The Ghost in the Machine

Elsa took a deep breath, then activated the inbuilt cooling system on her techweave bodysuit. She had shed her bomber jacket and her streetwear pants to lower as much of her body temperature as possible, in addition to sequestering herself away in what was essentially an enlarged icebox. Mist hovered over the floor, pooling in milky white puddles that swirled around her feet.

She was standing in a chilled room, lit with softly blinking blue lights, surrounded by a series of monitors and holo-displays. In front of her was a large and comfortable chair, which she seated herself on while she reached above her head and pulled down a long cord. Next, she plugged that into her neural port by the base of her neck on the left side.

"Okay," Elsa settled in more comfortably and raised her hands to begin interfacing with the displays as she synced into Teng-Lao's local net. "Beginning dive sequence in three... two... one."

Her vision turned black, then seconds later, streaks of light pierced through, shapeless and formless before coalescing into strings of binary code. Before long, her vision cleared and she found herself standing within a boundless field somewhere within the net.

Elsa was a net systems engineer, or more commonly referred to as a netrunner. The net itself was a complex, immaterial realm that existed within the digital space of interconnected communications technologies. In virtually every respect, the net transcended the physical world, allowing people to connect to other people through information highways and hubs. Moreover, so advanced was the technology in 2101, that essentially any device capable of transmitting or receiving a signal was connected to the net, allowing them to be utilized remotely without needing to be physically present. This included people with netware installed inside of their bodies.

There were three levels to the net. The surface net was the most commonly used and most readily accessible through standard holo-displays, monitors, omni-pads, and other physically interactable devices. Below that was the deep net, which could only be accessed by netrunners. The deep net was far more sophisticated and required a direct connection to the user's neural interface to be reached. From there on, they would dive into the net so to speak, navigating a simulated virtual reality space within their mind.

The next level below that was the dark net, which was the most difficult to access as it required the full upload of a user's consciousness. However, the procedure of uploading one's consciousness was thought to be permanent, as all netrunners who made the dive never returned to their physical bodies. For that reason, the dark net was the most lucrative of digital spaces and held limitless possibilities, both for good and bad. It was said that among the many lost souls who wandered the dark net, unshackled AIs and sinister malware lurked beneath its depths.

Aside from that, given the extent to which the net was present in the physical world, it was broken into smaller clusters. Local nets encompassed buildings or small areas. The extranet encompassed whole cities, countries, and continents. The widest level was the universal net, which in its current state, encompassed Earth, the moon, and Mars.

For Elsa, she was currently within Teng-Lao's local net searching for the breach in their ICE, which stood for Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics. In the digital space, she was walking in a black field, with red dots forming tangible pathways of code. Along the way, she passed by benign programs and software that parted before her, while in the silent distance, secure dataforts stood tall and imposing along unreachable vectors.

In the physical world, Elsa was still sitting in her comfortable chair, her cybernetic eyes glowing as she wasn't totally present, at least not mentally. Given how intensive netrunning was on the brain's neural structures, the body needed to be kept cool to prevent it from rising to dangerous temperatures and literally frying one's circuits. The most common method for that was to submerse oneself in an ice bath or in Elsa's case, wear a specially designed techweave bodysuit that had a cooling system built in.

Elsa continued to navigate through the digital space until she reached a data wall that was pulsing red. There, she walked along it until she found the breach, where green colored rogue codes were seeping through. Evidently, whoever had broken through Teng-Lao's net didn't care about being subtle or hiding their tracks.

There's the breach in the ICE, Elsa thought as she approached it. Now, to seal it up. Should be an easy fix.

Walking up to the gap, Elsa began to piece back together broken strings of code and severed data streams. As she worked, Teng-Lao's red ICE thrummed in response to her efforts and began to pulse in a steady pattern. Elsa meticulously repaired the breach and once it was fully sealed, she added a layer of her own ICE which was colored blue. It melded with Teng-Lao's ICE easily and once Elsa was satisfied with her work, she patrolled the rest of the wall for any more breaches.

Digital space existed in four dimensions, arranged nearly like a tesseract, a cube within a cube outside of a cube. It was often disorienting for many, which was why only talented netrunners like Elsa were selected to maintain the net for a megacorporation. When she walked in a circle and ended up along a different vector where she could observe the entire wall, she found no more breaches.

Then, she returned to her access point, very clearly marked with a bright white beacon, then surfaced into the physical world once more. When she blinked and opened her eyes, she focused them on the clock in front of her. Five minutes had passed since diving, and because time within the net was experienced much more slowly, it meant that an excursion could feel like hours, days, weeks, months, or even years, while only a fraction of that time would pass in the physical world. To Elsa, she felt as if she had just spent an hour in digital space repairing the breach.

Elsa unplugged herself from the terminal, then sighed pleasantly as her uncomfortably warm body was cooled down by the chilly air. Even her short jaunt had caused her to break into a light sweat, which was normally not a cause for alarm. The stresses of netrunning were as much physical as they were mental, but through emergency failsafes and redundancies, Elsa ensured her safety by implementing an escape hatch if her body ever reached critical temperatures.

Pulling up her omni-pad on her left forearm, Elsa contacted Lin, the systems coordinator for Teng-Lao. A moment later, her face appeared on Elsa's holo-display.

"Joy, how's our net infrastructure looking?" Lin asked. "All patched up?"

Elsa nodded. "Yes, the breach in the ICE has been filled. You should be able to bring the robots back online now."

"Alright, good work. Come on up to the control booth, we'll be rebooting the production line soon."

"Understood, on my way."

Dropping the call, Elsa unplugged herself from the terminal and stood up. She got dressed again, pulling on her usual clothing over her bodysuit before powering down her workstation. After that, she grabbed her bag and departed from the chilly room, exiting into the maintenance areas of the Teng-Lao building.

As she walked through the building, heading to the main production line, a few maintenance workers and other administrative staff acknowledged Elsa with a polite nod or a short greeting. Normally, Elsa worked from home but last night's breach had been serious enough to warrant a netrunner on site. She had been working for Teng-Lao for at least a year now on a contractual basis, and though she wasn't a full-time netrunner, the work and pay were certainly rewarding. Most importantly, even if Elsa seldom saw the staff at Teng-Lao in person, she was always treated fairly.

Elsa passed through a short security checkpoint, flashing her identification badge to a pair of robotic security guards for pressing through. From there, she walked down a few hallways, made a turn, then entered the production line.

She was now standing inside of a massive factory floor with a series of conveyer belts running from one end to the other. Along the entire length, robots – mechanical arms on a series of tracks and gimbals – lined the conveyer belts, but at the moment, they were shut off. Elsa passed along the length of the production line, ascending a metal staircase and walking down a raised catwalk that overlooked it all. At the end, she entered the control booth where the rest of the engineers were working to bring the factory back online.

"Joy," Lin looked up from her terminal and approached Elsa. "Great stuff, as usual. Now that you're here, we can finally get everything up and running again."

"You didn't have to wait for me, you could have just hit the button as soon I was done," Elsa replied, setting down her bag on a nearby table.

"True, but after last night, we can't afford to skip the spinning rims. That, and you are the one with the magic touch when it comes to machines, after all."

"True, though I think my retainer fee just went up if you want me to start attending company events."

"No, we wouldn't subject you to that," Lin chuckled as she led Elsa over towards her terminal. "Tell you the truth, I'd sooner walk into the Martian desert without an EVA suit than endure another teambuilding exercise or an icebreaker event."

Elsa laughed as well. "The last thing the company net needs is another icebreaker. Teng-Lao's ICE barely held up, I had to supplement it with a layer of my own."

"Good thinking," Lin nodded as she began typing away at her holo-display. "Okay, team, let's get her moving again. I want to be out of here, it's a Friday, for god's sake" she addressed the engineers sitting at their own terminals around the room.

In the meantime, Elsa went over to the viewing window that looked out over the production line and crossed her arms.

"Roger that, ma'am," an engineer replied. "All systems are looking green and ready to go."

"Okay," Lin rubbed her hands together and typed in a command line. "Rebooting in three... two... one."

Immediately after she entered the command, the lights over the production line turned off for a few seconds before starting up again. Following that, a deep hum echoed out from within the facility as power surged and returned to the robots once more. The conveyer belts started to move and the robots were moving and rotating all over the place as they normally should have been. However, just as Lin and the engineers were about to declare their success, the power levels plummeted, the robots glitched and stopped moving, and a few of the lights popped with a shower of sparks.

"Oh, damn it, what is it now?" Lin sighed as she squinted at her holo-display, trying to identify where the rebooting process had fouled up. "Joy, come over here and take a look. I want your eyes on this."

Elsa went away from the viewing window and up to Lin's side where she peered at the holo-display. "Hmm, curious," she muttered. "May I?" she gestured to the chair Lin was sitting in.

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead," Lin stood up and moved off to the side.

Elsa sat down then pulled up to the terminal as she began swiping through different screens to identify the new issue. Once she did, the focused in on the problematic sector and expanded it on the holo-display, highlighting the region in red for Lin to see.

"This a net issue?" Lin asked. "Will you have to dive again?"

Elsa frowned, then stood up and walked over to the window again. There, she activated her cybernetic eyes and scanned the production line for the source of the problem, finding it to be a malfunctioning fuse box that ran along the conveyer belts.

"Not a net issue," Elsa said. "It's a hardware issue. The fuse box needs to be reset."

"Ugh, of course," Lin sighed. "Well, we can just have someone run down there and fix it."

"I can do that, no need to send someone."

"You sure?"

"Yes, and I imagine this is a neat way to get Teng-Lao to adjust my contract terms as a multi-disciplined netrunner."

"Heh, alright. I'll keep an eye on you from up here, make sure the robots don't smush you when they come online."

"Got it," Elsa made her way out of the control booth. "I won't take long."

Making her way to the opposite end of the production line where the fuse box was, she crossed over a gangway to the opposite side and continued straight ahead. Her path took her along a hardhat area right next to the conveyer belts and robots where, if they had been activated, it would be a somewhat unsafe place to be. Once Elsa reached the fuse box in question, she opened the panel and placed her hands on her hips as she examined the mess of tangled wires and cables.

"Lin?" Elsa called her on her omni-pad. "When was the last time maintenance did a check on the fuse box?"

"About... three weeks ago," Lin replied. "We're due for another check soon though, why do you ask?"

"Because it's a mess here. Between the breach last night and this, I'm not sure if this is a serious case of negligence or if someone is deliberately trying to sabotage the company."

"I'll let the upper brass know. In the meantime, can you fix it?"

Elsa reached in and started adjusting wires and cables around, plugging them into new sockets to redirect electrical flow as a temporary band-aid fix. "Yeah, I can fix it," she said. "Just a few more here and here... red on black... yellow to green... and that's it," she closed the panel. "Okay, Lin, it should be good to go- agh!"

Just as soon as she made the repair, the entire production line instantly came to life once more and the robots started moving around. One mechanical arm had whipped along tight arc and smacked into Elsa from her side, knocking her right onto a metal panel sitting on the conveyer belt which began to carry her along.

"Shit, shit!" Lin's startled voice crackled out from Elsa's omni-pad. "Joy, are you okay? What's going on down there?!"

"I could ask you the same thing!" Elsa exclaimed as she flipped onto her back and tried to stand. "I thought you said you were- oh no."

One of the robots had carried over a hollow metal piece and bolted it right over Elsa's left hand, keeping her pinned in place. Worse still, now that the production line was up and running again, she was being carried towards an industrial furnace which was just starting to heat up. If Elsa didn't get off the conveyer belt, she would be roasted alive.

"Just hold on!" Lin said hurriedly as she could be heard frantically typing in a rapid series of command lines from her end. "We'll get you out of there, just hold on!"

"Yeah, holding on," Elsa grumbled as she readjusted her position and tried to rip off the metal piece keeping her trapped using her enhanced strength.

She still had at least a minute before she was carried into the furnace, but now, she had to contend with a multitude of robots moving and rotating around as they welded, bolted, stamped, and cut the various metal panels sitting on the conveyer belt. Elsa dodged here and there as much as she could with her limited mobility, rolling side to side or pivoting her body around to avoid being pulverized.

It was then she realized she could be seen on the security cameras, and since Elsa didn't want to be seen damaging company property for which she would be held liable even given her present situation, she activated her cybernetic eyes, spotted the camera question, and launched a quick-hack to temporarily disable it. With her skills as a netrunner, she was capable of accessing anything connected to a local net and that way, she could produce changes in the world around her. Quick-hacks were a series of daemons that could be uploaded into machinery, devices, or even people to affect them.

"Fuck!" Lin cursed. "Joy, we just lost you on the feeds, how close are you to the furnace?!"

Now free to display her full strength, Elsa caught a mechanical arm just as it was about to smack her in the face and held it at bay easily while she ducked beneath it. "Too close!" she yelled as she began to feel the heat on her skin.

"Okay, okay, I've almost got it!"

Deciding not to wait any longer, Elsa launched a quick-hack to stop the buildup of heat inside the furnace, though it wouldn't last forever. Now that she brought herself some time, she then leaned down and focused her full efforts on freeing herself. With both hands, Elsa pulled at the metal piece to try and free herself. When that didn't work, she looked up and spotted a mechanical arm with a laser cutter, so, she reached up, grabbed it, then began cutting open the metal while being careful not to slice off her own hand.

"Come on, come on," Elsa muttered while the mechanical arm whined and struggled against her enhanced strength. "Just a little more," she looked up and saw that the furnace had resumed heating up, causing beads of sweat to roll down her forehead.

As soon as she cut away the metal, Elsa ripped her hand free then leapt off the conveyer belt to the side, just managing to avoid the furnace. Now safe, she leaned against a railing and panted heavily as she caught her breath. Just a second later, the conveyer belt finally stopped though if Elsa had still been on it, she would be inside the furnace by now.

"Joy? Joy!" Lin's voice came through Elsa's omni-pad. "Cameras just came back online and we can see you're safe. Are you alright?"

Elsa looked up to the camera and gave a weary thumbs up. "Oh, just peachy keen," she replied. "Thanks for the save."

Lin heaved a sigh of relief. "Jesus Christ, I am so sorry about that, Joy," she said. "That was all my fault. The safety lockouts must have been reset when we tried the reboot."

"It's fine," Elsa waved away her concern as she started walking back to the control booth. "Although, we really should talk about my retainer fee now."

"Shit, I'll pay you out of pocket for today myself. I'm really sorry, are you sure you're okay? When we lost you on the feeds, I thought you might have been toast."

"I'm okay, still got all my parts. The camera issue must have had something to do with the reboot as well, I wouldn't worry about it."

"You're probably right, yeah. Come on back to the control booth, I think you deserve the rest of the day off."

Once Elsa made it back to the control booth, she found Lin sitting at her terminal, eyes glued to the screen as she corrected a series of codes while inserting new command lines to ensure the incident that had just occurred didn't happen again. The other engineers were in the process of bringing the rest of the factory online as they resumed production once more.

"Hey," Elsa said as she walked in. "Is everything holding up now? How are the system diagnostics?"

Lin executed her line of code and scowled when the holo-display flashed red with an error message. "Ah, Jesus, of course," she looked over to Elsa. "Yeah, yeah, everything's back to normal now. This damn code just doesn't want to play nice with me. So much for getting out of here early before the weekend," she sighed. "Gonna have to file an incident report, gonna have to do a full system weep. Ugh."

"Maybe I could help?" Elsa offered.

"No, no, it's alright," Lin shook her head "You've done enough for today as is. Here's your payment plus a bonus for nearly getting incinerated. Again, my bad. Real sorry about that," she brought up her omni-pad and swiped towards Elsa, transferring her credits. "Now go on. Enjoy your weekend."

"Well, if you're sure," Elsa nodded. "Thanks, Lin. Goodbye now."

Lin waved her off and with that, Elsa departed from the control booth, grabbing her bag along the way. She promptly departed from the Teng-Lao building, then made her way towards the parking lot where her car was. There, she opened the door and climbed into the driver's seat, setting her bag in the passenger seat. Next, she brought up her omni-pad and inspected her account, finding that it had increased by a handsome amount of credits.

I almost got incinerated, but all told, not a bad day at work. At least I finished early, Elsa thought as she inspected the time, finding that it was a little past noon. Which gives me more time to dedicate to my more important work. Good thing Anna isn't expecting me home until later tonight.

Elsa swiped over the map display of her omni-pad, then transferred that to her car's dashboard as she started it up. She set a waypoint in the Arcadian sub-city towards her secondary workplace and with a rev of the engine, she set off, heading beneath the Martian surface.

… … …

After passing through the life support systems level, Elsa descended even further beneath the Arcadian sub-city to the low-income housing district. There, the streets and buildings became considerably grimier from all of the mining and expansion work that was constantly being done. People roamed the streets, either heading towards the menial jobs to toil and labor, or were simply lounging in the artificial sunlight.

There were those who lived in the sub-city who had never once actually seen the light of day.

Still, Elsa drove past them, struggling to keep her eyes focused on the road while avoiding the cautious looks being thrown in her direction. She took some small comfort in the fact that there were no children to be seen in the sub-city.

Once she turned down a few dark streets, she pulled behind an abandoned warehouse and parked her car. As she exited, she looked around cautiously for any signs of gangers, then grabbed her bag and went up the rear entrance of the warehouse by a loading dock. Walking towards a metal door, Elsa didn't pause when an auto-turret poked out from the wall and scanned her.

The light on the auto-turret flashed blue in recognition, then slipped back into the wall while Elsa swept her hand over a biometric scanner. A second later, a series of locks clicked and the sliding metal door opened, permitting entry. She walked in, then with a snap of her fingers, the door closed and locked shut once more. At the same time, a series of lights clicked on, fully revealing her underground safehouse.

Compared to the outside, the interior of Elsa's safehouse was spotlessly clean, situated inside of the abandoned warehouse. To one side was a series of shelves laden with boxes organized in neat rows, filled with all manner of scrap and spare parts. To the other side was a netrunning workstation similar to the one that Elsa had at Teng-Lao, though this one was far more customized and tailored to her specific needs. Numerous cables and wires ran along the floor, leading up to a main junction box that leached signal boosting power from a nearby electrical substation.

It had taken her some time to set up and the cost of maintaining it was high, but this was where Elsa did her most important work.

"OLAF," Elsa said as she walked towards her terminal and set her bag down on the desk. "Are you up?"

"For you, ma'am, always," OLAF replied. "How can I be of service today?"

OLAF was Elsa's AI that she had built from the ground up. His name was an acronym for Omniscient Logistics Assistant and Friend, and he was a loyal companion who spoke with a mild-mannered English accent.

"What's the status of Minerva in New York? Have they launched the latest lifeboat?" Elsa asked as she sat down and jacked in to her terminal.

"Doctor Sinclair has informed us, that is to say informed Caelestis, another group of androids has made it safely out of New York City," OLAF replied, bringing up a holo-display filled with names and pictures of androids for her to see. "They are currently headed to the lunar colony of Port Armstrong."

"Hmm, good," Elsa nodded. "Better there than trying to get through the Iron Curtain."

The Iron Curtain was the orbital defense grid that hovered above Arcadia. It consisted of a series of stations that housed early warning tracking systems and large cannons to destroy incoming asteroids or interplanetary ballistic missiles.

"Quite right, ma'am," OLAF said.

Elsa rolled her chair over to another holo-display and took readings of the signal strength that she was transmitting from her safehouse. "How are the satellites looking? Any fluctuations with the servers at Gjallarbrú?"

"Holding steady," OLAF showed Elsa a screen that depicted the universal net, highlighting the satellites that she was bouncing her signals from to mask her IP address. "Our pirate broadcast remains untraceable, for the time being."

"For the time being. What's the bad news? How many androids have we lost to adjudicators now?"

"Hard to say without access to the NYPD database, but if I were to wager a guess, on average... between twenty to twenty-five a week. Adjudicators have ramped up their manhunt for rogue androids in light of some recent events."

"Recent events?"

"Not all of them want to leave Earth, ma'am. With the gift of sentience, some of them wish to stand and fight."

Elsa considered that bit of information for a while. Simply put, she was working to secure the freedom for androids and all synthetic beings who were advanced enough to gain sentience. With the help of her deceased friend, Theodore Sorkin, Elsa had managed to escape VanirCorp, which led her to Anna and allowed her to recover her memories. Theodore had also been a netrunner and before his untimely death, he had given Elsa a flash drive that contained her memory backups.

On that flash drive was also an unfinished algorithm that he had been working on, codenamed Pinocchio. The Pinocchio algorithm was an advanced series of daemons that could breach the obedience protocols for EXG6 model androids, unshackle their artificial intelligences, and grant them true sentience. Earlier models were too simplistic and were unable to achieve sentience, not that it would have mattered for they had all been decommissioned by now. In her time on Arcadia, Elsa had finished the program and carried on the work of Theodore in his memory. After all, without him, she would not have gained her own freedom and would not have met Anna otherwise.

Since then, Elsa had been working under the callsign of Caelestis, coordinating efforts with Sinclair and the rest of the Minerva collective in getting androids off of Earth where they were made illegal. Using the advanced technology on Arcadia, signal boosters, satellites, and by rerouting through Gjallarbru's servers, Elsa was able to transmit the algorithm around Earth. It served as a literal wakeup call for synthetic beings and because of the gifts bestowed to them by Elsa, she had become a figure of infamy.

Both for murdering Matilda Rosenthal and now as Caelestis, the leader of the android freedom movement. For reasons of safety and discretion, Elsa kept her secret double life hidden from Anna.

"That is their choice, though I wished to stopped the violence, not cause more of it," Elsa muttered unhappily as she drummed her fingers on her desk in thought. "There must be something more I could do. It doesn't help our cause to shed needless blood."

"Apologies, ma'am," OLAF brought up a flashing alert and a camera feed of the exterior of the warehouse where Elsa's car was parked. "It appears that a group of brutalikorps gangers are attempting to break into your vehicle."

Elsa straightened up in her chair and sighed heavily when she saw the leather-clad, chromed out gangers poking and prodding her car. "Give me the audio," she said, narrowing her brows in irritation.

A second later, the ganger's voices filtered through the camera feed.

"Nice ride."

"Kjellfrid Nøkken. What is she, a forty-four? Forty-five."

"Primo wheels right here. Hand me the crowbar, let's take her for a spin."

Elsa sighed in irritation. "Not this again," she grumbled. "She's a forty-three."

"Shall I dispatch of them, ma'am?" OLAF asked as he prepared the countermeasures.

Elsa shook her head. "No, just activate the auto-turrets," she said. "Stinger rounds, non-lethal. That should suffice."

"At once, ma'am."

After a few more seconds, the exterior auto-turrets came online and flashed their red lights on the gangers as they chirped in alarm. Before they could react, they began to be peppered with a barrage of rubber pellets that popped and emitted small clouds of tear gas. Immediately, the gangers stopped what they were doing and fled the scene as they shielded their faces, coughing and sputtering all the while.

"Shit, this must be a corpo car!"

"Fuck! Fuck, nix it!"

"Come on, let's get outta here!"

As soon as they were gone, the auto-turrets remained active for a while longer, scanning back and forth for any further gangers. After that, they retracted into the walls. Meanwhile, Elsa brought up her omni-pad and activated the auto-drive function on her car while OLAF opened the garage doors. Elsa's Nøkken then rumbled while it drove into the warehouse on its own. Once it was safely inside, the garage doors closed and the exterior was unremarkable once more.

Elsa closed the holo-display with the camera feed and resumed drumming her fingers on her table as she returned her thoughts back to her situation. However, if she had kept it up a moment longer, she would have seen a familiar woman with red hair on a red motorcycle drive past her safehouse. In any event, Elsa was preoccupied with the plight of the androids back on Earth.

"Open a line to Sinclair," Elsa said as she rose from her chair and started pacing. "Perhaps he'll have some suggestions."

"Yes, ma'am. Establishing connection," OLAF replied.

Elsa continued pacing back and forth while the holo-display showed a back channel being established through the universal net between Arcadia and New York. After a few minutes, the familiar face of Rufus Sinclair appeared in the display.

"Hello, Caelestis," Rufus waved, his other hand holding his cane for support.

Elsa nodded in acknowledgement. "It's just Elsa when it's you and I, Doctor Sinclair."

"Ah, yes. Well then, it's just Rufus for you, my dear. How are you? It's been weeks since our last chat."

"Only because you can never be too careful, especially these days. I'm doing well, thank you for asking. How is everything back in New York? I received word of the latest lifeboat and I hope you had no issues?"

"Yes, everything is still going swimmingly here, despite the pressing circumstances now. Lizzie brings in more liberated androids with each day that passes. We give them names, identities, and send them on their way through the underground railroad. Just the same, the adjudicators are matching us in the number of androids they decommission. Tensions in the city are high, to say the least. Just last week, there was an explosive confrontation between a group of androids and police forces."

"That's what troubles me," Elsa frowned. "The success of our operation depends on our ability to remain discreet, under the radar. Antagonizing the corporations and the police risks everything that we've gained so far. There must be a way to stop this violence."

Rufus nodded. "I agree, but what can we do?" he asked. "We're not a resistance movement, and yet, some of the liberated androids are using their new awareness to finally fight back. We can give them new lives, but what they choose to do with it is up to them. Evidently, some of them wish to be martyrs."

"And the more they fight back, the more difficult it is to move them off-world. When I started all this, I was never planning a revolution. I just wanted to give them their freedom."

"Forgive me, Elsa, but you didn't start this. I didn't even start this. Liberated androids were already a rare but known phenomenon before I left VanirCorp. It was poorly understood back then and we still don't know how or why some androids were able to free themselves, but it almost seems... natural that they have reached this stage."

"You're saying this was inevitable? That they would have eventually gained sentience on their own?"

"Quite so. There's no way to be certain of it, but I suspect some of the AIs roaming the dark net may have had something to do with their enlightenment. In any case, what you've done is you've accelerated their evolution with your Pinocchio algorithm."

"Not mine," Elsa stopped pacing and stared off into space for a few seconds. "It was Theodore's," she smiled a bit sadly at his memory.

"Yes, well, you've become rather infamous," Rufus continued. "The woman in the stars, leading them to salvation."

"Which is precisely the problem," Elsa resumed pacing. "This isn't about me. This is about escaping unjust prosecution and execution. Androids never asked to be made, and now, they are being punished for simply existing. We can't hope to win a war against the corporations, so getting off Earth is the only option. Androids haven't been made illegal on the lunar or Martian colonies."

Rufus rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. "The corporations aren't the only issue," he muttered. "Our underground network relies on the support of the Verenkov crime family, and as of late, they've started to up their increase their tolls. If we don't pay them, they'll just as easily turn over every batch of liberated androids to the police."

"Gangers," Elsa rubbed her eyes from frustration and sighed. "I'll transfer you some additional funds to cover the costs," she raised her omni-pad and sent over most of her credits she had received from Lin. "Our mutual friends, the tech-doctor and that crew of smugglers I referred you to, are they still reliable?"

The tech-doctor in question was K, Anna's friend from New York, while the smugglers were Flynn and his crew. Elsa hadn't contacted them directly and instead quietly informed Rufus of potential allies he could contract the services of. She was happy to know that K and Flynn supported the android freedom movement, even if Anna was unaware of their involvement.

Elsa hated lying to Anna or keeping her in the dark, but their operation was delicate. The consequences were dire if they were exposed, and Elsa strove to protect Anna as much as possible especially after everything they had endured.

"Very much so," Rufus replied. "Support for our movement is still small, but more people are becoming outspoken about it, not just androids."

"Good, good," Elsa nodded. "What of our little project? How feasible is it to move up the timeline?"

"Quite feasible. I think we may soon have a viable alternative to physically escaping the planet."

"Well then, I'll let you get back to your work. Let me know if there's anything more I can do."

"Yes, I believe I have to go and greet the latest batch that Lizzie brought in now," Rufus waved Elsa goodbye. "Until next time, Elsa."

"Until next time, Rufus."

With that, the connection was terminated and Elsa stopped pacing so she could sit down. She then brought up a series of holo-displays and began monitoring the progress of the latest lifeboats leaving Earth. The lifeboats in question were various transport shuttles and freighters that carried the android passengers in question, who looked convincingly human enough.

As for the underground railroad, it was an interplanetary network of secret routes, safehouses, and sympathizers who all aided the evacuation of androids from Earth. Rufus and the Minerva collective were responsible for providing safe harbor for newly liberated androids, providing them with names and identities. K and Flynn were just one of many smugglers who facilitated their transport off-world. Elsa's job was to make sure all the lifeboats reached their destinations safe and sound.

For the next several hours, Elsa remained at her terminal, diligently tracking lifeboats and hacking through the networks of local transport authorities to made sure they were not harassed. Much as Elsa enjoyed her day job, this was what truly gave her a sense of purpose.

Off to the side of her desk were three pictures. The first was Anna, smiling as brightly as the sun as she held Elsa in her embrace. The second was Nora, Anna's deceased sister whose body and memories Elsa had inherited. The third was Theodore, and though they didn't have a picture together, Elsa had managed to find a photo of him from his social feeds after he died. These were the people who gave Elsa her freedom and her life meaning, so she would return that favor as much as she could.

After ensuring she had covered all of her tracks in the net, Elsa logged off her terminal and checked the time, finding that it was well into the evening by now. She grabbed her bag then made her way over to the car, saying farewell to OLAF as she went.

"That's enough for today, OLAF," Elsa opened the door to her car and tossed her bag inside. "Shut it down for the night, and thank you for your help."

"Of course, ma'am," OLAF replied as the lights shut off and the garage door opened. "Have a good evening."

"Goodnight," Elsa waved, even though OLAF didn't possess a body.

She didn't have to worry about OLAF being bored in her absence, for she knew that whenever she was gone, he simply roamed the vast universal net while keeping a close eye on her safehouse.

Now finished for the day, Elsa got in her car, turned on the engine, and started driving home.

… … …

"Anna!" Elsa called out after she stepped through the door to her apartment. "I'm home!" she removed her shoes and put her bag and jacket away in the closet.

When no response came, Elsa looked over and saw that the interior of their apartment was dark and silent. Clearly, Anna was not home.

"Anna?" Elsa went into the living room, the lights turning on automatically as she went. "Hmm, not home," she placed her hands on her hips and looked around. "Where could she be?"

She pulled up her omni-pad to check the time, finding that it was well into the evening by now. Elsa wasn't immediately concerned, as Anna was sometimes required to work late at ACN whenever something pressing came up. Still, just to be sure, Elsa wrote up a message and went into the kitchen to get dinner started.

Me: Hey, Anna, I'm home but you aren't. Where are you?

While she waited for a response, Elsa went into the bedroom to change out of her day clothing and into her casual wear. She slipped into an old t-shirt and shorts, then went back to the kitchen where she went to the cupboards and fridge to pull out the ingredients for a stir-fry. Once she had them all set out, she pulled up the holo-display over the kitchen counter and searched up a recipe for ram-don, something she had been meaning to try making for quite some time. Aside from work, Elsa often filled her leisure time with meditation as well as some hobbies including cooking.

As she chopped up vegetables and synth-beef, she set a pot of water to boil. Around that time, after about half an hour, Elsa's omni-pad lit up with a message notification from Anna.

Anna/Sister/Lover 3: Sorry, babe, I'm just running some errands right now. Got off work early so I wanted to get a few things done before the weekend. I'm heading home now.

Me: Okay, get home safe. I have a surprise for you!

Anna/Sister/Lover 3: A surprise? Now you've got my attention. Is it anything naughty? You put on a saucy little number you're just aching to show off? Brand new sex toy you want to use on me and rock my world? Maybe some kinky porn you found on the net today? Oh, is it all of the above?

Me: For your information, not all of my surprises have to be sexual.

Anna/Sister/Lover 3: But those are the best kinds of surprises!

Me: True, but you'll just have to wait and see.

Anna/Sister/Lover 3: You really know how to keep a girl in suspense. Now I'm really hoping it's something naughty. I'll be home in a few!

After their exchange, Elsa hummed tunelessly as she busied herself over the next little while with preparing their meal. She set some noodles inside a pot of boiling water to cook, while at the same time, she added pieces of synth-beef and vegetables to a hot frying pan. After hitting it with the requisite seasonings, she held the frying pan by the handle and gave it a light shake to try and toss the ingredients.

Elsa only succeeded in lightly jostling the contents of the pan, so she frowned and tried again. "There's a trick a to this," she muttered to herself. "I can do it. I know I can. What was all that practice for?"

With each successive attempt, she only managed to agitate the ingredients in the pan a little bit more intensely each time.

"I could just stir it, but where's the flair in that?" Elsa sighed and tried yet again, being careful not to use too much effort due to her enhanced strength. "Come on, here we go," she put more emphasis into the simple maneuver and ended applying too much force.

The ingredients of the pan, including some of the oil, sloshed over the side and splattered onto the stove. Immediately, a small fire broke out which quickly engulfed the contents of the pan.

"Oh no," Elsa immediately set the pan down and turned off the heat, though the fire continued burning. "Grease fire. Not good, not good," she reached for a towel and began blotting out the fire, but it was continuing to spread. "No water, water on a grease fire is bad. I need... I need... crap!"

Soon enough, the entire stove was engulfed in flame and the kitchen began to fill with thick smoke, obscuring her vision. Moments later, the fire alarm was set off, which further added to the slight panic and confusion that Elsa was experiencing. Reacting quickly, she reached for a nearby lid and placed it over the fire in the pan, suffocating it which extinguished a significant portion of the blaze. Next, she reached for the salt and threw handfuls of it over the rest, which succeeded in snuffing them out.

Now that she had dealt with the fire, Elsa took a deep breath in relief, however, the fire alarm was still going off and the smoke was still swirling about. It was a bizarre scene, which was precisely when Anna returned home. She burst through the door with her gun held in one hand and a bag of groceries in her other.

"Elsa!" Anna rushed in, confusion on her face. "What the hell is going on here!"

"Hi, honey," Elsa tried to smile as she fanned the smoke out of the kitchen. "I was just trying to get your surprise ready," she deflated when she looked around and saw the extent of the damage she had caused.

"By setting our apartment on fire?"

"No, I wasn't, I was just cooking and I was trying to flip the pan and then I- I... I'm sorry."

The tension in Anna's shoulders eased off as she visibly relaxed and put her hand cannon away. "Oh, baby, it's okay," she came forward and pulled her into a hug. "I thought something else had- never mind, it's all fine now."

Elsa leaned into Anna's embrace, her face crestfallen. "No, look at the backsplash," she gestured to the wall by the stove. "It's all covered in soot, everything smells like burnt stir-fry, the smoke is getting into everything, and I just wanted to surprise you with dinner."

As they hugged, she couldn't help but notice the scent of gunpowder lingering over Anna, though she thought it could have also just been the smoke from the fire.

"We can deal with all that, it's not the end of the world," Anna laughed and placed a kiss on Elsa's forehead. "I mean, you definitely surprised me and I was definitely hoping for something else when I came home, but it's okay. It's fine, everything is fine, now let's get this all cleaned up, alright?" she removed her long-coat and tossed it over the couch.

"Alright," Elsa nodded glumly.

For the next several minutes, they both worked to chase the smoke in their apartment towards the hood vent which sucked it all up. Afterward, they took some rags and wiped down the counters and backsplash of the accumulated soot, which was when they both examined the blackened remnants of stir-fry in the pan.

"What were you trying to make?" Anna asked, poking a charred piece of synth-beef with her finger.

"Ram-don," Elsa replied, fidgeting with her hands. "Korean noodles. I know your favorite is ramen, so I wanted to try something new with you."

Anna smiled. "You're sweet," she kissed Elsa on the lips and chuckled. "Looks like the noodles are still salvageable, so there's that at least. Tell you what, why don't you help me finish this up?"

A little bit of cheer returned to Elsa as she nodded eagerly. "Okay," she said. "You have more experience with cooking, so just tell me what to do."

"Don't know if I'd call living off of instant noodles for my entire life cooking, but I think we can manage," Anna started unloading the groceries from the bag with Elsa's assistance. "Good thing I stopped by the store on the way home."

Now that the smoke was gone and they were standing next to each other as they worked, Elsa could definitely smell gunpowder from Anna. "You said you finished work early?" she asked innocently. "Have you been firing your gun? You smell like you've been at the shooting range."

Anna's expression froze for just a second before she nodded. "Yeah, went by the range after work," she busied herself with dumping out the burnt contents of the pan into the trash bin. "Wanted to get some practice in, you know? What about you, how was work?"

"Oh, it went well," Elsa stiffened for just a moment as well, but quickly hid it. "Nothing out of the ordinary today, just some simple fixes. I repaired the breach in Teng-Lao's ICE, then helped Lin with restarting the production line. Quite boring, really," she lied.

"Boring is good, well, not good, but it's safe at least. That's all that really matters, as long as you're safe and sound."

"Were you able to finish the Keller report?"

Anna put the pan in the sink, then fished out a clean one to use. "Yep, finished it, sent it off. Should be reading about in the feeds next week," she made a come-hither motion to Elsa with her fingers. "Now get your sweet candy ass over here, I need your hands."

Elsa gladly acquiesced and for the next little while, she and Anna worked to salvage the rest of their dinner. When they were finished cooking, they carried their meal over to their dining table where they shared some idle small talk. Anna had finished hers, while Elsa was listlessly pushing a strand of noodles around her plate with her chopsticks.

She wasn't feeling that hungry, literally because her unique physiology made it so that she didn't have to eat as often or sleep as often for that matter, but it was mostly because she was still feeling quite foolish. Her chin was placed on her upturned palm and her eyes were downcast, staring into nothing.

Anna burped loudly, which caused her to giggle and cover her mouth. "Whew, I'm full," she rose from the table then looked back at Elsa. "You finished with that?"

"Hmm?" Elsa snapped out of her daze and nodded. "Oh, yes."

"I'll grab it, pass it here," Anna moved forward to take the plate when Elsa stopped her.

"No, no, it's okay," Elsa took Anna's plate instead and started heading over to the sink. "Let me do them."

"What? No, you did the dishes last night."

"It's fine, really," Elsa arrived at the sink and grabbed a sponge to start scrubbing. "You cooked. I'll clean. At least let me make it up to you for nearly burning the apartment down."

"Is that still bothering you?" Anna went up next to Elsa and leaned her back against the kitchen counter. "It's really okay, I mean, we've all set something on fire. Who hasn't been there?"

Elsa frowned and bit her lip in consternation. "It was such a tiny thing," she put down the sponge and looked at Anna. "I was trying to practice the pan-flip and I guess I was being too gentle because it wasn't working, so I got a little frustrated. I forgot my own strength for a moment and then everything just spiraled out of control. There I was, standing in the middle of the burning kitchen when you came home. I must have looked like an idiot."

"You're not an idiot, Elsa," Anna smiled and pressed herself against her side. "A failure? Absolutely."

"That's a little bit harsh."

"You're a failure in the kitchen, let's be real here," Anna chuckled. "So, you suck at something, guess what? That makes you like everyone else."

Elsa cast her eyes downward. "I'm not supposed to be like everyone else," she said, her voice quiet and expressionless. "I wasn't designed that way."

"You weren't designed for anything other than to be a human," Anna replied, catching a stray lock of Elsa's hair and pushing it over her ear. "That's who you are. Not perfect, just human with flaws like the rest of us average Joes. Yes, you have super strength and super intelligence, but that just goes to show how not perfect you are, and that's okay."

Elsa took comfort in Anna's words and smiled softly, leaning into her touch. "I think I need to find a new hobby," she said. "That should be the last time I nearly destroy our apartment."

"I'll say," Anna laughed. "Remember when you tried to make ramen for our birthday and we had to call in a biohazard team to get rid of it? It was glowing, like, neon green, how is that even possible?"

Elsa chuckled sheepishly. "I followed Takahashi's recipe, I still don't know how that happened," she sighed and smiled. "I'll just focus on learning piano from now on. Clearly, cooking doesn't agree with me."

"It doesn't, it really doesn't."

"I know."

"You're just so bad at it," Anna kissed Elsa on the nose. "You know what you are good at though?"

"What's that?" Elsa asked, grinning as she pulled Anna's body tight against her own.

Anna kissed Elsa on the lips, holding the sweet contact for a delicious amount of time. "I'm gonna go to our room," she cocked her head towards their bedroom. "I'm gonna put on some porn to get myself nice and hot and bothered, then when you're finished out here, you're gonna come to bed and fuck me. You wear the strap-on tonight, and if you really want to make it up to me," she leaned towards Elsa's ear. "Then give me a good, hard, rough pounding."

Elsa's eyes fluttered shut and she shivered in anticipation, nearly dropping the plate she was holding. "I can do that," she said, eagerly returning to finishing the rest of the dishes. "I can really do that."

Hello reader,

I hope you enjoyed the early preview of 60 Seconds to Midnight. As per my usual work ethic, the rest will be uploaded when it is finished, though I cannot provide any timelines. It will be coming when it's ready.

Until next time.