exactly where Carter had left him.
 
Workers had started back in the hanger after Gairovald had left, creeping back in around the edges of the space, ignoring Harry.

All but one.
 
It was the mechanic he’d talked to the other day.
 
The man came up to him, cigarette in hand.
 
“Hey.
 
Guy.”

Harry jerked himself away from his thoughts, swiveling the chassis towards the man.
 
“Yeah.”

“Help you?”
 
The mechanic looked up at Harry.
 
Harry’s optics zoomed on the man’s face, as accidental as a thought.

“I don’t know,” said Harry.
 
“Can you?”

“Maybe,” said the man.
 
“Oil change?
 
Reactor running off-wave?”

“No,” said Harry.
 
“Nothing like that.”

“It’s just that you’re standing in the middle of our workspace.”
 
The man shrugged.
 
“You’re big.
 
You’re in the way.”

“Oh,” said Harry.
 
“Sorry.”
 
He didn’t move.

“Right,” said the man, after the pause stretched out long enough to be uncomfortable.
 
“Hard meeting with the boss?”

“I’m not sure,” said Harry.

“Sounds like it was,” said the man.
 
He pulled a cleaning rag out from his back pocket, working it over his hands, smearing oil and grease around.
 
“I find the problem with this kind of work is that you never really feel clean ever again.
 
You feel me?”

“Yeah.
 
I really do.”

“You got somewhere you need to be?”
 
The man pushed the rag back into his pocket.
 
“You on the clock?”

“I’m always on the clock,” said Harry.
 
“I can’t switch off.”

“I heard that,” said the man.
 
“Leastwise, you were in here with the boss, we got to grab a cup of bad coffee and a stale donut.”

Bad coffee.
 
Stale donut.
 
I haven’t had anything like that in years.
 
Stood around friends, walked on carpet inside a building with too-cold air conditioning.
 
“Sounds like paradise.”

“It is what it is,” said the man.
 
“Look.
 
I tell you what.
 
Let’s move you over there to a harness, get you wired in for a diagnostic.”

“I don’t need a diagnostic,” said Harry.

“Right,” said the man.
 
“The thing is, diagnostics take a long time.
 
We can run full systems.
 
Top to bottom, work out what’s going on in the creases, you know?”

“But—”

“The best part about the diagnostic is how quiet it is,” said the man.
 
“You’ll be in the harness, and it’d be against protocol to interrupt that.
 
You see what I’m saying?”

“I see what you’re saying,” said Harry.
 
“I think I could use a diagnostic.”

“Thought so,” said the man.
 
“Over here.”
 
He pointed to one of the conversion harnesses racked against the hanger wall.

Harry turned the chassis around, walking towards the harness.
 
He swiveled the top half of the torso to look at the man.
 
“Name’s Harry,” he said.

“Travis,” said the man —
Travis
.
 
“I figured you knew that.
 
You know, with the—” he gestured in the air.
 
“The overlay.”

“The overlay,” said Harry.
 
He’d arrived at the harness, and turned around to back in.
 
“You know what, Travis?”

“What?”

“I think I prefer the old fashioned way of meeting people.”

Travis nodded, rubbing his hands against his overalls.
 
“Right.
 
Well, I’ll be back in a couple hours, see how the diagnostic’s running.”
 
He walked away.