Walking behind Rabi, I take stock of my situation. We're heading from the dock down through the thoroughfare, ending at the precinct. Essentially, in the middle of the main ring. Brent's heading for the brig, which is in the core, along the axis. Pretty much as far as you can get from any two points on the station. I feel a few beads of sweat roll down my neck as I run the route in my overlay, seeing the path in silver. Hmm, getting there, processing Sparrow, back to the dock, then to the forensics lab at the precinct... If he moves fast, he'll be maybe ten minutes behind me. The walk to forensics isn't long.

  I know, deep down, this is stupid. I should wait for backup, for Brent. Hell, I should be running up and down the station warning everyone to rip the implants out of their brains while they still can. Even if it means she might get away.

  But Rabi is right about one thing. I have to know. I do know my flaws, Ashton. Like I said, one of them is not being able to let things go. Maybe not the worst flaw for a cop. Maybe curiosity is about to kill the cat. But I need to know what's happening with Communion. The only way I'll be able to move on is if I know it's dead, that all trace of it is wiped out. And deep down, part of me does need to know why she's done all of this.

  Maybe I'm weak, for needing a reason. I'll admit it, maybe that's another flaw; I just have to know. But then, there's nothing to say that I can't smash Rabi's head open with a spanner if I don't like what I learn. That thought keeps my heart beating with a steady rhythm.

  For perhaps a minute, Captain Gupta and I walk in silence. Rabi seems perfectly content not to speak, for once. I take precautions first, not that I expect them to do much good. I throw the best firewalls I have up between my nodes, I slip on a max-rated filter, and my secondary node is running an emulation to protect my primary from hostile inputs. I desync my implants; my tertiary node isn't even on. I can't think of what else I could do.

  Finally, I shake my head. "So, while we walk, can we talk?"

  Rabi begins skipping as she speaks. "We're talking right now, silly."

  I roll my eyes. "Fine... so, what's the plan with the navy frigate? You're gonna tell me that one of your dozen IDs is like a rear admiral or something, right?"

  Rabi laughs at that. "Oh no. Too stodgy for me. I don't fit in with the military," she says with a grin.

  You don't say. "Well, what, you called them to get them to quarantine the station? So Communion doesn't get out?"

  “Oh, no need for that,” she says, and I see the nest of silver in her skull brighten, white spike of the network hub glowing in my overlay. The threads thrash as she shakes her head. "Communion wouldn't leave until it's complete, Melody. It's not a mindless worm, it knows and seeks itself." She looks over her shoulder at me. "Really, try to think. I'll be disappointed in you if I have to spell it all out," she says disapprovingly.

  I growl in the back of my throat, but I do think. Because I'll be damned if this vacuum-sucking wirehead nutcase is going to lord it over me. Cause and effect, Mel. See what happened, see who benefits. Then work back to how they did it. "Wintz was infected by the datachip I gave you. She got infected analyzing the Andromeda signal, and Communion bloomed inside her while Cartwright was dealing with his Gaian League problem. This helped you, but… you couldn't have known in advance... you'd have to have known that I'd get Lemming's data, and his case... which was assigned by Cartwright..."

  "Almost there," she calls back, her tone encouraging.

  My mouth hangs open. No way. "Wait... you? You're the one who initially logged the Missing Entity case? Who reported Lemming missing?"

  "That's our girl! You did it!" She claps as she turns down the thoroughfare, drawing a few glances from strangers walking past.

  My skin feels clammy. It can't be. My palms are sweaty. "You wanted me to find Communion all along! To spread it..." I say, gulping. I was dancing on your strings from the start. "You wanted me to be some kind of malware Typhoid Mary!" I hiss through clenched teeth.

  I get only a giggle in reply. "Well, really Melody, would you have preferred not knowing Communion was here at all while it grew up in the array?"

  My fury turns to icy fear at that. A shiver runs down my spine as I look up, at the sight of Jupiter spinning overhead. Thinking of all the Jovian stations within range of Ursa Miner, so close to an apocalypse they know nothing about. Ignorance isn't bliss at all. "Ok... so, you figured we'd separate the array to blow Communion to hell: that would split the larger, more mature piece of Communion off. Helpless as long as nobody pokes it; it's not going anywhere..." I play the thought out, chewing my tongue. "But the less mature piece is growing up and wants to Commune..."

  Rabi nods. "Yup yup! All correct so far..."

  So you call the Navy, but why? I rub my temple, thinking about the chain of events. "What did you tell them?” I ask her.

  ”What, indeed? Take a guess Melody, I’ll give you a cookie if you’re right,” she teases.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I crack the knuckles on one hand. Soon. “Alright, you blew the whistle on yourself? You let them know about the big bad abomination on board? You wanted them to shoot out our comms, and the quarantine means that the frigate will blow any ship to hell if it tries to disembark from the station and leave Europa's orbit. You want to keep Brent from transmitting the signal to blow the array and to keep the proto-Communion in Wintz from leaving or transmitting; from communing with her big brother in the array. An unstable equilibrium that you control."

  Holy shit. You had the endgame planned out before I even left Luna, didn't you? You saw how we'd all move, and made us dance like puppets. You sick freak.

  "Close, but no cookie for you," she pouts, shaking her head as we approach the building. I haven't been in the forensics lab before. It’s located next to the precinct, attached but partially separate. Like a parasite hanging off the back of the simple block, now that I think about it. Probably to bring the bodies in through the back, out of sight. Or maybe because the power station is that direction and the lab draws juice from a direct pipeline to the station reactor. Regardless, it feels eerily like walking in the back door of my own house.

  The door slides open and Rabi walks into the dimly lit lab. I look around the darkened interior as I follow; no overhead lights, and nothing but a low hum from the center. But in my overlay, there are so many branching and intertwined threads of silver merging and melding that it looks like the lab is shrouded and roped in lace. I can't make sense of any of it; it's overwhelming, and I'm forced to dim my overlay.

  I blink in the darkness. In meat-vision, It's about the size of any machine lab, but far more advanced. Rabi must have brought or fabbed lots of custom tech over the months while she waited for my arrival. Hardware I've never used, and some I've never even seen, covers most of the walls and table-space. A few intricate pieces stand out because I have no idea what they are or what they do. There are far too many articulated arms with exotic, pointy attachments. Alright, as far as mad scientist lairs go, I'll begrudgingly give her credit.

  I swallow, feeling the tension building in the air. "Yeah? No cookie? Well, want to tell me how I did and what I missed?" I ask, stepping cautiously into the room, looking around for weapons. There's nothing obvious, but any one of these strange devices could be a lethal instrument.

  Rabi giggles, raising a hand and waffling it. "I give you a solid B overall, Melody," she says with a trace of disappointment. "I had to hold your hand a little, and you missed some bits, but overall you pass. But let’s not get hung up on that, let's watch the show!" She points, and a large display on the wall illuminates, the floor to ceiling screen displaying an exonet connection. "I'd link with you and share it mind-to-mind, but some things are better experienced in the flesh," she says, winking.

  Nausea sweeps me, and I'm about to respond with something acerbic, when the display shifts, rolling to show a live camera view of the Tachi array. It must be from one of the exterior dock cameras; I can see Europa hovering in the distance. Wait, is something... I see a plume above the moon. Yes, something is accelerating from low orbit? Wait, I've seen that craft before. The station shuttle! "That's the shuttle Cartwright and Rusteater took to the lunar surface... I thought Rusteater sabotaged it!"

  The Captain laughs at that, shaking her head. "No silly. Why would he sabotage his only ride off Europa? I coded it in advance as part of the flight package. It's a pretty simple macro; shut down the engines and computers once on the moon. Remain shut down until its comm relay receives the naval quarantine command, then reactivate and return to the station on autopilot. Easy as pie!"

  I roll my eyes at that. "Yeah, I'm sure any script kid could write it, but why?"

  She turns and spreads her arms. "It's my ride, of course! You can come with me if you like, but my modelling says there's less than a two percent chance you will."

  "Your modelling still puts the chances too high!" I spit acidly. "Besides, you can't just fly off into the aether. You think the frigate won't fire on the shuttle?"

  Rabi gives me a condescending smirk. “Oh Melody. Please give me a little credit. I’m not going to let some navy flyboys blow me away. But speaking of blowing things away, it’s about time to say goodbye to the Tachi array. Again, a simple timed macro. Easy to program the shuttle to send a detonation signal."

  Before I can ask any follow up questions, the display erupts. I gasp, shielding my face, but no. It's just the picture of the array exploding. The telescope breaches on three sides simultaneously, spraying bulging arcs of plasma like petals in a blue-white flower. The flames in the vacuum seem to slowly unfurl: it’s as if the flower is in bloom. The plasma burns out quickly but brilliantly, and I see shimmering, glittering debris floating away from a few larger beams and structural pieces. A little tension leaves my shoulders.

  "So, it blows up when you want, and not before. Well, it's a good start," I say, shaking my head. Maybe another six or seven minutes until Brent gets here. Gotta keep her talking. I look around as I think deeply.

  The lab is filled with equipment that I've never seen before. Diagnostic tools and scanners and more computing hardware than I’ve seen since the archive on Armstrong station. In the center, connected to complicated bundles of fiberoptic cables and nested between a series of processors, is something that I do recognize. My implant. There's no way to tell if it's my old node specifically, but I know the moment I lay eyes on it. "My augment... you said it retained some of that mature Communion's code? Well, that node was in my head for months. It can't be enough code to bloom on its own," I point out.

  Rabi drifts closer, to the other side of the of the strange hookup. "That's right! But I could fill in the gaps. It gave me enough to reconstruct the rest. But you're still missing the point, so I'll give you a B minus instead. Three of your nodes survived your encounter with Communion. One was replaced at the time of the attack. One is sitting here, active, to draw the immature Communion to it. So when it's gone, the only whisp, the only faint whiff of Communion's code? The only other source to commune with? Is what remains in the final node. The one in your skull. And now? The Communion inside Wintz knows that."

  Rabi smiles and gestures towards the contraption housing my old node. I tense as a sudden surge of power flows through the processors, making the hair rise on my arms. I hear a loud buzz and a snap, and a tiny whisp of smoke lazily rises from the burnt out implant nested within the contraption. Only the wall display and a few lit instruments illuminate me. I pull my fists up in front of me, staring at Rabi's shadowed and smiling face. I'm ready for her, no doubt.

  But I'm not ready for Wintz, who was linked with the node, when she drops from the shadowy recesses of the ceiling, screaming incoherently.