One of the psychiatrists at the hospital was acting suspiciously. He'd been called in when one of the patients that had arrived the day after Root's visit had overdosed himself in a suicide attempt. Whenever he was around her, the psychiatrist Dr Nathan Greene kept darting glances at her, and acting oddly. Shaw thought that he was probably a Decima operative, but he wasn't quite sure if she was actually Shaw.

Shaw bluejacked his phone, hoping that any communication he made with Greer would give her a head start when she had to make a run for it. Only the fact that she knew Decima would come down on her like a ton of bricks if she did anything more unusual stopped her from killing him then and there.

He didn't make contact with Decima, though. His messages were exactly the kind of thing she would expect an ordinary person to have.

However, when Greene came back the next day to tell her how the patient was doing (something that he really didn't have to do) and acted in the same way, Shaw began to suspect that Greene had been told to keep tabs on her rather than try and take her out. The only reason she could come with that Greer wouldn't try to have her killed immediately was because she might lead him to Root. Given that Root had managed to pull the cyber wool over Samaritan's eyes, Shaw suspected that Greer would do a lot to get his hands on her.

After he left, Greene got a message from someone bearing the enigmatic title of 'G'. It could be Greer, giving him instructions. The message said "Did you ask her out?"

So. Code. Shaw doubted that it was anything good. She should neutralise Greene before he could do alert Greer to… well, anything.

Then she saw Greene was making a response. "Come on, Gary. I met her yesterday. I've barely spoken ten words to her. I doubt she'd appreciate it if I told her 'I want your body'."

Shaw rolled her eyes. Greene wasn't Decima at all. He just fancied her. She was really getting paranoid. On the other hand, the government and Decima were actually out to get her, so maybe she was just being realistic.

Shaw didn't want to get into a relationship, not even a casual one. In order to keep her cover, she shouldn't form any attachments. Admittedly, for her, not forming attachments was easy enough, but relationships were a bad idea.

On the other hand, Decima would be catch up to her eventually. She was mildly surprised that they hadn't turned up already. She might be able to use Greene to get out of the hospital safely, if Decima came for here. At the very least she could hide in his office. Besides, if she was friendly with people they would be less likely to betray her.

So, when Greene came by the following day for no particular reason and asked her out to coffee, Shaw said yes.

Shaw wasn't early, she was sure, but she still arrived at the designated café before Greene. She made her way to a nearby table, but a brunette appeared out of nowhere, grabbed her arm and steered her to a different table.

"So, I've got bad news and worse news." Root said, sitting opposite Shaw. "Which do you want to hear first?"

Shaw rolled her eyes. "It's good to see you too, Root."

Root smiled briefly. "Hello, Sameen. We don't have time for pleasantries. Let's skip them. There, are your sensibilities soothed now?"

Shaw nodded. She wasn't a fan of pleasantries anyway. "What's up with the table switch?"

"We're away from prying eyes." Root answered. She smiled genuinely this time. "I stole something from the Decima playbook. Samaritan can't hear or see us here. We can talk freely."

"Okay then." Shaw said. "I'll take the bad news first."

"Hersh is dead. Sorry."

Shaw nodded again. "I guessed as much. The Vigilance bomb?"

"Yes." Root replied. "I'm sorry."

"He could've been useful." Shaw said. "Okay, so what's the worse news?"

"Samaritan is running a three-month diagnostic program that will find and remove everything I did to keep us safe." Root said gravely.

Shaw sat perfectly still for a few seconds. "How do you know?"

Root shrugged. "I asked a few Decima agents."

"How'd you get them to talk to you without throwing themselves off of a building?" Shaw asked curiously.

"I was very persuasive." Root said, looking at Shaw intently.

It took Shaw a couple of seconds to understand what Root was talking about. It wasn't like she was unexperienced with that kind of thing, from either side. "Fair enough." Shaw replied. "So we've got three months to find a way to shut down Samaritan."

Root shook her head. "No. Three months since it came online. We have less than two months now."

It was Shaw's turn to shrug. "Oh well. I'm kind of surprised that Decima hasn't found me already. They know I trained to be a physician. If I was Greer, I'd hunt through every hospital in the city."

Root smiled wryly. "What do you take me for, Sameen? Do you really think that I'd just let us disappear without a trace? The same program that keeps our new identities of the radar shows us, the real us, splitting up and getting out of the country. You're supposed to be in Iraq, for example."

"So Decima isn't looking for us then?" Shaw said. Then she saw Root's expression, and added "What? You're looking at me like I'm an idiot. What is it?"

"You're not an idiot, Sameen." Root said gently. "But neither is Greer. He knows us. He knows we wouldn't just leave without a fight. That's why Samaritan is running its diagnostic. He suspects that we did something to it. He doesn't know where we are, but that doesn't mean that he's not looking."

Shaw leaned forward. "Tell me you have a plan, Root. You or Harold. Because if I have less than two months to live, I'm sure as hell not going to spend it as some civilian."

Root didn't answer. She just stood up and said "Your date will be here in a moment. Ironic, isn't it, that the psychiatrist is attracted to the sociopath?"

Root left, and Shaw said to herself "There's nothing wrong with being a sociopath. Besides, you're at least as sociopathic as I am." Shaw scowled. "Now I'm talking to myself. That woman is really annoying."

Nathan slid into the chair opposite her. "Hello."

Later, when Shaw was at home, she tried to come up with as many ways as she could to take down Samaritan. She did the same thing every night, on the off-chance that she came up with a new idea.

She knew lots of… unsavoury people who would be willing to do a job, any job, for money. Reese probably knew a few more, and Root definitely had a few contacts. If Root or Harold could come with some kind of program to locate all the Samaritan facilities, it was possible that they could blow all of them up at once. The trouble was, an operation like that would undoubtedly take more than two months to complete, and Shaw wasn't keen on the idea of posthumous revenge.

Sadly, that was the best that she could come up with. Hopefully one of the others could do better.