Half an hour later, we made it to my home office without having Gabriel eaten by Jaffar, trampled over by the dogs, or bitten by Stitch. The blue ball of fur was particularly miffed because he'd pulled out his antennas, but the guest still hadn't answered. Apparently, Gabriel's chip wasn't advanced enough to communicate on alien frequencies.

"Quite a zoo you have here," he commented while settling in a large armchair in front of my desk.

"Tell me about it. You should see the pets too. I think there's still a Yetti lodging in the garden." I smirked as I turned on the desktop computer.

Thomas brought in a tray with coffee and placed it on a small table near the armchair. "Is there anything else Your Ladyship requires?"

Behind him, Gabriel raised his eyebrows at me and mouthed the word "Ladyship?"

I ignored him and smiled at Thomas. "Thank you, Thomas. That will be all for now." Then I raised my voice. "Del, you can come in!"

The NS-5 robot shyly peeked in from the doorway. "Are you s-sure you need me in there, Mistress? I don't want to g-get in the way."

"Sure, come in!" I waved a hand at him. "This is Gabriel—"

"I know who he is." Del took two large steps in and made it to the middle of the room where he froze with his metal hands knotted under his chin as he stared at our visitor. "He's gorgeous!" He swooned like a teenager, and his optic eyes glowed brighter. "May I hug him?"

Gabriel looked like he was considering climbing on top of the armchair. Or running. Or both.

"Suddenly regretting we didn't do this at the headquarters?" I teased him.

He gave me a stern look and forced his body to relax. "I was simply taken by surprise, that's all. Will a handshake do?" He held out his hand.

Del took it in both of his and shook it vigorously. "It's such an honor…"

"I'm not sure why … but okay." Gabriel grinned, obviously enjoying to see Del fluster and bat inexistent eyelashes at him.

"Del, Gabriel has a chip in his brain and—"

"I know. It's fascinating. The next step in the human evolution is right here in my office."

Gabriel puffed his chest out at being called the next step in the human evolution then looked questioningly at me. "His office?"

"He's cleaning it." I shrugged my shoulders. "Anyway, Gabriel needs help with the chip, and I was thinking you might like to stick around and help if needed," I told Del.

"Absolutely! I'd love to!" Del clapped his hands, excited.

"Quietly?" I suggested.

"Very quietly. You won't even know I'm here." He went to stand in a corner and watched us from there.

"Well, now that we got this out of the way, how do I get in?" I turned to Gabriel, my fingers itching to run through his short hair and look for that chip. If there was one. There better be, or I would feel really stupid if I let those dimples fool me into believing his delusions. "Is there an entry port or something?"

Gabriel gave Del one suspicious look before answering, "Nothing like that unless you want to open my skull."

"Let's save the bloody parts for last," I said. "Is there another way?"

"You do it the same way I do it. Wirelessly."

"Ah. That makes sense, I guess." I turned the keyboard and the monitor so I could see both Gabriel and the screen at the same time. "Okay, let's see what we have here…" I murmured to myself and launched the net sniffing software. "Can you access my computer?"

Of course I can, the writing appeared on the screen.

I tried not to frown, not exactly thrilled with this development, but the established connection allowed the computer to locate him as well, so that was a good thing. Now how to get in. I tried everything I could think of, but Gabriel's chip remained a locked shell to me.

"I can't get in. How am I supposed to run the diagnosis if I can't get in? You have to let me in," I told Gabriel, getting frustrated with his chip. And him.

"It's not that simple." Gabriel pressed his lips tightly together and thought for a moment. "I can't just let information in. There are several protocols that prevent it. I can retrieve information from any power enabled storage medium, but I can't process it. I do all the data work outside, and then I see a glimpse of the result and my brain memorizes it because there simply isn't any space dedicated to storage on the chip. It's a change from canon, but I learned to work around it."

"So, I can't run any code on the chip. It's only a gateway between your brain and the outside world."

"I'm afraid so. I guess they didn't want to make me too powerful when they cloned me."

Well, that blows. I resisted sighing out loud and instead tapped my fingers on the desk, trying to think of another option.

Gabriel poured himself a coffee.

"Okay, let's exchange data then," I said. "Consider this computer your playground. Run searches on it, do cross references, whatever you want, just don't delete anything. We'll see how it goes…" Maybe if something in the exchange felt off, we could figure out what part of the chip to target next.

"This will take a while, won't it?" Gabriel asked.

"Probably."

"Then unplug everything except for the power cord. Your computer is well protected, but I don't want to take any chances while I'm in there."

"All right." I went behind the desk and removed the handful of wires. "Okay, go." No reaction. "Hello?" I tried again.

"I'm already in, reading the novel you're writing." He grinned. "It needs more tension. Life isn't as pink as you describe it."

"Maybe I'm just able to see bright colors where there isn't any," I said. "Now stop playing and get to work."

"Two more pages. Okay, I'm done."

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the data traffic. When I tried to access the packages, only gibberish appeared on the screen. "This is encrypted."

"What did you except? I don't want anyone to see what I'm looking for."

"Well, there isn't any porn in there so…"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." Gabriel chuckled.

I shook my head and dropped the subject. "The thing is I can't break the encryption on this machine, it's too advanced. Can you turn it off for a while?"

"No, I can't do that." He watched me expectantly as if I held all the answers.

Which I didn't, unfortunately.

"So, we can't get in, we can't break the encryption…" I muttered, staring at the computer, and wondered why I was using the plural when I was the one doing all the work. Not to mention that Gabriel had access to all the information stored in the house. The guys were going to scold me for allowing this to happen. I knew next to nothing about this guy.

"What do you do for living?" I asked him.

"I work for a security company in Havensport. It's bigger than the one your guy works for, and the jobs are higher risk, but nothing like I used to do in canon."

"Any family?"

"No—" Gabriel paused, rubbed his eyes, and continued, "—I live alone. They trust me enough not to give me a handler this time." He forced a grin, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Was that the render module?"

"Yes."

I checked the monitor. "I don't see any change in the traffic."

"The chip keeps working. It's my brain that gets disconnected."

"Ah … I'd like to see what happens during those times. Del, come over here."

Del emerged from his corner and came to stand by the desk. I opened his head and plugged it to the computer. "We have a data flux coming from Gabriel," I told him. "I want you to break the encryption if you can."

"Yes, Mistress."

"What happened to 'Ladyship'?" Gabriel asked.

"Del isn't so much into Royalty. He comes from the future."

Del giggled. "Oh, that tickles."

"Did you just get inside his head?" I turned to Gabriel.

"Yes, but I don't understand any of it."

"I don't either, so please don't break him. I might not be able to fix him if you do."

"Are you kidding? I could catch something in there and have no idea I did." Gabriel shuddered.

"He's virus free as far as I can tell," I said. "His glitches come from faulty connectors and deprecated equipment. Hmm." Now there was a thought. "When did you last have the chip checked?"

"Never?" Gabriel's eyebrows rose on his forehead. His eyes were very green in this light.

"No checkups, updates, upgrades, nothing at all?"

"This technology hasn't been invented yet," Gabriel said. "I couldn't do anything to check it if I wanted to."

And he didn't any of it, that part was clear.

"Encryption broken," Del said.

"Great. Can you do it in real time?" I asked him.

"Now that I know how, yes, I believe I can," Del said. "There will be a 0.000000015 second delay, but I don't think it will matter."

"Good, then check his output and see if you can find a pattern, something that's out of place or missing."

The light in Del's eyes flickered, a sign that he was working on it already.

"Gabriel, please turn the render module on and send out what you see."

While Del worked in silence, Gabriel rose from the armchair and walked around the office.

"That's so pretty." Del sighed. "I've always wanted to go to Greece."

"Greece?" I asked Gabriel.

He pointed at a framed photo displayed on a shelf. "I used that for the render module."

It was a photo taken while on vacation with Demetrius in Greece. The Thessaloniki waterfront spread behind me, bathed in a beautiful sunset. At least I was wearing clothes and not my swimming suit.

"Anything?" I asked Del.

"No, but … there is something off … when he sends out images … they're distorted somehow … the data packages are out of order at times as if something doesn't work right. It's not obvious in the big pictures, but if you look at the pixels, it's there."

That was what I feared. I propped my hip against the edge of the desk and lowered my head. "I'm sorry, the best I can tell you is that there's a problem with the chip. If nothing has changed in the software department, and problems suddenly appear, it's usually a technical problem."

"Can you fix it?"

I had to laugh at Gabriel's naiveté. "I'm not an engineer. I know how to put together a computer, and bigger devices if they come with instructions, but this is where my expertise ends. I don't know how all that works." I gestured to his head.

"I…" Del lifted a finger. "I might be able to fix it. I mean if I can get a look at it … I put Cammie back together, and she's more complex than I am. I promise not to do anything to damage the chip."

I turned my eyes from Del to Gabriel. "I trust him, but I can't guarantee the result. We don't know what we'll find in there. This is your call."

Gabriel cracked his neck. "Well, it doesn't look like I have a choice … So, we have an engineer. Where can we find a doctor to open me up?"

"Dr. Chase is not on call today," Del said. "I'm sure he'd be happy to help. It's his job."

"I don't know … Chase care a lot about his practice license, and I assume you don't want to do this in the hospital?" I asked Gabriel.

"Not a chance."

"I thought so," I muttered and ran a hand through my hair. The gesture made a few locks escape the pins that held them back so I removed the pins completely and dropped them on the desk. "Right. Okay. I'll talk to Chase. But this might take a while. First, I need to convince him, and then we need to put together a sterile room for the surgery."

"I need 1.23 hours for the room," Del said. "I could do it faster, but the delivery guy is too slow, and I don't have all the necessary cleaning products here. Plenty of time for you to talk to Dr. Chase."

"You really want to get your hands on that chip, don't you?" I smiled teasingly at Del.

"Just show him that smile, and the good doctor will agree to anything," Gabriel said.

I frowned at him and muttered, "You obviously don't know Chase. If he liked me any more, he'd run away for the hills, screaming."

A knock on the door announced Thomas's presence and the door opened, but he waited in the doorway. "There's a call for you on the main phone line, Your Ladyship. Your phone is not working."

"My phone?" I reached for my purse only to find it turned off.

"Sorry, that was me," Gabriel said. "I didn't want any interruptions."

Or interferences, it seemed. I glared at him then gasped when I saw the time. "Oh, damn, I had a lunch at—"

"Now you're free to see the doctor."

I seriously considered throwing something to wipe that smug grin off of Gabriel's face. But no, I had a lot of experience with cocky clones, I wouldn't lose my temper that easily.

"Thank you, Thomas. Del, put yourself together. And you—" I turned to Gabriel, "—leave your business card, and we'll let you know when everything's ready. Now everyone get out."

"Yes, ma'am." Gabriel just had to have the last word.

I refused to roll my eyes until he was out of my sight.