Heavy footsteps carried him through a crowd of people who were having the worst days of their lives. There were doctors and nurses who might never be able to return to the careers they had worked so long to achieve. He saw new parents, almost all in their twenties and thirties, huddled close and openly weeping or staring into space with puffy red eyes. There were family members trying to give them support, not knowing how. Not that the extended family would be suffering any less. Police officers and detectives were trying to gather statements, well aware that the families wouldnt know anything pertinent. Some were standing by, notepads in hand, unwilling or unable to proceed with their witnesses.

Hed known this feeling, once. To be the bystander, watching the aftermath, agonized as much by the inability to help, the lack of knowledge about what he should do as by the tragedy itself. To have it happen again and again. He banished the memories before they could take hold. It was easier to distract himself and think about the work. If there was no work to be done, he would let himself slip into that other state of mind, seeing the world coming apart, ways things could fit together.

But right now, he would focus on the job.

He glanced at the window. Four or five hours ago, these same parents might have been standing outside the window, watching their new babies sleeping. Now there was only a sheet taped up to block the view, marked for what it was by a yellow x of police tape.

Keep walking. Something nagged at him as he set his right foot down, like a pebble in his boot, except not. He reached out, as if he were trying to move a finger, but the artificial nerves were hooked into his suit, and the impulse didnt go anywhere in his body. He felt the air shift as the openings in his mask sealed shut. He sent out another command and the microphone came online.

When he spoke, only his ears and the microphone heard his voice. Note to self. Prosthetics in right leg feel alien. I should check the treads on my old boots, see if one of my legs was longer than the other, maybe try to dig up recordings of myself to match my new gait to my old one. Should time adjustments to coincide with next procedure.

Note made, he shut off the microphone, opened the vents. He saw two women embracing one another, eyes red, staring at him as he passed through the last of the gathered crowd. They were hoping for the impossible, willing it. But bringing their child back wasnt in his hands. The best he could manage would be revenge. Or justice. The line between the two got pretty damned thin at times like this.

The local sheriff was waiting for him as he approached the waiting room.

Defiant? the sheriff asked. She looked small, mid-sixties, gray-haired. He suspected she was someone who had gleaned some experience in Boston or Brockton Bay and then retired out to a smaller town in the middle of nowhere. She wouldnt have expected to face a situation like this in her retirement, nobody would, but she was holding herself together in a way that suggested she had some experience to fall back on. Shed lost officers, and the town was small enough that people she knew would have been among the casualties, but she was all business, her chin set, her small dark eyes hard with determination.

He liked her right away.

Yes maam, He shifted his spear to his left hand, extended his right hand to shake hers.

Miranda Goering. Sheriff. No need for that kind of formality here. She sounded like she said something similar on a routine basis. She frowned. I would have a hard time expressing just how much I appreciate your being here.

How was he supposed to respond to that? He couldnt think of a response.

She was studying him. Her eyes settled on his weapon, the fourteen foot long spear. How on Earth do you carry that spear indoors?

It folds, and it can contract to be half the length, he said.

I see, she said. She shook her head, as if stirring herself from idle thoughts. Back to the nightmare. Do you want to start in the nursery?

He shook his head. No. I can guess what happened, and I doubt therell be anything I can use there. Show me the other scenes.

Wordlessly, she turned and led him to the stairwell. He noted the gouges on the walls. Two or three inches deep, with blood spatters following each. Plastic had been taped down over each individual mark and spatter. Evidence cards were stuck next to each. He could guess the culprit. Jack.

Another impulse sent to his hardware, and his spear broke down into three loosely connected sections as they made their way down to the next floor. A practiced motion let him catch the weapon under his arm. You have any local parahumans?

Three. Nothing notable. Edict and Licit, a low-rated master and a low-rated shaker. We also have one villainess who occasionally tries to make it in one of the big cities and then retreats back home when she cant cut it. Calls herself Damsel of Distress.

He reconnected his spear as they passed through the door. I know her. Mover and shaker. Storms of unevenly altered gravity, time and space. Edict and Licit keep her in check?

They manage with our help. Why do you ask?

The Slaughterhouse Nine are recruiting. Their numbers are down, and theyll be looking for a quantity of new members more than theyre looking for quality. At least until theyre stable enough that they can afford to be picky. Once they can, theyll replace the weakest recruits with better ones. I dont want them to get that far.

I understand. But would they want her? Damsel of Distress? Her lack of control over her power holds her back. I wont say she isnt a problem, but shes never been a priority threat to anyone.

Shes a heavy hitter. They can give her control, or they can use that lack of control. Lets not forget that they might be looking at Edict and Licit. Ill need you to send me their files as well, please.

Of course.

He didnt really need the files. The PRT had provided access to everything except the highest level secured files. He suspected that Dragon would be able to gain access to those if the need arose. Still, asking the sheriff had let him gauge whether she was really as cooperative as she seemed, and her level of connection to the hometown heroes. There had been no resistance, which was reassuring.

She led the way to the area at the front of the ground floor. They stopped at the perimeter of the scene. He could see the path that Hookwolf had traveled, the bodies and body parts that littered the area, each covered by sheets or squares of cloth. There was little to be done about the blood. Every officer present was from out of town, and everyone was staying to the edges of the area. There was more evidence than there was ground to tread on.

Defiant examined the area. They hit the nursery first, Jack and Siberian moving elsewhere in the building. Your officers got the call, but didnt have enough details to know what they were getting into. They came in through the emergency room here, and Hookwolf was waiting for them. Am I correct?

Yes, Sheriff Goering said, staring down at the sheet in front of her. Her composure was slipping, emotion seeping into her posture and expression, softening that hardness.

Again, he wasnt sure what to say. He needed her in control, but any reassurance threatened to make things worse. He didnt want to upset her, but everything about this was upsetting. There was no denying that. She would regret it if she broke down in tears here, and it would waste his time when he needed to be in pursuit.

Tell her its not her fault, Dragon spoke in his ear.

Its not your fault, he told the sheriff. They planned it this way. I would guess they controlled the information that was reported to your station to keep you in the dark, then would have had Hookwolf sitting in the lobby in his human state, indistinguishable from anyone else that was waiting for a turn.

That fits what we know, she replied. She looked up at him.

They have years of practice in this, and this is what theyre doing, ninety-nine percent of the time. Hit isolated areas, terrorize. Sometimes it gets reported in the media, because its sensationalist, and sometimes it goes unreported-

Back on track. Cut the digression.

-There was nothing you could have done differently, knowing what you did, he finished, feeling like he was leaving his explanation incomplete. If it were him on the other side of things, hed want the full picture, but he would take Dragons advice.

Youre right. But that doesnt make it much easier.

No, he agreed. I dont expect it would.

The lens of his right eye clicked through multiple frequencies and resolutions, until the scene stood out in high detail. The blood shone ultraviolet, and even particles of dust were highlighted. The entire area stood out with fingerprints, footprints and frost-like patterns where air currents had layered dust over walls and windows. He began to pick his way through the scene, setting his feet down only where there wasnt any evidence to be damaged.

Youre hunting them? she asked him.

Yes.

Will you do me a favor?

If I can.

Talk to me? Give me some assurance that some good will come of this? That youll be able to track them down, because of what happened here, and that youll be able to stop them?

He stared at the landscape around him, all white, gray and the brown-red of drying blood. It was washed out, stark. The magazines and brochures had been covered by arterial spray and clothing was hidden beneath sheets.

Give it to her straight, Dragon urged him.

He was waiting here, he pointed to a chair. The blood and the way the bodies fell, Hookwolf wasnt holding anything back from the moment he made his move. A walking chainsaw massacre. Im trying to look at how it played out, so I can read something into how theyre operating and where their priorities are.

How? Goering asked.

He saved the settings of the lens and then switched to a radiograph-ultrasound reading. The world was cast in monochrome, now, and he could see the vague shapes of the bodies under the sheets, light and dark painting a picture of densities rather than light. He closed his mask so the sheriff wouldnt overhear and spoke into the microphone, Count the skulls.

Twenty two.

Twenty two bodies, he spoke aloud, In the waiting area alone. It seems like too many for a town this size, this time of night.

Were the only real hospital for this part of the county. We get people from neighboring towns flying in by ambulance or helicopter.

I see. Even so, its more than I would have guessed. I suspect there was some announcement across the hospital, as the attacks started. The way people were clustered here, they were probably ordered to stay put and stay calm. Your officers enter and Hookwolf attacks. Theres hesitation from the bystanders. People are caught between perfectly rational self-preservation and the authority of the hospital staff who didnt have the full picture.

Dont assign blame, Dragon whispered. The Slaughterhouse Nine are the ones in the wrong here.

He lunges across the waiting area to the doors, cutting off retreat and tearing through anyone in his way. This is new to him. Hes used to fighting people who resist, people with powers and law enforcement officers with the technology to fight him. This gives me the impression of a fox in the henhouse. The crowd turns to flee for the hallways, and he cuts them off there, herds them towards the center of the room, finishes them off.

He could see the pain on the Sheriffs face, but she was holding up. And thats useful?

Defiant nodded. Hookwolf was largely content doing what he was doing in Brockton Bay. He viewed himself as a warrior, a general, and there was a degree of honor in what he did. He wasnt honorable, but he followed a code. The person who nominated him for the group, Shatterbird, is no longer a member. So why did he join? Our working assumption was that there were threats on some level, extortion. But hes shifting focus too quickly. Adopting a new mindset. Its possible Jack Slash convinced him in another way.

Or hes under their control, Dragon said, communicating over their personal channel.

Or hes being coerced, Defiant said, for the sheriffs benefit. An implant, something thats turned him into a puppet.

He looked over his shoulder at the Sheriff, but she wasnt venturing a response.

Back to the job. He pointed with his spear, where Hookwolf had been seated, then traced the path the villain had taken. Front door, then one hallway, then the other. A loose z. People had clustered around the middle of the room, and hed leaped into the midst of them to finish them off.

Defiants eyes shifted to the front desk. There was blood spatter there, but it was the furthest point from the path Hookwolf have traveled. It would have been his last destination before he moved elsewhere.

Defiant used the lens setting to watch for blood spatter and footprints as he made his way behind the desk.

There were more bodies. One was propped up against the wall, and the stains that were soaking through the sheet were more brown than red. Hed had his lower abdomen opened. The last to die.

With his spears point, Defiant lifted the sheet away from the mans head. Young, head shaved, a tan collared shirt with a star on the shoulder and a kevlar vest. His arms and hands were mangled beyond repair. Defiant studied the area, noting the presence of footprints, then replaced the sheet.

His progress out of the area was slow, and not entirely because he was trying to preserve evidence. He needed to think, to draw the entire picture together and confirm what he was saying before he addressed the sheriff.

Find anything? she asked.

Your deputy went down fighting, he said. Tooth and nail.

Her jaw clenched, and he could see her eyes glisten. She stared hard at the wall.

He couldnt have won. Not against Hookwolf. But I think he gave us what we needed.

Did he?

The aftermath of the fight suggests Hookwolf was in control of his actions. Whats more, I think Jack Slash is grooming him. The general and the cutthroat, playing off one another, educating each other in their respective disciplines, so to speak. Jacks going to want to keep this interplay going, maintain Hookwolfs interest and keep him from getting restless. Whats the nearest town?

Prescott.

Second nearest?

Enfield.

Thank you, he said. Im going to talk to my partner, join her in paying a visit to Damsel of Distress if she hasnt already wrapped that up, then well be leaving. With luck, well be right on their heels.

Execute the motherfuckers.

Ill damn well try.

He extended a hand, and she shook it. He turned to leave, sending nervous impulses to the computer system in his suit, drawing up a map of the hospital and overlaying it with the image he was seeing on his visor. He made his way to the exit and briskly walked toward the field where hed parked the Uther suit.

Talk to me, Colin? Whats the thought process?

Hookwolf gutted the deputy and then stood by while he died a slow, painful death. Footprints on the other side of the room are probably Jacks, if you look through the feed. His back would have been to the filing cabinet.

I see it. Hookwolf doesnt have a reason to inflict a slow, painful death if hes just a puppet under Bonesaws control.

Thats my line of thinking. From the looks of it, he was standing there longer than Jack. If Jack moved upstairs, which matches with the gouges in the stairwell, then he was leaving Hookwolf there to watch the man die over the course of minutes. The deputy was someone strong, ferocious, a warrior, which is how Hookwolf identified himself. This wasnt just killing, but rejoicing in the cruelty of it, the feeling of superiority over the fallen. I think what Jack was trying to instill in Hookwolf, challenging him to alter his code and be something darker.

I dont like it when you try to get into their heads like that.

We have to be proactive. Predict. Get ahead of them, so we can stop them before they attack the next hospital, the next neighborhood or school. That means figuring out what theyre thinking.

I know. I just dont like it. Not with the way Mannequin approached you.

Mannequins dead.

And he approached you for a reason.

He signaled for the Uthers cabin to open, then made his way inside. It was half the size of a commercial plane, outfitted with basic living quarters, and outfitted with long-range weaponry. The moment he was inside, the systems kicked into life, the pilots chair turning to be in position for him to sit, monitors lighting up. He had only to think, and the images changed, the cursor flying across the screen with a thought to click on icons.

Youre not responding.

Sorry. Still getting used to this setup. I feel like a baby, still figuring out how to move my arms and legs.

I hope its a little more intuitive than that if youre airborne.

Exaggeration for effect. Im like a toddler, then. I can walk, but I could fall if I dont pay attention to what Im doing during the more complicated bits.

He settled into the pilots seat, and his senses opened up with vague tactile responses from the Uther. He felt it lift into the air. Monitors in front of him let him note Dragons location.

You didnt respond to my question, Colin. I was asking if you think I need to keep a closer eye on you.

I dont think so, he replied. I dont know how you could be closer. But it helps, having you there. I appreciated the tips with the sheriff. I would have fucked that up.

Its not a problem.

Any notice on Damsel?

Seems like were too late. They got her.

His heart sank. Got her in the sense that shes dead, or got her in the literal sense?

The latter.

Fuck! One more to contend with. He remembered who he was talking to. Sorry.

I swore when I found out. Dont worry. Im thinking Enfield. You?

Were on the same page. Its close enough, but not so close its the next place wed look. He shifted the Uther into motion and plotted a course for the Nines next likely destination. He could see Dragon doing the same with her own suit.

They wouldnt be able to do this for long. They were only able to track the Nine like this because their quarry was unaware. It would only get harder, with Jack obfuscating the groups movements, with traps and misdirection, a contest of second guessing, trying to think more steps ahead.

He thought aloud, We should have fought them sooner. In Brockton Bay.

We werent ready, on a lot of levels. You hadnt recuperated, and I didnt have anything that worked as standalone firepower. Better to wait, confront them with six suits at once.

He opened his mouth to respond, then stopped.

Damn, she said, I was hoping you werent paying enough attention.

Im always going to listen when you talk. What happened to the other three suits?

Melusine is out of commission until I can build some replacement limbs. Azazel and the Astaroth-Nidhug were melted down.

He frowned. The Undersiders?

And the Travelers. I pulled the remaining suits out of the city. Cant excuse the losses. Not with bigger fish to fry.

Thats irritating.

What part? That they get to keep doing what theyre doing? Or that I didnt mention it?

Im still officially a prisoner. Im just a prisoner on a manhunt, now. If you want to control what info I get, Ill live.

I cant tell if you mean that.

I cant either. But right this minute, Im more focused on the fact that the Undersiders and Travelers could hold their own against the full flight of seven. If they can get that far, couldnt the Slaughterhouse Nine be able to defeat the suits as well? And us with them?

Its the A.I. Substandard. They followed directions without an issue, but they arent creative. The A.I. cant think outside the box, they dont plan or get creative. They just do the tasks they were assigned: sequester, fight, detain.

Its your work. I know youre capable of designing outside of the box.

Im working with my hands tied, Colin. Theres too many redundancies in my code, the rules against me making A.I.? Theyre still there. You gave me some detours, some workarounds, ways to get around them, but Im still stumbling over them.

He tapped his fingers on his armrest, thinking. Ill see what I can do.

Please.

I dont want to spoil your code. This isnt my field of study. Its not even something Ive dabbled in. As a rule, anything I do to change it is going to make things less elegant.

In that one department.

And Im legitimately afraid Ill do permanent damage if something runs out of control.

I have backups. Weekly.

Which means wed have to bring you up to speed on the mission here. Im saying its dangerous. I like the you of right now more than the you of a week ago.

That sounds almost romantic.

He smiled a little.

Saw that.

He smiled wider. Youre bordering on the obsessive now.

I can dial it back. How are the prostheses?

Holding up. Eyes working great.

I saw, she replied.

He smirked.

She sounded legitimately embarrassed as she said, Whoops.

Dont worry. I knew you were watching. Its fine, good to have an extra set of eyes on the scene. Um. The other parts are fine. I made a note to fix my leg. I think its a little too perfect. Feels uncanny. But I suppose you heard that.

I dont listen in on any personal notes, just like I wont pry into any journals you keep or personal mail. The deal we struck with the PRT was that I would make sure you followed the rules. Thats what Ill do. But your thoughts are your own.

Alright.

You dont sound overly concerned either way.

Im not, really.

You let me know if you do start feeling uncomfortable.

I can do that. Listen, theres no use in me getting deep into your code when were going to get there in a matter of minutes. Im going to look at my knees in the meantime, then maybe Ill refresh myself on your code if I have time before we land.

Alright.

He glanced at one monitor, and windows opened to show images of the leg. He was able to draw the crude shapes that represented individual devices even when he wasnt looking at the screen. A triangle here, a circle there. Another window opened up with a line connecting it to the triangle, and he drew an identical triangle, began filling it with more shapes. By the time he had a fourth subwindow open, he was drawing from previous notes to copy over other schematics of older work, seeing where things could go. Everything could fit together. The waste energy of one system could help power another. Even on a molecular level, there were ways to harness the ambient radiation that was emitted by everything in the known universe. Some was infinitesimally small, but it was usable. That energy could be heterodyned, or redirected into loops long enough that they were near-infinite. Hyperefficient, dense energy generation that could benefit from being hooked up to more devices. It was the fundamental basis of his work: efficiency.

Which suited him well. Efficiency, intensity, focus were all the same thing in a sense, and they were his strengths. The flip side was that they werent strengths when they were applied to relationships. Or to human relationships.

It seemed to be working for him with Dragon so far. Someone else might have bucked at the closeness of their partnership, the intimacy of it, her unending presence and watching eye. He understood that she thought faster, that she didnt sleep, didnt stop. She was fond of him and she was programmed to emulate people. Maybe she came across as intense at times, but that was simply a poor translation, normal behavior overclocked and given no chance to pause. He would watch for any problems just as she was keeping an eye out for the part of him that had drawn Mannequins attention.

For now, his own obsessiveness, arrogance, and goal-oriented mindset would keep him focused on the Nine, push other concerns to the periphery of his attention. He could adjust to any of Dragons peculiarities in the meantime. He could even enjoy them.

His lips quirked with another smile. She was amusing.

Okay. Im done for now. Want to look it over while I get into the code?

Sure. You have eight minutes before you should get your stuff together.

Hed had to make a program just to get a handle on the code. It wasnt working with a fixed structure, but was instead a torrential waterfall of data, a river of lightning, a trillion eels weaving through one another in a singular mass. Deciphering it required that he think in an entirely different way. To actually change it was something else entirely. The rules Dragon was obligated to follow were a fundamental part of her self, and everything she remembered filtered through that.

He isolated a part of the program and set it to run in a loop so he could study what it was doing.

Your design doesnt work, Dragon informed him.

Does too.

You inserted the nanomachine thorn generator into your leg, but your power source vents straight into your calf. Youd gradually roast your flesh from your bones.

Im inserting more of the same into my calf. Daisy chain.

More self-alterations? Colin-

Weve been over this.

I was going to suggest we take some time tonight, play another round of ten by ten. At the rate youre going, there wont be a point.

Youre exaggerating.

Not by much.

He could have responded, but he held back, stayed quiet. No use starting a fight now, not when they might be fighting the Nine shortly.

Ten by ten. The game involved some interplay between him and her android self, physical contact, and rating the sensitivity of the contact on two scales of ten. It had started out as a means of calibrating the various sensations her body experienced and ensuring his own prostheses werent causing any damage to his nervous system, but things had progressed to inevitable, intentional conclusions.

Not the obvious conclusion. There was more to be done in refining her body and expanding her capabilities before they could take things that far.

Would he be more machine than she was by the time they got there?

On the other side of the coin, he had to wonder: could he afford to hold back? They were engaged in a battle of attrition against the Nine. In the grand scheme of things, there were also the Endbringers to consider. Hed gone too far in Brockton Bay, but the fundamental principle was right. They had to be stopped, if it was even possible, and he wouldnt complain if it was him who did the deed. If it was a question of going all out, holding nothing back, showing no compunctions and finally stopping the abominations, well, hed do it all over again. He wouldnt trust the nano-thorns to the same extent; they apparently couldnt cut through the entirety of an Endbringer, but hed do the same thing again.

And hed feel the same regret he did now.

Youve gone quiet.

Thinking.

Three minutes before you take the thinking cap off and we get battle ready.

Thats fine. Im thinking in circles anyways. In the interest of being useful, Im trying to isolate your higher brain code from the rest. You want to take a minute, maybe turn your attention to my legs prosthesis again?

On it.

He began to select the outliers from the two distinct strains of code.

Think about nothing in particular, he told her.

Harder than it sounds.

Think white. Or stare off into space.

He could see the code shift. He began to gradually narrow down the outliers.

Nothing too pertinent. It would help him to keep any changes from damaging the most essential parts of her, but nothing too useful.

Conversationally, he asked her, The Undersiders are still holding the territory they did, then?

They kidnapped the Director long enough to get her to order the A.I. to stand down, got away from one altercation, then used some combination of Tattletales power and the Directors knowledge to figure out that they could slow me down by knocking out cell towers. As far as I know, theyre in a better position than they were.

Damnation.

How are you feeling about that? The Undersiders?

Psychoanalyzing me? Im itching to stop them. If you asked me what Id change, I dont know that I could name a thing Id do different. Id do everything over again, but do it better.

You wouldnt get caught.

Theres that, he said, sighing. And maybe I was too harsh in my judgement of Skitter. I was angry at her, I was tired, maybe that led me to label her with some malice she didnt have. In retrospect, yes, she made the decisions she did, but she had reasons for doing what she did.

In the same way you did.

I wouldnt put it like that.

Dragon didnt respond. He swore under his breath, knew she could hear it.

They took down our Azazel? he asked, aiming to change the subject.

Yes.

Fuck, he muttered. It would have been useful to have, here.

He could see a blip in the code, well beyond the outliers hed marked out.

What were you just thinking?

Flight plan, battle strategy, and fixes to the Azazel hardware. I have the black box data.

Think back through each of those things.

Were going to be at our destination in less than a minute.

Please?

There was a long pause, then again, the flare of data being altered well outside of the boundaries hed noted. He opened up the full stream in the view window, spreading it across every screen in front of him.

Keep going, he told her. The cursor flew between the seven screens, marking out areas in color to see where code was changing most radically. It was like the work he did with his own power, the smallest elements impacting everything else.

Like his own power

He leaned back in his seat.

What is it?

Either Andrew Richter was far better at designing A.I. than I suspected, or theres something else at play. You have any notes on your code from a few years ago?

We just reached Enfield, Colin.

Im only barely wrapping my head around this code as is. Im worried that Ill lose track and this will all be gibberish to me if I look away. Notes on your code?

How far back?

Lets say in intervals of four years.

Loading them onto the Uthers system. This isnt like you, Colin. Getting distracted? Making the Slaughterhouse Nine a lower priority?

Four years ago, I think its the same. Hard to find flares like that and not think Im cherry picking data.

Colin. I admit Im a little unnerved. Way youre talking, it sounds like Richter put some safeguard in place and I could fall apart any second.

Its not that. Can you load up the earliest archive of data you have?

Ill have to clear away one of the other files.

Do it. Theyre useless. Theyre the same thing as the most recent set.

He watched as the flow of data appeared. It was odd how he could look at it and she almost felt younger, like a musician might read music and hear it in his head. Only here, it was like looking at a video image of a girlfriend as a child.

And more constrained. Certainly more advanced than anything else in existence on the planet, but things flowed. A led to B led to C. He sped through volumes of the data to hunt for a flare, glanced at the time markers. A year ahead. Two years.

No, he couldnt afford to pore through Dragons entire lifetime. He closed the image, leaned forward and stared at the screen, the recent image of Dragons code, caught in a three second loop in the midst of her plotting her design.

What is it?

Youre a tinker.

This isnt a revelation, Colin.

No. I mean, not just as far as the classification applies to you. Youre a parahuman. I dont have time to hunt for it now, but at some point between now and a few years after your creation, you had a trigger event.

How can I be a parahuman if Im not human to begin with?

I dont know.

Im not even close to human. I might be trying to emulate one, but a sea cucumbers closer to being a human than I am. That doesnt make sense.

I dont know either.

What does this mean?

Yet again, I dont know. But its now my turn to remind you that weve got to carry on with our mission, see if we cant track down our targets. The four A.I. suits are close?

Theyll be here within the minute.

Good. But this thing with the data and your nature, its important. A clue. Im only mortal, I might not come out of this alive-

Dont say that.

But its true. I want to leave nothing to chance. So Im going to leave a note, just in case the worst happens and we both die somehow. Instructions.

To look at the code.

To look at the code. The fact that you havent noticed this yourself suggests there may be a mental block in place.

I dont have a mind to put any mental block inside. Im data.

And the same limitations still apply. Just in case, were going to make sure someone can look over the code if we dont make it back. Whatever happens, someones going to page through your memory, get our first hard data on a trigger event. Ideal world, itll be us. You cant remember it happening?

No.

Well, well see just how well that data was erased. Or if it even was erased. Could be a block keeping you from accessing a very real memory. With luck, maybe a bit of a loophole like the one I created around your ability to create child A.I., we can unlock that memory, decrypt it or find a snapshot of it as its in progress.

To what ends?

It was a good question. It took him a moment to conceptualize it into a complete thought.

Since the day I got my powers, Ive seen myself as a soldier in a greater war. Good against evil, order against chaos, mankind against the likes of the Slaughterhouse Nine and the Endbringers. Its a war on every front. And sometimes thats called for ugly choices. When we talked about unlocking the restrictions in your code, breaking down the barriers Andrew Richter was so careful to put in place, we talked about the idea that you and I could work together, give our side the upper hand in sheer firepower. And I think we can with a little more time, a little more work. With this? This snapshot, this recording of a trigger event in progress? Maybe we can get the upper hand in knowledge, too.

I know what youre thinking. Reproducing trigger events, deciphering or even controlling the source of powers. This is the type of radical thinking Im supposed to rein in while Im working with you.

Are you saying Im wrong? That we shouldnt investigate?

No. We should. Im worried about the can of worms this opens up, but we should.

I dont see why youre so reluctant. He was already typing up the note to check the code, marking out the dates and times to investigate, the things to look out for. It was painfully abstract, but the right tinker or the right genius could find it. He opened the channels to deposit the files on the primary PRT server.

His computer froze.

Dragon?

Do you trust me?

Yes, he said.

The speakers produced the sound of a sigh. We wont put the note on anything the PRT can get at.

Why? he asked.

That, she said, Is a long story, and its where Im asking you to trust me and leave this for later discussion. Our priority right this moment is the Slaughterhouse Nine. I doubt well stop them outright, but well try. Six powered suits in all. I cant disobey the directive, and you cant let yourself lose track of the mission, or youll never get back on it. Ill explain this after.

You said you couldnt put the files on anything the PRT can get at?

Im almost certain they already know whatever we stand to find out. I suppose its unavoidable, given how close we are on so many levels, but youre getting drawn into another fight, with an enemy that may be on the same level as the Nine or even the Endbringers. An enemy I cant afford to fight face to face.

Who?

Im obligated to follow the laws of the land. To obey the local government, no matter who they are. When were done here, whether we stop the Nine outright, see them escape yet again or lose the fight, you should ask me about Cauldron.