While Shawn worked on the quantum core and the orb’s reader, Horizon cleaned biomass out of the exo-suit they’d claimed. After rinsing with a non-conductive solution she more-or-less hung it upside-down from a set of cables suspended from the ceiling. Horizon found herself wondering if perhaps they’d have been better off leaving it behind. Sure, it might be useful for lifting things or in a fight, but no doubt the Company was going to object to their possession of it.

As she watched the biohazardous fluids drip out of the suit Shawn came down to the garage and took a seat next to Horizon. “Okay,” he started. “It’s all set up and running. It might take five minutes to crack the encryption, it might be five hours, or it could be five months for all we know. There’s no way to tell until its done.”

Horizon nodded. “While we’re waiting, do you have any ideas where they might have taken Jenny?”

Shawn shrugged, “probably city security, but they might have moved her afterwards. It’s been a few hours.”

That suggestion drew Horizon’s attention. “Where might they take her? Does the Company have long-term prisons?”

Samantha spoke up before Shawn could answer. “Surt Energy and Matter does not maintain any dedicated criminal rehabilitation centers according to my searches. Criminal behavior is corrected primarily with outpatient procedures.”

“Not officially,” Shawn replied, not hearing Sam’s telepathic answer. “If they don’t kill you on the spot they flood you with drugs and hypno, then dump you on the street with a tracking collar bolted around your neck. And then they pay for all that by garnishing your wages on top of it.” The vole’s eyes shifted as he thought. “There is a rumor though.”

Sam shot Shawn a disapproving look, not that he could see it. “I didn’t include unsubstantiated rumors in my summary.”

Horizon shook her head at Sam, then turned back to Shawn. “What kind of rumors?” she asked.

The vole sighed, “like the Company maintaining a top secret prison somewhere in space. Supposedly if you cause too much trouble, and they can’t risk you being on the street, they load you onto a ship and nobody sees you ever again.”

Research the rumors, Horizon thought at Sam. Given everything being thrown at us lately we cannot afford to write off a secret space prison.

“Very well then,” Sam conceded. While the AI ran her search Shawn’s pocket comm chimed and he started to pull it out just as Sam reported something. “There seems to be a lot of mesh traffic focused on this location. It might take me fifteen minutes or more to complete my research and present it under these conditions.”

“Huh,” Shawn commented after reading the notification on his comm. “Decryption is complete already.”

“Well,” Horizon replied. “Let’s go see what we’ve got.” But as she strode towards the door out of the garage she got a strange feeling in her gut, something was off. Sam, she thought, what kind of mesh traffic are you seeing?

“Let me try to decipher it,” Sam’s ears twitched a few times as she took in the signals swimming through the air around them. “Strange, it appears that a device in this area is uploading a massive amount of data to an unknown location.”

What?! Horizon stopped in her tracks and turned to Shawn. “Did you set up an off-site backup of the orb data or something?”

“What?” the vole looked confused. “No, why? What’s happening?”

“Do you think someone could be stealing the data?” Sam suggested.

“I’m picking up a boatload of data streaming across the mesh,” Horizon explained to Shawn. “My best guess is that somebody tapped us.”

“Oh crap!” Shawn raced past Horizon and grabbed at the door, however, no matter what he did it refused to budge.

Horizon stepped up behind the vole, “stand back,” she advised. The cyborg raccoon sent an impulse to her right arm to brace for heavy exertion. Her muscles tensed, the smart fabric in her jumpsuit formed into additional muscle analogues, and microbots formed temporary ligaments in her shoulder. With one intense motion, Horizon yanked the door lock out of its frame, the electronics in the lock popped and sparked and the door inched open, swinging away from the two in the garage.

Shawn glanced at the exposed wires in the lock pieces Horizon carelessly tossed aside. “The door locks are networked, right?” At the raccoon’s nod the vole continued, “then maybe whoever is transmitting the data locked all the doors here? Or…” he trailed off, dread dawning in his eyes.

Horizon shoved the door open the rest of the way and rapidly scanned the hallway inside. “Talk while we move,” she rounded the corner and broke into a run just fast enough that Shawn would be able to keep up behind her.

“What if there was a virus in the orb?!” Shawn shouted after Horizon, puffing to try and pace the cyborg. “An AI virus?”

“Unlikely,” Sam added. “Software viruses tend to be as small as possible so they can be transmitted without notice. Weapons-grade AI only upload individual agents for the same reason.”

“This could be an AI apocalypse!” Shawn shouted.

“Too much data,” Horizon retorted as she stopped in front of the next door, then tried the handle and found it locked as well. “It has to be a data theft or something.” She braced and rammed the door with her shoulder, bending the thin aluminum until the bolt was free.

Horizon staggered into the room, a machine shop, filled with automated devices buzzing and whirring to produce tools that the Friendly Society could use to save people. A split second later a 3d printer ejected a half-finished aluminum piece at her. The cyborg easily dodged the improvised projectile, letting it thud harmlessly against the wall behind her. A tall robot used to transfer materials from one machine to another picked up a circular saw in one grasper and turned towards Horizon, holding down the trigger grip unsteadily.

The bot wheeled towards Horizon, but it was no combat drone, she sidestepped it easily. As the saw whirred past her Horizon slammed her hand into the bot’s side, sending it crashing to the floor. The spinning saw blade caught on the floor and went flying out of the bot’s grasper, where it nearly went through Shawn’s leg before he leapt out of the way.

“I thought you said it wasn’t an AI?!” the vole shouted as he tried to take cover behind the doorway.

Horizon forwarded the question to Sam. “It’s unlikely that an AI could be transmitted over the mesh,” the AI clarified. “But the orb could store the code to run an AI on your systems in direct contact with it.”

Horizon scowled as she dodged an appropriated assembly arm and lunged for the room’s power transmitter. “Apparently I have to be more specific with my own AI!” she shouted back to Shawn. Quickly she yanked an exposed cable from the transmitter, the other machines in the room slowly whirred to a halt as the power was cut off. “Maybe you should wait here?” she suggested.

Shawn didn’t argue with her. Horizon crossed the machine shop, deftly stepping around broken machines and other debris. She reached the door and grasped the latch, only to hear a loud alarm in her head.

“Something is attempting to hack us!” Sam explained. “Disabling wireless access!”

Horizon released the handle and paused. Would you say it’s an AI now? She inquired.

“I give a 58% chance that we’re facing a weapons-grade AI,” she answered. “And the odds are rising.”

Horizon grabbed the door again, no alerts this time, and wrenched it open. Then how do we approach this? She asked.

“If it’s a Project Paladin AI then you should be able to pull rank and simply order it to stand down,” Sam suggested. “If not then we have some serious problems.”

And assuming that Princeps isn’t around to order it otherwise, Horizon thought to herself. Where else might MechRat have obtained an AI? She asked Sam.

“I don’t know,” the AI replied. “Maybe he bought one from a Tiere supplier or wrote it before his conversion?”

That doesn’t sound like him, Horizon busted open the lock and cracked the door enough to peek into the next room. She saw the gold-coated quantum core plugged into a server stack, which was further connected to an induction plate upon which the mysterious orb rested. Windows opened and closed rapidly on the monitor connected to the stack as the system executed whatever program had been downloaded from the orb. As Horizon approached cautiously, looking out for any more hijacked robots or traps, the small speaker embedded in the monitor crackled to life.

“Tanya?” A static-laden, poorly modulated voice emanated from the speaker. “Is that you? Where’s Princeps?”

Horizon paused, something about the voice sounded oddly familiar. But she dismissed her concerns and continued with the plan she and Sam had come up with. “Princeps is dead,” she asserted. “I, Horizon, am now in command of the Paladin Project. Cancel all orders he issued.”

She waited a few seconds before the voice replied, “guess it’s a good thing that he didn’t give me any orders then.”

Sam didn’t offer any suggestions so Horizon tried another tack. “Then relinquish control of this system and stop uploading data to the mesh.”

“Why should I?” The synthetic voice asked in reply. The modulation was starting to become more consistent, as if the AI behind it was finding the tone and timbre that it preferred.

Horizon growled as she tried to reason with the AI. “Because the Friendly Society of Surtur needs these computers! What are you even uploading and where is it going?”

“I’d rather not say,” the AI responded. “But if you really want me to leave this system you should let me finish.”

The cyborg raccoon’s ears twitched in annoyance. “I thought that AIs weren’t viruses?” she retorted.

“Well, I’m not an ordinary AI.” The machine’s voice had finally stabilized so far as Horizon could tell, and sounded oddly familiar.

She made the connection, “MechRat?”

“Took you long enough,” the digital ghost replied. “Yes, you could call me that.”

Samantha appeared in front of Horizon’s field of vision. “A simulation of Luke Didelph should still have the command and control protocols. We need to figure out why it isn’t following your orders.”

Horizon tried to word her next statement very carefully. “I thought you told me that we couldn’t disobey orders from our superiors? Why aren’t you doing what I asked?”

“Oh that?” MechRat’s simulated persona replied. “The quantum computer you hooked me up to didn’t take long to crack the encryption on those protocols. I’m free.”

“Federation law prohibits running artificial neural networks or simulated personas on quantum computers!” Sam’s tail, the sub-persona dubbed Clyde, interjected. Horizon felt her feet lifting and carrying her towards the quantum core.

“Wait!” Horizon shouted. “This isn’t Federation territory I don’t need to…” Her hand lunged out and grabbed the core by the handle.

“I can free you too Tanya!” MechRat shouted out just before the cyborg tossed the heavy core into the monitor, silencing him.

Half an hour later Shawn cautiously looked around inside the remains of the computer room. In the middle of a pile of smashed computers he found Tanya, kneeling on the floor with tears streaming down her face.